Penny from Heaven (9 page)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

All for the Best

A few days later I wake up and there’s a bad smell in the air.

At first I think the toilet is leaking, but then I look down and see Scarlett O’Hara lying on the rug next to my bed right in her own mess.

She blinks up at me and whines.

“Scarlett O’Hara,” I say. “Not again.”

I step over her and go to the bathroom for a towel. When I get back, she’s still lying there.

“Scarlett, come here,” I say, kneeling down next to her.

She scrabbles with her front paws, but something’s wrong, because she can’t move her back legs and she looks kind of confused. That’s when I notice her tail isn’t moving either. I pick her up gently and wipe her off and then wrap her in the towel and carry her into the kitchen.

Me-me’s sitting at the table, sipping coffee.

“Good morning,” she says, and then sees the tears streaming down my cheeks. “What’s the matter?”

“I think Scarlett O’Hara’s hurt,” I say. “She can’t move her back legs.”

“Oh, Penny,” she says.

I go into the parlor and call the store. Uncle Ralphie picks up on the other end.

“Uncle Ralphie,” I say, “I can’t come to work. I gotta take Scarlett O’Hara to the veterinarian. She’s sick.”

“Sorry to hear that, sweetheart,” he says, but there’s a rushed sound to his voice. “Say, you seen Frankie lately?”

“No,” I say.

“If you see him, you tell him to give me a call, all right?”

“Is something wrong?” I ask.

“Nothing for you to worry about, sweetheart,” he says. “You just take care of your dog.”

“Okay,” I say, hanging up the phone.

When we get back from the veterinarian, Me-me goes down to the basement and finds my old cloth diapers from back when I was a baby.

“Use these,” she tells me.

Scarlett O’Hara’s real good when I put the diaper on her.

“Dog ain’t well?” Pop-pop asks gruffly.

I don’t bother to put up a brave front. “Dr. Brogan says she’s real sick. He says to just make her comfortable.”

Pop-pop looks thoughtful. “Best thing for her.”

I take her dog bed out to the summer porch and place her in it so that she has a nice view of the yard. I sit next to her, brushing her fur. She whines softly at the squirrels running around in her backyard. I’m tempted to go out and chase them away myself, seeing as she can’t do it.

“Feeling better, Scarlett?” I ask, patting her fur.

I see a flurry of movement in the bushes out back.

“Pssst!”
the bushes say. “Penny!”

At first I think maybe I’m losing my marbles, but then I see a hand wave at me from behind the biggest bush. I walk out into the yard, and when I reach the bush, the hand grabs me and pulls me behind it.

It’s Frankie. He’s dirty, and his clothes look like he slept in them. He starts talking fast, and he’s not making any sense at all.

“The police been here?”

“Police?”

“Yeah,” he says, looking around nervously. “You seen any?”

“What are you talking about? And why are you hiding in the bushes?”

“I been waiting for you all morning,” he says.

“Why didn’t you come through the front door, then?” I ask.

“’Cause people are looking for me,” he says in a low voice.

My stomach sinks. “Frankie, what did you do?”

He closes his eyes and swallows. “I figured I’d just, you know, borrow some money from the collection. Help out at home.”

“You robbed St. Anthony’s?”

“I was gonna give it back! Honest! But when Father Giovanni came in, I panicked. It was dark, and I knocked over this bookshelf and all these hymnals fell on him.”

“Was he hurt?”

He shakes his head. “Nah, but I don’t think he’s too happy about the window.”

“The window?”

“I smashed a window to get out.”

“Uncle Ralphie’s looking for you,” I tell him.

“I’m a wanted man!” he says wildly.

“Frankie, you’re just a kid. They can’t send you to jail. We’ll tell them it was an accident.”

There’s a dull look in his eye. “Guess I should just turn myself in.”

“You can stay in the basement,” I say quickly. “No one will ever know.”

He shrugs, resigned already. “They’ll find me here. First place they’ll look.”

We both stand there for a minute.

“Come inside,” I say. “We’ll call Uncle Ralphie. He’ll know what to do.”

Frankie hesitates and then nods.

“Where’d you sleep, anyhow?” I ask.

“Behind that bush,” he says, scratching his arm fiercely. “You got some mean ants back there.”

We go onto the porch and Scarlett O’Hara lifts her head.

“Why’s she wearing a diaper?” he asks. “You playing house or something?”

“She’s sick,” I say. “She can’t move her back legs.”

He kneels down and scratches her on the chin.

“Scarlett, don’t let no cats see you in these diapers. You’ll be the laughingstock of the neighborhood.”

“The doctor said she might die,” I whisper.

“You can’t give up on her,” Frankie says sharply, looking up at me. “You can’t never give up on someone, even if they are a dog, right, Scarlett?”

Scarlett O’Hara whines low in her throat as if she couldn’t agree more.

“What’s going to happen?” I ask Mother that night at dinner.

Uncle Ralphie picked up Frankie and took him down to the police station. “He’ll probably have to go to reform school, Bunny. You can’t just go around robbing churches.”

I want to shout and say it’s not his fault, that he was just trying to help out.

“You know I never liked you spending so much time with him,” she says. “He’s been in and out of trouble for years.”

“Like father, like son,” Me-me says, shaking her head. “That whole family has more trouble with the law than—”

“Mother,” my mother snaps, cutting her off.

Me-me purses her lips.

“Frankie’s not a criminal,” I say.

“He is now,” my mother says.

“He’s my cousin!” I say.

But when I look around the table, no one will meet my eyes.

After lunch, I go over to Frankie’s house.

I ring the doorbell but nobody answers. I can hear the baby screaming inside, so I ring again.

“Who is it?” Aunt Teresa shouts through the door.

“It’s me, Aunt Teresa. Penny.”

The door opens abruptly. Aunt Teresa has baby Michael in her arms, and there are bags under her eyes.

“Is Frankie home?” I ask.

“Frankie!” she hollers, and walks away.

Frankie comes to the door, and he looks terrible.

“You okay?” I ask.

“I’m sunk,” he says. “They’re gonna send me away.”

“But don’t you get a trial? You have to tell them why you did it!”

He shrugs. “It won’t matter with this judge. He told me last time he’d better not see me in his courtroom again.”

“There’s gotta be something we can do,” I tell him, but his face looks defeated.

“Frankie!” Aunt Teresa calls. “Get in here, now!”

“We’ll figure something out,” I say urgently. “You know—”

“I better go,” he says in a tired voice, and shuts the door.

When I get home, Pop-pop’s waiting for me on the porch. He puts a hand on my shoulder and looks down at me.

“Scarlett O’Hara” is all he says.

My mother comes into my room when she gets home from work. I’ve never actually seen her cry, but she doesn’t look too good. Her eyes are red and she’s real pale.

“Pop-pop just told me about Scarlett O’Hara,” she says, and chokes. “She was such a good dog. I had her before I had you, you know.”

“My father gave her to you, right?” I ask.

“Yes,” she says, and looks past me, at the wall. “It was probably for the best. This way she didn’t suffer long. At least she died at home, surrounded by people who love her.”

That night as I lie in bed, all I can think is how none of this is for the best. How is Scarlett O’Hara dying and Frankie going to reform school good for anyone?

I imagine Frankie in some horrible boys’ home on a cold iron bed, and I know for certain that if he goes in there, he’ll come out bad. That he’ll never survive something like that—there’s just no way. He’s like a tree that’s got a crack in it.

One good storm and he’ll fall right over.

The next morning I go to Nonny’s. Uncle Dominic’s sitting in his car, doing a crossword puzzle. I slide into the front seat.

“You gotta help Frankie,” I tell him. “You can’t let them send him away.”

“I don’t know what I can do, Princess,” he says.

“But the police don’t know the real story! Uncle Angelo lost his job again and they need money, and he was just going to borrow it. Frankie’s not a criminal! He was just trying to help.”

Uncle Dominic doesn’t say anything.

“Please,” I plead, and my voice is getting louder, higher. “You know Frankie. Why won’t anyone stand up for him?”

“Princess—”

I’m crying now. “He’s just a kid! He’s my best friend! And Scarlett O’Hara’s dead, and everyone keeps saying it’s all for the best, but it’s not! It’s not!”

And then Uncle Dominic is wrapping his arms around me and letting me sob into his shirt.

“It’ll be okay, Princess,” he says again and again. “It’ll be okay.”

Frankie comes over to my house that afternoon.

“It’s all over! I ain’t going away!” he says.

“Really?”

He nods and I’m so happy that I just hug him. He tolerates it for a brief moment before pushing me away.

“Aw, c’mon already,” he says. “You’re worse than Nonny.”

“So what happened?” I ask.

“Way I hear it, Uncle Dominic talked to Uncle Nunzio, and Uncle Nunzio is buddies with the bishop, and the bishop agreed to drop the charges.”

“That’s great,” I say. “So you won’t get into any trouble?”

“Nah,” he says, and then frowns. “But Uncle Nunzio said I’m going to have to work at the factory to pay for a new window at St. Anthony’s. And I have to apologize to Father Giovanni.” He looks a little glum. “I don’t think I’m gonna be an altar boy anymore.”

“It could be worse, right?”

He smiles then, the first smile I’ve seen since all this happened. “Guess what! Uncle Nunzio told Pop he has a friend who’s looking for someone to drive a truck and did he want the job and Pop said yes! Ain’t that great?”

“That’s swell,” I say, even though I know it won’t last. Still, I don’t want to say anything that will take that smile off his face.

He suddenly notices that the dog bed is empty. “Say, how’s Scarlett?”

I don’t say anything; I just look at him.

“Aw, geez,” he says. “Some rotten week, huh?”

“And how.”

“Where’d you put her?” he asks.

“Pop-pop said she’d keep better in the basement until we bury her. I don’t know where she should go.”

Frankie’s face lights up.

“I know the perfect place,” he says.

I ask Mother, and I’m surprised when she says it’s all right.

Uncle Dominic digs a grave for Scarlett O’Hara in Nonny’s backyard, right next to where all the Kings and Queenies are buried. Our cousin Sister Laura comes over to Nonny’s and says a prayer over the grave, and Frankie puts the record player in the window and plays Bing Crosby singing “Here Lies Love.” It’s not Shady Grove, but it’s real nice.

“She’ll have lots of company,” Uncle Dominic says to me after he’s finished patting down the earth.

“Yeah,” I say, and feel a little better.

That night when I go to sleep, I dream of Scarlett O’Hara with all the Kings and Queenies. She’s chasing them around, nipping at their heels, squirrels running everywhere.

The happiest dog in all of Heaven.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

A Punishment Worse than Death

It’s a steamy August day.

After we finish work at the store, we bicycle back to my house for lunch. It’s so hot that I’m soaked straight through and go change into a fresh blouse and a pair of pedal pushers.

When I come out, Frankie’s sitting in the kitchen with Pop-pop, eating one of Me-me’s liverwurst sandwiches. He must be pretty desperate.

“Say, you ever get to use those bazooka guns?” Frankie is asking Pop-pop. “I tell ya, if I ran into a Jap or a Nazi, I’d use a bazooka gun on him!
Bam!”

I don’t know who’s worse, Frankie or Pop-pop.

“What?” Pop-pop says. “What’d you say?”

“I said, ‘Did you get to use those bazooka guns?’” Frankie shouts.

“Why you want to know? You planning on shooting someone?” Pop-pop asks suspiciously.

“Nah,” Frankie says. “Give me a hymnal any day.”

“Frankie!” I say.

“My nephew, Mickey, was a pilot in the war,” Pop-pop says. “Air force.”

“Like Gregory Peck in
Twelve O’Clock High?”
Frankie asks.

Pop-pop nods.

“I like Gregory Peck,” I say. “He sure is handsome.”

“When Mickey told me he was going over to Europe, I said, ‘Mickey, eat as much as you can,’” Pop-pop says.

“Why’d you tell him that?” Frankie asks.

“’Cause that way if he got shot down and captured by the Nazis, he wouldn’t starve to death.”

“Good advice. So’d he get shot down or what?”

“Over Germany. Didn’t survive the crash.” Pop-pop’s voice breaks, and his eyes get all watery. “Sticks in my craw just thinking about it.”

“Guess he didn’t have to worry about starving,” Frankie says under his breath.

Pop-pop sees Frankie and me staring at him and shakes himself and says, “Go on. Don’t you have someplace to go? Stop bothering me.”

We grab our sandwiches and head out to the front porch.

“What do you wanna do?” I ask, looking up at the hot sun beating down.

“Go ask Me-me if you can go to the pool,” Frankie says.

“Esther Williams would have to show up and personally invite me before I’d be allowed to stick my big toe in the pool,” I say.

Like I said, some people think you can catch polio from swimming in public pools and one of them is my mother, which is why I haven’t set foot in a pool all summer. My mother tells me all the terrible stories about what it’s like to have polio; how the kids who get it have to stay in an iron lung and are crippled and even die. Far as I can tell, the only thing nursing school did for my mother was scare her about everything.

“Go on,” Frankie says. “Ask her. Me-me’s a softy. Maybe she’ll let you go.”

Me-me’s paying bills when I go inside.

“May I go to the pool?” I ask. “Please?”

She shakes her head. “You want to end up in an iron lung?”

So much for her being a softy.

“It can’t be hotter in an iron lung than it is here,” I mutter, and go back outside.

“Well?” Frankie asks.

“At this rate, I’ll be a hundred before I get to see the inside of a swimming pool,” I say.

We sit on the porch and play cards in the shade. Frankie’s the better card player, mostly because he cheats. His father taught him all sorts of card tricks that he learned when he was away in jail.

“Knock it off already,” I say after he wins the fifth hand in a row.

“What?” he says, all innocence.

I give him a look. “I saw you pull that card out of your pocket.”

“What card?”

“The ace,” I say.

“You’re just a sore loser,” he says with a small snicker.

“Am not.”

Me-me comes out wearing a hat, Pop-pop at her side.

“We’re going over to see the Harts,” she announces. “We won’t be back until five o’clock.”

“Okay,” I say.

She eyes Frankie. “You’ll be all right here on your own?”

“Yes, Me-me,” I say. “I promise not to do anything exciting.”

She presses her lips together as if she’s unsure about leaving me with Frankie.

“What’re we waiting for? My hair to grow back?” Pop-pop asks.

“Don’t get into trouble,” Me-me calls over her shoulder as they walk to the car.

The minute the car’s disappeared around the corner, Frankie grabs my hand and says, “Let’s go!”

“Go where?” I ask.

He screws up his face. “The pool! Where else?”

“But Me-me said I can’t go.”

Frankie has a devilish gleam in his eye. “Just think of all that nice cool water going to waste.”

I hesitate. “I don’t know.”

“Come on,” Frankie says. “We go now and get back before Me-me and Pop-pop return, see?”

I look at him uncertainly. “What if my mother finds out?”

He winks at me. “She’ll never know.”

I’m floating on my back, looking up at the blue sky, a smile on my face.

After changing into our suits and grabbing towels, we rode our bicycles over to the pool. It seems like every kid in town is here today. I guess the other mothers don’t share my mother’s worries. Either that or they can’t take their kids’ whining.

But the biggest surprise of the afternoon is finding out that Jack Teitelzweig is a junior lifeguard here!

“Hi, Penny,” Jack says.

I’m so startled, I don’t know what to say; I just sort of nod at him. Luckily he can’t see my horrible hair because I’m wearing a bathing cap.

Now I can’t stop thinking about Jack. He’s got an awfully nice smile. All of a sudden I’m having these crazy ideas about Jack asking me on a date or taking me to a dance. I almost blush when I imagine what it would be like to kiss him. Then I realize I really must be dreaming because I hear Jack calling my name.

“Penny,” he calls.

I just keep floating, but he calls my name again, and this time I open my eyes.

“Penny Falucci. Please come to the lifeguard stand,” he calls through the bullhorn.

I can’t believe my ears, but when I look up, I see Jack standing at the side of the pool waving at me. I wave back at him and then freeze. Because standing right next to him is . . .

My mother.

All the kids in the pool start laughing and clapping, and a few even whistle as I make my way over. Veronica’s sitting on the side and gives me a little wave.

And that’s when I know for certain that ending up in an iron lung can’t possibly be any worse than dying of pure embarrassment.

My mother lectures me the whole way to the house. Apparently, she came home early to surprise me, but when she couldn’t find me, she got suspicious.

“I am so disappointed,” she says. “Wait till Me-me hears about this little stunt of yours.”

I don’t say anything; I just stare straight ahead.

“This is what we get for trusting you to behave? To do the right thing?” she demands.

“An iron lung can’t be any worse than living like this!” I shout. “I can’t go to the movies! I can’t go in the pool! It’s like I’m a prisoner! You won’t let me do anything!”

“We’ll see about that,” she says grimly.

I’m not allowed to leave the house for the rest of the summer, and it’s only the beginning of August. The only places I can go are the store and Nonny’s house.

“How was I supposed to know she’d have a spy?” Frankie protests when he finds out.

After spending the morning at the store, I go straight home and make myself a cream cheese and grape jelly sandwich and go out to the front porch to eat it. This is the most exciting my day will get. It’s only been a week, but I can honestly say I know what it feels like to be in jail. No wonder Uncle Angelo is such a wreck. How can anyone do anything after such torture?

Me-me opens the front door and smiles. “Would you like some cake?”

I shake my head.

“Maybe we can make a new bedspread for your room this afternoon,” she suggests. “You’ve been saying you wanted something different.”

“It doesn’t matter anymore.”

Me-me sighs and closes the door reluctantly.

I know Me-me is trying to cheer me up, but a new bedspread isn’t going to make up for the plain fact that my life is ruined. Every other kid in town is having a great time, and I’m stuck at home with Me-me and Pop-pop. I have weeks of this to look forward to, not to mention all the teasing I’m going to get when I go back to school. And that’s not the end of it. Mother’s dating Mr. Mulligan again! I thought I’d gotten rid of him, but he showed up at the door last night.

“You’re going out with him again?” I asked my mother. “But he’s, he’s—”

“Not another word from you, young lady,” she snapped. “I haven’t forgotten your little performance when he came over for dinner.”

While I’m considering whether or not I should just run away to Alaska because at least it’s cool there, a car pulls up.

“Hey, Princess,” Uncle Dominic calls through the open window.

I run to the car.

“Hi!” I say, leaning in.

“You busy?”

“Not unless you count sitting around doing nothing,” I say.

“What do you say to going to the beach?” he asks.

My face falls. “I can’t. I got in trouble.”

“I heard,” he says.

I look down at the ground, and then my head snaps up when I hear him say, “Maybe I can talk to your grandmother.”

“Really? You would do that for me?”

He bites his lip and nods.

I wait on the porch while he’s inside talking to Me-me. I’ll never know what he told her; all I know is that a few minutes later she comes out to the porch.

“Be home by dinner and don’t spoil your appetite,” she says.

I can’t believe my ears. “Really?”

Me-me’s face turns serious. “If your mother finds out about this . . .”

I hug her soft waist and say the words that got me into this fix to begin with.

“She’ll never know.”

The beach is already crowded by the time we get there, but we find a good spot just the same. Uncle Dominic’s made a real effort to be normal, and I know it’s for me. He’s not wearing slippers, just regular shoes and bathing trunks.

I don’t know if it’s because we’re out of the neighborhood, but he seems like a different man, happier. He runs straight out into the ocean, diving beneath a big wave and popping up on the other side. We bob in the waves with the rest of the kids and parents on vacation. Some of the fathers look sort of stunned, like they can’t believe they’re in the ocean, their toes brushing the sand, and not in some factory or office somewhere.

“Watch out for the sharks,” Uncle Dominic says, baring his teeth. He has a chip in his front tooth.

We swim until we’re tired, and then we go and lie on the beach to dry off. Uncle Dominic buys us a bag of peanuts from the man walking around. Some young ladies have put their blankets next to ours. They’re pretty, and they’re looking at Uncle Dominic like he’s saltwater taffy.

I don’t usually think of Uncle Dominic as the eligible-bachelor type, but here on the beach, out of the back room of the store, I see what they see: he’s got a real sweet smile. He seems like a normal fella at the beach, but it’s just like a pool of water in the desert: a mirage.

I hear the young ladies invite him to have a drink with them up on the boardwalk.

“Some other time,” he says. “I have a date with my niece here.”

“Your niece, how sweet,” the young ladies coo.

We change into our clothes and head to the boardwalk.

“How about those rides?” he asks with a grin, and I grin right back at him.

We go to the bumper cars first, my favorite. Then there’s the Ferris wheel, the teacups, the Tilt-A-Whirl, and the whip. Afterward we sit on a bench on the boardwalk and eat hot dogs with sauerkraut and wash them down with fresh-squeezed orangeade, the coldest, most delicious drink in the whole world. Uncle Dominic buys me a coconut patty to eat on the ride home and it melts in my mouth.

We’ve got the windows rolled down and Bing Crosby’s singing “A Perfect Day” on the radio. As we drive down my street, I look over at Uncle Dominic. For a moment I imagine that he is my father and it’s just the two of us, coming home after a day at the beach. Something any regular kid would do.

We pull up in front of my house. My mother’s car isn’t there yet.

“It was a perfect day, huh, Princess?” he asks, and pulls out his handkerchief, swiping a smear of mustard off my cheek.

I watch his car drive away and can’t help but think Bing and my uncle Dominic were both right.

It was a pretty perfect day.