Genuine Sweet Read online

  The wind gusted then, so I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I heard another scuffle down below. Tom’s voice, maybe, and Travis’s.

  After a time, Travis called clearly from the parking lot, “Genuine? You around?”

  I walked to the tippy edge of the roof and shouted down, “I’m here! You can just let the police know where to find me when they get here.” For, surely, they were coming to arrest us all.

  I was walking the roof’s edge, imagining what it might be like to jump off and suddenly find I could fly, when a chunk-thunk sounded behind me. I turned to see a pair of doors opening. It was a freight elevator.

  Edie stepped out, pushing Penny Walton along in a wheelchair.

  They didn’t say anything as they came my way, so I held my tongue and let the rush of cars on the highway fill the silence.

  Edie wheeled Penny up to me, reached out and squeezed my hand, then left without a word.

  “I don’t like you, you know,” was how Penny started us off.

  “I was figurin’ that.” My feelings weren’t hurt. Truth to tell, after yapping Pa’s chances for that handyman job, Penny wasn’t at the top of my list, neither.

  She grunted, her face gone tight with pain. It was a while before she managed to go on, “Did you make that up, what you said about Loreen asking Cristabel to let her—?”

  “I’m no liar, Miz Walton.” I said it harshly, I’ll admit. But looking at that poor shuck of a lady before me, I couldn’t stay mad. “And it was told to me by the most truthful man I know. I believe him.”

  Penny let out a sigh.

  “Darn it,” she said.

  For a time, Penny and I just looked out over Ardenville. A few snowflakes started to fall.

  She said, “I used to love the snow.”

  “Used to?” I asked.

  “These days, all I can think of is how gray it’ll look after it’s been sitting a while.”

  “Most days it melts while it’s still white,” I replied.

  Penny nodded. “You’re right. And yet I still keep thinking gray.”

  I tried to think of something kind to say, but the only thing that came was, “I imagine they give you lots of medicine here. And tests and whatnot.”

  Penny let out a strange sound, something between a sob and a laugh. “Tests!” she cried, and made the sound again, this time looking at the sky, shaking her head in disbelief.

  “Tests and medicine!” Penny exclaimed. “You’re right about that. I’ve had every test that ever was and then some! And you know what they say, Genuine Sweet? They say that I’m dying. That a cancer cell is more powerful than a person.” Penny made a fist so tight it shook. “More powerful than all the prayers and wishes in the world. More powerful than all the saints and G—” She fell apart, bawling.

  I finally understood why Penny had caused that big ruckus back in Sass. She was sick in her body, and heartbroken on top of it.

  I reached out to pat her hair, but she didn’t seem to like that, so I stopped.

  “It wouldn’t have been right, my ma forcing a wish your sister didn’t want,” I said.

  She nodded. “I know.”

  “But you wish my ma had put a wish on Loreen, anyway?” I asked.

  “No.” Penny wiped her eyes. “I mean, in a way, I do. But not really. Do you know what it is? What I think it really is?”

  I gave her an encouraging headshake.

  “Loreen and I were more than sisters,” she told me. “Of all my kin, she was the one who was kind to me. When I told her I wanted to sell houses someday, she didn’t laugh or scoff even once. I bet you’ll be real good at that, she said. And you know what? I am.”

  Penny was so proud right then, I couldn’t help smiling.

  “But then she was gone. Dead. And there I was, a young girl alone in a house full of—well. Suddenly, what I wanted more than anything was to follow where Loreen had gone. But a body fights against that. It conjures up reasons to live; any old reason will do. Oh, yes, I kept on, though it took a heartful of conjured hate to do it.

  “But who could I hate? Loreen, for dying? The Big Man, for taking her? I wasn’t near brave enough for that! So I got mad at your ma. And real mad at myself for hoping. I bound myself up in a ball of hate, bitter as poison. But a lifetime of rage has a price.”

  Penny shook her head in wonder. “It was me all along. I did it to myself! All those months and years, kindling and rekindling my ire. I was so, so angry.” She licked her lips with a dry tongue. “I thought the hate was keeping me alive—most times I thought that, anyway. But the truth is, the rage was killing me.

  “I . . . do believe that’s how I ended up here, ill.

  “And then comes little Genuine Sweet,” she went on, “making people feel good, and saying wishes can come true! What good is a wish when it can’t save a beloved sister? Tell me that!” She swallowed her pain again. “So there I was, a grown woman hating a child of twelve, stirring up strife.” She looked my way. “I am sorry about that, Genuine.”

  I understood now. It was all right.

  “I have got to stop this hating. I’ve got to let it go!” Penny grabbed my hand. “I need help.”

  That wasn’t all she said. We talked for a time about Loreen, and about my own ma. It seemed Penny had known Ma nearly as well as Ham had. So the two of us sat on a rooftop in the middle of a strange city, her recalling two women I’d never known, and me bursting with giggles at hearing how Penny and Ma and Loreen had once worked up the courage to skip school and go down to the gorge. What with all their worrying that they’d be caught truant, they’d hardly had any fun, and even came back early. It wasn’t until they got home that they found out it had been a teacher planning day. They hadn’t been skipping at all!

  Even when my ma had tried to break the rules, she couldn’t quite manage it. I decided I liked that about her. Very much.

  After a time, Penny ran out of stories.

  “But it was nice to remember,” she whispered.

  A peaceful quiet fell between us.

  I reached into my bag for a wish biscuit—it seemed like the time—and found I hadn’t brought a single one with me! That beautiful batch I’d made at the Tromps’—I’d taken the whole thing to Jura’s!

  We’d come all that way! Penny had poured her heart out and asked for help! And now, here I was, about to tell her, It’s great that you’re ready to change, and all, but you’ll have to wait for me to run back to Sass and get you a biscuit?

  I was still floundering when music danced in my ear. The single star overhead shimmered silver. It was my shine calling to me, and I knew what to do.

  “What’s your wish, Miz Walton? Your exact wish?” I asked.

  She dipped her chin while she thought. “I wish . . . to be happy. And to let go. Is that all right? Can I make two wishes?”

  “It’s all right by me,” I replied. “But what about your cancer?”

  She let out a soft sigh. “I don’t know whether it’s my time or not. But I do know it’s time for me to be the person Loreen would have wished me to be. That’s what I want.”

  And so, like my ma before me, I respected a Walton woman’s unconventional wish. Though I didn’t have a cup to collect starlight, I whistled anyhow.

  “Y’all come,” I crooned.

  In the way-up distance, the star blossomed with silver light, brighter and brighter, till it was the only thing I could see. Then, all at once, the starlight flowed, spilling down through the darkness, so radiant that Ardenville’s electric glow turned faint as a flashlight at noon.

  “It’s beautiful!” Penny cried.

  The quicksilver was just within reach when I realized it wasn’t pouring down. Instead, it fell like silver snowflakes. Thousands. Millions of them.

  “You ever catch snowflakes on your tongue, Miz Walton?” I asked.

  She laughed. “Not for ages.”

  “I reckon it’s time to start again.” I grinned. “Aim for the silver ones!”

  She cr
aned her neck and gave it a try, but I could tell she wouldn’t be able to do it alone. So I let off the brake on her wheelchair and rolled her toward a patch of silver flakes within her easy reach. She nabbed one, then another, shivering with delight as they landed on her tongue. A new breeze blew, though, carrying the starlight off a ways. I quick pushed Penny in that direction now. We had a hoot and a half, there on that rooftop, me rolling Penny all around, her alternately pointing and crying out, “Over there! There! Got one!”

  By the time she’d tasted a good dozen or so, we were laughing so hard our eyes shone with their own silver water.

  “Genuine, don’t you want to try?” Penny asked, beaming.

  “Naw. These are for you,” I told her. Then I whispered Penny’s wishes into the night.

  And Penny kept on smiling, and we kept on laughing, and we chased snowflakes across the rooftop until the last of the starlight ones had fallen and we were chasing plain old snow for the fun of it.

  “Oh, Genuine,” sighed Penny.

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “It’s good, don’t you think?”

  I flared my nostrils and felt, for all the world, that my heart might burst. “Yes. I surely do.”

  Not long after, a heavy snow began to fall in earnest.

  Tom was still fired; one too many times he’d tried to sneak a shaman, a faith healer—or a wish fetcher—into the cancer center, it seemed. But now that we were all good friends, Penny invited us five to spend the night in her room. There was a reclining chair for Tom and a little sofa where Miz Tromp could stretch out. Travis and I went to the nurses’ station to ask for a heap of pillows so we could sleep on the floor, but they said that wasn’t hygienic and brought us in a couple low cots instead.

  They also brought us a tray of ice cream cups. Plus, Penny’s room had cable TV—every channel! We scooped out chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla swirl with tiny wooden spoons as we watched a movie about a pod of dolphins who turned out to be space aliens. Travis and Penny and Edie and me laughed a lot. Tom and Miz Tromp seemed to spend a lot of the time whispering to one another, smiling and agreeing.

  In time, folks started dozing off. All except for me and Travis, that is. Both of us were completely wore out and completely wide awake. We pushed our cots together so we could whisper-talk.

  “Looks like Ma’s wish come true.” Travis nodded glumly in Miz Tromp’s direction, then Tom’s.

  “Maybe. You’re not happy for her?” I asked, less than pleased to see the oldy-moldy Travis rear his head.

  “No. I am. I know she’s been lonesome,” he replied. “But it is worrying.”

  “What is?”

  “What’ll happen when he leaves, like Pa did? It took an age for us to build our lives back up again. Ma workin’ an outside job to keep her plant business open. Me, too little to do much but get in her way.” He was truly anxious, I could tell.

  “Things might work out different this time.”

  “Yeah.” Scratching at a speck on his hospital blanket, he added, “You did good tonight.”

  “I ain’t sure I did anything at all,” I told him. “Penny seemed to do most of the hard stuff.” Nudging him with an elbow, I joshed, “Bet you’re wishin’ tomorrow was a school day so we could have off for snow.”

  “Naw. Then I’d be sittin’ at my desk doing sums, instead of spending the day with you.” A touch flustered, he added, “You know. As friends.”

  I considered him, in his shaggy blackness. His dark jacket and Converse shoes with the boot chain sat on the floor beside his cot. Such a peculiar boy.

  But for some reason, I found myself thinking of reaching out a fingertip to touch one of the snaps on the jacket.

  This is Travis Tromp! I reminded myself. He could be angry and pushy and—I’ll say it—a little chauvinistic, with all that “baby” stuff. He was as goofy as a snaggletoothed pup, too. But despite all of that . . .

  Despite all of that—now, don’t you laugh—

  “I reckon you ought to kiss me now, Travis.”

  He didn’t wait for me to ask a second time. His lips were soft and warm, and I especially liked the way he interwove the fingers of his hand with mine. Suddenly, I was toasty all the way down to my toes.

  He turned away, sort of bashful-like, but he was grinning. “My ma told me I might stand a better chance with a certain girl if I stopped operating under the influence of dumb.”

  “She’s a wise woman, your ma,” I said.

  We fell asleep holding hands.

  It was the cold that woke me up.

  I wrapped myself in my blanket and looked blearily around. Penny and Edie snuggled together in the hospital bed. Miz Tromp and Tom and Travis all seemed fine. Nobody shivered, no one’s covers were drawn up to their chin. And yet, there I was, my teeth chattering so hard I felt sure the sound would wake someone.

  Pulling the blanket still tighter around me, I padded to the window just in time to see a meteor shoot across the sky, burning like a star.

  Make a wish, I thought, recalling the old hem tale about wishing on shooting stars.

  I wouldn’t really do it, of course. It might break the wish fetcher’s first rule. But if I did wish, if I could wish, what would I choose? My belly was full. I was surrounded by friends.

  Truth was, other than some extra covers to stem my curious chill, I didn’t want for a single thing.

  17

  Delay

  I WOKE TO THE SOUND OF TOM’S WHISPERING VOICE. “The pavement’s a little icy. I say we wait until the sun’s good and high.”

  “That’s fine,” Penny replied softly. “Y’all can stay and help me pack.”

  “Don’t you want to give yourself a day or two, Mama?” Edie asked.

  I cracked an eyelid and looked around. I was the only one still dozing. Miz Tromp, Tom, the Waltons, even Travis, all sat with breakfast plates on their laps.

  “She’s awake!” Penny smiled.

  “Hey, y’all.” I yawned. “What’s up?”

  “What’s up,” said Penny, “is that I’m leaving this place behind and heading for home!”

  “Are you feeling better?” I asked.

  “Much. Thank you.” She really did look different. More peaceful-like.

  A doctor hurried in. After a stern glance in Tom’s direction, she began rattling off the reasons why Penny should not, must not—if she valued her health—even consider leaving the cancer center. Behind her, a nurse nodded her agreement.

  “Thank you, Doctor,” Penny said, once the doctor finished.

  “So, you’ll be staying, then,” the doctor said.

  “No. But you’re painfully concerned about my welfare, and I appreciate that. So, I say again, thank you. And goodbye.”

  The doctor sputtered some, but the nurse was faster on her feet. “Let us take some blood and see how you’re doing. If you still want to go after that, at least we can say we did all that we could.”

  Edie made a hopeful little noise.

  “Ah. Liability. We real estate people know about that,” Penny remarked. “All right. Take the blood. But get my release paperwork ready, ’cause I am leaving.”

  It was noontime before somebody came in to take Penny’s blood, and nearly four hours rolled by while we waited on the results. Meantime, the six of us spent the afternoon playing scavenger hunt. The orderlies weren’t exactly pleased to find us in their supply closet—twice—in search of a broom bristle and a garbage bag twist tie, but we were having a grand old time.

  Every so often, I thought about calling Gram just to let her know I’d be late, but she’d already said to come at my own gait, plus she’d been a little testy that I’d been worried for her, so I reckoned I’d just see her when I saw her.

  Finally, at three fifty-five, the doctor and nurse reappeared in Penny’s doorway. They looked stricken, complete with pale skin and googly eyeballs.

  “Bless Patsy!” Penny said. “You two look like you’ve seen a ghost!”

  “May I sit d
own?” the doctor asked as she fell into a chair.

  “What is it, Marta?” Tom asked the nurse. I recalled they’d been coworkers only the day before.

  Nurse Marta held up a few sheets of paper in reply.

  I got up, took the papers from her, and walked them over to Penny.

  Penny skimmed the pages and started to laugh.

  “What is it, Miz Walton?” I asked.

  But she only laughed some more. Then she handed the paperwork to Edie. And while Edie didn’t seem inclined to laugh, she did set her hand over her mouth, closed her eyes, and commenced making a sort of squeaking sound that got louder and louder until it turned into a yelping, “Aww-ha!”

  I couldn’t take it any longer. “One of y’all tell us! What does it say?”

  It was the doctor who replied, “It says Penny is cured. No cancer. Not even a sign that there ever was a cancer.”

  “Ms. Walton is well,” said the nurse.

  “It—it was all a mistake?” I asked.

  “It was not a mistake!” The doctor held up a manila folder and flung it open. “Here! Test results from one week ago! With her name right on them! Penny W-A-L-T-O-N! And she had cancer!”

  “Maybe you read ’em wrong?” I suggested.

  “I didn’t read them wrong!” the doctor shouted. “Marta, draw some more blood. We’re doing this again.”

  Penny swung her legs out from her bed, set her feet on the floor, and stood up. “No, we’re not. You have your tests and your results, and I have a life to enjoy. I am going home.”

  Just so there was no room for an argument, Penny added, “If you’ll just get those release papers. Now.”

  “It’s impossible!” said the doctor as Nurse Marta shuffled her out the door.

  While the others waited on the paperwork, Travis and I darted into the hall to retrieve some more ice cream cups. It was party time!

  Juggling an armful of choco-van stripe, Travis said, “That was curious, wasn’t it?”

  “Which part?” I asked.