Sisterchicks on the Loose (11 page)

I had to forgo the purchase of some new underwear as we dashed off to catch a taxi to the government office building.

“This has God’s fingerprints all over it, doesn’t it?” Penny said once we were in the cab. “What if you hadn’t lost your luggage, and what if we hadn’t gone shopping in that department today, and—”

“And what if you hadn’t been so good at public relations?” I added. “What if you hadn’t offered Tuija some of your chocolate?”

Penny grinned. “So not all my schmoozing is evil. Is that what you’re trying to say?”

“Something like that.”

We arrived at the government building and were greeted in Finnish by the guard. After Penny explained to him in English that we had an appointment, the guard asked us to wait. Soon a young woman came down the elevator and greeted us with, “Will you follow?”

She led us up to the third floor and motioned toward a row of straight chairs in a small lobby. Taking that as our invitation to wait for Tuija’s husband, we sat quietly, casually observing the two women who were standing a few feet away from us speaking Finnish. It was the first time we had been in a room where everyone didn’t switch to speaking English when we arrived. I shifted in my seat, ignoring the unsettling feeling I had of being a couple of foreign specimens waiting on a shelf until it was time for us to be examined.

“Did Tuija say if we had an appointment at a certain time, or was her husband trying to fit us in?”

Penny shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess we just wait and see what happens. How did you remember her name?”

“Tuija?”

“Yes,” Penny said. “I don’t think I’ll be able to remember it.”

“Didn’t your mom speak Finnish sometimes when you were growing up?”

“Rarely. She wanted people to think she was an American. I know she worked hard to eliminate her accent when she tried to get a job in the film industry.”

“I didn’t know that. Did she want to be an actress?”

“No, she just wanted to work for a big Hollywood executive. She did for a few years. I think I was in the fourth or fifth grade when she worked at MGM. Or maybe it was Warner Brothers. I don’t remember. She told me one time it was all too political, and she was let go.”

“That’s too bad.”

“She went to work for a surgeon after that, and she worked for him for probably fifteen years. Funny thing was, the surgeon’s wife was Swedish. She and my mom became close friends, and they spoke Swedish to each other all the time.”

“Your mom spoke three languages?” I asked. “That’s amazing.”

“I know. I can barely manage English. I think she could get by with her French, too, if she had to. Swedish is the second official language here. You figured that out, didn’t you?”

“No. Is that what they were speaking on the plane?”

“That would be my guess,” Penny said. “Do you remember the flirty taxi guy telling us that the signs at the airport were all in Finnish, Swedish, and English?”

“No. I suppose I blocked out most of our charming conversation with that gentleman.”

“I didn’t,” Penny said with a wink. “I even remember where the disco is located. I don’t remember the name of it, but I think I could tell another cab driver how to get us there.”

I sat still, studying Penny’s expression.

“Kidding!” She gave my shoulder a friendly shove. “I’m only kidding! I wouldn’t take you to a nightclub. Unless you really begged me to go, that is.”

One of the closed doors opened, and a slender man stepped out. He greeted us in English, and we followed him into his office.

Penny explained her quest, pulling from her purse the limited bits of information she had, all in photocopied form. She had copies of her mother’s birth certificate, some sort of school document, and two Christmas cards from her aunt. Penny showed him the returned letter from her aunt, and he confirmed Penny’s suspicions.

“Yes, this message on the envelope means that this person no longer lives at this address. It is possible she has moved. Or …”

He looked at me and then at Penny. “She may be dead. Is that a possibility you have considered?”

“Yes,” Penny answered solemnly. “I’m sure it’s a strong possibility. She has to be in her early seventies at least. If she’s still alive, that is.”

Tuija’s husband asked if he could make copies of all the pieces of paper and the photos Penny had shown him. He had a deep voice and sounded like a serious detective when he said, “I will find the answer for you. Where may I contact you, Ms. Lane?”

Penny told him the hotel where we were staying and asked how long he thought it might take to find some leads.

He didn’t understand her question and asked her to repeat it.

“When do you think you will know something?” Penny asked.

“I will put my attention to this on
maanantai
.”

We looked at him blankly.

“
Maanantai
. Ah … Monday. Yes, Monday I will try to see what I can find for you.”

“Thank you.” Penny shook his hand.

I added, “
Kiitos
.”

“
Ole hyvä
.”

As we exited the building, Penny said, “Aren’t you Little Miss International Ambassador of Good Manners!”

“What? Because I said
kiitos
?”

“Yes. I’m impressed.”

“Don’t be. It’s not that hard to pronounce, Penny. People seem to like it when you try to communicate with them in their own language.”

“Right now my language is hunger, and I’m hoping you’re interested in communicating with me about something delicious and filling because I have a rippin’ headache, and I’m hoping some food will help.”

“I’m hungry, too. I should have brought the tour book. We could have tried one of the restaurants we circled.”

“Circled-schmirkled. Come on.” Penny linked her arm through mine. “We’ll go find a restaurant and write about it in our own tour book someday. Wouldn’t that be fun? We could do it. I know a magazine publisher in San Fran.”

“Of course you do.”

“She probably knows a few book publishers. How about it? We could call the book
Finland on a Whim
or
Happy in Helsinki
. What do you think, Sharon?”

“I think you should stick to schmoozing and selling houses.”

“Do you really?”

“Yes, I really do.”

“Good, because that’s what I plan to do. I was thinking you could be the one to write the book. I’ll promote it. I know a terrific artist who could do a great cover for us and … what? What’s so funny?”

“You. You crack me up.”

“How?”

“Penny, I could never write a book.”

With a sudden jerk of our linked arms, Penny stopped in the middle of that icy downtown Helsinki sidewalk and turned to me with her fierce, fiery gaze. I didn’t turn away.

“Sharon Marie Andrews, I am only going to say this once, so you better be listening with both ears.”

I didn’t blink.

“You are gifted and capable beyond your wildest imagination. You have not yet begun to explore all the ways you can make your life count for eternity. Strength and dignity are your clothing. It’s time for you to drop your bucket deep down into
the well of possibilities that you’ve been ignoring all these years. Drop it all the way down and see what you pull up.”

I let out my breath. A fluffed cloud of chilled air floated between us for a moment and disappeared.

“Okay.” It was all I could think to say at that frozen moment. I knew I would return many times in my mind to this street beside the gray stone building. And when I returned I would not remember the cold or the wind or the hunger pangs. I would only remember the intensity of Penny’s voice, the ignited amber flecks in her eyes, and the way she looked at me as if she had decided long ago to set her favor and her friendship on me and nothing in this world would ever change that. I would return to this moment, and I would ponder what a woman like me looked like dressed in strength and dignity.

But for now, I said “okay,” and that was enough of a response for her. We walked, arm in arm, in search of a restaurant.

P
enny and I walked
for several blocks with our coats buttoned up and our arms linked in an effort to brace ourselves against the shards of icy wind that raced in circles around the tall buildings. Everything looked old and yet well preserved. A few bundled-up businessmen and women brushed past us walking briskly.

“Do you suppose we should ask one of them if they know a good restaurant nearby?” I asked.

“No. Let’s keep going and see what we find.”

My ears were stinging from the wind. I wore gloves, but my hands still felt cold. The February sky above us seemed to be slowly closing its cloud-thick eyelids. The day would soon be enveloped by the night. Being so far north, the light here seemed thin and shy. I wondered if so far we had seen more midnight than we had daylight.

“Here.” Penny pulled me with her into a small restaurant. “This is perfect.”

“It looks Italian. Are you sure you want our first meal in Finland to be Italian?”

“Why not?” Penny smiled at one of the waiters, as he approached us and said something in Finnish.

“Table for two?” Penny held up two fingers.

“Ah, yes.” The waiter held up two fingers back at us. “Come, please.” He led us to a table by the window, which was nice because we could watch the world from a warm, snug corner.

“Do you have hot tea?” Penny opened her menu.

“Yes.” He turned to me and held up his two fingers again. “Two?”

I nodded and used my useful Finnish word again. “
Kiitos
.”

He smiled and nodded.

“Have you noticed how clean everything is?” I whispered across the table to Penny.

She looked around. “What do you mean ‘clean’?”

“The hotel, the department store, the office building, and now this restaurant. Everything seems clean to me. Clean and tidy.”

“We’ve only been gone a few days, Sharon. Are you having a strong urge to vacuum something?”

“No, I’m having a strong urge to eat something. Do you suppose they have meatballs here?”

“I’m trying to figure out if they have lasagna.”

Our waiter returned with two white ceramic pots of hot water and a tea bag in each. I pulled off my gloves and wrapped my hands around the small pot. Ah, the simple pleasure of warm hands.

We dined for more than two hours at our window to the world. The tea cheered us. The darkness of the evening came quickly. Tall candles in fat wine jugs were lit throughout the
restaurant, and more people arrived to fill the tables. All around us rolled the low murmur of conversation delivered at a leisurely pace. It wasn’t at all like dining under the fluorescent lights at Larry’s Family Restaurant in Chinook Springs. We felt no need to hurry, only the sense that we should lower our voices. Penny talked a lot about her job at the real estate office and how she loved showing young couples around houses and watching them get starry-eyed over the dream of owning their first home.

“I always think of how it was for Dave and me that day we moved out of the one-room tractor shed.”

“With the drain in the floor,” I added.

“Yes, the drain in the floor. We have you and Jeff to thank for getting us out of there and into our first home.”

Looking down and tucking my hair behind my ear, I brushed off her praise.

“I don’t think there will ever be a way to thoroughly thank you and Jeff for all you did for us. I told Dave that was part of the reason I wanted to bring you with me on this trip. I wanted to say thanks. Thanks for your friendship, Sharon. Sometimes I wonder where I’d be without you, and that’s a scary thought. I’d probably be dead in some gutter somewhere. Or at least in prison.”

I laughed.

“You think I’m joking. Wolf predicted I’d be dead before I was thirty.”

“Wolf?”

Penny didn’t move. Holding her forkful of lasagna in midair, Penny’s left eyebrow elevated. She offered me a closed-mouth grin like a peace offering. “I never told you about Wolf, did I?”

“I think I would have remembered hearing about someone named Wolf.”

Penny put down her fork, folded her hands, and leaned across our small table there in front of the window that opened to a dark, hidden world. “Wolf was sort of my first husband.”

I told my face to stay still.

“I never told you because it was part of my messed-up life before Jesus and before Dave and before I even knew who I was. You told me once that you didn’t want to hear about all that stuff.” She seemed to be waiting for absolution or, at the very least, an invitation.

“I don’t mind hearing about it now,” I heard myself say. “I’d like to hear about Wolf, if you want to talk about him.”

Relief washed over Penny’s face. “Well, he was wild. I was, of course, on the wild side, too. I was seventeen, and you know, my mom didn’t know anything. It was the sixties, and a couple of my friends were driving up to San Francisco in their VW Bug the day school was out. I thought I’d be gone for a week, but it turned out I was gone all summer.”

I had heard bits about her summer in San Francisco before, but Penny had never shared details.

“I met Wolf in the park our first day in San Francisco. He had hair out to here with little wire-rimmed glasses, bell-bottoms, hippie beads, the whole flower child outfit. He was something to behold. Tall, with big feet laced up in these leather sandals he had made himself. I took one look at him, and I thought he was the coolest guy I’d ever seen. He looked up at me from where he was sitting under a tree. He got up, came over, and said, “Hey, Moonglow, wanna dance?”