A Penny's Worth Read Free

pinstriped wrap dress and fancy pink shoes. She remembered
watching Charlene put her head back and laugh with as much happiness as she
could muster. If someone as shallow and mean as Cousin Charlene can have all
the good that life has to offer, then of course, without a doubt, Penny could
make it happen too.
    She was startled back to reality to find
a mother standing by her passenger window staring in at her. She opened the window
and looked up at the woman, knowing she looked a fright.
    Without introducing herself, the lady
said in an officious manner, “Listen, you’re the nurse right? Could you do me a
favor and take this?” The woman shoved something through the half opened
window. “My Johnny is still having accidents.” She leaned in and whispered,
“You know the type of accidents I’m talking about right? Anyway, here’s four
sets of sweatpants and underwear, you know, just in case.” She looked at her
watch, waved, and ran off.
    Once again Penny was caught holding the
bag.

Chapter 4
    Every morning, promptly at seven thirty, Penny waited
for her neighbor Sarah in the front of her apartment building. Pulling at his
leash, Penny’s Beagle Winston darted back and forth as he tried in vain to
dodge the wind.
    She smiled down at Winston. “Who loves
you little guy?”
    Sarah Bentley trudged toward Penny. Sarah
was a strange agent, and she always looked as if she had just tumbled out of
bed. Each morning, her black and white mutt Brutus tried to force her,
unsuccessfully, to quicken her pace. Penny would rather walk Winston alone, but
since they both came out at the same time before work, she had long since made
peace with the fact she was stuck with Sarah for the rest of her life.
    Each day she mentally braced herself when
she spotted Sarah. The woman was insanely obsessed with reality TV. She had to
endure Sarah’s never ending descriptions about what people on various shows did,
or said, as if she were on intimate terms with all of them.
    Standing before her, Sarah looked with
wide eyes and exclaimed, “Okay, we gotta talk about this. Did you see what went
on last night between Heather and Matt?”
    “No,” Penny replied slowly. “I have no
idea who Heather and Matt are.”
    “What? How could you not know? Don’t you
watch TV at all? You know why she did it don’t you? Heather slept with Matt so
she could get an edge on the competition because, you know, all the other girls
want him too. Every lady on that show wants to marry Matt, the competition is
fierce.“
    She felt the sarcasm seep out. “I didn’t
know that, so thanks for filling me in.” Penny looked down just in time to
watch Brutus take a huge dump. She didn’t think she could get through another
day of her neighbor’s ramblings. Perhaps this was one piece of her life she
could change… if she had the nerve.
    Strolling down the street next to her,
Sarah was already out of breath. She had on her usual black pants, black boots,
black coat, and black scarf—all covered in back and white dog hair.
    “Only two more bachelorettes left,” Sarah
said between breaths. “That’s it, Mindy and Becky. What do think of that? I
could have sworn Mindy was going to get kicked off two weeks ago,” she snapped
her fingers, “and she’s still going strong. The one booted off last week was so
much prettier and—”
    “Can you do me a favor?” Penny asked with
more of an edge to her voice then intended.
    Sarah looked at her in surprise. “Depends
on what it is.”
    She lowered her voice. “Look Sarah, could
you stop talking about TV shows? It’s just that, well, to tell you the truth, I
don’t much care about those people. I only care about what I’m doing, which
granted isn’t much, but still, I have no desire to hear about the trials and
tribulations of people I don’t know and will never know. Let’s talk about
something else, or at least, let’s shoot the breeze about people we do know.”
She realized they didn’t have one person in