The Escaping Penny

"I swear I don't know how that penny keeps getting out of my jewelry box!" My thumb flipped open the wooden box with familiarity; even after all these years, a faint scent of cedar greeted me. I was speaking to my empty bedroom again.

    Hadn’t I quit taking it out years ago?

My grandpa gave me the penny when I was ten. Old enough to care about jewelry, he announced to the whole family as he flipped it to me. The sparkle in his eye as he watched me catch it became a treasure to my heart as much as the penny.

 Then he winked at me.

Earlier that day, we had been in our favorite place: the garage, with both our heads beneath the hood of his ’56 Chevy and me perched on the front fender while he explained the difference between a socket wrench and an open-ended wrench. He knew I didn’t give a hoot about sparkly things; I liked the smell of motor oil, the click of a ratchet wrench, and the line of grease that collected under my nails.

 I slid my fingers over the wheat stalks and the date 1947, the year I was born, and slipped it back in the box.

“Now you stay in here,” I chided it. “You’re gonna break my heart if you go and get lost.”                                                                                                                                              

The second time I saw it on the ground outside my favorite tea shop, I nearly tripped. The glint of its coppery shine caught my eye. It was right there under the front window where I had just passed to admire the pastries. My eyes searched the sidewalk. “I’m positive it wasn’t there before,” I whispered. The hair on my head prickled, and my fingers pulled my old coat tighter.

All of us old folks at the Senior Center agreed nothing struck more fear in your heart than thinking that you’re losing your mind, not even the fear of death. My heart danced a fast two-step while I opened the door to the tea shop, the penny clutched tightly in one hand.

As bad as I wanted my ritual of daily tea and conversation, I needed to go home and flip open my old jewelry box to see if my penny was still nestled in there. Perhaps this was just a lucky find, and now I would have two 1947 pennies, twice the luck.

Maybe it was a message from the universe.

If it wasn’t in the box and this was truly mine… my mind spun in several directions at once. Who would do this to me? Who would think this was a funny practical joke or steal my penny and leave it lying around?

What was left of the Motorhead gang, of which I was an honorary member, clamored for me to join them. Tabby the barista called out, her young, expressive face alight, “Want your usual, Gloria?” 

Never minding how it must have looked, I immediately spun, and I use that word loosely because I haven’t actually spun in probably a couple of decades. My determined shoes slapped at the sidewalk all the way home; tea and conversation couldn’t settle my worry.

You could imagine how even more agitated I was to find my jewelry box empty, my precious penny gone. In fact, I had to lie down on the bed immediately, still in my coat and shoes, violating every rule of bed cleanliness I had believed in.

I lay there until I stopped panting, until my mind stopped whirling.

My penny was missing.

Later I once again put the found penny in my box, convincing myself it really was my penny; it would be too painful for it not to be.

Then there was the time at the Piggly Wiggly grocery store. I found it winking up at me right in the middle of the aisle in broad daylight. It lay in the aisle I had just walked in moments before. Anyone, absolutely anyone, could have gotten it before I did! It felt like my penny was trying to escape; the thought made my heart crack.

 Then, last week, I found it in the mailbox; that was the day I went back to bed. Until then, I had experienced only the ordinary forgetfulness we all laughed about around the Senior Center lunch table, even as we quietly watched one another for signs that it might be something more.

I told them all how one time I had forgotten if I had taken my blood pressure meds one morning, then later found a pill on the floor, but I knew I had taken it, so of course I couldn’t take another. But at times forgetfulness jumped to a new level, like when we all gently had to remind Howard which of us at the table was his wife. Some days we reminded him over and over throughout lunch while his wife sat beside him, her face pinched with sadness.

And then Howard and his wife stopped coming for lunch altogether.

The fifth time I found the penny, or more like it was returned to me, Mabel had it in her hand, declaring she had found it over by the serving line.

I’m ashamed to say that wasn’t my best day.

My thoughts had scattered like flour out of a sifter. There was no way on God’s green earth that penny, my penny, made it out of the box and into her hand without her stealing it, and I said just as much.

How did she get it out of my house?

Was she the one who left it outside of the coffee shop? In my mailbox?

Mabel, of all people, knew how precious this penny was to me!

After that, I couldn’t bring myself to return to the lunch table. All of us were a hair's breadth from getting kicked out over the ruckus. Staying away from the Senior Center seemed like a good idea. I never liked their godforsaken tuna sandwiches anyway. My own peanut butter and jelly sandwich was much better, thank you very much.

Overnight, I decided no one was getting into my home, and paid for a second lock on my door. I put a heavy encyclopedia on top of my jewelry box to hold it closed, just in case. And since I refused to leave my house, no one was getting into my jewelry box.

Nearly a week went by before the first Motorhead came knocking at my door. I peeked out the curtain and saw Wilbur; he stood there looking properly concerned, but how did I know he wasn’t in on it? Whatever it was.

Even Mabel returned the next day with several others from our table. She gently tapped on my door, then Eileen stepped up and pounded on the door.

“Stop being ridiculous, Gloria,” she huffed out. “Mabel didn’t steal your penny; you know she only likes gold things.”

They went on for a bit; I didn’t answer.

That was true about Mabel; she wouldn’t be caught dead in anything less than real gold. But still I hid behind the curtain, half embarrassed, half still mad. It wasn’t every day that I was called an insufferable old biddy, along with several other things I won’t repeat.

They had said some awful things that day, never mind that I had too.

I watched them all leave with satisfaction that faded away the moment the silence returned. My penny was safe, as I checked it again after they left. But my shoulders sagged.

Sitting slowly down on my bed brought my face level with the dresser mirror. The face staring back at me seemed shocking. When did I last comb my hair or shower? With sudden clarity, I knew my mind had been misfiring like faulty pistons in an engine. What had I been thinking? I had thrown away my friends over a penny, and one who was determined to escape after all.

I had screamed horribly at Mabel that the penny was the most precious thing I had.

I looked at the face staring back at me in the mirror and watched it fold into sadness.

My penny had never really been about luck; it was the most precious gift I had ever been given. Grandpa never looked at me and saw a little girl who should know her place. He saw a pair of curious hands, an eager mind, and someone worth teaching. Back in my day, girls were not encouraged to wear tool belts and wrench on engines. We were persuaded to wear aprons, learn to sew and cook. My brother was given toy cars, and I was given a doll with blinking eyes. She stared open-eyed down at me from the top of the closet where I had stuck her, while I dreamed about working in a garage and maybe one day even driving a race car. There were other responsibilities life handed to me that took me far away from those dreams.

Until he was gone, Grandpa had let me be his “little Motorhead”, as he had called me.

Looking back, I realized that every morning, without thinking, I had slipped that penny into my pocket. I was carrying more than a penny. Grandpa had believed in me and told me, without using words, that I could become anything. Somewhere along the line I had become old and forgetful, maybe even a bit bitter about what I didn’t get to be.

“Foolish too,” I whispered to the room before I lay back down to rest.

Trying to sort out what the universe wanted was a bit overwhelming, and for the moment I didn’t care.

It was morning when I realized that I had fallen asleep in my clothes. That was shocking enough, but then I heard a strange repeating sound outside my bedroom window. My mind searched for the answer while I swiftly put my hair up in a kerchief. I knew that noise!

There was no other noise like that; it was a ’56 Chevy, maybe the new couple’s old Chevy. They lived just two driveways over, and that car had been in their garage since they had moved in. It was the Motorheads, top conversation at the tea shop, after we caught a glimpse of it being towed through town. I could hear people arguing loudly outside.

Swiftly I put on my shoes and slipped into my coat, stopping to grab the penny. I felt it wasn’t trustworthy enough to stay home, so I slipped it into my pocket.

During a brief lull of silence. I heard a very loud kerplunk on my wooden floor. Down at my feet lay my coppery penny, looking up at me. Mouth open in surprise, I threaded my hand into the pocket and fished around until my finger poked through a hole just big enough to help a penny escape.

I stood for a moment, shocked. No one had stolen my penny. It had never been trying to escape at all! 

Suddenly, I heard the sound outside again. Picking up the penny, I slipped it into my other pocket while pushing the front room window open wider.

The old Chevy was running, but badly.

Wilbur had the hood open, his oversized belly protruding over the radiator. “He couldn’t get his head over that engine if he tried,” I said scoldingly to myself.

I saw all three Motorheads standing together at the front of the car.

Henry shouted over the engine, “She’s loading up.”

Frank shouted, “Nah, timing’s slipping, I tell you!”

I stood at the window a few seconds longer, with my head tilted, listening.

I whispered to myself knowingly, “Quit revving it!”

Suddenly, I shouted out the window to all of them, surprising myself. “Quit revving it!”

They all looked in my direction as I left the window and hurried out the front door, and I use that word loosely because I haven’t hurried particularly well in at least a decade.

The engine kept stumbling.

Putt…putt…cough.

Everyone stopped looking at the engine to watch me walk over.

The engine kept gasping and wheezing.

Wilbur moved over, and I leaned in, listening closer to the engine.

I reached behind the carburetor and gently moved a small vacuum hose. The engine's rhythm changed immediately.

They all looked at me, and I smiled, pointing to the split on the underside of the hose where it slips over the fitting.

Wilbur examined the underside of the hose and shook his head admiringly,

“Well, I’ll be…”

I felt myself shrug as I turned to look at all of them. “Rubber gets old too.” I managed to say, pulling my lips into a half smile. “If you get a new one, I can put it on for you,” I added.

Frank handed me his red garage rag, smiling. “You are Grandpa Earl’s little Motorhead after all.”

“This Chevy sorely needs a bit of work,” I said to the car's owners. “She's worth it, though.”

They all laughed good-naturedly with me, but I looked at the sidewalk, the Chevy alternately purring and coughing in the driveway, anywhere but their faces. My hands slipped into my coat pockets, and one closed around the penny.

At that moment another car pulled up, bouncing right onto the sidewalk, full of my lunchtime buddies. “Gloria! Hey, Gloria!” shouted Eileen, practically hanging half out the car window, “Come for tea!”

Mabel called out right after, “It's scone day, your favorite!”

“Is there going to be pie?” Wilbur shot back at them. I looked back and forth as Frank said, “No deal if there isn’t coffee!”

They kept clamoring back and forth to each other as if nothing had ever happened.

“Give me a minute,” I said, feeling the first smile I had worn in days.

I stepped inside for my handbag, then crossed over to the old cedar jewelry box and laid the penny gently inside.

“Thank you,” I whispered. “For today, you stay home.”

I closed the lid without putting the encyclopedia back on it, shaking my head ruefully as I walked out the door.

I should have known better.