The Many Pennies

“Want an Almond Joy?” the taxi driver said, leaning back toward me and shuffling through the bag––a monstrously large collection of little blue wrappers.

“That’s very nice of you,” I mumbled, nodding my head. When I realized he didn’t see––he was looking straight ahead––I said, “yes, please,” so softly I could barely hear my own voice. I leaned toward the driver so he wouldn’t have to turn around. “Thank you very much.”

As I nibbled at the Almond Joy, the driver scooped three more candies for himself. Plopped them in his mouth all at the same time and chomped. 

My eyes swept over the view: as rice fields rolled by, I caught a glimpse of my nose in the window’s reflection. It glittered with sweat. And my blue eyes shone, overflowing with anticipation. 

“I’m taking a longer route,” the driver said, adjusting his dashboard mirror, “because there’s traffic on the main road.”

“No, no worries!” I settled into my seat, tracing a stain on the middle seat. “Whatever gets us to Boston,” I said. “I have a job interview at the university this afternoon,” I smiled, trying to imagine the dean. Would he be wearing glasses and a sweater vest? A suit? I looked down at my dress, black cotton, and smoothed it out a bit. I couldn’t remember if I had ironed it in the hotel room that morning––though I suppose it was too late to try to worry about it.

The taxi driver laughed. “Whatever gets us to Boston, that’s a good one! I’m gonna start using that one from now on.”

I spotted a porcelain white road sign, ordained with hand-painted blue, yellow, and green leaves to frame its contents: “Carrer del Destí,” it read. Street of Fate.

When did they start translating road signs here into Catalan? I almost asked the driver, but found myself too embarrassed. Back when I lived in Massachusetts, all the road signs were in English. But there’s no official language in the United States, I told myself. Must have a large Catalan community here nowadays, I nodded. Yes, that must be it.

“Would you like another?” the driver asked.

“A what now?”

“Would you like another Almond Joy?”

“An Almond Joy?”

“Yes.”

“Why would I want an Almond Joy?” I shuffled in my seat. 

“Well––” the driver fell into a silence so stupid I wanted to kick the back seat. “I have a lot here, and––”

“Let me tell you something about Almond Joys,” I started. “Almond Joys are the only candies that tell you how to feel in the name...because biting into one isn’t clear enough.”

The driver let out a nervous laugh.

“No, really,” I continued. “The insides are a pathetic attempt to capture the sad texture of some kind of coconut filling, and the chocolate is just waxy enough to remind you that the thing contains almonds. It almost makes you wish you were allergic to nuts, so your head could swell up and you could go the rest of your life without ever having to touch one again, or, better yet, dead.”

“That’s a good one, hun,” the driver forced out the words through his chewing.

The sound of his interminable, slushing saliva assaulted my ears.

“Don’t call me hun if you want to keep the tires on your car.”

Suddenly the phone rang––mine, thankfully, or I would’ve heaved the driver’s phone out the window--and I answered it after catching my breath.

“A petty solace to the small talk,” I said into the phone without checking the caller ID. “Alice speaking. Now what is it?”

“Penny, how many times have we been through this?” a shrill voice chirped on speaker. “Nobody knows who Alice is. Nobody has ever––called you that?”

“Is that a question?”

“Forget it, sis.”

“So, then?”

“Huh?”

Her stupidity irritated me. “Your point. For calling.”

With Elizabeth, everything had to be spelled out. Perfectly said and entirely literal.

“Well…” she stumbled. There was a crackling sound, as if she were crumpling a paper on the other end to try to convince me we had a bad signal. “Roxy passed away this morning.”

“That’s it?”

“Penny––I’m sorry. I know how worried––how beside yourself you were last night.” 

“First of all, don’t call me Penny,” I said. “Penny is the name of a coin, and the worst one, at that. Second of all, I never worry. That’s a lie. I’m never ‘beside myself,’ not for you, or anyone, let alone a goddamn chihuahua named Roxy.”

I hung up the phone, and the driver blinked, and it rang again. I picked it up on the third ring––the best ring, and the only ring, at that, that doesn’t look like you’re desperate for human connection.

“Elizabeth, what in the hell don’t you understand about someone hanging up the phone on you? I don’t want to talk.”

“Listen, sis,” the voice on the other end dipped into a baritone. “Elizabeth asked me to call you. I wanted to…check in.”

“David!” I squealed. “David! Who’s my favorite baby brother?” I smiled, cupping the microphone as if it were a rotary phone. “David is my little brother,” I explained to the taxi driver. “He’s about to turn six.”

“Penny…I’m…almost thirty-seven,” David said.

“Ohh, right,” I smiled, cupping the phone again. “David likes to play pretend,” I shouted to the taxi driver, whose eyes seemed too wide for him to still be dead-silent. “I think he’s gonna grow up and become an actor!”

“I’m in a taxi right now,” I shouted into the phone. “Can you call me back in a bit?”

“Penny, I know. I was the one who called you the…Uber. Listen,” I could hear David swallow. “This is important.” 

“Uber! Davie, you have such a way with words.” I couldn’t help it. Even though David was already a kid, I spoke to him as if he were still my baby. The perfect doll Mom and Dad brought home from the hospital just for me.

“Penny…” David’s voice was hushed, though more out of kindness than out of secretiveness. “Is Author changing you again?”

“Hmm,” I said. “Give me a minute.” I thought for a moment, now growing pensive. 

“Penny, are you still there?”

I didn’t know how long it had been.

“Wait a bit, David. It’s a good question. Give me a couple more minutes, I think Author had to go to the bathroom.”

“Let’s hope she’s not constipated today,” I could hear David mutter to someone on the other end.

After a few minutes had passed, I hissed into the phone. “Daaaavid?”

“Penelope.”

“You’re right,” I sighed. “Author did change me again.” 

I glanced at myself in the window’s reflection. My black eyes glittered, and a tear rolled down my cheek.

“She has me looking at my reflection in a window,” I said, slow and steady. “And she has a tear rolling down my cheek like a third-rate novelist.”

“Penny, take a breath.”

“I am breathing.”

“Good, now I want you to tell me one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“What color are your eyes right now?”

“Black,” I said. 

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

“It’s not the worst edit Author’s ever made––” I heard David whisper to someone on the other end. “The worst edit Author’s ever made was making the whites go yellow. I was there for that. Had to take her to the hospital for cirrhosis of the liver and they didn’t believe me when I told them there was no family history and she had only just started drinking on her 21st birthday, a few days prior.”

“Listen, Penny, I want you to ask the driver where you’re going.”

I asked him. “Andorra,” I reported to David. “What’s that?”

“I’m starting to hate her,” David said in another hushed tone. 

“I’m sorry.” I said it as if it were a reflex. 

“Not you, Penny,” David sighed, “I’m starting to hate Author.”

“Everything Author does is for a reason,” I replied, again more out of a reflex than out of a conscious thought. My words were just words––devoid of all meaning.

“Well maybe Author should start using her intuition more because reason doesn’t seem to be working out,” David said, and my phone went black.

The battery’s dead. I looked over to the driver, and then to the Halloween-candy-sized bag of Almond Joys on his passenger seat. 

I leaned over. “Hey, can I have one?” 

“Take them all,” he handed them to me so quickly (almost nervously?), that I was touched.

The kindness of strangers, I mused, munching on the chocolate, sweet and soft and gooey as if it’d been sitting out in the heat, waiting, waiting for the perfect moment––waiting just for me.

“I want…eh, to apologize,” the driver said. “For taking the long road. I––I––there wasn’t actually that much traffic ahead, you see?”

“No, I can’t see because we didn’t go that way,” I tried to remain matter-of-fact. It was the least I could do for him.

“No, I mean,” the driver hesitated. “It’s just that I haven’t been getting many rides, and I thought if I showed you around the countryside I could get a better tip.”

“Oh! Well, that is silly,” I replied in a laugh.

“Yes,” he mirrored my laugh uneasily.

“I mean, I don’t even have any money on me!”

The car went silent, so silent I could hear the driver’s belabored swallowing. 

“You pay…on the app,” he explained, “any time throughout the ride or just after it. Would you like a phone charger?”

“No, thanks,” I said, sifting through the bag of Almond Joys. “I think it would make Author pretty mad. She’s a big fan of all those plays that involve a miscommunication because a letter or something isn’t properly delivered, you know, like Romeo and Juliet?”

“Uh-huh.” Although I interpreted it as the driver agreeing, I could hear him roll his eyes.

“I’m pretty sure she’d just crash the car into a ravine if I took the charger,” I laughed. “She’s not very creative.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah.”

“Well––take the charger––for my sake.”

“Really?”

“I insist.”

“Okay!” Somehow I agreed before Author could change me––could change my mind again––and as the battery signal on my phone lit up, the driver laughed.

“Que turista més boja,*” he said. *[“What a crazy tourist”]

I would later tell David, as he hovered over my hospital bed with a line of worry permanently carved into his forehead, that those were the very last words I heard before the whole world went black.