The Penny by Joyce Meyer & Deborah Bedford

Author:Joyce Meyer & Deborah Bedford [MEYER, JOYCE]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC026000
ISBN: 9780446196260
Publisher: FaithWords
Published: 2007-06-12T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

I showed Miss Shaw the anger, pain, and darkness of my heart with every task I undertook. I wiped the displays with vicious circles of the rag, leaving wide patches of dust. I placed the tie clips in their case in a jumble without bothering to arrange them. I left the assortment of silver piggy banks and baby rattles in their boxes for someone else to take care of. But no matter how awful I acted at times, Miss Shaw remained the same with me. She was always kind and respectful.

Miss Shaw tried to draw me out, but I answered her with stern silence. She talked to me about everything from James Dean’s smoldering eyes to the army hearings of Senator Joseph McCarthy, but I remained aloof. She asked my advice on everything from how to arrange brooches in the front window to how she might convince Del Henry to stop in more often, to which I raised the dust rag like it was a battle flag and proceeded, with great intensity, to polish shelves.

On the day Mrs. Stella Fordyce came to look at belt buckles for her husband’s birthday, I let her wait so long that, had she been a silversmith, she could very well have hammered out a belt buckle on her own.

“Mrs. Fordyce.” Miss Shaw rose from her desk at last, sidled past with a confused glance in my direction, and offered the woman assistance because I wouldn’t do it. Once Miss Shaw helped her with prices, Mrs. Fordyce made a decision in no time. When Mrs. Fordyce asked if we offered gift-wrapping, Miss Shaw thrust the buckle at me. “Of course we do. Jenny, will you take care of this, please?”

Ordinarily I loved wrapping packages. All summer I’d taken pleasure in adorning small, elegant boxes with paper and ribbon. I’d taken pride in my perfect, mitered corners and my flawless fluffy bows.

When I ripped off a piece of birthday paper today, I took great satisfaction in tearing it from the roll. I wadded the buckle inside some tissue and smashed the box lid on. I went heavy on the tape, cut the ribbon with sharp snips, and tied knots so tight that Mr. Fordyce would have to go for a kitchen knife to get the thing open. When I handed it over, Mrs. Fordyce peeked in the sack and exclaimed, “My, but what a wrapping job. How creative.”

Miss Shaw stood beside me and watched while Mrs. Fordyce made her way outside. When she disappeared around the corner, Miss Shaw laid her hand on my shoulder.

“Jenny, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

Miss Shaw had plenty of paperwork left at her desk, but she followed me to the corner where I’d left the broom. She eyed me with concern.

“If there was anything I should know about your life, you would tell me, wouldn’t you?”

“I would,” I lied.

“You promise?”

I promised and went back to punishing the floor with stinging smacks of the broom. When Miss Shaw looked at me again, the lines around her eyes got deeper.

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