Penny’s underwear was large on me. Not too large. Just loose and funny feeling. The bra and panties were, however, silky black and a far superior quality to anything I ever owned.
The larger size of her clothes didn’t matter because I opted for a baggy pair of sweatpants and a yellow sweater that were easy to pull out of the suitcase.
With my soiled clothes in a wad, I exited the stall to see a line of women waiting. Penny stood near the sinks. “You are going to throw those away, aren’t you?”
I hadn’t planned on it. I was going to ask if she had a plastic bag. Surely they sold good strong laundry detergent in Finland. I could soak these clothes back to life, if I had the right laundry soap.
Penny moved closer when she saw me stalling. “If I’m right,” she said in a low voice, “your bra is at least eight years old, and it’s about half an inch from self-disintegrating.”
Penny knew all too well the areas in my budget where I’d scrimped over the years to keep four growing children clothed.
“And if I’m guessing correctly, that shirt found its way into your life in the mideighties. Its shelf life has expired, Sharon. You need to set the poor thing free.”
Part of me was glad that Penny felt well enough to be flippant. That was a good sign. But I wasn’t too happy about her painfully accurate comments about my wardrobe.
“I’m not trying to be mean,” Penny said quickly. “Look, you said you packed plenty of clothes. And I packed way more than I need. We should be fine with what we have until your luggage arrives. If not, we’ll go shopping and buy new clothes. Now wouldn’t that be tragic?”
I opened the top of the trash bin, and against all my frugal instincts, I threw away a perfectly usable set of clothes.
“Didn’t that feel good?” Penny said.
“No. Nothing feels good at the moment.” I pushed up the sleeves of the baggy yellow sweater and went to work washing my hands and forearms. My sticky chest and stomach would have to wait. We had an audience in line, and I wanted to get out of there as soon as possible.
“Thanks for letting me borrow your clothes,” I said as Penny and I followed the signs to baggage claim. The directions were in three languages, with English the last listed. I noticed how quiet the airport was.
“Of course, you’re welcome to borrow anything you want.” Penny’s voice seemed unusually loud as she turned toward me. “I hate to tell you this, but I can still smell you.”
“I know. I need to wash up some more.”
“Why didn’t you do it back in the rest room?”
“All those women were watching me,” I said, lowering my voice.
Penny laughed. “But just think! You could have started your career as an international underwear model.”
“Not in your black silkies,” I muttered.
“What?” Penny’s voice still seemed loud.
I shook my head and mouthed the words, “Never mind.” In a whisper I added, “It’s so quiet here.”
Penny listened a moment. “It is.”
We looked around at the people as we walked past the boarding areas. Some were looking back at us. Some were reading. Some were sipping coffee from white ceramic cups at small round tables. No loud announcements were being made. No elevator music filled the air like audio Novocain. We had landed in a somber place.
“This is spooky,” Penny muttered. “I’m so used to background noise.”
“I think it’s serene,” I whispered.
My voice must have been too low for her to understand my comment because Penny replied, “I know. It is a scream, isn’t it?” She laughed. The sound echoed in the large terminal. Penny covered her mouth with her free hand, and we proceeded to baggage claim.
We didn’t realize that we would have to go through customs again. This time they motioned for the two of us to step up to the window together, probably because we seemed to be traveling together.
The officer opened Penny’s passport first. He looked up at her and carefully pronounced, “Penny Lane?”
Penny smiled and said flippantly, “Yes, yes, I know. I’m in your eyes and in your ears and under blue suburban skies and all that. Yes, that’s my real name.”
He didn’t blink.
Penny smiled more broadly at the officer. “Aren’t you going to start singing to me?”
Silence.
“The Beatles, you know? Penny Lane? Or did the Beatles never make it over here to Helsinki?”
I cringed.
The officer repeated, “Penny Lane?”
“Yes, that’s my name. It’s my real name. I am Penny Lane.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Visit to Finland for business or leisure?”
“Leisure.”
“Length of stay?”
“About a week and a half.”
Without changing his expression, the man stamped her passport and reached for mine.
“Sharon Andrews?”
“Yes.”
Unshaken by Penny’s vibrant monologue, the officer asked me the same string of questions.
Blessedly, we both made it through customs and arrived at baggage claim. However, my suitcase didn’t fare as well. My luggage didn’t make it to Helsinki.
By the time Penny and I had examined every unclaimed bag, waited in line, filled out all the paperwork, and talked with two polite airline representatives and one impatient one, the only hope we were given was a phone number to call for an update in the morning.
“What time is it?” Penny asked, as we trudged to the airport terminal exit in hopes of finding a taxi that would take us to the nearest hotel.
“I’m not sure if I set my watch right, but I think the local time is about ten-fifteen.”
“At night?” Penny asked.
“Yes.”
“And it’s Friday here, right?”
“I think so.”
“I’m so disoriented.” Penny pushed open the door for both of us as we stepped into the deep, frozen Finnish night.
Until that moment, I had never known what the words freezing cold meant. An icy wind grabbed our faces with razor-sharp fingers and sliced through our clothes as if we were wearing paper bags.
Penny let out a muffled shriek. “Are we on the North Pole? It’s freezing! Where are the taxis? Over there? Come on!” She forged ahead with a fierce determination that had left me hours ago. “Sharon,” she yelled over her shoulder, “get out the tour book so we can tell the driver the name of one of the hotels we circled.”
Even in my state of frozen numbness, I found it ironic that I had the tour book. I had no clothes. No underwear. No deodorant. No pajamas. No toothbrush. But I had the tour book.
The driver threw Penny’s luggage into the trunk, and Penny and I huddled in the black sedan’s backseat, flipping through the tour book.
“This one.” Penny pointed to one of the listings with the highest rating. “Man, it’s cold.”
I met the drivers gaze in the rearview mirror and tried to pronounce, “Hotelli Suomi on Mannerheimintie 8.”
I rubbed my hands together and touched them to my cold nose and cheeks. The cab was warmer than outside, but not nearly warm enough for us.
The driver asked, “What part of America?”
“Are we that obvious?” Penny smiled professionally, as if she might sell this man one of her properties listed for more than half a million dollars. “I’m from San Francisco. Sharon here is from Washington State.”
“You want a good disco?” He asked while he drove us out of the airport area. “A good place for dancing?”
“No, thanks,” I said quickly. I couldn’t believe he asked such a thing! Did the man have any idea how old we were?
Penny leaned forward in the seat. “Do you have a good recommendation?”
My mouth dropped as the driver told us some complicated name of a hot Helsinki nightclub and offered to pick us up at the hotel later.
“That’s nice of you to
offer,” Penny said. I poked her in the side, and she finished with, “But we’re much too tired tonight. Thanks, anyway.”
He turned and smiled at Penny in a way that gave me the shivers. I already was shivering, but this was a heebie-jeebies sort of shiver.
Nothing felt safe. Not this car, not the driver, and certainly not the hotel, since he knew where we were going. What was Penny thinking?
I clenched the edge of the seat as Penny asked the driver about good places to shop and eat. It was too dark outside to guess what the icy world looked like beyond the backseat of this taxi. If necessary, though, I was prepared to leap into the black night dragging Penny with me if this driver tried anything funny.
He laughed at one of Penny’s quirky comments about a sign we drove past and expressed his condolences when Penny told him my luggage hadn’t arrived. We made it to the hotel without my needing to employ any of my escape route plans.
A bellman opened the door for us and took our luggage. Penny pulled out a credit card to pay for the taxi.
“Have you any markkas?” the driver asked.
“You don’t take credit cards?”
He shook his head.
“We forgot to exchange our money at the airport.” Penny tried to figure out how she could get the cash to him. As we stood in front of the hotel, we were freezing, and none of the options were working.
The taxi driver pulled a business card from his pocket and wrote an amount on the back. “Will you leave the money for me at the front desk?”
“Certainly!” Penny glanced at me as if she couldn’t believe how trusting this man was.
I thought the driver was trying to work a scam on my overly trusting friend.
“I’ll have it ready for you by noon tomorrow. Would that be okay?”
“Yes. Good.” He nodded at me and returned to the taxi, which he had left running.
Penny and I dashed into the heated lobby of the luxury hotel. My cheeks stung from the contrast in the air temperature.
“This is nice,” Penny said.
“Yes, it’s warm,” I said with a shiver. Visions of hot soup and a leisurely bath danced in my head.
We stepped up to the front desk. In her most professional tone Penny said, “Hello. How are you this evening?”
The uniformed young man nodded politely.
“We would like to check in. It’s just the two of us. Double beds, please.”
“Do you have a reservation?”
“No, we hoped we didn’t need a reservation.” Penny casually waved her hand.
She reminded me of our boys when they used to play Star Wars in the backyard. Penny’s youngest, Nathan, had a strong affection for acting out every movie he saw. Star Wars was one of his favorites. One day Nathan came over wearing Dave’s bathrobe and told me he was a Jedi master. As I watched from the kitchen window, Nathan pulled his hand out of the wide sleeve, waved it over our dog Bosco, and said, “These are not the droids you’re looking for.”
I love that memory of Nathan. He doesn’t appreciate my telling it.
Penny’s Jedi mind-manipulation move didn’t seem to work on the hotel clerk. He tapped a few keys on the computer keyboard in front of him, and looking up with clear eyes, he said, “I do not show a double room available for tonight.”
Six
Would you be so kind as to check your system again?” Penny asked the hotel clerk.
I stood back, thinking it wasn’t this poor kid’s fault we hadn’t made a reservation.
Penny looked cool as could be.
“Madam, we have a suite available, but no double rooms until Monday night. Would you like the suite?”
Penny paused. I thought she was thinking what I was thinking. A suite would cost far too much at a hotel like this. We could call a taxi—a different taxi—and go to the next hotel on the list.
Penny apparently had another tactic in mind. “May I speak with your manager?”
“Certainly, madam.”
“What are you going to say?” I asked Penny.
“Don’t worry, Sharon. I’ve got it covered. I deal with people like this all the time.”
“People like what? Nineteen-year-old college students working part-time as hotel desk clerks? We didn’t make a reservation, Penny”
“That shouldn’t matter. You know they have empty rooms.”
“I don’t know that. You don’t know that either. We should have called for a reservation as soon as we got off the plane. If we hadn’t spent so much time with the baggage claim people—”
“Exactly!” Penny cut in. “And that’s my point. I’m going to tell the manager our peculiar situation.”
“Our peculiar situation?”
Penny’s gaze moved past me. I watched her expression soften as she put on an engaging smile.
“Hello.” She greeted the approaching manager and extended her hand. He was an older, distinguished-looking gentleman in a dark suit. He didn’t look like someone who appreciated being called to the front desk to hear about “our peculiar situation.”
“How are you this evening? My name is Penny Lane.” She paused, waiting for a response.
The manager’s reaction was exactly what Penny seemed to be hoping for.
“Penny Lane?” he repeated with a controlled smile.
“Yes, Penny Lane.”
“How may I be of assistance, Ms. Lane?”
“I need a recommendation from you. You see, we left San Francisco yesterday morning, and due to delays, we arrived in Helsinki late. My friend’s luggage was lost, and as you might imagine, we are about to collapse.”
She sounded controlled and professionally articulate. This was a side of Penny I rarely had seen.
“I’m hoping you can give us a recommendation,” Penny went on. “We wanted to stay with you during our week-and-a-half visit to Finland, but I understand you don’t have any double rooms available until Monday.”
“That is correct.”
“I see. Well, would you be able to recommend another hotel here in Helsinki? We would like to stay in a hotel that’s as nice as yours.”
The suppressed grin on the seasoned manager’s face grew to a genuine smile. “Have you stayed with us before, Ms. Lane?”
“No, this is our first trip to Finland. My mother grew up in Finland. I’m here to visit relatives.”
“Oh, so you are from Finland?”
“My mother was.”
“May I offer you our preferred rate?” He rapidly tapped the computer keys as the young man looked on with a surprised expression. “I have a junior executive suite available for roughly 10 percent more per night than our double room.”
“Perfect!” Penny said brightly. “I think that would work out just fine. Thank you.”
“My pleasure, Ms. Lane. Joona can complete the reservation for you. I trust you will have an enjoyable visit with your relatives.”
“Thank you. We appreciate this very much.”
The manager nodded at me and left us in Joona’s capable hands.
“How do you say ‘thank you’ in Finnish?” Penny asked Joona.
“Kiitos.”
“Please tell your manager kiitos for me.”
He nodded. “Will this be on a credit card?”
“Yes. And I also need to exchange some money to pay the taxi driver who dropped us off tonight. I told him I would leave the fare here at the desk so he could pick it up tomorrow before noon.”
“I can take care of that for you,” Joona said.
Penny handed him her credit card and the taxi driver’s business card with the amount due written on the back.
Shifting from my right foot to the left, I noticed I was nearly thawed out. At least Penny hadn’t talked me into throwing away my old brown boots at the airport bathroom just because I had a pair of tennis shoes in my suitcase. All my nice, warm socks were in my suitcase along with my favorite pajamas. As Penny completed the reservation, I felt sad that I was going to have to spend my souvenir and gift mone
y on underwear and warm socks if my suitcase didn’t show up.
A young bellman loaded Penny’s luggage onto a wheeled cart and looked at me as if checking to see if I had any baggage to add.
“No luggage,” I said meekly, holding out my empty hands.
He took us up the elevator to the junior executive suite and opened the door to reveal a spacious area that made me gasp. I had seen hotel rooms like this in movies but never had been in such an elegant room.
The modern decor included a leather couch and chair in a separate sitting area by the television. In the corner was a beautiful desk. The two beds were queen-size and covered with inviting, puffed-up down comforters.
“What would you like to eat?” Penny asked as soon as the bellman left. “I’m going to call room service.”
“Anything. And the sooner the better. I’m starving! You wouldn’t mind, would you, if I took a bath while you ordered?”
Penny looked up at me for one incredulous moment and then burst out laughing. “Would I mind? Is that what you said? Would I mind if you removed all those hideous fragrances from your body?” She scooped a pillow off the bed and threw it at me. “No, I don’t think I’d mind.”
I threw back the pillow, laughing along with her. “I suppose you wouldn’t mind if I used your shampoo then, either.”
“Anything you want or need is yours. Help yourself.”
I foraged through her suitcase looking for her cosmetics while Penny studied the menu.
“Can you hand me my purse?” she asked. “I can’t read this without my glasses.”
“I don’t remember your wearing glasses before.”
“I know. I just got them about six months ago. It’s very sad to become so feeble.”
“Penny, you are far from feeble.” I handed her the shoulder bag, trying to keep a reasonable distance so she wouldn’t have to smell me.
Flipping her glasses in place, Penny said, “Oh, much better. Here we go. How does kalakukko sound?”
“What is it?”
“Fish and pork pie.”
I grimaced. “What else do they have?”
“Reindeer meat, but that’s only on the dinner menu. We’re too late for dinner.” Penny leaned back in the chair at the desk and turned to the next page, as if she had found her interesting reading for the evening.