Season of Terror
by Tigger
Copyright 2002, All Rights Reserved

Chapter 24: A Time to Heal

Victoria knocked on Penny's door and waited to be invited inside before turning the key that undid the special lock.  "Hi," she said as she slipped inside.

Penny looked up from the book she was reading and almost smiled.  "Free at last, free at last?"

The shorter brunette pirouetted, showing off the modern skirt and sweater set she wore.  "I won't finish that quote as Aunt Jane might overhear me and decide I was being flippant."

"Flippant? You?" Penny asked, her dark eyes wide with overstated disbelief.

"I know - it boggles the mind, doesn't it?" Victoria said, laughing.  "I just can't imagine how Aunt Jane comes by those unfair opinions about me, but I'm not too excited about giving her any further ammunition right how.  Those wool stockings were about to drive me IN-SANE!"

"At least they were wool stockings and not wool panties," Penny offered, all solicitude.

"Was that a tease, Penny?" Victoria demanded, her right brow cocked.

The girl's sudden blush was her only answer, but Victoria made a mental note to pass that along to Aunt Jane and the doctors later.  "Well, if you're going to be mean, I won't tell you the good news!"

"Good news?"

"Yes, good news," she teased, only to become increasingly frustrated when Penny didn't say anything more. "You're supposed to beg, darnit!" Victoria whined, exaggerating a foot-stamp.

"Oh, sorry. Please tell me the good news, Victoria," Penny said, without much inflection. "Pretty please?"

"Oh pooh.  You're no fun.  The good news is that Jane said we could go for a walk outside today.  If you want, that is."

"That would be very nice," the taller girl said softly.  "When?"
"Now?"

"Yes, please."

"Well," Victoria gave her little sister a quick once over.  The rose and cream dress was simple in design, but showed nicely on Penny's long frame. *Skirt's a bit short for Seasons House, but I suspect Jane has her reasons.* "Nice outfit, Penny, but those strappy heels are not suited for going walk-about. Go run a brush through your hair and freshen your lipstick, girl, while I raid your closet for decent walking shoes. Then we'll blow this joint.  At least until dinner.  Tante Marie is making pot roast tonight!"

~-----------~

"It's really pretty out here," Penny said later as they walked around behind the stable.  "All the fall colors."

"There's a really good place over here," Victoria said, pointing the way to a small copse of trees.  

Penny, as she had done since the beginning of her time with Jane, allowed herself to be led where others told her to go.  The pair went off the shell-lined trail and crossed the autumn-dry grass and into the small stand of trees.

Whereupon Penny stopped short, unable to hide her surprise.
"Hello, Penny," the figure seated on the marble bench said.  "Victoria told me you wanted to see me," Sandra Kash said quietly.

"I. . .I didn't think you'd come, actually," the tall girl said, still staring.  

Sandra stood up to greet the two girls, her rounded figure poured into a pair of skin-tight jeans with a loose, cowl-neck sweater on top.  Her short blonde curls were squashed under a decrepit Boston Red Sox ball cap and her eyes were hidden behind a pair of mirrored sunglasses.  She shrugged.  "I don't know what you want to say to me, Penny, but I fuc . . messed up badly with you.  I know that, and if telling me to go to hell or worse gives you closure, then that's what I want you to do."

"That's not it," Penny said, averting her eyes. "Telling someone else to join me in hell does not have any real appeal to me."

"Then, what do you want?  Why ask Victoria to sneak me in here behind Jane's back.  It's no skin off my nose if Jane catches me here - I'm already on her shit list, but Victoria took a helluva risk contacting me and an even bigger one getting you out here."
"I want the truth, please," she replied, a touch of steel ringing in her voice.

"I won't lie to you," Sandy said evenly as she slipped off her sunglasses to reveal tear-reddened eyes.  "If I don't think I can answer a question, because it involves someone else - another of Jane's students - I will tell you that, but I won't tell you any lies."

Penny considered that, sneaking furtive looks at the woman out of the corner of her eyes. *She looks like she's ready to bolt,* Victoria thought, and moved to support her little sister so she felt, rather than saw when Penny took a deep breath and turned to face Sandy directly.

"Why?" she asked in a harsh, gritty whisper.  "What reason could you have for treating me like that?  For. . .for saying those things to me the way you did."

Sandy's eyes went closed and she turned her back to the two girls for several seconds before, without warning, spinning back around. Penny jumped backward in fear, only to be stopped by Victoria.  "Sorry," the blonde stylist surprised both girls by saying.  "I didn't mean to spook you.  It's just that I decided that if I'm going to say this, I won't take the easy way out.  I'm going to face you, person to person, when I tell you what you want to know."

"O. . okay."

"The answer, Penny, is that there isn't a good reason, not in 20/20 hindsight.  Guess there rarely is a good reason for something that stupid. What happened, I guess, is that I was too damn sure of myself, too arrogant for my own or your own good."

"I don't understand what you mean."

Sandy gave the two girls a self-deprecating smile.  "I don't suppose you do.  Look, Caro tells me Jane has explained what she does here, right? Normally, anyway? What she does with boys like Victoria, right?"  Penny nodded.  "Okay, she needs the boys to be afraid - usually, anyway.  Afraid of giving themselves away.  She's very careful to make sure that doesn't ever actually happen, but the boys can't be allowed to see her taking care of that.  My function in all this is two-fold.  First, I am very good at my craft.  I could take Hulk Hogan and make him passable as a girl, if not actually attractive."

"Who's that?" Victoria chirped in drawing a exaggerated look of disdain from Sandy.
"You're not THAT young, Missy," Sandy chided the smaller girl.  "However, to continue? As good as Jane and Marie are at this game, I'm that much better, so they bring their boys to me for the big transformations once they're mostly passable.  Okay?"

"I can understand that, but that doesn't explain. . . all those horrible things. . ."

"I said I served two functions in Jane's program.  It's my job to  threaten them with that exposure they fear, and I'm damned good at that, too.  I make them believe that they are two seconds away from it at all times - even though they're not.  Hell, when you were in my chair, the only people in the shop already were in on the game.  You were never in any danger.  Same with the other boys."

"But, I wasn't there to be controlled. I was there to learn about . . .about how Janey felt."

"I know that now," Sandy said, her eyes again closed against her  pain, "I knew that then.  I thought, what the hell, it bothers Jane's other boys to be told they're cute, and I'm not supposed to bother this one that way.  So I told you how ugly you were, even though that was a lie.  I figured that would, I don't know, make you less upset. Where I made my mistake was going on automatic, not listening to what you were really saying, not seeing how you were really reacting, and I went way too far. I sincerely apologize for that."

The tall girl said nothing for several moments.  "I see," she finally said before going on in a flat, unemotional voice, "You are forgiven.  I accept your apology."

Now it was Sandy's turn to gape in surprise and she looked to Victoria who shrugged uncertainly.  "Well, umm, thank you, Penny."

An uncomfortable silence ensued, during which none of them so much as moved. Sandy gave a weak laugh.  "So, what are you going to do now, Penny?  Will we be seeing Benny again soon?"

"I beg your pardon, Ms. Kash?"

"Call me Sandy.  Ms. Kash is my Mom.  The question is will you be going back to being Benny soon?  Jane also told Caro that she was thinking of letting you out of the skirts.  Try something else.  In fact, she said that it will be your decision after the fiasco at the salon.  Have you made your decision?" she asked again and then went on before Penny could answer. "Of course you have.  Don't know any boy of Jane's who wouldn't jump at the chance to be out of her skirts and petticoats."

"Why do you want to know?"

Suddenly, something broke inside the normally acerbic blonde and tears began coursing down Sandy's cheeks.  "Because I don't want my mistake to drive your decision.  Look, I know it sounds strange and maybe even unnatural, but dammit, what Jane does with her boys here at Seasons House works! Regardless of how I behaved, or what you think of me as a person, I want you to have the best chance possible. You and Jane will make that decision, but I don't want my fuc. . screwup to mess up your thinking.  Look, if going to the salon as Penny and having to face me there is going to be a deal killer with Jane? I promise that I will make sure I am not even in the shop whenever Jane brings you in, okay?  I'll be sick or out shopping or out of town - anywhere but where you are.  You have my word."

"Why?"

"Huh?" the blonde asked.  "Why what?"

"Why make that kind of offer?  It's your shop and besides, if I understand how Ms. Thompson operates, there can't be that many other shops she can safely use for that kind of thing."

Sandy snorted at that.  "There isn't ANY other shop she can safely use - at least not in the first few weeks when the boy doesn't have the act and the look down pat.  As to why I'd offer to make myself scarce?  Because I want the best for you and that is whatever Jane can come up with to help you. She's that damned good at what SHE does! Look, I can be, and often am a bitch.  I'm certainly not the nicest person in the world, but until you, the stuff I do for Jane has been the one part of my life where I actually, really help people.  That's why I do it.  I'm the bogey woman and I admit that I DO enjoy that part of it.  I LIKE being the witch that Mothers and Aunt Jane use to put the fear of god in their kids."

"Sure did with me," Victoria murmured, thinking that a bit of distraction was called for.

"'course I did," Sandy smiled with something approaching her usual mein. "Penny, one of the boys once told me that I am. . .was the 'big gun' in Jane's program.  I'll admit to getting off on it when the boys almost pee their panties in my salon chair when I get in their face and they KNOW that *I* know, okay?  But the reason I'm PROUD of what I do is because it helps turn kids around.  I can't be proud of what I did to you and the only way to make that right is by doing whatever it takes to keep you working with Jane.  IF that means dropping out of the picture, then I am gone. Simple as that, end of statement.  I really, really am sorry, Benny."

The girl straightened, and for the first time, she looked Sandy directly in the eye.  "It's Penny," she corrected the older woman, "And I'd rather you stayed.  I mean, if I have to suffer this to atone for what I did, why should I let you get off that easily?  Penance is supposed to be good for the soul."

"You mean that?  Really?"

"I don't lie either.  Tell me, Ms. .um, Sandy.  Are you really as good as you said you are?  That's not just tooting your own horn, is it?"

Offended, Sandy growled, "If anything, girl, I was being unduly modest."

"Very out of character for her, too, Sis," Victoria put in, "but there is no doubt that Sandy is the best hair and face-glop artist in the area."

"In the state, Missy, maybe in all of New England!" Sandy corrected, grinning.

"Then I need to talk to Ms. Thompson.  I am going to need all the help I can get." 

"If you're serious, Penny," Sandy said in much gentler tones. "You're not now, and never will be classically pretty.  Certainly not like this little hussy, but all the same?  On those few moments while we've been here, when you forgot to quite so self conscious? You've got this, I don't know, aura of sad dignity about you that is, well, very appealing.  If you were a real girl, every chivalrous male within ten miles would be clamoring to slay your dragons for you - even some not-so-chivalrous males.  I can help you build on that."

"I'm not interested in having men 'clamoring' for me," Penny retorted stiffly.

Victoria saw an 'old Sandy' grin flash momentarily before Sandy could bring it fully under control. "I didn't say you would be, but I can make you look good enough that men will *think* you're an attractive girl.  That's what you were asking, wasn't it?"

"I guess it was," the girl murmured.  "How. . . unsettling."

"Be careful what you wish for, sis," Victoria put in, still trying to lighten the mood.  "Sandy might just see that you get it."

"Whatever I can do, Penny," Sandy assured her.  

Penny only nodded before turning back to Victoria.  "I'm starting to feel really tired," she said quietly.  "I think I may have overdone."

"Let's go back to the house, then.  Marie will have my guts for garters if you get sick over this.  See you later, Sandy."

~------------~

Sandy slipped the sunglasses back on as she watched the two girls disappear behind the stable on their way up to the main house.  At the sound of leaves crackling underfoot behind her, she turned to face the figure that stepped out of the shadows.  "Good job, Sandy," Michelle Nash said.  "I think we made points today."

"You think she can talk Jane into letting me back into the program?" Sandy asked, wistfully.

"If she can't, I will.  You won't screw up like this again, and you are an asset.  Like you said, you're the best at both roles."

"Benny or Penny?"

"Right now I think it's pretty clear she'll stay as Penny.  Probably for the best, too, although Erica isn't really sure. The eminent Dr. Davis doesn't like the fact that Penny's in martyr mode - taking the worst of everything because she deserves it in her mind, like atonement. She'll convince herself that being Penny is the tougher penance."

"Isn't she?"

"Erica doesn't think so.  Benny's the one she has to face eventually because Benny is the one she blames for Janey's suicide.  Right now, she's not strong enough to face that.  Our mission is to keep her around until she is strong enough."

"By around, you mean alive, don't you?"

Michelle only nodded.