Season of Terror
by Tigger
Copyright 2002, All Rights Reserved

Chapter 25: A Time to Grow

Vignette: MiLady's Closet - The Private Viewing Room

"But, Vic-key," only audible separation in the two syllables indicated how truly unnerved the tall student was.  "She's a REAL girl!"

Victoria smiled gently at her friend. Penny was standing just inside the dressing room with only her head sticking out and the door curtain draped protectively around her long, lean frame. *She looks like an actress in an old slapstick movie - right after her clothes got stolen.  The outraged comedic heroine except she's not feeling very funny right now so wipe that grin off your face, Denato!*

"It's NOT funny, Denato!" Penny fumed, echoing her big sister's own admonishment.

"I know, I know, and I'm sorry, but what did you expect in a women's clothing and lingerie store, Penny?  Male attendants?"

"But, but, she'll SEE, Victoria, that I'm. . "

"None of that," Victoria cut in sharply.  "What she has SEEN is what she has said - that you are a very tall girl with great legs and good bones, if a bit broad in the shoulders.  That swimmer-cover-story Jane came up with is working well, isn't it?

"Don't change the subject, Victoria."

"There isn't any problem unless you make one, Penny.  She's already accepted you as a girl.  Just go with it and I'll be here to distract her is she starts poking around where she shouldn't."

"Who's going to distract ME?" the wide-eyed teen demanded.

"From what?"

"Not what, you ditz, who.  From HER! In case you haven't noticed, she is, well, really cute! And. . . and well, things are getting a bit. . .hard for me."

Without thinking, Victoria's eyes dropped down and then snapped up and felt her face go hot.  "Oh, well, it isn't, uh, showing."

"Only because this curtain material is heavy duty stuff, Victoria.  My panties aren't.  And I didn't know we were coming here so I'm not wearing the gaff."

"Dam. . ummm. . darn.  Okay.  I'll be right back."

~--------~

"I don't know why you think you need that silly panty girdle, Penny," Sally, Brenda Franson's shop girl commented.  "It's not like you have a poochy tummy or a saggy bottom.

Penny momentarily glared at Victoria's reflection in the mirror before smiling down at Sally.  "It nips me in just a bit and makes me look like I have a figure," she managed in an airy tone.  "I'm just a little self-conscious about being quite so. . .umm. . .flat.  At least the long line smooths things out for me so I don't look quite so bony and hard."

"I suppose.  Personally, I love the athletic-girl look.  Someday, after you graduate from Ms. Thompson's finishing school, come back here and I put you in some clothes that will REALLY make you shine."

"Gee, thanks, Sally.  Sounds like fun."

~---------~

"Once she got over having knicker-fits at having been caught without her gaff, she settled down and carried it off with no trouble," Victoria reported to Jane.  "Very poised; good presentation and deportment, too."

"The girdle idea was well done of you, and she won't forget her appliance in the future," Jane smiled.  "So, she found the pretty Sally attractive, in a . . . physical sense?"

"AUNT JANE!" Victoria squawked.

"Well, did she?"

"I thought nice girls didn't talk about such things!" Victoria sniffed.

"Victoria, you have learned the arts of being a girl about as well as any student I've ever taught save one or two, but let me tell you a little secret I have not shared with any other student."

"Yes, Aunt Jane?"
"Nice girls DO talk about such things.  What makes them NICE girls is not getting caught DOING such things."

"Oh?"

"Oh," Jane said definitively.  "Now, answer the question."

"Let's just say that I think Tante Marie is going to have to change Penny's bed linens after tonight."

"Ah.  Excellent.  I will have to make sure that Sally is always there when I bring Penny in for future fittings.  It is too bad I do not know the girl well enough to bring her in on the masquerade.  She could do a great deal for Penny if she were briefed and willing."

"If you did and Penny found out, she'd freak, Aunt Jane.  It was bad enough when she remembered that Brenda knew.  It's a good thing Brenda went easy on her."

"Brenda has good sense.  Do you think our Penny enjoyed the experience today at all?"

"Unrequited lust is hard on a guy, even if he's a girl, Aunt Jane."

"That's not what I meant, and you know it, young lady."

Victoria giggled at her little victory, then became serious. "As much as she lets herself enjoy anything.  I think that is why she picked Sandy as her stylist - she wanted to atone for having too much of a good time at the dress store."

"Did Sandra step over the line again?" Jane's voice was ice cold and hard.  She'd been reticent to allow Sandy to resume her duties, but when both Michael and Penny had approached her, she'd relented.

"Not really, at least for Sandy.  She gave Penny about the same ration of grief as she always gives me when I'm in her chair, and she knows I'm onto her.  It wasn't all that bad and besides, Caro was keeping an ear on her."

"Is that the way it is always going to be with this child?" Jane asked rhetorically.  "Bad to balance every good?  Every pleasure to be followed by some self-inflicted symbolic flagellation?"

"She is no longer determined to kill herself, Aunt Jane.  You have time, now."

"You're right, of course, but it is just so hard sometimes, especially when I see what she does to herself."

~---------~

Vignette: The Kingston Country Club - The Ladies Club Room. 

"Sit up straight, girl," Edith White ordered.  "If you're going to have all those inches, sit up and have them counted.  Just because Victoria is a pocket venus is no reason to hunch over. Just draws more attention to what you aren't and she is."

"Yes, Ma'am." Penny murmured.

"So, Victoria is about to finish her time with you, Jane, and you're proposing this one as her replacement?"

"Just so, Edith," Jane said as she lifted her tea cup to her lips.  "Victoria is going to a boarding school where she will rub elbows with others of . . .our class and acquire a finer social polish. An enrolled student at the school had to drop out - illness or some such thing - and we couldn't turn down the opportunity when my dear friend called to offer us the slot."

"Looking forward to it, are you, gel?" Edith inquired. "I loved my time at boarding school.  Was a prefect, too, don't you know."

"Were you really, Ms. White?" Victoria gushed.  "Oh, I think that sounds ever so interesting.  Do you have to be perfect to be a prefect?"

"I'm sure Edith will be happy to talk to you about it later, dear," Jane interrupted her mischievous student smoothly. "but we have business to attend to after this little tete-a-tete.  As I was saying, Edith, Victoria has to leave us shortly after the holidays, but I knew how you were counting on her helping out with the upcoming telethon, and did not want to leave you short handed. So, when Penny volunteered. . "

"Penny?  PENNY?," the old woman's eyes bulged at the offending student with affronted dignity.  "What type of name is that for a well-brought-up young woman of our class? Jane? Why-ever do you tolerate such. . .such informality? Why don't you call her Penelope? Young people these days, not having the courtesy to use their real given names."

"My name IS Penny, Ma'am," Penny put in with what Jane thought admirable sang froid, "Not Penelope.  My. . . Mother," and Edith missed the quick look Penny shot Jane, "named me Penny."

"Named you Penny? NAMED you PENNY?!? Unbelievable. Should have named you Penelope - that's the correct name - it's in Homer's Odyssey, you know.  No Pennies in Homer's Odyssey.  I don't suppose you'd mind being called Penelope at the telethon?  Much more dignified. Will sound better on television, as well."

Jane watched her oh-so-submissive junior student seem to grow taller before her eyes. *Eyes straight, shoulders back, heavens, if the child was any more dignified, she'd be running for Parliament, and she's not even British.*

"Penelope is not my name; Penny is, Ma'am.  It would be disrespectful of me not to honor my Mother's naming of me."

"Just so," Jane repeated.

Disappointment and annoyance, the former due to her failure to cow this upstart young female and the latter due to Jane's failure to support what Edith thought was a perfectly reasonable requirement, warred on the old woman's face.  "Oh, very well.  At least I won't have to worry about you flirting with the male contributors like I did with this one!" she offered in what passed for humor in the humorless old biddy. 

"Just so," Jane said, her voice going cold as she stood up.  "Well, we must be going, Edith.  I have to take Victoria and Penny shopping.  I will have Penny at the PBS station by seven p.m. next Saturday for the required training.  Say good bye, girls."

"Good bye, Ms. White," Penny and Victoria said in childlike unison.

They were outside at the car when Jane said another word.  Penny wasn't sure what she has said, but it has sounded remarkably like 'bitch'. 

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

It was all Victoria could do not to howl with laughter as she recounted their afternoon tea for Marie's benefit.  "I thought she was going to call for a judge right then and there, and demand Penny's name be legally changed to what SHE considered appropriate."

"Oh heavens," Marie choked.  "I can just hear her with those clipped, Brahman accents, telling Penny her name isn't dignified.  How did Penny handle it?"

"As if listening to a senile old fool pontificate on proper naming was the most normal thing in the world," Jane answered evenly. "She never spilled a drop of tea, or spread crumbs."

"She even ate one of those horrid, dry scones the club serves without so much as flinching," Victoria finished.

"High marks for deportment, eh, Jane?" Marie asked, her eyes twinkling.

"True enough, Marie, and Penny has proven her willingness to do whatever she's asked to my satisfaction over the past two months. I agree she's ready to be a big sister.  I called Judge Ruth just an hour ago, telling her we'll be ready for our next student shortly."

"What do Michael and Eric think of that plan?"  Marie asked.

"Don't tell me you haven't asked them," Jane teased.  "They think she'll be fine.  She's ready to be the responsible one.  And just maybe, if she's concentrating on someone else's needs, she'll let her guard down enough to find a little joy in her life again."

"So, does that mean we call for the breakdown crew on this one?" Marie asked.

"Breakdown?!?  I'm fine, thank you very much," Victoria protested. "I am not broken."

"Non, petite, you misunderstand.  Breakdown is Jane's word for turning you back into a young man."

"It might be useful for Victor to have a couple of weeks in boys clothing before heading to Saint Andrews Academy.  You need to relearn to swing your shoulders instead of your hips when you walk, you hussy," Jane said in a creditable imitation of Edith White.  "All right.  Invite the Beales to dinner tomorrow night, Marie.  Tell Carolyn to bring her Breakdown Kit."

"How about Sandy, Aunt Jane?"

"You want Sandy?" Jane asked, her tone suddenly cooler.

"She did help me, Aunt Jane, and she did apologize to Penny."

"I know," Jane sighed.  "Please invite Sandy as well, Marie. No, wait, on second thought, I will invite her.  She might not come if the invitation does not come directly from me."

"Thank you, Aunt Jane."