Penny sat on the curb. She looked for hours at the scars Tommy’s tires left on the pavement. She sat by the fence. She closed her eyes and pretended he was leaning on the other side. How many times had his back been half an inch from hers? She walked to the park. She ate ice cream but it didn’t taste as good now.
He was no closer when he returned. She didn’t see him but she still looked for him everywhere. Her parents prayed.
Things were getting busy for Tommy and his brothers but one night, the last night, they drove through the streets of Philadelphia in a two car convoy. They were reckless, always reckless. When they drove down Penny’s street she was sitting on the curb. She did that a lot. He met her eyes as he whizzed by.
A moment after the commotion of the rowdy boys Tommy straggled down the sidewalk alone.
“Tommy,” she gasped.
He sat beside her in a messy heap. He smelled of alcohol but she didn’t realize that then. She had never smelt alcohol before. His hair was brushed back and looked wet with bravo.
He had a greasy smirk. His attire had graduated from ripped jeans and grubby flannel to tight cuffed jeans and expensive-looking shirts. But his clothes still looked dirty, even now. Penny was taken back. He was different in her memory.
“Penny Lane, you’re in my ear and in my heart,” he sang out too loud.
A light soon went on in her parent’s bedroom.
She acknowledged it and told him he would have to leave.
“Leave with me.”
“I can’t.”
“I leave tomorrow for good.”
“What do you mean?”
“I enlisted. I’m leaving tomorrow for Vietnam, me and all my brothers.”
Penny’s heart broke.
“Penny Lane,” he began to sing again as the light went on over the porch. They were hidden from her father’s view by the fence but he knew right where they were. It would be but a moment and he would be there.
“You have to go.”
“Not until tomorrow.”
She shook her head. “Now.”
“Come with me, Penny. Walk with me. Walk with me until morning.”
Her father appeared beside them. He hovered over them.
“Penny, go inside.”
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