Chapter Text
Lighting crackled through the sky, sending blindingly bright light into Penelope Sccatorcio's hotel room.
Penelope sighed to herself as she sat on her bed, feet dangling off the edge. She had been working on composing a new song. She liked writing them. And the world seemed to like them. Her first full length album had sales over 60,000 sales in it's first few months.
She twirled a pen over her fingers idly, attention focused on the television that had been playing all night. She didn’t normally care for historical dramas, but whatever this was drew her in. The Edwardardian era princesses lives seemed so simple and quaint, with simpler problems than she faced today. Without the distraction of technology, people devoted their time to productive pursuits like art, music, literature, and…sex. That sounded divine to her.
She pulled her pencil from the spiral of the notebook and tapped it against her thigh. A melody floated through her mind, soft and slow. Something unfinished. She hummed it under her breath and let her eyes close for a moment.
Music had always been the place where things made sense.
Until her parents died. Until she killed her best friends. Until she was abandoned by the people who promised they'd always be there for her.
But she didn’t write about that. Not for other people. Not anymore.
The door opened behind her and she flinched upright. In sauntered Bill Hamilton. Her producer, sound engineer, and manager. He nursed a full glass of red wine in his hand.
"You look like shit" she muttered
"Come again?"
Penelope didn't respond. Just returned back to her movie.
"You have like 7 letters. All here within two weeks. They're all from the same address."
"We talked about this, send em back. They'll get their money soon"
Bill scowled, "Nell, you can't not tell me who's these suspicious people are that you send money to but refuse to have any contact with. I'm your fucking manager you know."
Penelope tuned him out, the melody came back in her head, full force. She tapped it out on the notebook then began jotting down basic guitar notes she imagined in her head might work.
"You look worse than I ever had" he handed her the glass. She accepted it, taking a sip and then handing it back to him.
"I wanna go to sleep, can you leave?" She was not tired at all. In fact she'd had a cup of coffee only an hour ago. He rolled his eyes but obliged. On his way out the door he turned to look at her.
"By the way, Jamie Fox wants to meet with you in Tulsa." And then he was gone.
There was no room for for Penelope to argue. Not even when she ran to throw open her door to yell at him about their agreement that she'd never play Tulsa, let alone record an entire album at the studio in the heart of soc territory. She didn’t care if it was an album she and Jamie Fox had collaborated on for almost a year. She wouldn't go.
Of course deep down, Penelope was acutely aware that this was not about how much time she'd be spending on the soc side of town. She didn’t really care about the whole "Soc VS Greaser" thing anymore. After she was adopted into a family rich enough for a beach house she realized that having money did not make her life better.
Her adopted parents, sure they where nice, but they were more interested in fancy trips, extravagant parties and how prissy and proper their kids looked. And their images, which in reality were a mess.
Her adopted mother was a drug addict, her only difference from the mothers that Penelope watched babies be ripped from their arms in her own neighborhood was that she had enough money to pay for rehab every few months after she'd always relapse. The woman never stayed sober longer than a few months.
The richer you are the better you are at hiding your fuck ups.
She'd written a few songs about it but never actually put them out. She knew what it felt like to have barely enough to eat while listening to a rich person drag on and on about how hard their life is.
So she stayed quiet, as much as she wished she didn't. She was quiet when her adopted father beat her and his other children, she was quiet when her adopted mother screamed at her about being "more grateful" and that she needed to bring in "more money".
It was always more, more, more with that woman. Pony Penelope was never good enough for her.
She made sure send a small chunk of money to her adopted parents because they'd (sometimes) return the favor. But a good chunk of her money, a little more than half, was sent to Tulsa in a small white envelope.
Despite her feelings of abandonment and therefore unbearable loathing towards the boys she'd once considered family, she refused to let them ever feel a fraction of what they once had. She still had a heart after all. Maybe she didn't use it much but she had it.
For awhile the envelopes where sent back. Then one day they came back with a letter. Penelope did not read it. She threw it in her trash can and pretended she wasn't starved for any word on her brothers. But that didn’t stop her from missing the unmistakable handwriting of Darry Curtis in the letter. If this was so important, Darrel wouldn't have written a letter.
Eventually the money was accepted. But unfortunately they were returned with letters. Lots of them.
Penelope kept them all in a box under her bed in her home. She wanted to forget about them. But obviously they didn't want her too.
It took everything in her not to read those letters. Or even worse send them back.
'I need a drink' she thought idly.