Penelope Lemon

by Inman Majors

  The policeman said this last part in a falsetto whine that Penelope could tell he saved for college boys and other young hotshots used to talking their way out of things.

  During all this Missy had kept up a steady string of insults, many of them personal in nature, and a few specific about the officer’s own gifts below the gun belt. If the gibes could be trusted, it took one to know one in the little-pecker department.

  The officer was now standing in front of the Christian bros, his light bouncing from one scared face to the next. They stood at attention like soldiers meeting their drill sergeant for the first time, a drill sergeant who seemed to find their backwards caps nonregulation, for he brusquely turned one and then the other around to the traditional forward manner.

  “If you’re going to mess around with a cop’s girlfriend,” he said, “at least try to look like a man.”

  Penelope looked at Missy and whispered, “You’re dating the cop?”

  “No. Of course not. I mean I used to. But he’s way too possessive, so I gave him the boot about month ago. He’s taking it kind of hard.”

  Missy glanced toward the hot tub area, where the policeman had sent the young guys scrambling through their things for identification. As he waited he lightly, leisurely, pounded flashlight to palm. He looked to be milking the moment.

  “I guess you can go,” said Missy, turning back to Penelope. “This party’s over, unfortunately. And right when those boys were finally starting to loosen up.”

  “You sure? I hate to leave you holding the bag.”

  “Hey, it’s my bag. You were just hanging out for my sake anyway. So get along home, little doggie. Gary will stomp around for about ten more minutes trying to get them to wet their pants and that will be the end of it. Then he’ll probably start crying after everyone leaves and beg me to take him back. That’s what he did last time.”

  There was one question Penelope needed to ask, but she felt a little weird posing it under the circumstances.

  Missy must have read her face, for she said: “You’re still my favorite new employee even if you didn’t get me laid. I’ll see you Monday at the trailer park.”

  Penelope smiled, then grabbed her purse and sandals from where she’d left them by the sliding glass door. She had a job and she wasn’t going to get arrested. Maybe her luck was turning after all. So thinking, she walked barefoot through the gate in a borrowed swimming suit, her wet sandals squeaking as she went.

  20

  She’d driven home without stopping for gas though she badly needed it. She still had the seven bucks in her purse but didn’t feel she could risk another stop before reaching her bedroom. Trouble had her scent tonight, and she knew that if she stopped at the 7-Eleven, it would be the exact night it got robbed. So though the gas light was gamely dueling the veteran oil light for asshole preeminence, she’d driven home on fumes—the fumes of fumes—all but coasting into the driveway. She’d have to get her mom or George to follow her to the gas station in the morning before church.

  Now she was lying in bed, trying to unwind. What a day. Definitely one of the five or ten weirdest of her life. More bad than good, but she’d finished strong. Tomorrow was a new day, and maybe Theo would change his mind about staying at his father’s. She’d make Sloppy Joes and Rice Krispies squares, his favorites, and they’d have their own celebration about his first foul ball.

  Feeling a little hopeful, she picked up her phone from the bedside table and immediately knew that it was loaded with communication, the likes of which would please, disappoint, and/or enervate her. She would be hard pressed to describe, even to herself, the intimacy of her relationship with her phone, platonic though it was. In a word: telekinetic.

  And at the moment it was, if she could borrow a line from Sonshine Funk, humming like unleavened bread in the great Baker’s hands.

  First she checked her texts. She had one, a response from Ms. Dunleavy regarding the parent/teacher meeting for this week.

  Ms. Lemon, yes let’s meet about Theo. How does Tuesday at 4:00 work for you? Arlene.

  Arlene? James was engaged in backseat acrobatics with someone named Arlene? Okay, Missy had obviously brainwashed her. Back to Tuesday. Did it work for her or didn’t it?

  It would have to. New job or no new job, she wasn’t prepared to go the whole summer with Theo identifying as Fart Boy and Weird Turd every time he came across someone from school. And if it didn’t get fixed by Wednesday, the last day of school, it would all roll over to next year. That was just the way bullies were.

  With this in mind, Penelope texted: I will see you Tuesday at 4:00.

  She was dreading the meeting with Ms. Dunleavy.

  But whatever. Summer was coming, summer was coming. Soon she’d be dodging the babies in their swim diapers at the city pool. Plus she had a new job. If her car could just hold on, or perhaps need only a minor adjustment to the defibrillator or whatever the hell was wrong with it, then she could be in her own place before Uncle Doozy turned her bathtub into his personal Kleenex.

  Thoughts of her own place led to speculation about her new salary, which she tried to guess but couldn’t. Nevertheless, just having the words salary and apartment lolling around in her mind pepped her up considerably and she felt ready to hear the voicemail, which always contained the most volatile of her correspondences, save for her mother’s notes about Uncle Doozy. Putting a brave but curious ear to the receiver, she pushed play to hear her lone message:

  Hey Penelope. Just wanted you to know that Weasel has agreed to take the case. He’s not sure if he’s going to go with invasion of privacy or libel or just straight trafficking in stolen goods. He was toying with an intellectual property angle, with your naked form being the property in question, but he thought that might be too sophisticated for the pissants who are likely running this website. That’s more a Supreme Court kind of case.

  (Here ensued a short coughing fit, a pause, and then the gurgle and swoosh of water whirling swiftly through what Penelope assumed was the new chillum.)

  Anyway, he tried out a couple opening arguments on me and they were damn good. You’re in excellent hands. He’s going to the library to check out the first three seasons of Law & Order just to bone up a bit. Maybe some Boston Legal if he decides to go for more of a civil-action angle. According to Weasel, it’s six one way, half a dozen the other when it comes to the civil-versus-criminal approach to a case like this.

  (Another pause, then a shout at someone to Stop piling more wood, dumbass!)

  Hey, listen, I need to run. I got a brush pile going out back that I need to keep an eye on. The wind’s picked up here like a mother, and I don’t need the fire department on my ass again. I’ll keep you posted on your personal matter.

  Lord, how the HHR loved a slow-roasting collection of limbs and twigs. The dearth of open-burning ordinances was the primary reason he’d always live in the county, that and his distrust of city water. Septic or bust was the HHR’s ironclad mantra. Anyway, Weasel was on the Paybacks Are Heaven case. She had zero confidence in his success, but it was sweet of him to try, and with only six toes to boot. Yes, it seemed sure that for all eternity she’d be lying under that mounted fish, a testament to youth and raging hormones and homegrown red-haired sinsemilla.

  But now it was time to move on to the next potentiality for human interaction, her LoveSynch account. She didn’t know why, but she was simultaneously dreading to get a message from Fitzwilliam and not to. He was old, but he was charming, Missy’s comments about his cardigan and his fogeydom notwithstanding. Plus he was smart. Then again, so was James. Regardless, he’d replied and it was time to dive in.

  My Dearest Elizabeth (aka TheosMom75),

  Where to start? With an apology for my unforgivable delay in responding to your perfectly rendered message? With a standing ovation (can you hear me clapping from the mezzanine?) for your fusing of W C Williams and Star Trek into a brilliant expression of joie de vivre?

  Suffice to say the heart flutt
ers, the mind gallops, to think that one such as you blooms like a desert flower in the miasma of 21st-century Americana in which it is our fate to dwell.

  Oh, but now I sound morose. And I am not! Indeed, I want to write a billet-doux to Hopefulness and the eternal human spirit just knowing that one such as you exists—a sprite, a kindred spirit—in this bedrock of Applebee’s and 7-Elevens and box stores that sell everything under the sun save nourishment for the delicate soul. Optimism, I am your champion!

  Kneeling beside my white steed of Hope, would I seem too forward, dearest Elizabeth/TheosMom75, if I proposed forgoing further flirts, Eiffel towers, and computer-generated blends to consider an actual human encounter, a tête-à-tête, as it were? We could work out the details later but I think fine wine, an assortment of artisanal cheeses, and a Swiss chocolate or two would be general starting points around which to center a casual meeting of the minds.

  Ever kneeling, gloved hand extended in friendship, awaiting your response—

  Fitzwilliam

  Penelope thought about reading through this a second time but it was getting late. She did glance again at his photo and still couldn’t tell if he was more oldish or just flat old. Did she care? He seemed nice, and at least he was trying to give the impression that he was a gentleman. From what she could tell, those were in short supply these days.

  She was about to put her phone away and tuck in for the night when she realized that her telekinetic friend was not quite finished relaying messages from the outside world. She looked at the screen, running through her options. She checked her Facebook page, but there was nothing of interest, and then James’s, but it was unchanged since the last time she’d cyberstalked him. That cute little puppy was still happily chasing that stick.

  Wait, she hadn’t checked Divote.

  She went there right away to find it bursting at the seams with correspondence. She’d received a whopping seven boxes of chocolates, four cherubs, and one Ten Commandments tablet, an icon she’d not seen before. For a moment she considered how many of those commandments she’d broken that day and whether someone had reported her to the Divote authorities. But that seemed unlikely, and she didn’t care anyway.

  Buzzing all around her page was a tiny angel with a scroll in its hand. It was her first Divote message, from none other than BrettCorinthians2:2. He must have escaped from Missy’s cop boyfriend after all.

  Really enjoyed the photo of you on Paybacks Are Heaven and thought I’d repay the favor. Let’s finish where we left off in the hot tub sometime soon.

  Below this was a photo. Penelope looked closer. The angle was so close she couldn’t really tell what she was supposed to be looking at. Toward the bottom corner she could make out half a sandal. Extending up from that, what looked like a baby-smooth man’s leg. So that thing in the middle of the frame?

  No way. Seriously?

  It was a penis. An Anthony Weiner if she’d ever seen one.

  She paused to consider if there were women anywhere in the world who liked photographs that consisted exclusively of male genitalia.

  She didn’t know. As for herself, she found Brett’s objet d’art as interesting as a slab of salmon in the display case at Kroger’s.

  She turned off her phone. It was way past time to hit the sack. Come tomorrow, she hoped to be playing the role of a mom again.

  21

  Sunday before church, she spent the last seven dollars to her name on gas. For a moment, she’d considered the classic $5.50/1.50, gas/Slurpee split, but this was no time to splurge. She had to be disciplined if she wanted to save the two thousand dollars—or fifteen hundred, or maybe even a thousand, depending on how nice the place was—that she needed for an apartment.

  She pulled into the driveway past her mother’s Impala and parked next to George’s pickup, a yellow 1970 Chevy named Daisy. It was in this truck that she’d learned to drive. George had taught her at Judge Wyatt’s farm one Saturday afternoon after they’d gone fishing. She was fourteen and worm-grubby, but that didn’t stop George from letting her drive all the way home once she got the hang of it, with Buck Owens playing softly on the eight-track, I got a tiger by the tail.

  Quickly debarking, she gave Daisy a friendly pat on the hood, then trotted toward the house. She glanced at the boxes stacked in the carport that contained nearly all her possessions, then flung herself into the kitchen as if entering a lush oasis after a hot and trying journey. She had the house to herself without the risk of stumbling upon her naked mother, for she and George were antiquing and wouldn’t be back till late afternoon. She breathed a sigh of relief at the thought of a G-rated home for a change.

  Her plan was to do a load of Theo’s laundry, change his sheets, and throw together the Rice Krispies squares. Then she’d give Theo a call to see if he still wanted to spend an extra night at James’s. She hoped not, but wasn’t going to hassle him about it.

  But before she started on her mom duties, she had to read the note she’d just spotted on the kitchen counter. As with the others, it was typed on Hillsboro Garden Club stationery, which meant it was both official and time sensitive in her mother’s eyes.

  Honey,

  I knew I’d miss you after church, so I thought I’d let you know that June called this morning. As I was afraid, the hypnosis didn’t take and Doozy had another sleepwalking episode. He must have been swatting his “spatula” everywhere because several of June’s antique lamps took it on the chin. Today he is going to purchase a border collie to watch him while he sleeps. Apparently these dogs are bred to herd sheep, so if Doozy starts sleepwalking, the dog will head him off before he knocks into anything that might hurt him or the furniture (June has been worried sick about her pressed glass collection).

  Doozy’s had his eye on this dog for a while. A friend of his in Waco raises them. According to the owner, the dog can really bark but only does so if his herding doesn’t do the trick. Lord, Doozy is such a heavy sleeper the collie will be barking all night long.

  Anyway, I don’t know if it’s better or worse news that they will be bringing a dog for their visit. You will likely hear some barking, but at least the dog (whose name is Yapper) will keep Doozy from trying to get you up for reveille like that time in the camper. At least that’s the theory.

  Xxxxoooo

  Mom

  P.S.: Do you agree that the children’s sermon thing has about run its course? I’m not sure I can hear much more about Joseph and his colorful coat. There’s a reason they invented Sunday school, in my opinion.

  So it boiled down to this:

  As Doozy chased her around the basement with his spatula—regardless of her high opinion of his succotash—an unfamiliar dog would be rounding the whole gang up, cattle-drive style, like something on the Western Channel that George used to watch before he started snorting exotic bark to satisfy the rapacious whims of her mother.

  Her whole world felt upside down.

  Thirty minutes later, she was on the phone with Theo, trying her best to sound natural and unbothered about the request for an extra day at James’s. She didn’t even bring it up, choosing instead to listen patiently to the plot summary of the movie he’d watched with his father the night before. The movie that followed the ice cream, which followed the Go-Karts, which followed the cheese pizza with extra cheese, a lot of extra cheese. Seriously, like two minutes on the cheese. Cheesiest pizza ever.

  There was a pause as Theo regrouped after his dissertation on the pizza. Then he blurted out: “Dad says I need to come home tonight.”

  “Oh,” said Penelope, pleasantly surprised. “Well, good. I’ve missed you.”

  “Yeah, Dad’s got a date or something. So I have to come home. Okay. Bye.”

  Penelope stood motionless in the kitchen for quite a while after Theo hung up, brooding over the phrase, “I have to come home.”

  Then she decided to make a batch of brownies too.

  Several hours later, Penelope and Theo were in the den, competing viciously in Mario
Kart. Theo was playing as Toad and was just ahead of her in his Tiny Titan. She was Yoshi and driving her trusty Dolphin Dasher. She was not, repeat not, brooding about Yapper herding Doozy down in the basement as she tried to sleep, or wondering if this development was karmic payback for all the times she’d laughed about James and his ability to put shoe in doo. Nor was she brooding that Theo “had to come home.” Or that her sex-machine ex had a date on Sunday night, which struck her more and more as a really playboy move.

  She and Theo were on the third and final lap of the Mushroom Gorge maze and nearing the finish line. Penelope/Yoshi had been lagging behind, playing possum, for over a lap now, waiting for the exact right moment to lob the bob-omb she’d been saving for this occasion. Theo/Toad was defenseless, his last banana wasted when the Dolphin Dasher swerved nimbly around it. What did he take her for, an amateur? They were halfway through the cave. All she had to do was blow up Toad, dodge a few Goombas, and she’d be Mario Kart champion of the house yet again.

  Yoshi lobbed the explosive, but the cave was narrower than she remembered—it had been ages since they’d raced the Mushroom Gorge—and the next thing she knew the Dolphin Dasher itself was blasted by the bob-omb and launched headlong into the never-ending void of the mushroom abyss.

  Game over. Foiled by her own dastardly deed.

  “SMH,” Theo said, coasting past a few half-hearted Goombas in his path and across the finish line, the winner.

  “What?” Penelope said, shaking her joystick. It seemed slow today. She should have been able to dodge that explosive.

  “SMH. You threw a bob-omb in the cave? That’s just asking for trouble.”

  He was right. There was too little room in the cavern to navigate around her own treachery. It was a rookie mistake. Doozy and the pending sheepdog festival had distracted her. Damn Doozy, and damn Yapper too. She had that game all but locked up.