Penelope

by Rebecca Harrington

  “It really doesn’t have much of a tune when there is no background playing,” said Ted.

  “No, I suppose not,” said Penelope. “Personally, I thought you were going to discuss that girl who sang “Memory” from Cats. It was rather ingenious when she started scratching the pole like that. Just like a real cat.”

  Ted looked at Penelope.

  “I really liked what you sang too,” Penelope blithely continued. “I didn’t know ‘I’ve Been Working on the Railroad’ went so high. What a moving song, I suppose. Excellent job.”

  “Thanks,” said Ted.

  “Do you think we will make it to the next round?” asked Penelope.

  “No,” said Ted.

  “Too bad,” said Penelope. “I bet the Cats girl will make it.”

  “I think she really wants to be in it.”

  “Probably,” said Penelope.

  They walked along in silence.

  “Do you know what classes you’re taking?” asked Penelope.

  “Not yet,” said Ted. “Maybe that one, Images of Shakespeare? Are you gonna take that?”

  “Oh, definitely,” said Penelope. “I think I may also take that one about Bach.”

  “I might also take that. It gets lit and arts B out of the way, at least,” said Ted.

  “Yeah,” said Penelope.

  “What about the others?” said Ted.

  “I haven’t quite decided yet. Maybe Counting People?”

  “Sounds like a good plan,” said Ted. They were at the stoop. Ted and Penelope stared at each other for a brief yet awful moment. During this moment, Ted ran his fingers through his hair, causing his bangs to stick out perpendicularly from his forehead like a visor. Penelope moved to go inside.

  “Listen, Penelope,” said Ted. “I just want to apologize for the other night at the ice cream social.”

  “Oh, Ted,” said Penelope, “what ice cream social?”

  “I guess I don’t really remember what I did. I was really drunk, and I have this feeling I acted like an asshole. You probably had to take care of me or something. I’m sorry.”

  “Ted, you were fine.”

  “I was just so drunk. I don’t remember anything. Did I do anything really embarrassing?”

  “No,” said Penelope. “Gosh, no.”

  “Good,” said Ted.

  “Well, I’m going inside,” said Penelope.

  “Penelope …”

  “What?” said Penelope, her hand on the door.

  “Nothing,” said Ted. “It’s just I hope you aren’t mad, that’s all.”

  “Oh, I’m definitely not,” said Penelope. “Thanks for saying that though.”

  “Sure,” said Ted.

  Two days later, Ted and Penelope were in Shakespeare class. They sat next to each other now. As long as Ted didn’t mention the Helen of Troy business, Penelope felt this was within the realm of propriety. He was taking all her classes, after all. They might as well be friends. She also didn’t have to go to dinner alone anymore if they were friends. So there were many advantages to the relationship.

  “Was Shakespeare fat? Well, according to this late seventeenth-century woodcut, he most definitely was,” said the professor.

  “He doesn’t look that fat. I think she’s being a little harsh,” whispered Penelope to Ted.

  “Hey, Penelope. I just got an e-mail. We can look and see if we got called back to chorus tryouts.”

  “You check,” said Penelope.

  Ted checked.

  “We’re both called back! Auditions are on Sunday! Are you excited?”

  “Did the Cats girl get called back?” asked Penelope.

  “I think so, uh, yup.”

  “Well, then I don’t even have a chance. But yes, I suppose I’m excited.”

  “We have to learn some ‘old standards’ of the group. What do you think that means?”

  “I don’t know,” said Penelope. “Maybe barbershop quartets. Since you have such a high voice, that might be really good for you.”

  “Thanks, I guess,” said Ted.

  “I can’t believe it’s on a Sunday,” said Penelope.

  “Yeah. That sucks. Ron wrote a note at the bottom of the audition sheet saying, ‘There is no rest for the weary.’ ”

  “Is that a joke?” asked Penelope.

  After class was over, Ted and Penelope walked across the Yard to Annenberg Hall for lunch. Jason was already sitting in their usual spot, which was a corner table next to a frightening bust of Governor John Winthrop. Jason seemed to tailor all his mealtimes to Ted and Penelope’s, even though he refused to talk to either of them while he was eating. He did seem to like Harvard food a lot. Today he was making short work of chicken cheesesteak with a side of beets.

  “You know,” said Ted after he and Penelope sat down, “I am glad I am doing something musical now. I always liked music. I was in a band in high school, you know.”

  “What was it called?” asked Penelope.

  “Ted Only Knows. We practiced at my house, so that was why it was called that,” said Ted.

  “Cool,” said Penelope.

  “So, Penelope,” said Ted, “what are you doing this weekend?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “There is a party at the Ten-Man in Currier tonight.”

  “Ooh, a party. I have not gone to one of those yet,” said Penelope.

  “It should be fun. Ten guys live there this year and they always have parties. Nikil knows one of them for some reason,” said Ted. “Well, do you want to go?”

  “Sure,” said Penelope. Jason sighed.

  “Oh, shut up, Jason,” said Ted. “It’s tonight. I’ll call you after class.”

  Penelope beamed at Ted. It was humid out and Ted’s bangs were hovering over his forehead in cloudy curls, almost as if they didn’t exist. If only they didn’t, Penelope thought.

  Later that day, after another interminable lecture about Bach’s childhood predilection to crawl in and out of organs, Penelope returned to her room. Lan was in the common room reading. This was unusual. Penelope had seen Lan only four times since she started school, and three of those times had been in the bathroom.

  “Hey, Lan,” said Penelope, closing the door behind her. She felt the irrepressible urge to sneeze.

  Lan said nothing.

  Penelope sat down at her desk and took out her laptop. On the second day of classes, in a state of manic tidiness that involved several calls to Russia, Emma had said there was not enough space in their room for two desks and moved Penelope’s desk into the common room. As a result, Penelope was currently sitting about four feet away from Lan’s cigarette.

  Penelope tried again. “So,” she said, “what are you reading?”

  “A mystery,” said Lan.

  “What’s it called?” asked Penelope.

  “I forget.”

  “Oh,” said Penelope. “That’s cool. I love mysteries. I used to have a crush on Hercule Poirot. From ages eleven to thirteen.”

  “That’s weird,” said Lan.

  “Yeah,” said Penelope. “Wow. I need to do some homework!” They sat in silence. Lan read. Penelope sneezed ten times in a row. Maybe she was getting a cold. It would be a fitting punishment for constantly saying idiotic things.

  “Hey, Penelope, guess what?”

  “What?” said Penelope.

  “I got a cat today. His name is Raymond.”

  “Really? That’s cool. For your home? In California?”

  “No! For here. For the dorm. He lives in my room. I think I can train him to go to the bathroom in the toilet.”

  Penelope’s eyes started to water. Another thing her mother had told her not to mention in mixed company was her debilitating allergies. Penelope’s mother said there were many negative stereotypes associated with allergies but declined to mention specifically what they were. She was, often, infuriating.

  “Oh, Lan,” said Penelope. “That is awesome. It’s just that I am really allergic to cats, like really a
llergic.”

  “Oh,” said Lan.

  “Yeah, my eyes swell up and everything, from the cat hair and stuff.”

  “It’s a hairless cat,” said Lan, not looking up from her book.

  “Oh, really? Wow. Well, I guess that’s fine then,” said Penelope. “How does it look?”

  “Cute,” said Lan. “Well, I have to go to my room.”

  “What are you doing tonight?” asked Penelope as Lan put out her cigarette on the floor.

  “Watching my iTunes visualizer,” said Lan. “What are you doing?”

  “Well,” said Penelope, “I am going to a party at the Ten-Man in Currier. I haven’t been to a party yet here, so it should be pretty fun.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” said Lan. “I wouldn’t be caught dead at one of those.”

  “Why?” said Penelope.

  “Because it is always terrible when nerds pretend to be cool,” said Lan. “I bet they even have an ice luge to drink beer out of or something.”

  Just then, the cat came out of Lan’s room. Part of its ear was missing. It was also covered in gray fur.

  Lan and Penelope stared at each other.

  “Bye,” said Lan, and ran into her room. The cat followed.

  Penelope sneezed. Then she wondered how you could train a cat to pee in a toilet.

  One of Penelope’s more unfortunate qualities was her tendency to view social occasions, such as parties, as cataclysmic events that would shape her destiny. She was often disappointed. Disappointment, however, did not lead to greater insight. Penelope still applied her eyeliner with a certain fatalism even before the most banal of activities, such as grocery shopping.

  After Lan disappeared into her room, presumably to play with the “hairless” cat, Penelope could barely concentrate. She tried to read an article about Bach’s father’s organ and gave up. The prospect of the night’s activities was too exciting. What if she met someone really handsome? What if this person had chin-length blond hair? What if she charmed this person not just with wit but also good looks? What types of things would she say during that process?

  Penelope alternately tried on clothes and thought increasingly fantastic thoughts for the next three hours. She missed dinner, dithering. By the time Ted finally knocked on her door, she had already changed her nail polish twice.

  “Hey, Penelope,” said Ted, hanging awkwardly near the doorway. “Wow.”

  “What do you mean, wow?” said Penelope.

  “I was just wondering if you wanted to go downstairs and pregame in Nikil’s room.” Nikil had been having “pregames” since the beginning of school, but Penelope had never been invited. Sometimes she thought she might just go, uninvited, as people were wont to do in movies about college, but she never did.

  “Aren’t we going to the party?” asked Penelope.

  “Well, we are, but that doesn’t start for a while. There are a couple of things going on tonight actually, but they all start later.”

  “OK,” said Penelope. “Let’s go. This is exciting.”

  Penelope and Ted walked down the stairs.

  “I don’t think this pregame will be exciting,” said Ted.

  “Why not?” asked Penelope.

  “First, I have been to pregames at Nikil’s before, and I know what they are like. And second, this is always Jason’s favorite part of the evening. He only likes pregaming. He always falls asleep at actual parties,” said Ted, and opened up Nikil’s door.

  Nikil and Glasses were sitting on their futon, typing on laptops. Jason, very red in the face, was sitting on the floor nursing a beer. Aside from a rather truculently displayed vodka bottle on the coffee table and two girls texting furiously next to it, it was exactly the same scene as the first night of school.

  “I thought pregames were different from this,” said Penelope in an undertone to Ted, who was making a beeline for the vodka bottle. “I thought there was going to be beer pong.”

  “You thought wrong. Drink this,” said Ted.

  “What is it?”

  “Straight vodka,” said Ted.

  “Ted, I can’t drink straight vodka,” said Penelope.

  “Penelope. You must. Down in one.”

  “Maybe I will sip mine. I think that is what they do in Russia.”

  “Hey, Ted,” said Glasses, finally looking up from his computer screen. Nikil was still typing. “What’s up?”

  “Nothing,” said Penelope, who took a dainty sip of her vodka while holding her nose.

  No one said anything after that. Eventually, one of the girls got up and sat on Glasses’s lap. Glasses looked enormously pleased. The girl had the largest breasts Penelope had ever seen. She was also very bug-eyed. Penelope wondered whether she had some kind of gland issue.

  “Hi! I’m Catherine, nice to meet you,” said the girl. She held out her hand and Penelope shook it. “Do you live here?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Penelope.

  “Awesome,” said the girl. “I live in Grays, but I hang out here all the time. It’s basically like I live here.” Then she oriented her body completely in the direction of Ted.

  “Are you going to the thing in Currier tonight?” she asked him. Ted took another gulp of his vodka and grimaced.

  “I think so,” said Ted.

  “Everyone has been saying it sucks and that we should go to Eliot.” Eliot was another dorm for upperclassmen. Penelope had heard it was one of the nicer ones.

  “Why does everyone say it sucks?” asked Ted.

  “Just like nobody is there. And they haven’t set up the luge thing yet. I dunno. I think we should go to Eliot.”

  “I mean, whatever you guys want to do. I think we should go to the Ten-Man, but I am flexible,” said Ted.

  Catherine then turned toward Glasses. She kissed him on the forehead.

  “What do you want to do?” she asked Glasses, smoothing his hair with the flat of her palm.

  “I don’t know,” said Glasses. He looked stunned.

  “Well, fine, let’s go to Currier. But it’s gonna suck,” said Catherine. Glasses’s awkwardness in the face of such hairstyling did not seem to faze her. Penelope was mentally congratulating Catherine on the inner resilience it must take to pursue such an utterly unromantic individual when it occurred to her that Glasses was not her real object. Catherine was staring at Ted with an intensely bug-like expression.

  “Well, if we are going to go to Currier, we might as well take a shot before we go,” said Catherine to Ted. “Emmeline, come here!” said Catherine to her friend. Emmeline—the picture of plump, plain docility—waddled over.

  Catherine set up several paper cups and poured vodka into them. Nikil stopped typing on his computer, and the whole of the party assembled somberly around the coffee table.

  “OK, guys, bottoms up,” said Catherine. “One, two, three …”

  “You know? I already have vodka, in my cup here, that I am sipping, so I think I am fine,” said Penelope.

  “Oh, come on, Penelope,” said Ted.

  “Yeah, come on, Penelope,” said Catherine. “Take a shot.”

  “Well, OK,” said Penelope.

  “We’ll all do it together,” said Catherine. “One, two, three …”

  Penelope had her first shot ever.

  “So what classes are you taking?” yelled the guy whom Penelope was dancing with. Penelope forgot his name. He was sweating profusely. Dancing was a very aerobic activity for him, as it involved many aggressive leg kicks.

  “Oh, you know,” said Penelope. “What classes are you taking?”

  “EC 10, Justice, Math 21, and Expos. And I am auditing a physics class. I don’t know. I’m taking it kind of easy this semester.”

  “But what a finely balanced course load you have! It says to me that you have a finely balanced mind. Like Hercule Poirot’s,” said Penelope, tapping her head significantly.

  “That’s so weird! That’s exactly what my guidance counselor said about me when I graduated high school. That I was well round
ed,” said her dance partner.

  “Wow,” said Penelope. “That is cool. Maybe I should be a guidance counselor.”

  Penelope had been at the party in Currier for approximately fifteen minutes. She was the drunkest she had ever been, which is why she was dancing. No one else was, because almost no one was there. However, there was much effort to make the gathering seem festive. The lights were off. Beer bottles were strewn everywhere. An elaborate ice luge was set up in the middle of the room. Glasses was drinking beer out of it while Nikil pumped his fist in the air and cheered him on. Penelope felt an intense sense of embarrassment whenever she looked at that ice luge. Catherine, Emmeline, and Ted were standing in a cluster next to a makeshift bar. Catherine was wearing an incredibly small spaghetti-strap tank top. Every time Ted said anything at all, she hugged him. Ted’s back was to Penelope, so she couldn’t see his reaction to all the affection. Jason was sleeping in a heap on the floor. Emmeline was texting.

  “Are you having a good time?” asked Penelope’s dance partner.

  “Hmm … Where is everyone?” asked Penelope.

  “Well, our tutor came in like right before you guys came, because it was sort of loud in here, and we didn’t register the party.”

  “You have to register the party?”

  “Yeah, you have to tell the administration the Thursday before you have a party. And this was kind of spur of the moment, so we didn’t register it. Our tutor broke it up. Also, we didn’t get the beer luge to work until after everybody left.”

  “I can see now that it is working,” said Penelope, staring at Glasses, who was now trying to shove Nikil’s face into the luge.

  “Woo! Yeah, man! College!” said Penelope’s dance partner at a blistering volume, presumably at Glasses and Nikil, who wooted back.

  “Wouldn’t more people have to be here for this to be collegiate? Or maybe the luge would have to be less elaborate? Or more elaborate. Something would have to be different I think. The luge would probably play a big part in it,” said Penelope. Her dance partner kicked quite high in response.

  “Wow. You almost hit your own face with your leg!” said Penelope. “That’s quite impressive.” Just then, Ted walked over to her.

  “Penelope, do you want to go to Eliot with us?”