Penelope

by Rebecca Harrington

  “That would be good I think,” said Penelope.

  “OK, well you should say good-bye to your friend here,” said Ted.

  “I am sorry, my friend, I have to go,” Penelope said, patting him on the arm.

  “OK,” said her dance partner, “see you around.” He did not seem too regretful to see her go. Such accomplished dancing is best done alone, thought Penelope.

  Currier was in the Radcliffe quad about a half mile away from Harvard Yard. All the dorms were coed now, but the inconvenient distance between the old girls’ campus and the main campus remained the same. To get back to the regular campus, where Eliot was, Ted, Penelope, and their friends had to take a shuttle bus.

  The bus was extremely crowded. There were no seats. Someone had vomited earlier in the night and it was rolling around on the floor. Catherine, Emmeline, Jason, Glasses, and Nikil were stuck in the front of the bus. Ted and Penelope were pushed very close together in the back of the bus. All the handrails were taken, so Penelope had to hang on to Ted’s coat.

  “Oh, hi,” she said.

  “Hi!” said Ted. “Did you have fun?”

  “No,” said Penelope.

  “But you kept dancing with that guy. Was that fun?”

  “I couldn’t really keep up with him. He was too good at dancing,” said Penelope.

  “You’re a decent dancer though,” said Ted. “I saw. I thought you did a pretty good job.”

  “What a lie,” said Penelope. “Did you have fun?”

  “No,” said Ted.

  “That is because you weren’t dancing. At the next party, I want you to do the worm on the floor.”

  “Are you serious?” asked Ted.

  “I am just looking out for your welfare. If you want to have fun, that is what you must do,” said Penelope.

  “Thanks, Penelope,” said Ted. He scratched his scalp, temporarily moving his bangs off his forehead. Then they flopped back down again like a leaden weight.

  Ted took out his flask and drank out of it.

  “Want some?” he asked Penelope. Penelope shrugged her shoulders.

  “Sometimes I wonder if you are an alcoholic. Like William Faulkner,” said Penelope. She took a sip. It was warm vodka.

  “Eww,” said Penelope. “My mouth is numb.”

  “Are you OK?” asked Ted.

  “Is the pope in Rome?” asked Penelope. She laughed. This was one of her mother’s favorite expressions.

  Just then, Catherine, narrowly avoiding stepping in vomit, made her way toward the back of the bus.

  “This is where you guys were! I was so worried!” said Catherine.

  “Why?” said Ted.

  “Oh, I don’t know. I was worried you weren’t going to see us when you got off. We have to get off like right now. Come on, Ted.” Catherine grabbed his arm and Penelope followed behind them.

  The Eliot party was stuffed with people, which was good, but the lights were on, which was hard. Some people were dancing like crazed, uncoordinated animals. The rest were collecting in small terrible groups around the room.

  Penelope was standing in a group with Ted, Catherine, Glasses, and a sophomore named Phoebe who was regaling them all with a story of her summer internship.

  “I worked like fifteen-hour days. And sure, it was hard. But, in the end, it is an architectural dig in Malta. It’s going to be hard. But it’s also going to be interesting. I wish I could have planned my sophomore essay more, but hey? Trade-offs.”

  “Is that Mariah Carey I hear?” said Penelope.

  “I think so,” said Ted.

  “Didn’t you just love Malta? I always think it’s so impressive,” said Catherine. She put her arm in the crook of Ted’s arm.

  “Cool,” said Penelope. “I am going to go dance. Come on, you.” She pointed at Glasses and then took him by the elbow and led him away to the dance floor.

  “Penelope,” said Glasses, once they were dancing, “how do you know so many words to Mariah Carey songs?”

  “I don’t really know,” said Penelope. She was watching Catherine shimmy up and down Ted like a pole.

  “You are a good dancer,” said Glasses.

  “Thanks,” said Penelope.

  “Do you want another drink?” said Glasses.

  “Not really. I keep seeing two of you, and that’s not correct,” said Penelope.

  Almost immediately after Penelope uttered this sentence, Glasses grabbed each side of her face and kissed her, mostly with his incisors, on the mouth. Eventually Penelope wrangled loose, but it took her a good thirty seconds. She saw Ted out of the corner of her eyes as she struggled for freedom. He looked shocked. She also heard Catherine laughing. Her laugh was very annoying, probably due to her gland problem.

  “Hey,” said Penelope when she finally extricated herself. “Why did you do that? I didn’t think you even liked me very much.”

  “I don’t,” said Glasses. Then he vomited on Penelope’s shoes.

  “Oh,” said Penelope. “Well, I think that’s that.” She went to go find her pocketbook.

  When Penelope arrived at the entrance of Pennypacker, it was 2:30 a.m.

  She still had vomit all over her shoes. She tried rubbing her shoes in the grass, but that seemed to make it worse. She walked home by herself, as everyone else was going to get burritos at a late-night Mexican place. Ted had stayed behind with Catherine to help her decide what burrito she wanted.

  As Penelope walked home, she saw hundreds of people walking around, all dressed up for some kind of festive gathering. Where were they going? She hadn’t seen any of these people actually inside any parties. Did they dress up to mill around the campus with a sense of purpose? Were they just going to go home? Were they all going to go to a Mexican restaurant?

  Penelope wearily climbed the stairs to her suite and opened its door. Emma was not back yet, but she very rarely slept in their room now, or maybe slept at all. Lan was not home either, as her door was open. Penelope sat down on the futon. She took off her vomit-soaked shoes and threw them in the bathroom, hoping they wouldn’t splatter. She picked up a copy of Beowulf that happened to be lying on the floor and started reading it. Someone was eating someone else, but Penelope could not tell why or if either was Beowulf, when Raymond the cat ran out of Lan’s room and jumped up on the futon to hiss at Penelope.

  After a couple of minutes of uninterrupted hissing, which Penelope did not reward with any attention, because she had read about this very situation in her mother’s book Dr. Spock’s Baby and Child Care, Raymond stopped abruptly. He put his head on Penelope’s knee, which is exactly what Dr. Spock said would happen. Penelope patted him. She fell asleep on the futon, sneezing.

  Penelope awoke the next day to a searing headache. At first she thought it was because Raymond was sleeping on her head. Yet even after she removed him, and put Neosporin on the places where he clawed at her scalp and drew blood in revenge, she felt no relief. The pain of Raymond’s not inconsiderable talons was nothing to the pain and attendant light sensitivity that was now pulverizing Penelope’s brain. Every time she sneezed she felt she was about to vomit. Penelope decided that the best medicine for this sort of affliction was sleep and proceeded to lie back down on the futon.

  Just then, she heard a violent knocking at the door.

  “Penelope!” yelled Ted. “Open up! We’re late!”

  “Late for what?” yelled Penelope, prostrate on the futon. Raymond had resumed his position on her head and was, in a friendly way, digging his claws into the tops of her ears.

  “The auditions! Remember? Open up.”

  “Oh, right,” said Penelope. She sat up. When Raymond saw that Penelope was going to head toward the door, he jumped down from her head, forced himself into her arms, and demanded, by a series of hisses, to be carried over to the door as well. Penelope opened the door with her free hand. Ted was standing there wearing a red polo shirt.

  “Penelope! We have to go! Are you still wearing your clothes from last night? Also
, you are holding a cat.”

  “Yes, his name is Raymond.”

  “Is he yours?”

  “No, he is Lan’s,” said Penelope.

  “He looks feral,” said Ted.

  “I definitely think he is,” said Penelope.

  “Get changed!” said Ted.

  Penelope went into her room. She took off her dress from last night and threw it, haphazardly, in her bureau. She found an inoffensive outfit lying crumpled next to her bed and put it on. She went to the bathroom and splashed her face with bracing water until the bags under her eyes looked more pronounced. She brushed her hair and put it in a ponytail. She looked in the medicine cabinet to find some aspirin and found several unpronounceable drugs that were not aspirin.

  “OK, let’s just go,” said Penelope to Ted as she grabbed her coat and slid out the door. “And try not to talk very loud.”

  “OK,” said Ted.

  They were about a block away from Pennypacker when Ted said, “Did you make it home OK last night?”

  “I mean, I am alive,” said Penelope. “But I am going to strenuously emphasize to Glasses there that he should never drink again.”

  “Glasses? You mean Mike?”

  “Perhaps. The one who vomited on my shoes.”

  “Yeah, Mike. The guy who kissed you.”

  “Hmm,” said Penelope.

  “Are you OK?” said Ted. “You look green, kind of.”

  “Oh, sure. I’m fine,” said Penelope.

  “It seemed like a really toothy kiss,” continued Ted, indefatigable in the cause of truth, because of objectivism. “Was it?”

  “It was on the toothy side,” said Penelope. “I think. That point in the night is rather hazy to me. I think I blocked it out.”

  “I wish I had blocked it out,” said Ted. “It was pretty disturbing. Especially when he hurled on you.”

  “I know,” said Penelope. “I wonder if my shoes will ever be the same. Did you have fun?”

  “Not really,” said Ted.

  “Oh, why not? Didn’t you have fun with Catherine?” Even as she said it, it sounded hollow to her ears.

  “Catherine? Yeah, I guess she’s OK. She’s kind of annoying. Like she kept going on about that burrito, and when we got there, she made me pick the meat, and I picked steak, and then she said she didn’t eat red meat, which is understandable, but then why did she make me pick it, you know? She was fine after that, I guess. I didn’t think the parties were very fun, that’s all. I mean, I never think the parties are very fun here.”

  “Yeah, I don’t know,” said Penelope. Suddenly, her headache overwhelmed her. “Wow, I feel so ill. I don’t think I can audition for this chorus. I think I’m going to faint.”

  “You must,” said Ted. “I already got you up. It would be a waste of all the effort that you spent in getting here.”

  “True,” said Penelope. They were at the door to the church basement.

  “OK,” said Ted. “Let’s go inside.” Ted opened the door and Penelope followed him. They walked down a long, carpeted hallway toward the music practice room. The whole basement smelled faintly of mildew. Penelope wondered why the interiors of all religious buildings she had ever been in smelled of mildew. This church was nondenominational too, which seemed somehow worse.

  The basement was eerily silent considering there was a choral practice going on. However, this soon made sense when they got to the practice room and a choral practice was not going on. The room was empty.

  “What the hell?” said Ted. He started reading a piece of paper that was plastered to the door.

  “Why is this room empty? Did we miss it?” said Penelope in a strangled tone. She hoped they had missed it. She was trying to think of things that would make her forget the crushing pain in her head. So far she had come up with the face of Millard Fillmore, who many people have maintained was the best-looking US president.

  “Oh, the practice isn’t until tomorrow,” said Ted. “I thought it said today.”

  “Oh,” said Penelope. She closed her eyes.

  “Well, I guess we can go to brunch now,” said Ted.

  When Penelope and Ted arrived in Annenberg Hall for brunch, they saw Glasses, Nikil, and Jason eating at a table near the marble bust of James Russell Lowell. James Russell Lowell had been a Victorian professor and his bust had the distinction of being the only one in Annenberg that declined the use of a shirt. All the other busts wore shirts, and some had ties.

  “It is often hard to tell the difference between narcissism and bravery,” said Penelope gravely to Ted. Her headache was finally going away.

  Nikil, Glasses, and Jason were huddled as closely together as people with lunch trays could possibly be huddled, and they seemed to be having a rousing conversation. This was out of character. They usually ate in silence, or while group reading, or while doing a puzzle. As Penelope walked closer to them, she could hear Nikil’s winded, nasal, and frighteningly high laugh. Previously, Penelope had heard Nikil laugh only in response to very violent Internet cartoons, so she was immediately put on her guard.

  When the boys saw Penelope and Ted coming toward them, their demeanor changed. The conversation stopped. Nikil gave everyone a significant glance. Jason started whispering very animatedly to Glasses.

  “Hi, everyone,” said Ted, and sat down at the table. The whispering ceased abruptly.

  “What are you guys doing here?” said Nikil. “I thought you had chorus practice or something.”

  “We messed up the time,” said Ted.

  Jason giggled.

  “Oh, man,” said Jason.

  “You should have texted us,” said Nikil.

  “Why?” asked Ted.

  “Catherine is with us,” said Nikil. He cleared his throat. “She’s getting a waffle.”

  “That’s fine,” said Ted in a clipped tone.

  “That’s fine?” said Nikil.

  “That’s awkward!” yelled Jason. This made Glasses start laughing.

  “It’s fine,” said Ted. “I’m going to get food.”

  “Me too,” said Penelope.

  Penelope ran after Ted.

  “Let’s not get waffles,” said Ted. “They take too long.”

  “OK,” said Penelope. They entered the servery as far away as possible from the waffle line.

  Penelope helped herself to two large servings of corned beef hash. Then she said, “Those guys are acting kind of funny, huh?”

  “I guess,” said Ted.

  “OK, maybe they aren’t,” said Penelope.

  They went back to the table. Catherine had just arrived from getting her waffle. She was wearing see-through striped pajama pants, pink furry slippers, a zip-up Harvard sweatshirt, and a lime-green spaghetti-strap tank top without a bra.

  “Hey,” said Catherine in a soft, tremulous way. Ted started eating his cereal quickly.

  A painful awkwardness overawed the table.

  “Hey!” said Penelope, who had been looking at Catherine’s waffle. “I didn’t know the waffle irons here had the Harvard coat of arms on them.” Catherine’s waffle was much like a normal Belgian waffle, except there was a large divot in the middle where syrup and butter were collecting. Embossed in the divot was the Harvard motto, “Veritas,” emblazoned in a shield.

  “Oh, yeah,” said Catherine. “All the waffles have the Harvard coat of arms on them. I think it’s so cute!”

  “But does it ruin the waffle-eating experience?” asked Penelope.

  No one said anything to this. Ted ate his Marshmallow Mateys with a stricken look. Jason and Glasses started whispering to each other again. Penelope looked up at the face of James Russell Lowell and resolved to read his biography, if he had one.

  “I’m gonna go,” said Ted. He got up from the table. Penelope had never seen anyone eat cereal that quickly. She hadn’t even started on her second lump of corned beef hash. By the time she finished this thought, Ted had already bused his tray.

  “Me too,” said Nikil, who als
o stood up. “I have so much work to do it’s ridiculous. I’ll probably be working for the rest of my life.”

  “What do you have to do?” asked Penelope.

  “I have a paper I need to get a head start on. It’s due in four weeks,” said Nikil. “And I have to prepare for class. You can’t go to class unprepared.”

  “Well, you can,” said Penelope.

  “No, you can’t,” snapped Nikil. He turned on his heel and walked away.

  Glasses and Jason stood up hazily, as if unsure of what to do.

  “Well,” said Glasses, “I guess we better be going too.” Glasses glanced absentmindedly at Penelope. She wondered if he remembered that yesterday he had kissed her and vomited on her shoes. It seemed like he didn’t.

  “Yeah,” said Jason.

  “OK,” said Penelope.

  And with that he and Glasses walked away. This left Penelope and Catherine sitting across from each other. Penelope ate more corned beef hash.

  “Those boys are so cute, aren’t they?” said Catherine.

  “Hmm?” said Penelope.

  “I love all those guys,” said Catherine. “They are hilarious.”

  “Ha ha ha,” said Penelope.

  “Still,” continued Catherine, drumming her fingers on the table impatiently, her eyes flitting around the room like moths, “it’s nice to have girl time. I need to hang out with girls more. I never hang out with girls.”

  “They are dumb,” said Penelope.

  “I know, right?” said Catherine. “Last night was so fun. Did you have fun?”

  “Maybe,” said Penelope. “I left sort of early.”

  “Oh, really?” asked Catherine.

  “Well, that guy vomited on my shoes,” said Penelope.

  “Oh, right! That was hilarious!” said Catherine.

  “Yeah,” said Penelope.

  “Mike was just like, ‘Who was that girl?’ afterward. It was so funny.”

  “That’s weird because I think he definitely knows who I am. Since I live so near him. And we made out yesterday,” said Penelope.

  “Can I tell you something?” said Catherine. She lowered her voice and pivoted her entire torso onto the table, narrowly missing her waffle. “Do you promise not to tell anyone?”