Penelope

by Rebecca Harrington

  “No,” said Ted. “Don’t go!” He pulled her back down on the futon.

  “OK,” said Penelope.

  They sat next to each other in silence for a minute or so, while Penelope tried desperately to think of something to say. During this silence, Ted went to sleep on Penelope’s shoulder. It was amazing how many people Penelope knew who could go to sleep in a matter of seconds. Ted put his face in such a position that his lips were slightly grazing her upper arm. If she moved her shoulder, Ted would kiss her entire arm. She decided to stay in one place, frozen like a mannequin, to avoid this.

  “Penelope,” said Ted into her shoulder.

  “Yes,” said Penelope.

  “Hi,” said Ted. Now he was kissing her shoulder. Penelope stared straight ahead. Then Ted started kissing her neck. All this was alarming. Penelope was not sure whether she was friends with Catherine in the classic sense, but she had a feeling that if Catherine burst in at this moment, as she was wont to do, she would think this was a breach of propriety on Penelope’s part.

  “Hey, Ted,” said Penelope, trying to laugh.

  “What?” said Ted. He was moving up to her face. Penelope felt his lips on the corner of her mouth.

  “Ted,” said Penelope, “what are you doing?”

  “Nothing,” said Ted. His mouth had migrated dangerously close to hers.

  “What are you doing?” asked Penelope stupidly again.

  “Nothing,” said Ted. He kissed her firmly on the lips. Penelope opened her mouth slightly in shock and Ted stuck his tongue rather aggressively through her teeth, where it flapped around like a dying fish.

  Despite the fact that this style of kissing betrayed a history of sexual ineptitude on the part of Ted, it was not an entirely unpleasant sensation, and Penelope let it go on for some minutes. Eventually, however, Penelope felt like she had to get certain things straight to maintain moral consistency. So, in the midst of some awkward repositioning on the futon, she said:

  “I have a question.”

  “What is it?” said Ted.

  “Are you dating Catherine?” asked Penelope.

  “No,” said Ted. He repositioned Penelope so that her pelvis was uncomfortably jutting into his hip bone.

  “But didn’t you just hook up with her?” asked Penelope.

  “Only twice. Plus, it’s not like that,” said Ted. He kissed Penelope again on the cheek. “She knows that.”

  “Really?” said Penelope.

  “Yeah,” said Ted.

  “Well, OK,” said Penelope. “I also have another question.”

  “OK,” said Ted.

  “Why did you say that thing to me about Helen of Troy?”

  “What are you talking about?” said Ted, exasperated.

  “That time you were drunk, and you said I wasn’t like Helen of Troy or something. Do you remember that?”

  “Oh, that,” said Ted. “That was a joke!”

  “Oh,” said Penelope.

  Ted kissed her on the mouth again.

  “But,” he said, laughing. “You don’t actually think you look like Helen of Troy, do you? That would be a little inflated.”

  “It’s not that I think I look like Helen of Troy,” said Penelope. “But—”

  “Someone is an egomaniac!” interrupted Ted.

  “Ha ha,” said Penelope. It occurred to her that this was an odd binary for discussion, this Helen of Troy gamut. No one knew what Helen of Troy looked like. It also occurred to her that Ted wore shorts all the time even when it was objectively cold out, kissed like a dying fish, and was probably involved in some sort of secret engagement with Catherine that would inevitably conclude in a Gretna Green elopement.

  “I am so tired,” said Penelope. “I need to go to bed.”

  “What?” said Ted. He looked stunned. Penelope was off the futon at this point, putting her hair back into its ponytail.

  “I’m sorry,” said Penelope, putting on her shoes, even though she was only going to walk two steps into her bedroom. “I am exhausted.”

  “What’s going on?” said Ted.

  “I am just exhausted. I might have mono,” said Penelope.

  “But you just had an ear infection!” said Ted, now putting on his shoes.

  “I think it was a symptom,” said Penelope.

  “Are you OK?” asked Ted.

  “Yeah,” said Penelope. She was standing in front of the door with her arms crossed and her shoes completely on.

  “Can I see you another time?”

  “I am worried I am a permanent invalid,” said Penelope.

  “What?” said Ted. He put on his shoes angrily. “Well, bye, I guess.” He left then, muttering things under his breath.

  5.

  Caligula

  “Penelope, you will never guess what happened!” said Catherine after she barged into Penelope’s suite, knocking the recycling bin out of the doorway with her foot.

  “What?” said Penelope. She was nervous that Catherine had found out about her activities with Ted the night before and was trying to lure her into a confession with a congenial, unsuspicious manner. If so, Penelope had to respect that. It was very Poirot.

  “Ted and I are officially going out!” said Catherine. She flopped down on the futon next to Penelope.

  Penelope swiftly put down her copy of the biography of James Russell Lowell. She felt shock but also a sense of expectation fulfilled. “When did this happen?”

  “Last night! Can you believe it?”

  “How did this happen?” asked Penelope.

  “We were hooking up last night and he just asked me. I didn’t see him until really late. It was weird. He like left the pregame for three hours, and I was like, where did he go? But yeah, we are like going out going out,” said Catherine.

  “That is really awesome,” said Penelope.

  “I knew you would be happy for me,” said Catherine. “I am also really happy for myself. He is totally obsessed with me.” Catherine lounged back against the futon seat. She was wearing a pink cropped angora sweater that was obscenely tight and shedding all over the futon. “I didn’t even really want to date him.”

  Penelope did not want to say anything that would make Catherine suspicious about where Ted had been during those missing three hours before he asked the eternal question (although if Catherine were as good a detective as Poirot, it would be the nonverbal clues that would eventually betray the truth), so she decided to stay silent and think of something innocuous to say. Catherine yammered on about love, marriage, and commitments that stretched deep into the foreseeable future without seeming to mind.

  When it became absolutely necessary for Penelope to speak, she was saved by Emma running through the door.

  “Penelope. Thank God you’re here!” she said. “I need you to do me a huge favor!”

  “What?” said Penelope. Emma was wearing a cable-knit sweater in a hideous shade of pale yet also fluorescent green. Penelope had never been so glad to see her.

  “I need you to come down to the theater with me like right now.”

  “OK,” said Penelope. Penelope did not know that Emma was involved in a theatrical extracurricular, but it didn’t really surprise her. Emma was involved with every known extracurricular, including a hospitality service that provided refrigerators in dorms.

  “Wait, why do you need to go to the theater?” asked Catherine.

  “Oh, hi,” said Emma to Catherine. “You can come too, whoever you are.”

  “We actually have met before,” said Catherine. “The other day. I introduced myself on the stairs.”

  “Oh, maybe,” said Emma. “I am terrible with names. Penelope, I really need as many people as possible to help me out, OK? We really need people to play guards in this production of Caligula. You don’t even have to talk! I am desperate. Even Lan is helping.”

  “Wait, we have to play something?” whispered Catherine to Penelope. “That is a huge commitment! I don’t think I can do this.”

  “Lan
is helping?” said Penelope.

  “Yeah,” said Emma.

  “You asked her?”

  “Yeah,” said Emma, looking uncomfortable. “Why is that such a big deal?”

  “I am coming,” said Penelope.

  “I don’t know, should I come?” said Catherine. “I have so much work. I have my essay for Expos due, I have a problem set, I have an essay to write for a couple of comps I am doing. I am just totally swamped.”

  “You don’t have to come if you don’t want to,” said Penelope.

  “OK, I am coming,” said Catherine. “I did a lot of theater in high school. I was the lead in almost every play, but it wasn’t like the plays were for losers or anything. The cool kids did it too.”

  “OK,” said Emma, as if she expected such an answer. “Now let’s go.” She whipped out her international cell phone and brandished it at the door. Everyone followed her to the theater.

  The theater was housed in a large 1960s cement edifice of nonsensical geometry. Like many buildings of its time and era, it had a lot of windows but very little natural light to show for it. Penelope followed Emma inside the drama complex, past the larger main proscenium, to a tiny, filthy experimental theater in the back of the building. Inside this theater, a lot of people were talking worriedly in the middle of the stage.

  “I finally found two people to play guards!” yelled Emma as soon as she entered the room. This pronouncement caused quite a stir. Everyone clapped, and a middle-aged man stood on a chair.

  “Everyone sit down, please,” said the man standing on the chair.

  “That’s the director,” whispered Emma to Catherine and Penelope. “Go sit down.”

  Penelope and Catherine walked to the middle of the stage and sat down where everyone else was sitting. The director was still standing on a chair. He was a rangy kind of man with feathery hair that was more gesture than reality. He was wearing a black turtleneck, a black beret, and gaping jeans. He started to speak.

  “Well, first off, I think I should introduce myself to the new members of our little cast of characters. I’m Henry Wills-Mather and I am the director of this year’s production, Caligula.” Everyone gave Henry Wills-Mather a rousing round of applause. He continued:

  “At one time, I was a student at this very college. Now I know what you are thinking. It was in what you would now call the prehistoric times. We didn’t have cell phones, we didn’t have the Internet. It was that wilderness called the seventies.” Everyone laughed.

  “After I graduated from this fair institution, I worked in New York City for a long time, writing plays, directing plays, that sort of thing. Lee Strasberg, in the twilight of his years, once said to me, ‘Henry, you’ve really got something here.’ I was experiencing quite a bit of success, but I felt my life was missing something. And I realized what that was: working with kids and making them better writers, directors, teachers, and actors. I decided to come back here, a place I have so much fondness for, and share with you all as the artist in residence of off-campus housing. The administration was very pleased, if I do say so myself.

  “And now on to business. Thank you, late arrivals! We had some dropouts to the cast late in the game, which was unfortunate. Luckily, Emma, our producer, found us some actors. I trust her to not lead us astray. She did find a somewhat accomplished lighting designer.” Everyone laughed at this and Penelope reflected once again on how she really had to adapt her jokes to reflect the vaudevillian changes in taste that were happening around this country.

  “In all seriousness, we are so lucky to have someone who designed planetariums for so many years working for this very small, but I hope in a little way significant, endeavor.” Henry Wills-Mather gracefully gestured toward a corner of the room. “Take a bow, Lan Wu,” said Henry.

  “No,” said Lan.

  To Penelope’s utter shock, Lan was the lighting designer in question. Penelope had never seen Lan looking so out of sorts. She was wearing a shirt that said IT’S NOT RIGHT BUT IT’S OK: THE WHITNEY HOUSTON CONCERT TOUR. Penelope knew Lan hated Whitney Houston, because she asked her about that very early on. It was clearly a sign that something was amuck.

  “Lan legitimately is the best lighting designer in California,” Emma whispered to Penelope. “I was looking up lighting designers and I couldn’t believe it. She has designed like five planetariums. She did the lights for the Rolling Stones reunion tour.”

  “What?” said Penelope. “Why?”

  “I don’t know. But I knew if I got her to do this, it would be a huge deal.”

  “How did you get her to do it?” asked Penelope.

  “I just asked,” said Emma brusquely. “Lan was really nice about it.”

  “Hmm,” said Penelope. She was watching Lan, who was in the process of tattooing herself with the nib of a pen.

  “For those of you who have not read Caligula, I suggest you start,” said Henry Wills-Mather. “It is an exceedingly bleak, unremittingly existentialist play. Our production is going to revolutionize the text. We have a new translation from the French, as done by yours truly. (I am an amateur linguist in my spare time.) And we have a radical new way of conceptualizing Caligula herself or himself. Bitty, dear, I would like you to stand up.” An unseasonably tan girl stood up. She smiled at everyone.

  “Bitty is one of our Caligulas. Chris I would like you to stand up.” An adenoidal boy with a tiny rattail stood up. “This is one of our other Caligulas. If you have ever read Caligula, you know that Camus is examining the two sides of the tragic king’s personality: his subhuman logical side and his romantic emotional side. Our casting, and we will go into this more later, I think really reflects this. You two can sit down.” Chris and Bitty both sat down. “New arrivals,” said Henry Wills-Mather. “Stand up. Introduce yourselves!” Catherine and Penelope stood up. Henry Wills-Mather gave them scripts in binders.

  Catherine spoke first. “Hi, I am Catherine. I’m a freshman. I live in Grays. I’m considering a double concentration in economics and government. I actually do have a lot of experience in theater, so it is so funny I am doing this!”

  “Hi, I’m Penelope,” said Penelope.

  “Very good,” said Henry Wills-Mather. “Now, Guards (I am going to call you all by your character names from now on, so as to make you feel more in tune with the people you are playing), although you do not have speaking parts, your role here is very important, very important. I want you to come with a history for your character by our next rehearsal. Their likes and dislikes, that sort of thing. Write an essay about them. Note their entrances and exits. Are they worried about Caligula? Proud of him or her? In love with him or her? That is what you must think about to make your character real. I think that’s about all for you guys today. I have to work with the two Caligulas one-on-one for the rest of our rehearsal time. You all can go. Rehearsal schedules are attached to the scripts; let me know if you have any conflicts. Bonne chance!” Penelope glanced at Lan’s corner. She had already left.

  Penelope walked home with Catherine, who despite today’s intervening events was still on the subject of Ted.

  “It’s so funny that he is like my boyfriend now,” said Catherine. “Do I say, ‘My boyfriend, Ted,’ when I talk about him?”

  “Sure,” said Penelope.

  “That feels really weird to me,” said Catherine. Just then, she got a text.

  “Cute!” said Catherine.

  “What?” said Penelope.

  “Ted wants to have dinner with me,” said Catherine.

  “Where?” asked Penelope.

  “At this Chinese food place,” said Catherine.

  “Oh, cool,” said Penelope.

  “Well,” said Catherine. “Have fun with your dinner!”

  “What dinner?” asked Penelope.

  “I got to run,” yelled Catherine. She turned off in the direction of the Square.

  Penelope was glad Ted and Catherine were going on a date. She didn’t want to see Ted in Annenberg after what had occurr
ed yesterday. But if Catherine and Ted were occupied, she had no one to eat dinner with (she never faced Ted’s roommates on her own), so she went and got a slice of pizza, and read her e-mails on a public computer in one of the libraries. She got a rather long-winded one from Jared, in which he asked about her trip to the Bureau of Study Counsel and also why she did not respond to his last e-mail. Penelope wrote him quickly that her e-mail was broken and suggested that they communicate by letter.

  When Penelope returned to her suite, she saw Emma lying on the futon.

  Penelope assumed she was sleeping, so she tried to hang up her coat very quietly. As she tiptoed into the common room, she realized that Emma was not sleeping but sobbing, and rather loudly.

  “Emma,” said Penelope. “Are you all right? What’s the matter?”

  “Oh, Penelope,” said Emma. “I didn’t see you there.” Emma sat up. She looked theatrically miserable. All her makeup was running down her face in black streams. Her hair was matted in zoological clumps. She was wearing a sweatshirt that said NIGHTINGALE-BAMFORD on it. “It’s nothing. I’m just really stressed out.”

  “About what?” asked Penelope. “The play?”

  “Not just the play, although that’s really stressful too.”

  Emma’s voice caught and she started to cry more.

  “What is it?” said Penelope.

  “I can’t really talk about it,” said Emma.

  “OK,” said Penelope. “Do you want me to leave you alone?”

  “Well, OK, I’ll tell you,” said Emma. “But you have to keep this really secret. You can’t tell anyone. I mean, I don’t really know who you even know where it would actually matter, but still, it’s the principle of the thing.”

  “Yeah, sure,” said Penelope.

  “Well, it’s just Pudding stuff.”

  “Oh, OK,” said Penelope. She had no idea what Emma was talking about.

  “It’s like this finals club for freshmen,” said Emma in the breezy way she had of explaining things but not really explaining them. “I’m punching it now. I really want to get into it, mostly because it makes it so much easier to get into the real finals clubs later, but also because I just think it will be fun and a great way to meet cool people who you will know forever.”