Seventh Grade in the Life of Me, Penelope

by Alison Pollet

  “Gallivanting! I —”

  If her father was going to finish his sentence, Penelope didn’t let him. “Close the door behind you,” she instructed Nathaniel.

  “My friend Matty’s parents got divorced,” clamored Nathaniel as he shuffled into the room. “He’s got two apartments, a cat and a dog, and he celebrates Christmas twice. Do you think Mommy and Daddy will get divorced?”

  “Just ’cause they’re fighting doesn’t mean they’ll get divorced,” said Penelope, sitting up.

  “We could have two apartments!” he yelped happily. “I could get Atari in one and ColecoVision in the other.”

  “Don’t be dumb,” scolded Penelope

  “Sorry,” mumbled Nathaniel. He’d picked up Penelope’s bad habit of apologizing too much.

  Somehow — with the door closed and the TV on — they still managed to hear Mrs. Schwartzbaum stomping down the hallway toward the kitchen. “I can’t do this now, Herb!” she hollered. “I need some coffee. The week I’ve had! I’m so tired.” Penelope hadn’t heard those words in a while.

  Channel 7 came in perfectly in Penelope’s room. Nathaniel curled himself into a happy little red ball at the foot of her bed, and Penelope decided to do her homework. She hadn’t even started studying for the big Algebra test. Mr. Bobkin had handed out review problems. You had to add, subtract, and multiply Xs and Ys, and solve word problems about a guy named Mario running next to a trout stream.

  She sharpened her pencil and opened a pad of graph paper. She wrote her name in the top right hand of the page, one letter in every box. P-E-N-E-L-O-P-E. Oops, the last “E” took up one and a half boxes! Penelope crumpled up the paper and started again.

  The Smurfs turned to Scooby Doo, and Penelope struggled with Review Question #I. It was too hard. Maybe she’d do her Social Studies reading instead.

  Scooby Doo turned to Scrappy Doo. Penelope could hear faint sounds coming from the kitchen. Had her parents made up? She tried to concentrate on the reading.

  Scrappy Doo turned into an educational program, something about kids all over the world. Nathaniel watched a story about Eskimo kids who skinned blubber off of whales, then announced that he was starving. “I don’t wanna go to the kitchen if they’re fighting in there,” he whined. “Will you get me a bagel, please? Or cereal. Special K with extra sugar and only a little milk! Please, Penelope, please!”

  “Yeah, but you owe me,” Penelope said, not admitting that she was starving, too.

  Penelope wasn’t usually an eavesdropper, and in Penthouse C she certainly didn’t have to be. Sound traveled from one room to the next with ease, and her parents weren’t exactly mumblers to begin with. But Penelope liked the sneaky feeling she got as she tiptoed down the hallway toward the voices in the kitchen. She lingered under the shadowy frame of the kitchen door and peered inside.

  Her mother was standing at the counter. In front of her were piles of china plates and teacups. And then Penelope remembered: Her mother was having a tea today.

  Fred Something was coming over.

  “It’s just tragic,” lamented Mrs. Schwartzbaum as she jabbed a stick of butter with a wooden spoon.

  Mr. Schwartzbaum was sitting at the kitchen table, dangling a pen over the New York Times crossword puzzle.

  “Herbert, don’t you think it’s just tragic?”

  “Mmmmmm hmmmm.”

  “Herbert, what did I just say?” The wooden spoon had lodged itself in the butter, and Mrs. Schwartzbaum had to grip it with two hands to pull it out.

  “Huh?”

  “What did I say was tragic?”

  “Uh, the deviled eggs you made are gloppy?”

  “No, but I’m glad to know you think so.” Mrs. Schwartzbaum grimaced.

  “So what’s tragic?” he asked, tugging at the ends of his mustache and frowning over the puzzle.

  “This poor girl Cass who’s coming over today, it’s just tragic. She lost both her parents in a car crash in Sweden — or maybe it was Switzerland, I can’t remember. So, she lives with Bea Levin. Technically, Bea’s not even her grandmother. I guess she was the girlfriend of the father’s father a zillion years ago — they never married, but she took the name.” Mrs. Schwartzbaum puzzled over that for a second. “Or something like that,” she added.

  “Mmmmmm hmmmmm,” said Mr. Schwartzbaum.

  “She’s had the girl since she was eight. That’s Nathaniel’s age! Can you imagine? Our poor little Natty with no parents! Fred was telling me there’s an aunt who helps out, too. You know who it is? That therapist who writes all those books? Doris? Doris Blume? She has a practice right here on West End. I see her at Zabar’s sometimes. I guess I could have invited her also. But that might look grubby, right? Like I want her to come just because she’s semifamous.”

  If Penelope was scared that her mother and Fred Something were having an affair, well then, the fact that her mother was throwing a tea for Fred Something when her father was home was a pretty good sign they weren’t. After all, Monica Quartermaine would never have Rick Weber over when her husband, Alan, was home. But, General Hospital was a soap opera, and this was real life, and Penelope had to imagine there were some differences. If Tillie’s parents were any indication, affairs really happened.

  “Herb, do you think you could not do the crossword puzzle before company comes? No offense, but you’re not very pleasant when you’re frustrated.”

  “Just because you say ‘no offense’ doesn’t mean what you say isn’t offensive,” Mr. Schwartzbaum replied. “And for your information, this relaxes me.”

  “I don’t see how. All those tiny little words in all those tiny little boxes. It’s enough to make a person dizzy.”

  “Well, I guess some people are puzzle people and some people —” He didn’t bother finishing.

  Penelope thought: When I grow up, will I be a puzzle person? Mr. Schwartzbaum was usually an alien figure to her, large and scary and distant, but watching his pencil hover expectantly over the half-done crossword, she had a cozy familiar feeling. She abridged her thought: When I grow up, I hope I am a puzzle person.

  “Penelope had better be nice to this girl. She said some nonsense about signing a pledge not to talk to new kids. Adolescents can be so cruel. I won’t allow her to be unkind in my house. I hope you’re with me. I wonder if Stacy signed this silly pledge, too. Do you think Shirley Commack knows about it? I can’t imagine she would allow for that kind of elitist behavior, what with her political inclinations.…”

  “Right, right,” said Herbert Schwartzbaum. “Well, you know how girls that age are. If Stacy jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge, Penelope would probably —”

  It didn’t matter that Mr. Schwartzbaum didn’t finish his sentence. Penelope knew how it went. Jump, too. If Stacy jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge, Penelope would probably jump, too. She knew it was a popular phrase, she’d even heard people on TV shows say it — people who didn’t live in New York City. But, as someone who lived in the city, who actually saw the Brooklyn Bridge from time to time, Penelope considered the phrase way too easy to imagine.

  Stacy plummeting through the air, feet first, arms outstretched, blond curls scattered. Penelope somersaulting after her, as cabs honked, motors roared, and the East River gurgled below, ready to gobble them up.

  The doorbell rang, and Mrs. Schwartzbaum had her hands full, so she screamed for Penelope to get it. Penelope had to run through the kitchen to do so. “Morning, kiddo!” greeted her father. She gave him a happy wave, pretending he hadn’t just conjured up an image of her plunging to a brutal and untimely death.

  It was Carlos with a platter of smoked salmon from Murray’s Sturgeon Shop. He was followed by Jenny, who took over kitchen duties so Mrs. Schwartzbaum could freshen up.

  Mrs. Schwartzbaum’s rule of interior design was that there be no more than three colors per room, and that one of them always be black. Penelope, dressed for company in a hunter green cashmere sweater and a navy plaid kilt over cable-knit tights, was pili
ng red cloth napkins on the glass coffee table in the black and white living room when the guests arrived. Mrs. Schwartzbaum had insisted Nathaniel dress up in a button-down shirt and flannel pants, and as he scurried down the hallway to greet the company — as Mrs. Schwartzbaum had also instructed — his shirt magically untucked itself.

  The first thing Penelope thought when she saw the famous art collector Bea Levin was that her face looked like a crumpled brown lunch bag. She was very tall and very suntanned — from a recent trip to Egypt, she explained, which also accounted for her large coinshaped earrings and the gigantic turquoise scarab on a chain around her neck. She was the kind of woman who hugged people when she first met them, and with her face smushed in the folds of Bea’s enormous blue velvet top, she missed the entrance of Fred Something.

  By the time she unlodged herself from the old lady’s grasp, Fred Something’s back was to her, and standing before her — staring at her through one-eyed heartshaped sunglasses — was the weird girl she’d met on the street. The crazy person! The one who talked about making statements! She was wearing the same exact outfit — the jacket covered in buttons, the corduroy baseball hat, the dirty sweatpants — the only difference was there was no Sylvia Hempel.

  “Hi, Miss Marple!” she shouted as if Penelope was just the person she’d expected to see. “Remember me? That day? We were looking at the Moe Was Heres? I have a dog —”

  Penelope cut the strange girl off. “I remember, it’s just … ? My mom was saying you went to my school?” She sounded like Pia Smith all of a sudden; every sentence was a question.

  “I do,” the girl answered plainly. “I started Elston this year. Seventh grade.”

  Penelope had the same eerie feeling she’d gotten the last time she’d met this weirdo, like a trick was being played on her.

  “Bea doesn’t let me wear this stuff to school,” Cass offered as explanation. “This is my dog-walking outfit. Or my ‘Go-visit-my-aunt-Doris-outfit.’ Or my ‘Walk-in-Central-Park-outfit.’ I guess you could say it’s my ‘What-I-wear-when-I’m-not-in-school-outfit.’ Don’t worry, I wash it. It doesn’t smell.”

  Penelope just stood there.

  “You know you act dumb sometimes,” Cass said.

  Penelope was so frazzled by this girl’s manner, she could barely respond. It was hard not to stutter, but speaking in one-word sentences made it easier. “What?” she said.

  “I don’t mean dumb as in stupid. I mean dumb as in dumb. As in not being able to talk. You’re doing it on purpose, right? It’s a good trick. It’s a good way to get stuff out of people.”

  “Why would I want to get stuff out of people?”

  “Well, if you were a detective, you’d want to, or a psychotherapist — like my aunt Doris. You know, if you had a job where you were trying to get people to start babbling. My theory is, the less one person talks, the more the other person wants to spill their guts.”

  “Case in point,” interrupted Bea Levin, inserting herself in between the girls. “Cass, you’ve been monopolizing poor Penelope, and you haven’t even met her parents. And how about taking off your hat and sunglasses? You do realize we’re inside?” Coming from another adult mouth, this might have sounded scolding. But Bea had a comforting way about her.

  Still, Cass scowled, begrudgingly removed her hat and glasses, and allowed herself to be escorted away. Which gave Penelope the opportunity to flee to the kitchen. It wasn’t that she was eager to see Fred Something. She’d sooner pretend he didn’t exist. But that wasn’t easy to do when he was live, in person, and in the next room.

  Penelope entered the kitchen, and there, standing over the counter talking to Jenny as she poured boiling water through a strainer of tea leaves, was Fred Something. Whenever Mrs. Schwartzbaum gushed about him, she mentioned how incredibly young he was. Staring up at this large man who had a mustache like her father’s — only a tad wispier — and brown hair only slightly shorter than her own, and tiny wrinkles around the mouth and eyes, she thought, Will I ever be so old that I think someone his age is young? Boy, my mother is old.

  Fred Something stared shyly at the floor when shaking her hand, like he’d lost something very small.

  He acts like I caught him in the middle of something bad, thought Penelope, as Fred followed Jenny out of the kitchen and into the living room, where tea was being served.

  “What? It’s too boring in there for you?” Cass laughed upon entering the kitchen.

  “I was gonna come in,” answered Penelope, who wasn’t quite sure how long she’d been sitting in the kitchen by herself.

  “Yeah, well, I don’t blame you. A lotta art talk. Your brother’s pretty funny, though. He just sang a song about deviled eggs. Bea thinks he’s like the next Cole Porter.”

  “Who’s Cole Porter?”

  “Some guy who sings Broadway show tunes. It’s a compliment.”

  “Well, that’s nice of your grandmother.”

  “She’s not really my grandmother, you know. I call her that sometimes, but really she’s just Bea.”

  “Sorry,” said Penelope. “I mean Bea.”

  “You don’t have to apologize.”

  “Sorry,” said Penelope without thinking.

  “You really have a problem with that, don’t you?” It turned out having two Cass eyes staring at you was a lot more disconcerting than one, and Penelope almost wished Cass would put her one-eyed sunglasses back on. Not that anything was wrong with Cass’s face. Underneath the glasses, the normalness of her features was almost shocking to Penelope. She had pale skin that looked a touch yellow under the overhead light, straight black hair cut in a sharp edge at the chin, and thin pink lips.

  “It makes me mad when people say ‘sorry’ to me. For a whole year, that’s all they said: I’m sorry about your parents. I’m sorry for your loss. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Bleah! It’s enough to make you barf. ’Cause you know what they’re really saying? I feel sorry for you. And that’s the worst thing of all.”

  Penelope didn’t think this sounded right, but she didn’t think she could argue, either. Nothing like what had happened to Cass had ever happened to her.

  “So how come I’ve never seen you in school?” she asked, still not sure Cass wasn’t putting one over on her about going to Elston.

  “I’m invisible.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Well, I don’t know why. You tell me.”

  “Huh?”

  “I don’t know why you haven’t seen me. I’ve seen you. You’re always with that one girl, what’s her name …”

  “Stacy.”

  “Right, Stacy. She’s in my Algebra class.”

  “Oh, yeah?” said Penelope. “She’s never mentioned you.”

  Cass let out a wallop of a laugh. “Ba-ha! Like she would! I told you — I’m invisible. At least to all you people who think you’re too good for us new kids.”

  The conversation was teetering on uncomfortable, so Penelope asked Cass if she wanted a Purple Cow. Cass said yes, even though she didn’t know what one was. Penelope poured the grape soda over a scoop of vanilla ice cream, and the ingredients combined to make a beautiful violet foam in the lavender-tinted glasses Mrs. Schwartzbaum put out for company.

  “So, what do you think of Fred?” Penelope asked because she couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  “He’s nice,” said Cass, sticking the tip of her tongue into the foam. “Ha!” She laughed when it rose up to her nose.

  “You gotta wait a couple secs,” giggled Penelope.

  “Why did you ask about Fred?”

  “I don’t know. My mom spends a lot of time with him.”

  “What? That bothers you?”

  Did this girl have ESP?

  Before Penelope could answer, Cass let out a hoot. “Ooooh, it does! It bothers you! What? Do you think they’re having an affair or something?”

  These were the kinds of thoughts Penelope tried to forget! They were not the kinds of thoughts she spoke out
loud. OR SCREAMED AT THE TOP OF HER LUNGS, for that matter.

  “Wow!” yelped Cass, her small, pale hands colliding in a gleeful clap.

  Suddenly, everything was going so fast! “Shhhhhh,” Penelope hissed. “I didn’t say that.” Cass looked skeptical. “Okay, f-fine,” stumbled Penelope. “It’s just she talks about him a lot and my dad’s never home and he gave her a present like this other couple I know who are having an affair.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Uh, just these doctor friends of Stacy’s mom’s,” lied Penelope. She might not have a handle on Cass’s personality yet, but she was pretty sure she wasn’t a General Hospital watcher.

  “Well, there’s only one way to find out the truth.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You gotta seek it out. That’s what my aunt Doris always says. ‘The truth is out there. You just gotta seek it.’ Follow them around. Catch them in the act.”

  This girl was insane. Who’d she think she was, Harriet the Spy? Penelope was not following her mother and Fred Something around. She’d get caught. She didn’t know her mother’s schedule. And, anyway, this was dumb. Why was she even thinking about this? Fred Something and her mother weren’t having an affair, they weren’t. What had made her talk to this girl? She felt dizzy.

  “I’m not saying they’re having an affair. I’m just saying that’s the way to find out,” declared Cass.

  In a million trillion years this was nothing Penelope would ever do. But before she could put the topic to rest, Bea Levin entered the room. “Well, Ms. Cass, if you’ve guzzled down as much sugar as humanly possible, I think it’s time to leave this poor family alone.” Cass rolled her eyes at Penelope, finished the last of her drink, then hopped off the kitchen stool.

  Bea gave Penelope another hug. “I’m so glad we got to do this,” she told her. “I only wish Cass hadn’t hogged you all afternoon. You seem terrifically interesting.” She gripped Penelope’s shoulders with her hands, and stared directly at her. “And what a fabulous friend you have in Jenny! You know, back in the prehistoric era, I went to Columbia for Art History.” Bea looked wistful for a moment. “Seeing her just takes me back. Not that I ever looked like that, mind you, but, still …”