Penelope Lemon

by Inman Majors

  Missy read over the totality of what Fitzwilliam had to say about himself in three seconds, then handed the phone back to her. In a faux British accent she said: “The old fart in the cardigan or the hot shirtless dude? Seriously, old chap, do give me a break.”

  Penelope smiled but didn’t reply.

  “Old chap. The night is young and Fitzwilliam is already in bed after his tea and jam and singing ‘God Save the Queen’ for an hour or so. Why not see what the young hottie is doing? What do you have to lose?”

  Laughing and thinking what the heck, Penelope went back to Divote, swiped right to BrettCorinthians2:2’s request to meet up, and sent a tiny candy box flying into virginal cyberspace.

  16

  The Divote app worked with the speed and efficiency it advertised, for twenty minutes after responding to BrettCorinthians2:2, Penelope and Missy found themselves at a lawn party with the young adult group from the largest church in town. They’d been quickly incorporated into the festivities, so much so that they were now sharing the same side of a beanbag toss game, waiting their turn to fling rosined cloth sacks filled with corn kernels in the hope of sliding one through a hole cut in the middle of a tilted board. Cornhole, as it was colloquially known, was the summer game of Hillsboro, and Penelope had thrown many a bag through a proud stag’s antlers or the V and T of the Virginia Tech Hokies.

  Despite her years of experience on the local circuit, the boards she was currently playing on were a first, decorated as they were with a polyurethaned graphic of Jesus wearing his crown of thorns. Penelope found the image more cartoony than was generally accepted for images of the son of God, his beard and mustache looking especially bushy and curlicued and his eyes too far apart and buggy. In short, Jesus looked like an alien deer with a beard perm.

  The fact that his crown of thorns was the circle through which the beanbags were meant to plop added little gravity to his likeness.

  “This is the worst decision I’ve ever made in my life,” Missy said. “Like ever. You’d think they’d have hard cider or something at least. How can anyone play this stupid game and not be drinking? I’ve never even seen it attempted before.”

  Penelope smiled. She wouldn’t admit it to Missy, but she really enjoyed cornhole, drinking or sober, and had spent many a pleasurable hour playing. It didn’t hurt that she and BrettCorinthians2:2 were routing Missy and her fellow across the way, another tall young dude with a body to kill for.

  Both men wore backwards-turned baseball caps and long-sleeved pastel-colored dress shirts rolled up past the elbow. The shirts were tucked into Bermuda shorts. Penelope hadn’t known that the preppy meathead look was even a possibility before now, but apparently it was all the rage, at least in young Christian circles, for nearly every fellow at the lawn party was similarly dressed. The young women primarily wore sundresses and flats. Everyone had been nice, despite the surprise entrance of the motorcycle mommas in matching Nirvana shirts, and Penelope found that she was having a good time.

  “Can you see my pits?” Missy asked, raising her arms. “I’m sweating like a pig and it feels like I’m heading toward Frisbee Central down there.”

  “You’re fine,” Penelope said, picking up beanbags from the board and ground. It was the ladies’ turn to throw. Last time out, Penelope had scored one through the thorny halo, and elicited a sprinting fist bump from BrettCorinthians2:2. He and his pal were a high-fiving, fist-bumping duo, and the crowd in general seemed poised at a moment’s notice for a mass hand-jive celebration. She’d not known before how easily made jubilant was the young devoted crowd. They were a slaphappy bunch to be sure and the lemonade was going down by the jug.

  But it was time to focus. Just one more bag through the crown that rested upon Cornhole Jesus’s head, and her team would win. She handed the red bags to Missy and kept the blue for herself.

  Missy said: “Do you think it’s just a coincidence that I got the red bags? Or has the Osmond family here definitely marked me as one of the Devil’s own?”

  Penelope thought again of Missy naming her son Damien but didn’t mention it. She was trying to concentrate. Her earlier peanut throwing session at Coonskins had warmed her up nicely and she felt zeroed in on the target. Missy, on the other hand, was wilting like a skinny brown flower under the humid night, the hearty fellowship, and the slow death of her margarita buzz. She’d yet to score a point for her team, and more often than not couldn’t manage to fling the bag the full distance to the board. The fact that every song on the stereo belonged to the Christian rock genre wasn’t helping her pep either.

  “Do they have even one song that doesn’t have Jehovah in it?” Missy asked. “It’s a damn hard word to rhyme. Noah. Leaf blowa. Tabula Rasa. Crimson and Clover. That’s Joan Jett. God, I love Joan Jett. I mean, Jehovah, I love Joan Jett.”

  She began to sing now, quietly, so no one but Penelope could hear.

  O Jehovah, bring me a whiskey and soda

  Or maybe a mimosa

  I’ll drink it in my Toyota

  And let that Christian boy turn me ova

  Finishing the verse, she flung a bag sidearm—like the heaviest of hand grenades—where it landed three feet shy and far to the left of the board.

  “Cornhole Jesus, I’m bad,” she said under her breath. “And how much longer does this last? I need to sit this cornhole of mine down before I pass out from crappy music. And do my ears deceive me, or is this song called ‘Love Song for Jesus’? OMG. My bad. OMJ. I’m serious, it’s not enough that even in his leisure time Jesus has to wear a pricker bush on his head, or that his face is getting pounded every three seconds by bags of corn. But he also has to listen to this music? As for me, I choose crucifixion.”

  “You’re going to hell,” Penelope said, smiling.

  “Honey, I’m already there.”

  Across the way, their dates had put their heads together and were singing in a hammy sort of way to ‘Love Song for Jesus,’ which was about a field of blooming dandelions along a lonely country road and the impression the image made on the singer as he drove by on his motorcycle, namely that everyone was a flower and not a weed.

  “Seriously,” said Missy. “This is the worst thing I’ve ever heard. Now come on, let’s get this game over with and skedaddle out of here with the Ken dolls back to my place. God, they’re cute. What do they want with a couple of old broads like us? You don’t think this is some kind of missionary work, do you? And before you answer, just know I passed up about a hundred puns just now. Seriously, look at all the cute young girls here, just ready to breed and watch Duck Dynasty till the cows come home. Something’s fishy, but do I give a damn? No I do not. Mommy Barbie wants her baby Ken and doesn’t care how she gets him.”

  Penelope was laughing at Missy’s monologue and put too much mustard on her third throw, the bag skidding off the board, the thorny crown not slowing it down a bit.

  For her fourth and final effort, Missy offered up a two-handed granny toss that went higher up than it did out before landing halfway between the boards in a sad cloud of talcum powder.

  Missy’s partner, the blond in the pink, not yellow Oxford shirt, said: “Use your legs and put your caboose in it a little bit more. You’re just using your upper body.”

  Missy nodded and said under her breath: “I’m saving my caboose for later, you hot little missionary you.”

  Penelope vowed to concentrate on her last throw. It was dark now and she was getting a little tired. It was time to head home. Brett, her date, if that was what this could be called, wasn’t her type. She wasn’t sure what her type was, but knew it was a little less backwards-cap and young than this. A little less Bro and Bru and Brah, which Brett and Brandon felt the need to say every ten seconds or so. She was having flashbacks to Dog, the Bounty Hunter, one of James’s favorite shows when he felt like slumming it and seeing how the other half lived.

  Damn it to hell, she was back on James and sexpot Ms. Dunleavy and the mystery puppy on James’s timeline that Theo wo
uld want to spend all his time with. Anyway, forget all that. She needed to throw this bag through a crown of thorns and get the hell out of Gethsemane before she was roped into prolonging the night at Missy’s house.

  So thinking, she swung her arm back and released with the smoothest of follow-throughs, the bag rising in the air with a graceful arc and landing—nothing but net—dead center in the middle of the board.

  Brett let out a whoop, did the six-shooters motion at his bro, Brandon, then sprinted toward her.

  “Praise Cornhole Jesus, it’s over,” Missy said.

  Brett had hands raised for the double high five, which Penelope obliged. And then she was offered the double fist bump, which she also obliged.

  “Seriously,” Brett said, “that was totally sick. You’re a cornhole queen.”

  Penelope could see Missy smirking beside her as Brandon walked over to join the group. The word sick as currently employed was a new one for her, but she assumed it must be the next awesome in dude lexicon.

  “Hey,” said Brandon, pointing toward the patio where people were starting to gather. “It looks like Sonshine Funk is about ready to jam. You gals will love this. It’s kind of Jars of Clay meets Pearl Jam. They rock hard.”

  Penelope looked and saw several men in goatees and hip glasses setting up their amps and microphones. They smiled and bantered with the crowd in a familiar way, and as they did, Brett and Brandon sprinted off for more lemonade. They seemed eager for the show.

  Penelope noticed Missy staring at the musicians and said: “You look confused.”

  “I am. What are they?”

  “I think they’re a praise band.”

  “A what band?”

  “Praise. It’s a rock band for church.”

  “Rocking Christians? Hipster church? It’s oxymoronic.”

  “I guess, but it’s kind of the wave of the future. They made a half-hearted attempt at my church but all the fogeys raised too much Cain.”

  “I mean, what the hell. Is nothing sacred? We’re talking rock and roll, for the love of Jehovah. I don’t think it should be tampered with and muddled up with a bunch of hosannas and kumbayas. That’s what campfires and acoustic guitars are for. I say just leave the electric guitar out of it and dance with the one that brung you, pump organs and the Vienna Boys’ Choir. Christian rock makes me sad.”

  Penelope basically agreed but didn’t want to egg Missy on. They were guests, and she didn’t want to appear disrespectful. To each his own, she felt, especially when it came to music. Hard as it was to believe, not everyone loved Van Halen.

  “Listen,” said Missy, “this band could be so bad I’m tempted to stay, but if I drink one more glass of lemonade, I’ll be floating in my own Sea of Galilee. Seriously. My bladder is about to pop, but I’m too scared to go to the bathroom in that house. I bet that’s where they store the brainwashing juice.”

  Missy was smiling and nodding in a spastic way to her own sentiments, and Penelope wondered if she might be suffering from a minor overdose. Lemonade was Christian moonshine, after all, and Missy was likely unaccustomed to its sugary power.

  “Good,” said Penelope. “I’m ready to go home too. Let’s get out of here.”

  “Oh, we’re not going home. We’re going to invite Bryce and Brant or whatever their names are over to my house for a little dip in the pool.”

  “Brett and Brandon.”

  “Right. Got you. Which one’s mine?”

  “The one in the pink shirt. Or either, actually. Take your pick. I’m not interested and I’ve got to get home. I’m beat.”

  “Are you kidding me? You’re not thinking about Fitzpatrick, are you? I can assure you that at the moment he is running a lint brush over his trusty cardigan. Then two cups of Earl Grey before lights out. Trust me. I know a boring old coot when I see one.”

  “It’s Fitzwilliam,” Penelope said.

  “Of course it is. Now when are you ever going to have guys this cute, this fit, and this young interested in you again? It’s like we’re in a Christian sci-fi experiment. They’ve got some kind of machine in there, fueled by potato salad and lemonade, and they’re spitting out hotties every fifteen minutes. It would be un-American not to at least try and take a couple home with us.”

  There was something to Missy’s lemonade theory. Dale Mercer, the boy she’d led to the fallen state in high school, had chugged it by the gallon just before thumping away on the outside of her jeans. Perhaps, thought Penelope, it was the very fuel for his tireless jackhammering motion. But now Brett and Brandon returned with four fresh glasses. Penelope had worked up a thirst during her cornhole domination so she took her glass eagerly.

  “Hey,” said Missy, smiling at Brandon. “I know this band is going to be sick, and that they rock super hard, but Penelope and I are about to head back to my house for a swim. You guys should join us.”

  Brandon looked at Brett, who nodded back to him, as though agreeing that this was the proper time to pose some question or make some statement they’d agreed to while fetching the jackhammer juice. Brandon straightened his baseball cap until it was perfectly backwards. It had looked backwards to Penelope before, but he seemed fussy about it being just so. One of them had made a quick stop at the bathroom as well, because the tang of body spray wafted in the air like a goatish night flower. Penelope sneezed, and Brett took one subtle step back.

  “Listen,” said Brandon, looking at Missy with his liquid brown eyes, his perfectly backwards hat lending authority to the moment. “We’re having a great time, but me and my amigo here were wondering if you two have a personal relationship with Jesus.”

  “So you’re asking me about a personal relationship that I might be having with a man?” said Missy, smiling devilishly. “Listen, honey, the first thing you should know about me is that I never kiss and tell. And I mean never. Now do you want to go swimming or not? Because me and my amigo are hitting the road.”

  17

  This seemed like the exact type of situation that Rachel and Sandy would lecture her about or had lectured her about or were dreaming of lecturing her about. She was driving a twenty-something bro to go swimming at the house of a woman she’d met while that woman was reading a nasty novel at a little-kid baseball practice. Up ahead, Missy was being driven to her home by Brandon. Penelope’s protests about being tired and not having a bathing suit and really just wanting to go home had fallen on deaf ears. This was not her first go as a wingman for a lusty girlfriend, and she’d do her part for an hour or so, but that was it. You had to draw the line somewhere.

  In the passenger seat, Brett was going on about a dream he’d had the night before. The dream started with him flying, and then he was dunking a basketball from half-court as hundreds of cheerleaders yelled their approval. Anyway, basketball soon morphed into surfing, and he was awesome at that too, even though he’d never tried it in real life. Unfortunately, right when he was really starting to hang ten, a massive white shark came up and tried to attack him. Luckily he woke up in the nick of time. One more second and dream Surfer Brett was done for.

  In the middle of recounting this, he’d reached over and turned down the volume on the car stereo, which was playing Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song.” Penelope found this off-putting but had listened to his dream patiently nonetheless. When she was married, James hated listening to recaps of her dreams, this despite the fact that she had really interesting ones and could recall them fully and in Technicolor. Of course, when it was his dream, he couldn’t talk about it enough. Most of these involved a doomsday scenario and his archery coming into play. Dream James had slain all kinds of things that were menacing his family, and after one of these heroic nocturnal episodes, he could be found rosining his bow at the kitchen table. Penelope had seen him use the bow twice in all the years they were married. It cost twelve hundred dollars. And that didn’t include the arrows, tips, targets, rosin, and subscription to Modern Day Robin Hood magazine.

  And still he complained about the len
gth of her showers.

  The HHR, on the other hand, had loved to hear about her dreams and would often interpret them during his morning wake-and-bake sessions. Almost all of these interpretations came round to Penelope’s subconscious feelings about sex and fishing.

  She’d spaced out for a bit, distracted by the low volume of “The Immigrant Song.” It didn’t sound right so soft. Now she realized that Brett was waiting for a reaction to something he’d said, so she asked him to repeat it.

  “I said that I took this dream interpretation class at Liberty, and I’m pretty sure that shark represents Satan.”

  “If the shark is Satan,” said Penelope, “then what about the flying and the dunking and the cheerleaders? What do they represent? Awesome stuff in life that he’s trying to distract you from?”

  Brett nodded vigorously to this and shook his pointer finger in the classic that’s what I thought at first motion as perfected by every high school science teacher Penelope ever had. Mr. Chaney had wagged that exact finger just before exploding a methane-filled soap bubble in her shocked hands during chemistry.

  “No,” said Brett, turning the stereo all the way off. “All that other stuff is Satan too, but I didn’t realize because I was too tempted by it. The surfing is me trying to escape the corporeal world before it’s too late.”

  Penelope was perplexed by how dunking a basketball could be associated with Beelzebub, but she wasn’t prepared to travel very far down this conversational road. The young man beside her was, after all, en route to an empty house with a woman he’d just met, and no one who’d been to an American high school could fail to associate night swimming and sex. Or at least reasonably heavy petting.

  Penelope sure made that association. She’d first hooked up with the HHR when Reggie Mason, the dentist’s son, invited some people in the Burger King parking lot to his house while his parents were away. One thing had led to another, and she and the HHR ended up making out in Dr. Mason’s study, under his diplomas, with Metallica and bug spray wafting through the open window. She was weighing whether to take off her wet bra, both because she liked the HHR and because it was starting to rub raw, when the cry of Cops! sent them scurrying out the back sliding door and over the fence. They’d all ended up back at Burger King, and from then on she and the HHR were a couple.