Penelope

by Rebecca Harrington

  “Sure,” said Penelope. Inwardly, she was filled with dread. She usually made people mad when they confided in her.

  “You really have to not tell anyone about this, OK?” said Catherine.

  “OK,” said Penelope.

  “So,” said Catherine, “last night we were just hanging out, and Ted was being really cute with me. You know, helping me order at the Mexican restaurant and just like flirting with me a lot, and I was a little like, ‘What is going on here?’ I never really thought of him that way.”

  “Really?” said Penelope.

  “Yeah. So after we went and got Mexican food, Mike and Nikil were like really tired and went to bed, but I just wasn’t tired. Do you know how that is? And Ted wasn’t either. So he and I were just hanging in his common room, doing shots or whatever, and then I kind of went to sleep on his lap, and the next thing I knew we were making out on the couch. And then we went to his room and I slept over.”

  “Wow,” said Penelope. Penelope had never heard of anyone who, in the process of doing shots, fell asleep on someone’s lap. Catherine must also have narcolepsy, she thought.

  “We didn’t have sex,” said Catherine quickly. “I’m not that kind of girl.”

  “That is so cool,” said Penelope.

  “This morning he had to leave really early because of chorus practice. I kept saying I thought it was tomorrow, but he kept insisting it was today. And it was tomorrow! I was right. Why do you think he thought it was today?”

  “Well, maybe he can’t tell time,” said Penelope. Her head was starting to ache again. She rubbed her forehead with her index finger.

  “When I woke up, I came out into the common room, and Mike and Nikil couldn’t believe I was still there. They were so funny about the whole thing, really protective. I think they view me as a little sister.”

  “That is nice,” said Penelope. Jason and Glasses’s conduct this morning suddenly made far more sense, although “protective” was not what Penelope would have termed it.

  “We should probably bus our trays,” said Catherine.

  “Sure,” said Penelope. She followed Catherine, who was walking toward the conveyor belt on which everyone laid their dirty lunch trays.

  As Penelope approached the food conveyor belt and laid her tray upon it, she thought more about how everyone had acted at breakfast. The giggling, the yelling of “awkward” after interactions that were just that very thing, all the abrupt departures. The flagrant nerdiness of the proceedings was shocking, she decided.

  Of course, Penelope was not unused to nerdiness. She had hung around with nerds her whole life, or tried to, for nerds can be very exclusionary. However, the nerds in her high school would shamble quietly down the hall, or invent a Sim family after school. They were small, damp spirits who did not like it when Penelope showed up at their birthday parties because she was hopeless with a glue gun. These Harvard people were different types altogether. They were so aggressive in all their utterances, almost as if they really thought they were being very cool. But how could that be? thought Penelope. It was a puzzle.

  Catherine and Penelope left the dining hall. They both started walking in the direction of Pennypacker, which was, in addition to being above a radio station, the farthest dorm away from Annenberg.

  “So how was chorus practice?” asked Catherine as they walked by Canaday, the riot-proof dorm the administration built in the 1970s after a student squirted a water gun at the Harvard president.

  “Well, I didn’t actually go to it,” said Penelope.

  “Oh, right,” said Catherine. “Was it weird getting up so early in the morning for no reason?”

  “It was, actually,” said Penelope. “Especially since I think I was really hungover. Do you know anything to cure that? I was thinking of buying an egg and a bottle of Tabasco sauce and mixing them together. Except I don’t have a cup.”

  “That sounds gross,” said Catherine. “Did Ted mention anything to you about what happened last night?”

  “What?” said Penelope.

  “Did he say anything about me this morning?” asked Catherine.

  “I don’t know,” said Penelope. That seemed to be the most decorous answer. Penelope had often heard that it was bad form for men to talk about their sexual conquests outside very specialized circumstances, like a cigar salon.

  “Really?” said Catherine. “He said nothing?” She looked crestfallen.

  “Well, maybe he did,” said Penelope hurriedly.

  “Really?” said Catherine, perking up. “What did he say?”

  “Well,” said Penelope, “he said you guys went to a Mexican restaurant and that he helped you order.”

  “He said that? That was so funny.” Catherine laughed, a tinkling laugh, at the memory.

  “Yeah,” said Penelope. “It sounded it.”

  Luckily they were almost at the door to Pennypacker.

  “Well, I guess I am going up to my room,” said Penelope. She yawned.

  “Oh, me too,” said Catherine.

  “Really?” said Penelope. “OK. You could come and watch a DVD with me if you want to.”

  “Do you have work to do?”

  “No,” said Penelope.

  “I have so much work,” said Catherine. She sighed. “But I can’t anyway. I just came here to see Mike and Nikil for a sec.”

  “Oh, OK,” said Penelope.

  “It was so fun to hang out with you. I feel like I know so much more about you now! We really need to hang out more,” said Catherine.

  “Yeah, definitely,” said Penelope.

  “OK, bye!” said Catherine, who sprinted up to Ted’s suite, where Glasses and Nikil also lived.

  “Lan, do you know the guy who lives downstairs, the one with the glasses?” asked Penelope. She was sitting on the futon watching the movie version of Death on the Nile a couple of hours later. Hercule Poirot was striding around the deck of a ship wearing a white Panama hat. He was questioning a woman wearing a fur stole. Lan was in the bathroom with the door ajar, holding Raymond over the toilet.

  “Why would I?” said Lan.

  “I don’t know,” said Penelope.

  “Pee. Goddamn you!” said Lan to Raymond.

  “Well, anyway, the guy downstairs, he kissed me,” said Penelope.

  “Gross,” said Lan.

  “I know,” said Penelope. “It really was.”

  Lan slammed the bathroom door shut, and Penelope went back to watching her movie.

  After a couple of minutes, Penelope heard a knock on the propped-open door to her suite. From where she was sitting, she couldn’t see who was knocking, so she decided to investigate the situation, as Death on the Nile had made her wary of surprise entrances. When she finally approached the door, she saw two forlorn creatures cowering in the space between the recycling bin propping the door open and the doorjamb. One was a boy with a tiny head and noticeably large feet. The other was a girl with a shin-length braid. They both looked like they had recently been crying.

  “Is Lan here?” said the girl in a quavering voice.

  “No, I am not here!” yelled Lan from the bathroom.

  “She’s not here,” said Penelope apologetically.

  “I just heard her,” said the boy.

  “Does she have the problem set?” said the girl, looking as if she was about to cry again. “It’s taken us twelve hours to do the first problem. And there are ten problems, and it’s due in five hours.”

  “Close the door and I’ll slip it under the door!” yelled Lan from the bathroom.

  “Should I close the door?” asked Penelope.

  “You better do as she says,” said the boy, who took the recycling bin out of the doorway and quickly shut it. When Lan heard the door shut, she came out of the bathroom and strode into her bedroom. Eventually, she emerged brandishing a piece of paper, which she slipped under the door. Penelope heard some muffled thank-yous from the exterior and then the sound of feet pattering down the hallway. Once she was sure
the creatures had left, she opened the door and put the recycling bin back where it had been. Lan was standing with her back against the bathroom door, smoking a cigarette and looking very annoyed. Raymond was sitting beside her, also looking annoyed.

  “Hey, Lan,” said Penelope. “So I guess you are in a math class.” Lan looked at her with a stone face.

  “What math class are you in?” asked Penelope.

  “Math 55,” said Lan.

  “That’s the hardest math class!” exclaimed Penelope.

  “Everyone here is retarded,” said Lan.

  “Oh?” said Penelope.

  “I am going to drop out,” said Lan. She went into her room. Penelope sat back down, opened up her laptop, and started watching Death on the Nile again.

  A couple of minutes later, Penelope heard another knock on her propped-open door. It was Ted, and he strode in the room without waiting. It was a night of popularity apparently.

  “Hi,” said Ted. He sighed ponderously.

  “Hi,” said Penelope.

  “Can I come in?” asked Ted.

  “Sure,” said Penelope. Suddenly, she was filled with an overwhelming desire for him to go away. Ted flopped onto the futon next to her.

  “What are you watching?” asked Ted.

  “Death on the Nile,” said Penelope. “It’s really good.”

  “What’s it about?” asked Ted.

  “A death on the Nile,” said Penelope.

  “Oh,” said Ted. “I wanted to talk to you.”

  “Well, the thing is,” said Penelope, desperate to avoid this, “is that I was watching this movie and I have no idea who the murderer is!”

  “Oh, OK,” said Ted. “Can I watch it with you?”

  “Sure,” said Penelope. They watched the movie together. Penelope felt very uncomfortable. The entire time Hercule was striding up and down the deck of the ship, which always used to be her favorite part, she thought about what Ted wanted to talk to her about. She figured that he would try to explain why he hooked up with Catherine and neglected to mention it. The idea of such explanations filled Penelope with a profound sense of embarrassment. Why did anyone ever have to explain anything? If Penelope ran the world, it would be filled with benign misunderstandings, but no one would ever talk for more than five minutes at a time. She kept moving slightly away from Ted on the futon, which in turn made him crane his neck closer to her computer screen, blocking her view.

  “I don’t understand what is happening,” said Ted.

  “Well, they haven’t solved the crime yet, but they are about to,” said Penelope. “That is why he is trying to get all of those people into one room.”

  “I don’t get this movie at all. Can we just talk?” said Ted.

  “Sure,” said Penelope. She snapped her laptop shut with unnecessary vehemence, hoping that Ted would get the hint, which he did not.

  “So,” said Ted.

  “What have you been doing all day?” asked Penelope.

  “Oh, I dunno. I’ve just been in my room,” said Ted.

  “Cool,” said Penelope.

  “Yeah,” said Ted. He stared at the futon. “Anyway, Penelope …”

  “What is your favorite movie?” asked Penelope.

  “What is my favorite movie?” Ted looked at her uncomprehendingly.

  “Yes,” said Penelope. “What is it?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe Reservoir Dogs?”

  “Oh, weird,” said Penelope. “I would have thought Ben-Hur.”

  They both fell silent.

  “I’m sorry brunch was so weird,” said Ted. “I was going to tell you about Catherine.”

  “Oh, it’s OK,” said Penelope. “You didn’t have to, ever.”

  “There just didn’t seem to be an opportunity, you know? I wanted to tell you walking over to chorus, but it just really didn’t seem like the right time. And then, brunch. I don’t know. Those guys were so weird about it. It wasn’t like I planned on hooking up with her. I even wanted to hang out with you but you had to go home.”

  “I had to go home because someone vomited on my shoes,” said Penelope.

  “Yeah, that guy you made out with. I can’t believe you made out with him.”

  “Well,” said Penelope, “it was the result of an inevitable chain of events.”

  “It just sort of happened,” Ted continued. “We got back to the room and one thing led to another. I was so drunk. She tried to have sex with me on the couch in the common room!”

  “Wow,” said Penelope.

  “Then we went into my room. It was so weird this morning,” said Ted.

  “Hmm,” said Penelope.

  “I just got out of there as fast as possible,” said Ted. “I sort of knew we didn’t have practice today but I wasn’t sure. She kept grabbing hold of my legs with her legs all night.”

  It was at this moment Penelope realized that these confessions were not only embarrassing her, but they were making her rather piqued. She couldn’t really say why. Maybe it was because she had forgiven but not forgotten the Helen of Troy incident. Maybe it was because she thought they were in bad taste.

  Ted stared at the floor for some minutes. Then he said, “Well, I should probably be going.”

  “Really?” said Penelope. She hoped she sounded sufficiently regretful.

  “Yeah,” said Ted. “I have huge amounts of work to do. I will probably never get it all done in time.”

  “OK,” said Penelope.

  “So I’ll see you at chorus tryouts tomorrow?” asked Ted.

  “Oh, uh, OK,” said Penelope. That sounded like a catalog of horrors. Penelope decided she would fake a sickness to get out of it. Perhaps an ear infection.

  “Good,” said Ted. “Well. Bye.”

  “Bye!” said Penelope

  Ted walked out the door. Penelope opened up her laptop and returned to her movie.

  4.

  In Which Penelope Reaches the Zenith of Her Literary Ambitions

  “Hey, guys. I’m Jared. I’ll be your Counting People TF this semester. Welcome.” Jared started clapping, and shortly, everyone else followed suit, including Penelope, even though Raymond had bit her hand that morning and it still ached. Lan said she thought he had rabies. Penelope hoped that wasn’t true.

  It was the first week of discussion sections and official homework. Harvard had a lot of lecture classes, and in order to compensate for the lack of individual attention associated with that format, each lecture class also had a once-a-week mandatory discussion section taught by TFs, or teaching fellows. These were usually graduate students who had specialization in the class’s material.

  TFs determined a student’s final grade, so who one’s TF was was very important. Students competed for the easiest TF with a sort of death aggression. They called their professors at home. They made up fake prior commitments so they would be free only during their favorite’s time slot. Emma had changed all her TFs in two days. Ted had switched into two of Penelope’s sections. Penelope did not know how to do any of this and therefore accepted Jared as part of her inalienable destiny. The one nice thing about Jared was that she knew him already since he was the proctor of her dorm. Although it remained to be seen if he even remembered her from the “Self-Reliance” conversation.

  “I figured we’d talk about the readings in the packet today, but first I just want everyone to go around the room and say their names, introduce themselves, and say why they were interested in this class. I think I know some names from the list here, but I just want to make sure,” said Jared. Penelope smiled at him. She always felt bad for men in necklaces. While she was wondering about why that was exactly, a tall blond man burst through the door carrying several leather-bound notebooks of varying sizes. To Penelope’s surprise, she realized that this was the man in the rumpled linen suit. He was actually a student.

  “Oh, damn, sorry I’m late,” said the man in an accent that was an odd mixture of British and something that sounded like German. “I must remember to a
dd punctuality to my list of accomplishments.”

  The class giggled nervously. A guy in a Harvard sweatshirt started whispering to the guy next to him, who was also wearing a Harvard sweatshirt. Penelope resented them.

  “You have to be on time next time,” said Jared in a low, stern voice. “What is your name?”

  “Gustav,” said the man. He ran his hand through his hair, which was abundant.

  “Hesse-Cassel?” asked Jared,

  “The very one,” said Gustav. He sat down and took off his trench coat, only to reveal another jacket underneath, a tweed sports coat that had red driving gloves stuffed prominently in its pockets

  “Well, Gustav, you might as well go first. Where are you from? Why do you want to take this course?”

  “Well, origin is rather difficult to determine. I’m German, really, but then my grandfather was rather great friends with Juan Perón. Buenos Aires, for purposes of simplicity.”

  “Oh,” said Jared. “I love Argentina.”

  “Really? Why how terribly charming!” said Gustav. He let out a loud laugh. This utterance was so exaggeratedly British it almost toppled headlong into German.

  “Why do you want to take this course?” asked Jared in a high, panicked voice.

  “Oh, I dunno, I suppose I’ve always liked counting really.”

  “This is a demography class,” said Jared.

  “Yes, I know,” said Gustav. “Counting is integral to that field of science, I believe.”

  “Next? Who wants to say their name next?” yelled Jared.

  In all of Penelope’s years as a human living on earth, she had never in her life seen anyone nearly as handsome as Gustav. She knew this from far away, but she especially knew this now that he was up close and personal. He was unlike anyone she had ever encountered. His hair was longish, he had a dimple in his chin, all his clothing was rumpled. The men of Connecticut, even at their best, had a certain healthy straightforwardness to them that Penelope found singularly trying. Gustav looked like a jewel thief. A man like that would never just walk into a McDonald’s.

  “Oh, I will go next,” said Penelope. “My name is Penelope.”

  “Awesome,” said Jared. “And you’re a freshman? I recognize you from Pennypacker, I think. Are you are one of my proctees?”