Penelope

by Rebecca Harrington

  “I’m tired, darling.” Gustav sighed.

  “Oh, really?” said Penelope.

  “Yes,” said Gustav. “I positively hate getting up early. Such an overrated virtue.”

  “I didn’t know it was a virtue,” said Penelope.

  “Oh, of course it is, darling. Haven’t you heard all those contemptible expressions concerning early rising?”

  “No,” said Penelope.

  “ ‘The early bird catches the worm’ and all that?”

  “Oh, maybe,” said Penelope. “Why were you up so early?”

  “I was up early because I went to the arboretum. I have no great truck with the thing myself but Harvard has one, and my family supports it rather extensively. Once a year or so, I go out and check how everything is doing. You would hate it because of your stance on nature.”

  Gustav laughed genially and it dawned on Penelope that she had been thinking about this trip to the arboretum in an entirely wrong way. While in her room and throughout the play, she had decided that this whole thing was a concerted snub, a directed effort to make her feel unwelcome. In actuality, Gustav had simply forgotten he had ever invited her to the arboretum at all. He just didn’t care. He had even entirely forgotten their previous conversation. He had repeated himself exactly. Did he repeat himself all the time? It was something to note.

  “That’s cool,” said Penelope. A concerted snub is a concerted snub, after all. You read about them and they are dramatic, final, and personal. This was sort of worse.

  “Emma and Bitty came. They didn’t seem to have that good of a time. But they can’t say I didn’t warn them.”

  “I have to go,” blurted out Penelope.

  “Well, all right, dear,” said Gustav, surprised. He stood up. “If you must go, you must go, I can’t keep you. I did want to take you out, but I imagine you are so tired.” He patted Penelope on the head in an abstracted manner.

  Penelope looked at Gustav. He looked so handsome. Like someone in Princess Grace’s family. Maybe the whole problem was that she herself was never honest about her intentions. If perhaps she had said to Gustav, “Gustav, let’s see each other during the day,” he might have done it. If she had said something to Emma about going to the arboretum, she might have invited her. But she never said anything to anyone about anything.

  “Gustav,” said Penelope, “I have to ask you a question.”

  “Shoot, darling,” said Gustav. He stretched and yawned.

  “Why have we never hung out during the day, do you think?”

  “Why, darling,” said Gustav, looking slightly taken aback, “whatever do you mean? Of course we have.”

  “Oh,” said Penelope.

  “My, you are funny,” said Gustav.

  “I just,” said Penelope. “I don’t know.”

  “Darling,” said Gustav, “are you upset about that? Is that why you didn’t want to go to dinner?”

  “No,” said Penelope. “I don’t know.”

  Gustav rubbed his finger against his temple as if he had a migraine.

  “You and I. We have a lot of fun together, of course. But you have no right to be upset or something, dear. We are just friends. I have things to do during the day.”

  “OK,” said Penelope. That stung. Did he think that she thought they were dating? But, then of course, they weren’t not dating. She was silent for a moment. “Well, what is happening?”

  Gustav let out an exasperated sigh. “Whatever do you mean by that?”

  “Are we really friends? I mean, I didn’t think we were dating, but I don’t know.”

  “Oh, darling,” said Gustav. He ran his hand through his hair. “Well, I don’t know. I can’t be in anything serious at the moment.”

  “Oh, I didn’t think it was really serious or anything,” said Penelope, who suddenly had a feeling in her stomach that occurs when you realize that your time enjoying composure is rapidly coming to a close.

  “Darling,” said Gustav. He made a tsking noise. “I never thought I’d have this sort of thing with you. You’re not the dramatic type. It’s a little bit bourgeois to expect a picket fence and a house in Scarsdale, don’t you think?”

  “But I am bourgeois. That is literally what I am in society,” said Penelope. “I also never said anything about Scarsdale. So I don’t think we can really keep this going.”

  “All right, darling,” said Gustav. “Although I don’t really know what you mean by ‘this.’ We can still be friends, of course. I want to be.”

  “I don’t really think so,” said Penelope, her voice shaking. She was about to cry. “I sort of always knew there was something wrong, the way you always used to see me at such weird times.”

  “What?” said Gustav. “The melodrama, my dear! It doesn’t appeal to me.”

  “Oh, OK,” said Penelope, and sprinted out of the backstage area and up the stairs to the exit.

  Penelope sat down on a wide cement stair outside the theater. It was really cold out and very dark. A brick patio stretched from the stair to the street. Across the street was a vintage-looking drugstore and a vintage-looking grocery store and an American Apparel.

  Penelope started crying. It had been ill advised to have that conversation with Gustav, she knew. Conversations like those were dumb. They only confirmed what you already knew.

  “What a night,” said someone theatrically into the air. It was Henry Wills-Mather and he was stretching his hands widely toward the sky, like Lee Radziwill on a trip to India.

  “Hi,” said Penelope quietly.

  “Oh, who’s there?” said Henry Wills-Mather looking around.

  “It’s me, Penelope,” said Penelope, still sitting on the stair. She huddled closer into her knees.

  “Oh, Penelope,” said Henry Wills-Mather. “Hello.” He looked at her without recognition. Then he sat down on the step next to her. Penelope was surprised. She thought by saying hi she would scare him away so she could cry in peace.

  Henry Wills-Mather stared ruminatively in the direction of the vintage drugstore.

  “Did you think we had a good show tonight?” asked Penelope for lack of a better topic.

  “Yes,” said Henry Wills-Mather, “I did. Of course, we are going to have to pay for the pianos. I didn’t know that at first when we ordered you to destroy them, but now I do. Now I know. But it’s OK.”

  “Yeah,” said Penelope.

  “The theater is a demanding mistress,” said Henry Wills-Mather.

  “I could see that,” said Penelope

  “I fell in love with her as a young boy,” said Henry Wills-Mather.

  “Gross,” said someone. It was Lan. Penelope wondered how long she had been there. She was wearing a gray military jacket with huge pockets and she was smoking a cigarette. Raymond was lying on her foot.

  “What did you think of tonight’s show, Lan?” asked Henry Wills-Mather with an edge to his voice.

  “I hated it,” said Lan.

  “If you put the black spotlight on Caligula’s face in the second act again, the play will devolve into meaningless tripe,” barked Henry Wills-Mather.

  Lan smoked in silence. Raymond walked over to Penelope and sat near her leg. Penelope patted him and sneezed.

  “When did you come out here, Lan?” asked Penelope.

  “A while ago,” said Lan.

  “Oh,” said Penelope.

  “I hate that black spotlight,” said Henry Wills-Mather. “I hate it. Don’t you hate it, Penelope?”

  “I don’t hate it,” said Penelope.

  13.

  Penelope, or Virtue Rewarded

  The months following the end of Caligula were an unhappy blur for Penelope. She had not realized how much structure the play had given her life until it was over. It had been a relief to be somewhere most afternoons, even if that place was inside a marionette stage. Now she had to resume wandering around alone. In many ways, it was the most upset Penelope had been in her short life.

  Penelope was not a martyr, howe
ver. She tried to bolster herself as best she could. She bought a quote book from Amazon called Disappointment: It Can Only Lead to Success? It did not help her much, but she sometimes still read it. She read extracts to Catherine after they received their housing assignments and were placed in Mather House. Catherine was excessively disappointed. Mather House was the only dormitory made entirely of cement, but, as Penelope helpfully pointed out, it was not the only dormitory with orange floors.

  “ ‘The sudden disappointment of a hope leaves a scar which the ultimate fulfillment of that hope never entirely removes,’ ” read Penelope to Catherine. They were sitting in Annenberg eating dinner. It had been a trying day. In the morning Catherine had a final, and in the afternoon she and Penelope toured Mather House with some other freshmen. Catherine had cried when she saw the cement dining room and the cement art gallery of student work.

  “Who said that?” asked Catherine.

  “Thomas Hardy,” said Penelope.

  “Why are you reading that book to me again? That has nothing to do with anything,” Catherine wailed. “We are in such an ugly dorm. Mather is the ugliest dorm!”

  “OK,” said Penelope. She closed her book.

  It was true that Mather was a very ugly dorm, but Penelope was not really disappointed by it. She liked Soviet architecture. And other things in her life were more disappointing. She had not seen Gustav since their conversation after Caligula, for example. Her classes too were winding up badly. Instead of a final exam for Southern Writers Reconsidered/Revisited, the class was forced to choose between writing an epic poem or a short story or a manifesto for a fake agrarian literary movement, all of which Penelope’s principles inhibited her from doing.

  What she had to keep in mind, Penelope reminded herself, was that she was not the only one experiencing trials. Others were also experiencing them. Nikil was upset because he hadn’t gotten the summer internship he wanted and instead would have to stay at Harvard, working for the business that put refrigerators in dorms. Glasses was upset because he had gotten two internships and couldn’t decide which one to take, because one was in Bulgaria at its national bank and another was in New York City at a think tank for libertarians, and it was hard to do both at the same time. Lan was deciding whether to let Raymond become an outdoor cat, just for the summer.

  “At least Ted is in Dunster,” said Catherine gloomily. Dunster was next door to Mather. “Even though I am glad he is close to us, I would not want to be in Dunster. Dunster is much prettier from the outside, but it has very small rooms. A murder happened there too. A horrible murder-suicide.” This cheered Catherine somewhat. She took a large bite of her turkey sandwich.

  “Oh my God, Ted,” she said and sighed theatrically. “It’s been so weird recently. Did he tell you what happened?”

  “No,” said Penelope. It would have been impossible for Ted to have told her what happened. Ted hadn’t really spoken to Penelope since their fight before Caligula. Penelope didn’t know if she was sad about it or not.

  “That’s true. Why would he?” said Catherine rhetorically. “Anyway, I was talking to Brad about it.”

  “Who is Brad?” asked Penelope.

  “Oh, Brad? Brad was my sort of boyfriend from high school. We were in band together for four years and we always liked each other. Now we are just really good friends. I hadn’t talked to him in like forever, and then last week he called me because he is home this summer and he wanted to hang out, but I was still here, obviously, because I have to take my finals. He is the most hilarious guy ever!”

  “Oh, OK,” said Penelope. Sometimes she could not fathom the romantic pasts of her contemporaries. How were they already so robust?

  “I think Ted and I are taking a break over the summer,” said Catherine abruptly.

  “Oh, wow,” said Penelope. She was not too shocked as Ted had mentioned this as a possibility all those months ago, but still, it was moderately shocking. She composed her features.

  “I know. The other night, we were just talking about this summer, and I asked him if we should stay together while he was in Washington and he said that maybe a break would be good and I was like, ‘I want to take a break.’ ”

  “Oh,” said Penelope.

  “I was really glad I said it.”

  “Me too,” said Penelope. “I don’t think taking a break is a bad idea, if you want a break.”

  “I really don’t think Ted was saying we should take a break though,” snapped Catherine. “But I think we just have to do it. We just have to take a break. Long distance is too hard. Maybe he feels insecure that I will get with Brad when I get home.” She started laughing crazily. “But I am not going to get with Brad. I mean, that is just so ridiculous. Even though he’s said really flirty things recently, that is just how he is.”

  “OK,” said Penelope quickly.

  “So anyway, that is what is happening,” said Catherine. “We are just not going to be together over the summer, then when we get back to school, we will reevaluate everything.”

  “Good idea,” said Penelope. She was surprised. This was all so much more painless than she could have imagined. When Penelope had considered what would happen when Ted and Catherine went on their inevitable break, for she was not so wholly absorbed with her own troubles that this did not occur to her, she always pictured a scene of Catherine wandering the halls of Pennypacker like Lady Macbeth, screaming until Penelope brought her to Health Services. She could not have allowed for the succor of Brad’s affection. It led Penelope to wonder: Was it really true what her mother said? That men were like trolley cars and there was always another coming down the block? Could one man liking you make you forget that there was another man who didn’t like you back? It was hard to know. That was not something Penelope had yet experienced.

  Five days later, Penelope was walking back from the library. She had been studying for her Dinosaurs exam. The library, once the most crowded of social hubs, had been almost deserted. People were really leaving for the summer, it seemed. Glasses was gone. Nikil was leaving soon. Lan told Penelope she wasn’t taking exams. Penelope’s final exams were all clustered on the last day possible to have a test—Dinosaurs was her last exam before she went home.

  However, when Penelope finally turned up the street to her dorm, she was greeted by an unexpected sight. Gustav was in front of Pennypacker. He was leaning against the stone railing. It was really him too. She could smell his pipe from where she was.

  Penelope’s stomach lurched. She wanted to hide somewhere, but there was no place to hide. There were no trees and no other dorms, only a very ugly wooden fence in the colonial style. In a state of panic, she turned a quarter to the right and pretended to be examining the fence. Maybe it was not structurally sound. She knocked on it.

  “Ahh, Penelope,” yelled Gustav, waving to her. “Hello! Come here, darling!”

  “Hi! OK!” said Penelope in a strangely bright tone. She stopped knocking on the fence and walked toward Gustav.

  “What were you doing with that fence, darling?” said Gustav.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Penelope.

  “I hope it is structurally sound,” said Gustav.

  “Me too,” said Penelope.

  Gustav looked somewhat worse than she remembered. His face was puffy. His eyes were red rimmed. He was not wearing a suit jacket but instead a cashmere sweater and very expensive-looking tennis shoes. Looking at his ruined countenance (this was an overstatement), Penelope was seized with an unlikely hope. Could this change in his appearance be due to distress over their breakup? Had he recently been crying? Maybe he had come to her dorm for a rapprochement of some sort.

  “I’m sure you can help me, darling,” said Gustav, putting his pipe in his pocket. “Do you know where the library is? Is this it?”

  “Oh,” said Penelope, with a sinking feeling. “Well, this is my dorm.”

  “Well, goddamn it!” said Gustav genially. “Is every building around here some sort of totem to youths lo
st in war? Everywhere you look there is some sort of memorial plaque. It’s impossible to tell the difference between a library and a dorm, for example.”

  “Do you really not know where the library is?” asked Penelope in disbelief.

  “Well, I know I went to the library once before,” said Gustav. She held her breath, but Gustav did not seem to have any particular nostalgia for Penelope associated with that memory. “But I remember very little about it. These buildings all look so similar.”

  “The library’s on the other side of the Yard,” said Penelope.

  “See, I knew you would know these sort of things,” said Gustav. He patted her on the shoulder. “You look so pale and studious. Is this contraption you are wearing what they call a sweat suit?”

  “I don’t know,” said Penelope, feeling desolate. Why was she wearing a sweat suit? It was very uncharacteristic of her; she usually dressed better. “Why are you going to the library?”

  “I’m looking for a book, darling,” said Gustav. “On financial theory.” He sighed heavily.

  “I didn’t know you liked that,” said Penelope.

  “I don’t, really,” said Gustav.

  “Oh,” said Penelope.

  “My God. What a rubbish day,” said Gustav. He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. “My father’s being a terrible pain. Called all the children for a stern talk. Well, really just me, actually. He rarely does things like that, but when he does, he talks for such an excessively long time. You see, I was supposed to go on another safari with Goldsmith this summer. I may have told you?”

  “Oh,” said Penelope, who was starting to feel like she was in some sort of dream, where everyone was speaking English but no one understood it. “I don’t remember.”