Penelope (14 page)

“But I thought you were setting up these meetings with everyone,” said Penelope.

“I am,” said Jared. “But I was going to have a talk with you anyway about how distracted you get.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Penelope. “What do I do that makes you feel I’m distracted?”

“Yeah, well, you never really comment very much. You never take any notes. Sometimes you just stare into space. Participation in the class is important, you know? It’s something I take very seriously. I like to have people really engaged in this material.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Penelope. She felt a little like throwing up.

“And then there was this whole part in your first test—oh, here’s your test,” Jared took out Penelope’s test and passed it to her. She got an 84. “You didn’t do too badly on it, really, but you lost so many points on this question, and actually, to a lesser extent, on a lot of questions, for a similar thing.” Penelope looked at her midterm and saw it was covered in purple hysterical-seeming marks. Jared was not a red-ink traditionalist. “Like, do you see? This essay question was about population density in the New World. You wrote a paragraph on the population densities in the New World before the plague, which, though fascinating, is not what the question asked, because the whole point of the question was how population in the New World was affected after the plague. Which makes sense, because a plague kills people. And I mean, how do you even know about population densities before the plague?”

“I don’t know,” said Penelope.

“I just feel like, and I know this seems harsh, but that you’re not trying very hard to do well in this class. You never come and see me during office hours. If you are not free to come to my office hours, I can always spare some time to talk—just call me and make an appointment. We could even discuss it over dinner if you have no other time to meet. You can even come up to my room in Pennypacker. We live in the same dorm. I want you to take this class seriously. Do you take it seriously?”

“Yes, I do,” said Penelope. “I take it very seriously. I think I just didn’t read the question right.”

“But if you were careful and if you cared, you would have read the question right and understood what I was asking you. Do you think you need to go to the Bureau of Study Counsel and get some study strategies?”

“I don’t know,” said Penelope.

“Well,” said Jared, “I just want you to get the most out of this class that you possibly can. I want to help you. Demography is important.”

“I know it is,” said Penelope.

“Good,” said Jared in a satisfied way.

“OK,” said Penelope. She got up from her chair.

“Oh,” said Jared, “thanks for waiting before.”

“No problem,” said Penelope.

After two more classes and a quick dinner by herself, Penelope went back to her room to do her homework. She checked her e-mail and found two missives of interest. The first was from the
Advocate:

It seemed that the “theme” of the party was
Peter Pan
. Penelope hated costumes. She hated Halloween. When she was little, it was always too cold to wear her costume without a leotard under it, and the whole thing had seemed pregnant with negative associations ever since. It was depressing to think she had to dress up as a fairy, especially being of average height.

The second e-mail was from Jared.

Penelope threw that e-mail in her trash.

Lan came out of her room. She was wearing a T-shirt with a
cat on the back of it. The cat looked a little like Raymond, but it had different-colored eyes.

“Lan?” asked Penelope. “I have a problem. My TF wants to meet with me. Again. And he already met with me today.”

“Eww,” said Lan.

“I know. And he wants to meet in a dining hall,” said Penelope. “He’s the proctor in Pennypacker too. What should I do?”

“I would never meet with him ever again,” said Lan.

“Really?” said Penelope. “Isn’t that a little disrespectful?”

“No,” said Lan.

“Would you write him an e-mail, maybe, explaining why you can’t meet with him?”

Lan gave Penelope a withering glance.

“OK,” said Penelope. “How was your day?”

“Fine,” said Lan. “I painted my room again, so don’t go inside.”

“I won’t,” said Penelope.

Lan snorted and shut her bedroom door.

The day of the
Advocate
party, Penelope decided that she was not going to dress the theme or wear a costume of any kind. If anyone asked her what she was dressed as, she would say a Lost Boy, and wore a brown dress to back up that claim.

Penelope waited in her room until about midnight before she went over to the party. She was nervous. She hated going to things alone. She couldn’t get ahold of Catherine, which meant Catherine was probably with Ted. Even if Catherine was around, Penelope wasn’t sure that she could bring her. Scott had warned all the compers in a follow-up e-mail that the parties were very exclusive, and it was doubtful they themselves would get in, much less a guest.

Eventually, Penelope walked over to the
Advocate
. When she got to the door there was a man standing outside it. He was wearing a gigantic alligator mask and a green spandex jumpsuit.
He was one of the smallest men Penelope had ever seen. His kneecaps were the size of Sacagawea coins.

“Hi,” said Penelope. “I’m here for the
Advocate
party?”

“What’s your name?” said the man, muffled by the alligator mask. He was holding a clipboard with a list on it. He looked at it now.

“Penelope.”

“I don’t see you on this list,” said the Alligator. “Are you a comper?”

“Maybe,” said Penelope.

“I don’t see you. I’m sorry.”

“Oh, that’s OK,” said Penelope. “I can go home.”

Just as Penelope was turning to leave, someone came up to the Alligator and started talking to him. It was Scott. He was wearing a tricorn hat, a black curly wig, and an entirely red spandex jumpsuit, which exposed his unexpectedly lush chest hair. Penelope realized he must be Captain Hook. She was surprised at the choice of a body suit over the more versatile pantaloons.

“Hey, hey, hey, hey, man,” he said, grabbing the Alligator by the waist. “That is my comper.”

“Oh. I didn’t know who she was,” said the Alligator.

“Yo, buddy,” said Scott. He was touching the Alligator’s face. “It’s OK.”

“OK, you can go inside,” said the Alligator to Penelope. Scott and he were embracing each other.

The
Advocate
was completely pitch-black on the bottom floor. Penelope thought she saw outlines of wings and tutus shifting around in the blackness, but it was hard to tell what they were doing or where exactly they were positioned, symbolically, in the
Peter Pan
saga. She saw blaring lights on the second floor and climbed the stairs.

One thing that Penelope could attest to, afterward to Ted when he asked, was that this party was much more spirited than the one she had been to in Currier. For one, everyone had really embraced the theme and, in addition, spandex seemed to be a
unifying force in their interpretations. To Penelope, the use of spandex in a costume always implied, at the very least, a willingness to show the outline of your hip bone in the spirit of fair play.

In the middle of the room, there was an old-timey projector that was playing
Peter Pan
, the Disney version, on the ceiling. It was right at the part where Peter sings “What Makes the Red Man Red?” while blowing into a pipe. Even as a child, Penelope never understood that part of the movie. The sound was off and nobody seemed to be paying attention to the film anyway. Instead, everyone was dancing to a very slow, very obscure song that until now Penelope had never thought anyone could ever dance to.

Penelope felt very overwhelmed. She knew no one, Gustav apparently had not made it to this party either, and seeing
Peter Pan
projected on the ceiling was actually kind of scary. Everyone was dancing in a way that involved a lot of jumping on the part of the males and a lot of adorable hand motions and shaking of the head on the part of the females. If Penelope’s mother had been there, she would have worried that someone was going to drop their cigarette on the floor, cause a fire, and condemn everyone to die in a burning barn.

After watching
Peter Pan
for a while, Penelope decided to get a drink. She didn’t even want to drink alcohol, necessarily, but she needed something to occupy herself. There were boxes of wine on the long table in the front of the room that a couple of people were dancing on. When Penelope reached the table, all the wine boxes were empty, and there were no more cups. She scanned the room and spotted a bar in the corner and decided to make her way there.

To her surprise, while walking to the bar, she finally spotted people she knew. Behind the counter, she recognized Lisa from the fiction comp, who was wearing a bathing suit covered in feathers (Was there a bird in
Peter Pan
? Penelope could not remember this) and talking to the sophomore who wanted to sleep with Sappho. The sophomore was wearing an eye patch
on his eye and a tattoo of a mermaid on his biceps. Penelope saw a bottle of Jack Daniel’s on the counter and got an idea. She would make herself a drink and then slowly insinuate herself into their conversation. She just had to think up an icebreaker.

Penelope made herself a concoction of whiskey, orange juice, and milk. She took a very long time doing it, hoping that Lisa and the sophomore would see her and say hi. They did not. After putting eight slices of lemon into her drink in an effort to buy time, she decided she had to break into their conversation by forced means.

“Hey, guys,” said Penelope. “Do you know where the bathroom is?”

They both looked at her blankly.

“Uh, no, sorry,” said the sophomore.

“Oh, OK,” said Penelope. She almost wandered away, but she steeled her resolve.

“Aren’t you guys in my group?” she asked.

“Are you comping the fiction board?” asked Lisa.

“Yeah,” said Penelope.

“Oh, yeah,” said the sophomore. “I’m John.”

“Lisa,” said Lisa. Penelope nodded slightly at both.

“This party is so nuts,” said John.

“It’s always like this. Everybody here is insane. But it’s so awesome,” said Lisa.

Penelope nodded again. What could she say? She touched a pierced ear to see if the hole was still there.

“Do you want a drink?” John asked Penelope. “There is some Jack Daniel’s here. I think we drank all the wine, which is too bad.”

“Oh, that’s OK,” said Penelope. “I already have one.”

“Nice,” said John.

“Where are you from?” asked Penelope.

“Pittsburgh.”

“Great.”

“It’s so boring now,” said John in an authoritative voice. “I mean it’s fine. It’s like a fine place to grow up and everything,
but it just used to be this really cool place in the seventies. It had this underground art culture that was really compelling. Everyone was strung out on heroin and could lead these very interesting lives because unemployment was so high. Now, at least where I live, there are just Starbucks everywhere. It’s just totally corporate and weird.”