Penelope (6 page)

She ineffectually patted him on the arm.

“It’s OK. I mean, I’m sure she is not doing that.”

“But what’s stopping her? Oh God, I want to kill myself,”

“Don’t do that,” said Penelope. “It is stupid to kill yourself over empty conjecture.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” said Ted. He lay on his bed, his knees curled up in a C shape. Penelope sat up awkwardly.

“Here, lie down next to me,” said Ted. He pulled her down next to him. The bottom part of his neck was rife with pimples and infected stubble. He was not very good at shaving, it seemed. The man in the rumpled linen suit would probably be great at shaving. But beggars could not be choosers.

“Penelope,” said Ted.

“Yes,” said Penelope.

“I really feel a connection with you,” said Ted, staring into Penelope’s eyes without blinking.

“Thanks,” said Penelope.

Ted touched her face. “You don’t have to be Helen of Troy, you know. You can just be you.”

Penelope sat up like a shot.

“It’s late,” she said. “I should go.”

“OK,” said Ted. He did not seem particularly displeased.

“See you around though,” said Penelope, putting on her shoes.

“Yeah, definitely,” said Ted, still lying down.

Four days later, Penelope’s mother called her. Penelope was outside reading a book.

“Hi, Mom,” said Penelope.

“Penelope!” screamed her mother.

“Hello!” said Penelope.

“So. How is it? Do you love it?”

“It’s interesting,” said Penelope.

“What does that mean?” said her mother.

“I don’t know. I mean, how does anyone quantify experience?”

“Oh God, Penelope. Are your roommates assholes or something?”

“Yeah. I don’t know. I think one of them huffs paint.”

“What about the other one?” asked Penelope’s mother.

“Oh, I never see her. She knew all these people before she got here. She color coordinated the closet.”

“So then what have you been doing?”

What had Penelope been doing? One night she took a bus, which she thought went to another part of campus (Radcliffe) but instead went to Brandeis University. She walked around Brandeis for a while. It was deserted. She talked to some graduate students recovering from the aftermath of a Wilco concert. She went home.

Another night she stood on her stoop for a couple of hours. A homeless man carrying a grease-stained paper bag approached the stoop and started playing the harmonica. Several people came out on the stoop when they heard the harmonica and started playing their own instruments, including Adorno Eric, who brought out a cello. The homeless man started singing about fisting a woman and everyone went inside.

“Oh, nothing really,” said Penelope. “There was a panel on medical school admissions a couple of days ago.”

“But you don’t want to go to medical school,” said Penelope’s mother.

“I know,” said Penelope.

“When do classes start?”

“Tomorrow.”

“When do extracurricular activities start?”

“I don’t know.”

“You should join an extracurricular activity. What about the chorus?” said Penelope’s mother.

“But I’ve never sung before,” said Penelope.

“That is what chorus is for,” said Penelope’s mother.

“No, it isn’t.”

“It is for learning how to sing. I bet there are a lot of cute guys in the chorus.”

“I bet there aren’t,” said Penelope.

“Well, fine, Penelope. You don’t have to take my advice.”

“I just don’t think cute guys flock to the chorus, that’s all.”

“Are there any cute guys in your dorm?” asked her mother.

“Not really. Though maybe they are hiding. People are kind of staying in their rooms to prepare for classes,” said Penelope.

“Why would they be preparing for classes? Classes have not started yet,” said Penelope’s mother. “Maybe you aren’t going to the right places.”

“I don’t know where else to go. I mean, if people aren’t around, they aren’t around. I’m not going to chase after them begging them to be my friend.”

“Penelope. Having friends requires a certain amount of effort. You need to get out there.”

“Fine. Fine,” said Penelope. Her mother was wrong. She did put in effort. She just didn’t know where anything was or where anyone was going. Sometimes she would stay in the common room with the door propped open, hoping that someone would see her inside and ask her if she wanted to come out with them. This strategy had not worked yet.

“Well, that is all I am saying.”

“OK.”

“Are you reading?”

“No,” said Penelope, who hid her book near a vine.

“Good. Because you can’t just read all the time. You have to be proactive. I love you. I have to walk with Liz now.”

“OK. Have fun walking.”

“Bye! Make an effort!” said Penelope’s mother.

Penelope decided to go back to her room. Classes were going to start tomorrow. She had to lay out her outfit, apply a face mask, and whiten her teeth with whitening strips to prepare.

When she got back to the dorm, Emma was in the common room looking at the course book.

“Hey,” said Penelope. She put her book back on the broken shelf.

“Hi. Do you know what classes you’re going to shop tomorrow? I’ve made a schedule for myself.” Emma pointed to a laminated, color-coordinated sheet of paper dangling off the futon. “But I am still really stressed out. I don’t know if I should take EC 10 or not. My dad says I should. He thinks every educated person should know the fundamental principles of economics. I mean, I think I agree with that to an extent. And I decided to opt out of Math 55 so I could have more bandwidth for other things. But I just don’t know. What if I go into environmental law? I don’t want people to think I am just motivated by money. I have a lot of principles that really do motivate me and I really want that to come across on my CV.”

“I don’t think courses end up on your résumé,” said Penelope.

“Of course not, Penelope,” said Emma. “God.”

Emma busied herself with the course book for a while. Penelope stood there awkwardly, staring at Lan’s door, which she had decorated with a large
KEEP OUT
sign.

“What are you doing for required courses?” Emma said abruptly.

“I don’t know. Maybe a music class,” said Penelope.

Emma sputtered. “I would really get my sciences out of the way.”

“Yeah, I should probably do that,” said Penelope.

“I e-mailed the professor for EC 10 but he hasn’t e-mailed me back. Can you believe it? God, what the hell else are they doing? I think I need to call my dad,” said Emma, who then made a shooing motion with her hands. Penelope did as she was told and went into their bedroom closing the door behind her. She got into bed with her shoes still on.

The one thing that Penelope found quite surprising about college was how often she was alone. At home she was constantly being pestered by her mother or eating at McDonald’s with her depressing friends. Here she did everything by herself and she couldn’t seem to stop. At dinner tonight, for example, she sat next to a kid who had recently bought a genetically engineered apple at a food festival. It was orange. Penelope liked him, but when she asked him to hang out later that night, he said he would be busy looking at the apple’s skin under a microscope. Now she had forgotten his name so she could never look him up, even if she wanted to.

Maybe she would think about joining the chorus. She always did feel a spiritual kinship with Whitney Houston.

Penelope found shopping for classes to be an oddly pleasant experience. She was alone in that. Emma woke up simultaneously crying and screaming at her father (who was apparently in Russia) on a technologically advanced international cell phone that she used only in emergencies. Lan didn’t shop for classes. As she told Penelope when she walked in on her in the bathroom that morning, each class sounded sort of interesting until you actually went to it. Then you would realize that you would rather be watching a light show.

For the first time in a week, Penelope was in the company of other people for a sustained period of time. This was invigorating, even if she didn’t talk to any of them. She got to see all the other students, striding with purpose from class to class, the good-looking ones wearing pants with embroidered lobsters on them, the bad-looking ones wearing rollerblades. All of them, it seemed, had printed out a laminated schedule of the classes they were set to attend. Many of them were taking copious notes on their laptops, even though the subject of the class was usually something like “Welcome to Class” and Penelope felt she could remember that pretty well without writing it down.

In every class she visited, including the English class where the professor discussed at length whether Shakespeare was handsome or not and the class about Bach’s extremely boring yet mobile life, she saw Ted. She even saw him in Counting People, and she thought he was good at math. This was strange to Penelope for many reasons, but mostly because Ted had studiously avoided her since the ice cream social. She had seen him around sometimes with Jason, usually in the mornings eating breakfast; but he had completely stopped saying hi to her and one time pretended he did not see her when she was going up the stairs and he was going down them. So unless Ted really had the exact same scholastic interests as her, which she highly doubted considering the whole
Fountainhead
debacle, he was following her around. Penelope could not tell whether she was pleased about this or not.

Slightly later in the day, after Penelope had gone to several classes, she headed over to the Memorial Church basement to try out for chorus. The basement was filled with people milling around, humming, and sitting on folding chairs. Penelope wrote her name down on the sign-up sheet and sat down in a folding chair and pretended to hum to herself. Next to her, a man with a head of wet-looking red curls was discussing his week very loudly with two round-faced girls.

“Finally, I just had it. I said to her, ‘If you want to do the Tchaikovsky, do the Tchaikovsky, but don’t come crying to me if everyone tells you it’s just trussed-up folk music.’ ” Both girls nodded.

“Honestly, I can’t deal with Vivien’s emotional breakdowns and handle my course load this semester,” said Wet Curls. “I mean, it’s amazing how much work I have this week already. How are you?” he asked the round-faced girl on his left, who had her braids pinned around her head like a milkmaid’s.

“I mean, same as you. I’m swamped with work,” she said, sighing. Penelope wondered how this could be true. It was the first day of classes. There were no official assignments and no homework for another week. “I was supposed to go out to dinner
with my roommate for her birthday last night, but I had too much to do.”

“I know how you feel,” said the other girl. Just then, Ted walked in. After agonizing slightly, he came and sat next to Penelope.

“Ted,” said Penelope, “I didn’t know you sang.”

“Oh, this is a chorus?” said Ted.

“Yes,” said Penelope.

“Well, actually I do sing. I am great at it.”

“Cool,” said Penelope. “I am not.”

“Then why are you here?” asked Ted.

“I just felt like it,” said Penelope.

“OK,” said Ted.

“Attention!” said Wet Curls, who was apparently the leader of this operation. He had moved up to the front of the room and was brandishing the sign-up sheet. “I know you guys wanna catch up—it’s been a long summer.” Penelope heard giggling behind her.
They show a lot of mercy here when you make a bad joke
, Penelope thought.
Or not even jokes, really. Statements
. “But we have to get down to business with auditions. We do not want to have a repeat of last year’s disaster!” Knowing glances plus more laughing. Wet Curls was obviously well loved. “I’m Ron, for those of you who don’t know. I’m the president. And this is Cindy, our music director,” said Ron, pointing to the milkmaid, who was now mutely standing next to him.

“Hi,” said Cindy.

“For all you auditionees, Cindy is going to become your best friend. She is the one you can come to with all your problems, complaints, everything. I’m a little too busy wrangling alumni to deal with all that stuff, but we are both going to be sitting here every week watching you guys audition until we have our new group members. Anything you want to add, Cindy?”