Penelope (10 page)

“Oh, yeah,” said Catherine. “All the waffles have the Harvard coat of arms on them. I think it’s so cute!”

“But does it ruin the waffle-eating experience?” asked Penelope.

No one said anything to this. Ted ate his Marshmallow Mateys with a stricken look. Jason and Glasses started whispering to each other again. Penelope looked up at the face of James Russell Lowell and resolved to read his biography, if he had one.

“I’m gonna go,” said Ted. He got up from the table. Penelope had never seen anyone eat cereal that quickly. She hadn’t even started on her second lump of corned beef hash. By the time she finished this thought, Ted had already bused his tray.

“Me too,” said Nikil, who also stood up. “I have so much work to do it’s ridiculous. I’ll probably be working for the rest of my life.”

“What do you have to do?” asked Penelope.

“I have a paper I need to get a head start on. It’s due in four weeks,” said Nikil. “And I have to prepare for class. You can’t go to class unprepared.”

“Well, you can,” said Penelope.

“No, you can’t,” snapped Nikil. He turned on his heel and walked away.

Glasses and Jason stood up hazily, as if unsure of what to do.

“Well,” said Glasses, “I guess we better be going too.” Glasses glanced absentmindedly at Penelope. She wondered if he remembered that yesterday he had kissed her and vomited on her shoes. It seemed like he didn’t.

“Yeah,” said Jason.

“OK,” said Penelope.

And with that he and Glasses walked away. This left Penelope
and Catherine sitting across from each other. Penelope ate more corned beef hash.

“Those boys are so cute, aren’t they?” said Catherine.

“Hmm?” said Penelope.

“I love all those guys,” said Catherine. “They are hilarious.”

“Ha ha ha,” said Penelope.

“Still,” continued Catherine, drumming her fingers on the table impatiently, her eyes flitting around the room like moths, “it’s nice to have girl time. I need to hang out with girls more. I never hang out with girls.”

“They are dumb,” said Penelope.

“I know, right?” said Catherine. “Last night was so fun. Did you have fun?”

“Maybe,” said Penelope. “I left sort of early.”

“Oh, really?” asked Catherine.

“Well, that guy vomited on my shoes,” said Penelope.

“Oh, right! That was hilarious!” said Catherine.

“Yeah,” said Penelope.

“Mike was just like, ‘Who was that girl?’ afterward. It was so funny.”

“That’s weird because I think he definitely knows who I am. Since I live so near him. And we made out yesterday,” said Penelope.

“Can I tell you something?” said Catherine. She lowered her voice and pivoted her entire torso onto the table, narrowly missing her waffle. “Do you promise not to tell anyone?”

“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.”