Penelope (27 page)

The movie started.

“I always wished this could happen in real life,” said Gustav, who put his arm around Penelope once he settled himself back on the couch. “It seems so fun.”

“That you could literally take your face off?” asked Penelope.

“When you say it like that it sounds like far more of a ridiculous proposition.” Gustav drew her tighter under his arm and lightly kissed the top of her ear. Then he kissed her on her cheek right next to her mouth. And then he kissed her mouth.

Penelope and Gustav made out through the entirety of
Face/Off
. Penelope viewed this experience as a tutorial in the Art of Love. The first time she made out with Gustav, she was too shocked to take note of anything he was doing or anything she could be doing back to him. This time, she paid close attention to technical niceties. For example, Gustav knew exactly where her face should go and subtly indicated this.

During the movie, Gustav successfully removed Penelope’s shirt, both of her shoes, and one of her earrings. He put them neatly on the end table next to the couch. When the movie was over, Gustav threw Penelope over his shoulder and carried her the ten steps to his bedroom, where he then laid her on his bed. Gustav’s bed was much larger than the normal extra-long cot that everybody else slept on. It also had many pillows of various sizes strewn all over it. Penelope became petrifyingly nervous when he laid her on it. Making out on the couch seemed normal, even fun once you got the hang of it. But this required much more in terms of skill level were she not to be found out as a fraud.

“Is this a feather bed?” asked Penelope from her prone position. Gustav was standing up beside the bed, taking off his shirt. He was not one of those “rip your clothes off” types that Penelope had heard about. He removed clothing in a very orderly manner.

“I think so,” said Gustav. “It’s very comfortable.”

“Is it made of real feathers?” said Penelope.

“I imagine it is,” said Gustav. “Are you OK?”

“Yes,” said Penelope. She was worried that her arms were paralyzed. She could just have been nervous, but what if she was getting polio? That would be bad, as Gustav probably wasn’t vaccinated for it.

“Penelope, I must ask you a question,” said Gustav. He lay down next to Penelope on the bed and pulled her into him. Penelope’s arms remained stubbornly at her sides like a penguin’s. Gustav took Penelope’s arms and put them around his neck, and smiled what seemed to be a reassuring smile. At this point, Penelope made a pact with herself: This evening, she wasn’t going to do anything she didn’t yet know how to do, so as not to expose herself to censure or ridicule; but she also wasn’t going to be needlessly reticent in a way that made her stand out from other girls her age. Of course, this was a difficult arc to navigate. Her poverty of experience in the first place was very abysmal. But one can always be taught. That was the lesson of
The King and I
.

“What is your question?” asked Penelope in a more confident voice.

“Are you going to be contrary about your pants all evening?” asked Gustav.

Penelope woke up the next morning, still in Gustav’s bed. It was 11:00 a.m. according to the wooden duck-shaped clock on the wall. She wondered if her breath smelled. That would be awful if it did. She tried to get up and soundlessly go to the bathroom to look for toothpaste when Gustav woke up.

“Oh, hello, you,” said Gustav. He tried to kiss Penelope. She was able to avert this by shoving her forehead in his face.

“Hello,” said Penelope.

“How are your trousers?”

“They are good,” said Penelope.

“I was worried they would wrinkle.”

“Oh, I don’t think you needed to worry about that. They have spandex in them,” said Penelope.

“Weren’t you hot?”

“A little,” said Penelope. “They sort of itched me.”

“They really itched me,” said Gustav. “I don’t think any woman has ever slept in pants before in this bed.”

“Really,” said Penelope. “That is fascinating.” This was something she needed to take note of. She thought keeping her pants on was a convenient and concrete nonnegotiable that allowed certain things but kept other things firmly out of the picture. Apparently, however, it was a weird thing to do.

“What do you have to do today?” asked Gustav. He raised himself up on one arm. Penelope was struck again by how abundant his chest hair was. She could barely look at it.

“I guess I am going to study,” said Penelope, blinking. “I have to go to a study group later.”

“Do you have an exam?”

“Yeah,” said Penelope. “Tomorrow.”

“I know this sounds horribly ignorant, but what is a study group?” asked Gustav. “I have never even heard of that.”

“It’s a group of people who get together and study for an exam. Usually everybody has a section of the curriculum that they are in charge of.”

“That sounds awful,” said Gustav. “I am going to immediately forget that I have this important knowledge.” He succeeded in kissing Penelope this time, although she kept her mouth closed. His breath did not smell, weirdly.

Gustav pulled Penelope extremely close to his chest and started kissing her neck very softly. While he did this, he also inserted his index finger under the waistband of her pants. Just then, his cell phone started vibrating on his bedside table.

“Oh, shit,” said Gustav. “Hold on.” He reached for his cell phone. Penelope immediately disentangled herself from Gustav’s grasp and sat up.

“Yes, hello,” said Gustav into the phone. A woman was on
the other end; Penelope could hear her. “No, darling, I didn’t forget.” At this, Gustav jumped off the bed and started to rapidly pull shoes out of his capacious closet. “I will be there in ten minutes. So sorry to keep you waiting. See you soon.”

During this conversation, Penelope got off Gustav’s bed and tried to find her shirt. When Gustav hung up with the mystery woman, he ascertained what Penelope was doing and said:

“I think it’s in the common room still. Hold on, let me get it,” and sprinted out in that direction.

Penelope stood in the middle of Gustav’s bedroom with her arms folded across her chest. She was wearing only pants and a bra. She was pretty cold. It looked very cold outside too. The sky was gray in a way that promised precipitation but would probably not deliver on it. Penelope could not decide how bad it was that Gustav was leaving her to have brunch with another woman. This was the hard thing about modern life and friendships. How bad were things anymore if everyone was friends all the time? Also, which one was the friend, the mystery woman or Penelope? Or were they both friends?

Gustav came back to the room with Penelope’s shirt, earring, and shoes. He handed them to her.

“Terribly sorry about all this.”

“Oh, that’s OK,” said Penelope. She put on her shirt as quickly as possible. Gustav tried to explain things while she got dressed.

“That was Bitty on the phone, you see. We used to have brunch together every Sunday, and I have been blowing her off terribly for the past three Sundays. This Friday, she made me promise to go to brunch with her or she would disown me.”

“Oh,” said Penelope, putting on her earring. “Well, that’s OK.”

“I am so sorry,” said Gustav apologetically. “When can I see you again?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Penelope. She was all dressed now. She walked quickly out of the bedroom. Gustav followed her.

“I am sure I will see you at the S— or something,” said Gustav. “At some point.”

Penelope laughed a little at this.

“Sure,” she said. “How will I get inside?”

“Well, maybe I can try to make it over to the library. I probably should try that place out.”

“OK,” said Penelope.

“Bye, darling,” said Gustav. He kissed her firmly on both cheeks. Penelope only slightly messed it up. Then he scampered off and Penelope walked back to Pennypacker.

Penelope trudged up Pennypacker’s staircase, concluding what could have technically been termed a “walk of shame” from Gustav’s dorm. Penelope’s mother had warned her about walks of shame. She said they were a bad thing to do. Somehow, Penelope thought they would be a more flagrant enterprise than they actually were. No one on the street even seemed to notice she was on one.

Penelope was hanging up her coat on a hook in the common room when she heard Emma yelling at someone inside their bedroom. She couldn’t hear what Emma was saying exactly, the words were muffled, but she sounded upset. For a second, Penelope wondered whether Emma was mad at her for staying overnight at Gustav’s and was screaming at someone random on the phone to express her frustration. How Emma would know about Penelope’s date with Gustav would remain a mystery, but Penelope had a history of being inconveniently found out and did not question that such a mischance could occur. Unfortunately, Penelope needed to take a shower and her towel was in the bedroom. She decided to brave the scene and open the door.

“Dad! I am trying, OK? I am trying. You don’t … Yes, I do want you to call him … Well, I am going to get an A-minus if you don’t call him … Yes, I do think that’s unfair … Dad, I have worked—Dad, I have worked, DAD!”

“Hi, Emma,” said Penelope softly. Emma did not acknowledge
her. Penelope got her towel and rushed into the shower. When she came back from her shower to dry her hair, however, the conversation still wasn’t finished.

“Yes, I know it isn’t good enough for law school … Dad, I know that, you don’t have to tell me that … I mean, obviously that’s why I am freaking out … Yes … Yes … Dad, you don’t know how hard I am trying, really … Maybe when you were in college it was easier … I am going to hang up on you, Dad. I really am. DAD! I am!”

Emma violently turned off her phone. Then she violently turned toward Penelope. Penelope almost dropped her hair dryer on the floor in fright.

“Where were you last night?” demanded Emma.

“Oh, nowhere,” said Penelope.

“How can you be nowhere? I don’t get what you mean by that,” said Emma. Then she sighed and fell back on her bed.

“I am so sick of my dad,” said Emma.

“Why?” said Penelope.

“He’s just being impossible. Plus, my TF for EC 10 is such an asshole. I think he hates me because I am pretty or something. I will fucking murder him if he keeps me out of Yale Law School.”

“Wow,” said Penelope. “That is extreme.”

“Does a ninety, an eighty-nine, and a ninety-one sound like an A-minus to you?”

“Yes,” said Penelope.

“But not if you factor in classroom participation, which is ten percent of the grade,” said Emma.

“That’s true,” said Penelope.

“Exactly! And that is what I said. I always come to class incredibly prepared. I talk almost the entire time. Yet he is insisting that I get an A-minus for the year. It’s completely unfair and I have to stop it.”

“But, you know, an A-minus isn’t that bad, really.”

“It’s not good enough for law school! If I was planning on doing nothing with my life, then it would be fine.”

“But it’s pretty early on, you know. I’m sure it doesn’t matter much. You could even have fun all semester and it wouldn’t matter.”

“I am having fun! I am having incredible fun! I am meeting incredible people and I am making the best friends of my life.”

“Oh, awesome,” said Penelope.

“All I am saying is that fun is not the problem. Ugh, I just need to go in and talk to my TF, that’s all,” said Emma. She lay down on her bed again, facedown on her pillow. Penelope took it as a cue and went back into the common room to pick up some books from her desk. Lan was feeding Raymond sardines out of a red, rectangular can. She was wearing a T-shirt that read
ARE YOU THERE, GOD? IT IS ME, LAN
. on one side and
PASADENA CHRISTIAN CAMP 1997
on the other side.

“Hi, Lan,” said Penelope.

“Did you go out with that European guy yesterday?” said Lan without looking up from Raymond.

“How do you know about that?” asked Penelope.

“I just do,” said Lan. “Anyway, he is weird. He’s like an international playboy, except really nerdy and a freak. I wouldn’t take it personally.”

“Take what personally?” asked Penelope.