Penelope (28 page)

“Whatever you are taking personally,” said Lan.

“OK,” said Penelope. She didn’t agree. Still, she felt a little better.

Penelope was half an hour late when she got to the library for her study group. Everyone was already assembled around a table in the library café working quietly, and they did not stop working quietly when Penelope entered the room. The study group consisted of Ted, the tiny guy in the herringbone vest, and Melissa. Penelope did not understand how this group was ever formed. It consisted only of her mortal enemies. However, these were things you seemed to put aside during exam period.

Penelope sat down next to Ted and took out her notebook. Ted waved to Penelope silently.

“Hey, Penelope,” whispered Ted.

“Oh, hey, Ted,” whispered Penelope.

“Glad you could make it. Where were you last night? Catherine and I stopped by your room on the way back from dinner, but you weren’t there.”

“Oh, I don’t know where I was. I was around I guess,” said Penelope. She had no idea why she was lying. But then, of course, what was the point of telling anyone? It was probably the last time she would see Gustav ever again, as “Maybe I will see you at the S— sometime” was by far the lamest of any of his nonpromises to hang out. Even when Mae West said things like that, they were lies. Penelope knew she really should consider the whole thing done. She didn’t even have to take it personally. Even though it had been the best date of her life, it also had some flaws, like French and his uncle the inbred. It was not perfect.

“Yeah, Lan said you had been in the library for a while or something,” said Ted.

“Um, I have a question. Can we all flip to page three of the study guide? Is that really a passable sample essay question? I think she wants a more technical approach,” said the man in the herringbone vest.

“I think it’s fine,” said Ted.

The man in the herringbone vest noticed Penelope for the first time.

“Where were you?” he said. He was wearing a bow tie today as well. He looked like a soda jerk in a saloon.

“Oh, I was just taking a shower. I woke up kind of late.”

“Did you do your portion of the study guide?” he asked.

“Oh, yeah,” said Penelope. She had cut and pasted several pictures of Shakespeare’s goatee into a Word document right before she left.

“Good,” said the man in the herringbone vest. “Do you want to give it to us?”

“Here,” said Penelope. She passed out what she had done.

The man in the herringbone vest looked at Penelope’s portion of the study guide and sighed. “Well, let’s go through the material from the beginning, I guess,” he said.

Examining the study guide from the beginning, Penelope was filled with a certain amount of malaise and depression. If she didn’t have Gustav, then what did she have to hope for? Academic success in her classes? Penelope could think about that up to a point but only up to a point. Extracurricular activities? The mere thought of
Caligula
made her want to jump out a window. Friends? The Ted and Catherine situation was like a bedroom farce without jokes. It was all depressing, although not as bad as possible, obviously.

At some point, the man in the vest broke the silence and gave an impassioned speech about the inadequacies of images without context.

“I think that guy is worse when he has his bow tie on,” said Penelope to Ted in an undertone.

“Oh, definitely,” said Ted.

“I don’t think I had ever seen anyone in a bow tie before, before I went here. Now I see some people wearing them every day.”

“My father wears one,” said Ted.

“Oh,” said Penelope. That explained a lot.

“I actually have some of his old ones,” said Ted. “Maybe I’ll wear one one day. I think they are kind of funny, don’t you? I wouldn’t wear it seriously, of course, but in an ironic way.”

“How have exams been going?” asked Penelope.

“Well, exams, you know. It’s been a lot of work. Hopefully next semester will be less insane.”

“Yeah, hopefully,” said Penelope.

“Do you want to get dinner tonight?” asked Ted. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever.”

“Sure,” said Penelope. Because what else was there to do? Nothing.

“Guys,” said the man in the vest, “are you going to join this
discussion? It’s like five right now and we haven’t even really attacked most of the material we need to attack.”

It was at this moment when Penelope looked over at the door and saw Gustav walk into the library. He was accompanied by both Tiny 1930s Movie Star and Rower. They all looked very disoriented and had a lot of trouble swiping their ID cards at the card swipe near the entrance. Eventually, Gustav had to show the security guard his passport. Penelope felt her stomach flip over. She could not believe Gustav had come here, the library, a place he hated on principle. Did he come here to see her?

In any case, Penelope felt the best thing to do was to make no signal to Gustav that she had seen him at all. Instead, she started poring over her study guide. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Rower, Tiny 1930s Movie Star, and Gustav sit down at a table about twenty feet away. Rower took out his laptop, which was silver and extremely slim, and laid it on the table. Gustav put his feet up on a chair. She could not tell if he had seen her and was pretending to ignore her, or had not seen her and was just sitting twenty feet away because there was an empty table. In all probability, it was the latter. Gustav did not strike her as particularly neurotic.

“Who did Images of Shakespeare from the seventeenth century?” asked the man in the herringbone vest.

“I did,” said Melissa in a small voice.

“This is exactly opposite of what the test will be on,” said the man in the herringbone vest. “How did you come up with this?”

“Hey, Penelope,” said Ted, pointing obviously at Gustav. “Isn’t that your friend?” Penelope had to stop herself from lunging at Ted and shoving his hand to the floor.

“What are you referring to?” said Penelope, looking at her study guide.

“Fancy seeing him in the library,” said Ted. “You should say hi.”

“No,” said Penelope.

“Have you two kept in touch since you went out for drinks?” asked Ted.

“Not really,” said Penelope, looking at Gustav to see if he noticed the pointing. It seemed not. He was laughing at something and slapping his knee.

“Too bad,” said Ted.

“I am going to get a cup of coffee,” said Penelope. The coffee bar was only ten feet away from Gustav’s table. Penelope wondered if Gustav would approach her as she waited for her drink. He did not. She got her cappuccino and returned to her seat.

“What took you so long? Did you talk to your boyfriend?” said Ted when she sat back down.

“No,” said Penelope. “I ordered a cappuccino.”

“Why are you attracted to this guy again?” said Ted. “I don’t really get it. I am going to be honest.”

“Really?” said Penelope.

“Yeah,” said Ted. “He seems like such a weirdo. But I am not a girl, I guess.”

“Maybe that is why,” said Penelope.

“Darling?” said a voice behind her. Penelope whipped around. Gustav was standing right behind her chair. He appeared even taller than usual.

“Oh, hello,” said Penelope. She wondered if he had heard Ted. Ted didn’t seem too perturbed, if that was the case.

“I thought I saw you ordering a cappuccino. Why didn’t you come and say hello?”

“Oh,” said Penelope. “I don’t know. I guess I didn’t see you.”

“That’s so curious,” said Gustav. “Come here.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her up off her seat. Then he kissed her on both cheeks. Penelope responded adequately.

“This is my first time in the library,” said Gustav in a loud voice. “And what a place it is. Do you think it rather smells in here?”

“Maybe,” said Penelope. She looked anew at the library café. At the next table, a girl was slowly pulling out clumps of her eyebrow as she wrote Arabic vocabulary words on flash cards. On a nearby stool, a guy was reading a book called
Empiricism Rising: Hume, Voltaire, and the War of Jenkins’ Ear
. Penelope felt
embarrassed. It was as if the entire library was somehow her responsibility and it was acting worse on purpose because she had put it on the spot.

“Is this your study group?” asked Gustav.

“Yes,” said Penelope quietly.

“Who are you?” barked the man in the herringbone vest. “We are kind of working here.”

“Oh, terribly sorry, old chap. I am Gustav.”

“I’m Ted,” said Ted. He stood up and shook hands with Gustav.

“Ah, Ted,” said Gustav. “Hello.”

“Hi,” said Ted. He smirked at Penelope.

“So, Ted,” said Gustav in a convivial way. “How do you know Penelope?”

“We live in the same dorm,” said Ted.

“Oh, isn’t that nice. Aren’t they always the best chums, really?” said Gustav. He cleared his throat.

“I guess,” said Ted.

“Penelope, darling,” said Gustav. “As much as I love it here, do you mind if we leave immediately? I’ll take you out for pizza as a bribe.”

“Well,” said Penelope. It was true she was sick of the library. It was hard to take after a while. However, there was her pride to consider. She could not seem too eager to leave. “I do have to study.”

“Do you see my friends over there?” said Gustav. He pointed to them. They were throwing pieces of wadded-up paper at each other. “They need to study too. I think that is selfish. Who knows what may happen to me as I rove the streets looking for pizza? I do not. Come, you have to save me.”

“I’m sorry, guys,” said Penelope. “I think I have to go now. But good luck with the study group!” She got up.

“Oh, whatever,” said the man in the herringbone vest. “You were no help anyway.”

“I’m sure that’s not true. Come on, dear,” said Gustav, who led Penelope out by her elbow as if she were an invalid.

When they got outside, Gustav breathed a long, very audible sigh of relief.

“Darling, never make me go inside that terrible, terrible building ever again.”

“OK, I won’t,” said Penelope.

“I know now why my father said to me, right before I left for school, ‘Son. The only way to have a good time at Harvard is to never go into the libraries.’ How right he was. Such sound advice.”

They walked in the direction of the Square.

Gustav took Penelope to a wood-grilled pizza place with slate tables. It was not a restaurant frequented by students. There, he ordered a beer that tasted like charcoal and made Penelope drink it.

“That beer is extremely good for you, darling. Has loads of vitamins, which you need. You look pale. That library is like an infirmary. I could feel my jaundice flaring up.”

“Gee, thanks,” said Penelope. She took a sip and grimaced. “Why did you go there anyway?”

“Oh, to see you of course,” said Gustav. “Not sure if I would do it again though.”

“You did?” Penelope blushed.

“Of course, darling,” said Gustav. He patted her arm. “I felt quite bad about our scene this morning. I thought I behaved like a bit of a cad. I should have at least waited until you were out of the room to answer the phone.”

“Oh, it’s OK,” said Penelope. She felt a little like crying. She always felt like crying when someone apologized to her, however briefly, badly, or disingenuously.

“Of course, this has to be extremely casual, I’m absolutely horrid with anything more, but I would like to see a bit more of you,” said Gustav. “You’re very funny.”

“Thanks,” said Penelope.

“Would you want to see more of me?” asked Gustav.

“Sure,” said Penelope. Gustav laughed.

“What an answer!” he said. He laughed more.

A couple of weeks later, after Penelope finished her finals and started a new semester, she was having dinner in Annenberg with Ted, Glasses, Nikil, Jason, and Catherine. They were not eating a very good meal. The main course was a boiled chicken breast. The sides included peas and corn.

“You were so wasted on Saturday,” said Glasses to Nikil while he cleaned his glasses on his turtleneck.

“I wasn’t wasted,” said Nikil. “I was drunk but I wasn’t wasted. I knew everything that was happening.”

“You were totally wasted,” said Glasses. “I know what you are like when you’re wasted.”

Saturday there had been another pregame in Glasses and Nikil’s room. The pregame was supposed to lead to an actual party in Quincy, but it didn’t. Instead, Penelope, Ted, Glasses, Catherine, Jason, and Nikil drank until Nikil got quite drunk and started to cry because he and Glasses got into a disagreement about why the Dow Jones was called that. Then Nikil started to projectile vomit onto the shower curtain. That was when Penelope got a text from Gustav, who was done with his party and wanted to see her. She quickly left and went to his room.

“I can’t believe you left early, Penelope,” said Ted. “You really missed out. It was actually sort of fun.”

“It’s true. After you left, it really became fun,” said Catherine.

“We had a dance party and everything,” said Ted. “And you blew it off for a booty call?”

“Ha ha ha,” laughed Catherine in a shrill way.