Penelope (38 page)

“Emma’s going to have to work incredibly hard to get into law school,” said her father, looking at Emma and nodding at her in a forbidding way.

“That’s good,” said Penelope.

“Me, I goofed off the entire time in college. I drank and I partied, but I still went to a pretty damn good law school. Yale’s a pretty damn good law school, I think.” Emma’s father laughed and Penelope saw where Emma got her laugh from. “Her brother graduated from Harvard in two years. And that kid was a screwup. Drank and partied just as much as me.” Emma’s father laughed again. “Emma, however, will have to work. She’ll have to work really hard.”

“Dad,” said Emma, “I know I will have to work hard. Do you think I do not know that I will have to work hard? I do! I know that!”

“David,” said Emma’s mother softly.

“Do you need any help with the move?” asked Penelope.

“I think we’re all set, Penelope,” snapped Emma.

“OK,” said Penelope. “I’m going to go to the library!” Then she left quickly.

Penelope wandered down the stairs. She didn’t really know where to go. She was still too jumpy from her Gustav encounter to go to the library, and she couldn’t stay in her suite if Emma’s father was going to keep laughing like that.

After a while, she found herself near Ted’s room. She hadn’t seen him for months. For some reason that she couldn’t really explain, she knocked on his door.

Ted answered right away.

“Penelope! Hi!” He was wearing a polo shirt, cargo shorts, and a baseball cap, which obscured his bangs.

“Hi, Ted,” said Penelope. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” said Ted. “What are you doing?”

“I don’t know,” said Penelope. “Do you want to come in?”

“Sure,” said Penelope. She went inside and sat on Ted’s futon. Ted sat down next to her. Their room was very dirty. It smelled of old Chinese food.

“Are your roommates all gone?” asked Penelope.

“Well, Mike left for Bulgaria yesterday. And Nikil’s still here, but he hasn’t left his room for like three days. He thinks going to the dining hall is a distraction from studying. He keeps ordering take-out Chinese food. Can you smell it? I can’t stay here anymore. I’m so glad I’m leaving tomorrow.”

“You are leaving tomorrow?” asked Penelope.

“Yeah, I have my last exam in the morning.”

“Oh,” said Penelope. She felt a little disappointed.

“Do you have any more exams left?”

“A couple,” said Penelope.

“Wow,” said Ted. “I can’t believe you have to stay so long. That sucks. So many people are done already.”

“Lan is not taking exams,” said Penelope.

“Catherine left yesterday,” said Ted.

“I know,” said Penelope. Catherine had noisily bid her adieu the day before. In the course of their conversation, she had made Penelope promise to write her an e-mail every day of the summer and Penelope said OK. Now Penelope regretted that, but she was still probably going to do it.

Ted stared at the floor for a minute. “Hey, do you want to go for a walk?” he said abruptly.

“Sure,” said Penelope. She got up from the futon.

“I just hate it here,” said Ted. “It smells so weird. It’s so dirty.”

“I know how you feel,” said Penelope.

It was very dark when they got outside but warmer than usual. Penelope took off her sweater. No one was around, not even the last weirdos pacing outside the library. The streets were entirely empty. She and Ted walked past several imitation Victorian streetlights toward the Charles River. When they got to the bank of the river, they sat down on a bench.

“It’s a nice night,” said Ted.

“Yes,” said Penelope reflectively.

“Can you believe the year is almost over?” asked Ted. “It seems like we just started a week ago.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Penelope. “In a way it seems like it’s been a very long time to me. Like an eternity.”

“Really?” said Ted, moving closer to her on the bench. “In a good way?”

“Is an eternity always pejorative?” said Penelope. She didn’t know. “Do you feel like you have been dating Catherine a long time?”

Ted looked sheepish.

“I mean, I guess I do,” said Ted. “We’re not dating anymore.”

“Oh, right,” said Penelope.

“Did you know we’re taking a break this summer?” asked Ted.

“Oh?” said Penelope, trying hard to look like she knew nothing of Brad and his predilection for unintelligible practical jokes.

“Yeah,” said Ted. “It’s too hard with the long distance, you know?”

“I do know,” said Penelope.

“I do feel like I dated her for a long time,” said Ted. “I can’t believe we dated for as long as we did. I don’t know why really.”

“ ‘How many young hearts have revealed the fact, that what they had been trained to imagine the highest earthly felicity, was but the beginning of care, disappointment, and sorrow, and often led to the extremity of mental and physical suffering,’ ” said Penelope.

“What?” said Ted.

“It’s a quote from my quote book,” said Penelope.

“You have a quote book?” asked Ted.

“Yes,” said Penelope. “It’s all about disappointment. I bought it on Amazon. I think I’m going to throw it out.”

“OK,” said Ted. “What happened with that guy you used to date? Are you still seeing him?”

“Oh,” said Penelope, pleased that he had remembered her troubles. “I just saw him for the first time tonight in like two months. He has to get a job this summer. And he started crying about it.”

“What?” asked Ted.

“Yes,” said Penelope.

“That’s so insane,” said Ted.

“It was insane,” said Penelope. She looked at Ted. Sometimes, after the Gustav split especially, Penelope cherished the fact that Ted had been extraordinarily mean to her and she had weathered the whole thing beautifully. But now she didn’t know. Ted was pretty normal, really.

“I’m really glad we’re talking,” said Ted. “I was worried we wouldn’t ever talk again.”

“Oh, no,” said Penelope.

“I’ve actually missed you, when we, you know, weren’t talking,” said Ted, looking down at the ground.

“Oh, Ted,” said Penelope. She was touched. “I missed you too.” This was true, she realized. She had missed him. He might have been her only real friend.

“Well,” said Ted shyly. “You should come down to DC this summer.”

“OK,” said Penelope. She was pleased. “I would like that. It’s not that far away from Connecticut.”

On the day of her last exam, Penelope was pulling her posters off the wall of the common room when Lan came out of her bedroom carrying a large suitcase and a crate containing Raymond.

“Well, I’m leaving. I finished all my exams,” she said. She was wearing a mauve T-shirt that had
ITALY
printed on it. Below the letters there was a drawing of the boot of Italy.

“What? I thought you weren’t doing exams,” said Penelope.

“I scheduled all my exams for today,” said Lan.

“What? How is that possible?” asked Penelope.

Raymond mewed inside his crate.

“Shut up,” said Lan to Raymond.

“How long did it take you?” asked Penelope.

“What?” said Lan.

“To do all of your exams in one day?”

“It was supposed to take me nine hours,” said Lan. “It actually took me one hour.”

“Cool,” said Penelope.

“Well, bye,” said Lan. She started walking toward the door.

“Wait,” said Penelope. “Where are you going?”

“The bus,” said Lan.

“OK,” said Penelope. “Can I go with you?”

“No,” said Lan.

“I will carry Raymond’s crate,” said Penelope.

“Fine,” said Lan. She gave the crate to Penelope. Penelope looked inside the crate and put her finger in one of the holes, but Raymond didn’t notice. He was too busy chewing a small hole on page one hundred of
Democracy in America
.

“Did you say good-bye to Emma?” asked Penelope.

“Penelope, do you have a mental illness?” asked Lan.

“No,” said Penelope.

They walked down the stairs of Pennypacker and out the door toward the Square. It was really cold again, even though it was almost June. Penelope was wearing jeans.

“So where are you taking this bus?” asked Penelope.

Lan said nothing.

“What are you doing this summer?”

“Hopefully, teaching Raymond how to roll over,” said Lan. “I decided he shouldn’t be an outdoor cat.”

“I agree,” said Penelope.

“His IQ is too low,” said Lan. “He would never survive.”

Soon they were at the bus stop.

“Well, Penelope,” said Lan once she put her bag down and sat down on a plastic bench inside a plastic waiting area, “good-bye.”

“Good-bye,” said Penelope. “Do you want me to wait with you?”

“No,” said Lan. “My bus is coming in one minute.”

“OK,” said Penelope. “I had a good time, you know, with you as my roommate. I think we had a lot in common.”

“It’s hard to say,” said Lan. She patted Penelope’s hand. Then Penelope walked back to the dorm. In an hour, her mother was coming to pick her up.

The world has no meaning anymore. This is the main point of “Caligula,” a 1944 play by Albert Camus that experienced an innovative revival last night at the Loeb Ex. From the heart-wrenching belt-whipping scene to an intimate marionette show, this production got to the heart of the theater of the absurd.

“Caligula” tells the story of Caligula, a real-life Roman emperor who slept with his sister and murdered many of his subjects and friends. Historians have explained that this behavior was due to syphilis or mental illness or lead poisoning. In the play, Caligula
is trying to reach a state of freedom through his transgressive actions. He uses violence to be liberated from morality. In this way, Camus examines existential philosophy.

In this production, director Henry Wills-Mather (’77–’79) translated the play from the French himself. The result is the literal language of speech. Caligula is played in dual roles by Chris A. Gustaffson (’0-) and Elizabeth B. Congdon (’0-). Both give bravura performances, representing the two planes of Caligula’s personality. The supporting players are equally good, including Catherine T. Johnson (’0-) and Trevor R. Wang (’0-). Everyone seems committed to bringing a difficult text to life. Also in the cast are Penelope D. O’Shaunessy (’0-) and Charles Wills-Mather, a local middle schooler enlisted to play the Old Senator in the production.

Wills-Mather is a director in New York City (see interview in this week’s magazine), and he brings some really professional touches to the production. The light show in the middle of the intermission is particularly stunning, if slightly out of place.

All and all, “Caligula” is an interesting night of theater.

This book was a phenomenal team effort and I can’t thank you all enough for such incredible support during the process. I have to thank everyone at Lutyens and Rubinstein, my agency, for their invaluable input. I could not be part of a better group. Felicity Rubinstein and Sarah Lutyens have been the most tremendous help in every part of this process. I blush to think of how many conference calls I put these women through, and yet they bore the whole thing with characteristic grace and aplomb. Thank you so much, Daisy and Anna, for your incredibly informative e-mails. I especially have to thank my agent, Jane Finigan, who took me on after reading fifty rambling pages of
Penelope
and helped me shape the book, draft after draft, into the sheaf of papers you see today. She is the smartest, coolest, most elegant person I know. I trust her instincts more than I could possibly communicate and she has talked me off the ledge more times than I could count. I feel so lucky to have met her. Thank you, Jane!

I also have to thank David Forrer at Inkwell for taking me on. David’s wit, intelligence, and ability to make even the most nervous person in the world feel at ease was such a great help to me. He would not stop until he got people to read this book,
and I am grateful for all the hard work he put into selling this novel. He is the best!

I also have to thank my team at Virago, especially Ursula Doyle, who was so fantastic. Her edits of my language and sentence structure were truly brilliant, and she has an uncanny knack for changing just one word in a sentence and making it funnier, lighter, and more subtle.

My book found a great home at Vintage. Everyone has been so tremendously kind and welcoming, but I especially have to thank Jenny Jackson, my brilliant,
brilliant
editor, who had great instincts about this book and knew exactly what it needed. Jenny has such an innate sense of structure, pacing, and timing; she immeasurably improved
Penelope
. Plus, she’s so incredibly funny herself. I knew if I made her laugh I was on to something.

I would like to thank my friends, many of whom have kindly regaled me with stories of their own wacky college experiences. Thank you so much for being there for me every step of the way. What would I do without all of you in my life? And thank you, Harvard, for giving me a truly great education.