10. Chapter Ten
Penelope
It’s the first morning of the spring semester, and I’m excited to get back into my regular routine.
I do yoga at six, all forty minutes of it this time with no interruptions.
I drink my lemon water and then shower. I wear tights under my jeans, because January in Camden is still biting weather.
By seven-forty, I’m heading to campus with a coffee I made myself.
I haven’t spoken to Percy since New Year’s Eve. He hasn’t texted me. I haven’t texted him. That’s all of it. There’s nothing to resolve. It’s the only relationship in my life that doesn’t require anything of me. I find it restful. I put my phone in my bag and go to class.
I have sixteen credits this semester. Architecture History II, which will be an easy A and a genuine pleasure, because I like knowing why buildings are the way they are.
Architectural Drawing II, which is the class I love the most. Building Systems II, which is the plumbing, the ductwork, and the honest guts of a place.
Then I have Design Studio II, which is the whole reason for the rest of it.
And a science requirement. Geology. Rocks.
I sit in Geology on Tuesday morning between two engineering students who are already asleep, and I look at a slide of a sedimentary layer, and I think I will get an A in this, and I will never think about it again for the rest of my life.
That is the arrangement I have made with Camden, and we both understand each other.
But studio is different. Studio is the reason I’m here.
The first crit of the semester runs three hours, and I don’t feel a minute of it.
The project is real this time — a two-story building on an actual corner lot, program, setbacks, and a client with requirements.
I pin up drawings I stayed until midnight on.
Adler walks the line and stops at mine longer than she stops at most and asks me why the entry sits back from the sidewalk instead of on it.
I tell her why, and she says “good,” and moves on.
I walk out onto the quad with my tube of drawings under my arm and my hands smelling of graphite, and for a few blocks, I think about how I have one more semester, and then I’m halfway done with my degree. I can’t believe it.
I intern at Whitmore four afternoons a week this semester.
I arrive at one exactly and I leave at five exactly, and in between I do more work than they’ve asked me for, because competence is a wall you can build out of nothing.
I keep Lyla near me as much as possible without being obvious. I find reasons to be where she is — the plotter, the sample library, the corner where the interns eat — and when I can’t, I find somebody else.
I answer Oliver’s texts about work, during work hours, in complete sentences.
On Thursday, there’s a fresh roll of trace paper on my desk, the kind I mentioned liking in November when he asked what I preferred. On Monday, he stops by to ask how Studio II is going. He knows Adler teaches it. He’s kind about all of it. He has never once said a word out of line.
I use the pencil he gave me. It’s the best pencil I’ve ever owned, and it draws beautifully. He notices it in my hand and says something in passing about how it suits me.
The New Year’s list is folded into the back of my sketchbook. I look at it sometimes. Most of my goals are about architecture. One line, second from the bottom, is about my mother, in handwriting smaller than the rest. I have an idea for that, but it won’t happen right away.
“Party on Friday,” Ivory says, already scrolling for something to wear. “Hawthorne House. They’re back, and they’re feral.”
“I’m not going.”
She looks up. “Oh, no. You’re coming with me.”
“I’m not going to any of them anymore.” I don’t look up from my drawing. It isn’t a declaration. It’s a thing I decided a while ago and haven’t had a chance to say out loud. “The drinks are bad. It’s beer and shots and whatever’s in the plastic handle. I have sixteen credits and a job.”
“You had sixteen credits last year. And your internship.”
“Yeah. It’s just not my scene. As you said, they’re feral.”
She studies me a moment, and I hold the line of my roof and let her look. There’s nothing to find. Everything I’ve said is true.
“Fine,” Ivory says. “Then I’ll bring it here.”
Bringing it here means Drew, and Drew means Theo, because Drew has never once gone anywhere alone.
“Do what you want. I’m done going to Hawthorne.”
That Friday, I shouldn’t be surprised that Ivory keeps her word. I’ve been at my drafting table for three hours, working the countertop detail until the line does what I want, when the front door opens, and Ivory’s laugh fills the apartment.
Theo is as good-looking as he was in September. I’ve never pretended that was nothing. He crosses the living room the second he sees me and puts both hands flat on my drafting table, right on the sheet, the heel of his palm covering the corner I spent an hour on.
“What’s up, Penelope.”
I look up.
“How are you?”
“Busy.”
He doesn’t ask what I’m busy with. He looks past the drawing, out the window, and tells me they’ve got Northfield in two weeks, and then he tells me about it.
Down the hall, Ivory’s door slams. Theo laughs at the sound.
“Are they together yet?” I ask.
“I think they just like to fuck.” He pushes a hand through his hair. His other hand is still on my drawing.
“Charming.”
“What about you?” He’s smiling. He’s been smiling since he walked in.
I look at him for a second. Then I cap my pencil, square the sheet to the edge of the table, and put the pencil back in the cup where it belongs.
“There’s wine in the cabinet above the fridge,” I say.
He goes and finds it. He pours two glasses without asking how much I want, and he talks while he does it — the game, a defenseman he doesn’t like, something Drew said in the locker room.
He hands me mine. I hold it. I set it down full on the counter, and I don’t touch it again, and he doesn’t notice.
He touches my hair, tucking a piece of it behind my ear like it’s his to move.
“You want to go to your room?” he asks, near my ear, and it isn’t really a question. It’s a place he’s already walking toward.
“Yes.” I say it clearly, and then I take his hand and walk down the hall ahead of him.
Afterward, he lies on his back talking about the game, and I look up and count the recessed lights in the ceiling until he stops.
There are six.
Near one, out in the kitchen, Drew’s hunting through my cabinets for a glass and telling Ivory the score.
“Four-one. And they still lost their minds. Hawthorne’s going till dawn.”
“They won one game,” Ivory says.
“It’s the freshmen. They can’t handle themselves.” He laughs. “That place’ll be a wreck by tomorrow.”
They leave shortly after. Ivory’s door shuts. The apartment settles, and I sit in the dark on my couch with my knees pulled up and my phone in my hand.
I’m the one who keeps the distance. I have spent my whole life knowing exactly how far back to stand.
Me: Hawthorne still doesn’t have a decent drink, does it?
It sits there, sent, which means I can’t take it back. A sentence that means nothing, and my heart is going like I’ve handed something over. I turn the phone face down on the cushion, look at the window, and pretend I haven’t done it.
It buzzes almost immediately. He always answers.
Percy: Not one. Still here.
I read it four times, and then I put the phone down on the arm of the couch and don’t text back.