Flowering Judas(8)

Penny took off her shirt, and then her bra. She dressed very carefully for the days she took sponge baths in the Frasier Hall bathroom. She took the fresh shirt and the fresh bra out of her tote bag. She put them down on the counter next to the sink. She got out the Irish Spring soap and the Dove deodorant. She thought it was odd how she’d gone on buying all the familiar brands even after she’d lost her apartment.

Her cell phone rang. It played the theme music from Looney Tunes. Penny took it out of her other tote bag, the ones with the books in it, and stared at it.

It was a good little cell phone, nothing fancy, but with “features” to it, as her sons said. She could read and answer e-mail on it, for instance. She could instant message. She could have a presence online just as if she still had a computer and a home to put it in.

She slid the phone open and put it to her ear. Her body felt oddly exposed, without the shirt. She bit her lip.

“Mom?” George said. His voice still sounded high, as if it had never changed with puberty. He was twenty-three now. “Mom, are you all right?”

“Of course I’m all right,” Penny said. “I’m trying to get my act together for class. I’ve got a night class this term.”

“I know. You told me. Are you sure you’re all right?”

“I’m positive I’m all right. I’ve got at least three kids who are going to end the term without handing in a single paper, but that’s par for the course. And I’m kind of in a hurry. I could call you back later.”

There was a long, dead pause on the line. It was the thing Penny hated most about cell phones. With a landline, when the other person wasn’t talking, you could still tell the line was open, that the call hadn’t gone south. On a cell phone, when nobody was talking, the line just sounded dead.

Penny moved her things around on the counter. She looked at the flyer again. Chester Ray Morton hadn’t been the kind of student who did nothing all term and then panicked about it during exam week. He’d come to every class.

“Mom?” George said.

“I’m still here,” Penny said.

“I talked to Aunt Jenna this morning,” George said.

Penny bit her lip. “Did you call her because you wanted to keep in touch? What? I thought you didn’t like the woman.”

“She called me.”

Penny wondered if it would be easier if she just dropped the phone into some water. But that wouldn’t do. That would only ruin the phone, and the phone was the one thing that made what she was doing possible.

“Well,” she said. “That must have been interesting. What did she want?”

There was another long silence again. Penny looked at the soap and the shampoo. She wanted to get on with it. She hated going to class without washing up. Besides, in her position, it was important to stay washed up. If you started to stink, you’d find yourself without any options at all.

“She wanted,” George said, “to tell me you were living in your car.”

“Did she?” Penny said.

“She said she saw you in the parking lot of the Walmart in Mattatuck and you had everything you owned in your car. She said she saw you changing your shirt.”

“I’ve never changed my shirt in a parking lot in my life,” Penny said. “And you know what your Aunt Jenna is like. I haven’t really talked to her since your Uncle Zach died, and that was four years ago. She wouldn’t know if I had all my stuff in my car to save her life. She wouldn’t know my stuff.”

“But she saw you at Walmart,” George said. “That’s true, isn’t it?”

“Yes, George, she saw me at Walmart. In the parking lot. I saw her, too. We said hello.”

“And that was all?”

“She stood around for awhile having one of those conversations. You know. What’s George doing. What’s Graham doing. Alison is going to be queen of the universe next week. That kind of thing.”

“And that’s all?”

“That’s all we ever say when we see each other. She didn’t like me when Zach was alive and she likes me even less now.”

“And you’re not living in your car?”

“I’m just fine. I’ve got two courses to teach here and one over at Pelham.”

“Pelham doesn’t pay anything.”

“Pelham doesn’t pay much, but it pays something. It doesn’t hurt.”

“You didn’t get a summer course.”

“No, I know I didn’t,” Penny said. “But the summer is over and we’ve started on fall term and I’m as booked up as I’m allowed to be. I’m fine.”