This Is Where We Live (11 page)

Penelope’s eyes grew even rounder—whether from surprise, or skepticism, or stimulus, Claudia wasn’t quite sure. “Personally, I think it’s pointless to make stuff up that isn’t really there,” the girl announced.

Claudia shuffled her notes, unmoored. Was this a challenge or an invitation for intellectual debate? “That’s something we can discuss in a different class. But today, let’s move ahead to this hotel room scene, which we’ll see is shot entirely in the dark.” She hit
PLAY
on the remote, cutting off any further conversation.

When the bell rang a half hour later, Penelope didn’t head toward the door with the rest of her classmates but worked her way toward the stage. She stood waiting at the bottom of the stairs, scratching one calf with the toe of her sneaker while Claudia chatted with Mary Hernandez.

Mary had brought Claudia some sort of home-baked pastry, a flattened disk filled with quince paste. She offered it shyly to Claudia in a fragrant, butter-stained bag that read Chicken Kitchen. “It’s not really from the Chicken Kitchen,” she apologized. “I just work there.”

“It smells delicious,” Claudia said.

“I’m really excited about this class, Mrs. Munger,” Mary continued, and tugged at the thick braid that she had pulled over her shoulder. She had a gap between her front teeth that hadn’t been fixed by orthodontia and a broad forehead freckled with adolescent acne. “I watched the Film Noir series at the Egyptian this summer to prepare. Though I work most evenings so I missed a few.
Murder, My Sweet
and
The Glass Key
. I read that they aren’t considered particularly seminal, though.”

Behind Mary, Penelope snorted quietly; perhaps the girl was just clearing her throat.

“We’re not really going to be covering classic
noir
in this class,” Claudia said, distracted. She watched Penelope out of the corner of her eye, worried that she would grow tired of waiting and flee. “We’re looking at American cinema
after
the nineteen sixties.”

“Oh.” Mary looked distressed, as if mentally counting the paychecks she’d wasted on movie tickets. “I’m sorry.”

“No need to apologize. It’s never a waste of time to learn more about film,” Claudia said.

“I’m applying to UCLA next year,” Mary continued. “I was hoping I could talk to you about your experience there? I read your bio on IMDB, and I know you attended. It would be so great if you could write me a recommendation, Mrs. Munger. We could schedule something now, if you have a minute.”

Penelope checked her watch and edged back toward the door, losing her patience. Claudia felt opportunity slipping away—this could be her one and only chance to foster a connection with Penelope. “Recommendations already?” Claudia demurred. “Let’s wait until we’re a little further into the semester, so we can get to know each other. We have plenty of time.”

“Actually—”

But Claudia had already beckoned Penelope up the stairs with the one hand, jiggling the paper bag gratefully with the other. “We’ll talk soon, Mary. And thanks for the pastry.”

Penelope climbed up the stairs toward Claudia, maneuvering around Mary Hernandez as if she were a roadblock planted in her path. She came to a stop directly in front of Claudia, blocking Mary. Mary stared at the back of Penelope’s head for a long moment and then quietly melted away. Claudia barely noticed her leave until she heard the classroom door click behind her.

“Mrs. Munger,” Penelope began.

“Claudia is fine,” Claudia said, eager to slide past their earlier, unsettling encounter. “No need to stand on ceremony. I’m not a formalist.”

Penelope scrutinized Claudia. Her fiddling hands had woven her curly hair into a knotty-looking beehive, and it flapped over the girl’s eyes. “What was the name of the last film you made?” she asked, pushing the hair aside.

Claudia smiled.
This was more like it. “Spare Parts.”

“Oh.” Penelope snapped a piece of fluorescent pink gum between her teeth. “I never heard of it?”

Claudia tried to prevent a grimace from rippling across her face. “It’s a love triangle, between two girls and a guy. It takes place in the organ transplant ward of a hospital. It’s an homage to Howard Hawks, and the snappy dialogue that was popular in prewar cinema.”

“Did it go, like, straight to video or something?”

“No. It was in movie theaters.”

“Oh? When did it come out?” Penelope tilted her head to assess her teacher. Claudia could sense the girl sizing her up but couldn’t quite interpret the conclusion Penelope had come to.

Claudia smiled warmly, determined to be the one person at Ennis Gates that could break through Penelope’s armor. “The end of July.”

Penelope looked surprised. “And it’s already not in theaters anymore?”

Claudia picked up the whiteboard eraser, feeling defensive. “No, but I could bring you a screener, if you’d like to watch it.”

“Yeah, great, thanks,” said Penelope. She slung her backpack over one shoulder and began to make her way toward the door.

“By the way,” Claudia called after her, “I love the hair. I used to dye mine too. Black.”

Penelope turned back, blatantly assessing her. After a moment, she offered a fleeting, heartbreaking smile that belied the
RST CLASS BITC
slogan on her shirt. “Thanks,” she said.

Claudia watched Penelope leave, sensing that they’d made some sort of breakthrough. She imagined Penelope and Samuel watching the screener together, perhaps discussing its artistic merits, and felt her body tingle, bristling with life for the first time in weeks. She stood there at the front of the empty classroom and found herself smiling as she listened to the last reverberations of the students vanishing from the corridors.
I can do this
, she thought.
I might even like this
. She packed essays into her Amoeba tote, flipped off the lights and locked the door, and ventured back out into the purple maze to try to locate her car.

Lucy Fitzer was what Claudia’s mother would have called a “fireplug.” She was certainly as compact and squat as a hydrant, with the only protuberance being a pair of enormous breasts that strained at her tank top and tipped her slightly forward when she walked. She marched through their house, flipping open closet doors, peering behind curtains, and firing questions like buckshot, while Jeremy and Claudia—slightly stunned—followed a few steps behind. It was almost as if Lucy were giving the house tour instead of them.

“Oh my God, what a gorgeous view,” Lucy marveled. “Can you see it from the bed—look at that, you can! How wonderful. It’s quite a good-sized room, isn’t it. Oh, it’s where
you
sleep? I see. Love your quilt—did one of your grandparents make that? A thrift store! Don’t you worry about germs? No? I guess I’m just germphobic, comes with my job. Oh, a claw-foot bathtub! Heaven. I adore bubble baths. OK, so
this
would be my room. Well, it’s certainly cozy. Does it have a walk-in closet? Oh. I guess none of these old houses do. And here we have the kitchen …. Does that old stove actually
work?
Really? Wow. Well, I have a brand-new toaster oven I can contribute. My mom gave it to me for my birthday last month; she said it was a hint that it was about time for me to get the heck out of her house and find a place of my own. God,
mothers
. This looks like a comfortable living room, does the fireplace work? I do love a nice cozy fire in the winter! And that’s …. quite a painting. Very
modern
. I prefer landscapes myself—in fact, I sometimes even dabble with watercolors. Not that I have any
talent
for art … not like you guys, I’m sure.”

By the time they sat down in the living room for an interview, Claudia was depleted, as if Lucy’s soliloquy had drained her of speech too. They squared off across from each other, Lucy in the armchair and Claudia and Jeremy seated on the couch. Lucy tugged at the knees of her jeans, trying with little success to smooth out the wrinkles that strained across her thighs. Her breasts bubbled over the top of her tank top, softly rippling when she breathed like currents in a waterbed.

“So, Lucy, why don’t you tell us about yourself?” Claudia tried to show some genuine enthusiasm for Lucy’s answer, but mentally, she’d already moved past the woman sitting before them to worry over the other potential roommates that were left on their list. There were only two, and neither sounded particularly promising. One was a forty-four-year-old divorcé who mentioned in his e-mail that he was on step eleven of his AA plan and hoped to enter a “Christian household that would support his ongoing commitment to clean living.” The other was a nineteen-year-old girl, barely older than Claudia’s students at Ennis Gates, and that just seemed wrong.

Their ad had received a dismal response. Perhaps it was the unrecognizable Mount Washington address, or perhaps no one wanted to live with a married couple, but in the three weeks that the ad had been posted online, they’d received only eight responses. Already, they’d met and dismissed a twenty-five-year-old secretary who showed up with a six-week-old infant strapped to her chest, a comic-book-store clerk who spent most of the interview talking about his passion for squirrel hunting, and a skeletal man with no discernable profession who shut himself in the bathroom three times, each time coming out suspiciously red-eyed and runny-nosed. Two of the most promising candidates—a musician in a band that Jeremy was familiar with and a grad student at the Culinary Institute—had bailed on their interviews at the last minute, saying they’d already found other places to live. Lucy was third-to-last on the list.

Claudia was choking down the idea of a roommate as if it were a dose of cherry-flavored Robitussin: something to be tolerated only because it would be better for her in the long run. It’s not that she was a tremendously private person—she’d lived happily in dorms and group apartments all her life, had no compunction about sharing soap or being seen in her pajamas—but she believed in the sanctity of their lifestyle. This was Jeremy-and-Claudia’s world, and—barring a roommate who magically paid for a room but never used it—she was holding out for someone who would fit unobtrusively into what they’d already begun. Someone creative and low-key like them who might even serve as a kind of sidekick, a Victor Lazslo to their Rick and Ilsa. But frankly, by this point, they were too desperate to be picky. They’d managed to pay this month’s mortgage by selling off two of Jeremy’s extra guitars and taking out a cash advance on their credit card, but next month’s was looming, and they still owed the bank nearly $7,500 in back payments. Claudia’s Ennis Gates paycheck would take up much of the slack, but it wasn’t like teaching was a high-profit position. Judging by the budgets they’d worked up, they were still going to fall hundreds of dollars short every month, even after they canceled cable and the home phone line.

“I’m a nurse,” Lucy was saying. “I work in trauma at Good Samaritan downtown. Did you ever watch
ER?
That’s me! Not the George Clooney doctor, but the—you know—the Julianna Margulies.”

Claudia sat up straight and tried to look interested.
Open your mind
, she thought to herself.
So maybe she seems a bit … overeager, but perhaps that’s just nervousness? Which could be seen as an endearing trait, really
. She glanced over at Jeremy, slumped on the couch beside her, an ironic smile flickering across his lips. He did not appear to be charmed. She kicked his ankle under the coffee table and, when he looked at her, pinched her eyebrows together in disapproval. He flared his nostrils and crossed his eyes back at her.

“A nurse,” said Claudia. “Well, I guess we’ll know where to go if we have a splinter, then.”

“Or a self-inflicted gunshot wound,” Jeremy added brightly.

“God!” Lucy looked appalled. “I certainly hope not. You don’t keep a gun in the house, do you?”

Claudia nudged Jeremy’s ankle again. “He was just joking.”

“Whew!” Lucy breathed a sigh of relief and fanned her face, which set off a tidal wave of bosom that threatened to spill out of her top entirely.

“I take it you grew up around here somewhere?”

“In the Valley, near Van Nuys. Yes, I know, I’m a Valley girl!
Like, omigod!
Ha-ha. Joking. I’ve been living with my parents since I got out of nursing school. I had a lot of debt to pay back, you know how it is. But we’re all settled up now.” She smiled warmly at Claudia, scanning her face. “You know,” she said, “you might want to get that mole on your neck looked at. We had someone in the ER the other day who was half dead from a malignant tumor that started as a sunspot. Just saying—”

Taken aback, Claudia lifted her hand to her neck, feeling the mole. Jeremy chose this moment to pipe up. “What kind of music do you listen to?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Lucy said. She seemed taken aback by the question. “Mostly country western, I guess. You know, like Garth Brooks?”

Claudia watched Jeremy’s face convulse with ill-concealed horror. “Jeremy’s a musician in a rock band,” Claudia offered quickly. “So he plays his guitar a lot. Would that be all right with you?”

“How wonderful!” Lucy’s face lit up. “I used to play the ukulele, back in high school. I know, dorky, right? Maybe I’ll drag it out and you can teach me a few things. I’m always looking for a reason to take it up again ….”

Jeremy looked at Claudia with silent pleading in his eyes, the wide-eyed disbelief of a puppy that can’t believe you’re making him go outside in the rain. He shook his head imperceptibly;
no, we can’t do this
. Claudia looked down at her lap, trying to imagine Jeremy and Lucy sitting side by side at the breakfast table, battling for the TV remote, waiting in line for the shower. He was right: Inconceivable. She reluctantly nodded in agreement.
We’ll post another ad, maybe put up flyers on the community bulletin board by the school
, she thought.

“Lucy, we really appreciate—” she began, but Lucy was still talking.

“ …. although really it’s not very likely that we’ll find the time. I’m actually on the night shift at the hospital. Did I mention that? No? Well, I work seven
P.M.
to seven
A.M.
, and we’re on six-day shifts, so I’ll probably be leaving the house about the time you get home from work and I’ll get back when you’re leaving. It’ll be like I don’t even live here.” She jutted out a moist lower lip and twisted it wryly.