Penny peered down at her. Celeste seemed small. Feeble really. And damp. In the afternoon light, in jeans and a faded T-shirt that read SLAY HUNTY, Celeste resembled an incoming freshman as much as Penny did.
It was sad that things had gotten so bad between them. When Penny was in grade school, they’d been thick as thieves. Back when the greatest excitement Penny could imagine was having a Starbucks salted caramel mocha for breakfast, Penny thought she was so lucky to have her mom as her best friend. She could stay up late, wear makeup, borrow her mom’s clothes, and dye her hair any color of the rainbow—life was a riot—a never-ending slumber party. In middle school Penny started to see things differently. She no longer texted her mother a thousand times a day for outfit approval or advice. Celeste and Penny became a study in contrasts. Celeste was proud of her well-mannered, studious daughter, teaching her how to forge her name on letters from school and getting Penny her own credit card for “fashion emergencies.” Celeste encouraged Penny to get her hardship driver’s license at fifteen, not because they needed her to but because Celeste thought it would bolster Penny’s popularity to drive her friends around. The harder Celeste tried, the more Penny pulled away. If anything, Penny resented that Celeste had decided somewhere along the way that her daughter could parent herself.
Penny walked to the driveway with her mom trailing her. She turned for a one-armed hug. Imagining herself as part of an animal control unit lassoing a python in a studio apartment, she held Celeste’s gaze with her own the whole time. Then—with no sudden movements—she deftly popped the car door open with her free hand and slid in.
Seat belt fastened, Penny eased out of the driveway and into freedom. Part of her dreaded going to college alone. In the Instagram Stories version, her dad would haul her boxed-up belongings in a big truck. They’d argue about what to play on the way there and he’d give up the aux cord, since he’d miss her so much. As he left, he’d get choked up, handing her fifty dollars while mumbling something about making good time, and Penny would know deep in her heart how much he loved her.
“I love you, baby!” wailed Celeste, jolting Penny from her thoughts.
Penny rolled down her window. “I love you too, Mommy. I’ll call you later. I promise.”
This time Penny did feel a pang. Her nose got that stinging, chlorine feeling you get right when you’re about to cry. She checked her rearview to see her already small mom getting smaller, waving big.
? ? ?
An hour and a half later, Penny pulled into the curved driveway at Kincaid.
“Jesus,” she whispered, clutching her steering wheel to gaze up at the building. Kincaid was among the oldest dorms at UT, and it was hideous. Penny wondered if you could feel the ugliness from the inside. Boasting eight floors painted in alternating blue and salmon layers, it resembled a Miami hotel from the 1970s more than a dorm. Eighty units of eyesore that were the tackiest part of the campus skyline. The lurid hues reminded Penny of kicky animal-print scrubs favored by pediatric oncologists. It was the upbeatness that made the whole thing depressing.
Throngs of anxious parents and freshmen huddled around SUVs carting enormous plastic bins, laundry baskets, and floor lamps. Just as Penny rolled down her window to scope the scene, a freckly brunette stuck her face into her car until they were nose-to-nose. Her eyes were bulbous, glinting with a helpfulness that bordered on menacing.
“Name?” yawped the girl. Penny smelled Fritos on her breath.
“Lee,” she supplied. “Penelope.”
“Hmm . . . Lee?” She drew her finger down her clipboard and then tapped it. “Ah,” she said triumphantly. “There you are, sweetie.”
Ugh. Sweetie. This chick was nineteen tops.
The girl’s eyes flickered over Penny’s red lipstick. Penny had found it with a note to “smile more!” in her backpack pocket. Celeste had a habit of tucking cosmetics or clipped-out articles about the effects of positive thinking among Penny’s things. Sneak-attack gifts that felt like criticism.
“Sweetie?” Penny sang back. “Can you back up a smidge? You’re practically inside of my face with your face?” She said it exactly how she imagined the girl would, with everything going up in a question.
There was no way Little Miss Texas Corn Chip was going to “sweetie” her into submission.
The girl swiftly withdrew her head.
“Oh my God?” she chirped, bleached teeth gleaming. “So many of the parents literally can’t hear me? I’ve been yelling for hours?” The girl inspected Penny’s lipstick again. “Wait. I’m obsessed with how matte that is. What is it?”
“Isn’t it fabulous?” Penny enthused, reaching for the tube in her bag. “Too Thot to Trot?” she read off the sticker on the bottom. Christ, she felt as if saying makeup names out loud set women’s rights back several decades.
“Ugh! I knew it! I love Staxx lip kits? You know T-T-T-T’s sold out everywhere, right? Why are the good reds always quickstrike?”
“Ugh, right?!” exclaimed Penny, who had no idea what she was talking about. “It’s the worst?” The girl rolled her eyes theatrically in agreement.
“Okay, so you’re in 4F,” she said, drumming her shellacked nails on her clipboard. “Elevators are toward the back. And you can unload anywhere you can see a blue sign. Buuuuuuuut . . .”
She placed a purple laminated pass on her dash. “This buys you parking for the rest of the day. Just return it to the front desk when you’re done.”
“Thank you?” said Penny brightly. “You’re a lifesaver?”
The girl beamed. “I know?”
Penny’s face strained from the false cheer. It was frankly impressive that Celeste’s addiction to trendy makeup and some doofus imprinting on her like a baby farm animal could land her parking privileges. More yakking and some thigh-slapping laughter at dad-jokes scored Penny a hand truck from her neighbor down the hall. Rules for friendliness were a racket. In no time, college Penny would be as adored as Celeste. Granted, she’d have to get a lobotomy to keep it up, but maybe the exchange rate was worth it.
When Penny swung her door open, she noticed the following: Her room smelled of Febreze with a top note of musty carpet. It was discouragingly small to be shared with another person. Plus, it was already inhabited by a dark-haired girl sitting on the bed by the window. A girl who was not her roommate. Penny and Jude Lange had Skyped twice over the summer, and this chick with indoor sunglasses and a wide-brim Coachella hat was not her. The girl neglected to glance up from her phone.
“Hello?” Penny began lugging her stuff in.
The girl silently continued typing.
Penny cleared her throat.
Finally, the girl removed her oversized bedazzled sunglasses to get a glimpse of Penny. She had famous-people eyebrows and wore a tan suede vest with foot-long tassels.
“Where’s Jude?” the girl asked in a manner that suggested Penny worked there.
“Uh, I don’t know.”
The girl rolled her eyes and returned to her phone.
Penny glared and once again wished her hostility could incinerate people.
Possible responses to a possible home invader who was possibly a maniac and possibly has a switchblade under her hat:
1. Fight her.
2. Start screaming and pull your own hair to signal that you’re even crazier and not to be trifled with.
3. Introduce yourself and find out more information.
4. Ignore her.
Unsurprisingly, Penny chose the path of least resistance. She grabbed her toiletry bag out of her suitcase and made a beeline for the bathroom. It was the size of a closet. You could’ve washed your hair while sitting on the toilet by leaning into the shower stall. Penny placed her bag on the toilet tank, figured it was perilously close to potential pee splash-back and set it on the side of the sink.