bring me home

PENELOPE CECELIA HARTT

biography

wanted connections

@enycstarters​

open to all !

location: some kind of fashion store, probs a bit boujie but whatever works

“ hey, you there. ” fran attempts to catch the attention of the closest person she can find. “ i’d go ask one of the staff but … well, all they care about is a SALE so… be honest. ” then she’ll hold up the first of two dresses in her hand. “ this one has everything  —  slits in all the right places, a bit leggy, boobs out, AND not a tacky shade of red. but then this one… ” she’ll display the second across her frame a moment. “ sure, slightly less wow factor at first glance but look ! ” she’ll flip it to show the other side. “ complete open back  — and emerald and satin just look so good together, no ? ” she’s hoping they’re as invested in this decision as she is.

Shopping had always been a bit of reprieve for Penelope. After days filled with lectures, meetings and grading work, sometimes she needed a bit of personal self indulgence. She’s browsing, not sure if she’ll actually buy anyhting, but entirely focused on her task, when someone calls out. She’s confused for about a milisecond, looking around to see if the other woman was, perhaps, talking to someone else. She changes direction, giving all of her attention to the other woman, considering the dresses she’s holding up against her body. “Well, I have to say you’d look fantastic in either of them. But I can’t help unless I know what it’s for? Color, fabric, all of that depends on the venue.”

closed starter: @arthartt​ 

location: outside ice skate rink. 

“Don’t tell me you skate.” He has a pair of skates hanging from his shoulder, brought home especially for the occasion. Rico hardly would be found renting from the rink, he was never great at sharing anything. Not even the public rink that ought to fit a good few dozens of people, and especially not with her. The fury in his eyes indicated that much, and the way he stood intentionally between her and the entrance to the rink was a dead indicator. “Are you about to go in now?” He was already thinking of ways to be a nuisance and run literal circles around her. 

She hadn’t ice skated in years, not since she was last in New York. But, now seemed like a good a time as any to get back on the horse, so to speak. She had rented a pair of skates, because she hadn’t seen her pair since she moved to Spain, and, the idea of carrying them around the fest with her seemed absurd. She’s just putting her skates on when she hears a familiar voice, and she can’t help but roll her eyes before she looks up. “Who doesn’t skate?” she asks, as if it’s a common question, as if everyone in the world should know how to ice skate, and her opinion, they probably should. “Well, sweetie, what does it look like? Context clues, you know? Of course I’m about to go in now,” she feels like she’s talking to one of her students. “Does that bother you, Rico?”

location ╱ an restaurant somewhere in manhattan

@enycstarters  ╱ open.

“Am I really that much of a bitch for saying I don’t want my husband’s fucking ex wife at our Christmas dinner? Am I really asking for too much?” Margot inquired manically, lit cigarette perched between two fingers. She’d had enough of hearing about lonely, single Nicola and those stupid, meddling children of hers that were trying to hijack the magnificent party she’d been organising for months. “I cannot stress how much of a nightmare she is, and she has this incessant need to try to outdo me with everything.” She took a deep breath out, it felt good to get that weight off her shoulders, it’d been bugging her for weeks and been the cause of disagreements with her man. “What do you think?”

“I think if your husband is insisting his ex wife come to your Christmas party, then he’s the bitch,” Penny tells her, because she couldn’t imagine what she would have done, if back when she was married, her then husband wanted to bring his ex to a function she had been planning. The old her would have thrown a down right tantrum. Truthfully, so would the new her. She has a glass of wine, rather than a cigarette, in her hand, and she takes a long drink. The trials of tribulations of marriage. She knows she doesn’t need a spouse, but at forty-eight, she thinks, someone to come home to might be nice. “But if you need a buffer, you know where to find me. I’ll be fighting my daughter again.” A roll of her eyes now, another gulp from her wine class. Her daughter was not speaking to her, and Penny was still begging constantly.

A mentor was a normal thing to have, right? Lennon didn’t really have any musical mentors, nor did she even know where to find them. Did you leave out old vinyls in the street and hope someone came to sniff them out? A writing mentor would have to do. Even if Penny hated her presence, she did a good job at covering it up because Lennon kept coming back. “Uh… The first one. It’s like whenever I put something down on paper it feels ugly. It just doesn’t make sense in my head and I can’t imagine people saying them back at me. That’s what’s like, so hard about music, I have to think about what they sound like spoken out and some words are just blech.” Sure. “Then why’s there bad art and good art? I don’t want to be infamous for being bad.”

Penelope’s job was helping the next generation. There was no law that said any of those people had to be one of her actual students. Lennon was an interesting character, and she was talented, two things that Penny took a real liking too when they had first met. How could she, after learning those things about her, say no to being her mentor? Penny had a hard time saying no as it was. Plus, it may have filled the void that Ayla had left.  “That might just be your self criticism, it might not have anything to do with the words themself, but just what your brain is turning them into,” she tells her and raises an eyebrow “do you want to show me what you have?” she asks, and then she shrugs her shoulders, thinking about the question. “But who decides what’s good or bad? Not you, and certainly not me. We just  consume the work, subjectivity is the whole point. I could hate something that you absolutely love, and vice versa.”

where: a ballroom dance class

It’s not that there wasn’t any dancing in Spain, because of course there was. But Penelope Hartt knew she belonged in New York, learning how to dance in a rundown building that offered the free classes.  Dancing is an art form, and Penelope has always been an artist. Painting and dancing were kind of similar, a lot of fluidity in both of them, if you did them correctly. 

Being back to her old dance class felt special, like stepping back into her old life. She wears a red dress, far too dressed up for such an event, but how does one make a reapperance without making a show of it?  She flounces in, as if she’s the most important part of the class, and in her mind maybe she is. She spots a familiar face, and gravitates towards it. Rico.  The only worthy dancre partner, who she sort of abanonded. Still though, she finds herself next to him. “All right, break it to me, you found a new partner since I’ve been gone, haven’t you?” she tries to break the ice. “I guess I can bare that pain, it is due to my own negligence, afterall.”

“Okay, you’re the first person that came to mind.” Lennon walked into the University office to meet with Penny. It wasn’t like you needed an ID to go into the classrooms during normal school hours, and she’d long since used that to her advantage. Now, she could pretend she was an alumni, it was a lot easier than the nineteen year old who decided after freshman year that college wasn’t a thing. “What do you do when all the words you write down just… don’t? I know art, but art, writing, they kind of go together.” The same story she’d been using for the past few years.

closed @arthartt​

​

The idea of set office hours felt like it was putting her, and her students, in a box. So while for the school, she had put up her office hours, she pretty much let her students, and anyone else know that if they needed her during the day, as long as she wasn’t teaching, she was available. Sometimes that meant her office at school, other times that meant her painting studio. She just felt like it was more organic that way.  When Lennon walks in, it is,coincidentally,  her actual office hours.  “Well, I’m honored, I think?” she says, curious as ever as to why she’s walking in when she technically doesnt even go here. But technicalities have never really mattered to Penny, anyway. “When they don’t feel right or when they don’t work, or flow together? There’s a lot of don’t options there, honey,” she says, putting her hand out, as if to gesture for the other to sit. “They do go together, writing in any way is a form of art, really. Art is subjective, afterall.”

"My daughter has always made me feel alive and carefree, she makes me feel young. Painting also makes me feel carefree, it just makes everything better."

"I hate narrowing people down to just their looks. They are so much more than that. But, fi I had to choose, it would be @detmallon, @ath-ryu and @drdiana"

"Every relationship I embarked on, I embarked on for a reason. I loved them all in their own way, and I don't regret a single moment. Yes, even with my ex husband. I did love him once, if not the exact way he needed me to."