Fic: The Elephant in the Chair (Part II)
The Elephant in the Chair; PG13, Leonard, gen.
Written for the 2011 bigbangbigbang. Please see the Masterpost for details.
II
Breakfast is both overindulgent and awkward. The former in a way that only real money and taste can afford, the whole day being one long celebration of some of the best and brightest in an affluent New Jersey; and awkward in both a familial and practical sense. This becomes especially apparent considering that the amount of times Leonard manages to elbow the person beside him and bump either a knife, fork, or in one spectacular moment a whole vase of roses onto the floor, ends up almost equal to the number of times he overhears Beverly mention one of Michael's accomplishments not two seconds after loudly wondering what on earth her middle son is actually doing all the way in the hippie communes of California. And at the point where Leonard is sitting upright again and about to dive to his own defense, he is interrupted by a glass being raised to toast the soon-to-be happy couple, and is left holding a knife at a backwards angle, with a poor, innocent croissant on his plate the only means to temper his frustrations.
It's just about the most violent meal he's ever had.
Still, he is nothing if not an optimist at heart, and is able to convince himself that if he eats enough at least he'll be somewhat fortified for the various humiliations that will inevitably come, like a spawn point in a video game, with every slime drenched zombie a new relative to appease, or friend of the family to convince that yes, he is doing some good among the tie-dyed soy frappucino drinkers of the west. Despite what some people might say.
(When asked by the few guests who have somehow escaped being trapped in a corner and having his life story told to them by his own unbiased mother, he explains that he's building a time machine so he can tap Columbus on the shoulder and point out that a) jaguars only live in the Arctic circle, and b) 1452 was just a particularly warm year. They seem to leave him alone after that.)
He does manage to say a few words to his brother before they leave. Michael's fiancée, Nicole, is very tall and serious, but she kisses him very sweetly and doesn't look down in the way Michael does, as with his usual winking exuberance, he concludes their short conversation by thumping Leonard on the shoulder and telling him to keep on trying. It's nothing Leonard hasn't heard before, so he smiles back and makes assurances and jokes until his face starts to ache with cringe-worthy bonhomie.
"I thought the bride and groom weren't supposed to see each other on the day."
Michael ignores this. "Hey, do you think Dad's okay?" he asks. He is leaning on the door of what looks suspiciously like a just off the showroom Range Rover. The body paint is so immaculate that Leonard is able to use it as a mirror and brush away several flakes of brioche before anyone can make the pithy remark that if he'd wanted take out he should have stopped by McDonalds. "Last I saw he was staring at the ice sculpture like it was a woolly mammoth unearthed from the cretaceous." He spins the keys a couple of times. "Or something equally bizarre..."
"Mammoths didn't live during the cretaceous," says Leonard. "And Dad's been in his own world for the last three decades. Don't tell me you've only just worked that out."
"Yeah, well." Michael fists the keys and hops into the car, a wry smile on his face. "He's all yours today. Just make sure he doesn't wear that tie this afternoon. He looks like a damn anthropologist."
And with that he starts up the motor. Nicole is already in the passenger seat, and the two of them wave in unison. Leonard watches with a thin and fixed smile as the car roars away. Or as much as an expensive, luxury SUV on civilized asphalt under leafy elms can roar. Which is to say, not much.
Across the parking lot, the other guests are still milling about, chatting to one another while subtly comparing clothes and expensive motors. "That's because he is a damn anthropologist," Leonard mutters, as his eye catches sight of a familiar figure shutting the trunk of old VW.
It's Marianne. She looks over, he gives a tentative wave, starts to walk, and gets about three steps in before the smile on his face changes to a grin and he breaks into a run.
when bach turns middle-of-the-road, you know that something's wrong
It is a cliché to say that those born with talent will at some point reject it.
On the death of his father in 1695, the organist Johann Christoph Bach was given the then not uncommon task of bringing up his orphaned brother. The rest of that tale (religion, order, equal temperament and a great and imposing lineage for which western music has much to thank) is a history too well known to bear repeating, but it shares some relevance to this one, so it will, if briefly, stay.
The Encyclopaedia Britannica (15th edition, published 1976; resident of John Hofstadter's study next to his Levi-Strauss and The World According to Garp), devotes a considerably sized portion of scholarly adoration to that famous name, and yet somehow in all the chorales and preludes neglects to give any hints as to whether the young J.S swore at his cello, or slammed his hands down on his clavichord because he was sick of scales and minor-key harmonics. It neither confirms nor denies that he occasionally threw a seventeenth-century hissy-fit and had his bewigged siblings up in arms trying to corral this prodigious talent into something studious and well-mannered. Perhaps he was a child made of wood, meek and mild and entirely free of disobedience. The name history will forever label a genius. Perhaps he was none of these, but simply a boy.
Leonard is no orphan, nor is he a master (yet) of the chromatic fugue. But he rejects. He rejects with all his heart.
"Okay, Leonard. Try again, please."
"I'm sorry..."
"Don't apologize. Just play as you see it."
His fingers ache. His brain aches. In his mind he has no trouble whatsoever seeing the chords and how the bow moves sweetly in a proud and feather-light arch. He can hear every pluck and murmur, but that is where it stops. This is the howling of coyotes, the crash of shattering glass. This is not music.
In this class-yet another of his advanced placements-Leonard, at twelve, is by far the youngest. Most of the other kids are fifteen and sixteen, but more importantly, big enough to actually hold their cellos. Despite having grappled with an instrument the size of his body for these last two years at least, he's still forced to endure the humiliation of being relegated to the musical equivalent of a high chair. Really, he should be used to these things by now. If the world ever sought a poster boy for pre-adolescent suffering (otherwise known as the middle-child with an IQ higher than his peers but who still can't outshine his siblings) they'd need look no farther than Leonard, as he bends to reach a low C and stumbles, with elephantine grace, to the floor.
He bites down on a curse and blushes, but Mrs. Lucas has moved on, and the twin busts of Beethoven and Bach, their frowns forever trapped in plaster, remain his only audience.
In the car ride home, Beverly asks, "And how was class today?" She asks this in the same tone she uses for each and every inquiry made to her three children-calm, outwardly polite, but lacking in anything remotely near truth or feeling. In the passenger seat, Leonard shrugs.
"Please don't do that, Leonard. I'd much prefer you say I don't know rather than revert to non-verbal signals."
He nods, but still doesn't speak. When she glances across her eyes give nothing away. And he knows, from the dull ache in his stomach, that he's failed at whatever test this was meant to be.
"Did I mention that the National Archives contacted us today to congratulate Marianne on her finding that error in the state constitution? Apparently your sister has sharper eyes than a White House appointed curator. A reporter from the Gazette is coming over Tuesday next to write a small blurb."
Beverly's mouth turns, oh so slightly, at each corner. No, Leonard didn't know. How could he, when he been too busy living out clichés.
"Oh," he says.
"Yes." She taps a fingernail on the steering wheel, selectively ignoring the breakthrough that he's made by actually talking. "They seemed quite pleased. I told them shame would be more appropriate, seeing at it was their error in the first place, but who knows how these public servants think."
Leonard tries to come up with a response, fails, and this more or less concludes the conversation. The remainder of the drive is carried out in silence, until a sudden stop at the lights coming into Carlyle Avenue causes his cello to roll gently off the back seat and break a string.
Alone in his room, he makes a half-hearted stab at his homework but gives up after the contents of his dictionary begin to resemble ancient cuneiform. He reaches into the nook on his bookcase and pulls out his CD player. It's one of those portable ones, so Leonard is able to lie on his bed and listen to what his mother is only too glad to describe as derivative popular music fit for the masses who only listen because they know no better. (It's actually Bryan Adams. Hardly the devil incarnate. And anyway, he's got an overload of brain cells-or so he's constantly reminded in terms generally more blunt-it's not like he can't spare a few.) In actuality, he's not really listening; he's tuning out other things that crawl about inside, that want to be said if only he could be sure anyone would actually hear them. For young Leonard, who registered on the Stanford-Binet scale at upwards of 160 (and he has never seen the results; they're filed in Beverly's cabinet along with report cards and a finger painting he did in pre-school-the over reliance on primary colors to depict Bert and Ernie being, in Beverly's opinion, evidence of a predication for fantasist behavior), and was actually categorized as a genius, it's touch and go whether he can manage to simply have the salt shaker passed to him at dinner time, let alone be listened to when and if he feels like letting off some steam because he's sick of being called shorty-pants.
With a sigh he leans back and stares up at the ceiling. Listening to this CD is pointless; all he seems to be able to hear is his own whining voice, plus a smidge of white noise. He yanks the headphones off and picks at the foam of the earpiece with a fingernail. These had come with the player but they're already falling to bits. Stupid, cheap, mass-market cra-
"Leonard?"
The door opens a crack. Through the gap he can see his sister, hovering.
"Hey," he says.
She slips inside, perches on the end of his bed. He can tell she's in a good mood, because she's doing that thing where she stares doe-eyed at him, like a trusting animal, the faintest of smiles pulling at the corners of her lips; full of the knowledge that this middle brother of hers isn't in the best of moods and simply wants to curl up and be left alone. And she does all of this without a word, patient and still, until he relents and smiles back. Her face is so young, hair smooth and straight and in a single braid past her neck, a ribbon the only allowance to fashion. He's certain that she'll not change, in five years or even ten, when they're all grown up and haven't the time to sit on a comforter and be normal. If this can be called normal, this moment of complete silence in a house of frightening intellect. But then, there's not a great deal for Leonard to compare it to.
He sits up and swings his legs off the bed.
"I hear you're getting your picture in the paper."
"Is that what Mom said?"
Leonard nods. Marianne scrunches up her nose. "It's a fuss over nothing, really. I hate being the center of attention."
"Then don't be such a smart cookie, Mari."
He knows she doesn't blush for anyone else. It's not pride, just the simple fact that he understands her the best. There's a part of him that wants her to stay this way for as long as possible. He's heard his parents discussing universities and med-schools, one of the many facets of their lives that feels as if it's written out in permanent marker in his mother's hand; but this is how it is, they're accelerated beyond childhood pursuits at a speed so fast that it's almost unfair. And it still manages to catch him by surprise, just sometimes, knowing that one day they'll be doing things of great importance and great consequence, and there's not a thing any of them can do to stop it. The one thing he can do-and it's this he sees in his sister's eyes as she sits by his periodic table and swings her own legs in a quiet counter rhythm-is rebel as only the smart ones can, and pretend that there's nothing out of the ordinary in being able to play Bach from memory when his feet still don't quite touch the floor.
She pokes him on the shoulder. "Well, I heard a rumor, too. That a certain someone's going to be playing in the Parents' Day assembly with a busted cello."
Leonard groans, and falls back onto the bed.
"Oh jeez..."
"Hey. You'll be famous one day, you know that, right? You might as well get some good stories while you're still awkward and young."
"I take it all back. You're not a cookie at all. You're just burnt."
The neat counter rhythm takes a sharp rev in speed she turns on him, sparking a battle for dominance between scuffed Nike hi-tops and a pair of ballet slippers.
Arms stretched over his eyes, he buries his face, and laughs.
::
At two o'clock the first drops of rain begin to fall.
They don't stop.
Plan B, which basically involves hauling everything that was outside, inside, is called into action with impressive military precision; and thank goodness for wedding planners is all Leonard can think, because the idea of his mother taking charge of logistical co-ordination brings to mind every horrific family outing and then some, which, quite honestly, is too emotionally draining to contemplate when he's full to the brim with coffee and enough pastries to front a small Parisian cafe.
"So. Home again, huh?"
They sit together on a wrought iron bench, sheltered by the branches of a walnut tree. Leonard stares at the clouds in the gaps through the leaves, and breathes in deeply. The air tastes clean, like ice. Marianne is wearing slender heels with straps that circle her ankles. He watches as they dig into the soft ground. He can feel her eyes on him, waiting.
"Yup." He glances across and shrugs. "The prodigal son."
"I'm glad you came."
Her lips curve into a smile, wavering a little as she winces and shifts on the bench, one hand hovering over her middle. She is four months' pregnant, her second. He'll be an uncle again soon.
By the steps of the church he can see his mother in conversation with a man and a woman he vaguely recognizes from breakfast. They are dressed in matching long coats, wool and cashmere, the uniform of the discretely wealthy.
"The Greysons," says Marianne. "Both attorneys. He works for Boeing and she's something high up in insurance."
"With an Olympic bronze medallist turned appeals court judge for a daughter?" Leonard shakes his head. "Normally it's the kid who has to live up to the parents, but in this case I'd say things are pretty even. Well done, Michael."
"Two-time bronze medallist," she says, poking him on the shoulder. "Don't forget that. Have you met them?"
"Have I met them? God...I shook someone's hand over a coffee pot this morning. So maybe? But about three seconds later was when I knocked over some irreplaceable antique vase and it shattered into like a thousand pieces. People weren't so chatty after that." He pushes at his glasses and stares her down. "Stop laughing. I mean it. Stop."
"What, no happiness on this day of joy? Come on, I'll introduce you."
"Mari-" She's half-standing and he pulls her back gently. "It's okay. I'd kind of like to just...sit."
Marianne tosses her bangs with a puff of exasperation, but relents. She sits back down. "Well, to be honest you're not missing out on a whole lot. If Mom's head of the society of mutual appreciation and showing off of one's children, then the Greysons practically run the board. But Nicole's a sweetheart. God, if she can deal with Michael as well as she can jump on a pair of skis and shoot a target in the snow then I think they'll be okay."
Leonard nods. He presses a finger on the cold iron, watches as a droplet of water resists for a moment before collapsing beneath his skin, and when he looks up, the figures on the steps have parted ways. He had been trying, unsuccessfully, to read their lips. "I hope so," he says.
the wednesday focus group
There is a whole science in dreams. Or a whole dream in science. One or the other, anyway, it's not as if he can make sense of any of it; his are wild adventures that chase him into places he shouldn't be and put him face to face with people he shouldn't know. The world in those eight or nine hours appears in thick primaries, red, yellow, blue...but when he wakes and blinks to the tactile sensation of sheets tangled in pajama pants and his head pressed to the pillow as if it were there to keep him from flying off the bed, in those very quick moments he thinks back and the colors have gone. Washed out and diluted, spoiling the picture. And then, of course, this whole confusing experience is coaxed out of him by Beverly, who lives by the opinion that the mind is an open map ready to ponder and question, not that he's her son. Not that this might actually be normal.
And then he shrugs it off, because that's what he's learned to do.
So you're telling me that an oversized monster from the domain of popular culture was chasing you through the basketball courts. And what do you think that means, Leonard?
It was the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, Mom. I ate too much candy last night, okay? It's no big deal.
(He doesn't mention that there was a two-man game in progress during that chase: Leonardo versus Leonardo. The artist and the ninja turtle. He'd badly wanted to join in but Stay Puft had been somewhat unrelenting in his lumbering pursuit, and the next thing to happen was Leonard waking up and knocking his alarm clock off the bedside table, so that put an end to things. It's not like he can take a shot to save himself anyway. But for a genius Renaissance man, and a walking, katana-wielding amniote, they weren't half bad. Old Da Vinci for one had a pretty mean lay-up.)
One day, he thinks, he'll give her something unanswerable. Beverly will hold her pen to her notebook but be unable to write. There will be no offhand comments about adolescence, bed-wetting, latent hero-worshipping complexes or delayed development leading to unoriginal thought.
One day he might even surprise her.
[audio tape recording, datestamp 05-22-93; 20:03:00]
[auto-transcription ###v.0001 (©1990 MarcoLab Software)]
20:03:01
>>tape start
[inaudible]
>>tape stop
20:03:43
>>tape start
[inaudible]
>>tape stop
20:04:15
>>tape start
B: Leonard, please choose a chair before one is chosen for you.
Mi: Yeah, bucket-head.
L: What? That doesn't even make sense.
Mi: You should have seen him, Mom, it was the tub with the coleslaw, they tipped it all over his -
B: Okay, quiet now, I said QUIET please...yes, perhaps you should sit there, Leonard, it's probably more your size. Good, let's begin.
L: That's the doggy bed.
B: Oh. Well, it's an easy enough mistake.
L: [inaudible] easy enough to -
>>tape stop
20:04:59
>>tape start
B: This is the Wednesday Focus Group, Hofstadter family residence. Present are Beverly Hofstadter, Marianne Hofstadter, Leonard Hofstadter, and Michael Hofstadter. Now, I have a message from your father. He is sorry he cannot join us this evening but, and I quote, 'hopes the presence of the dog will act as a sufficient proxy' unquote. Well, we can probably expect a similar level of participation, if not quite as vacant a stare. In any case, let us move on...the date, if you would be so good as to make a note, Marianne, is May 22nd, and it's a little after eight o'clock, but now that Leonard has given us his full attention I think we can ignore those lost four minutes and put it down to the self-absorbed momenta of pre-pubescent males.
Ma: Mom...
B: Yes, thank you, Marianne. We should not let the passive aggressiveness of others dictate the tone of our proceedings. Your father might simply find a cold half of the bed when he does eventually grace us with his presence, and that is all I will say on the matter. Now, shall we - yes? What is it, Michael?
Mi: Topic for discussion, please!
B: Certainly. Go ahead.
Mi: Leonard keeps one of Christie Parchetski's hair ribbons in his pencil case, and today I saw him tie it round his thumb and lick the end.
L: What? Were you SPYING on me? You're a dirty, rotten weevil...
Mi: Oh, yeah? Well, you're a love crazy parasite AND an earthworm, so suck on that!
L: [inaudible]
Mi: Ow!
B: Excellent topic, Michael. Now, what we have before us in Leonard as he tries to crawl beneath the furniture - please watch the tablecloth, dear - is a typical example of the adolescent mind unable to reason with sensibility as it is quite literally drowned in hormones -
L: EARTHWORMS KEEP THE PLANET ALIVE!
Mi: OW, CUT IT OUT, NOODLEBRAIN...MOM, HE'S GOT MY - OW!
>>tape stop
"What'cha doing?"
The words are spoken in a bright, singsong voice, making him jump in surprise. Leonard folds the computer printout in two, shoves it hastily into his notebook and looks across the study cubicles. The dark eyes of Lily Chen meet his gaze with a flutter of amusement. She taps the eraser end of a pencil thoughtfully against her chin and waits for an answer.
"Home studies," he says, trying to be cryptic and failing.
"Yeah, right. We're in the library, silly."
Lily is thirteen, the same age as Leonard, and like Leonard one of the best and the brightest; but she loves everything about it, is almost permanently cheerful and irritably adept at choosing the wrong (or, in this case, right) moment to pull her fellow brainiac from whatever daily bout of family-related pain and introspection he happens to be wallowing in. Today it is his reviewing of last week's family so-called therapy session in order to better prepare for the next. Which just happens to be tonight. His head, that painfully reliable indicator of impending doom, is already starting to ache.
He suspects that Lily knows all of this already. But there's something irresistible about whispered conversations in a room full of other whispered conversations, intersected with the occasional squeak of Miss Cowell's book trolley as it trundles over the carpet, and the giggles of two eighth graders as they exchange kiss-and-tell stories in the shadows of the American History shelves. So he tells her.
"Hmm...Christie Parchetski, huh?" She grins and slides around so they can see each other properly. "I'd say 'in your dreams' but I'm pretty sure you've got that covered already."
Leonard blushes. He does that a lot these days. If he didn't know better, he'd start to think that his own body was turning against him.
"Anyway," he says, drawing out the word in an attempt to change the subject-or, at least, steer it peripherally into less embarrassing waters. "This is the deal, okay? You've gotta help me come up with something intelligent to contribute tonight that will shut Mom up about, well, about sex-" He has to mouth the word, as if the library were some sort of anti-zone ready to swallow him whole for betraying his innocence with three little letters. No wonder he lights up like a damn tomato. "Yeah. So. I feel like I'm in a hole and every time I speak I'm digging myself in a bit deeper."
"Isn't it..." Lily screws up her nose in thought. She spins the pencil on the desk, once, twice, blunt lead and eraser tip lost in a dizzy blur. It reaches the edge and falls to the floor. "Isn't it, like, against the rules for parents to psychoanalyse their own children?"
With a grunt he bends to retrieve the pencil. It's still rolling, and the thrum of movement vibrates very softly against his fingers. "Yeah, but here's the thing. I learned a long time ago that my parents make up their own rules about pretty much everything. There's the United Nations, and there's the Hofstadters. Separate from the government, from society, from justice..." He trails off, feigning wistfulness.
"From sanity," Lily supplies.
He pulls a face at her, which she returns happily. At least he's not blushing any more.
"Well done avoiding the question, by the way."
"Yeah." Leonard tips his head and smiles mysteriously. "It's a gift." He pauses for a moment and then brightens. "Hey, did you like my unsubtle use of the words digging and holes to describe the feeling of going through puberty for no other reason than as a test case for my mother?"
"Absolutely!"
"Me too. Do you think other thirteen year-olds sit around and have conversations like this one?"
"Absolutely!"
"Do you realize that you sound like a parrot right now?"
"Totally!"
They collapse into laughter, and every time Leonard tries to stop, something about the face Lily is making has him flushing red again, but then a tutting sound from one of the library aides hushes them quiet, and Lily grins one last time and does a neat shuffle with her Mary Janes across the carpet so that her body and her chair are back where they began, and all Leonard can see are her eyes over the partition wall, framed by dark bangs.
He shoves his chin in his hand with a sigh, and scans the last few lines again, ignoring the twist in his stomach that makes him want to run to the bathroom and bring up his oh-so-delicious cafeteria lunch every time he sees his words reproduced in stupid courier twelve-point font. Previously, on the House of Horrors...
The two girls in American History bend their heads one last time, their laughter a shrill peak of noise that follows them as they scamper out, giggling. Leonard picks up his pen, underlines the words typical example and in his notebook writes inconclusive reasoning, an opinion isn't fact. He doodles at the downward curve of the letter f until it looks like a worm, twisting over the page through college-ruled lines. It feels like he's lived his whole life through those lines. They are constant; filling some strange void left gaping by indifferent parents and the confusion of growing up. And that's about as typical as it gets.
The problem with opinions, he thinks, is that they only seem to matter when they aren't his own.
Lily's still watching, though she's quiet now, and when he doesn't look up she sits back down with the strange sigh of one who has reached thirteen and for the first time met with conflicting feelings for which her brilliance has no answers; and very soon there's nothing but silence.
Dinner that night is hamburgers, done in the style Beverly likes to call molecularly altered, but what is really just very, very well done. He can feel it sit in his stomach, like a lumpen and unsettled beast, as he sits on the couch at seven minutes to eight, waiting for the rest of the family to wander in and for the fun to begin. The pendulum on the ancient grandfather clock swings back and forth; he follows with his eyes until a wave of dizziness forces him to look away. Perpetual motion has always made him anxious, which is really kind of stupid as he's not going to get anywhere in science with the worry that if time were to come to a standstill, right here in the Hofstadter living room, Leonard and all of his teenage years might simply keep on going like a lost soul sitting and waiting on a creaking leather couch, waiting forever because there's no one left but him.
Or maybe he's just nervous. When he braves the clock again the minute hand is nearly at the hour, which means no escaping to the bathroom unless he wants his bladder to become topic of discussion number one. It wouldn't be the first time.
He wishes Marianne were here. But she's back at campus as of yesterday, and they won't see her again until semester break. And he's pretty sure that if he were to mention her he'd get a lecture on coping with separation and some amused disapproval from his mother.
"Oh," Beverly says, sweeping in with an impish looking Michael at her heels. She glances at her watch and raises an eyebrow, looks from it to Leonard; and he expects her to remark on the fact that he's either too early or too on time, or too much in an idle state sitting there doing nothing, but all she says is, "There you are," and takes a seat in the armchair.
"I have a topic." Michael's hand shoots into the air. "Ready, Mom?"
"One moment, Michael. Remember, patience is a virtue."
Beverly crosses her legs and smoothes down an invisible crease on her immaculately laundered blouse. She fingers the pearl droplet at her throat until it sits behind the collar. Never flaunt jewelry, she told her daughter once, when Leonard was very small and had only eyes for candy colors and things he was not supposed to touch; but he must remember the moment, a glance exchanged between the two of them, something kindred and rare, because the way Beverly's hands are moving now causes a twist of sudden and terrible sadness in his chest, and he has to look away so that she doesn't see. And as Michael bounces on the opposite end of the couch, chattering madly about things Leonard doesn't want to know or hear, his father arrives, walking through the door with briefcase still in hand as if resigned to stepping straight from one place of work to another.
And then the old clock is ringing eight o'clock, and it's time to begin.
Here are a few things that Leonard has learned from thirteen years of happy, familial psychoanalysis, while crawling under furniture, while pitching words and wars with his brother:
Metaphysically speaking, there is no center of the universe. And even if there were, no boy, however gifted or well intentioned, could ever think to take that place. That waiting room is full. Don't even bother.
A wet nose and muddy fur is about as close to unconditional...well, not love, but something.
(Okay, it's love. It's everything perfect and what's above and beyond perfect is how he can recite the periodic table to a four-legged friend because he won't be talked over or told to try again, improve and be better-Leonard, if you insist on trailing after atoms, then trail is all you'll ever do-
He's not a leader. He's not. He's three years past a single decade, and to be told he's virtually going backwards? Hurts like a sonofa-)
That Freud has a lot to answer for. Mothers, see, they don't always know best.
::
Two-year-old Charlie, like most toddlers, is fascinated by anything and everything, but in the big wide world and in particular on this rainy day full of strange people, there is nothing more attention-grabbing than a game called Pull Uncle Leonard's Glasses off his Nose.
"I can't believe how much he's grown."
"Believe me, I can," says Marianne. "This little guy's got the appetite of a lion."
Leonard looks sideways at his sister. Or tries to, seeing as he's currently being pulled in several directions at once. "I-ow...I also can't believe Mom let you bring him along."
She grins. "Well, Sam's a pretty good negotiator. I don't know what it is, but that husband of mine somehow manages to reason with her in a way we never could."
"Or Dad."
Marianne looks away and nods. He can tell they're thinking the same thing. Her eyes move to the line of cars behind the church. "Anyway. I told him to grab some seats at the back, just in case we have to...you know."
"Make a quiet but dignified exit?"
"Yeah. Screaming all the way." She watches Charlie continue to gargle and squirm in Leonard's lap for a moment longer, then reaches across to rescue him. "Okay, kiddo. I know you're a smart guy, but I don't think you need corrective lenses quite yet." She wrestles the glasses from her son's determined grip and hands them back with a wry smile. "Let's give genetics and a history of chronic short sightedness a chance to kick in first."
She stands up, and so does Leonard. He wrestles with the umbrella. "God, this thing is like a tent. Where did you get it?"
"Actually a very nice drug rep left it at the clinic. Sam says they like to butter him up with pens and promises for a better world."
Leonard raises an eyebrow. "Out of the goodness of their heart, I'm sure..."
"Hey, the cynic appears! I was wondering when he was going to show."
"He's been in hiding because everyone he's ever disappointed is in that church, and he doesn't want to start a world war," Leonard says.
"Please. We're all as bad as each other. Don't start claiming all the childhood woes just yet." Marianne looks at her watch, drops a kiss onto Charlie's nose. "Come on, we'd better go."
He stands by the edge of the canopy, holding the umbrella high. The gallant cynic, the gallant brother. He and Marianne make faces at one another, while the clouds roll and clap, and little Charlie lets out a squeal.
Leonard looks worriedly at the sky.
"Oh...we're going to get it bad."
He's wrong, of course. It's like playing battles around the old yard, running infinite loops around a great tree of a castle with a sword at his heels. Easy to forget that the race never stopped.
when bryan adams turns baroque, you know that something's right
In the months that follow Leonard's sixteenth birthday (no celebration, of course, but he feels compelled for some reason to mark the occasion; so he locks himself in his room and proceeds to build a fully-functional transistor radio while blindfolded, just to see if it can be done), a number of things unfold.
One is his application for the Timothy L. Kinkaid scholarship to study at the Université Paris-Sud in Orsay. He breezes through the interviews but doesn't progress beyond the shortlist. There's only a twinge of disappointment as he quite honestly wasn't expecting to get it, but of course Beverly sees things differently. She makes the suggestion that he sign up for a summer school on professional discipline and self-management, with a crash course on body language thrown in for good measure. (Though why it is made out to be a suggestion is a mystery to Leonard, seeing as the amount of autonomy he has in saying anything other than yes is laughably nonexistent.) Apparently he had come off as too indecisive when asked to rank great achievements in applied physics in the context of the French impressionists. He doesn't bother to argue that a) it had been an offhand question and more of a joke from one of the interviewers, who'd just happened to notice the Make Way for Monet! pin that was on the lapel of his (okay, slightly outdated) jacket; and b) how the hell did his own mother find out something that was supposedly said behind closed doors? Is she operating a clandestine outfit in the school all of a sudden, or sewing microphones into his collars? It's just too hideous to contemplate.
(The pin, not that it matters, is a gift from Marianne, slipped in a card sent from Chicago. She's twenty-three now, a semester away from graduation. Not the first doctor in the family by any means, but the first to live and breathe hospital life. She tells Leonard how she'll be back one day with grants and good faith to do research and cure diseases, but for now she's racing through nights and rounds and surgeons who hate interns. Haven't found my Dr. Ross yet, she'd written. But it's an adventure, little b. Don't tell anyone. Wouldn't want to think I wasn't living up to my great expectations.
So obeys and obliges, and he says, "Okay, Mom," like he's been asked to go put out the trash. It's just easier that way.)
And then there's debate camp. Specifically, the East Coast School Alliance Debate Symposium of 1996. A place where things of life-changing significance never, ever occur.
"I think we're lost."
"Didn't we pass that supply closet a minute ago? I'm sure we did."
"Leonard..."
"Wait, is this even the third floor? How many stairs did we take? I'm starting to get deja-vu about this whole corridor."
"Leonard!"
Lily's hand is like a vice on his arm. He winces and spins on both heels to face her.
"Ow! What are you made of, titanium?"
Eyes narrowed, she turns and starts to walk away. Leonard shoves the map into his pocket and jogs to catch up. "I'm sorry," he says. "You're made of cotton candy and you totally got us that win tonight. And we're lost in this stupid dorm because I was...I was, uh, thinking of carbon atoms instead of map reading. There. I've said it. Wow. I actually feel better..."
Lily slows enough so they're walking side by side. When he looks over there's a hint of a smile behind her dark hair. "It's a good thing they made you debate team captain instead of orienteering leader. Because if they did I think we'd have to find new ways to define 'going round in circles'."
"Oh. Well, you know, just on that point, despite its ubiquitous but often incorrect usage in popular culture, the main principal behind what we refer to as deja-vu is actually, uh, actually a scientifically proven state of-"
"Leonard."
"Sorry."
She folds her arms. The charm bracelet on her wrist catches the fluorescent light. Flashes of silver. It's the only piece of jewelry he's ever seen her wear. "Cotton candy? You're lucky I don't offend easily." Her eyes gleam a little as she sneaks a glance his way. "I was kind of on fire, though, right? Hit them out of the park."
"Out the park and into the ocean, Lil."
He closes his fist and holds it out, grinning. Lily stares at him.
"What are you doing?"
"I, um." Leonard drops his hand. They stop walking and stare at each other. "Don't...don't people do that thing when they've experienced some self-fulfilling proclamation in order to reinforce the mutually co-operative unit? As in, dude, you're a player."
A door at the end of the corridor slams open and shut. Lily looks as if she is about to say something more but instead she starts to laugh. She laughs and laughs and leans into him, hair swinging, one hand reaching gently into his jacket pocket. Her body is warm. "We're lost in a strange dormitory," she says, "in a strange campus, in an even stranger city...at debate camp. Debate camp, Leonard. The only thing anyone played today was at rebuttals and refutations." She grins and tugs at his collar until it's sitting straight. "Just pretend that we high-fived each other like in junior high, and watch me read a freaking map."
If asked, he would claim it came from nowhere, that when it happened he was as surprised and innocent as the prairie wind. There are probably piles of data somewhere in his mother's office from years of planting electrodes on his head every night for what seemed like years to back up this theory. Never mind that the whole undertaking had come from Beverly suspecting him of having an overstimulated hormonal drive because he had somehow gone against his own genes and basically stopped growing in height at the age of fourteen; it's still his own body acting on a wild, unsupported path, far from his mind, and surely far from anything sensible.
At least, that's what Leonard tells himself. He's rather a dab hand at blind flailing and happy self-delusion, actually, so it's not as if he's going to argue against the fact that he's gone and developed a stupid, idiotic, adjective stuffed crush on his best friend.
Oh, this is bad. This so very bad.
He listens as Dexter Goldberg snores gently in the opposite bed, and counts along in his head. One one thousand, breathe in, two one thousand, breathe out, whine and rattle like there's a scorpion tail lodged deep, that's how the song goes, right? Except now he can't sleep. And doesn't want to because of what he might think about.
(Certainly not Lily's hair. Or how her face lights up when she smiles. Or how she doesn't even need to smile, because everything that was ever smart and beautiful and made of utter perfection need only flicker in those dark eyes for some stupid beta blocker to manifest itself in his brain, and okay, look, it's not his fault if his voice broke in the concluding statement and there was his whole team staring at him like he'd grown a fish head and gills...
The thought occurs that this might be the reason why Beverly eventually gave up on her research, and why the file so carefully prepared for her middle son had to be closed and marked incomplete. There was so much preoccupation in knowing that he was lying there, sending pulse waves for eight hours a night, maybe throughout everything he somehow forgot to...forget.
Leonard makes a face in the dark. Forgot to forget? he thinks. My god, the poetry.
Well, really. What does anyone expect? It's not as if he ever claimed to be the ideal test subject.)
Goldberg mumbles something and turns over. There's a moment of blissful silence, and as if to keep it in place, Leonard concentrates deeply, pooling all his focus into the calming simplicity of numbers: three one thousand, four one thousand. He presses his cheek into the pillow, looking for a cool patch and finding none. He can feel something pounding in his head. Battering thoughts, battle axes, cries of angst. Why can't he just sleep? I think she was wearing perfume, five one thousand, oh wow she totally was, that's never happened before has it, six one thousand, is it because of me, did I do something I mean I'm always doing something like that's ever going to change, seven one thousand, can I die from a broken heart I have to tell her soon yes soon no wait what am I thinking I can't I'd have to look into those eyes and oh god this is math camp all over again OH GOD-
"Jesus, Hofstadter. Would you shut up?"
"Eight one thou...sand. Sorry, Dex."
"You're like fucking Rain Man on downers."
"I know." He blinks into the dark. "I know...hey, listen. Was-"
"Yes. Yes she was wearing perfume just for you. Now go to sleep."
As he does, or attempts to, Leonard can't help wondering if it was really the best idea bunking snoring and sleep apnea together in the first place.
Nine one thousand...and that's ten.
But on the plus side, he's at least five hundred miles from Beverly's electrodes.
Of course he says nothing. And he does nothing but work damn hard with the team until they get on a roll, until they start winning. Afterwards, there's the usual geek post game celebration in which everyone sits quietly and a lot of unnecessary analysis is done with a red pen and book binders; and later, over bottles of something patently non-alcoholic (it's hoppy and tastes of bath water, and that's the extent to his knowledge, or as much as he cares) he's just sitting there, nodding vaguely at what Lily is saying, trying to process her voice over the noise of the party.
But the problem is this: the moment he looks at her a little too long, or too meaningfully, everything kind of grinds to a stop, he becomes suddenly fascinated with the position of his glasses, notices the time (it's always late) and makes a hurried escape.
Tomorrow they'll be on a bus, sleeping the long, straight lines of the freeway. Leonard hates bars anyway, especially the ones that seem to act like magnetic meeting points in leafy college towns, populated with a cast of kids in Gap t-shirts and preppy cords. It's too much like home.
Time passes. Bodies turn about and conversations mingle. Someone turns up the music. So tell me what to do now when I want you back, sing 'N Sync, and Leonard, in some sort of Pavlovian response, buries his head in his hands.
"Hey...don't I know you?"
He opens one eye. And then he sits up, very quickly.
"Christie?" The bottle falls from his lap to the floor, smashing quite spectacularly. "Um," he says. Christie Parchetski is sitting next to him. At an end of debate camp party. His brain ticks off an imaginary list with familiar panic. Something's not calculating property. There's a hanging integer. He's still sleeping. There never was a party and he's still dreaming-
"Oh my god...Leonard Hofstadter!"
Her whole face is lit up in a way that's very strangely beautiful. Was she always this pretty? Well, yes, because he wouldn't have spent nearly his entire childhood thinking of a strawberry-blonde ponytail and how she never looked at him like she's looking at him right now.
Or more accurately, looking but not really listening. But her eyes are lined with something brown and velvety that makes them seem absolutely huge, so he smiles back weakly and mirrors her exuberance. "Oh my god...Christie Parchetski!"
As he speaks he makes a brief and unsubtle attempt at sweeping the broken glass away with his shoe. He connects with her bare calf instead.
"Shit," he mutters, blushing. "Sorry..."
He's waiting for the usual reaction-a rolling of the eyes and a sigh of disgust, or worse, pity-but her eyes only narrow as if there's a thought caught inside, spinning its way into an idea. And then Christie's laughing, so he does the same, relief flooding his body, and around about the point where he starts wondering if the question was even directed at him in the first place, he stops laughing and blurts out, "I'm sorry-again-but this makes absolutely no sense at all. Why are you here?"
She grabs his hands. "I told Mark it was you. That's Leonard, I said, he's like, this amazing genius...and I was right! How cool is that?"
"Oh," says Leonard, looking down. The answers still aren't quite meeting the questions, but they're getting closer. Her nails are bright blue. "Um. Very?"
"Yeah. He's on the track team."
Over by the punch bowl, he catches sight of Lily, watching. She mouths something in fake disbelief, hands waving mockingly in the air. He rolls his eyes at her and turns back to Christie.
"Really? Wow, that's...just great." Apropos of nothing, he thinks. But great. Fantastic. Tell me all about your boyfriend and just keep holding my hand.
"Isn't it?" Her lips curl at the edges. She leans forward. There is an imprint of lace at the curve of her breast, black through pale cotton. He tries not to look, but it's like when someone says don't think of a raccoon, all you can think of is a raccoon.
Leonard never ran track because he grew up building robot arms. Sometimes it's better to just say nothing.
'N Sync are still bopping and harmonising away when Christie starts talking about super Mark, how she's going to send all her designs to Nike and Adidas so by the time he's running the marathon at the Sydney Olympics it will be like they're in it together. And at the point where she's got a hand on his shoulder, fingers threading upwards, and is saying something about how she always liked his hair because it reminds her of her poodle Jemima, Leonard is straining his neck to look back to the table, but all he can see is Dex Goldberg swirling a paper cup through the punch and staring in fascination as if it's a white giant about to pull him through the vortex. And Lily has gone.
Christie's hair smells like pot. Pot and whiskey, and he hates that he knows these things scientifically and hates it even more that the combination is such a turn on. Her body is a warm shape that pushes him through a doorway that isn't his and onto a bed that's too soft. A small voice is lecturing him on the dangers of sleeping on a mattress without proper lumbar support, but it's drowned out oh so slightly by the near explosive thud of some great demon of hell's own spawn wanting to break free right there in his ribcage. Several shaking breaths later and he realizes that it's only his heart. It's only his body taking over and it's horribly, insanely embarrassing. He's about to have sex for the first time and he's pretty sure the whole thing is going to end with a six foot track star he's never met but feels as if he knows in every excruciating detail bursting through the dark and punching him in the face. He shouldn't be here. He shouldn't be anywhere near here and he's about to say this out loud but then she pushes a foil wrapper in his hand and when he stands looking at it dumbly she sighs, unwraps it herself, and kisses him sloppily on the mouth. He responds. Or rather, his body responds. He's not naive; he would happily admit to never fully grasping the hows or whys, despite a life's worth of therapy; all he can do is act on instinct and hope it's somewhere close. But maybe he's doing the right thing, or maybe it's his default mode or being pathetic and sweet, because suddenly there's his name in his ear, her fingers threading his shirt and belt undone, and the room and everything in it goes quiet. Somewhere distant, he is aware of movement, the rush and pooling of blood, how close he is. And how, if he could only hold on, this might actually be a mistake worth making.
He doesn't speak the whole way home. Not to apologize, not to make excuses. Lily rests her head on his shoulder, and in her hands are two knitting needles, and they click and tap, holding together a strange pattern that reminds him of fractals and mandelbrot sets. As the wheels eat up the miles he thinks of confessions in libraries. Or of growing up and just wanting to sleep.
(Part III)
Written for the 2011 bigbangbigbang. Please see the Masterpost for details.
II
Breakfast is both overindulgent and awkward. The former in a way that only real money and taste can afford, the whole day being one long celebration of some of the best and brightest in an affluent New Jersey; and awkward in both a familial and practical sense. This becomes especially apparent considering that the amount of times Leonard manages to elbow the person beside him and bump either a knife, fork, or in one spectacular moment a whole vase of roses onto the floor, ends up almost equal to the number of times he overhears Beverly mention one of Michael's accomplishments not two seconds after loudly wondering what on earth her middle son is actually doing all the way in the hippie communes of California. And at the point where Leonard is sitting upright again and about to dive to his own defense, he is interrupted by a glass being raised to toast the soon-to-be happy couple, and is left holding a knife at a backwards angle, with a poor, innocent croissant on his plate the only means to temper his frustrations.
It's just about the most violent meal he's ever had.
Still, he is nothing if not an optimist at heart, and is able to convince himself that if he eats enough at least he'll be somewhat fortified for the various humiliations that will inevitably come, like a spawn point in a video game, with every slime drenched zombie a new relative to appease, or friend of the family to convince that yes, he is doing some good among the tie-dyed soy frappucino drinkers of the west. Despite what some people might say.
(When asked by the few guests who have somehow escaped being trapped in a corner and having his life story told to them by his own unbiased mother, he explains that he's building a time machine so he can tap Columbus on the shoulder and point out that a) jaguars only live in the Arctic circle, and b) 1452 was just a particularly warm year. They seem to leave him alone after that.)
He does manage to say a few words to his brother before they leave. Michael's fiancée, Nicole, is very tall and serious, but she kisses him very sweetly and doesn't look down in the way Michael does, as with his usual winking exuberance, he concludes their short conversation by thumping Leonard on the shoulder and telling him to keep on trying. It's nothing Leonard hasn't heard before, so he smiles back and makes assurances and jokes until his face starts to ache with cringe-worthy bonhomie.
"I thought the bride and groom weren't supposed to see each other on the day."
Michael ignores this. "Hey, do you think Dad's okay?" he asks. He is leaning on the door of what looks suspiciously like a just off the showroom Range Rover. The body paint is so immaculate that Leonard is able to use it as a mirror and brush away several flakes of brioche before anyone can make the pithy remark that if he'd wanted take out he should have stopped by McDonalds. "Last I saw he was staring at the ice sculpture like it was a woolly mammoth unearthed from the cretaceous." He spins the keys a couple of times. "Or something equally bizarre..."
"Mammoths didn't live during the cretaceous," says Leonard. "And Dad's been in his own world for the last three decades. Don't tell me you've only just worked that out."
"Yeah, well." Michael fists the keys and hops into the car, a wry smile on his face. "He's all yours today. Just make sure he doesn't wear that tie this afternoon. He looks like a damn anthropologist."
And with that he starts up the motor. Nicole is already in the passenger seat, and the two of them wave in unison. Leonard watches with a thin and fixed smile as the car roars away. Or as much as an expensive, luxury SUV on civilized asphalt under leafy elms can roar. Which is to say, not much.
Across the parking lot, the other guests are still milling about, chatting to one another while subtly comparing clothes and expensive motors. "That's because he is a damn anthropologist," Leonard mutters, as his eye catches sight of a familiar figure shutting the trunk of old VW.
It's Marianne. She looks over, he gives a tentative wave, starts to walk, and gets about three steps in before the smile on his face changes to a grin and he breaks into a run.
when bach turns middle-of-the-road, you know that something's wrong
It is a cliché to say that those born with talent will at some point reject it.
On the death of his father in 1695, the organist Johann Christoph Bach was given the then not uncommon task of bringing up his orphaned brother. The rest of that tale (religion, order, equal temperament and a great and imposing lineage for which western music has much to thank) is a history too well known to bear repeating, but it shares some relevance to this one, so it will, if briefly, stay.
The Encyclopaedia Britannica (15th edition, published 1976; resident of John Hofstadter's study next to his Levi-Strauss and The World According to Garp), devotes a considerably sized portion of scholarly adoration to that famous name, and yet somehow in all the chorales and preludes neglects to give any hints as to whether the young J.S swore at his cello, or slammed his hands down on his clavichord because he was sick of scales and minor-key harmonics. It neither confirms nor denies that he occasionally threw a seventeenth-century hissy-fit and had his bewigged siblings up in arms trying to corral this prodigious talent into something studious and well-mannered. Perhaps he was a child made of wood, meek and mild and entirely free of disobedience. The name history will forever label a genius. Perhaps he was none of these, but simply a boy.
Leonard is no orphan, nor is he a master (yet) of the chromatic fugue. But he rejects. He rejects with all his heart.
"Okay, Leonard. Try again, please."
"I'm sorry..."
"Don't apologize. Just play as you see it."
His fingers ache. His brain aches. In his mind he has no trouble whatsoever seeing the chords and how the bow moves sweetly in a proud and feather-light arch. He can hear every pluck and murmur, but that is where it stops. This is the howling of coyotes, the crash of shattering glass. This is not music.
In this class-yet another of his advanced placements-Leonard, at twelve, is by far the youngest. Most of the other kids are fifteen and sixteen, but more importantly, big enough to actually hold their cellos. Despite having grappled with an instrument the size of his body for these last two years at least, he's still forced to endure the humiliation of being relegated to the musical equivalent of a high chair. Really, he should be used to these things by now. If the world ever sought a poster boy for pre-adolescent suffering (otherwise known as the middle-child with an IQ higher than his peers but who still can't outshine his siblings) they'd need look no farther than Leonard, as he bends to reach a low C and stumbles, with elephantine grace, to the floor.
He bites down on a curse and blushes, but Mrs. Lucas has moved on, and the twin busts of Beethoven and Bach, their frowns forever trapped in plaster, remain his only audience.
In the car ride home, Beverly asks, "And how was class today?" She asks this in the same tone she uses for each and every inquiry made to her three children-calm, outwardly polite, but lacking in anything remotely near truth or feeling. In the passenger seat, Leonard shrugs.
"Please don't do that, Leonard. I'd much prefer you say I don't know rather than revert to non-verbal signals."
He nods, but still doesn't speak. When she glances across her eyes give nothing away. And he knows, from the dull ache in his stomach, that he's failed at whatever test this was meant to be.
"Did I mention that the National Archives contacted us today to congratulate Marianne on her finding that error in the state constitution? Apparently your sister has sharper eyes than a White House appointed curator. A reporter from the Gazette is coming over Tuesday next to write a small blurb."
Beverly's mouth turns, oh so slightly, at each corner. No, Leonard didn't know. How could he, when he been too busy living out clichés.
"Oh," he says.
"Yes." She taps a fingernail on the steering wheel, selectively ignoring the breakthrough that he's made by actually talking. "They seemed quite pleased. I told them shame would be more appropriate, seeing at it was their error in the first place, but who knows how these public servants think."
Leonard tries to come up with a response, fails, and this more or less concludes the conversation. The remainder of the drive is carried out in silence, until a sudden stop at the lights coming into Carlyle Avenue causes his cello to roll gently off the back seat and break a string.
Alone in his room, he makes a half-hearted stab at his homework but gives up after the contents of his dictionary begin to resemble ancient cuneiform. He reaches into the nook on his bookcase and pulls out his CD player. It's one of those portable ones, so Leonard is able to lie on his bed and listen to what his mother is only too glad to describe as derivative popular music fit for the masses who only listen because they know no better. (It's actually Bryan Adams. Hardly the devil incarnate. And anyway, he's got an overload of brain cells-or so he's constantly reminded in terms generally more blunt-it's not like he can't spare a few.) In actuality, he's not really listening; he's tuning out other things that crawl about inside, that want to be said if only he could be sure anyone would actually hear them. For young Leonard, who registered on the Stanford-Binet scale at upwards of 160 (and he has never seen the results; they're filed in Beverly's cabinet along with report cards and a finger painting he did in pre-school-the over reliance on primary colors to depict Bert and Ernie being, in Beverly's opinion, evidence of a predication for fantasist behavior), and was actually categorized as a genius, it's touch and go whether he can manage to simply have the salt shaker passed to him at dinner time, let alone be listened to when and if he feels like letting off some steam because he's sick of being called shorty-pants.
With a sigh he leans back and stares up at the ceiling. Listening to this CD is pointless; all he seems to be able to hear is his own whining voice, plus a smidge of white noise. He yanks the headphones off and picks at the foam of the earpiece with a fingernail. These had come with the player but they're already falling to bits. Stupid, cheap, mass-market cra-
"Leonard?"
The door opens a crack. Through the gap he can see his sister, hovering.
"Hey," he says.
She slips inside, perches on the end of his bed. He can tell she's in a good mood, because she's doing that thing where she stares doe-eyed at him, like a trusting animal, the faintest of smiles pulling at the corners of her lips; full of the knowledge that this middle brother of hers isn't in the best of moods and simply wants to curl up and be left alone. And she does all of this without a word, patient and still, until he relents and smiles back. Her face is so young, hair smooth and straight and in a single braid past her neck, a ribbon the only allowance to fashion. He's certain that she'll not change, in five years or even ten, when they're all grown up and haven't the time to sit on a comforter and be normal. If this can be called normal, this moment of complete silence in a house of frightening intellect. But then, there's not a great deal for Leonard to compare it to.
He sits up and swings his legs off the bed.
"I hear you're getting your picture in the paper."
"Is that what Mom said?"
Leonard nods. Marianne scrunches up her nose. "It's a fuss over nothing, really. I hate being the center of attention."
"Then don't be such a smart cookie, Mari."
He knows she doesn't blush for anyone else. It's not pride, just the simple fact that he understands her the best. There's a part of him that wants her to stay this way for as long as possible. He's heard his parents discussing universities and med-schools, one of the many facets of their lives that feels as if it's written out in permanent marker in his mother's hand; but this is how it is, they're accelerated beyond childhood pursuits at a speed so fast that it's almost unfair. And it still manages to catch him by surprise, just sometimes, knowing that one day they'll be doing things of great importance and great consequence, and there's not a thing any of them can do to stop it. The one thing he can do-and it's this he sees in his sister's eyes as she sits by his periodic table and swings her own legs in a quiet counter rhythm-is rebel as only the smart ones can, and pretend that there's nothing out of the ordinary in being able to play Bach from memory when his feet still don't quite touch the floor.
She pokes him on the shoulder. "Well, I heard a rumor, too. That a certain someone's going to be playing in the Parents' Day assembly with a busted cello."
Leonard groans, and falls back onto the bed.
"Oh jeez..."
"Hey. You'll be famous one day, you know that, right? You might as well get some good stories while you're still awkward and young."
"I take it all back. You're not a cookie at all. You're just burnt."
The neat counter rhythm takes a sharp rev in speed she turns on him, sparking a battle for dominance between scuffed Nike hi-tops and a pair of ballet slippers.
Arms stretched over his eyes, he buries his face, and laughs.
::
At two o'clock the first drops of rain begin to fall.
They don't stop.
Plan B, which basically involves hauling everything that was outside, inside, is called into action with impressive military precision; and thank goodness for wedding planners is all Leonard can think, because the idea of his mother taking charge of logistical co-ordination brings to mind every horrific family outing and then some, which, quite honestly, is too emotionally draining to contemplate when he's full to the brim with coffee and enough pastries to front a small Parisian cafe.
"So. Home again, huh?"
They sit together on a wrought iron bench, sheltered by the branches of a walnut tree. Leonard stares at the clouds in the gaps through the leaves, and breathes in deeply. The air tastes clean, like ice. Marianne is wearing slender heels with straps that circle her ankles. He watches as they dig into the soft ground. He can feel her eyes on him, waiting.
"Yup." He glances across and shrugs. "The prodigal son."
"I'm glad you came."
Her lips curve into a smile, wavering a little as she winces and shifts on the bench, one hand hovering over her middle. She is four months' pregnant, her second. He'll be an uncle again soon.
By the steps of the church he can see his mother in conversation with a man and a woman he vaguely recognizes from breakfast. They are dressed in matching long coats, wool and cashmere, the uniform of the discretely wealthy.
"The Greysons," says Marianne. "Both attorneys. He works for Boeing and she's something high up in insurance."
"With an Olympic bronze medallist turned appeals court judge for a daughter?" Leonard shakes his head. "Normally it's the kid who has to live up to the parents, but in this case I'd say things are pretty even. Well done, Michael."
"Two-time bronze medallist," she says, poking him on the shoulder. "Don't forget that. Have you met them?"
"Have I met them? God...I shook someone's hand over a coffee pot this morning. So maybe? But about three seconds later was when I knocked over some irreplaceable antique vase and it shattered into like a thousand pieces. People weren't so chatty after that." He pushes at his glasses and stares her down. "Stop laughing. I mean it. Stop."
"What, no happiness on this day of joy? Come on, I'll introduce you."
"Mari-" She's half-standing and he pulls her back gently. "It's okay. I'd kind of like to just...sit."
Marianne tosses her bangs with a puff of exasperation, but relents. She sits back down. "Well, to be honest you're not missing out on a whole lot. If Mom's head of the society of mutual appreciation and showing off of one's children, then the Greysons practically run the board. But Nicole's a sweetheart. God, if she can deal with Michael as well as she can jump on a pair of skis and shoot a target in the snow then I think they'll be okay."
Leonard nods. He presses a finger on the cold iron, watches as a droplet of water resists for a moment before collapsing beneath his skin, and when he looks up, the figures on the steps have parted ways. He had been trying, unsuccessfully, to read their lips. "I hope so," he says.
the wednesday focus group
There is a whole science in dreams. Or a whole dream in science. One or the other, anyway, it's not as if he can make sense of any of it; his are wild adventures that chase him into places he shouldn't be and put him face to face with people he shouldn't know. The world in those eight or nine hours appears in thick primaries, red, yellow, blue...but when he wakes and blinks to the tactile sensation of sheets tangled in pajama pants and his head pressed to the pillow as if it were there to keep him from flying off the bed, in those very quick moments he thinks back and the colors have gone. Washed out and diluted, spoiling the picture. And then, of course, this whole confusing experience is coaxed out of him by Beverly, who lives by the opinion that the mind is an open map ready to ponder and question, not that he's her son. Not that this might actually be normal.
And then he shrugs it off, because that's what he's learned to do.
So you're telling me that an oversized monster from the domain of popular culture was chasing you through the basketball courts. And what do you think that means, Leonard?
It was the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, Mom. I ate too much candy last night, okay? It's no big deal.
(He doesn't mention that there was a two-man game in progress during that chase: Leonardo versus Leonardo. The artist and the ninja turtle. He'd badly wanted to join in but Stay Puft had been somewhat unrelenting in his lumbering pursuit, and the next thing to happen was Leonard waking up and knocking his alarm clock off the bedside table, so that put an end to things. It's not like he can take a shot to save himself anyway. But for a genius Renaissance man, and a walking, katana-wielding amniote, they weren't half bad. Old Da Vinci for one had a pretty mean lay-up.)
One day, he thinks, he'll give her something unanswerable. Beverly will hold her pen to her notebook but be unable to write. There will be no offhand comments about adolescence, bed-wetting, latent hero-worshipping complexes or delayed development leading to unoriginal thought.
One day he might even surprise her.
[audio tape recording, datestamp 05-22-93; 20:03:00]
[auto-transcription ###v.0001 (©1990 MarcoLab Software)]
20:03:01
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[inaudible]
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20:03:43
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[inaudible]
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20:04:15
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B: Leonard, please choose a chair before one is chosen for you.
Mi: Yeah, bucket-head.
L: What? That doesn't even make sense.
Mi: You should have seen him, Mom, it was the tub with the coleslaw, they tipped it all over his -
B: Okay, quiet now, I said QUIET please...yes, perhaps you should sit there, Leonard, it's probably more your size. Good, let's begin.
L: That's the doggy bed.
B: Oh. Well, it's an easy enough mistake.
L: [inaudible] easy enough to -
>>tape stop
20:04:59
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B: This is the Wednesday Focus Group, Hofstadter family residence. Present are Beverly Hofstadter, Marianne Hofstadter, Leonard Hofstadter, and Michael Hofstadter. Now, I have a message from your father. He is sorry he cannot join us this evening but, and I quote, 'hopes the presence of the dog will act as a sufficient proxy' unquote. Well, we can probably expect a similar level of participation, if not quite as vacant a stare. In any case, let us move on...the date, if you would be so good as to make a note, Marianne, is May 22nd, and it's a little after eight o'clock, but now that Leonard has given us his full attention I think we can ignore those lost four minutes and put it down to the self-absorbed momenta of pre-pubescent males.
Ma: Mom...
B: Yes, thank you, Marianne. We should not let the passive aggressiveness of others dictate the tone of our proceedings. Your father might simply find a cold half of the bed when he does eventually grace us with his presence, and that is all I will say on the matter. Now, shall we - yes? What is it, Michael?
Mi: Topic for discussion, please!
B: Certainly. Go ahead.
Mi: Leonard keeps one of Christie Parchetski's hair ribbons in his pencil case, and today I saw him tie it round his thumb and lick the end.
L: What? Were you SPYING on me? You're a dirty, rotten weevil...
Mi: Oh, yeah? Well, you're a love crazy parasite AND an earthworm, so suck on that!
L: [inaudible]
Mi: Ow!
B: Excellent topic, Michael. Now, what we have before us in Leonard as he tries to crawl beneath the furniture - please watch the tablecloth, dear - is a typical example of the adolescent mind unable to reason with sensibility as it is quite literally drowned in hormones -
L: EARTHWORMS KEEP THE PLANET ALIVE!
Mi: OW, CUT IT OUT, NOODLEBRAIN...MOM, HE'S GOT MY - OW!
>>tape stop
"What'cha doing?"
The words are spoken in a bright, singsong voice, making him jump in surprise. Leonard folds the computer printout in two, shoves it hastily into his notebook and looks across the study cubicles. The dark eyes of Lily Chen meet his gaze with a flutter of amusement. She taps the eraser end of a pencil thoughtfully against her chin and waits for an answer.
"Home studies," he says, trying to be cryptic and failing.
"Yeah, right. We're in the library, silly."
Lily is thirteen, the same age as Leonard, and like Leonard one of the best and the brightest; but she loves everything about it, is almost permanently cheerful and irritably adept at choosing the wrong (or, in this case, right) moment to pull her fellow brainiac from whatever daily bout of family-related pain and introspection he happens to be wallowing in. Today it is his reviewing of last week's family so-called therapy session in order to better prepare for the next. Which just happens to be tonight. His head, that painfully reliable indicator of impending doom, is already starting to ache.
He suspects that Lily knows all of this already. But there's something irresistible about whispered conversations in a room full of other whispered conversations, intersected with the occasional squeak of Miss Cowell's book trolley as it trundles over the carpet, and the giggles of two eighth graders as they exchange kiss-and-tell stories in the shadows of the American History shelves. So he tells her.
"Hmm...Christie Parchetski, huh?" She grins and slides around so they can see each other properly. "I'd say 'in your dreams' but I'm pretty sure you've got that covered already."
Leonard blushes. He does that a lot these days. If he didn't know better, he'd start to think that his own body was turning against him.
"Anyway," he says, drawing out the word in an attempt to change the subject-or, at least, steer it peripherally into less embarrassing waters. "This is the deal, okay? You've gotta help me come up with something intelligent to contribute tonight that will shut Mom up about, well, about sex-" He has to mouth the word, as if the library were some sort of anti-zone ready to swallow him whole for betraying his innocence with three little letters. No wonder he lights up like a damn tomato. "Yeah. So. I feel like I'm in a hole and every time I speak I'm digging myself in a bit deeper."
"Isn't it..." Lily screws up her nose in thought. She spins the pencil on the desk, once, twice, blunt lead and eraser tip lost in a dizzy blur. It reaches the edge and falls to the floor. "Isn't it, like, against the rules for parents to psychoanalyse their own children?"
With a grunt he bends to retrieve the pencil. It's still rolling, and the thrum of movement vibrates very softly against his fingers. "Yeah, but here's the thing. I learned a long time ago that my parents make up their own rules about pretty much everything. There's the United Nations, and there's the Hofstadters. Separate from the government, from society, from justice..." He trails off, feigning wistfulness.
"From sanity," Lily supplies.
He pulls a face at her, which she returns happily. At least he's not blushing any more.
"Well done avoiding the question, by the way."
"Yeah." Leonard tips his head and smiles mysteriously. "It's a gift." He pauses for a moment and then brightens. "Hey, did you like my unsubtle use of the words digging and holes to describe the feeling of going through puberty for no other reason than as a test case for my mother?"
"Absolutely!"
"Me too. Do you think other thirteen year-olds sit around and have conversations like this one?"
"Absolutely!"
"Do you realize that you sound like a parrot right now?"
"Totally!"
They collapse into laughter, and every time Leonard tries to stop, something about the face Lily is making has him flushing red again, but then a tutting sound from one of the library aides hushes them quiet, and Lily grins one last time and does a neat shuffle with her Mary Janes across the carpet so that her body and her chair are back where they began, and all Leonard can see are her eyes over the partition wall, framed by dark bangs.
He shoves his chin in his hand with a sigh, and scans the last few lines again, ignoring the twist in his stomach that makes him want to run to the bathroom and bring up his oh-so-delicious cafeteria lunch every time he sees his words reproduced in stupid courier twelve-point font. Previously, on the House of Horrors...
The two girls in American History bend their heads one last time, their laughter a shrill peak of noise that follows them as they scamper out, giggling. Leonard picks up his pen, underlines the words typical example and in his notebook writes inconclusive reasoning, an opinion isn't fact. He doodles at the downward curve of the letter f until it looks like a worm, twisting over the page through college-ruled lines. It feels like he's lived his whole life through those lines. They are constant; filling some strange void left gaping by indifferent parents and the confusion of growing up. And that's about as typical as it gets.
The problem with opinions, he thinks, is that they only seem to matter when they aren't his own.
Lily's still watching, though she's quiet now, and when he doesn't look up she sits back down with the strange sigh of one who has reached thirteen and for the first time met with conflicting feelings for which her brilliance has no answers; and very soon there's nothing but silence.
Dinner that night is hamburgers, done in the style Beverly likes to call molecularly altered, but what is really just very, very well done. He can feel it sit in his stomach, like a lumpen and unsettled beast, as he sits on the couch at seven minutes to eight, waiting for the rest of the family to wander in and for the fun to begin. The pendulum on the ancient grandfather clock swings back and forth; he follows with his eyes until a wave of dizziness forces him to look away. Perpetual motion has always made him anxious, which is really kind of stupid as he's not going to get anywhere in science with the worry that if time were to come to a standstill, right here in the Hofstadter living room, Leonard and all of his teenage years might simply keep on going like a lost soul sitting and waiting on a creaking leather couch, waiting forever because there's no one left but him.
Or maybe he's just nervous. When he braves the clock again the minute hand is nearly at the hour, which means no escaping to the bathroom unless he wants his bladder to become topic of discussion number one. It wouldn't be the first time.
He wishes Marianne were here. But she's back at campus as of yesterday, and they won't see her again until semester break. And he's pretty sure that if he were to mention her he'd get a lecture on coping with separation and some amused disapproval from his mother.
"Oh," Beverly says, sweeping in with an impish looking Michael at her heels. She glances at her watch and raises an eyebrow, looks from it to Leonard; and he expects her to remark on the fact that he's either too early or too on time, or too much in an idle state sitting there doing nothing, but all she says is, "There you are," and takes a seat in the armchair.
"I have a topic." Michael's hand shoots into the air. "Ready, Mom?"
"One moment, Michael. Remember, patience is a virtue."
Beverly crosses her legs and smoothes down an invisible crease on her immaculately laundered blouse. She fingers the pearl droplet at her throat until it sits behind the collar. Never flaunt jewelry, she told her daughter once, when Leonard was very small and had only eyes for candy colors and things he was not supposed to touch; but he must remember the moment, a glance exchanged between the two of them, something kindred and rare, because the way Beverly's hands are moving now causes a twist of sudden and terrible sadness in his chest, and he has to look away so that she doesn't see. And as Michael bounces on the opposite end of the couch, chattering madly about things Leonard doesn't want to know or hear, his father arrives, walking through the door with briefcase still in hand as if resigned to stepping straight from one place of work to another.
And then the old clock is ringing eight o'clock, and it's time to begin.
Here are a few things that Leonard has learned from thirteen years of happy, familial psychoanalysis, while crawling under furniture, while pitching words and wars with his brother:
Metaphysically speaking, there is no center of the universe. And even if there were, no boy, however gifted or well intentioned, could ever think to take that place. That waiting room is full. Don't even bother.
A wet nose and muddy fur is about as close to unconditional...well, not love, but something.
(Okay, it's love. It's everything perfect and what's above and beyond perfect is how he can recite the periodic table to a four-legged friend because he won't be talked over or told to try again, improve and be better-Leonard, if you insist on trailing after atoms, then trail is all you'll ever do-
He's not a leader. He's not. He's three years past a single decade, and to be told he's virtually going backwards? Hurts like a sonofa-)
That Freud has a lot to answer for. Mothers, see, they don't always know best.
::
Two-year-old Charlie, like most toddlers, is fascinated by anything and everything, but in the big wide world and in particular on this rainy day full of strange people, there is nothing more attention-grabbing than a game called Pull Uncle Leonard's Glasses off his Nose.
"I can't believe how much he's grown."
"Believe me, I can," says Marianne. "This little guy's got the appetite of a lion."
Leonard looks sideways at his sister. Or tries to, seeing as he's currently being pulled in several directions at once. "I-ow...I also can't believe Mom let you bring him along."
She grins. "Well, Sam's a pretty good negotiator. I don't know what it is, but that husband of mine somehow manages to reason with her in a way we never could."
"Or Dad."
Marianne looks away and nods. He can tell they're thinking the same thing. Her eyes move to the line of cars behind the church. "Anyway. I told him to grab some seats at the back, just in case we have to...you know."
"Make a quiet but dignified exit?"
"Yeah. Screaming all the way." She watches Charlie continue to gargle and squirm in Leonard's lap for a moment longer, then reaches across to rescue him. "Okay, kiddo. I know you're a smart guy, but I don't think you need corrective lenses quite yet." She wrestles the glasses from her son's determined grip and hands them back with a wry smile. "Let's give genetics and a history of chronic short sightedness a chance to kick in first."
She stands up, and so does Leonard. He wrestles with the umbrella. "God, this thing is like a tent. Where did you get it?"
"Actually a very nice drug rep left it at the clinic. Sam says they like to butter him up with pens and promises for a better world."
Leonard raises an eyebrow. "Out of the goodness of their heart, I'm sure..."
"Hey, the cynic appears! I was wondering when he was going to show."
"He's been in hiding because everyone he's ever disappointed is in that church, and he doesn't want to start a world war," Leonard says.
"Please. We're all as bad as each other. Don't start claiming all the childhood woes just yet." Marianne looks at her watch, drops a kiss onto Charlie's nose. "Come on, we'd better go."
He stands by the edge of the canopy, holding the umbrella high. The gallant cynic, the gallant brother. He and Marianne make faces at one another, while the clouds roll and clap, and little Charlie lets out a squeal.
Leonard looks worriedly at the sky.
"Oh...we're going to get it bad."
He's wrong, of course. It's like playing battles around the old yard, running infinite loops around a great tree of a castle with a sword at his heels. Easy to forget that the race never stopped.
when bryan adams turns baroque, you know that something's right
In the months that follow Leonard's sixteenth birthday (no celebration, of course, but he feels compelled for some reason to mark the occasion; so he locks himself in his room and proceeds to build a fully-functional transistor radio while blindfolded, just to see if it can be done), a number of things unfold.
One is his application for the Timothy L. Kinkaid scholarship to study at the Université Paris-Sud in Orsay. He breezes through the interviews but doesn't progress beyond the shortlist. There's only a twinge of disappointment as he quite honestly wasn't expecting to get it, but of course Beverly sees things differently. She makes the suggestion that he sign up for a summer school on professional discipline and self-management, with a crash course on body language thrown in for good measure. (Though why it is made out to be a suggestion is a mystery to Leonard, seeing as the amount of autonomy he has in saying anything other than yes is laughably nonexistent.) Apparently he had come off as too indecisive when asked to rank great achievements in applied physics in the context of the French impressionists. He doesn't bother to argue that a) it had been an offhand question and more of a joke from one of the interviewers, who'd just happened to notice the Make Way for Monet! pin that was on the lapel of his (okay, slightly outdated) jacket; and b) how the hell did his own mother find out something that was supposedly said behind closed doors? Is she operating a clandestine outfit in the school all of a sudden, or sewing microphones into his collars? It's just too hideous to contemplate.
(The pin, not that it matters, is a gift from Marianne, slipped in a card sent from Chicago. She's twenty-three now, a semester away from graduation. Not the first doctor in the family by any means, but the first to live and breathe hospital life. She tells Leonard how she'll be back one day with grants and good faith to do research and cure diseases, but for now she's racing through nights and rounds and surgeons who hate interns. Haven't found my Dr. Ross yet, she'd written. But it's an adventure, little b. Don't tell anyone. Wouldn't want to think I wasn't living up to my great expectations.
So obeys and obliges, and he says, "Okay, Mom," like he's been asked to go put out the trash. It's just easier that way.)
And then there's debate camp. Specifically, the East Coast School Alliance Debate Symposium of 1996. A place where things of life-changing significance never, ever occur.
"I think we're lost."
"Didn't we pass that supply closet a minute ago? I'm sure we did."
"Leonard..."
"Wait, is this even the third floor? How many stairs did we take? I'm starting to get deja-vu about this whole corridor."
"Leonard!"
Lily's hand is like a vice on his arm. He winces and spins on both heels to face her.
"Ow! What are you made of, titanium?"
Eyes narrowed, she turns and starts to walk away. Leonard shoves the map into his pocket and jogs to catch up. "I'm sorry," he says. "You're made of cotton candy and you totally got us that win tonight. And we're lost in this stupid dorm because I was...I was, uh, thinking of carbon atoms instead of map reading. There. I've said it. Wow. I actually feel better..."
Lily slows enough so they're walking side by side. When he looks over there's a hint of a smile behind her dark hair. "It's a good thing they made you debate team captain instead of orienteering leader. Because if they did I think we'd have to find new ways to define 'going round in circles'."
"Oh. Well, you know, just on that point, despite its ubiquitous but often incorrect usage in popular culture, the main principal behind what we refer to as deja-vu is actually, uh, actually a scientifically proven state of-"
"Leonard."
"Sorry."
She folds her arms. The charm bracelet on her wrist catches the fluorescent light. Flashes of silver. It's the only piece of jewelry he's ever seen her wear. "Cotton candy? You're lucky I don't offend easily." Her eyes gleam a little as she sneaks a glance his way. "I was kind of on fire, though, right? Hit them out of the park."
"Out the park and into the ocean, Lil."
He closes his fist and holds it out, grinning. Lily stares at him.
"What are you doing?"
"I, um." Leonard drops his hand. They stop walking and stare at each other. "Don't...don't people do that thing when they've experienced some self-fulfilling proclamation in order to reinforce the mutually co-operative unit? As in, dude, you're a player."
A door at the end of the corridor slams open and shut. Lily looks as if she is about to say something more but instead she starts to laugh. She laughs and laughs and leans into him, hair swinging, one hand reaching gently into his jacket pocket. Her body is warm. "We're lost in a strange dormitory," she says, "in a strange campus, in an even stranger city...at debate camp. Debate camp, Leonard. The only thing anyone played today was at rebuttals and refutations." She grins and tugs at his collar until it's sitting straight. "Just pretend that we high-fived each other like in junior high, and watch me read a freaking map."
If asked, he would claim it came from nowhere, that when it happened he was as surprised and innocent as the prairie wind. There are probably piles of data somewhere in his mother's office from years of planting electrodes on his head every night for what seemed like years to back up this theory. Never mind that the whole undertaking had come from Beverly suspecting him of having an overstimulated hormonal drive because he had somehow gone against his own genes and basically stopped growing in height at the age of fourteen; it's still his own body acting on a wild, unsupported path, far from his mind, and surely far from anything sensible.
At least, that's what Leonard tells himself. He's rather a dab hand at blind flailing and happy self-delusion, actually, so it's not as if he's going to argue against the fact that he's gone and developed a stupid, idiotic, adjective stuffed crush on his best friend.
Oh, this is bad. This so very bad.
He listens as Dexter Goldberg snores gently in the opposite bed, and counts along in his head. One one thousand, breathe in, two one thousand, breathe out, whine and rattle like there's a scorpion tail lodged deep, that's how the song goes, right? Except now he can't sleep. And doesn't want to because of what he might think about.
(Certainly not Lily's hair. Or how her face lights up when she smiles. Or how she doesn't even need to smile, because everything that was ever smart and beautiful and made of utter perfection need only flicker in those dark eyes for some stupid beta blocker to manifest itself in his brain, and okay, look, it's not his fault if his voice broke in the concluding statement and there was his whole team staring at him like he'd grown a fish head and gills...
The thought occurs that this might be the reason why Beverly eventually gave up on her research, and why the file so carefully prepared for her middle son had to be closed and marked incomplete. There was so much preoccupation in knowing that he was lying there, sending pulse waves for eight hours a night, maybe throughout everything he somehow forgot to...forget.
Leonard makes a face in the dark. Forgot to forget? he thinks. My god, the poetry.
Well, really. What does anyone expect? It's not as if he ever claimed to be the ideal test subject.)
Goldberg mumbles something and turns over. There's a moment of blissful silence, and as if to keep it in place, Leonard concentrates deeply, pooling all his focus into the calming simplicity of numbers: three one thousand, four one thousand. He presses his cheek into the pillow, looking for a cool patch and finding none. He can feel something pounding in his head. Battering thoughts, battle axes, cries of angst. Why can't he just sleep? I think she was wearing perfume, five one thousand, oh wow she totally was, that's never happened before has it, six one thousand, is it because of me, did I do something I mean I'm always doing something like that's ever going to change, seven one thousand, can I die from a broken heart I have to tell her soon yes soon no wait what am I thinking I can't I'd have to look into those eyes and oh god this is math camp all over again OH GOD-
"Jesus, Hofstadter. Would you shut up?"
"Eight one thou...sand. Sorry, Dex."
"You're like fucking Rain Man on downers."
"I know." He blinks into the dark. "I know...hey, listen. Was-"
"Yes. Yes she was wearing perfume just for you. Now go to sleep."
As he does, or attempts to, Leonard can't help wondering if it was really the best idea bunking snoring and sleep apnea together in the first place.
Nine one thousand...and that's ten.
But on the plus side, he's at least five hundred miles from Beverly's electrodes.
Of course he says nothing. And he does nothing but work damn hard with the team until they get on a roll, until they start winning. Afterwards, there's the usual geek post game celebration in which everyone sits quietly and a lot of unnecessary analysis is done with a red pen and book binders; and later, over bottles of something patently non-alcoholic (it's hoppy and tastes of bath water, and that's the extent to his knowledge, or as much as he cares) he's just sitting there, nodding vaguely at what Lily is saying, trying to process her voice over the noise of the party.
But the problem is this: the moment he looks at her a little too long, or too meaningfully, everything kind of grinds to a stop, he becomes suddenly fascinated with the position of his glasses, notices the time (it's always late) and makes a hurried escape.
Tomorrow they'll be on a bus, sleeping the long, straight lines of the freeway. Leonard hates bars anyway, especially the ones that seem to act like magnetic meeting points in leafy college towns, populated with a cast of kids in Gap t-shirts and preppy cords. It's too much like home.
Time passes. Bodies turn about and conversations mingle. Someone turns up the music. So tell me what to do now when I want you back, sing 'N Sync, and Leonard, in some sort of Pavlovian response, buries his head in his hands.
"Hey...don't I know you?"
He opens one eye. And then he sits up, very quickly.
"Christie?" The bottle falls from his lap to the floor, smashing quite spectacularly. "Um," he says. Christie Parchetski is sitting next to him. At an end of debate camp party. His brain ticks off an imaginary list with familiar panic. Something's not calculating property. There's a hanging integer. He's still sleeping. There never was a party and he's still dreaming-
"Oh my god...Leonard Hofstadter!"
Her whole face is lit up in a way that's very strangely beautiful. Was she always this pretty? Well, yes, because he wouldn't have spent nearly his entire childhood thinking of a strawberry-blonde ponytail and how she never looked at him like she's looking at him right now.
Or more accurately, looking but not really listening. But her eyes are lined with something brown and velvety that makes them seem absolutely huge, so he smiles back weakly and mirrors her exuberance. "Oh my god...Christie Parchetski!"
As he speaks he makes a brief and unsubtle attempt at sweeping the broken glass away with his shoe. He connects with her bare calf instead.
"Shit," he mutters, blushing. "Sorry..."
He's waiting for the usual reaction-a rolling of the eyes and a sigh of disgust, or worse, pity-but her eyes only narrow as if there's a thought caught inside, spinning its way into an idea. And then Christie's laughing, so he does the same, relief flooding his body, and around about the point where he starts wondering if the question was even directed at him in the first place, he stops laughing and blurts out, "I'm sorry-again-but this makes absolutely no sense at all. Why are you here?"
She grabs his hands. "I told Mark it was you. That's Leonard, I said, he's like, this amazing genius...and I was right! How cool is that?"
"Oh," says Leonard, looking down. The answers still aren't quite meeting the questions, but they're getting closer. Her nails are bright blue. "Um. Very?"
"Yeah. He's on the track team."
Over by the punch bowl, he catches sight of Lily, watching. She mouths something in fake disbelief, hands waving mockingly in the air. He rolls his eyes at her and turns back to Christie.
"Really? Wow, that's...just great." Apropos of nothing, he thinks. But great. Fantastic. Tell me all about your boyfriend and just keep holding my hand.
"Isn't it?" Her lips curl at the edges. She leans forward. There is an imprint of lace at the curve of her breast, black through pale cotton. He tries not to look, but it's like when someone says don't think of a raccoon, all you can think of is a raccoon.
Leonard never ran track because he grew up building robot arms. Sometimes it's better to just say nothing.
'N Sync are still bopping and harmonising away when Christie starts talking about super Mark, how she's going to send all her designs to Nike and Adidas so by the time he's running the marathon at the Sydney Olympics it will be like they're in it together. And at the point where she's got a hand on his shoulder, fingers threading upwards, and is saying something about how she always liked his hair because it reminds her of her poodle Jemima, Leonard is straining his neck to look back to the table, but all he can see is Dex Goldberg swirling a paper cup through the punch and staring in fascination as if it's a white giant about to pull him through the vortex. And Lily has gone.
Christie's hair smells like pot. Pot and whiskey, and he hates that he knows these things scientifically and hates it even more that the combination is such a turn on. Her body is a warm shape that pushes him through a doorway that isn't his and onto a bed that's too soft. A small voice is lecturing him on the dangers of sleeping on a mattress without proper lumbar support, but it's drowned out oh so slightly by the near explosive thud of some great demon of hell's own spawn wanting to break free right there in his ribcage. Several shaking breaths later and he realizes that it's only his heart. It's only his body taking over and it's horribly, insanely embarrassing. He's about to have sex for the first time and he's pretty sure the whole thing is going to end with a six foot track star he's never met but feels as if he knows in every excruciating detail bursting through the dark and punching him in the face. He shouldn't be here. He shouldn't be anywhere near here and he's about to say this out loud but then she pushes a foil wrapper in his hand and when he stands looking at it dumbly she sighs, unwraps it herself, and kisses him sloppily on the mouth. He responds. Or rather, his body responds. He's not naive; he would happily admit to never fully grasping the hows or whys, despite a life's worth of therapy; all he can do is act on instinct and hope it's somewhere close. But maybe he's doing the right thing, or maybe it's his default mode or being pathetic and sweet, because suddenly there's his name in his ear, her fingers threading his shirt and belt undone, and the room and everything in it goes quiet. Somewhere distant, he is aware of movement, the rush and pooling of blood, how close he is. And how, if he could only hold on, this might actually be a mistake worth making.
He doesn't speak the whole way home. Not to apologize, not to make excuses. Lily rests her head on his shoulder, and in her hands are two knitting needles, and they click and tap, holding together a strange pattern that reminds him of fractals and mandelbrot sets. As the wheels eat up the miles he thinks of confessions in libraries. Or of growing up and just wanting to sleep.
(Part III)