The Theory of Everything (4 page)

I didn't hate it. And even though he ate all the takeout, showed up without warning and was a panda, he didn't stare or ask questions; he just accepted. Like I used to do with Dad.

“I'll do a trial basis,” I said.

“Yes!” Walt said, throwing his arms in the air and shaking his butt around.

“But no more of that,” I said. “We only go-go dance around here. And no more sneaking up on me. I hate that.”

“Got it,” Walt said. “Mod dancing and a megaphone. Anything else?”

I thought about hugging him, partially to make sure he was real, partially to get lost in that black and white fur, but I wanted to be cooler than that. So I raised my knuckles and made a fist.

“Sophie Sophia, keeping it real,” he said, bumping his paw against my fist like an agreement. “I like it.”

I pulled my hand back, and Walt was gone. The only evidence that he'd ever been there was a panda butt imprint in the carpet and a chewed stick of bamboo next to it.

Mom sat up, rubbing her eyes.

“Did I hear you talking to someone?”

“Nope,” I said. “Must have been the movie. Or Balzac.”

I stacked cartons, attempting to clear the table and distract her with my impeccable manners.

“Sophie, are you seeing things again?” She yawned. “You can tell me. There's nothing we can't work out.”

And by “work out,” she meant move where no one knew us. Where no one cared.

“I was talking to Infinity,” I said, instead. “It was fascinating, as usual. Now I'm going upstairs to talk to Dreamland. I'll tell you all about it in the morning.”

I tossed a handful of cartons in the trash and held my breath as I walked upstairs, hoping she wouldn't figure things out. Praying, even though I never prayed, that she hadn't heard me with Walt.

Today was Thursday, the day that deserves to be kicked out of the calendar, completely. Most people loved Thursday because it was almost Friday, which was practically the weekend. But for me, Thursday was a reminder of something else: that day when the fun and games forgot the fun; when someone I loved terrified me; and when I ended up in one cop car, waving, while my dad rode away in another one.

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“It's TYRANNICAL THURSDAY!” Dad said one Thursday, emerging from the basement in red long underwear. “And as the tyrant, I have decided that today we will go to the zoo in our pajamas.”

I laughed so hard chocolate milk sprayed out of my nose.

“It's too cold for pajamas, Daddy,” I said, wiping my face on my sleeve. I was five, and the only thing I wanted more than going to the zoo was staying warm. I hated the cold. It was a phase I was going through.

“So we'll warm ourselves with our minds!” he said, running circles around the table. “We're the smartest people I know. If anyone can create heat with thoughts, it's us!”

“Angelino, put some clothes on,” Mom said when she walked in.

“I would if I could,” he said. “It's Tyrannical Thursday, and Sophie and I are going to the zoo in our pajamas.”

Mom poured coffee into her blue mug, the one with the chip on the side.

“Sophie has school,” she said. “You know that.”

“What can she possibly learn in a classroom that I can't teach her? Am I right?”

He looked at me, and I nodded yes as he piled a waffle on my plate and poured a syrup smile on top of it.

“Of course she's going to agree with you,” Mom said, ruffling my hair. “Sophie is nothing if not a fan of monkeys.”

“Which is why I'm taking her to the zoo,” he said.

Mom took a waffle off the plate and ate it plain.

“Fine,” she said. “But no pajamas. And wait until after school.”

“Deal!” Dad said, winking at me. “I don't know why you worry so much.”

At the time, Mom knew something I didn't: Dad was sick. Which meant he wasn't the best person to take care of me. But that didn't keep him from showing up at school at noon with a doctor's note in one hand and a pair of pajamas in the other.

As we walked around the zoo, he told me his theories on why parrots mimic, why polar bears like ice and what makes elephants majestic. I was shivering but acted like I was fine until he stuck his arms through the bars, trying to catch a capuchin monkey. He wanted to take him home because, evolutionarily, the monkey was my brother, but the guards didn't like that answer. They also didn't like it when they asked him to “come with them” and instead of going, he pulled a stainless-steel eggbeater out of his jacket pocket and charged at them. Assault by scramble.

Before I knew it, he was sitting in the back of one of the police cars and I was sitting in the back of another, wrapped in a blanket. Scared. Sirens blared as they drove away, Dad waving frantically, me wondering if I'd ever see him again.

I knew Mom was mad because she kept yelling—at the police station, in the car and in the living room. I wanted to yell back and ask her why every time Dad and I were together, she had to ruin it. Now I understood it wasn't the pajamas or the zoo that made her angry, it was all of it. Including a lot of things I never saw. But at the time, I thought if she stopped happiness every time it appeared, it would think it wasn't welcome. And in my five-year-old mind, that meant it wouldn't show up anymore.

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“Showing up is ninety percent of your grade,” Mr. Maxim said as I slipped into class. I was late because Mom had done the whole ambush-by-orange-juice thing. I hated it when she interrogated me over breakfast.

“Preferably showing up on time,” he said, looking at me while I checked out his red gingham bow tie. “Labs start next week, so until then, ponder what we covered today. Velocity, which is a vector measurement of the rate and direction of motion, has exciting possibilities.”

Mr. Maxim handed me the list of lab partners. I found my name and ran my finger directly across from it to find my probably better half: Finny Jackson. I had no idea who he was—who anyone was, really—but I hoped he was more into physics than the Urban Outfitters catalog, unlike my lab partner in San Francisco.

“There's nothing more rewarding than asking a complicated question and coming up with an elegant solution,” Mr. Maxim said, tripping over a book and flying forward. As he caught himself on the file cabinet, I couldn't help but wonder: was there an elegant solution for him?

“See you tomorrow,” he said as the bell rang. I grabbed my books and dashed out before Fab Physics Guy saw me. I spent the rest of the day dashing, hiding, ducking and avoiding. I knew I'd have to see him eventually, but it didn't have to be today. Which is why I kept my head down and combined walking with ducking. Dwalking.

“Hi.”

I looked up and practically knocked Fab Physics Guys' Buddy Holly glasses off his face.

“It's Sophie, right? Sophie Sophia?”

I stepped back as people filed around us, heading for the real world.

“I have to go,” I said. “I'm going to be late for class.”

“The last bell just rang,” he said, grinning. “School's out. But I don't want to keep you. I just wanted to say hi, since we're going to be lab partners. I'm Finny Jackson.”

Look up the origin of anyone's name and you'll find something familiar. Whether they're born with it or grow into it, names oddly fit the people carrying them. Finny was probably short for Phineas, which means “oracle.” Hopefully the oracle of physics. And my name is two versions of the same name stuck together, both of which mean “wisdom.” Why I couldn't just skip high school and go straight to college was beyond me.

“Pleasure to meet you,” I said, and then I curtsied. I had no idea why I did that.

“And you,” he said, bowing. “Are you secretly British?”

“The most British thing about me is my love of Monty Python and The Smiths,” I said.

“Me too,” he said, pointing to his T-shirt. It was vintage, from
The Queen Is Dead
album. I had seen one like it in a store in San Francisco and wanted to buy it and sew a pocket over the word
queen.

“Nice shirt,” I said. And then, out of nowhere, I felt my friend-making mechanism kick in. “Are there any good parks around here? I'm dying for some scenery without lockers.”

“I know just the place,” he said. “And I wanted to give you this.”

He reached in his jacket pocket and pulled out a whistle on a chain. Walt's whistle.

“Where did you find that?” I said, snatching it out of his hand.

“Near the football field where you dropped it,” he said. “You know, the same place where you saw me, ran away, came back and ran away again? All in the span of, like, fifteen minutes?”

“I was probably just lost,” I said, smiling, thrilled he hadn't seen anything more than some wacky girl behavior. “So how about that park?”

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We walked forever until the houses gave way to thick, glorious trees, a little lake and a path that wound in between it.

“It's no Central Park, but it's pretty cool,” Finny said. We'd been walking and talking long enough for me to know he had a love affair with New York. Just like I did.

“How can you like a place so much when you've never even been there?”

“It's the mystique of it,” Finny said. “Broadway? Radio City Music Hall? Running into Ethan Hawke at a Starbucks? Truman Capote?”

“Capote was born in Louisiana,” I said.

“Whatever. He hung out in Greenwich Village, and he was fabulous.”

“He was,” I said. “So was Andy Warhol.”

“Oh, wow, did you know him?”

Two kids flew by on skateboards, followed by two jogging women with strollers.

“Um, hi,” I said. “We're the same age.”

“Did your parents know him? Maybe he ate at your kitchen table, and you don't even know it.”

“Doubtful,” I said. “My parents ran in different circles.”

“Which circles were those?”

I remembered hanging out in Dad's office at NYU. Meeting Mom after work at Katz's Deli. Seeing a matinee of
The Lion King
on Broadway with Mom, and The Donnas at a small club in Brooklyn with Dad. Sitting on our stoop, looking at the stars. Listening to Mom and Dad fight through the window.

“They ran in the smarty-pants academic circles” I said. “Dad was a theoretical physics professor at NYU.”

“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” Finny said, hyperventilating.

“Breathe,” I said, patting him on the back. “Sit on the curb or something.”

“Quantum,” he said, panting. “String theory. It's my life.”

“I know,” I said, looking down at his white Converse, which were covered in equations written in Sharpie.

“Why didn't you tell me? Is your dad into M-theory? If your dad is involved in cutting-edge research—”

“He's not,” I said, interrupting him. “He's not on the cutting edge of anything.”

“Right,” Finny said. “Top secret and all of that, I get it. You can't tell me. But if he's a big-time physics guy at NYU, why did he move to Havencrest?”

I felt my mouth get smaller and my heart along with it.

“He didn't,” I said, hugging my knees to my chest.

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I didn't remember the night Dad left four years ago, but I remembered when I realized he wasn't coming back. My upstairs neighbor gave me one of her Catholic charms—Our Lady of Sorrow—and I pressed that thing in my palm so hard it left a mark. I wasn't sure why the lady was sorry, but I knew why I was—my best friend was gone. I wrote Dad letters and even though I never heard from him, I still missed him. He used to make flowers out of paper and waltz around in wacky hats while sharing his newest theory about cupcakes and quantum. “Angelino, stop it,” Mom would say. “You're scaring her.” But I saw the ends of her mouth curl up when she said it, like she was trying not to laugh. Mom wanted me to stay grounded. But how could I when Dad was always lifting me up?

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“Wow,” Finny said. “That's rough.” His glasses slid down his nose and he pushed them back up.

“It's not like he's dead or anything,” I said, although I wasn't sure about that.

Finny opened his backpack and pulled out a pack of black licorice, my second-favorite candy next to chocolate. “Would this help?”

I nodded, grabbed it and shoved a piece in my mouth.

“I'm sorry about your dad,” he said.

“And I'm sorry the world's not made of this stuff.”

I grabbed another piece. As long as I was eating, I didn't have to explain.

“It doesn't compare, but my family's pretty weird, too,” Finny said. “My mom is obsessed with pink carnations. They've pretty much invaded our house—the couch, rugs, plates, towels, everything. She even put carnation stickers in my shoes.”

He took off a Converse and there, at the bottom, was a bright pink flower.

“No way,” I said, laughing.

“Yeah, and she cooks the same things, over and over, until you want to die,” he said. “Fish sticks on Monday, chicken enchiladas on Tuesday, meat loaf on Wednesday, tuna salad on Thursday, and Friday night is Taco Night.”

I was laughing so hard I had to stop eating licorice. “What about the weekend?”

“Saturday is pizza or takeout, and Sunday is Leftover Night, where you make a sandwich out of whatever is left. Even if it's enchiladas,” Finny said. “It's gross.”

Not only did it sound disgusting, it sounded completely foreign to me. We never had a routine when I was growing up because Dad said predictability was the death of life. And whether we believed it or not, Mom and I kind of ran with that theory.

“I have to get home,” I said, looking up. The sun was setting, leaving streaks of cotton candy against a darkening sky. “My mom's a worrier.”

“So call her,” he said. “That's what cell phones are for.”

“Which would be awesome if I had one.”

Finny tilted his head.

“Mom wants to give me one—it's not that,” I said. “It's more of a Walden Pond thing. I don't want to be reachable twenty-four seven, you know? Sometimes it's nice to be alone.”

What I didn't say was that while everyone else was obsessed with the communication of the future, I was still thinking about the past. Dad and I had had walkie-talkies, and we got along just fine.

“We'll work on that,” Finny said. “Because texting is awesome. In the meantime, want to use mine?”

I took his phone but then realized I didn't even know my new phone number.

“Let's just get out of here,” I said. “I have no idea where I am. Wanna walk me?”

Finny popped up and grabbed his bag. “Human map, at your service.”