The Theory of Everything (24 page)

I am human and I need to be loved, just like everybody else does.

—The Smiths, “How Soon Is Now?”

“I don't know why people like tiramisu so much,” I said, passing the plate over to Peyton. “I guess I'm not a pudding person.”

“It's cake,” Peyton said, taking a bite.

“With pudding in it,” Finny said. “Maybe the whole pudding thing comes with age.”

Peyton looked up from her fork.

“Not that you're old,” Finny said. “You're a lot younger than Sophie's mom.”

She laughed. You knew you'd broken through some barriers when honesty emerged and it was okay.

“The inside part is mascarpone,” the waitress said, bring us our check. “It's a type of cheese.”

“Even worse!” Finny shrieked.

My New York palate was more sophisticated than his, but even I thought the whole tiramisu thing was overdone—unlike Finny's reaction when I gave him one of my souvenirs. That was totally justified.

“For me?” Finny said, clutching the pink ballet slipper to his chest. “It seems kind of small for a panda.”

“Merv has delicate feet,” I said. “It probably belonged to him.”

It was fun to talk openly about souvenirs and what I'd experienced at Bobst with someone other than Walt or Finny. Peyton made it all seem legitimate, which made me feel more normal than I had in a long time.

When I first got to the restaurant, Peyton was furious about how many times I'd lied to her that day. (A lot.) How was she supposed to look after me if I lied? What would my mom have thought? But we worked through it. I forgave her for, well, being there instead of Dad, and she forgave me for being a total nightmare houseguest. But we were there. We made it. And I was closer to my dad—and farther down the path—than I'd ever imagined.

“I have a present, too,” she said, taking a rectangle out of her purse and pressing it into my palm. I knew the weight of it, the feel of hard plastic on my skin.

“You made me a tape?” I said.

“Not exactly,” she said as I turned it over. It was
Love.

“
Love
!” Finny said.

“
Love
!” I said. “Where did you find it?”

I ran over to her side of the table and threw my arms around her.

“I had it all along,” she said into my hair. “It fell out when I washed your skirt,” she added, smiling. “I meant to give it to you this morning, but I forgot. So I threw it in my purse to give to you tonight.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” I said, hugging the tape to my chest like Finny's ballet shoe. “Does Dad make you tapes, too?”

“Nope,” she said, pushing an empty dessert plate away. “He's too busy making those for you.”

I imagined Dad staying up all night with records spread across the floor, picking out the perfect songs, using trial and error to find the right order. The same way I was using trial and error to prove the Sophie Effect. Dad had taught me that a mixtape was the perfect place to plant hidden messages and that the order of the songs meant everything. Start with something upbeat, he said, even if the tape was serious. And end on something emotional so that your efforts leave a mark.

“I'll send the rest of the tapes to Havencrest,” she said, almost reading my mind.

“I left my address in the kitchen,” I said. And then I said something I never expected to say. “We should keep in touch.”

Peyton grabbed my hand and Finny's, making a chain. Linking us together.

“We will,” she said. “This is just the beginning.”

|||||||||||

Half an hour later, I was looking up at the departure board at Amtrak. Everyone standing beneath it wanted to go somewhere: conference in Connecticut, reunion in Baltimore, boyfriend weekend in Boston. I wanted to go wherever Dad went and ask him questions. Why him? Why me? Why parallel universes? Couldn't our brains think of anything else to do? Why didn't our hearts pick another hobby instead?

Peyton bought our tickets, Finny went to grab magazines, and I walked around, passing the pay phones, which stood out against the wall like the ocean—waves of bright blue and white against a sea of silver. They looked lonely, empty and unused in the cell phone era. I patted the Walkman in my bag as if comforting one old piece of technology could reassure another. And then my phone rang, another person reaching out to me. Waiting for me to let them in. Drew.

“Shouldn't you be doing homework or something productive?” I said, glad he couldn't see the goofy look on my face.

“Shouldn't you be on a train headed my direction?”

I laughed. “Are you checking up on me?”

“I'm just confirming our lunch on Saturday,” Drew said. “I have an insanely busy social calendar.”

“Kerouac and coffee?”

“I have other interests,” he said.

“Like?”

Pause. A pause could mean anything, like maybe he didn't have anything else to say, which meant we had no future. Or maybe he had other interests but was filing through them in his mind, figuring out which ones were cool enough to share with me.

“If I say what I'm thinking, you'll never let me live it down.”

“Why?”

“It's way too teen movie,” he said. “So let's just say I'm interested in hearing about your trip when you get back.”

A pause could have also meant he was thinking about me.

“It's a date then,” I said, wishing I could make the train move faster, partially to match my beating heart, partially because I wanted to be in Havencrest. Pronto.

“Peyton's coming with our tickets, so I have to go.”

“Well then, bon voyage, Sophie,” he said, chipping away at my armor.

“Au revoir, Nancy Drew,” I said, hanging up the phone even though it was the last thing I wanted to do.

“Tickets,” Peyton said, handing me two of them. She and Mom had decided to pay for them and give Finny's credit card a break.

“Thanks,” I said, slipping my phone into my bag.

“Drew?” she said, nodding at the phone.

“The one and only,” I said. “How do you know if a guy really likes you?”

“You just know,” Peyton said. “You look like
you
know.”

“Maybe,” I said.

“And if that's not enough? Sometimes you just have to trust,” she said.

“That they won't break your heart?”

She smiled. “That even if they do, you'll survive. You've made it this far, haven't you?”

“True,” I said. I put my hands in my pocket, feeling the tape. She'd given me a lot since I'd been there. I wanted to leave her with something, too.

“I think I'm close,” I said.

“To what?”

“Proving the Sophie Effect,” I said. “Only time—and episodes—will tell.”

“That's great, honey,” she said, like she didn't really believe me. Like she didn't believe Dad was ever coming home. I had to convince her.

“The cool thing is, I think proving it for me might prove it for Dad, too,” I said. “If I can stay in one universe, maybe he could do the same.”

She looked as tired as I felt.

“Of course, you're smarter about this stuff than me,” I said. An apology hidden inside a compliment. “What do you think? Do you think Dad's coming back?”

She looked defeated, like the weight of a thousand episodes.

“I think your father put toothpaste on his toothbrush in the shape of a smile because he was happy; he loved Mondays because he knew they were a fresh start; he loved physics because it was a way to talk about things bigger than ourselves. And I think, wherever he is, he wants to come back. On some level, I think he knows you want him back, too.”

I wanted to pack her heartache in a box and ship it off to someone else.

“So, would another hug be totally out of the question?” I said.

Peyton pulled me in like Finny, like Walt, like Mom on a good day. We stayed there awhile, long enough for me to put my head on her shoulder. Long enough for her shoulders to shake.

“He's coming back,” I said, whispering my new mantra in her ear.

She pulled out of the hug and patted her heart. “He never left.”

Check, I thought, hoping my own heart took notice.

They called for boarding, and Finny ran up to us with a stack of magazines.

“Mindless entertainment, ready for your consumption,” he said, fanning them out. “
Dwell,
Elle
and
Physics Today.
”

“And I have
Physics Tomorrow,
” I said, patting my bag. Feeling Dad's book. I also had
Love.

“Okay, you two,” Peyton said, putting one arm around each of us and squeezing. “Be safe. I'm going to miss you.”

“You want a photo?” Finny said. “It's almost like being there.”

“Of course!” she said, taking out her phone and aiming it at us. “Strike a pose.”

Finny and I linked arms and waved, Jackie-O style, for the camera.

“Bye!” we shouted as we boarded Amtrak, bound for home.

Finny found our row and gave me the window seat, as usual. The train pulled away, and outside the window I saw Peyton waving, frantically, like a parent letting her kid go for the first time. Finny leaned over me, and we waved back and forth, hands moving sideways like spiders. Letting her know she wasn't alone, either.

|||||||||||

For the first few hundred miles, Finny and I filled each other in, him versus me: Bobst Research versus Raining Books, Cute Guy Spotting versus My Daring Escape, Waiting Forever versus Betty, Heart Drawing versus Walt and the Rockettes—and my personal favorite, Being Stuck at the Restaurant with Peyton versus My Breakdown in Times Square.

“Wow,” Finny said. “That's a lot for one day.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I prefer to limit my number of daily travels to one.”

“And you had two,” he said.

“Three, actually,” I said. “While you were busy with chalk, I was in the panda-verse.”

“Right,” Finny said. “So that's one universe. What are all the other ones?

“The Ramones,” I said, remembering the cafeteria. It felt like a million years ago. “The Cure.”

“Everything's a music video,” Finny said, leaning back in his chair. It sounded cool when he said it out loud. “What else?”

“Hearts rolling off sleeves,” I said. “Blackbirds peeling off wallpaper. Rain turning into baby black bears. Flying books.”

“Objects animate,” Finny said, sitting back up. “That's—”

“Just like Dad said,” I said. “I know.”

It was also like Mr. Maxim predicted. And Walt told me. Sometimes we just know things. I wondered if I'd ever go to the panda-verse again or if it was over. If I was actually proving the Sophie Effect. For the past two years, I came in and out of my reality without even knowing it, which made me wonder: what would it be like to stay in my own universe for a change? The one that included Havencrest and Mom, Drew and high school and Café Haven. The one with manicured lawns and big, sprawling houses but nicer people than anywhere I'd ever lived. Not every person but most of them, like Mr. Rutherford, who brought us Jesus Bars when we moved in, even though they were just brownies with cream cheese crosses on top; Callie, the girl from the diner who would probably end up being a friend; and Mr. Maxim.

“Finny?”

His head was back against the headrest and his eyes were closed. It was late. And since it had been the longest day ever of the two longest days ever, I decided to join him.

|||||||||||

I woke up while the rest of the train was still asleep, including Finny. It reminded me of the times I woke up early, on accident. Everyone was still snoozing and it was like the world was on pause, only I got to hit Play for a while. Just me. I took
Love
out of my bag and looked at it. Dad had decorated the case with an illustration of a man riding one of those old-timey bikes—the kind with the big wheel in front. There was a word bubble coming out of the guy's mouth with a heart in it.

I opened the case to look at the song list, and a note fell out. A note with Dad's telltale writing on the front that said
read after listening.
I didn't how long I could wait, but I was going to try. You know, to give the music a chance.

I popped in the tape, put in my earbuds and pressed Play. The opening guitar riffs of “Message of Love” by the Pretenders filled my ears, and I felt like Mom must have felt. Like someone Dad loved, listening to one of his tapes for the first time.

LOVE, BY ANGELINO SOPHIA