Mead gets up and drags his suitcase down the hall toward his room, swinging wide around a couple leaning against the wall, making out. The door is shut. Odd for a Friday night. Forsbeck isn’t usually so antisocial. Mead opens it and discovers why, sees Forsbeck’s bare ass pumping up and down in the air, a female leg sticking up in the air on each side of it. And Miss Kitty ankle socks. She’s wearing Miss Kitty socks like a grade school girl. Either because her feet are cold or because Forsbeck was in too much of a hurry to allow her to first take them off. Mead closes the door.
The lights in the hall flicker. “It’s midnight,” the resident advisor yells. “All stereos off.” Then he walks down the hall, banging his fist against the closed doors. The entire floor turns silent as a monk’s retreat as couples scurry into dark corners to hide like cockroaches from the light. When the resident advisor is satisfied that his demand has been met, he mounts the stairs to terrorize the inhabitants of the third floor.
Mead sits on his suitcase and waits for Forsbeck’s “friend” to leave. Only she doesn’t. A couple of stereos come back on. Not as many as before. Not as loud. Just loud enough to cover the grunting noises coming from various rooms. Just enough to give the loving couples —many of whom will not remember each others’ names in the morning —time to finish their business.
Mead strolls down the hall and into the bathroom, dragging his suitcase with him. Tucked into the side pocket is a travel kit his Aunt Jewel gave him before he left for college. As if he would be on the road for days instead of hours. He’s never had a reason to use it before now. Mead pulls out the toothbrush and listens to the sound of rushing water coming from the showers. Someone is in there, someone Mead hopes is female. A moment later the shower shuts off and a girl steps out from behind the wall, a girl with a very large bruise on her left breast. When she sees Mead looking at her in the mirror, she covers herself with her towel, and that is when he notices the bruises on her arms. He looks at the girl again. Shit, he knows who she is. Cynthia Broussard. Herman’s Cynthia. Mead had no idea she was living in his dorm, let alone on his floor. He turns around to face her. “Excuse me,” he says. “I know this isn’t any of my business, but are you all right?” Which is apparently not the right thing to say because she bursts into tears. Shit, what is Mead supposed to do now? “I’m sorry. This is really awkward,” he says. “How about I turn around and you get dressed, okay? See? I’m turning around. I’m covering my eyes. And once you’re dressed I’ll walk you over to the health services office and you can tell the nurse what happened and she’ll be able to give you some medical attention and whatever other kind of help you might need.”
“No,” she says. “No help. I’m fine. Please, Mead. No help.”
He uncovers his eyes and turns back around. Cynthia has stepped into her robe and cinched it closed. “Who did this to you?” he says. “Herman? Did he hurt you?”
She shakes her head. “It was an accident. I fell. I was in a hurry and I tripped and fell. It was stupid. I’m fine. Really, I’m fine.”
She’s lying. It’s obvious as hell that she is lying. She must be scared, that’s what it has to be. She’s afraid of Herman, of what he might do if she tells on him. “Okay, well, how about I take you to an emergency room off campus. You really should see a doctor and make sure you’re okay.”
“No. Thank you. Oh god, this is so embarrassing.” And she laughs. But it isn’t a real laugh. It’s another lie. “Don’t tell Herman you saw me like this. Please. He already thinks I’m such a klutz. Okay? No one can know.”
“Okay,” Mead says.
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
“Okay,” she says and smiles weakly, then gathers up her clothes and ducks out of the bathroom.
BACK OUT IN THE HALL, Mead parks his butt on his suitcase and waits for the resident advisor to swing through for a third and final time. Cynthia may have said not to tell Herman but she said nothing whatsoever about keeping it from the resident advisor. And yet when the RA does make his appearance, Mead hesitates. Because what does he know? Maybe it wasn’t Herman; maybe it was somebody else. Or maybe Cynthia really did fall down. One thing he knows for sure: It won’t do any good for him to report the incident if she is just going to lie about it. And so, in the end, he says nothing.
After the stereos all fall silent, Mead presses his ear against his door and hears a female giggle. It seems that Forsbeck’s friend is planning to spend the night. Shit. Mead rolls his suitcase to the end of the hall and lugs it up two flights of stairs, then presses his ear against the door of room 48 —to make sure the coast is clear —before he knocks. Herman answers wearing nothing but a pair of jockey shorts. He looks at Mead, then at his suitcase, smiles and says, “You running away, Fegley?”
“You have a scratch on your neck.”
Herman reaches up and touches the scratch. Two parallel red lines above his right collar bone. “Dry cleaner,” he says. “I forgot to remove their tag and the damned staple got me.”
“That’s a pretty deep scratch for a staple to make.”
Herman frowns. “What’re you trying to say, Fegley?”
But he promised. He promised Cynthia he wouldn’t say anything to Herman. Innocent until proven guilty and all that stuff. “I would suggest that you never take your shirts back to that place again.”
Herman smiles. “So what’s with the suitcase?”
“Forsbeck has an overnight guest. Can I crash on your spare bed?”
MEAD HEARS A NOISE AND LOOKS UP. The librarian is shelving books, pushing one of those carts all libraries have down the aisle. She smiles at Mead and goes about her business as if everything is normal. Only it isn’t, because she is naked. All the way naked. Not even any shoes on. Mead glances around to see if anyone else in the library has noticed, but no one has. So he gets up and starts to take off his shirt, so he can cover her up. But before he can get his shirt off, the shelves begin to tremble and books start to fall off them, start to tumble down on top of the naked librarian, burying her alive. Mead leaps into action and starts digging through the books, throwing them off to the left and the right, digging as fast as he can. But no matter how much he digs, he can’t find the librarian.
MEAD WAKES WITH A START, his heart pounding in his chest. He sits up and looks over at Herman, who is sound asleep in the next bed, not a troubling thought in his head. It is inconceivable to Mead that anyone could inflict the kind of harm that was inflicted upon Cynthia and then sleep so soundly. Two weeks. Mead spent the better part of two weeks with Herman at Bell Labs and never once saw even a hint of violence in his behavior. Even after his father made that derogatory statement about him at the dinner table, even after his other father flaunted his very young wife in his face. Mead pulls the sheets up to his chin and watches Herman sleep until he himself slips back into unconsciousness. He finds himself in the library again, the librarian shelving books. Naked. He walks over to her to check out her breasts. Which are perfect. Not a bruise in sight. He places his hands over them to cover them up. To protect them. To protect her. She smiles and says, “Thank you, Theodore.”
Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.
Mead opens his eyes and squints across the room at Herman, who is still sound asleep. So Mead rolls away, closes his eyes, and tries to fall back to sleep himself, to pick up his dream where it left off, with the librarian’s breasts in his hands. He reaches down under the bedcovers and wraps his hand around Little Teddy, who isn’t so little at the moment. He runs his finger over the tip and imagines he is rubbing it over one of her nipples.
Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.
The bed behind Mead squeaks as Herman gets out of it. Apparently someone is knocking at his door. Then Mead remembers. His parents. They were going to stop by and pick him up at nine. He drops his dick and sits up in bed. “Shit, what time is it?” he says. “Is it after nine?”
Herman is standing over Mead, naked under an open robe. His little soldier at attention. Only it’s not s
o little. You would think that having been born good looking and rich would have been enough, but no, Herman apparently lucked out in the endowment department, too. He closes the front of his robe over his tumid member but it remains all too obvious.
“Don’t answer the door,” Mead says.
“Why not?” Herman asks.
“Because. It might be my mother.”
“Your mother? Why would your mother come knocking on my door?”
It’s a good question, one for which Mead does not have a ready answer. He glances at his wristwatch. It’s nine-fifteen. Plenty of time for her to have dropped by his room, found him missing, and started a manhunt. And since Herman was the individual responsible for the disappearance of her son the first time around, it only makes sense that she would start with him the second time around.
As Herman reaches for the doorknob, Mead leaps out of bed and grabs his wrist. “I said don’t open the door.”
Herman looks down and smiles. Mead follows his gaze and sees that his own dick is peeking out from between the folds of his boxer shorts. Mortified, he goes to put himself away, his hand still inside his shorts when Herman pulls open the door.
THE CHARLEMAGNE, referred to on the order form as Model No. 5163-2XB, is made out of redwood culled from the Sequoia sempervirens in California. The farming of sequoias is strictly regulated by the Federal Bureau of Conservation and Wildlife and, for that reason, only a couple hundred are cut down each year, making the Charlemagne a truly rare and special casket for the most discerning customer.
This is the spiel the salesman rattles off as Mead and his parents look on. The top-of-the-line casket has been polished to a shine and set upon a revolving pedestal. Like a new car at the automotive show, it is cordoned off with velvet rope. A pretty lady in a sparkly evening gown —and way too much makeup —stands next to the Charlemagne and smiles broadly as she opens the lid to show Mead and his parents the satin-lined interior, then runs her hand over the fabric in a suggestive way. The salesman then unhooks the rope and invites Mead and his folks inside for a closer look.
His father raps his knuckles against the side of the casket and asks the salesman what kind of a warranty comes with it. His mother runs her hand over the fabric, in much the same manner as the pretty lady, and declares it to be soft. Mead stands behind them both, looks at his wristwatch for something like the twentieth time in the past five minutes, and says, “My roommate had an overnight guest, that’s why I was upstairs.”
The pretty lady in the sparkly gown overhears Mead and raises her eyebrows. The salesman pretends he is deaf. Mead’s mother turns around and says, “Not now, Teddy. This is neither the time nor place for such a discussion.”
“You said the same thing in the car. And in the parking lot. You’re making this into a bigger deal than it is by not letting me explain.”
Mead’s father asks how much the Charlemagne costs. The salesman hands him a glossy brochure and says that he can knock ten percent off the total price if an order of six or more caskets is placed at one time.
“Okay,” Mead’s mother says, “so explain to me why I didn’t see any girl in the room when your roommate answered the door. I had a clear view of that boy’s bed and there wasn’t anything in it but a magazine.”
“So she must’ve left sometime in the middle of the night or early this morning. But she was there last night, Mother. I saw her. Or at least I saw her socks.”
“Her socks?”
“Yes, she was wearing Miss Kitty socks,” Mead says, as if this detail alone should be proof enough that he is telling the truth.
“Then why was your suitcase in his room? If you were just up there for one night, to get away from your roommate as you claim, why pack a whole suitcase?”
“There aren’t any clothes in it, Mother, my suitcase is full of papers.”
“Papers? What papers?”
“Research papers for my senior thesis.”
Mead’s father orders two Charlemagnes, leaving his name and number and a deposit check for one thousand dollars with the salesman. The pretty lady re-hooks the velvet rope and Mead follows his parents to the next display.
THE REAL REASON MEAD’S MOTHER joined his father on his trip north to the big city this year was to meet Dean Falconia. Without Mead’s knowledge, the dean cordially invited Mr. and Mrs. Lynn Fegley to join him for lunch in the dining room in Baylor Hall, the place where all well-to-do alumni with open pocketbooks and parents of matriculating students are invited to dine with the dean while in town. As a stopover between the art museum and the opera house.
“I don’t understand why I have to go,” Mead says. “I can see the dean on any day of the week.”
“Because,” his mother says, by which she means that he is still on probation for having killed his cousin, not to mention the additional personal indignities she has had to suffer as a result of Mead’s sleeping arrangements. “Straighten your tie,” she says, “and tuck in your shirt.”
So Mead tucks in his shirt and follows his parents up the stone steps and through the arched doorway that leads into Baylor Hall. The black-and-white checkered floor of the dining hall reminds him of a giant chessboard, and Mead cannot help but feel like some kind of pawn, a thought that solidifies into fact when he sees who is sitting at the table with Dean Falconia.
“Mr. and Mrs. Fegley,” the dean says. “I’m so glad you could both make it.” The man is decked out in a pinstripe suit and ascot, as if he were British royalty and this was the Queen’s palace. “I’d like you to meet Dr. Kustrup, the chairman of our mathematics department, the man who has been instrumental in bringing along your son.”
Dr. Kustrup? Instrumental? Dean Falconia has got to be kidding. From whom is he getting his information?
Their table is draped in white linen and decorated with hand-painted china and crystal stemware. It looks better suited for a museum than a dining hall. Mead can tell his mother is impressed for something like the hundredth time this weekend. First Herman and now this. Dr. Kustrup pulls out her chair and she smiles at him as she sits down.
“I’m very excited about the work Mead’s been doing,” Dr. Kustrup says as he nibbles on his shrimp cocktail, red sauce dribbling onto his beard.
This comes as quite a surprise to Mead, who has not spoken more than two words to the professor all quarter. But somebody else apparently has.
“It is unheard of,” Dr. Kustrup says, “for a mathematician as young as your son to have grasped, let alone mastered, theories of such complexity.”
“Where’s Dr. Alexander?” Mead asks. “Why isn’t he here? If anyone around here is going to take credit for bringing me along, it should be Andrew Alexander.”
Dr. Kustrup and Dean Falconia exchange a look, then the dean clears his throat and says, “I’m afraid he couldn’t make it, Mead.”
“Couldn’t make it or wasn’t invited?”
“Teddy,” his mother says. “If Dean Falconia says the man couldn’t make it, then I’m sure he couldn’t make it.”
“It’s quite all right, Mrs. Fegley,” Dr. Kustrup says. “I understand how Mead feels. He and Dr. Alexander have spent many an afternoon working together. His loyalty is to be commended. But the dean and I have big plans for your son. With our help, he will be able to take his work to the next level, to get exposed to the right people, people guaranteed to grant your son a fruitful future in the world of mathematics.”
The dean goes on to explain that invitations are being sent out to all the big-name mathematicians, inviting them to attend Mead’s presentation. That there is a great deal of interest in the work he is doing in the area of number theory. An auditorium has been booked, a cocktail hour arranged. “This is going to be,” the dean says, “the most important event the university has sponsored all year.”
Mead’s mother is impressed. Dr. Kustrup is impressed. The dean is impressed. Even Mead’s father looks impressed. And all those impressed faces are making Mead feel sick to his stomach. When did th
is happen? How did Mead’s presentation of his senior thesis to a classroom of his peers turn into this overblown dog-and-pony show? And why didn’t anybody tell him about it before now? Their expectations are too big even for this ballroom-size dining hall. Mead stares up at the high-domed ceiling, at a chandelier that looks as tall and wide as a Christmas tree, and wonders what the odds are that it will break free and come crashing to the floor in the next five minutes. And if it were to fall, would it even kill the right people? Because, really, Mead does not see any other way out of his predicament.
BUT THE CHANDELIER DOES NOT FALL. Lunch ends and Mead walks with his parents back to their car. Along the way, however, another kind of miracle happens when they stumble upon Dr. Alexander sitting under an oak tree eating a sandwich out of a brown paper bag. Couldn’t make it my foot! He’s wearing his usual uniform of a button-down shirt with an inked-stained pocket and khaki pants with heel-worn cuffs. Mead is so happy to see the man that he nearly gushes as he introduces the professor to his parents. “Mom. Dad. This is the man who introduced me to analytical mathematics, to Bernhard Riemann and his famous unproven hypothesis.” Dr. Alexander has a bit of trouble untangling his seventy-eight-year-old legs and then getting himself into the upright position and, in the process, some of his hair comes loose from the rubber band holding it back and falls over his face. The professor tucks his hair behind his ear and extends a hand to Mead’s mother. “You have a very bright and talented son, Mrs. Fegley. He reminds me of myself when I was his age. You must be very proud.”
“Thank you,” she says, but never lets go of her purse. Back at the car, Mead says, “The least you could have done was shake the man’s hand.”
“He looked dirty.”
“He’s not a leper, Mother, he’s brilliant. Smarter than the dean and Dr. Kustrup and the whole rest of the mathematics department put together. But more importantly, he is my mentor and friend.”
Life After Genius Page 26
