The Theory of Everything (14 page)

As soon as the train stopped, I grabbed my bag and resisted doing my usual dart and dash. This was New York, and I was used to getting places, not playing tour guide, but I had to slow down for Finny. Penn Station could be overwhelming even if you'd been there hundreds of times before. I couldn't imagine what it felt like to a newbie.

“Are we underground?” Finny said as we walked off the train. “Like mole people?”

“You shouldn't believe everything you read,” I said. And not because I didn't believe in mole people but because I didn't want
Finny
to believe in them. “We're not in underground tunnels, we're in the extremely well-planned urban subway system. Welcome to Penn Station.”

Finny's mouth dropped open as I pulled him up the escalator and led him through commuter traffic to the 3 train.

“Here's the thing,” I said, holding his hand tightly in mine. “You have to keep moving. And maybe close your mouth. The only gawker-approved places are things like the Empire State Building or the Statue of Liberty.”

Finny closed his mouth, but his eyes remained big, eyes that had never been out of Havencrest. This kid
so
needed a proper introduction to New York.

“Hungry?” I asked.

“Starving,” he said as I pulled him inside Bert's Bagels and took a deep breath. It was a smell that had been lost but not forgotten. Pumpernickel, rye, sesame, come to me.

“I'll have a whole wheat with blueberry cream cheese,” Finny said.

“Uh, no,” I said, butting in. “He'll have what I'm having—sesame with plain cream cheese, tomato, capers and black pepper.”

Finny crossed his arms over his chest.

“Trust me,” I said. “You're never going to look at bagels the same way again.”

Minutes later, we were on the platform holding warm bags of bagels. Finny unwrapped the paper, took a bite and looked like he was going to pass out.

“Oh. My. God,” he said, chewing.

“I bet you never thought a bagel could render you unconscious,” I said, smiling. “Ooh! Here's our train.”

I put Finny in front of me like a kid and pushed him through the doors before they closed. The train was packed, but I saw one seat and Finny saw another one. Too bad it was farther down and on the opposite side. There was no way I was going to be able to hold his hand.

“I'll be fine,” he said, grabbing the seat while I took the one in front of me.

“Hey!” he said, yelling over the crowd. “I can still see you!”

“Great,” I yelled back. “Just make sure to get off at Grand Army Plaza.”

As we reached our stop, I'd stand by him, making sure he got off the train. But until then, he was on his own—and I think that was the way he wanted it. The train was full of something I hadn't realized I'd missed: people. All kinds, all languages, smashed together in one place. Two women arguing in Chinese, another man singing a soul song along with his iPod, and two girls my age with screen-printed T-shirts, one with a lion, one with a tiger. I loved how people didn't even blink at my elephant skirt in New York. I also loved how plastic orange seats, bizarre smells and a homeless guy playing the flute could feel like home. I bit into my bagel and a caper rolled off and into my lap as the person beside me got up and Walt appeared in her place.

“You gonna share that?”

“Wow,” I said, putting my bag in Walt's lap so no one else would sit there. I kept my hand on it, making sure no one stole it, but I was sure they wouldn't. People didn't take bags from crazy girls who talked to said bags. Even though I was about to have a conversation with Walt, no one else would see it that way.

“You're the last guy I expected to see,” I said, keeping my head down and talking into my lap.

“Why are you talking like that?”

“I don't want Finny to see me talking to myself,” I said. “Why are you here again?”

“Where else am I going to get a good bagel?” he asked.

I handed him half of mine, and he shoved it into his mouth.

“That's worth traveling for,” he said. “Is it the boiling process? Because I always wondered what made New York bagels better than, say, Seattle bagels.”

“You're not just here for bagels,” I said, popping the rest of mine in my mouth. “What gives?”

“Just a friend,” he said, licking cream cheese off his paw, “being here for another friend.”

“More like making sure a friend stays on her path,” I said.

“Something like that,” he said. “I support you finding your dad, but you know meeting him won't solve everything, right?”

“Of course it will,” I said, shifting around in my seat. “Dad wrote this book that sounds like it's about us, our experiences. From the sample I read online, it seems like he wrote it just for me.”

“So why not just order the book?”

“It's out of print,” I said. And then I borrowed from Finny. “Besides, why rely on the book when I can have the real thing instead?”

“Let me rephrase myself,” Walt said. “Nothing is a magic pill, not even your super-intelligent, amazingly perceptive dad. He may teach you something, but you can't just rely on him. You still have to use your intuition.”

I knew about pandas from my animal totem book, the one Dad brought back from one of his trips. From what I remembered, the panda is the seer of the unseen. He brings you the focus and awareness you need to overcome a problem, which sounds good, but when it came to Walt, I had to wonder: why couldn't he just solve my problems for me? If he had all this power and knowledge, like he said he did, what would it hurt for him to make an exception? To give me some of the answers instead of making me work for them myself?

“I know I have to pay attention,” I said, getting up and moving toward Finny. “If I don't, we'll miss our stop.”

Before I entered the Dad Hating Years, I begged Mom to tell me where he was. I searched boxes under her bed, photo albums hidden in her underwear drawer, everywhere I could think of, but I always came up empty-handed. That's why I thought if I ever found him, I'd make the journey alone. But now, with a boy genius on one side and a shaman panda on the other, it seemed obvious. Not all journeys were meant to be made solo.

“This is Grand Army Plaza,” I said, bumping Finny's knee with my knee. “This is our stop.”

Finny stood up, and I looked back at Walt's seat, which was now filled with a kid bouncing a red ball.

The train stopped, and I guided Finny off the subway, through the people and up onto the street. I sighed, happy to stop traveling for a moment. He rubbed his eyes.

“Where are we?”

“Prospect Park,” I said. “It's just a short walk from here to Park Slope.”

“Should we get a cab?” Finny said. “It's getting dark.”

“No way,” I said, keeping him out of the crowds and with me. I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket, so I pulled off to the side, outside a bodega. When I took it out, it practically blew up, message alerts and texts all over the place.

“Finn, you left your mom a note, right?”

“Of course,” he said. “That's why I have twenty-seven messages on my phone. But at least she knows where I am.”

“Me too,” I said. “But that didn't stop my mom from leaving eighteen messages. I'm glad she's not good at texting.”

“So no texts?” Finny said, leaning against the brick wall.

“There's one text,” I said. “From Drew.”

“Bam!” Finny said. “Twenty dollars, please. And text him back.”

“What do I say?” I said. “Hi, I know I don't really know you, but I'm in New York trying to find my dad, who abandoned me, so he can help me stop hallucinating?”

“First? That's way too long,” Finny said. “And second? Give me your phone.”

He held it up to his face, reading.

DREW: Missed you at lunch. You okay?

“So he
did
show up at lunch,” Finny said. “How long did you wait for him?”

“Ten minutes,” I said. “Was that not enough?”

“Not even. Try this,” Finny said, typing something.

SOPHIE: Sorry I missed you. Called out of town, family thing. All well. Will call soon.

“It's short but responsive,” Finny said. “All you have to do is hit Send.”

The text sat there on the screen like a lie.

“It's not a lie,” Finny said, reading my mind. “You are out of town, you are dealing with a family thing, and you will call him soon.”

“What about the all-is-well part?”

“You have a choice,” Finny said. “You can either stand here and worry about it, or you can make a move.”

Finny spun around and stopped, jazz hands extended. “I'm sure Fourth Street is around here somewhere. Are you ready?”

Thanks to a bagel, my best friend and a panda, I was as ready as I'd ever be, which wasn't very ready at all.

But I hit Send anyway.

How to Prepare to Meet Your Dad when You're Not Really Prepared at All
by Sophie Sophia

1. Brush your hair. You just rode on a train for twenty hours, and you're a mess.
   
2. Think about all the food you can eat if it doesn't go well: shawarma, saag paneer, cannoli, mmmm.
   
3. Let Finny do most of the talking, at least at first.
   
4. Put your hands in your pockets or something! You're way too excited.
   
5. Take three deep breaths in, three deep breaths out. You've been fine without him for four years. And no matter what happens, you'll continue to be fine. Period.
   

We walked down Fourth Street, and everything looked like I remembered—lush maples, colorful brownstones and blue skies that went on for miles.

“That's the apartment,” I said, looking at the slip of paper I'd tucked into my pocket. “Number two sixty-two.”

“Is this the house you grew up in?”

“No, but our apartment wasn't far from here.” I suddenly had an urge to go backward, back to a time when everything made sense.

“Hey, is this your dad's car?”

Finny pointed at a Volkswagen Beetle that was parked in front of the house. It matched the gingko leaves that fell around us.

“It's probably a neighbor's car,” I said. “It's almost impossible to find parking in front of your own house.”

Finny peeked in the back window.

“If this is your dad's car, cleanliness is definitely
not
next to genius.”

I looked inside and saw physics books and Hershey wrappers, a picnic basket and empty wine bottles. It was definitely Dad's car, even though there was a stuffed elephant in the passenger seat. He must have had amazing parking karma.

“Maybe he has a dog,” Finny said.

“He could have a completely new family,” I said, hands shaking. “I never thought of that.”

“True, but you're his original family,” Finny said. “Plus he wrote a book for you, which totally trumps a tacky old elephant.”

I appreciated what he was doing, but my brain had already left the station, bound for What-if-ville.

“What if he doesn't recognize me?”

“He will,” Finny said.

“What if he has a beard or a mustache?” I said. “What if he lost his hair? What if he went corporate? Or gave up physics for the circus?”

Spinning mind, out of control.

“Finny, what if my dad is a professional clown?”

“Wow,” he said, taking my hand and squeezing it hard. “In the history of forever, no world-class physicist has gone from string theory to wearing a flower that squirts water, okay?”

A flock of blackbirds flew by, squawking and scattering in the sky like pepper.

“Okay,” I said. I cleared my throat and straightened my skirt. “Let's do this.”

Finny led me up the stoop—around the purple flowerpots with ivy flowing out of them, around the pile of newspapers and straight to the buzzer, which we didn't have to use since a woman rushed out and we rushed in.

“That was easy,” I said. “Maybe we won't even need our story.”

In case Dad didn't answer the door, we had a story ready: Finny and I were reporters from the
Erudite Reader,
a high school literary journal that celebrated science. We were there for a scheduled interview with Dr. Sophia. Was he in?

Finny knocked on the door while I took a deep breath. Calm, Sophie, calm. A tall woman with long blond hair answered the door. She had a Calvin-Klein-meets-hippie vibe going on: faded jeans, white button-up man's shirt, turquoise necklace and earrings. Sandals even though it was freezing outside. And she was standing there instead of my father.

“Hello,” Finny said, staying with the plan. “We're from the
Erudite Reader
and have an appointment with Dr. Sophia.”

Her eyes were red and puffy.

“Dr. Sophia only does phone interviews,” she said. “And he's out of town at the moment. Are you sure you have the correct Dr. Sophia?”