The Theory of Everything (19 page)

“Future?” the purple-dress lady asked. “Want to know your future?”

I did, but I didn't want to know it from her.

“No thanks,” I said, pushing Finny along. “We're good.”

We walked past a group of guys playing jazz, and I had the urge to ask the flute player or cardboard box drummer if they remembered Angelino Sophia. He ate lunch there every day and was the kind of guy who'd borrow an upright bass and try to fit in, even though the only stringed instrument he knew how to play was a banjo he'd made out of rubber bands. But things like that never stopped him.

“I want to go with you,” Finny said. “On your interviews.”

I'd stopped to look at the Matchstick Man's boxes. You'd never see something like that in Havencrest.

“Would you be offended if we divided and conquered?” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean we only have a day,” I said. “What if I took the interviews and you researched? Since I know some of the professors, it kind of makes sense. Plus you've read all of Dad's book, so you know what to look for.”

“Like more copies?”

“That, and other books or articles that support his ideas,” I said. “Maybe other grad students wrote papers on his work, and this would be the best place to find that stuff.”

“True,” Finny said. “You know I'd do anything to help, but I was really looking forward to meeting a few professors.”

“And you will,” I said. “But can you spend a few hours at the greatest library on Earth? For me?”

Finny's eyes followed my hand as it pointed to a tall, red building that resembled a Lego from the outside but looked like the future on the inside. Twelve stories of glass and miles of words. I always thought if brains were square and could be categorized like the Dewey decimal system, they would look like the Elmer Holmes Bobst Library.

“Wow,” he said. Then he shook his head and faced me. “If you need me to make the ultimate sacrifice and go in there, I will. For
you.
”

“You really are the world's best friend, did you know that?”

“I did,” he said, spinning around. “Which means you owe me.”

“I always owe you,” I said, thinking about all the times he'd helped me in the short time I'd known him. “Let's hope I can deliver in the form of a famous physicist.”

“Maybe the librarians knew him,” Finny said.

“Now your Sherlock Holmes is showing,” I said. “Anything you can find will help.”

“Even stuff on the whole parallel-universe-and-panda thing?”

I laughed. “If you can find a book on that, we'll have a slumber party at the New York Hall of Science.”

“That's what I call motivation,” he said grinning. And then he took Dad's book out of his bag and handed it to me.

“You'll need this more where you're going,” he said.

I held it in my hands like a promise. And then I put it in my bag so I wouldn't lose it.

“Thanks,” I said. Then I pointed to a bench up ahead, right outside of Bobst. “Let's meet here at three. And good luck.”

Finny laughed. “Who needs luck when you have over three million volumes?”

He walked away, waving, and I reviewed my plan: if Dad wouldn't come to me, I'd go to him, retracing his last-known steps and making them mine, like when we used to play Copy Me. It was a game that involved me doing whatever Dad did. And even though that sometimes meant wearing suits to sell tubes of toothpaste to our neighbors, it was fun. Most of them thought he was an actor. None of them knew he was a scientist trying to change the world.

Dad modeled dimensions using whipped cream and balloons. He made punching robots named Energy and Matter. On good days, he shared his loftiest thoughts with me, and on bad ones, he acted like I didn't exist. I wondered if he was always like that or if I made him that way. When I left, did he get worse? Because I know I did. It was why I had to find him. It was also why I was there, dealing with energy and matter. The matter being my father, the energy being myself, propelled toward him. Step by New York City step.

I found Dad's old office without even thinking, my legs walking through the Meyer Hall of Physics, my brain forgetting that he didn't work there anymore. Someone was in the office, though, so I kept walking, three doors down, to Dr. Perratto.

“Office hours are on Thursday,” Dr. Perratto said when I knocked on his door.

He looked like I remembered—gold wire-framed glasses, bushy gray hair and a light blue shirt with a brown tweed vest. His desk was covered with coffee cups and papers, and behind him, bookshelves were overflowing, crammed with everything I'd ever wanted to know about theoretical particle physics.

“I read the sign,” I said, “but I'm not a student here. Not yet.”

Dr. Perratto looked up from his papers and pushed his glasses up on his nose.

“Sophie Sophia?” He hopped up and shook my hand. “Sit down, sit down!”

He pushed a pile of papers off a chair.

“It's been a long time, dear,” he said. “You look wonderful. What brings you to New York?”

“I came to see Dad,” I said, taking a picture frame off his desk. He and Dad were standing in front of a lake with fishing poles, but no fish.

“That was taken at a retreat,” he said. “Your father was even more inspiring away from the office. He liked to prove his theories out in the world, not just on paper.”

“Do you think that's what he's doing now?” I said, handing him the photo.

“I'm not sure,” he said. “But I'm sure he'll come around. He always comes back.”

“So I've heard,” I said. If I was tired of people telling me that, I could only imagine how Peyton felt.

Dr. Perratto cleared his throat. “Yes, well, I'm sorry to repeat it. Would you like some coffee?” he said, pointing to his mug. It said
Physicists take matter(s) into their own hands.
“I call it nature's sweet elixir.”

“I'm good,” I said. And even though Peyton mentioned it last night, I wanted to hear it from the source. “Can you tell me why Dad doesn't work here anymore?”

Dr. Perratto squinted at me like he was looking at the same person he'd kicked out of his office for being volatile on more than one occasion. The colleague who'd been suspended but was kept on because of his innovative work. The friend whose scholarship surpassed his tendency to disappear without warning. I was me, but I was also part Angelino Sophia.

“Teaching assistants do a lot of the work, but at the end of the day, we needed a professor who could lecture on more than lollipops,” he said. He leaned back in his chair. “You look like him, you know.”

“It's the nose,” I said. And my tendency to believe things no one else did.

“It's also the eyes,” he said. “They're intense, like your father's eyes, like everything means something.”

His voice drifted off. Everything
did
mean something, especially when you were trying to find your dad. I reached in my bag, took out Dad's book and set it on the desk.

“Since Dad isn't here, what I'd really like to talk about is this.”

Dr. Perratto shook his head as if he were coming back to the present.

“The beginning of the end of his career,” he said. “Have you read it?”

“Only the first few chapters,” I said. “What do you think of it?”

“Your father is a brilliant physicist, but this book reads like a cross between poetry, philosophy and science fiction,” he said. “It's not an academic work. When you read it all, you'll understand.”

“What exactly am I going to understand?” I said.

“That you can't bend string theory to make it fit some strange idea,” Dr. Perratto said. “Physics and emotion don't mix.”

I hadn't gotten to that part of the book yet, but I wasn't surprised. Dad's brain was like a blender. He thought everything belonged together.

“Just because you don't believe in traveling doesn't mean it's not possible,” I said.

“We believe there are parallel universes,” he said, leaning forward. “But we don't believe you can slip through the gaps from one universe to the next. Or that those universes contain giant pandas. No one believes that.”

A WORD ON PARALLEL UNIVERSES

Thanks to the multiverse theory—the concept that asserts that there are multiple universes within the greater cosmos—the potential for parallel universes has become more widely accepted. One idea that resonates more than the rest is that parallel universes are like our universe but with one noticeable difference.

For example, things could look exactly the same, except the people are half of their original size or the universe is run by large, intelligent pandas. Perhaps you could end up in a universe where unexpected objects animate or where everything's a music video. Each one has its own rules, and since the number of universes is undetermined, so are the possibilities for what happens within them.

Dr. Perratto took off his glasses and polished them as I completely freaked out on the inside. Dad visited the same places I went, places where chairs flew around or great bands serenaded you or pandas walked around like people. Were there other universes, or were those the only ones? And was there a chance we could meet one day, maybe in the panda-verse?

“Are you all right, dear?” he said, blinking through his glasses.

“Yes,” I said, even though I wasn't. Overwhelmed couldn't even begin to describe it. This was why I should have brought Finny.

“It's shocking, I know,” Dr. Perratto said. “A universe run by pandas? Please.” Dad's book created more questions, and if I was going to find him—and save myself—I had to get answers. I had to keep going.

And then I remembered something Mr. Maxim had said.

“I thought physics was the one part of science that ran on possibility,” I said.

“Possibility within reason,” he said.

Was it reason that made them drop Dad as soon as they disagreed with him? Or was it reason that explained why everyone was sitting around instead of looking for him?

“But he proved his theory,” I said. And if panda, music video and animating universes were any indication, I was proving it, too. “Doesn't proving something make it true?”

“Normally, yes,” he said. “But proving a theory usually involves a test group larger than one.”

Dr. Perratto came out from behind his desk and sat in the chair beside me.

“Keep reading the book,” he said. “I don't know if it's any consolation, but your father believed the answer to everything—even complex scientific problems—was love. And you were the inspiration for that.”

Love
in my pocket, which was now gone. Dad, who I'd found, but was missing.

“Someone had to believe him,” I said, wishing, hoping. “Is there anyone else I can talk to?”

Dr. Perratto wrote a name and an office number on a slip of paper and tucked it into my hand.

“Betty Russo,” he said. “She worked with your dad for years. She can talk to you about all of it, especially souvenirs.”

My breath got stuck in my chest.

“Sophie, are you okay?”

I coughed, trying to make it move, but it didn't budge. I needed water. I needed air. I needed to get out of there.

“Sure,” I said. “I just need to take a break. Thanks for seeing me.”

“It was my pleasure,” he said. “I may not have believed in your father scientifically, but I did believe in him as a person. Make sure you finish his book. I think he was trying to tell you something.”

Someone was always trying to tell me something, and I wished they'd just come right out and say it. Enough with the blackbirds and the souvenirs, the Walt wisdom and Dad's thesis. Would it kill a person to have a normal conversation with me for a change?

“Thanks,” I said, sticking the book in my bag. And instead of heading upstairs, I went for the door.

I needed blue skies—something bigger than that man's office—if I was going to talk about souvenirs. Plus, my head was pounding. Nothing a few minutes in Washington Square Park wouldn't fix. When I got there, it was sprinkling. Not enough for an umbrella, but plenty of people had them, like the little girl twirling a pink and green plaid one above her head and spinning, like she was performing for the clouds.

The rain came down harder, like my headache. I walked over to the fountain, put my hand in the water and patted my face, hoping it would revive me, but I felt strange. Dizzy. There were too many people, and the sky was too bright, even with the rain. As I looked up, little black balls fell from the sky. As they got closer, I saw they weren't balls, they were bears—baby black bears falling everywhere.

They rained down, like miniatures, and bounced off the ground as if they were made of rubber. Bounce, bounce, bear to the right. Bounce, bounce, bear to the left. They were furry and cuddly, and soon they covered all of Washington Square Park.

People studied, ate and danced as little bears fell into the open spaces between them. Hundreds of baby black bears, raining from the sky. One of them bounced into my lap and I gave it a hug as I watched others crawl between the striped pant legs of a sax player. Around the juggling pins of a woman in a pink feather boa. Bears peeked over the shoulders of chess players and people eating noodles from cartons. They didn't cry or growl; they just giggled, crawled and explored the park like babies. The one in my lap licked my hand.

I remembered that my animal book said bears showed up when you needed to pay attention. They were a sign to listen to your heart, feel your power and make choices from that place. I'd always thought about getting a bear necklace, but I guessed a hundred bears falling from the sky would do the trick. Dad would have loved this, I thought. And then I realized—he already did. One summer night, in our backyard. Except it was probably an alternate version of our backyard in a parallel universe. And Dad had been there, baby black bears falling everywhere. At least, that's what he told me. I never saw it myself, until now.

“I have to get out of here,” I said to the little bear beside me, to bears all over the park.

I picked up the one in my lap, sat her by the side of the fountain and stumbled. I saw double bears and triple bears, and the trees swirled around me. The backs of my eyes felt like fire and then there was nothing. The darn sky actually fell.

“Sophie!” I thought I heard someone say as my body moved through space.

|||||||||||

My head felt dark and muddy like the inside of one of those caves I always saw advertised on the highway but never actually got to visit. Mom drove fast the few times we moved and she didn't stop for anything but bathroom breaks and snack attacks. “The basics,” she said. “If you really need to pee, tell me, and we'll stop. But we're not pulling over for a new
Greatest Hits of the '80s
tape or magnet that says ‘The Cheese State.'” I wanted to tell her to stop forever, to quit leaving one town and hitting the highway toward the next. I wanted her to know there wasn't enough chocolate in the world to make up for the fact that, since New York, I hadn't been anywhere long enough to want to be somewhere else. So far, I always left my heart a few cities behind.

I opened my eyes. The bears were gone, replaced by strangers, crowded around me.

“She's awake!” the lady holding lavender under my nose said.

“You fainted,” another woman said, shoving Vitaminwater in my face.

“Oh,” I said, taking the water and sipping. Gulping.

“Do we need to call someone?” Vitaminwater Woman said.

“I'm fine,” I said, even though I let them help me up and over to a bench. “I think it was just low blood sugar.”

“Take this,” Lavender Lady said. “I never eat the whole thing anyway.” She handed me a turkey on rye.

“Thanks,” I said, unwrapping it and taking a bite. I knew she wouldn't leave until she saw me eat. Since when did New Yorkers have so much time to waste?

“We're visiting from California,” Lavender Lady said. That explained it.

“I appreciate your help,” I said, eating more of the sandwich. “But I have an appointment. I have to go.”

“Can we walk you?”

“No,” I said. I had to get away from these women. “I'm fine, really. Go enjoy the city. Besides, if I need help, my dad works in that building.” I pointed. “I'll just go see him.”

They nodded, the dad answer appeasing them, and walked over to another bench. I grabbed my bag, threw the rest of the sandwich in the trash and waved good-bye. As I walked, I thought about how rain turned into bears, like the blackbirds had peeled off the wallpaper. Objects animating. Dad was in that world, just like he said. I picked pieces of black fur off my shirt, proving that I'd been there, too.

I needed to talk to Dr. Russo, but that would have to wait. Too much was happening for me to keep it to myself. So I walked to a place where Dad and I used to go. A place full of books and promise and a friend named Finny.