Kitabı oxu: «Beauty And The Brain»

One

He had been hoping Rosemary March would age badly. Even though he knew she was only thirty now, he had been praying that when he saw her again, she would be gray-haired, haggard-looking, stoop-shouldered, wrinkled and flabby. She was, after all, two years older than he was. Unfortunately, from the looks of her, Rosemary had only improved with age.

When Willis Random had rounded her kitchen doorway only seconds before and seen her for the first time in thirteen years, he had halted in his tracks, unable to say a word because his mouth and throat had suddenly gone dry. Common courtesy dictated that he should say something to make her aware of his presence in her home. Their past history together demanded that he feel defensive about it, even though he was here at her mother’s invitation. But once he got a load of Rosemary standing there, he simply could not utter a sound.

Bent at the waist, she leaned lazily forward with her elbows propped on the kitchen counter. Her gaze was fixed on the dark liquid dripping methodically from the coffeemaker, her heavy-lidded eyes indicating she was clearly still half-asleep. As if that hadn’t been enough, Willis noted further with a gasp that got stuck somewhere in his throat, her attire—what little there was of it—upheld her not-quite-awake status.

Flowered cotton bikini panties hugged extremely wellrounded hips, and a cropped white undershirt revealed an expanse of creamy skin most men saw only in glossy centerfolds. She was wearing white kneesocks, too, one having fallen halfway down her calf, the other scrunched down around her ankle. Her hair was a tousle of dark brown, chin-length curls, rumpled from sleep and the fact that she had a fistful bunched in one hand.

She was a vision straight out of a thirteen-year-old boy’s fantasies. And Willis should know. He’d fantasized about Rosemary March a lot when he was thirteen years old. Unfortunately, he’d never been more to her than a pizza-faced little twerp.

She must have somehow sensed his presence, because she glanced idly over at the kitchen doorway, then back at the coffeemaker again. A quick double take brought her attention back to him, and only then did Willis fully appreciate their situation.

He hadn’t anticipated that their first reunion since high school graduation would play out quite like this. She was in her underwear, after all, and he was fully dressed in khaki shorts, a navy blue polo and heavy hiking boots. And although his experience with women wasn’t extensive, Willis felt it was probably pretty safe to assume that most women didn’t take kindly to being caught by surprise in their underthings. Particularly when the catcher wasn’t reduced to his own Skivvies, and especially when the catcher was someone the woman had despised for more than a decade.

His suspicions were fairly well reinforced when Rosemary straightened and opened her mouth wide to emit a bloodchilling scream at the top of her lungs. He waited until she was finished, until she was staring at him silently with wide, terrified eyes, then he cleared his throat indelicately.

“Hi,” he said, pretending he noticed neither her state of dishabille nor her state of distress. “I don’t know if you remember me.” He stuck out his hand in as matter-of-fact a gesture as he could manage and added, “I’m Willis Random. We used to go to school together.”

In response to his reintroduction, Rosemary opened her mouth wide again and let out another, even more piercing, screech of horror.

Willis forced a nervous smile and dropped his hand back to his side. “Ah. I see you do remember me. And I’m flattered, Rosemary. Truly... flattered.”

The second scream brought around Willis’s companion—the mayor of Endicott, Indiana, who also happened to be Rosemary’s mother—and Mrs. March joined him at the kitchen doorway.

“Rosemary, for God’s sake,” her mother said. “Try to be a bit more polite. I know you and Willis never got along in high school, but the least you could do is try to start off on the right foot.” Mrs. March noted her daughter’s attire then and made a soft tsking noise. “And do put some clothes on, darling. You have a guest in your house.”

Then Mrs. March spun around with a quick “This way, Willis—I’ll show you your room,” and Willis and Rosemary were left alone again.

He scrunched up his shoulders awkwardly, then let them fall. “Good to see you again, Rosemary.” As he spun around, he couldn’t resist throwing over his shoulder, “All of you.”

He hurried to catch up with Mrs. March before Rosemary had a chance to respond with a hastily hurled pot of coffee. A wild rush of heat that he hadn’t felt in thirteen years sped through his body, but he recognized all too well. It was the feeling that had always assaulted him whenever he’d had to go toe-to-toe with Rosemary. And that had happened nearly every day when he was in the tenth grade.

The two of them had been lab partners in chemistry for an entire school year. Nine months of hell, Willis recalled now. And, he had to concede, stifling a wistful sigh that threatened, nine months of heaven, too.

He’d been the brainy geek who was skipped a couple of grades, two years younger and six inches shorter than every other guy in his class. Come to think of it, he’d also been shorter than Rosemary, and she’d doubtless outweighed him then. He’d been the proverbial ninety-seven-pound weakling until he’d taken up weight lifting in college. Of course, that second puberty he’d gone through toward the end of his sixteenth year had probably helped a lot, too.

And now he was back in Endicott, armed with five degrees—two of them doctorates—an assignment from MIT, where he currently taught astrophysics, and a high-powered telescope of his own design. He’d come back for the Comet Festival for which his hometown was famous, back for the answers that Bobrzynyckolonycki had refused to give him fifteen years before.

This time, when Willis studied the comet, he would do so with far greater knowledge and insight than he’d had when he was thirteen, the last time Bobrzynyckolonycki had come around. This time, when he collected and analyzed all of his data, it would be with infinitely more patience and attention than a teenage boy had been able to manage. This time, Willis promised himself, he was going to get the truth out of that damned comet, or he was going to die trying.

Thinking back on the vision of Rosemary and her scantily covered flesh, he bit back a groan. He’d always figured she would be the death of him someday. But he’d always assumed it would be her scathing words and utter contempt for him that finally did him in, and not his undying carnal desire for her. All of a sudden, he felt as if he was thirteen years old again.

And that was the last thing Willis needed. Rosemary March had made his life miserable when he was in high school. Alternately he’d hated and adored her, one minute wanting to cut her to the quick, the next minute wanting to cop a feel. She’d tied his pubescent libido in knots, something he’d never been able to understand.

Simply put, Rosemary had been an idiot, completely incapable of understanding even the most elementary scientific equation. How on earth he could have lusted after a girl who knew nothing about science, Willis had never been able to figure out. Oh, sure, she’d had a pretty face and a great body and all that, but she’d had no brain at all. How could he ever have been attracted to her? Even at thirteen, he should have been above that.

The sight of her standing half-undressed with her socks falling down around her ankles erupted in his brain again, and Willis felt himself jumping to life with a lack of control reminiscent of a thirteen-year-old boy. He clamped his teeth together tight and willed his body and libido to behave themselves. Evidently, he was still susceptible to pretty faces and great bodies, regardless of the brains that topped them.

Dammit.

Bobrzynyckolonycki, he reminded himself. The only heavenly body you’re here to study is the comet. Don’t forget that.

“Willis?” he heard Mrs. March call out some ways ahead of him. “Are you there?”

“I’m here, Mrs. March,” he called back, hurrying his step to catch up with her.

And Rosemary or no Rosemary, I’m not going home until I have the answers I demand.

Rosemary March stood open-mouthed and dumbfounded in her kitchen and tried to tell herself that what she had just seen was not Willis Random, but an hallucination brought on by yet another late night in front of the TV, with no other companion than The Zombies of Mora Tau and a pint of double-chocolate-chunk fudge ice cream.

There was no way she’d believe that the big hunk of manhood lounging in her kitchen doorway moments ago—however startling his appearance had been—could have begun his life as that pizza-faced little twerp who had made Rosemary’s life miserable when she was a teenager. Uh-uh. No way. No how.

The last time she’d seen Willis, he’d been giving his valedictorian speech at graduation. The class had congregated on the football field on an especially moody spring day, and Willis had literally been blown over by a good, stiff wind. Right off the podium, in front of the entire class of ’85, most of whom had hooted with laughter as a result.

The man who had just left her kitchen, on the other hand...

Rosemary shook her head hard in an effort to clear it. Okay, the guy’s glasses coincided with Willis’s myopia, but instead of the Scotch-taped earpiece that had marked the spectacles Willis wore, this guy’s were Ralph Lauren chic. And okay, the blue eyes behind the glasses were the same midnight blue that Willis’s had been. She’d always marveled that such a geek should have such gorgeous eyes. And yes, the man’s deep brown hair had been kissed with reddish gold highlights reminiscent of the auburn, unruly thatch that Willis had never quite been able to tame.

Other than that, there was nothing about the man who had just called himself Willis Random that even remotely resembled the obnoxious little jerk she remembered.

There was only one way to proceed with this thing, she told herself. She was going to have to follow that particular vision—and the other specter that had borne an uncanny resemblance to her own mother—and demand to know just what the hell was going on.

After she got dressed, she amended, glancing down at her attire. And after she’d poured herself a cup of coffee, she added, hearing the coffeemaker wheeze out a last gasp.

Armed with an oversize mug full of black coffee, Rosemary peeked out the kitchen doorway in an effort to discover which way her assailants had gone. Hearing nothing, she took a few silent steps toward the living room, and paused at the staircase. Muffled voices told her that her two visitors were upstairs, but she couldn’t tell which room. So she padded quickly up the hardwood steps, her movements silent thanks to her stocking feet.

When she rounded the stairway landing, she saw that the attic door at the top of the staircase was agape, its collapsible steps extended down to the hallway floor. Her mother’s voice carried through the opening, and Rosemary heard her saying something about the spectacular view.

Hastily, Rosemary ducked into her bedroom and closed the door behind herself. For a moment, all she could do was lean against it, trying to steady her breathing and figure out why her mother was here with a man who claimed to be Willis. True, her mother technically still owned the house that Rosemary called home, even if Janet March wasn’t living here. But Rosemary had come to think of the rambling old English stucco as her own place, having lived there by herself for the last three years.

Originally, it had belonged to her maternal grandmother, who had left it to Rosemary’s mother when she passed away. But Janet March had never expressed an interest in living in the hulking old house. Since the death of Rosemary’s father five years ago, Janet had preferred to live in a condominium in downtown Endicott, explaining that the move would put her closer to her job, and at the heart of all the civic activities her position as mayor demanded she attend.

So her mother had offered use of the big stone-and-stucco to Rosemary if she paid the insurance and taxes, and Rosemary had jumped at the chance to live there. She’d always adored the place, and associated with it nothing but good times and warm feelings. At least, she had until she’d glanced up this morning to find a man claiming to be Willis Random haunting it.

The memory jolted her into action, and she went to her closet to tug her work uniform off its hangers. She set down her coffee long enough to throw on her straight, navy blue skirt and crisp white blouse, embroidered discreetly above the pocket Jet-Set Travels. She was still buttoning up the latter when she ducked out her bedroom door and into the hallway and ran right into Willis Random.

Or rather, into Willis Random’s chest. Then again, seeing as how his chest had grown to roughly the size of Montana since she’d last seen him, it was kind of hard for her to miss it.

“Whoa,” he said as he reached out an arm to steady her. “Where’s the fire?”

She glanced up to find herself staring into midnight-blue eyes she remembered way too well for her own good, and she immediately identified the source of the fire he asked about. It was where it had always been whenever she’d had to deal with Willis, and she didn’t like the realization of that now any better than she had fifteen years ago.

Oh, God, it really was Willis, she thought. He was back. And he was beautiful.

“Oh, God,” she muttered aloud this time.

“Rosemary, please,” her mother said. “Be nice to Willis. He’s going to be a guest in your house for the next few weeks.”

It took a moment for that to sink in, a moment Rosemary spent drinking in the sight of the man who had been her high school nemesis. The last time she’d seen Willis, he’d still stood eye-to-eye with her, in spite of his having shot up some in their junior year. His face had been a road map of state capitals, and he’d always reeked of Clearasil and Lavoris. But this Willis was so...so...so...

Wow.

He was huge. Huge. A good four inches taller than her own five-eight, and broad enough to block the sunlight streaming into the hallway from the door across the way. His skin was flawless now, deeply tanned and creased with sun-etched lines around his eyes and mouth. And what a mouth. She’d never noticed before just what beautifully formed features Willis had. And instead of Clearasil and Lavoris, he smelled of the great outdoors. Like pine trees and thunderstorms and life.

“Willis?” she finally said, her voice emerging as little more than a squeak.

“I’m baaaaack,” he sang out with a smile that was completely lacking in humor. “Didja miss me?”

Even the sound of him was different, she thought, feeling as if she were descending into some kind of weird trance. His voice had deepened and grown rough over the years, just as everything else about him had seemed to do. For a moment, Rosemary could do nothing but stare at him. She simply could not believe he was the same boy who had tormented her so throughout high school. Although the potential for torment was still there, she knew without question that, these days, it would be of a decidedly less adolescent nature.

“Rosemary?” he asked. “Are you okay?”

She nodded. “Uh-huh.” But she couldn’t think of a single other thing to say.

Willis twisted his lips into an expression she recognized all too well. “I see you still have that vast, scintillating vocabulary I remember so well,” he muttered sarcastically.

That brought her up short, and she frowned back at him. So the first shot had been fired, had it? That meant war. Willis might have changed completely on the outside, but inside, he was still the same vicious little cretin who was always putting her down and trying—usually with success—to make her feel like a fool.

Rosemary straightened, pushing herself back until she was more than an arm’s length away from him. “And I see you’re still Mr. Know-It-All,” she countered.

She groaned inwardly. Was that the best she could do for a put-down? Dammit, Willis had always made her feel like an empty-headed, unimportant, inconsequential little gnat. Somehow, her mind had always ceased functioning whenever he was around, and not only could she never think of anything even moderately interesting to say, but she could never come up with a good comeback to his numerous assaults on her intelligence. It had just reinforced his argument that she was, quite simply, really, really stupid.

And now, here Willis stood, in her own home no less, making her feel really, really stupid all over again. It was almost more than she could bear.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded. Instead of waiting for an answer, she turned to her mother. “Mom, what’s he doing here?”

Her mother smiled that soothing, complacent smile that had always made Rosemary feel anything but soothed or complacent.

“Willis is here for the Comet Festival, darling.”

“I’m here to study Bobrzynyckolonycki,” he announced shortly at the same time.

Rosemary blinked at the eight-syllable word that rolled so effortlessly off his tongue. “You’re here to study what?” she asked. “Bobra...Bobriz...” She gave up and asked, instead, “Is that something in the water we should know about?”

Willis frowned at her again. She remembered now that he had always frowned at her, and that she’d actually wondered a time or two what he would look like if he had smiled just once, even with the sunlight glinting off his braces.

“Bob,” he clarified through gritted teeth, as if he couldn’t stand the sound of the word. “Bobrzynyckolonycki is ‘Bob’ to members of the laity, like you.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. She wasn’t sure what he meant by “laity,” but his tone of voice indicated that whatever it was, it certainly wasn’t anything good. Before she could question him about it, however, her mother began to speak again.

“Willis is on sabbatical, dear. MIT has sent him back here to figure out why Bob’s appearances are so regular, and why he always makes his closest pass to the planet right above Endicott. Isn’t that nice?”

Rosemary turned back to look at Willis. She should have expected something like this. He’d always been fascinated by that damned comet.

“MIT?” she echoed.

“Massachusetts Institute of Technology,” he clarified

She frowned at him. “I know what MIT stands for,” she told him.

He arched his brows in surprise.