Life After Genius (13 page)

“By the way,” Mead says, pleased to have the floor again. “Does everyone here know that I completed my freshman year of college in one week?”

“I’m just saying,” Mead’s dad says, “give Percy some time. Playing on that level entails a lot of physical and mental stress. I’m not sure he’s prepared for it, that Percy knows what’ll be expected of him. He’ll come home when he figures that out, when he realizes he’s in over his head.”

“And I made the Dean’s List,” Mead says. “It’s really quite an honor.”

Martin shoves back his chair and stands up. “In over his head? Have you ever seen my son pitch? He could never get in over his head.”

Mead excuses himself from the supper table but no one notices, except maybe his mother. He goes to his room and closes the door. Next break he’ll just stay in Chicago.

M
EAD KNOCKS ON DR. KUSTRUP’S OFFICE DOOR
. “Come in, come in,” the professor says and waves him into the office. It isn’t until after Mead has entered that he sees the professor already has a guest, none other than Herman Weinstein.

“I’m sorry,” Mead says and starts to back out. “I didn’t realize you were busy. I must be early. I’ll just wait out here in the hall until you’re done.” But when he checks his watch, he sees that he has arrived right on time.

“You’re not early at all, Mr. Fegley,” Dr. Kustrup says. “Mr. Weinstein and I were just chatting about the skiing conditions in the Alps and lost track of time. Please, have a seat. This is great, actually; it’s about time you two met. Mr. Weinstein here is my other protégé. I feel quite blessed to have the both of you under my tutelage at one time, quite blessed indeed. You two should get acquainted. You have a lot in common, you know, what with both of you breezing through your comprehensives and diving straight into your sophomore years. Well, Mr. Weinstein here needed a little brushing up on his calculus, but I’ve caught him up to speed and now he, too, is on the fast track to an early graduation. Please, Mr. Fegley, sit down.”

Mead is surprised. He wouldn’t have taken Mr. Weinstein for an exceptional student of academe. Cocky, yes. A little bit creepy, absolutely. But exceptional? No. The guy stands up and extends his hand. “Please,” he says, “call me Herman. And you are?”

“Here to work out a course schedule for next quarter,” Mead says and lets the guy’s hand hang unattended in the air.

“Apparently I’ve overstayed my welcome,” Herman says. Then, smooth as silk, as if it was what he intended all along, he pats Mead on the shoulder, then reaches across the professor’s desk and shakes his hand instead. “I’ll talk with you later, Frank.
Ciao.
” Then he turns back to Mead and says, “He’s all yours, Mead. Take it away.” And leaves. And Mead wonders how it is that Herman Weinstein knows that he does not like to be called Theodore.

“Mr. Fegley,” Dr. Kustrup says after Herman has left. “Speaking to you as your faculty advisor, and as a friend, allow me to suggest that you might want to brush up on your social skills. It just so happens that Herman’s father is someone who could be of considerable importance to you down the line. The dean of all things possible and impossible. That’s what Herman likes to call him. In other words, the man has connections, very important connections. He could be quite influential in deciding whether or not you someday get an invitation to attend the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.”

“Oh,” Mead says, “that explains it.”

“Explains what?”

Why the guy has such a cocky, better-than-thou attitude, that’s what. But Mead keeps this observation to himself. “Thank you, sir, for the tip. About my social skills, I mean. And about Mr. Weinstein. I’ll keep them both in mind.”

M
EAD LOOKS FOR HER IN THE CAFETERIA.
While walking across campus. In the library. He even strolls through the administrative building a couple of times hoping that he will run into her in the hall. But Cynthia is nowhere to be found. Mead has almost convinced himself that she has dropped out of college —gone back home to Virginia —when he sees her exiting the student center. “Cynthia,” he calls out and waves his hand over his head. She looks up and smiles and his confidence grows. “I’ve been looking all over for you,” he says once he has caught up to her. “I forgot to pick a day. For our lunch. Last time we talked.”

“That’s so sweet,” she says. “That you remember.”

“Of course I remember. I haven’t thought about anything else since. Well, you know, except about my coursework. So when do you want to do it?” Mead says and blushes because he knows what that might sound like and that is not what he means, not at all. “Lunch, I mean. When do you want to do lunch?”

She smiles again. “I’m sorry, I can’t.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m afraid I might have given you the wrong impression before. I like you, Mead, I really do. You’re smart and funny and sweet, but you’re only sixteen. I mean, my little brother is sixteen. I’m flattered. Really, I am. But it just wouldn’t work out. You and me. Dating. I’m sorry.”

Mead feels dizzy. He thinks maybe he has heard wrong and yet he knows he has heard right. That he is being rejected. Again. Because of his age. Because he does not fit in. Does not conform to some preordained mold. Only this is worse. Worse than spitballs, worse than name-calling, worse than having his head flushed down the toilet.

Cynthia places her hand on his arm. “Don’t worry, Mead, you’re a nice guy, a really nice guy. In a few years the right girl will come along, you’ll see.” Then she leaves. But the touch of her hand lingers, burns a hole straight through Mead’s heart.

H
E STUDIES AT THE LIBRARY
until it closes at midnight then heads back to the dorm. Mead hates Saturday night. It only serves to remind him of how much he does not fit in. Dr. Kustrup suggested he work on his social skills but Mead’s problem has nothing to do with social skills. Not one goddamned thing. His problem is his age and no amount of effort on Mead’s behalf will ever change the simple fact that he has always been too young to socialize with his academic peers.

Music greets him even before he opens the front door, escaping from a window on an upper floor as if a mental patient is crying out for help. He enters the dorm and the music gets louder, throbbing through his body as if someone is pounding on his head with a hammer. Mead reaches for the doorknob to his room feeling like a gambler at a slot machine. Will Pete be in there with his gaggle of rowdy friends? Or are they hanging out in Rick’s room tonight? In which case Mead will be able to enjoy at least a modicum of peace and quiet. Mead crosses his fingers and opens the door. Jackpot, the room is empty.

He grabs his toiletries and heads down the hall to the bathroom. Someone is in the shower, could be male or female. He brushes his teeth and hopes it is female, hopes she did not hear him come in. If he is lucky, he will get a quick glimpse of her body before she notes his presence and covers herself up. That is all he is hoping for, a quick glimpse. That’s all he needs. He can take it from there.

His mouth is full of mint-flavored paste when the shower shuts off and a girl steps around the corner, his luck still holding. She either does not know he is here or does not care as she takes her towel and proceeds to dry her hair. Mead stops brushing and watches her, or rather her reflection in the mirror. He wonders what Cynthia is doing right now, if she is spending her Saturday night with some age-appropriate date, making out in some dorm room with a twenty-year-old undergraduate with a mediocre grade point average and a questionable future.

“Lights out!” the resident advisor yells out in the hall. “All stereos off. Now!”

The dorm goes silent, quiet enough to hear the water running in the sink. To hear Mead’s heart pounding against his chest as he continues to stare at the naked girl. One or the other causes her to lift her eyes and, when she does, she sees Mead looking back.

“Oops,” she says. “I didn’t realize anyone else was here, otherwise I’d have been more discreet.” And she proceeds to cover herself with the towel. Mead drops his eyes, ashamed. A moment later she taps him on the shoulder and he looks up. “Your face,” she says and points at the mirror, then leaves. Mead checks out his reflection and sees a swath of toothpaste extending all the way from his mouth to his left ear.

A
N ENVELOPE ARRIVES IN MEAD’S MAILBOX
, postmarked Houston, Texas. He knows who sent it even before he opens the envelope and finds inside a snapshot of Percy wearing a minor league baseball uniform, a bat slung over his right shoulder, a smile plastered across his face. On the back of the snapshot he has scrawled, “Hey, cousin, we did it. We both got away. I’m a free agent! Yours, Percy.”

Mead tucks the snapshot inside his
Concepts of Math
textbook and closes it.

So it turns out that Mead’s father was wrong. It seems that this whole professional baseball thing is neither too physically nor too mentally challenging for Percy to handle after all. Well, one thing is for certain: Percy is not going to give up the helm without a fight. Mead is going to have to do more than simply graduate from college in order to outshine his cousin. Way more. Because even Mead knows that being a math major is nothing compared to being a major league ballplayer. Not in the eyes of the citizens of High Grove, Illinois. No way. Not that Percy is there yet. But the possibility grows stronger every day. Which means that Mead has got to stay on top of his own game. He has got to make sure that, come hell or high water, he will get into that exclusive institute in Princeton where Albert Einstein himself once taught.

“CAN I GIVE YOU ANOTHER REFILL
on that, honey?” the waitress standing over Mead asks.

“Yes, thank you,” he says and she refills his glass with milk.

Mead has been coming to this off-campus coffee shop for breakfast every day —ever since Cynthia blew him off —to cut back on the probability of running into her again. He fills up on pancakes and eggs and bacon and then skips lunch, going to the cafeteria only for dinner, showing up right before it closes, when the place is nearly deserted. The food is better here at the coffee shop anyway. And it doesn’t cost much. He fed himself for two weeks on the money his mother sent him for a new shirt. This weekend he will call home and tell her he needs a new coat. That ought to get him through to the summer. The view is better too. Mead likes it when the waitress leans over the table to refill his glass, likes the scenery her low-cut blouse provides.

“You must be really smart,” she says, standing over him now, looking at the books Mead has spread across the table. She smiles when she says this and Mead wonders if she is flirting with him, if all these books make Mead look older than his sixteen years. “Do you go to school around here?” she asks.

“I’m a matriculate of Chicago University.”

“A what?”

Who is he fooling. Mead could never date a girl who doesn’t speak the same language he speaks. He picks up his milk and drains the entire glass in one gulp, sets it back down on the table.

“My, my,” the waitress says. “You are one thirsty young man.” And she leans over to refill his glass once more.

“THERE HAVE BEEN SOME
exciting developments taking shape in the math department,” Dr. Kustrup says to Mead. “Changes of which you may not be aware since your head has been buried so deeply inside your books the past two quarters.” And he says this as if it is a bad thing, as if Mead should be spending less time studying in the library and more time skiing in the Alps in Switzerland.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Mead says, “but my father has poured a rather large portion of his life savings into my education and I’d like to see him get his money’s worth.”

Dr. Kustrup laughs. “Yes, I recently learned that you turned down a rather generous scholarship in favor of paying for your own college education.”

“My father turned it down, sir, not me. It’s his money, not mine.”

“And why, may I ask, would he do such a thing?”

“I don’t know, sir. Perhaps he felt the value of my education would be compromised if it were based upon a bribe.”

“A scholarship can hardly be considered a bribe, Mr. Fegley. Quite to the contrary, in fact. Most people would consider it high compliment.”

“My father is not most people, sir.”

Dr. Kustrup laughs again. “And I see that you take after him. Well, that’s a fine attitude, Mr. Fegley. Admirable even, but one that is a tad bit naïve. I’m not saying that your education isn’t important —it most certainly is —I’m just saying that there are other things that are equally important.”

“Such as?”

“Such as interaction with your colleagues. Do you realize, Mr. Fegley, that I see less of you than I do of any other student under my watch?”

“I’m a self-starter, Dr. Kustrup. I don’t need much supervision.”

The professor gets up from behind his desk and walks over to his window that looks out over the quad below. As usual, it is stiflingly hot in his office. Mead wishes Dr. Kustrup would fling open the window, would let in some fresh air. But he seems to like it this way, all stuffy and enclosed. He sits on the radiator under the window, looks at Mead, and says, “I’ve recently taken on some new responsibilities, Mr. Fegley. I’ve been elected by my fellow colleagues to take over the helm next year. You’re looking at the new chairman of the mathematics department.”

Mead wonders how this happened. Dr. Kustrup must have skills that outshine his teaching ability. Organizational skills, perhaps. People skills. Why else would he have been chosen to chair the department? But, more important, Mead wonders how this will affect him, if it might improve his chances of getting into that institute in Princeton.

“Congratulations, sir,” he says.

“Thank you, Mr. Fegley,” Dr. Kustrup says. “There are a few downsides, however. Next year I won’t have as much time to devote to my students. I’ll only be able to teach two classes per quarter instead of my usual load of four, what with all my added responsibilities as chairman of the department.”

“Of course,” Mead says, still wondering what the downsides are.

“Additionally,” Dr. Kustrup says. “I’ll only have time to mentor one of you.”