Beauty And The Brain

And even though Angie and Kirby would probably open their homes to her, Rosemary couldn’t find it in herself to impose on her friends for that length of time. Angie’s apartment was barely big enough for one. And besides, Angie was way too busy investigating the appearance in town of that lowlife, scumbag, murdering slug Ethan Zorn to want Rosemary bothering her.

And although Kirby had an extra bedroom at her house, Rosemary didn’t want to crimp her friend’s style trying to snag a man. Even though there was little chance that Kirby, the Endicott equivalent to Mother Teresa, was ever going to land herself a local boy, because all the local boys just thought Kirby was far too sweet and far too nice to ever try something like...like...like that with her. Not that Kirby hadn’t tried.

It was a big house, Rosemary told herself. With any luck at all, she and Willis wouldn’t even have to see each other during his stay. With any luck at all, he’d banish himself to the attic with his notebook and his telescope and his scientific equations, which he found infinitely more interesting than he found her anyway. With any luck at all, he’d leave her alone and keep to himself.

And with any luck at all, she thought further with a helpless sigh, she wouldn’t find herself feeling like the know-nothing jerk she’d always been convinced she was whenever she was around Willis.

“Fine,” she capitulated reluctantly. Swallowing a groan, she turned to her old nemesis and added halfheartedly, “Welcome home, Willis. It hasn’t been the same around here without you.”

And with that, she spun around and made her way back downstairs, completely uncaring that her coffee still sat untouched in her bedroom. It was just her first indication that things were only going to get worse.

Two

What had she meant by that? Willis wondered. Why had Rosemary said Endicott hadn’t been the same without him? Was that good? Or was that bad? Surely it must be the former. She’d always hated his guts. Or was she just trying to confuse him, trying to tie him up in knots again, the way she always had when they’d been in school?

God, he hated having to do this. If it wasn’t for the fact that his need to explain the comings and goings of Bobrzynyckolonycki far outweighed any lingering ill will he harbored toward Rosemary March, he’d pick up his bags and his telescope and head back to Cambridge in a heartbeat. But he knew he wouldn’t do that, because the comet had haunted him for fifteen years.

Of course, so had Rosemary March, he reminded himself. But for entirely different reasons. Where Willis had never been able to pinpoint the comet’s motivation for its activities, he’d more than understood Rosemary’s. She had despised him—that was all there was to it. Doubtless she despised him still. Then again, he supposed he had no one but himself to blame for that. He hadn’t exactly made it easy on her all those years ago.

And he wasn’t making it easy on her now, either, he thought, an odd kind of guilt nagging at him. Why had he had to go and shoot his mouth off about her being too stupid to understand something like computer programming? That had been uncalled for, even if it was true. He’d just been smarting from her suggestion that no woman in her right mind would ever take an interest in him, and he’d struck back without thinking.

It was going to be a long few weeks.

He turned to Rosemary’s mother and forced a smile. “Thanks again, Mrs. March, for putting me up this way,” he said. “Especially on such short notice.”

She returned his smile. “You should really be thanking Rosemary, not me. Even though this is my house, I hate pulling rank on her like this. Still, it’s for the good of the community, isn’t it?”

“It’s for the good of the world,” Willis corrected her. “If I can ultimately decipher a reason for why Bobrzynyckolonycki’s movements through the cosmos are what they are, this year’s festival will go down in history.”

And, of course, he thought further with a satisfied smile, so would he. And that ought to show Rosemary March once and for all that he was a lot more than the pizza-faced little twerp she’d always considered him to be.

God, where had that come from? he wondered. What did he care what Rosemary thought of him? Her opinion of him today mattered about as much to him now as it had when he was thirteen years old. So there.

He followed Mrs. March back outside, then bade her goodbye beside his Montero—loaded to the gills with all of his paraphernalia—that he’d parked on the street in front of the house. The parts for his telescope would be arriving the following day, so he had twenty-four hours to unpack, get settled and reacquaint himself with his surroundings. Twenty-four hours to prowl Endicott and remember what his life as a boy had been like all those years ago.

Because his parents had moved to Florida after he graduated from high school and his sister had headed west, Willis hadn’t had any reason to come back to the community where he’d grown up. When he’d left Endicott for MIT thirteen years ago, he’d known he would be returning for the Comet Festival this year. But he’d had no idea he would have such mixed feelings about his return. He had never been particularly fond of his hometown, or of many of its residents. Thanks to his brilliant mind and geek status, he’d just never felt as if he belonged here. The town was too cozy, too comfortable, too set in its ways. And in no way conducive to scientific thought.

He was already looking forward to getting back to Boston, back to the wealth of academic and thought-provoking opportunities available there. That city was teeming with life for people like Willis—people who needed constant mental exercise and continuous cerebral challenge. He felt alive when he was in the city.

Intellectually, at least. What difference did it make if his social life had lain dormant for some time? Who needed romantic entanglements when they had a brain like his? As far as he was concerned, the heart, as an organ, was highly overrated, in spite of its necessity for sustaining life.

After all, what good was living if you couldn’t experience life at its fullest? And how could you experience life at its fullest unless you had the intellectual capacity to appreciate it? Any scientist worth his NaCl would tell you that the head, not the heart, was where the greatest stimulation occurred.

Willis popped open the back door on the Montero and wondered what to unload first—boxes of books, cartons of astronomical charts or stacks of scientific data he’d been collecting for the last fifteen years. So intent was he on his decision that he didn’t hear Rosemary come up behind him. What alerted him to her arrival was the light fragrance of something soft and fresh and sweet, an aroma that immediately carried him backward in time fifteen years.

Whatever Rosemary sprayed on herself now, she’d been using it for at least a decade and a half. And it wreaked all kinds of havoc with both Willis’s olfactory senses and his carnal ones—just as it had when he was a teenager. In spite of the antagonism that had erupted between the two of them whenever they were close, he’d always thought Rosemary March smelled wonderful. When he spun around to face her, he found her shrugging into a navy blue blazer and eyeing him with trepidation.

“Need any help?” she asked, her voice actually civil.

He nodded toward her attire. “You’re not exactly dressed to be unloading boxes.”

She straightened her collar, and again, he was assaulted by her delicate scent. “If you can wait until this afternoon, I can give you a hand with that. I’m only working a half day today.”

He shook his head. “That’s okay. Most of it’s probably too heavy for you.”

She frowned at him. “Oh, so now I’m not only stupid, but I’m weak, too—is that it?”

He closed his eyes and sighed heavily, and wondered if there would ever be a time when the two of them could converse without every word being misconstrued as an insult. “No,” he told her. “That wasn’t what I meant at all. These boxes are loaded with books and other instruments that are bulky and heavy. Too heavy for you.” As an afterthought, he added, “Thanks anyway.”

As if she needed to prove something to him, however, she pushed past him and reached for one of the boxes nearest the door. He started to reach for it, too, but something in her posture warned him off. Rosemary hefted the carton into her hands, staggered some under its weight, then moved awkwardly toward the grass.

As she bent to place it on the ground, however, she began to teeter forward. And Willis, recognizing the box as the one holding a number of glass lenses that were irreplaceable—at least in Endicott—quickly moved to her side to take it from her. She glared at him when he did, but he set it effortlessly on the ground.

“It’s very expensive, very specialized, very scientific equipment,” he told her.

Her eyes widened in obviously feigned admiration. “Ooo, very scientific, huh? Like what? Like Magic Rocks and Sea Monkeys and stuff?”

He ignored the question. “It’s equipment I wouldn’t be able to replace with a simple trip down to Buck’s hardware store.”

“Fine,” she bit out. “Forget I offered. Jeez, Willis, I was just trying to be nice. But don’t worry—I won’t be stupid enough to do that again.”

She started to stalk off, and impulsively, he followed her, reaching out to snag her wrist with loosely curled fingers before he even realized what he was doing. Rosemary spun around with the force of a cyclone and jerked her hand back, cradling it in her other as if she had been burned. The look in her eyes when she met his gaze very nearly overwhelmed him, so brimming with anger and sadness was it, that Willis took a step backward in defense.

“Don’t you ever do that again,” she told him, backing away from him as she did.

“What?” he asked, genuinely confused. “All I did was take your hand.”

“That’s exactly what I mean.”

“But—”

“Just stay away from me, Willis,” she said, backing up a few more steps.

“What, you can’t even stand my touch?” he snarled. He shook his head in confusion, his own anger swelling to life now. “Hey, you were the one who came up to me, not the other way around,” he reminded her.

“Yeah, and it was a pretty dumb thing to do, too.” She took another step backward, her eyes clouding even more.

“Rosemary...” he began, taking an experimental step forward.

Why he bothered he couldn’t imagine. He’d never made an effort to smooth out the feathers he ruffled on her before. But there was something in her eyes now that hadn’t been there fifteen years ago when he’d challenged her. Back in high school, Rosemary had always fought him with every ounce of indignation she possessed. Now, however, it was almost as if she were giving up when the battle hadn’t even begun.

And before he could say whatever it was he had intended to tell her—which, frankly, he couldn’t remember now—she turned her back on him and began stalking once more toward her garage.

“I have to go to work,” she announced stiffly.

As he stood there watching her mutely, she unfolded the doors on the aged garage and, in no time at all, was backing out of the driveway in a shiny red convertible that Willis found in no way surprising. That was Rosemary. All flash, no substance. Great body, but no head at all. Impulsive, spontaneous, breezy, fun-loving. Everything he wasn’t. Everything he tried to avoid.

Yet everything he’d always ended up looking for in another woman, and had never been able to find.