The Sextant Disposal
By Laura Schiller
Based on: The Big Bang Theory
Copyright: CBS
"Are you sure you can't return it?" asked Emily, sliding the box across the counter.
"Afraid not, miss." Mr. Carruthers, owner of Carruthers' Curios, shook his frizzy gray head and blinked ruefully behind his half-moon glasses. He was a plump little man who wore a tweed blazer and a sweater vest, and he spoke very slowly in his Southern accent as if, being surrounded by so many antiques, he had all the time in the world. "Not at that price range. It's store policy. I can't make an exception for anyone, I hope you understand."
"Oh." She looked down at the polished wood under her hands, trying not to show her dismay.
This box, and the two-hundred-year-old brass sextant inside it, had been sitting in her closet for almost a year. She had almost forgotten about it, until she had unearthed it in a fit of stress-cleaning less than a few weeks ago. Now she wanted nothing more than to get it out of her apartment, for reasons that sounded irrational even in her own head, let alone spoken out loud.
"I understand, but … if you can't take it, do you know anyone who would?"
Surely there had to be more than one person in the greater Los Angeles area who would appreciate an antique navigational instrument. Glancing around her at the model train track that ran the entire length of the store, the chess set carved to resemble the Roman and Carthaginian armies, and the leather-bound edition of Tristram Shandy displayed in the window, she was sure that Mr. Carruthers knew plenty of people who appreciated the odd and obscure. There was a porcelain doll with a shaved head and uncanny eyes Emily wouldn't mind buying for herself, but she wasn't here for that. And the lively voice she could hear in her imagination ("Chess knights riding elephants, how cool is that? Hey, there's a train – d'you think Sheldon knows about this place?") was only making matters worse.
"It's just … I bought it for someone else," she confessed. "But … things have changed since then, and I don't, um … I don't have a use for it anymore."
"Hmm. I see." Mr. Carruthers slid the box closer to him and gave it a small pat. She had the feeling that, if they knew each other better, he would have patted her hand instead, like a grandfather.
"So your young man didn't like his Valentine's Day present, did he? Now that's a shame."
"You remember that?" Emily exclaimed, as impressed by his memory as she was embarrassed. "That was a year ago."
She was not a woman who talked to strangers about her personal life, or who spent large sums of money for no practical purpose (her tattoo habit aside), but that day she had done both. "I'm looking for a present for my boyfriend," she'd said brightly. "We haven't been together that long, so I'm not sure what to get … but I'd like it to be special, you know? He's an astrophysicist. Do you have anything star-related?"
Mr. Carruthers, for all his kindliness, was a sharp businessman and had talked her into making the 500-dollar purchase with astonishing ease. Back home, however, she'd had second thoughts - what if Raj didn't like it, after all? Or what if he liked it too much - enough to give her something even more ostentatious in return, like an engagement ring? She had hidden the box in her bedroom closet, deciding to wait until they knew each other better. On the night she'd caught Raj snooping in her room, she had been so relieved that it was just her nightstand instead of the closet that she'd forgiven him at once.
Today, she couldn't decide which she regretted most: never giving him the present, or buying it in the first place. Either way, she wanted it gone.
"I don't get as many customers as I'd like." Mr. Carruthers waved his hand around the shop in a self-deprecating gesture that made Emily wonder if he was related to Stuart Bloom. "Besides, it's difficult to forget hair like yours … or a smile like the one on your face that day."
Emily tucked a strand of red hair self-consciously behind her ear and forced a smile for his benefit. The corners of her mouth were stiff. She couldn't remember the last time she had smiled - a real, spontaneous smile, not put on for the benefit of her parents, her patients, or someone delivering takeout to her door. Her best guess was early February.
"I can only assume he's an idiot," said the old gentleman.
"It's not like that!" she snapped.
Rajesh Koothrappali was an idiot. She couldn't even think his name without a wave of red-hot anger washing over her. He had broken up with her just before Valentine's Day, then had the nerve to come crawling back because he was afraid to spend said holiday alone. Later, while watching the Valentine's edition of Fun with Flags (for Amy's sake, since they still chatted online), she had heard him crying about the breakup, and he hadn't had a single word to say about her. "What's wrong with me? Why am I so self-destructive?" he'd wailed over the phone, as if he was the only one affected. As if Emily hadn't spent the day alone too, and all her other days since then.
Still, Mr. Carruthers had no right to say that. She frowned.
"Excuse me, my dear," said the old man. "That was unprofessional of me. Let's see … I do have quite a network of contacts in the antique world who would be happy to get this artefact off your hands. It's in mint condition, you know." He'd told her this before. "You could just leave it here, if you like … but before you do, are you absolutely sure?"
He said this with a strange emphasis, as if he were reading her mind, and his pale eyes looked pointedly at the box.
Emily, looking down too, saw that while they had been talking, she had pulled the box back across the counter and kept a white-knuckled grip on it with both hands.
"Oh!" She let go and backed away a step. "I didn't mean to … I was just … "
Unable to look Mr. Carruthers in the face, she glanced around the store and - by one of those coincidences that Raj would swear were proof of a pattern in the fabric of the universe - locked eyes with a Ganesh statuette on a high shelf.
The Hindu god sat in strange company: a bust of Elvis, a Swiss cuckoo clock, and a Chinese porcelain cat with an automated waving hand. He was painted bright red and wore a green and gold robe. His elephant face was scrunched up in a smile, like a good friend laughing with her about her foolish behaviour. But the laughter she heard in her mind belonged to Raj.
"Watch out for that one," he'd told her once, showing her around his temple. "He's tricky. He's the remover of obstacles, but you never know which ones he'll remove, or how. Selective mutism, for example - take it away, and suddenly it gets replaced with uncontrollable word vomit. On my first date, no less, with a lady whose intellect burns as brightly as the fire of her hair."
He'd proceeded to light one of the sticks of incense in front of the temple's Ganesh statue, murmur a prayer in what she assumed was Sanskrit, bow his head, and turn around to give her a radiant smile.
"What was that about?" she'd asked.
"I just thanked him for the chance to get to know you."
He'd taken her hand and led her around the hushed, high-ceilinged building, their bare feet sinking into the soft carpets, the smell of incense and flowers rich in the air. Aside from a few clergy, the temple had been empty because it was late at night, and she had felt privileged to see a side of Raj he almost never spoke about.
It still stood out in her memory as one of the happiest moments of her life, but something about the wry, observant eyes of Mr. Carruthers, or the laughing eyes of the statue, made her see it in a new light. Had she ever shown Raj how she felt that day? Had she told him how grateful she was to know him as well? No. She'd let out an awkward laugh and asked him about a different statue, that of ten-armed Kali holding knives and a severed head.
There was so much she'd never told him, so much she'd kept locked up inside. Was it any wonder he'd assumed that she didn't care as much as he did? She'd pushed his patience to the limit with graveyard sex and skull figurines; was it any wonder he'd believed they were too different to make a relationship work? She had done her share to ruin it as well.
What's wrong with me? Why am I so self-destructive? … Oh, damn. I guess we have something in common after all.
Her heart was like the sextant, she thought: mint condition, strong and well-made, but liable to rust when left unused. It was about time someone took it out of the box.
She knew better than to assume he'd still feel the same way about her, after the way she had slammed the door in his face and ignored him for a month. In any case, she was too proud to ask him to come back. But maybe they could be friends. Friends could exist more comfortably with different interests than lovers did; friends could enjoy each other's company without having to rearrange their lives. If she could just talk to him again, eat one of his famous lava cakes, solve a murder mystery party together, point to a random star in the night sky and listen to him telling her its composition, distance from Earth and the legends attached to it … well, any star except for Vega or Altair.
Where's a stupid bridge across the Milky Way when you need one?
"Miss? Are you okay?" Mr. Carruthers peered at her anxiously over his glasses.
"Fine." Her wandering mind fell sharply back to Earth. "Just fine, thanks. Actually, , um, I changed my mind. I think I'll take this back."
She stuffed the box that held the sextant back into her purse. It was unwieldy, but she wouldn't have to carry it far. The post office was only a block or so away. Did they still gift-wrap? Did she still have Raj's home address memorized? That she did, postal code and all. Deciding what to write would be the hardest part, but she would manage somehow.
"Excellent." The old man beamed. "Give him my regards."
"I will, Mr. Carruthers. He'd love this place, and so would his friends."
They wished each other a good afternoon and she walked out, making a set of chimes by the door ring out like miniature temple bells.
And if Emily, a scientist and self-confessed agnostic, inclined her head ever so slightly to the Ganesh statue as she walked past, it was nobody's business but her own.