Penny sat in her apartment, letting the reruns wash over her with their comforting plots and laugh tracks. She didn't want to think about dropping out of community college in Nebraska, she didn't want to think about living in a one bedroom apartment and being a waitress at the Cheesecake Factory. How exactly would she become an actress? Just how far would her white blond hair and cute face get her?

She thought about the geniuses across the hall, not just smart guys, straight A students, but actual beautiful mind geniuses. She thought about those whiteboards they had and the equations scribbled on them that meant nothing to her, beyond nothing, but she knew it was those equations that had resulted in computers and space travel and mass production techniques and all the things that everybody took for granted and felt smart about, but only a handful of people across time were capable of comprehending it, and she lived across the hall from two of them.

She thought about Leonard and how dorky cute he was with his squinty little eyes behind the black rimmed glasses and his baggy clothes that he shriveled up in like a turtle hiding in a shell. She thought about how he jumped at her every request and told her the things he thought she wanted to hear. Then she thought about Sheldon. He was beautiful. Those large blue eyes, crystal clear blue eyes like water, like the sky. She thought of how his shoulder blades poked at the thin material of his T-shirts. She thought about how he told the truth in every instance, only amending it if Leonard contradicted him and gave him a look. When she asked to use their shower, asking if that would be weird, Sheldon immediately replied that it would be. When she cried and told them how awful her ex-boyfriend was but that she still loved him and asked if that was crazy, Sheldon had immediately replied that it was crazy. Leonard had said it wasn't, because he acquiesced and told her what she wanted to hear. But she liked to hear the truth for once. She liked to hear that things were weird and that things were crazy, she liked that someone could say it for once.

She shook her head, feeling sleepy, feeling used up still in her make-up and her uniform. But the T.V. was such a comforting drone and her eyelids were slipping, shutting halfway, and she didn't want to get up. Maybe tomorrow she could find an acting class and an agent, maybe tomorrow she could complete community college and go on to get a real degree, a degree like Leonard and Sheldon had. Who was she fooling? Her intelligence was no where near the level and scope of theirs, and she didn't know if she had the attention span any longer for school work, for classrooms and the professors' dry tones and the heaters that hummed and put you to sleep. What was she doing here anyway? It would be only a matter of time before she failed, before the rent skyrocketed and her pay did not, only a matter of time before she'd be forced to crawl back to Nebraska with her tail between her legs.

Her eyes closed, and she could feel the clump of the mascara, the weight of the blush that was on her cheeks. Maybe she could succeed in this endeavor, and maybe the waitress job was just her way of paying her dues. Maybe she could seduce Sheldon somehow, get him to gaze at her with those cerulean eyes. Who was she fooling? Sheldon barely noticed her, despite her skimpy clothes and her bedroom eyes and her shiny blond hair that feathered around her adorable face. What could she do to get inside his head?

She'd never encountered a boy who hadn't fallen for her immediately, who hadn't fallen all over himself to please her. They usually reacted the way Leonard had reacted. But she thought she liked it, she liked how Sheldon seemed to ignore her, she liked how he was wrapped up in his own interests. She liked the thought of the challenge of making him see her, making him desire her, making him fall all over her like every other guy.

She forced herself to open her eyes, to get up and snap the T.V. off, to wash the make-up off of her face and shed her uniform for her soft T-shirt and pajama shorts. She looked at her naked face in the mirror and saw the puffiness under her eyes and the darker roots at the top of her head. The perfect blond image was cracking, and what was underneath? Her real self? The community college drop out pursuing an elusive dream? The seductress ready to bewitch a socially inept genius?

She got into bed, sleep overtaking her before her head hit the pillow. The schedule at work mocked her, all the shifts she'd be forced to contend with, all the time taken away from her dreams. Could she fit acting around working at a menial service position? Could she fit seducing Sheldon around leading Leonard on? Would she play them against each other and come out the winner?