The American Gothic Vortex

Chapter 10, the Cliffhanger Instigation

Sheldon was finishing his lunch in the Sciences and Mathematics Building cafeteria when Leonard and Daniel brought over their trays.

"Sheldon," Leonard said, "this is Daniel Harris-Takahashi, my new experimental physics graduate student. He's taking the position Alex had before she graduated as lead student on the Cern team."

Sheldon said, "You know, it was worth having some sharp words with the cafeteria manager to get them to resume offering lime sherbet in paper cups instead of the Popsicles." He licked the last drops of sherbet off the wooden spoon and put it into the paper cup. He wiped his mouth on the remaining three napkins in his five-napkin grouping and placed them on the tray. He said, "I have to cut lunch short. I am having a teleconference with Dr. Hayden at MIT. It's a burden, but I feel it's my duty to help out inferior faculty from inferior institutions."

"Sheldon," Leonard said, "Dr. Hayden was nominated for the Nobel Prize."

"But he didn't win," Sheldon said. "If he lost and you won, that doesn't sound like much of a recommendation."

"Dr. Cooper," the young Asian student, who walked up to the table, said, "May I take your tray for you?"

"Fine," Sheldon said. He got up and walked toward the door.

"Sheldon, you could at least say 'Thank you,'" Leonard said to Sheldon's retreating back.

The young Asian student and Daniel briefly made eye contact. The student carried Sheldon's tray over to the window. Before putting the tray through the window, he looked around to make sure no one was looking.

Alex and Raj joined Leonard and Daniel.

"Hello again, Daniel," Alex said. "This is my fiancé Dr. Rajesh Koothrapali."

"Dr. Koothrapali, it's an honor," Daniel said, shaking hands with Raj. "I have read everything you have published. Your senior thesis from Cambridge inspired me to put forth an extra effort on mine."

"Call me Raj," Raj said.

Leonard said, "Daniel, one of the neat things about being a graduate student is that you get to call most of your professors by their first names: You're a colleague now. There are a couple of old-school what my mother calls 'alter cockers' who will insist you call them by their last names, but almost all of us will insist on first names. I'll give you a heads-up."

"It's hard getting used to it," Daniel said."

"Daniel," Alex said, "I know your orientation to the Physics Department isn't until Wednesday, and you're not officially on the team until then, but, if you're interested, we're having a meeting of the Cern team at 2:00 in Leonard's lab. I can introduce you to the rest of the team members and get you started with your computer login. We received your security credentials from Homeland Security and the FBI, so you're good to go."

"Great," Daniel said. "I would love to come." He placed the five napkins to the right of his plate.

"You use five napkins," Raj noticed.

"I prefer a five-napkin system," Daniel said. "I have been contemplating a sixth napkin in case someone else needs one. You know," he said, looking around, I like this seat. I think this will be my spot."

Leonard and Raj briefly made eye contact.

#

Andrew Kim walked hurriedly from the cafeteria to the elevator. He took it up one floor to his lab. Once there, he opened his desk drawer and pulled out and put on a pair of nitrile gloves and then put on a face shield. He took a sterile pair of forceps and extracted the contents of the sealable plastic bags from his jacket pocket. He placed each onto a small dish labeled with the initials SLC followed by a hyphen and the numbers zero through three. He placed the dishes next to a dish labeled DHT-0.

A few minutes later, Andrew pulled out his cell phone and texted, "The potatoes are in the stew."

#

Faculty and Graduate Student Reception, Caltech East Campus Banquet Room:

Leonard brought a plate of vegetables and mixed fruit to Penny, who was holding Emily and sitting talking to Daniel and his roommate Andrew.

"Here you go, sweetheart," he said. "I made sure to include a cup with some of that ranchero dip you like so much. I'll be back with the second trip with your watermelon and brownies in a moment." He leaned over and kissed Emily on the forehead. He looked at Daniel and Andrew and said, "When she was pregnant with Emily, she would dip the watermelon chunks in the ranchero sauce. It was all I could do not to blow the groceries."

"That's an idea," Bernadette, who was sitting next to Andrew, said. "Hey, mama's boy: Bring me some watermelon and ranchero dip. Put some brownies on the plate too."

Howard rolled his eyes toward Leonard, who said, "Hey, Howard, at least you haven't been out at 3:30 in the morning satisfying your wife's cravings. You're getting off easy."

"Yeah, Ma was kinda snappish about having to go out that time of night to find Cheese Waffies," Howard said. He sighed, got up, and went over to the buffet.

"Oh, Leonard," Penny said, "your ranchero sauce is better."

As Leonard placed the plate with the watermelon and brownies on the table a few minutes later, Penny laughed and said, "Daniel, show Leonard. Leonard, this is a hoot."

Daniel pretended to grab Emily's nose, saying, "Got your nosy."

Emily furrowed her brow and frowned at Daniel.

Penny cackled. She said, "Look, Leonard, she's giving Daniel 'that look' that you and Daddy know so well. Daniel, you're officially a member of the family now."

Leonard smiled and said, "Daniel, when she gives me that look, I almost feel one leg getting shorter. Penny gives me that same look all the time."

"Only when you do something stupid," Penny said.

"That always works with little Justin who lives next door back in Asheville," Daniel said. "He always laughs until he almost can't breathe."

By now, Emily had taken Daniel's finger and was waving it, saying, "Buh dip, buh dip."

"Daniel, Emily likes you-in spite of the nose-grabbing thing," Penny said. "By the way, what's the story with your name Harris-Takahashi? You don't look Japanese."

"Actually," Daniel said, "I have two moms. My birth mom, Cynthia Harris, had just graduated Julliard when she decided she wanted a baby. She's a concert flutist with a tested IQ in the 160s. She participated in a project with the High IQ Sperm Bank and was successfully inseminated with the sperm of a person who had contributed to the bank. She met Kiko Takahashi when we were living in Vermont when I was almost one and she was with the Vermont Symphony. Kiko adopted me when they got a civil union, which are legal there. They're still together. My mom Cynthia got a job directing the Asheville Symphony in North Carolina. Mom Cynthia is actually in San Francisco as guest conductor at their orchestra at the moment. I hope to see her before she goes back east. Maybe she'll get the job in San Francisco. I guess less than 400 miles away is better than 3000."

"So you don't know your father?" Penny said. "That's sad."

Daniel said, "All my mom has is a general description and that there are no known genetic abnormalities."

"That lets me out," Leonard said.

Penny jerked her head toward Leonard and said, "You gave your sperm to the High IQ Sperm Bank? You have children running around you've never met? Emily has brothers and sisters out there somewhere, and you didn't tell me?"

Emily looked at Leonard and said, "Duba, duba, duba."

"No," Leonard said. "They rejected me because of my height, my lactose intolerance, my asthma, my GERD, and my family history of heart disease. Actually, the day Sheldon and I met you, we were coming home from the Los Angeles branch of the High IQ Sperm Bank, where we had left deposits. They took Sheldon's sample, since they had known him since he was younger and were familiar with his genetic history, but they told me later that they had to reject me as a donor and had flushed my sample."

"Well, it looks as if the two of you hit the genetic jackpot with Emily," Andrew said. "Couples would kill for sperm that would result in a healthy baby with her features. I know she's only what, four or five months old? Even so, she seems happy, healthy, and smart as a whip."

"Aren't you sweet," Penny said. "She was four months old on the 28th. Yeah, she's perfect."

Emily smiled at Andrew and blew spit bubbles.

"Andrew is in graduate school in genetics," Daniel said. "We're the two youngest students admitted to graduate school this year. Andrew actually started in August, but his roommate decided to return to Scotland."

Andrew looked at Penny and said, "Mrs. Hofstadter, I would say from looking at you that your genotype is predominately either Germanic or Nordic?"

"Both of you call me Penny," Penny said. "My mom's maiden name was Karlsson: Her grandfather came from Sweden. I know my daddy has some Swedish on his father's side. I don't know about the rest of his ancestors, although I heard a rumor that no one has ever verified that he has some sort of Native American in his background."

Andrew took a long look at Leonard and said, "Dr. Hof, I mean Leonard, your surname is German. Your features could be Prussian, maybe with some Ashkenazi Jew or Native American?"

"The German goes way back," Leonard said. "My father said he is 1/16 Cherokee. His mother was mostly English, a Stratford, as in one of the original Mayflower families, and his father was what he called a Heinz 57: He said he was a little bit of everything. My mom's family was Russian Jews, just like Leonard Nimoy. You know, my brother Michael is a genealogy buff. I could get him to send me a GEDCOM. By the way, Dr. Cooper over there [pointing] has sold his sperm to the High IQ Sperm Bank since he was 18, most recently about the time Emily was born."

"Ew," Penny said. "There may be little Sheldon's running around? What did he use to accomplish the deed, naked pictures of computer mainframes? Have any of his offspring ever contacted him?"

"The donors' information is supposed to remain confidential," Andrew said.

Daniel said, "Leonard, I've tried to introduce myself to Dr. Cooper several times, but he always looks through me as if I'm not there, and now he's sitting at another table with that beautiful, fascinating woman with the strange metal collar rather than sit here with his friends. Have I done something to offend him?"

"Yeah, you finished college younger than he did," Leonard said. "That's what you did to offend him, not to mention that you displaced him as the youngest person to win the Stevenson Award, plus, of course, the McIntyre Award, and hold several patents. The fact that you were accepted at Julliard in stringed instruments didn't help you either: He despises the arts."

"What patents?" Penny asked.

"I have a patent for a relay system for the argon laser," Daniel said. "On a more mundane note, I patented a formula for a semi-permanent ink. I've sold the rights to a medical company for use in surgery, so surgeons can trace incision points and not have to use the resin-based inks that can cause irritation to patients' skin. I found it by accident when I was trying to figure out what type of ink to use on insect specimens I collected for entomology class. I played around with different formulas and developed an ink that is water-proof but is totally harmless."

"When the surgeons removed my spleen," Leonard said, "I had ink left over from the surgery. We just let it wear off, since there was no reason to remove it, but the nurse said we could remove it with a special remover if I wanted."

"That was probably mine," Daniel said. "Mine is vegetable-based. I actually sold cosmetic rights to it to Backdoor Cosmetics. They based the Penny Collection on it. I helped them adapt it for lipstick, eyeliner, and mascara."

"That's my line," Penny said. "The color in our line stays vibrant for at least three days unless you use the special remover."

"I developed the remover too," Daniel said. "It's actually not that special. It's based on canola oil-totally harmless."

Daniel and Andrew got up to re-fill their plates. At the buffet, Andrew leaned over and whispered to Daniel, "I'll head back to the lab after I leave here and check on the run before heading back to the dorm. We should have our final results tomorrow morning by the time we get to the lab. What are you going to do?"

"I'm not sure," Daniel said. "I'm almost certain what the results are going to say. I think he will demand test results, so I'm not going to say anything to him until I have the hard data in-hand. He might even want his own tests. I'll need to figure out a way to tell him."

"From what I've seen, he's not the friendliest of people," Andrew said.

"I know," Daniel said. "It may have been better if it had been Leonard. He's so nice. Alex told me he was her hero as she was finishing her Ph.D. and that he offered her a job on his team when she graduated. From what I've heard, all of his students adore him. He always shares credit in publications, unlike Dr. Cooper, and he seems genuinely interested in his students. Maybe I should ask his advice, or maybe his wife's. She is even nicer than the magazine articles and entertainment blogs say. Maybe I should talk to her. You know, now that I'm this close, I'm getting nervous."

Andrew said, "You read Leonard's mother's book Don't Be Stupid. She said that anxiety is just a collection of bad habits."

"His mother is what my mom Kiko would call shito uki," Daniel said.

Andrew laughed and said, "Pain in the neck?"

"Dude," Daniel said. "You're Korean. That's Japanese. How did you know that?"

Andrew said, "What can I say? I'm a man of many skills."

#

Daniel carried Emily's bag as he, Penny, and Emily waited in the lobby for Leonard to bring the car after the reception. Emily smiled at Daniel and cooed.

"I appreciate your and Leonard giving me a ride to the dorm," Daniel said, letting Emily take his finger again. "It's not that far, though. I could walk."

"Oh, it's no problem, Daniel," Penny said. "I'm sorry Andrew had to go back to the lab. We would have been glad to wait for him. I have to ask: You seem nervous. What's up? Did meeting the university big wigs and donors spook you?"

Daniel looked around to make sure he, Penny, and Emily were alone. "May I confide something very personal to you? I know we only met a couple of hours ago, so I don't want to impose, but I really need to talk to someone, and you and Leonard have been so nice to me. It's something I can't discuss with my moms, and it's driving me over the edge. It's all right if you tell Leonard."

"Sure," Penny said. "Daniel, we're going to get to know each other really well, since you're going to be on Leonard's team. Leonard and I want you to consider us your family here: You have Leonard's and my unlisted phone numbers for a reason. Don't ever hesitate to let us know if we can help you. I hope your mom does get to come visit before she goes back east so she'll be able to see for herself you're among friends. What is it?"

Leonard had to wait for a food service van to move before he could pull out of his parking place. A few minutes later, he pulled the SUV up to the curb. He walked into the building entrance. As he opened the door, he heard Penny shout, "Holy crap on a cracker! No freaking way!"

As he ran up to where Penny, Emily, and Daniel were sitting, Emily made a low growl.

"Is everything all right?" he asked.

"Leonard, you won't believe this," Penny said. "Tell him, Daniel."

#

Coming Up: "Oh, no, he di'nt."