Note the date!
Thank you in advance for your reviews!
The Fowler Cooper Publication Federation
March 2031
Primary Topic: Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
Additional Book(s) Mentioned: The Technologists by Matthew Pearl
Something was . . . off with Ada. Amy couldn't put her finger on it, and she tried to brush it away as teenage uncertainty, but there was still something different about her daughter today.
That morning, Ada had awoke to three new pimples on her forehead and she'd been uncharacteristically hysterical about them. There had been pimples before, of course, but these seemed to unhinge her somehow. As usual, nothing Amy suggested was good enough; her pointing out that they were tiny and barely noticeable only inflamed the situation, and Ada was dropped off at school in a fume. Sheldon, with his flawless porcelain skin, turned to Amy in the car and said, "Don't look at me. I don't understand it. I was delightful at that age."
Perhaps she was ill. After school, after she'd gone to her bedroom to change out of her uniform, she emerged in harem pants, an old Miss Piggy tee shirt, and Converse sneakers. It wasn't the absurdity of the outfit that concerned Amy or even the puffy, pleated harem pants (they were all the rage among teenagers this season), but rather that it was clearly thrown on in a huff and didn't have a theme. Ada always had a theme.
"Ugh, my jeans are all hideous," Ada moaned, meeting Amy in the kitchen.
"There is nothing wrong with your jeans. You picked them out yourself," Amy replied.
Ada opened the refrigerator door and leaned in. "Do we have any yogurt?"
"Yes," Amy looked up from sorting the mail, surprised, "but you'll ruin your dinner. It's Friday, remember? We'll be leaving in about half an hour."
Ada rolled her eyes as she stood back up with a tub of yogurt. Amy ignored it. "I need it. I've got gas or something."
"Are you ill?" Amy asked, her brows dipping in concern. "And please don't be crass."
"I'm fine, Mom." There was a huge sigh as she reached in the drawer for a spoon and walked toward the sofa, where she promptly plopped down in Sheldon's spot.
But then, as Amy sat on the opposite end, Ada returned to her mostly delightful self, and asked Amy's opinion on who she should pick for her history report on famous people of the 19th-century. "I think it's important to write about a woman, of course," Ada said, and that made Amy smile, "but the only women on our list are Mary Shelley, Marie Curie, and Ada Lovelace. I think Ada Lovelace is the most obscure, but then everyone will think I picked her because of my name. But Mr. Acton said I could pick someone else."
"Why not do Marie Curie?" Sheldon called from his whiteboards, proof that he'd been listening to their interaction all along.
"Too obvious," Ada said, after swallowing a bite.
"Ellen Swallow Richards because you enjoyed The Technologists?" Amy suggested.
"I could do Ethelred Benett," her daughter said with a little smile as she took another bite of yogurt.
Sheldon groaned. "A geologist? Really?"
"How about Sarah Drake, since you like to draw?" Amy suggested, biting off her own chuckle.
"Oh, the botanical illustrator?" Ada perked up. Amy nodded. "No, I'll give it to Jacob. That's right up his alley. Either that or Alice Eastwood." Then she frowned. "Although I think he's already decided on Frederick Law Olmsted. Talk about obvious."
"Marie-Sophie Germain. She was a physicist," Sheldon suggested.
"Was she the one that argued that there really is no difference between the sciences and the humanities?" Ada asked, turning her head toward her father.
"Well, yes, but she's more famous for her mathematical formulas than that philosophical clap -"
"I am so doing that! Thanks, Dad!" Ada hopped up and ran over to kiss his cheek before she went to the kitchen to wash the empty yogurt container out for recycling.
Sheldon grunted, but Amy saw him smile in pleasure at the kiss.
But, on the drive home from Leonard and Penny's, withdrawn Ada had returned. Not her usual calm quiet contentment, instead her body language was positively surly. Amy could feel some sort of tension leaking from her. Had something happened between her and the other children? Not really children, not some of them anymore, Amy reminded herself. Everything had seemed calm from a distance, when they are all eating at their own table in the playroom, but then a few of the older ones had gone out to the Hofstadter's well-manicured backyard. Perhaps something had happened out there?
When they got home, Sheldon immediately gushed, "Ada, guess what showed up on Netflix today -"
"I'm going to my room," she interrupted him.
"But it's -"
"I said no, Dad. Jesus, can't you ever leave me alone?" Ada turned and tromped down the hallway.
"Do not speak to your father that way, young lady!" Amy called after her just as Ada slammed her bathroom door. Even Belle, who had come to greet them, seemed forgotten, and she ran toward the sunroom in response to the explosive noises.
Amy watched her husband quietly remove his jacket and walk to his whiteboards again. He didn't acknowledge Ada's outburst, but that was how he seemed to deal with all of her inexplicable fits of temper that he didn't understand. Goodness knew he had enough practice.
Despite Ada's outburst and drama this evening, Amy was back to enjoying her daughter again. She had always, always loved her, but there had been several months when Ada was eleven that Amy thought she had been possessed by a demon. Ada had been moody and cranky and uncooperative and she had the worst attitude. There were times, that year, that Amy had wanted to strangle her. Even her beloved father was not immune to her eruptions, and, more often than they cared to remember, they had gone to bed numb and exhausted from the constant battles, Sheldon whispering yet again, "I just don't understand it. I was delightful at that age."
Then, slowly, Ada had began to calm down again. Several inches were added to her height, and it was though all that stretching and growing squeezed the malcontent out of her. Of course, she was now officially a teenager and there are still disagreements and squabbles, but they were not so frequent or intense anymore. Now there was enough time between them that Amy could just take a deep breath and remind herself that her daughter's prefrontal cortex was not fully developed yet.
But tonight . . . "I'm worried about Ada," Amy said, walking up to Sheldon at the whiteboard. "She seems . . . " Amy struggled to find the correct term.
"Thirteen?" Sheldon suggested.
Looking sharply at him, Amy said, "Don't be flippant. I'm serious. Are you being flippant?"
He looked at her. "No."
Sighing, Amy nodded. No, flippant was too close to sarcastic for Sheldon to have mastered it. "Sorry. I'm just worried about her." Amy heard the bathroom door open and Ada walk to her bedroom. "Maybe she's ill? She said she needed yogurt earlier."
"Go ask her. Find out," Sheldon said, reaching up to write something in his equation.
Amy bit her lip. That could be like walking into a minefield. Had something happened between her and Jacob? Generally, he was the only one she seemed to really enjoy seeing on Friday nights, Amy thought. Once again, she thought she should talk to Sheldon about whether or not they were going to continue to allow them to go off alone to the backyard anymore. So far, Fenton or Lucy usually went, too, but not always. Even though Amy was fairly certain Ada didn't realize Jacob was a male, there was no denying he was a fifteen year old male. And she was thirteen. Things, inappropriate things, happened when hormonal teenagers were left alone. Her heart hammered just thinking about that conversation. Which would be worse: the conversation with Sheldon or the one with Ada?
But maybe Sheldon was correct and she should brave asking Ada what was wrong. Maybe it would be the opening she needed to bring up her concerns. "Okay, I'll go ask."
Ada's door was shut, so Amy knocked. "Ada?"
There was no reply. Amy knocked again. "Ada, sweetheart, are you unwell?" Suddenly, Belle had appeared at her side and she joined Amy's pleas with her own loud and demanding "Meoooowww!"
As there was no reply to either of them, Amy twisted the doorknob. "I'm coming in now unless you tell me otherwise." She paused and waited for the standard "Go away," but it didn't come. Opening the door slowly, she peered around its edge. Ada was face down on her bed, her head buried in her pillow, her long, beautiful hair spread out upon her back, shaking with, Amy realized, sobs.
"Oh, Ada!" Amy ran to her daughter's side, barely missing the also-running Belle, and sat on the very edge of her bed, stroking her hair. It never stopped hurting, the sight of your child crying, whether it was because she had fallen at the age of three and skinned her knee or because she was thirteen and the whole world was unfair. The latter was actually more painful, as there was no bandage, not even those old Jane Austen ones, for the boo-boos of adolescence. "Sweetheart, what's wrong?"
"You'll think it's stupid," Ada sobbed.
"No, no, I'm sure it's not. If it's important to you, I want to hear about it." Amy continued to stroke her hair as Ada's sobs quieted.
"You won't laugh?" Ada asked, turning her head.
"No. I promise." Amy shook her head. "It is about Jacob?"
"Jacob?" Ada raised her head and the little line she sometimes got appeared between her brows. Her glasses were off, sitting on the end table, Amy noticed. "What's he got to do with anything?"
"Never mind. Go on," Amy prompted. Maybe her fears about pubescent curiosity were unfounded after all.
Ada twisted, sat up, and took a deep breath, looking down in her lap at her hands. Finally, she whispered, "Lucy is wearing bras. Like, real ones."
"Oh!" Amy had to bite her lip then, to really stop from laughing. But she had promised, and if she laughed now she knew Ada would never tell her anything again, her trust shattered. "Okay. Well, Ada, that's not surprising. Many girls are starting to develop breasts at her age. She'll be twelve this summer, you know."
"But I'm thirteen now!" Ada said with a fresh sob, and Amy reached for her hand. It was true; Ada had no breasts at all. She wore a camisole or those flat crop tops under her shirts for modesty, but never a real bra.
"Sweetheart, I know. Just because here has been a historical shift in the onset of puberty, it is still perfectly normal for females to experience the various landmarks up until the age of sixteen -"
"I know the science, Mom," Ada growled.
Amy nodded. "Of course you do. I'm just saying that Lucy has different genetics than you. Look at Aunt Bernadette. And then look at your father's family, who you clearly take after physically. It is only logical that Lucy would develop larger breasts than you."
"But what if I never get any boobs? I'm flat as a pancake! What if I look like Dad my entire life?" Ada asked.
"Well, your father is quite the catch and a very fine physical specimen -"
"Mom!" Ada yelled, looking up.
"Okay, okay." Amy took a deep breath. "But it doesn't matter what you look like. You're so very intelligent and unique and inventive, and you should always be so proud of your mind above all else -"
"But I'm not pretty. You never use the word the pretty. You never tell me I'm pretty." Ada pulled away from her and curled up against her headboard, burying her face in her hands.
"Oh, Ada, I -" Amy faltered. It was true. She believed so strongly in convincing her daughter - in convincing any young woman - that her might was her intelligence, not her physical attributes, that she had never praised or criticized Ada on the basis of her looks. As long as her personal hygiene was in order, Amy only asked and commented on how things made her feel, what she thought about them.
But Ada, oh! her darling Ada, was beautiful. Even though, thanks to Sheldon's never-ending love and appreciation of her body, Amy had mostly made peace with her middle-age spread, she felt dumpy next to her gorgeous, gangly child. Amy's hair had never been so bright, her legs had never been so long, her hips had never been so slender.
"Ada, sweetheart, I'm sorry. You are beautiful, you really are. I just wanted you to be proud of your mind, that's all. I didn't want you to feel that you had to alter your body in some way to fit societal norms or to impress some boy. But," Amy took a deep breath, "your body is lovely. It's exactly what I would have wanted. You're so tall and thin, just like a model, and you can wear anything you want, even these absurd harem pants, and somehow manage to pull it off."
"Really?" Ada asked, lowering her hands.
"Yes, of course." Amy put her hand on Ada's knee and squeezed gently. "But please promise me that you'll love all of yourself, not just your body. I want you to look in the mirror and be confident, yes, but also for what you cannot see, hiding there beneath this hair." Amy reached up to brush a lock away from Ada's face.
She remembered suddenly, laying in her own bed, her mother stroking her hair in exactly the same manner. How odd. Even as an adult, when she recalled her teenage fights with her mother, she still thought her mother had never understood her. But now, remembering her mother doing something that would not have come naturally to her, Amy wondered if she's been unfair to her for too many years.
"Is that all you're upset about?" Amy asked softly.
"Yes. Why?" Ada's eyebrows dipped.
"I just didn't know if something happened between you and Jacob . . . or if you were hoping that something would happen -"
"Mom!" Ada yelled, turning up her nose.
"Sweetheart, you're a lovely young lady and he's a young man and it's very normal if your hormones are leading to you have sexual -"
"Gross!" Ada pushed Amy's hand off her knee. "No, no, no. It's Jacob! Never in a million years!"
"Ada -"
"You'll never understand me!" Ada wailed and flopped over on her pillow again. "Just go away."
"I'm trying -"
"Go away, you're just making everything worse!"
Sighing deeply, Amy got up to leave her. She didn't want to leave her beautiful, crying daughter alone, especially as she still thought there must be some other under current to make Ada get this worked up, but experience had taught her when to let it be. Turning at the last moment, she saw Belle curl up tight against Ada's leg and even the cat sent a stink eye in Amy's direction. Apparently she was outnumbered. She sighed again and left, shutting Ada's door behind her.
Once she was in the hallway, she paused to lean against the wall, letting herself calm down before she returned to Sheldon. It would do no good to get him upset in addition tonight, and certainly not when Amy herself could not fully explain this weird sense she had. Regardless, he was probably going to be upset enough by what she decided, standing there, taking deep breaths and thinking.
When she rounded the corner from the hallway, Sheldon was sitting in his spot and the television was on, but Amy knew without asking, without even thinking about it, that he wasn't watching it. Even though she was certain the softer words couldn't have been heard through the walls, the door was not shut and he might have heard Ada's muffled yells from down the hallway. His faced turned sharply towards hers, expectant and concerned.
"She's fine," Amy said, going to stand near him. "Just teenage problems." She paused to think and that gave Sheldon the opening to speak.
"Teenage problems? I'm curious why you think that explains everything. I was a teenager once, too, and I was delightful."
Amy ignored it and took deep breath. "I have something to tell you, and I'm only going to say it once." Sheldon's eyebrows went up. "Additionally, I'm only telling you this because I know you sometimes assist in doing Ada's laundry if she's busy, even though she's supposed to be doing her own laundry now that she's in high school. But you will not udder a single word about it, most especially to Ada." Sheldon's eyebrows went down in confusion. "I am taking Ada shopping this weekend and we are buying her bras."
"Wh -"
"No." Amy put her finger out. "This conversation is over."
"But -"
"Over, Sheldon. Cease and desist."
"A-"
"Not. Another. Sound."
Sheldon exhaled forcefully and turned his head away from her. "Am I allowed to ask what happened to my little girl?" he muttered.
Smiling and softening, Amy sat down on the sofa next to him and put her hand on his arm. "She's growing up. It happens."
He nodded softly, and Amy leaned over to kiss his shoulder through his tee shirts. "I miss her, too." Amy sighed. "Although I am glad the preteen years are behind us."
Turning his head, he reached to put his hand over hers. "I suppose if we're discussing teenagers and their angst, we ought to have Book Club."
Amy smiled. "Yes, let's. Although I'm concerned from the way you phrased that you didn't care for this book."
"Au contraire. I liked it," Sheldon said. "It made me sad, though."
"Sad at the ending?" Amy asked, as she shifted on the sofa, settling in for a deep conversation, for one of her favorite activities with her husband.
"No - well, yes, of course. But," Sheldon shrugged, "I didn't like reading about Eleanor's home."
"Oh." Amy's mind glanced over the events of the summer in Texas that Ada had broken her arm, such indelible happenings that they always leapt first to her mind when she thought about Sheldon's childhood home. "It was never as bad as that," she said softly.
"No, it wasn't. My father was never violent. And even George . . . it was mild in comparison. It's just," he took a deep breath, "it's humbling to realize that someone has it much worse. And that it's not always fiction."
Amy shook her head and looked down. "I know what you mean. All the high school bullying here . . . it hurt all over again."
"Oh, Amy," Sheldon said, his fingertips lifting up her chin. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought it up."
"No, it's good you did. It's an important element to the story, it's essential to the plot. And," she gave a small smile to reassure him, "I think it's an example of what an extremely talented writer Rainbow Rowell is. That she could make both of us feel those emotions all over again, just as deeply as we did the first time. I felt like . . . like she was able to open up my chest and pour all the hurt directly into my heart."
Sheldon raised his eyebrows. "That's very . . . I want to say hippy-dippy, but I'll say poetic because I love you."
She smiled. "Whatever you call it, it's the truth. I loved this book."
"What was your favorite part?" Sheldon asked.
It seemed the melancholy was behind them for the evening, and Amy was pleased. "This." She reached for her iKindle, which was sitting on the coffee table. Of course. Sheldon would have moved in preparation for Book Club. But when? While she was talking to Ada? Did he know her well enough to know Book Club was a balm for so many types of ache? She smiled. Of course he did.
Still smiling, she read, "'Then he slid the silk and his fingers into her open palm. And Eleanor disintegrated . . . Disintegrated. Like something had gone wrong beaming her onto the Starship Enterprise. If you've ever wondered what that feels like, it's a lot like melting - but more violent. Even in a million different pieces, Eleanor could still feel Park holding her hand. Could still feel his thumb exploring her palm. She sat completely still because she didn't have any other option. She tried to remember what kind of animals paralyzed their prey before they ate them . . . Maybe Park had paralyzed her with his ninja magic, his Vulcan handhold, and now he was going to eat her. That would be awesome.'"
Looking up shyly, not because it was salacious or because she was embarrassed by Sheldon's piercing blue gaze, but because she knew her cheeks were flushing because it was just so true, she whispered, "It's exactly how I felt that day on your sofa when Howard was lifting off into space."
"'As soon as he touched her, he wondered how he'd gone this long without doing it. He rubbed his thumb through her palm and up her fingers, and was aware of her every breath. Maybe, he thought now, he just didn't recognize all those other girls. The way a computer drive will spit out a disk if it doesn't recognize the formatting. When he touched Eleanor's hand, he recognized her. He knew,'" Sheldon recited back, a slight flush creeping into his own face, his hand reaching for hers as he'd spoke, his long fingers brushing her palm, trailing along her own digits, sending sparks along her arm.
"Yes." Amy nodded. "Exactly like that."
"I've always wondered what beaming up would feel like," Sheldon whispered, not breaking his gaze. "And now I know. It would feel like touching you."
Her breath caught in her throat, the world stilled around her, and Amy only managed a squeak. Her heart pounded in a way she was certain it had not pounded since she was a teenager herself. She was also unsure what had overtaken Sheldon, if some sort of time portal had opened up on their couch and if they had been transported back to 1996, where they were both young enough to say foolish and preposterous things like that and believe it, believe it with every fiber of their beings.
"Do you -" she faltered, unsure of breaking the moment "- do you think it's all a bit too much, a bit too unrealistic?"
Sheldon sat back, and she cursed herself. "That a transporter malfunction and holding hands feel the same? Most certainly. To beam up is really a transmission of subatomic particles and energy across a subspace domain -"
"No, I meant . . . the sheer force of their emotions."
"Oh." Sheldon paused. "I think parts were. They were sixteen, and it's my understanding that most sixteen year olds feel that their first relationship is perfect, that it's the one that's going to last the rest of their lives. I'm actually surprised you didn't bring up Eleanor's comment that it's not just that she likes Park, but that she lives for him, that she needs him to save her."
"Well," Amy sat back herself, the spell officially broken now, "a part of me, of course, doesn't like that statement at all. One should never live entirely for someone else. You should live for yourself and if that other person truly loves you, they love you for that reason. There is a part of me that realizes that's a horrible message to be sending to teenage girls." Sheldon nodded. "But . . . Park does save her. Literally. He really does give her the will to live in the sense of getting away from a life that would have broken her, although broken doesn't seem like a strong enough word in this context. Crushed her completely, maybe."
"Park needs her, too, at that time in his life. Although his home life is much better, he doesn't seem to have much drive or interest in anything. She gives him something to fight for," Sheldon said.
"Yes, I agree." She paused. "I don't think it would have lasted, really. I think they just needed each other that year. It's alluded to, I think, near the end." She looked back down at her iKindle and found the quote she had marked. "'Not forever, not for good. Probably just temporarily. But you saved my life, and now I'm yours. The me that's me right now is yours. Always.'"
"That's the problem, though. If Ada has taught me one thing recently it's that teenagers are very confusing creatures, and they're always changing," Sheldon said. "I don't think I ever recognized that until now. It frightens me. It's not that I'm frightened you won't soothe her when she's upset or that she's experiencing puberty, it's that I just don't understand what she's feeling."
Amy squeezed his hand. She had not expected that turn in the conversation, but perhaps it was only reasonable. "I don't either, really, all the time. Ada is - I hope - experiencing a very different adolescence than I was. You know if I could I would make everything easy and simple for her, that she'd never have any heartache. But I don't think we can. Perhaps that's another theme of this book, that every teenager has their own version of pain. For Eleanor, of course, it's more overt, her home life and the bullying at school. But Park feels pain at home, too, because he feels misunderstood and lost, whether or not we adult readers see it that way."
Sheldon shook his head. "I thought I liked this book, now I'm not so sure."
"Because it makes you think? Or feel deeply? Or frightened that we won't always be able to save Ada from every heartache?" Amy asked.
"I'm never afraid to think," was his only reply, which told Amy everything she needed to know. She smiled. She wanted to get back to that moment, the one earlier, when they were holding hands and sending out enough sparks to light up the room. "Since you love all the other sci-fi metaphors, how about this one: '"You can be Han Solo," he said, kissing her throat. "And I'll be Boba Fett. I'll cross the sky for you.'"
"It sounds nice," Sheldon replied, "but Han Solo and Boba Fett didn't have that kind of relationship."
"No, I guess not." Amy chuckled, although she was still a little disappointed that she couldn't get him to gaze at her so hungrily again. "But the point is that he'd cross the sky for her."
"If you're doubting, I'd cross the sky for you," he said softly, and she saw the flare in his eyes.
"I never doubted it. I promise I'd cross the sky for you, too." She reached a finger out and skimmed the top of his tee shirt. "'There's a place on his chest, just below his throat, that makes her want to keep promises. There's only one of him.'"
Sheldon leaned closer, and picked up a lock of her hair. "'The first time he'd held her hand, it felt so good that it crowded out all the bad things. It felt better than anything had ever hurt. The first time he'd touched her hand, he'd known.'"
The kiss was just as good as she'd hoped it would be, warm and soft and fresh, like a first kiss, a kiss of promises to come. Her wonderful, handsome, intelligent Sheldon, still the same man she'd loved for all these years. But also softer now, more open to airing his feelings with her. The man she'd loved for ages. The man she fell in love with all over again, in a different way, every single day. There was only one of him and he was all hers.
She wrapped her arms around him, and it felt just like disintegrating.
The corresponding After Dark chapter is Chapter 53: Boobs.
