The past 23 days had been a complete and utter disaster. Sheldon Cooper's long fingers twisted the doorknob as soon as he heard a knock on the door. 12:00PM exactly, he noted as he glanced at his watch. Things may just be turning around, as this candidate possessed a few qualities he already found admirable, some from the e-mail exchange and now with the exact attendance.
Sheldon held his apartment door open just enough for his slender frame to fill the gap. And here before him, lo and behold, another disappointment. He could already feel his orbicularis oculi twitching.
"You are Alex Fischer?" he asked the rather short, disheveled dirty blond-haired woman standing outside his doorway wiping the knuckles of her left hand with a disinfecting wipe.
Looking like the mythical pixie, the never-going-to-be-a-roommate extended her hand as she replied genially, "Yes."
Her voice in that one word sounded like one of the prostitutes Sheldon had caught Wolowitz having webcam relations with.
Sheldon, wide-eyed, looked to her hand, her face, her hand. He blinked slowly as he stated, "But… you're a female."
"You're rather observant. What with the makeup and the curvaceous frame and feminine wiles, who would have guessed?" she offered jokingly, one side of her narrow-lipped mouth coiling. "Alex is a nickname for Alexandra."
Sheldon stared at her openly as if he were peering into her brain and deciphering her personality just from his physical analysis. She waited a good thirty seconds before he chuffed a laugh.
"Oh yes, I see. Sarcasm. Excuse me, I am just becoming acclimated with the usage."
Seeing that he was not going to shake her extended hand, Alex reached into the confines of the bag draped across her chest. She placed the sanitation wipe into a double zip-loc bag she retrieved, sealed it shut, and returned it to its origin.
Sheldon caught the occurrence and raised a curious eyebrow. "Why do you place the used disinfectant wipe into a zip-loc bag?"
"The germs are captured on the wipe. When I return home, I don't want to have to touch something already smeared with germs when I go to throw it away. This way the used wipe doesn't contaminate my belongings."
"I rather like that idea," Sheldon commended reluctantly with the trace of a smile. He cleared his throat. "Back to business. What is your occupation?"
Alex smiled, revealing perfect straight, well-kept pearly teeth. "I'm an art historian, restorer, collector, all around art-a-holic."
"Oh, dear Lord!" Sheldon gasped and shook his head fervently left to right. "The liberal arts. Well I am sorry to inform you, Alexandra, that I don't see this working out. I don't understand how I could have made such an egregious mistake. I assumed, based primarily on the robotic and precise email response to my ad, that you would be a male with scientific inclinations."
"You know what they say about assuming."
"No, I do not."
A trio of footsteps nearby had both parties turning in wonder at the intrusion. A flurry of voices came to a halt. The male portion of their gang stood at the top steps with mouths agape, staring back and forth between Sheldon and Alex.
"Uh, Sheldon," said a small man Alex internally compared to a male bird with bright colors, a hooked nose, and short in stature. She was taller than him only by a handful of inches and he seemed to use the height to his advantage, staring at her breasts rather than her face. "Who's your friend?"
"I'm Alex," she offered with a smile.
"Hi, I'm Leonard," offered a bespectacled man with narrow eyes, hair slicked back, and a nervous smile. He wrung his hands anxiously. He jerked his thumb towards the short one and a foreign man that kept his eyes on everything except Alex. "This is Howard and Raj. Are you Sheldon's new roommate?"
Alex turned her attention to Sheldon's face. He was practically shooting lasers out of his eyes in Leonard's direction. Something about the moment reminded her of a highly dissatisfied Darth Vader.
"Not quite," the new girl replied. "He was just interviewing me and seems unhappy with the fact that I am a female art historian."
"Sheldon, can you at least let us, and Alex, inside so we're not loitering out here in the hall?" Leonard piped up.
Sheldon stepped back from the frame to allow them into the apartment. Alex took the lead, a very observant Howard walked directly behind her and, as Leonard passed, Sheldon murmured, "You just had to appeal to my law-abiding side."
"Sheldon," Leonard scoffed. "I don't think I've ever appealed to any of your sides."
"True enough." Nodding a small amount after a brief moment of introspection, Sheldon followed the group and sat in his spot on the couch.
Leonard offered Alex the chair and pulled up Sheldon's office chair to be included in the circle.
"So, Alex," Howard said, turning to face her, "I'm obligated to inform you that you will want to run in the opposite direction. Or, perhaps as I did, travel to outer space and leave the planet he occupies. Sheldon isn't a member of our species. We're not quite sure what he is, but what we do know is that he is impossible to live with."
Leonard raised a finger and interjected, "Wait a second. I lived with him for seven years, so I wouldn't say it's impossible." He lowered his voice and hissed at Howard, "We're not trying to scare her away, are we?"
"I would ask you to retract that statement, Howard," Sheldon said.
Howard raised two eyebrows high into the confines of his old-fashioned haircut. "Fine. Alex, it's possible to live with Sheldon. That is, if you've familiarized yourself with the inner workings of the sixth floor of a mental hospital."
"Isolation?" Leonard guessed and Howard grinned, obviously pleased with himself, and nodded.
Alex flexed her fingers on the arm of the chair, her oval eyes traveling over each of the men's faces as she explained, "I knew what I was getting into when I emailed Dr. Cooper. His specifications said nothing about gender. He asked for someone willing to provide transport to the university each day, which happens to be along the route I take to get to the museum. His ad requested a subject agreeable to meeting certain codes of conduct and cleanliness through a signed contract. In my last living situation, I had redacted a similar agreement. The ad suggested someone with at least a mild comic book addiction and knowledge of various facts of beloved science-fiction characters and shows."
"And you do? Like comics and sci-fi?" Leonard questioned, his eyebrows arched and head tilted forward to peek over the top of his thick glasses. Disbelief and dawning admiration warred across his features.
"Yes. I have noted that Sheldon is wearing a shirt decorated with the original Flash symbol. He's one of my favorite superheroes."
Howard and Raj glanced meaningfully at one another and Leonard blinked rapidly in Alex's direction before turning to scrutinize his former roommate. Sheldon's mouth dropped open and he looked helpless as he looked between Leonard and Alex. His eyes narrowed as he seemed to make some sort of internal agreement of duping her out of the lead for roommate. "You... Well! Which of the Flash characters do you deem the best?"
With only a handful of seconds of thought, she replied, "Considering my middle name is Iris…"
Sheldon gasped. She did have knowledge of the Flash saga.
"Barry Allen will always be my favorite."
The three men turned their stares to Sheldon as Alex waited for his response. Their gazes were weighted and suggestive of allowing this girl the position.
"Excellent answer," Sheldon said without an ounce of enthusiasm. He studied his fingernails.
The quiet Indian cupped his hand over his mouth and spoke into the engineer's ear. Howard turned his face to Raj and answered the quiet question, "No, I think we're all waiting to see if Sheldon is going to be smart enough to let her stay."
"How many have you interviewed so far, Sheldon?" Leonard inquired, tilting his head and placing a thinking fist to his chin.
Sheldon turned his head to the side, obviously trying to disallow Alex from hearing the answer, and murmured softly, "Seventy-two."
"Did you just say seventy-two people?" Alex asked incredulously, her strange colored eyes wide with disbelief.
Turning his gaze to Alex and her kohl-lined violet eyes, Sheldon raised his voice and pronounced slowly, "Oh, I apologize. I did not realize you were hard of hearing. Is this better?"
The bespectacled Leonard shook his head at his former roommate. "No, Sheldon. I think she meant that she's surprised you've interviewed so many people and you're acting like you're not going to let her live here." Alex nodded in agreement. "She does meet all your standards. And, if I remember correctly, you did once say seventy-three is the best number."
Dr. Cooper clucked his tongue defensively, his shoulders hunching as he whined, "That is true. But Leonard—"
"Sheldon," Leonard exclaimed, eyeing the said physicist sharply. "May I have a word with you in the kitchen?"
Both parties stood—Sheldon doing so as if he were a sulking child—followed by Howard and Raj, and drifted to the kitchen. Alex shrugged her shoulders and toyed with her smartphone while the boys spoke amongst themselves.
"You're going to let her move in here, Sheldon," Leonard almost ordered the much taller, scrawny scientist. "She meets all of your standards and seems to be… well, a little neurotic."
"Just the way you like 'em," Howard interrupted, his fingers tugged into his belt loops as he bounced on his feet.
"She's pretty," Raj offered.
"You don't understand. If my mother knew about this—" Sheldon began.
"Your mother knows that no sane woman would ever engage you in anything besides maybe a game of chess or Battleship, Sheldon. For heaven's sakes, you dated Amy for nearly four years and you barely inched towards second base!" Leonard reminded him, stabbing his finger at the kitchen table. "I don't think I have to be the one telling you that the math would suggest you get your ass in there and tell her you want her to move in!"
The gang could see Sheldon's defeat in his stance, his arms hanging limply and a stamp of the foot. "Fine! But if she gets three strikes and doesn't pass the roommate exam…"
"We need another girl in the group," Raj insisted, his stooped head leaning forward and flickering gaze between Sheldon and Howard. "Amy, Burnadette, and Penny have formed their own circle. We need eggs to break up this sausage fest!"
"We don't have any saus—" Sheldon took a small step back and narrowed his eyes keenly on Raj's face. "Oh yes, I see: synonyms for the phallus and ovaries. If I choose not to have her as a roommate?"
"Then I'm pretty sure we will see that as a sign we would need to call your mother to tell her you've finally cannonballed right into crazyville," Howard replied, snorting a little at his own joke.
"You wouldn't," Sheldon gasped.
Leonard crossed his arms over his chest, blinking a brief series of rapid shutters, and uttered, "Try me."
The tallest threw his hands into the air and stomped into the living room. The guys followed like ducklings in a formation and then huddled behind him. He stood in front of Alex and announced, "Fine. You can move in. But you better be cautious. I have an eidetic memory. I will find a mistake if you make one and the penalty is… death by Leonard's lasers."
"Sheldon!" Leonard reprimanded.
"Fine." Sheldon looked at his shoes and looked properly abashed. "There are rigorous tests you must pass if you break anything in the roommate agreement, up to and including a fine or a class in proper roommate behaviors."
Alex stood up, smiling. She clapped her hands together. "Excellent. I love a structured environment. Should we go over the paperwork now?"
"Hold onto your panty hose, Woman. I have to redraft the current one to include all the issues that come with a female with ovaries and such."
The woman's smile was a little slower coming this time, but she nodded. "I will be here tomorrow at 2:30 PM with two moving men that I will be observing at all times to make sure they don't steal anything. Goodbye Sheldon. Leonard, Howard, Raj nice to meet you all. Take care."
She left with a small click in the door, taking the vague smell of vanilla perfume with her. Sheldon collapsed into his spot.
"How could you even think to not let her live here? She seems smart, knows comics, and she's ho—" Leonard cleared his throat. "She is nice looking."
"Who knows? Maybe Raj will finally get a chance with a girl now that he can talk to them," Howard chirped. Raj smiled appreciatively at his long-time best friend.
"You all are going to end up regretting this," Sheldon reprimanded the group, eyes mostly on Leonard's face.
He couldn't have been further from the truth.