Rosalind showed up at Leonard and Sheldon's apartment with several dozen chocolate chip cookies: "I didn't know what to bring."
Leonard smiled, welcoming. "This is terrific. Look, even Sheldon is interested." He was, too; interested enough to get up from his desk and take one. "Sheldon, these are for later." Leonard slapped his hand away, but Sheldon got a cookie anyway.
Leonard realized that the burden of polite conversation was going fall on him. Howard was in a bad mood, and his conversation with women was scarcely more polite than Sheldon's, and Raj was excepted, even though this whole evening had been his idea. "So, you're in the English department…" he started.
She played the game of polite conversation well. "Yes, although my Ph.D. is in Comparative Literature. I was lucky to get this position; the previous professor disappeared a week before classes started, and I was already an adjunct, so I just stepped right in."
Sheldon scoffed: "Comparative Literature? What do you compare it to?"
She sighed, and addressed him directly. "My dissertation compares early modernist literature in the US, Brazil, and Mexico. If you would like a detailed lecture on why Machado de Assis is better than Henry James, I can give it to you, but I doubt you'd want to hear it."
The room was quiet – even Sheldon was nonplussed by her direct approach - but Raj whispered to Howard, who spoke, "Raj wants to."
She smiled, less defensive. "Short answer? Machado is funny," she replied to Raj. "So, who's the funniest physicist?"
The men argued amongst themselves while she sat back and watched them. Sheldon insisted that physics isn't funny, while Howard and Leonard each had his own candidate. Raj just smiled at Rosalind, impressed by the way that she deflected Sheldon's criticism.
Dinner continued; everyone took turns serving themselves from the takeout boxes. Once the food was put away, Leonard and Sheldon each pulled out a few comic books to show Rosalind. She handled them carefully, taking notes with her pencil, occasionally losing herself in a few pages of story. The men made conversation among themselves; eventually, Raj whispered to Howard again, and he addressed Rosalind, who was quietly studious at Leonard's desk. "So what did you mean by Wednesday being your day off?"
Rosalind turned around. "I came back home from Penn almost two years ago because my mother was ill. She's gotten progressively worse. We knew she would, of course. We have hospice nurses in the day, but I spend most evenings with her. That's why I came home, after all. But we have the nurses in on Wednesday nights, too, so I can get out a little."
Leonard asked, "What about the rest of your family? What about your dad?"
"Well, he died several years ago, and my sister couldn't possibly get away from Boston. She has a law firm and a family. I was ABD, so I finished my dissertation here instead of in Philadelphia, picked up a little adjuncting, and then lucked into the full-time gig. I don't know what will happen when they complete the replacement search, of course; I've been short-listed as a courtesy, but that's no guarantee. Nor should it be. That's OK. I always have a backup plan."
She folded her notes and stood up from the desk. "Well, thanks for the help. And the dinner, and the hospitality."
Leonard replied, "Hey, it's still early. Stay a while. Do you like Firefly?"
Her eyes lit up. "Oh, yes. Back in PA, we used to celebrate the end of grading with a Firefly marathon every semester." She checked her watch. "I can stay. That would be lovely."
She moved the desk chair around behind the couch, resting her elbow on the couch and her chin on her hand. Within moments, Raj and Howard began to argue back in forth, whispering. Rosalind noticed that no one else seemed to notice, so she asked Leonard and Sheldon: "Do they do this a lot, bickering like an old married couple?"
Sheldon glared at her – she was interrupting the television - but Leonard answered. "Yes, only they do it out loud when there are no women present."
"So, is it cute or annoying?" She asked.
Sheldon cleared his throat, but Leonard replied, "A little of both, actually."
Rosalind leaned over behind Sheldon. "I'm sorry to disturb you. I always forget how much difficulty the male brain has with multitasking."
Before he could reply, she was patting Howard on the shoulder. "Don't worry about it."
"What?" Howard hadn't been paying any attention what was going on around him.
"He wants you to move so I can sit on the couch beside him, right?"
Howard nodded.
"And you're saying that if he thinks I should sit on the couch, he should move."
Howard nodded again.
"Both of you, stay put." She leaned over and pulled the throw pillow from Howard's lap, then walked around the couch to sit on the floor, leaning against Raj's knees.
"Everybody happy now?" Rosalind asked.
Leonard was chuckling to himself. "I like you, Rosalind. You can stay."