19
Entering the basement of her apartment building Los Robles Avenue through an old underground access tunnel and then levitating up to her floor through the ruined elevator shaft, Bridget peeked out of the shaft first before entering her apartment. She had snuck back home successfully once again, changed clothes and was in a nice jacket and dress when Howard and Bernadette came by to take her and Leonard off to dinner. In true Sheldon fashion, Dr. Cooper failed to understand their motives or their intentions to dine without him and tried to tag along, even going as far as having Raj accompany him as his other to force his way into their double date. Howard, however, was prepared for this. He had Raj take Sheldon for pizza at the local Giacomo's Pizza Place then covertly secreted the four of his company off to dinner at the Worsham's in nearby Echo Park. At the end of the evening, they all feigned ignorance of their duplicity to ditch Sheldon, but Raj immediately got it and wanted a triple date as soon as he eventually and hopefully got a girlfriend or his sister Priya came for a visit. Bridget and Leonard meanwhile felt an emotional tie once again, and this time it wasn't interrupted by Bridget vanishing from the room for twelve to fifteen minutes to powder her nose or make a phone call. Leonard never questioned the transparency of her lies; he was just glad to be around her in a social setting. By the following day, he was still dreaming of being her number one even as Sheldon filled his life with more meandering diatribe over the versions of fictional characters from a non-existent universe.
"How can you not like Val Kilmer as Batman?" Raj was stuck in another Sheldon debate.
"Show me in the DC Universe one place where Batman's body armor has nipples on it!" Sheldon followed behind them on the stairs of their apartment building as they descended down to the lobby.
"Why are we still debating this?" Howard came down before the two. "Look, Christian Bale is the first guy to play Batman in more than two movies. He practically helped reawaken the franchise after George Clooney."
"I didn't think Clooney was that bad." Leonard mumbled out loud. "I mean, if he had Tim Burton's vision and direction and someone other than Uma Thurman as…"
"Dude, please tell me you're not knocking Uma Thurman…" They descended to the second floor. "She was the only thing worth seeing in that movie."
"Two words,…" Howard sounded upset. "Alicia Silverstone! She's way hotter than Uma Thurman."
"Why are we even mentioning Batman Four?" Sheldon spoke up. "Christian Bale defined the Batman character more than anyone else."
"But only after Tim Burton did all the hard work to develop Batman for the movies." Leonard spoke up. "And besides, I think Christian Bale's version is too talky."
"Too talky?" Howard looked at him. "What do you mean by that?"
"I like my Batman to be silent and brooding." Leonard added. "Look, all I'm saying is that Michael Keaton under Tim Burton's direction was the best overall Batman." Leonard debated.
"In what universe?" Raj argued back.
"Can we all agree that George Clooney's version was way below beneath even Adam West?" Sheldon iterated.
"Agreed!"
Howard suddenly stopped, drew silent and noticed an attractive redhead enter the building. Leonard and Raj noticed her as well, and Sheldon about to speak noticed their distraction and rolled his eyes in exasperated silence. Dressed in form-fitting khakis with a light blue dress jacket, the twenty-something beauty crossed the bottom of the stairs below them, passed through the entry hall and stood studying the mailboxes for a second. Howard's heart was beating faster for her female shape and her cascading curly red locks, but his brain was also finding her familiar and it wasn't until she turned around that he realized he was right.
"Kerry?"
"Howard?" Kerry shined a grin to him and gave him a peck to the cheek. "Oh my god…" They recognized each other from their on-line photos and came together to realize their familiarity with each other.
"What are you doing here?" The suave engineer was entranced to see her beauty in person.
"Well, I'm here looking…"
"Howard…" Leonard was also entranced by the crimson-haired Detroit native. "Don't be stingy. Who's your friend?" Raj meanwhile fell back into his selective mutism before Kerry while Sheldon once again rolled his eyes in annoyed derision at their distraction of the opposite sex.
"Oh, this is Kerry…" Howard was barely remembering he had a girlfriend right now. "She's a friend from my Supergirl chat site. Kerry, these are my friends, Leonard and Howard, and that's Sheldon."
"Hi…" Kerry smiled demurely to meet Howard in presence. Meeting him in person was a mere lark, a chance of fate. She was in Los Angeles with her employer and mentor, Elaine Flockhart, in only an unofficial capacity to represent a client trying to claim a reputed family member's inheritance. On the side, she was tracking down Bridget. A credit search revealed that Bridget owned this building as Linda Kent as well as the restaurant where she pretended to have a job. A waitress at the restaurant, Bernadette Rostenkowski, even further identified Bridget as her best friend and gave Kerry this address. Hoping to pretend to be the cousin of Penny Parker from Detroit, Kerry anxiously and nervously built up the nerve to finally confront her sister in person.
"So, Kerry," Leonard grinned to meet Kerry. "What do you do for a living?" He tried to impress her. "I'm a physicist."
"Oh…" Kerry was a bit unprepared to be hit on. "Uh, I'm a third year law student studying to be a lawyer."
"A lawyer…" Sheldon said it as if it wasn't a real word. "And your parents aren't offended that you're in such a low-earning career choice."
Kerry slowly turned her head to him and tried to figure him out in her head.
"Don't mind him…" Leonard tried to apologize. "He's socially-challenged."
"He sounds crazy to me."
"I'm not crazy." Sheldon looked upset. "My mother had me tested!"
Raj grinned and smelled her perfume. Kerry suddenly felt as if she was in a bad TV series on the Fox Network.
"Anyway…" Kerry tried to remain cordial. "I'm here to visit someone." She paused. "Penny Parker?"
"She lives right across from us." Leonard wanted to escort her.
"Are we going to the comic book store?" Sheldon interrupted.
"Let me show you the way." Leonard turned to walk with Kerry up the stairs.
"Wait a minute, she's my friend…" Howard and Raj went behind them.
"Apparently not…" Sheldon noticed the guys heading back up the stairs led by their hormones stimulated by the opposite sex and sighed defeatedly. He could leave them behind and go on without them, but he didn't drive and he wasn't allowed on the bus.
"So, Kerry," Leonard grinned to her on the second floor landing. "How do you know Penny?"
"It's kind of complicated." Kerry passed the second floor elevator doors and ascended the stairs to the third floor. She was slowly realizing the guys were enchanted to her and looked away secretly to appreciate the attention. As she looked to Raj, he alighted a big harmless grin at her and struggled with trying to know how to act around Penny's friend.
"Doesn't he talk?" They ascended the stairs around the elevator shaft and reached the third floor.
"He can, but he doesn't." Leonard responded.
"He has selective mutism." Sheldon spoke up a bit annoyed. "He can't talk around girls."
"Did Bridge… I mean, Penny do something to him."
"No, he's never been able to talk around girls." Howard stepped on the fourth floor first. "So, this is it…" He gestured to the door of Penny's apartment.
"Now that she has found her way," Sheldon once again tried to retain what power he thought he had over this group. "We will proceed to the comic book store to…" He watched as Howard knocked on Penny's door for Kerry. "And I guess not…"
Howard knocked again.
"Penny…" Sheldon mumbled uncontrollably, and Howard, Leonard, Raj and Kerry confusingly turned their heads to him in unison again to realize his OCD. In the apartment, Bridget sat on her bed rubbing and massaging her feet and catching her breath after a busy week. Major disasters were few and far between, but she'd had no visions of anything the police couldn't handle. Tired and hesitantly, she sighed briefly and rose after hearing the first knock and looked to the door to answer it on the second knock. As she crossed her living room, she heard the voices of the guys talking through the door.
"Do you think she's home?" Kerry asked Leonard.
"Oh, yeah…" Leonard spoke up. "Today's her day off from the Cheesecake Factory. She's almost always home."
"Cheesecake Factory?"
"Yeah," Howard beamed back to Kerry. "Yeah, she kind of works there." He grinned at her. "So, Kerry, do you have a boyfriend?"
"Why would you ask that?"
Inside the apartment, Bridget stopped and huddled behind the door. That was Kerry's voice! What was she doing here? Of all the times to show up, why did it have to be now? She froze trying to figure out her next move. She could duck out to avoid her, but her costume was down in the washing machine in the basement with her laundry and her next spare costume was in a secret room at Universal Studios.
"She's sure taking a long time answering the door." Kerry noticed.
"I know she's home." Sheldon spoke up. "I heard her get off her sofa."
"Damn his Vulcan ears!" Bridget screamed internally in her head. Her hesitancy turned to defeat, and she mentally and emotionally surrendered. "I'm sorry, Kerry…" She bemoaned under breath for what she was about to do to her sister. She postured a bit and reached to open the door.
"Hi, guys!" Her voice turned chipper and upbeat. "What's up?" She looked at Howard, Kerry and Leonard. Sheldon stood behind them at the elevator waiting to go to the comic book shop. Raj as usual was struck silent in her presence. Kerry's eyes alighted to finally find her sister. Just like Raj, she was struck silent in front of her. "Who's your friend?"
"What do mean who's our friend?" Leonard reacted confused. "Kerry, I thought you said you knew Penny."
Sheldon suddenly drew interested.
"Well, this suddenly turned not so boring after all!"
"Hi?" Kerry quickly forgot her deception upon facing her sister face to face after all these years apart and forced herself to speak. She had rehearsed this in her head. Originally, she was going to reach out and hug her sister and beg her to come home, but instead, her buried rage and angry feelings came back to her. She loved her sister, and wanted her back in her life, but all her buried anger raged back and came through her lips before she could stop them. "Hi? Is that all you can say?!"
"Uh…" Confused and unprepared, Bridget tried to keep up her deception to the confused faces of the guys. "Um… Hi-dokliy-okily?" She reacted as perplexed and mystified as the guys.
"Do you realize, Bridget, just how long I've been looking for you?" Kerry forced a gasp of relief. "I don't know if I should hit you or hug you." She felt a wave of relief coming over her. "I've missed you so much!" She reached out and hugged her sister and held on to her as tears came from her eyes. Bridget made her best confounded look and reacted unprepared which she actually was. She was not expecting Kerry to have a breakdown in front of the guys. Behind Kerry's back, she mystifyingly pointed at her and looked to the guys as if they had a better idea what was going on here.
"What just happened here?" Howard asked out loud.
"I'm not sure." Leonard was struck mute by the turn of events.
"Okay," Sheldon checked his watch. "In five minutes, I'm going to the comic book store whether you guys are with me or not."
"Sweetie…" Bridget continued acting aloof and even briefly rubbed Kerry's back. "I don't want to hurt your feelings, but… who do you think I am?" She reacted carefully to hide her identity not just from her sister but also from the guys.
"Bridget, please…" Kerry sniffed and looked from Howard and Leonard and back to Bridget. "Don't do this to me. I know why you're doing it, but just… don't send me away."
"Kerry…" Howard stopped trying to charm the attractive redhead. "Who do you think Penny is? Who's Bridget?"
"My sister…" Kerry confused. "Tell them, Bridget. Please tell them!"
Raj whispered in Howard's ear.
"No, I don't know what's going on either!" Howard snapped at his best friend.
Bridget just there with her mouth open trying to think of something to say. Her heart went out to Kerry, and she wanted to tell the truth, but this was too much to explain to too many people right now. Especially Leonard and the guys…
"You think Penny is your sister, Bridget?" Leonard spoke up. "Kerry, we've known Penny a long time…"
"Three years, five months and twenty-three days…" Sheldon spoke up.
"We've met her parents and her sister, Sabrina…" Leonard continued and recalled ruses and faked identities he believed were true. "I don't see how could she be related to you."
"Actually," Sheldon stepped forward. "Considering that Michigan was settled by mostly German settlers whose descendants would have emigrated to Nebraska, there is a very good chance that Penny and Kerry share a common ancestor." He stepped forward to take over the confusion. "Individuals of the same family tree are very much more likely to look alike. It was even used as a plot device in several old Sixties and Seventies TV shows."
"Sheldon…" Leonard groaned at his relentless and unwanted scientific observation.
"No," Kerry and Bridget locked eyes again. "Bridget… Please tell them who you are."
"I'm sorry, Terri, but…"
"Kerry!" Kerry screamed at her. "My name is Kerry! Kerry Hennessy!" She turned away from the door and pressed the button for the elevator trying to leave their confused faces then noticed the out of order sign. "Oh, what's the use?!" She looked back at the guys upset and emotional. "Why did I think this time was going to be any different?! You've conned me from the start, and you're still doing it!" Her breath started coming faster, her eyes filling with tears. "Now, you've just got more people to help you do it!" She turned and ran down the stairs bawling her eyes out; her heart was heavy with regret and pain as her feet carried her down the stairs.
"Whoa!" Howard was first to speak. "What the hell was that?" Internally, he was considering himself lucky to have not gotten into a relationship with that one.
"Penny," Leonard turned to Bridget. "She really thought you were her sister."
"I feel so sorry for her." Bridget told the truth. "I wish I could have helped her, but…" She reacted speechless and let the guys fill in the rest. Raj whispered in Howard's ear.
"Yes, we're still going to the comic book store!" Howard answered his query. Raj now drew quiet. Deep down, Bridget felt horrible. What could she do? How else could she have handled that? She looked down the stairs wanting to chase after her, but how would she explain her actions to the guys. They knew her as Penny Parker, a struggling actress from Nebraska. That had been her cover identity for over three years. How could she accept her sister in front of her and explain her existence. She looked to the guys and pulled her long blonde hair back.
"Excuse me, guys…" Her voice was slow and emotional. "But I've got to get my laundry."
Down stairs, Kerry stormed out of the apartment embarrassed, distraught and confused. She wasn't sure what to think. Her research and methodology was perfect… flawless. There was no doubt in her mind that Bridget and Penny were one and the same, but she saw the look in Penny's face. She did not know her. Was it an act or was it some kind of amnesia? She tried to flag down a cab from the curb that passed her without stopping. She flagged another one that pulled to the curb between two of the trees lining the sidewalk. The brakes on the blue cab squealed as they pulled up on her.
"Where to?" Cab driver Jimmy Karlen looked to Kerry getting in his back seat. It was nice and clean. Most cans were littered with debris or stained from hundreds of passengers. The seats were a light bluish-gray and a light in the ceiling lit up and went out as Kerry closed the door. Looking up with tears strewn-eyes, Kerry tried to choke back her pain and unhappiness.
"Tipton Hotel on Alhambra…" Her voice cracked with thick emotion. Pushing his flag down, Jimmy felt sorry for the girl. She looked about his daughter Halley's age. The tears were probably over a boy. He wanted to comfort her as one father looking over another daughter, but as he looked back to Kerry in the back seat, he noticed Kerry pull out her cell phone and hit a number. Bouncing from cell tower to satellite and then to a Detroit cell tower, the distressed and flustered redhead pined and trembled with unending trepidation. She had come all this way to face her sister. What had happened?
"Hi, this is Cate…" Her mother cell phone sent her to voice mail. "Leave me a message." The recording beeped. Her mother had to be on the clock at the hospital.
"Mom, I found Bridget…" Kerry responded with tears of mourning going down her face as her head collapsed against the door. "I think… but she did it to me again… She didn't want to talk to me. She practically tossed me out of her apartment and pretended she didn't know me. Please call me." She signed off and placed her phone back in her purse. Jimmy looked at her again.
"Is it a boy?" He wanted to help.
"If only it was that simple." Kerry commiserated. It was an eighteen-minute ride back to her hotel. Jimmy took the side roads around the highway and only got hit by a few lights. A few nice neighborhoods passed by them along with several of the same kind of businesses that Kerry had back home. In fact, if she didn't know better, she could have been in the Greenlawn area of Detroit. Jimmy tried to be helpful, and Kerry responded politely, but her mind was a million miles away wanting to move on without Bridget in her life. It was time to forget about her. As far as things were concerned, her sister died the night she watched her vanish into the rainy night sky those years before. As her hotel reared up, Kerry checked the meter and pulled twenty dollars to cover her 14.75 ride. Before the hotel, a bellboy opened her cab for her, and Kerry faked a grin to him then glided into the lobby behind a young man with his date. Pulling her hotel key from her purse, Kerry went straight for the elevators and slipped into the first one that opened, hitting the button for the fourteenth floor without paying much attention.
After her twelve-second vertical ascent, the doors opened again to another floor and Kerry marched forward in a daze. Her sister was gone. She never existed. Her life was moving on. She scanned her key to her room around the corner and entered, swinging the door behind her. Once inside, she collapsed in her chair emotionally spent, but the tears started again and kept coming. Holding her face, her legs awkwardly spread apart down from her knees, she cried and wept with tears running down her face and her chest pounding with sorrow. Her eyes were full of sadness and lonely sorrow. It was so hard to let go. She found her sister, or did she? Who the hell was Penny Parker, and why the hell did she look exactly like Bridget? She had parents. She had a sister. Where was Bridget?
"Kerry?"
The anguished redhead slowly looked up to the breeze from the open window. Standing in the flapping curtain before the window, Bridget stood there in her red and blues. The huge red "S" across her chest, the cape from her shoulders, she stood before her sister as she was.
"I'm sorry, Care Bear," Bridget's eyes were tearing up as well. "I didn't want to do that, but… I couldn't let Leonard and the guys know my secret."
Kerry's mouth dropped open to be looking once more at her sister. She was both scared and in awe. Slightly trembling, she tried to talk. Her heart was beating faster and faster, and then, her eyes rolled back and her body fell forward from the chair unconscious.