Life After Genius Read Free Page B

merchandise. With columns of numbers that need to be added and subtracted, multiplied and divided. After running through the basics, Mead’s father hands him a pile of balance sheets and asks if he wouldn’t mind looking them over and checking for errors. “After all,” his father says, “you’re the mathematician.”
    Mead is offended. Is this what his father thinks he was doing up there in college all this time? Adding and subtracting simple columns of numbers? Well, he couldn’t be more wrong. Mead spent most of his time thinking in the fourth dimension, a concept around which he doubts his father could even begin to wrap his mind. But then Mead catches himself with the realization that he is directing his anger at the wrong person —again —that his father has not a clue that his request is insulting, because all he knows is this store, that furniture out there, these columns of numbers in this ledger book. And they mean as much to him as the zeros of the zeta function mean to Mead.
    Meant.
    “Sure, Dad,” he says. “I’d love to.” And the thing is, it actually ends up being kind of fun. Playing with numbers. Like hanging out with old and trusted friends. Everything else in Mead’s head —all thoughts of the dean and Herman Weinstein and the presentation that never quite happened —empty out to make room for those numbers. And before Mead knows it, two hours have passed and he has found a dozen mistakes that add up to over two thousand dollars’ worth of outstanding moneys owed to Fegley Brothers Inc.
    “Well, would you look at that,” his father says, holding up the ledger book so Mead’s uncle can see it with his own two eyes, the man having just emerged from the basement where he spent the better part of the morning with Delia Winslow. His eyes are blurry and unfocused like a mole’s; his body ripe with a mixture of sweat and formaldehyde. “Look, Martin, at what Teddy did.”
    “That’s great,” Uncle Martin says. But he barely gives the ledger book a glance. Pushes past Mead into the bathroom behind the office to take a shower. Slams the door shut.
    O N HIS FATHER’S SUGGESTION, Mead heads over to the five-and-dime to pick up sandwiches at the lunch counter. As if saving the family business two thousand dollars on his first day on the job isn’t enough. As if fetching food might better salve his uncle’s still-open wounds.
    His first day on the job. That’s sort of what this is, isn’t it? The first day of the rest of Mead’s life and all that crap. Wow. This is not at all how Mead thought his life would turn out —and it most certainly isn’t what his mother had planned for her genius son —but it’s okay. There are a lot worse things in this world a person could be than a furniture salesperson slash undertaker. Like for example, a parasite. As defined on page 965 of the College Edition Dictionary: par•a•site (pár sı t), n. 1. Herman Weinstein. That’s what it says. Swear to god. Or at least it will in the next edition, because Mead intends to submit it.
    The counterman recognizes the sandwich order Mead places and says, “Hey, I know who you are. You’re Lynn Fegley’s son, Teddy.”
    Not in the mood for idle chitchat, Mead says, “Yes, and if you know that you probably also know how testy my uncle gets after an embalming.”
    “I sure do,” the counterman says. “Your order will be right up.”
    Mead gazes out the window to avoid further conversation. It’s a habit he picked up in junior high, after he got promoted from fifth grade to seventh, as a way to ignore the spitballs and rubber bands that flew past his head or pinged off his eyeglasses. A way to pretend that he did not hear his peers saying things like, “Do you still wet the bed, Ted?” He has found that people tend to leave him alone when he is gazing out a window, as if they are afraid to interrupt his train of thought, as if the young Theodore Mead Fegley might be on the brink of making some