Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant - Anne Tyler [39]
Late in her senior year, she fell in love. She had been in love before, of course—once with an English major who’d grown too possessive, bit by bit; and once with a barrel-necked football star who seemed now, when she looked back, to be a symptom of some temporary insanity. But this was different. This was Harley Baines, a genius, a boy of such intelligence that even his smudged tortoiseshell glasses, pure white skin, and adenoidal voice struck awe in his classmates. He was not outside Jenny’s group so much as above it, beyond it—a group in himself. It was rumored that he could have had a Ph.D. at twelve but was kept from it by his parents, who wanted him to enjoy a normal childhood. Next year he’d be at Paulham University, outside Philadelphia, doing advanced research in the field of genetics. Jenny was going to Paulham too; she had just been accepted by its medical school. That was what made her notice Harley Baines. Secure in the center of her own noisy group (which would not be hers much longer, which would soon be scattered by graduation, leaving her defenseless), she looked across the campus and saw Harley Baines passing with his stork-like gait, wearing unstylish, pleated flannel trousers and a bulky pullover obviously knitted by his mother. His hair, which could have used a shampoo, was a particularly dense shade of black. She wondered if he knew she was entering Paulham. She wondered if he would care, if he found girls beneath his notice. Was he impervious? Unobtainable? Her friends had to call her name several times, laughing at her bemused expression.
It was the spring of 1957—an unusually late and gradual spring. Professors opened the classroom windows with long, hooked poles, and the smell of lilacs floated in. Jenny wore sleeveless blouses and full skirts and ballerina flats. Harley Baines laid aside his home-knit sweater. Bared, his arms were muscular, thick with black hair. Around his neck he wore a gold or brass disk of some kind. She was dying to know what it was. One day in German class, she asked. He said it was a medal he’d won in a high school science fair, for setting up an experiment on the metabolic rate of white rats. She thought it was a funny thing to go on wearing all this time, but she didn’t say so. Instead, she touched the medal lightly with her fingertips. It hung just inside his shirt, and it was almost hot.
She asked him at other times (catching up with him in a corridor, arranging to stand behind him in the cafeteria line) whether he was looking forward to Paulham University, and what sort of housing he would have there, and what he’d heard about Paulham’s public transportation system. Offering these questions in an even, noncommittal voice, she felt like one of those circus trainers who take care to present to an animal only the curled-in backs of their hands, showing they pose no threat. She didn’t want to alarm him. But Harley didn’t act alarmed at all, and answered her courteously, matter-of-factly. (Was that good or bad?) When exams began, she came to him with her genetics notes and asked if he could help her study. They sat outdoors in the grass, in front of the Student Union, on a blue chenille bedspread she’d brought from her room. Their classmates lounged on other bedspreads all around them—including some of Jenny’s friends, who cast her startled, doubtful looks and then glanced quickly past her. She’d been hoping they would stroll over, make Harley a part of the group. But on second thought, she could see that would never happen.
While she framed her queries (acting not so slow-witted as to put him off, but still in need of his assistance), Harley listened and stripped a grass blade. He wore heavy, dressy shoes that seemed out of place on the bedspread. In his probing hands, the grass blade took on the look of a scientific experiment. He answered her levelly, with no question marks after his sentences;