Special topics in calamity physics - By Marisha Pessl Page 0,25

shirt, which resembled those worn by the Bolsheviks when they stormed the Winter Palace, size o: "Now this is you, too. Cinnamon has one of these in every color. She's around your size. Bird boned. Everyone thinks she's anorexic, but she's not and a lot of her peers get jealous living on fruit and bagels just to squeeze into a size 12."

After Dad and I left the Adolescent Department of Stickley's with most of Cinnamon's rebel wardrobe, we made our way to Surely Shoos on Mercy Avenue in North Stockton, per Ms. Luthers' helpful tip-off.

"I believe these are right up Cinnamon's alley," said Dad, holding up a large black platform shoe.

"No," I said.

"Thank God. I can safely say Chanel's rolling in her grave."

"Humphrey Bogart wore platform shoes throughout the filming of Casablanca" someone said. I turned, expecting to see a mother circling Dad like a Hooded Vulture eyeing carrion, but it wasn't.

It was she, the woman from Fat Kat Foods.

She was tall, wearing skintight jeans, a tailored tweed jacket, and large black sunglasses on her head. Her dark brown hair hung idly around her face.

"Though he wasn't Einstein or Truman," she said, "I don't think history would be the same without him. Especially if he had to look up at Ingrid Bergman and say, 'Here's looking at you, kid.' "

Her voice was wonderful, a flu voice.

"You aren't from around here, are you?" she asked Dad.

He stared at her blankly.

The phenomenon of Dad interacting with a beautiful woman was always an odd, sort of uninspired chemical experiment. Most of the time there was no reaction. Other times, Dad and the woman might appear to react vigorously, producing heat, light, and gas. But at the end, there was never a functional product like plastics or glassware, only a foul stench.

"No," said Dad. "We're not."

"You've just moved down here?"

"Yes." He smiled, though it didn't do a fig leaf's job of hiding his desire to end the conversation.

"How do you like it?"

"Magnificent."

I didn't know why he wasn't friendlier. Usually, Dad didn't mind the odd June Bug spiraling over to him. And he certainly wasn't above encouraging them, opening all the curtains, turning on all the lights by launching into certain extemporaneous lectures on Gorbachev, Arms Control, the 1-2-3S of Civil War (the gist of which the June Bug missed like a rare raindrop), often dropping hints about the impressive tome he was authoring, The Iron Grip.

I wondered if she was too attractive or tall for him (she was almost his height) or perhaps her unsolicited Bogie comment had rubbed him the wrong way. One of Dad's pet peeves was to be "informed" of something he already knew and Dad and I were well aware of her crumb of trivia. Driving between Little Rock and Portland, I'd read aloud all of the eye-opening Thugs, Midgets, Big Ears and Dentures: A Real Profile of Hollywood's Leading Men (Rivette, 1981), and Other Voices, 32 Rooms: My Life as L. B. Mayer's Maid (Hart, 1961). Between San Diego and Salt Lake City I'd read aloud countless celebrity biographies, authorized and unauthorized, including those of Howard Hughes, Bette Davis, Frank Sinatra, Cary Grant and the highly memorable Christ, It's Been Done Before: Celluloid Jesuses from 1912—1988,

Why Hollywood Should Cease Committing the Son of God to Screen

(Hatcher, 1989).

"And your daughter," she said, smiling at me, "what school will she be attending?" I opened my mouth, but Dad spoke. "The St. Gallway School." He was looking at me intently with his Fm-Thumbing-a-Lift-Here look,

which soon slipped into his Please-Pull-a-Ripcord face, and then, If-You-Would-Be-So-Kind-as-to-Administer-a-Rabbit-Punch. Normally, he reserved those faces for instances when a June Bug with some sort of physical deformity was actively pursuing him, like a faulty sense of direction (extreme nearsightedness) or an erratic wing (facial tic).

"I'm a teacher there," she said, extending her hand to me. "Hannah Schneider."

"Blue van Meer."

"What a wonderful name." She looked at Dad.

"Gareth," he said, after a moment.

"Nice to meet you."

With the brazen self-confidence present only in one who had shucked off the label of Sweater Girl and proved herself to be a dramatic actress of considerable range and talent (and enormous box-office draw), Hannah Schneider informed Dad and me that for the last three years she had taught Introduction to Film, an elective class for all grades. She also told us with great authority that the St. Gallway School was a "very special place."

"I think we should be getting along," Dad said, turning to me. "Don't you have piano?" (I hadn't, nor have I ever,