Special topics in calamity physics - By Marisha Pessl Page 0,75

wanted to find Hannah, but midway up, I saw only a six-ton Tyrannosaurus Ex who'd unzipped his costume and sat down on his rubber head.

"Fuck." "Why do you want to find her?" I shouted, "I thought the — " and just as I turned to look out over the bobbing wigs and masks, I saw her.

Her face was eclipsed by the brim of a top hat (only a white sliver of chin and red mouth was visible) but I knew it was she, due to the oil and vinegar reaction her presence had with all backdrops, atmospheres and given conditions. The young, the old, the pretty and plain merged to compose some standard room of talking people, but Hannah was permanently separate and distinctive, as if there was always an unmistakable, thin black line drawn around her, or a YOU ARE HERE arrow discreetly floated in her wake reading, SHE is HERE. Or perhaps, due to a certain relationship she had with incandescence, her face exerted a gravitational pull on 50 percent of all the light in the room.

She was dressed in a tuxedo and heading our way, leading a man up the stairs. She held his left hand as if it was expensive, something she couldn't afford to lose.

Nigel saw her too. "Who's she dressed as?"

"Marlene Dietrich, Morocco, 1930. We need to hide."

But Nigel shook his head and held on to my wrist. As we were trapped by a sheikh waiting for someone to come out of the upstairs bathroom and a group of men dressed as tourists (Polaroids, Hawaiian shirts) I could do nothing but brace myself for what was coming.

I was marginally reassured, however, when I saw the man. If she'd been with Doc three weeks ago, at least she'd traded up and was now arm in arm with Big Daddy (see The Great Patriarchs of American Theatre: 1821—1990, Park, 1992). Though he was gray haired, overweight in that Montgomery, Alabama way (when the stomach looked like a great big bag of loot and the rest of the body ignored that rude, uncouth section, going about its business of being perfectly fit and trim), something about him was satisfying, impressive. Dressed in a Red Army uniform (presumably as Mao Zedong), he had a chancellor's posture, and his face, if not flat-out handsome, was at the very least, splendid: rich, glistening and rosy, like a block of salted ham at a state dinner. It was also evident he was a little bit in love with her. Dad said being in love had nothing to do with words, action or the heart ("the most overrated of organs"), but with the eyes ("Everything essential concerns the eyes.") and this man's eyes couldn't stop slipping and sliding off every curve of her face.

I wondered what she could possibly be saying to him, her profile puzzling into the space between his jaw and shoulder. Maybe she was wowing him with an ability to recite pi out to sixty-five decimal places, which I secretly thought would be sort of electrifying if some kid heatedly whispered it into my ear ("3.14159265 . . ."). Or maybe she was repeating a Shakespearean sonnet, #116, Dad's favorite ("If there are authentic words of love that exist in this English language, these are the ones people with any real affection should say, rather than the shopworn, 'I love you,' which can be uttered by any hebetudinous Tom, Dick or Moe"): "Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments. . ."

Whatever it was, the man was mesmerized. He looked as if he couldn't wait for her to garnish him with fresh bay leaves, slice him, pour him all over with gravy.

They were three stairs away now, passing the cheerleader, the woman dressed as Liza Minnelli leaning against the wall with makeup clogging her eyes like rotten leaves in old gutters.

And then she saw us.

There was a skid of her eyes, a brief suspension of smile, a catch, a soft sweater snagging a tree branch. All Nigel and I could do was stand with lousy smiles safety-pinned to our faces like HELLO MY NAME IS name tags. She didn't say anything until she was next to us.

"Shame on you," she said.

"Hi," said Nigel brightly, as if he thought she'd said, "Overjoyed to see you," and to my horror, he was now extending his hand to the man, who'd turned his large, soggy face curiously in our direction. "I'm Nigel Creech."

The man raised one white eyebrow and