Chapter 76: My Friends
New Jersey — The Comic Book Store
"Holy—"
Leonard stared at the cover of the comic for a long moment.
Lord of the Hidden — Adapted from the novel by Adam Duncan.
He'd known an Adam Duncan. He'd met him exactly once, under memorable circumstances, in a school hallway next to a locker he'd been locked inside. Adam had gotten into a fight with Jimmy Beckman on his behalf, collected the key, helped him out, declared them friends, and then apparently driven back to New York and written a novel that was now being adapted by Dark Horse Comics.
Leonard had not been informed of any of this.
His first reaction, surfacing clearly and then dissolving just as quickly, was something like indignation. He published a book and didn't tell me? What kind of friend does that?
Then he heard himself think the word "friend" and something entirely different happened to his expression.
A wide, involuntary grin spread across his face.
He turned to the kid beside him — glasses, familiar presence, part of the small rotating population of the store. "I know who wrote this."
"What?"
"The original novel. I know the author." Leonard held up the comic. "He's my friend."
The store was small. The comic book community was small. Everyone in the store heard this within about ten seconds.
"Leonard, you know Adam Duncan?"
"Your tough-guy friend is a novelist?"
"That doesn't even make sense."
"Of course it does," Leonard said, with the confidence of someone who had been waiting, without knowing it, for exactly this moment. "Adam is genuinely one of the most capable people I've ever met. He came to my school, he helped me deal with a situation I'd been dealing with for two years, and he's my best friend."
"Prove it," someone said.
Leonard opened his mouth.
He did not, at this precise moment, have a way to prove it.
"See?" came the response, already a little cruel.
Leonard bought the first issue, tucked it under his arm, and walked out.
He was going to prove it. He just needed to figure out how first.
Pasadena, California
"Howard! Breakfast!"
The voice from the kitchen carried the particular quality of someone who had been calling up stairs for years and had developed both volume and projection to match.
"Coming!" Howard Wolowitz came down the stairs at his own pace, which was not fast.
His mother — large, capable, a presence that filled the kitchen and then some — turned from the stove. "Don't yell at me. I'm your mother."
"I know you're my mother," Howard said. "Everyone knows you're my mother."
"Sit down and eat. We have the doctor at two."
"I know." Howard settled at the table. "But I need to stop at the comic store on the way back. I'm running low."
"Running low on comics, or—"
"Comics," Howard said, with great firmness. "Obviously comics."
"Because we're going through a lot of tissues and I—"
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Howard said. "And I would appreciate it if we could eat without this conversation."
His mother made a sound that signified several things at once. "Your father left us. I eat my feelings. The least you could do is not embarrass me about it."
"I never said anything about—"
"You implied it."
"I didn't imply anything."
"The way you said 'obviously comics' implied it."
Howard set down his fork. He looked at the ceiling briefly, in the manner of a young man conducting a private negotiation with the universe.
"I don't despise you," he said.
"You do."
"I genuinely don't."
"You do."
"Mom, I could be irritated by any number of people on this earth and you would not be one of them." He picked his fork back up. "Can we eat now?"
His mother looked at him with the expression of someone who had won and was choosing not to gloat too obviously.
"The doctor at two," she said.
"I heard you the first time."
They ate breakfast in the particular comfortable tension of two people who had been irritating each other their entire lives and had no intention of stopping.
Howard was thinking about the comic store. He'd seen something in the window last week that he hadn't had time to look at properly — a new series, different art style, a fantasy title he didn't recognize.
He was going to pick it up on the way home.
End of Chapter 76
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