“Jolene, what’d you just say?”
“I was telling Helen that your mama is selling two hundred acres of land up Bishops Hill to my boy Marcus.”
“Hollis is selling land on Bishops Hill?”
“That’s right. To Marcus. I think Marcus wants to build himself some houses up there, build a little—I don’t remember what he calls it.”
Lindsey half-closed her eyes and sighed. “A subdivision?” she asked.
“That’s right. Subdivision. Up there on the hill, I guess. Nice views, anyway.”
Lindsey became quiet after that, her big eyes staring off into the distance at the fields behind the nursing home. Colin sat there and listened to the old folks talking, and then finally Lindsey grabbed his arm just above the elbow and said, “We should get going.”
As soon as the Hearse’s doors were shut, Lindsey mumbled as if to herself, “Mom would never sell land. Never. Why is she doing that?” It occurred to Colin that he’d never before heard Lindsey refer to Hollis as Mom. “Why would she sell land to that guy?”
“Maybe she needs money,” Colin offered.
“She needs money like I need a goddamned hole in my head. My great-grandfather built that factory. Dr. Fred N. Dinzanfar. We aren’t hurting for money, I promise you.”
“Was he Arab?”
“What?”
“Dinzanfar.”
“No, he wasn’t Arab. He was from Germany or something. Anyway, he spoke German—so does Hollis, that’s how I know it. Why do you always ask such ridiculous questions?”
“Jeez. Sorry.”
“Oh, whatever, I’m just confused. Who cares. On to other things. It’s fun hanging out with the oldsters, isn’t it? You wouldn’t think it, but they’re cool as hell. I used to visit those people at their houses—most of them weren’t in the Home then—almost every day. I’d just go from house to house, getting fed and getting hugged on. Those were the pre-friend days.”
“They certainly seemed to adore you,” Colin said.
“Me? The ladies couldn’t talk about anything but how hot you were. You’re missing a whole demographic of Katherines by not chasing the over-eighty market.”
“It’s funny how they thought we were dating,” Colin said, glancing over at her.
“How’s that funny?” she asked, holding his gaze.
“Um,” he said. Distracted from the road, Colin watched as she gave him the slightest version of her inimitable smile.
61 Television was invented by a kid. In 1920, the memorably named Philo T. Farnsworth conceived the cathode ray vacuum tube used in most all twentieth-century TV sets. He was fourteen. Farnsworth built the first one when he was just twenty-one. (And shortly thereafter went on to a long and distinguished career of chronic alcoholism.)
62 To get this variable, Colin took the two people’s average age and subtracted five. By the way, all the footnotes on this page have math in them and are therefore strictly optional.
63 Which Colin arrived at by calculating the popularity difference between Person A and Person B on a scale of 1 to 1,000 (you can approximate) and then dividing by 75—positive numbers if the girl is more popular; negative if the guy is.
64 Which is calculated as a number between 0 and 5 based on the difference in attraction to each other. Positive numbers if the boy is more attracted to the girl; negative if vice versa.
65 Between 0 and 1, the relative distance between the two people on the Dumper/Dumpee range. A negative number if the boy is more of a Dumper; positive number if the girl is.
66 In the Theorem, this is the difference in outgoingness between two people calculated on a scale that goes from 0 to 5. Positive numbers if the girl is more outgoing; negative if the guy is.
67
68 That does not count as math, because one does not have to understand how it works or what it means in order to think that it looks sort of beautiful.
(thirteen)
That Sunday, Hassan went “cruising” with Lindsey and Katrina and TOC and JATT and SOCT. The next night, he went cruising again, and came home after midnight to find Colin working on his Theorem, which now worked seventeen of nineteen times. He still couldn’t get it to work for either Katherine III or, more importantly, Katherine XIX.
“’Sup?” asked Hassan.
“Sup is not a word,” answered Colin without looking up.
“You’re like sunshine on a cloudy day, Singleton. When it’s cold outside, you’re the month of May.”
“I’m working,” Colin said. He couldn’t quite pinpoint when Hassan had started to become like everyone else on the planet, but it was clearly happening, and it was clearly annoying.