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“Teach me how these things work.” Patty asked her one day, setting an offering of a dirty chai onto Holtzmann’s lab table, with the muffled little snap paper cups made when they were dropped on a hard surface. Patty loved that sound. The dirty chai itself was specially retrieved from second avenue as a friendly offering and social lubricant. She was pretty sure Holtz didn’t drink, but she sure loved bizarre drinks. Like dirty chai.
“Which things?” Holtzmann said as she dove for the drink, ripped the top off, and gave it an appreciative sniff, looking sweet eyed at Patty with unspoken thanks over the lovely layer of cinnamon and foam she was currently a centimeter from dipping her nose in.
Patty snorted, “What do you think?”
“I don’t know, vacuums?” Holtzmann took a second from drowning herself to shoot back, foam and cinnamon on her nose. Patty felt a vague sense of the perfect oddity of her reply, and Holtz in general. Who liked hot drinks in the summer? Who liked coffee in their tea? Holtzmann did, bless her and her dark roots.
“The proton packs, hon.” Holtzmann perked up at that and made a delighted sound while managing to gulp her drink at the same time, which Patty again did Not approve of. Call her old-fashioned but coffee and tea shouldn’t mix. Holtzmann reared up from her final satisfied gulp with a manic grin.
“Metaphysical engineering!” Patty recoiled a little.
“Well, I mean not that complex, I mean come on, I was an English major, Holtz, they don’t really give you strict science requirements, I mean hell, I haven’t taken regular physics since high school! Last science class I took was chemistry to fill my requirement in college!” Patty babbled, desperately backpedaling.
“No!! No, this is good!” Holtzmann said. “You know, Ab and Erin are smart and all, and in related fields, but they’re not engineers, they’re more theoretical physicists. I built all this shit on my own, right? It would be great to have someone who really understood this besides me, and who could help out with repairs and whatnot,” she giggled. “Physics is easy Pats!” Patty was feeling more and more dubious about this by the second.
Holtzman must’ve seen that in her face because she renewed her assault with even more energy, fueled by espresso and spicy tea.
“Seriously! It’s all very fundamental, it makes sense when you line it all up together! We’re not in high school Patty, I don’t care if you have to look up unit conversions and formulae, and honestly fuck school, fuck college, and fuck academia!” she said with sudden vehemence, slamming her paper cup into the lab table. “It’s all bullshit Patty. You can learn without a degree! You can learn without a school!” Holtz laughed. “I mean look at me, I barely made it through grad school and I helped save New York, right?” Patty raised her eyebrow.
“I don’t think I quite believe that, about you nearly failing grad school. I mean, you’re a bona fide genius, I-” Holtzmann sighed.
“You think I’m weird right? Loopy. Not there all the time. Odd.” she grinned again. “Maybe even spooky. Do you think I’m spooky Patty?” Patty sighed.
“Holtzmann there’s nothing wrong with you-” Holtz laughed.
“I know that! But not everyone else does, mhmm. So. Do you think I’m spooky?” Patty sighed more quietly.
“Yeah Holtz. I think you’re spooky.” Holtzmann clapped her hands together excitedly.
“So it’s settled! I’m gonna teach you how these things work!” Patty sighed almost inaudibly. She thought she’d been in for a lecture, a few hours, maybe even a diagram! More than one even! As quick an explanation as you could get for subatomic particles’ function in snatching semi substantial Things from beyond. She’d brought the coffeeteachaiwhatever so Holtzmann wouldn’t mind the disruption of her research and general mechanical and ghostly fuckery. But, alas, it seemed Patty was in for something far greater: she and Holtzmann were embarking on a Project together, and Holtzmann was always up to add another project to the pile. And she never lost steam either.
First Holtzmann dragged out some ancient physics textbooks from god knows where (the Strand? eBay? Used from these Sellers on Amazon? Garage sale uptown?) to see how solid a foundation Patty had. Thankfully, they skipped a lot of the math which Holtzmann brushed off as “Masturbatory exercises to torture college freshmen,” sticking to what she mystically deemed important, appending new research and correcting outdated information when they came across it. Holtzmann had also handed Patty a spiral bound notebook to jot down whatever she wanted. “Don’t feel dumb or anything for taking notes. Or not. I don’t know how you like to study but whatever works best for you,” she said earnestly, adding with a toothy smile “The School of Dr. Holtzmann doesn’t discriminate against students with weird learning needs or disorders.”
Patty was starting to get a sense of why Holtzmann hated schools so much. She taught lying on her back on a table. She taught walking around. She taught fiddling with a little toy Patty later found out she’d made herself, endlessly taking it apart and reconfiguring it and taking it apart, like an infinite puzzle box. She taught in between huge gulps of percolator coffee. She taught laughing, silhouetted by the sun reflecting into their windows. She taught smiling radiantly at Patty over a book (having moved onto more densely theoretical subjects and “Real Math.”) Holtzmann taught Patty doing a little shimmy to shake out her energy. She taught her trying to make Patty laugh at the stupid puns and jokes she peppered in with the squares and roots and endless “a stands for acceleration. B is magnetic flux density. C is capacitance, but also heat capacity and the constant of integration. Depends on what you’re looking at. We like capacitance and capacity. D is electric flux density. E is electrical field. Eccentricity is e. Frequency is f. H is magnetic field (strength). Intensity is i, but that can also stand for an imaginary unit…” and on and on, till Holtzmann had shared so much with Patty it all started to coalesce, collate, and make sense to her. She could see the forest
Patty started to dream in lightningshock electrical currents, neon green dry erase drawings, Holtzmann’s bright eyes, circuit diagrams, Holtzmann’s perfect imperfect toothy smiles with her crooked canines, the alkali metal column (“You gotta know which metals are where! Helps ya remember some basic conductive information etc. etc.” etek etek), the light catching on Holtzmann’s necklace, a screw through a U, Greek letters and the way Holtzmann only bleached the hair an inch off her scalp, defiantly letting her dark hair show through.
So maybe Patty had a little crush. Ok, a big crush. Patty brought Holtz weird drinks with her own lattes, from every shop in China Town and the Village, on East Houston and up Canal, to their little study sessions, supplementing Kevin’s shit. Patty started watching the way Holtzmann’s mouth moved while she was listening and occasionally dashing off a note for later (that never made sense anyways, but it was alright. Holtzmann was starting to make sense to her.) And in between all the math and explanations of how they caught ghosts, Patty and Holtzmann started to learn more about each other. Small details, like seeing a lipstick stain on a coffee cup someone left in the sink after going to work in the morning.
Holtzmann’s mother and father came separately to America in 1948, teenagers hardly older than kids. They had no immediate family left. Holtzmann was the last daughter of three (Tamara, Joy, Jillian). Holtzmann grew up next to Crown Heights, with Orthodox girls and Chasidic girls and Reform girls and, and, and...She used to joke about being bottle blonde, light eyed Jewish girl, walking to synagogue in short skirts and army surplus boots with her friends and a sister or two (Holtzmann’s parents wouldn’t go). Holtzmann had just been Holtzmann since elementary school. She spoke a little Ukrainian.
Patty had a little brother (Richie), both of them New York born and bred. She was from Co-Op City, and spoke a little Russian from looking after her neighbor, Mrs. Zamoyskaya,’s big poodle Tusha. He’d come across the ocean with her, and was to Mrs. Zamoyskaya’s eternal pride, a real hunting poodle. Patty’s best friend growing up was Shanti from Tobago, who loved Tusha to death and insisted on being informed every time Patty took him for a walk or watched him when Mrs. Zamoyskaya had to go to dialysis. Patty’s mother wasn’t a big churchgoer, except on holidays, but Richie liked Catholic mass. Holtz’s family only made an effort on holidays too.
Patty had been Patricia until she was 16, when Shanti kissed her for the first time in her living room and sighed ‘Patty’ quietly in her arms while NBC reported on the weather in the background.
Holtzmann kissed Chaya for the first time behind a bush in Prospect Park on a balmy Friday night on a post sabbath dinner walk. Chaya blushed and ran away and avoided her for a week, until she pulled Holtzmann back behind the bush again.
Patty kissed Holtzmann, or technically Holtzmann did first, over a dissected proton pack prototype at 11:30 P.M. on a Wednesday in October. Holtzmann got her coffee foam on her nose (hazelnut syrup, pumpkin spice, caramel, powdered nutmeg on top). Patty reached over to wipe it off, like a smudge on a child. She pulled her hand back over the book. Holtzmann looked Patty in the eye, smiled, and licked the foam off Patty’s finger. Patty pulled her hand back. Holtzmann followed it over the table, all the way back to Patty.
Holtzman kissed Patty at 11:30 P.M. perched on the edge of the black counter of her lab table, holding Patty’s face in her hands and smiling. Patty kissed Holtzmann at 11:30 P.M. sitting on one of Holtzmann’s shitty stools with Holtzmann’s legs sandwiched between her arms and body, hands on Holtzmann’s wrists, hands on her narrow hips and waist, smiling. She could smell the coffee stains on Holtzmann’s jeans.