Roderick Smith is a fine young man who lives with his Mom and Dad in a Queen Anne style Victorian home -- with turrets! -- on Elm Street, near the corner of Fourteenth, in Beauneville. Born seventeen years ago this coming first of July, Roderick is friendly and courteous to all, dresses neatly, does his schoolwork promptly, likes to read Thucydides in the original and wants to be a historian or a hedge-fund manager when he grows up.
You ask: a hedge-fund manager? Roderick's father who, like his grandfather, is also named Roderick, is an investment advisor who manages money for the local widows and orphans. Mr. Smith's library has many books about investing, which Roderick began to read when just a wee lad. Thus, while other young men his age dream of launching rockets, building a social-media networking tool or getting into Molly Bloom's pants, Roderick dreams of Black-Scholes pricing models, Modern Portfolio Theory and Monte Carlo Analysis.
Roderick also thinks often of Molly Bloom, although unlike the other young men in town he doesn't have to imagine her sans clothing. Actually, this is not true, strictly speaking; Molly has a propensity to lose her clothing at a moment's notice -- enrollment in Mr. Botticelli's art class tripled last year when she signed up for live modeling. Molly relationship with clothing is tenuous at best, which is a blessing for all, since she is simply gorgeous -- svelte, small-breasted, and completely blonde, if you know what I mean.
Roderick and Molly are inseparable, and have been so ever since Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Bloom met at Mrs. Witherspoon's "Nursing Your Baby" seminar at the Beaune Estate. As babies, they nursed together; as toddlers, they toddled together; as children, they played together. As each approaches seventeen, they hardly think about spending time together; they are attracted like magnets.
To understand Molly you must watch her long fingers as she sits with Roderick before school. She seems to be listening, but her fingers silently manipulate an imaginary keyboard through the thirty-second of Beethoven's Diabelli variations -- the one with the fugue -- as the piano is her one true passion. There is a huge Bosendorfer in the Bloom's parlor, the kind with the extra keys at the low end, and here Molly spends countless hours working on scales, arpeggios, etudes, technical exercises and the works of Beethoven (recently supplemented by works of Schubert).
Molly's propensity to roll out of bed in the morning and head straight for the piano, together with her lack of engagement with personal hygiene, means that she often carries a distinct aroma. Though squeaky-clean himself, Roderick is not bothered by this. He also knows that she is disinclined to shave, but the hair on her legs is so fine and blonde that it is unnoticeable except on close inspection.
Are Roderick and Molly a couple? Everyone else in town thinks so, thanks to the reporting of Amanda Dennis, aspiring reporter and gossip extraordinaire. If you read Amanda's blog, Cries and Whispers, you are in the know about all sorts of real and imagined affairs of Beauneville youth. But though they have taken a solemn pledge to be one another's "first", Roderick and Molly have not yet consummated this pledge, and not for lack of opportunity, since they often sleep together. There is no reason for this restraint, except that they have not yet felt the necessary inspiration.
Soon, they figure. But not just yet.
