The silence from 4B had become a part of the building's ecosystem. For Penny, Sheldon's absence felt like a removed stabilizer wheel; things didn't immediately crash, but a persistent, unsettling wobble had taken hold. This wobble mirrored the slow, final unraveling of her own dream.
The call for the Piranha 3D audition had felt like a last-minute pardon. It was mainstream, schlocky, but it was real. The waiting room was packed with women who looked like her, only more desperate. When an assistant called her name and led her not to a casting director's studio, but to a lavish, wood-paneled office on a higher floor, a cold knot formed in her stomach.
He was behind a massive desk, a figure known from Oscar night footage and industry gossip. Harvey Weinstein. He smiled, a practiced, avuncular gesture that didn't touch his eyes. "Penny. Come in. Shut the door."
The door clicked shut, muffling the world outside. He talked about the film, about the "fun" of the genre, his gaze fixed on her like she was a specimen. "You have a great look. Girl-next-door, but with… horsepower." He stood, walking around the desk. The space in the room seemed to shrink. "A role like this, it's about more than lines. It's about presence. It's about being a team player."
He was close now, invading the bubble of personal space she'd learned to fiercely defend in LA. The smell of his cologne was thick, cloying. "This business, it's about relationships. Trust." His hand landed on her shoulder, heavy and possessive. "You need someone in your corner. I can be that someone. But trust goes both ways."
Penny's mouth was dry. "Mr. Weinstein, I'm just here to read for the part—" she began, her voice thin.
"The part is yours," he interrupted, his tone dismissive, final. His other hand came up, his fingers brushing her hair. "That's the easy part. We're talking about your career. Your future. That requires a… deeper connection." His voice dropped to a conspiratorial murmur. "Why don't we go upstairs to my suite? We can talk privately. No one needs to know. We'll see what kind of… chemistry we have."
The proposition was hideously clear. The dream was being bartered for, right here, in this airless room. A fierce, stubborn pride surged through the fear. "I'm not interested in that," she said, trying to step back.
His grip on her shoulder tightened, pinning her. The avuncular mask vanished, replaced by impatience and a terrifying, casual authority. "Don't be naïve. This is how it works. You're a nobody from nowhere. This is the only offer on the table." He leaned in, his intent a physical pressure. "Don't make this difficult. Be smart."
When he moved to pull her against him with his other hand hovering over his zipper, his body a wall of unwelcome force, instinct overrode thought. It wasn't courage; it was a primal circuit snapping closed. Her knee jerked up, a hard, frantic piston driven by terror.
There was a soft, sickening impact. He let out a choked, watery gasp, all his power dissolving as he folded in on himself, collapsing against the desk with a thud.
Penny didn't see anything else. She was at the door, fumbling with the lock, then out, sprinting past a confused assistant, down the hall, into the elevator. She made it to her car before the trembling started, great, wracking shudders that felt like they would break her ribs. She cried, not delicate actress tears, but raw, ugly sobs of fury, violation, and a devastating finality. She had just signed the death warrant on her acting career with the toe of her cheap audition pump.
The aftermath was a silent, administrative severance. Her agent dropped her with a terse, frightened call. Auditions evaporated. The Cheesecake Factory, once a purgatory she was passing through, became her entire world. She moved through her shifts with a hollow efficiency, the forced cheer for tips like a ghost of her old performances.
It was in this numb state that Howard found her in the lobby one afternoon. He was attempting to look suave, failing miserably.
"Penny! There you are. Okay, look. I need your womanly wisdom. Your feminine intuition. I'm formulating a campaign."
Penny just stared, too tired to engage. "What, Howard?"
"Bernadette. The new girl at your work? The tiny one with the voice like a pissed-off hummingbird? I'm going to make my move. But I need an in. A wing-woman. You introduce us. You vouch for me. Tell her I'm not a total creep… or, you know, that I'm a harmless creep."
She looked at him—the too-tight shirt, the desperate bravado. Underneath the sleaze and the space talk, she saw the same lonely, striving core she felt in herself. He was just trying, in his profoundly awkward way, to connect.
"She's studying microbiology," Penny said flatly.
Howard's eyes widened. "A scientist! See? It's cosmic. It's kismet! Please, Penny. I'll… I'll detail your car. I'll get all the french fries out from between the seats."
The image was almost enough to spark a feeling. Almost. "Fine. I'll introduce you. But you have to promise to not talk about robot hands or your mom for the first ten minutes."
"Deal! Okay. What's her sign? Does she like Firefly? Wait, don't answer that."
———
The first date was Howard's idea, but it required Penny's car—and Penny's presence as a security blanket. Bernadette, squeezed into the back of the Celica, listened as Howard, riding shotgun, launched his opening salvo.
"So, microbiology. Fascinating. You know, in a way, dealing with cultures is like dealing with Klingons. You've got your proud, warrior strains, your tricky, deceptive strains… it's all about understanding the rules of honor for the specific empire. Or, you know, bacteria."
Bernadette blinked from the backseat. "I… don't watch that stuff. I just look at petri dishes."
Undeterred, Howard tried another vector. "Right, right. Of course. More of a fantasy person? The strategic world-building of, say, Dungeons & Dragons? The collaborative storytelling?"
"I don't really play games," Bernadette said politely, staring out the window. "Except for Lab Safety Bingo in undergrad. That was kind of fun."
Penny kept her eyes on the road, feeling the night stretch out before her like a life sentence.
Dinner at the chain restaurant was a slow-motion exercise in mismatch. Howard, sweating slightly in his best purple shirt, listed his passions like items on a menu from a planet Bernadette had never visited.
"Comic books? No? Okay. Close-up magic? I can make a token disappear from right under your—"
"I'm good, thanks."
"Puppies? Everyone likes puppies!"
"They're kind of slobbery and dumb," Bernadette said, taking a sip of water.
Penny stirred her soda, watching the exchange with a sense of profound fatigue. The air felt thick with Howard's flop-sweat and unrequited effort. 'God,' she thought. 'This is going to take forever. It feels like time is slowing down just to punish me for agreeing to this.'
Just as Howard was reaching a new peak of desperation, his phone buzzed on the table. The screen lit up: MOM. He silenced it with a panicked slap. A moment later, a voicemail notification popped up.
Bernadette's sharp eyes caught it. "Your mom?"
"Yeah," Howard sighed, the performance finally dropping. "Probably calling to see if I remembered to wear clean socks, or to warn me that the garlic in the shrimp scampi might give me gas. It's a whole… thing."
To his shock, Bernadette didn't look judgmental. She looked understanding. "My mom calls me three times a day. Once to see if I ate breakfast, once to see if I ate lunch, and once to remind me that a skipped meal is a direct gateway to spinsterhood."
Howard smiled and said with self depreciation, "Mine made me wear rubber gloves to kindergarten. She was convinced the play-dough was a bio-hazard."
"She still lays out my clothes when I visit!" Bernadette exclaimed, her voice rising with shared frustration. "And she wouldn't let me ride a bicycle as a teenager because she thought I'd hit a bump and, quote, 'lose my ticket to the holy covenant of marriage.' She doesn't know I already lost mine, in my dad's camry."
Howard exclaimed, "I lost mine in a Corolla!"
The dam broke. They spent ten minutes in a rapid, cathartic firestorm of maternal absurdities. It was a duet of grievance, each story trying to top the last in sheer, smothering insanity.
Breathless from laughing, Howard shook his head. "How would you like to witness them firsthand? Shabbat dinner at my place. My mother makes a brisket that could double as a ballast. A Catholic girl like you, wearing a big cross like that…" He gestured to the silver crucifix around her neck. "It might just give my mother the big brain aneurysm I've been praying for since I was twelve."
Bernadette's smile turned into a full, bright grin. "I would love to. On one condition. You come to my family's Sunday dinner wearing a yarmulke."
Howard placed a hand over his heart. "Consider it done."
As they left the restaurant, Howard walked Bernadette to her car with a confidence that didn't seem forced. Penny trailed behind, a warm, quiet satisfaction cutting through her own lingering sadness. She watched them go. For a few hours, she hadn't thought about closed doors or powerful men. She'd just been a witness to a beginning. It was a small thing. But in the silent expanse Sheldon had left behind, and the wreckage of her own hopes, small things felt solid.
She was great at this, she realized. Not at acting. But at this. At people. And maybe, for now, that was enough.