She grabbed chicken thighs, milk, cereal, yogurt. He followed. Lena went to the aisle devoted to tampons, pads, adult diapers. He stared at the diaper display and her profile as she read the back of a tampon box. In the checkout lane, she feigned interest in the magazines—some famous people were breaking up, someone was cheating, you could be thin if you just ate soup for three weeks. The cashier was a teenaged girl; she looked mixed race, black and white.
When she was at the front of the line, Lena took a deep breath. She wanted to describe the man to the girl, ask her if he was still watching her. Instead she said, “I like your hair.”
“Thank you.” The cashier paused and smiled as if no one had ever said that to her before.
As Lena bagged her own groceries, she scanned the area. He was gone. As she walked to her car in the dark, Lena visualized what she would have to do if he jumped out at her or was waiting for her in her backseat. If he jumped out, she would hit him with her grocery bags, run inside the store, and call 911. If he was somehow in the backseat, she would take a picture of him, then go inside.
The car was empty. She put the groceries in the backseat and drove home in a slow, roundabout way filled with unnecessary turns in case he was following her.
Monday morning, Day 16. You jammed the printer and spent most of the morning trying to figure out how to fix it, until you gave up shortly before lunch and told Tom (IT). Spreadsheet class continues.
No one gave Lena any assignments, so she spent the morning reading about apartment design on the internet, sending herself links to DIY projects that could fill her weekends. She looked around and realized no one had been given assignments. Only two observers were around. Dr. Lisa hadn’t shown up at all. Neither had Bethany. The bloodstains and teeth were gone.
Around 11:30, Lena followed Charlie into the break room to see if he knew what was going on.
He crunched on his apple. “Just because I’m ‘the manager’ doesn’t mean I know what’s going on around here.”
One of the observers, Pancake Butt, came in. Coffee and what looked like purple paint was spilled on her gray shirt. She went to the sink and started dabbing at the stains.
“My weekend,” Charlie said, spitting out some rogue pieces of apple as he spoke, “was super-relaxing. Yours?”
“I’m still tired.” Lena opened the refrigerator, pulling out one of Bethany’s cherry yogurts and tearing off the red foil. The mix of dark red and cream reminded her too much of the tooth, the vein. She stood, fixated on a cherry, getting more and more nauseated, as the observer dabbed dish soap on her shirt.
“So, you’re the yogurt thief,” Pancake Butt said while blotting herself with paper towels. “I’ll have to put that in your file.”
Lena pretended it was a funny joke.
On Day 17: You spent the day watching videos about workplace safety skills—Charlie and Mariah were out of the office. Lena spent the morning reading about TV shows and blogs about how the pros get truly good at blackjack. She tried to ignore Bethany’s desk.
At one point the receptionist’s desk phone rang. Lena pretended not to hear. It kept ringing. She turned around. Ian and Tom were saying to each other, “You get it.”
After another ring, Lena stood up, walked over, and answered the phone. “Hello, Great Lakes Shipping Company.”
She could hear the faintest sound of a voice on the other end, the sound of movement and wind, as if they were trying to talk via speakerphone while driving. On Bethany’s keyboard, there was a dried drop of blood on the “G” key.
“I can’t hear you,” Lena said. “Can you please call back when you have better reception?”
The voice spoke again. There was a sound like someone said Lena, but it could have been “Let me.” Some thunks. Then the line went dead. Lena hung up. She went to the supply closet to get cleaning spray, some paper towels. Someone tapped her on the shoulder, and she turned.
“Dr. Lisa wants to see you,” said Einstein Eyebrows.
Lena climbed the stairs, holding the railing. She paused before entering the second floor. Felt her hair, made sure every curl was behaving as it should. Took a deep breath and willed her face into neutral. Dr. Lisa’s door was open, and she was adding raisins to what smelled like a mug of oatmeal when Lena entered.
While stirring her oatmeal, the doctor asked, “How many teeth did Bethany lose?”
“I think nine.”
“Are you sure?”
“How could I forget?” Lena scratched her hand. “It was the grossest thing I’ve ever seen.”
The doctor handed her a survey: On a scale of 0–10, how disgusted did you feel when Subject B lost her teeth? How frightened—on a scale of 0–10—were you when this happened? On a scale of 1–10, how much did it make you want to leave the studies? If this same thing happened to you, would you leave Lakewood, yes or no? Have you lost trust in these studies, yes or no? Lena was glad they did this one on paper—it was easier to lie. Of course, she hadn’t thought at all about leaving. No way did she distrust them!
“How is Bethany?” Lena asked after returning the survey.
Dr. Lisa ate a spoonful of her oatmeal. “You should get back downstairs.”
On her way home from work, Lena called Deziree. Her mother was in a wonderful mood. She talked about how well she felt: going to yoga twice a week, no migraines, she hadn’t called off work in two weeks. “I’ve even gained some weight,” Deziree said.
“That’s great.” When her mother was very sick, it was hard to keep her eating, keep her hydrated. She was so thin sometimes people who didn’t know her stopped and said, “I’ll pray for your health.”
“Lena, I went to a mall.” The music, the smells of perfume and fast food and cleaning products, the dry air, kids having tantrums were all proven migraine triggers. Going to a mall for her mother had once been as unlikely as her going to the moon. Her mother’s voice was light, happy. She needed her cane occasionally still but hadn’t had any days where she needed to be in her chair.
“And maybe this is heading toward bragging, but I can concentrate better now.”
There was an ugliness in Lena that made her angry when she heard this. All her life she had wanted a healthy mom, one like all her friends’. Someone who didn’t need her to take care of things or to be extra-quiet or to be comfortable making dinners, getting a job as soon as she could to help pay the bills, to clean. And now, when she no longer needed a mother, when she was no longer there to experience her, Deziree was the person she had wanted for so long. And the only way it could continue was for Lena to be hours away, to keep risking herself. She was so emotional that she pulled over into a gas station.
“Lena, I—” Her mom swallowed. “Thank you. The health insurance is.”
All the ugly feelings evaporated, replaced with embarrassment for feeling that way and a small, uncomfortable joy at being able to give her mother something she needed.
“Mom, I love you. I would do anything for you. You know that, right?”
“Get me some of that Disarono water,” a woman yelled. “My water tastes bad.”
A young man was pumping his gas with an unlit cigarette tucked between his lips. His dog was watching. Its eager expression, the way it wagged its tail, seemed as if he was encouraging the man to light it. The dog wanted to watch the gas station burn, film the carnage. Lena understood maybe she was just projecting and the dog was just being a dog.