The original participant called to cancel at 8:40 A.M., explaining she had overslept, long after you were escorted into the testing room. Still, you were allowed to continue, because by then you had proven to be an intriguing subject.
First impressions: You are young; your license confirmed that you are twenty-eight. Your chestnut-brown curls are long and a tad unruly, and you are clad in a leather jacket and jeans. You don’t wear a wedding ring, but a trio of slim silver bands is stacked on your index finger.
Despite your casual appearance, there’s a professionalism about your manner. You did not carry a to-go coffee cup and yawn and rub your eyes, like some of the other early morning subjects. You sat up straight, and you did not sneak glances at your phone between questions.
What you revealed during your initial session, and what you didn’t intentionally reveal, were equally valuable.
A subtle theme began to emerge from your very first answer that set you apart from the fifty-one other young women evaluated thus far.
First you described how you could tell a lie to appease a client and secure a better tip.
Then you wrote about canceling a night out with a friend, not for last-minute concert tickets or a promising date, as most of the others did. Your mind returned to the prospect of work instead.
Money is vitally important to you. It appears to be an underpinning of your ethical code.
When money and morality intersect, the results can illuminate intriguing truths about human character.
People are motivated to break their moral compasses for a variety of primal reasons: survival, hate, love, envy, passion. And money.
More observations: You put your loved ones first, as evidenced by the information you withhold from your parents to protect them. Yet you describe yourself as an accessory in an act that could destroy another relationship.
It was the question you didn’t answer, though, the one you struggled with as you scraped at your nails, that holds the most intrigue.
This test can free you, Subject 52.
Surrender to it.
CHAPTER
FIVE
Saturday, November 17
My power nap pushes away thoughts about Dr. Shields and his strange test. A cup of strong coffee helps me turn my focus onto my clients, and by the time I arrive back at my apartment after work, I almost feel like myself again. The idea of another session tomorrow doesn’t seem daunting anymore.
I even have the energy to tidy up, which mostly consists of gathering the clothes that are heaped on the back of a chair and hanging them in my closet. My studio is so small there isn’t a single wall that’s not blocked by a piece of furniture. I could afford a bigger place if I moved in with a roommate, but years ago I made the decision to live alone. My privacy is worth the trade-of.
A sliver of fading late-afternoon light peeks through the single window as I sit down on the edge of my futon. I reach for my checkbook, thinking that I won’t dread paying my bills as much as usual with an extra five hundred dollars coming in this month.
As I begin writing a check to Antonia Sullivan, it’s as if Dr. Shields is in my head again:
Have you ever kept a secret from someone you loved to avoid upsetting them?
My pen freezes.
Antonia is a private speech and occupational therapist, one of the best in Philly.
The state-funded specialist who works with Becky on Tuesdays and Thursdays makes a little progress. But on the days Antonia comes, small miracles occur: An attempt to braid hair or write a sentence. A question about the book Antonia has read to her. The resurfacing of a lost memory.
Antonia charges $125 an hour, but my parents think she bills them on a sliding scale and they pay a fraction of that. I cover the rest.
Today I acknowledge the truth: If my parents knew I paid most of the bill, my father would be embarrassed, and my mother would worry. They might refuse my help.
It’s better that they don’t have a choice.
I’ve been paying Antonia for the past eighteen months. My mother always calls to fill me in after her visits.
I didn’t realize how hard it was to engage in that charade until I wrote about it in this morning’s session. When Dr. Shields responded that it must be difficult, it’s like he gave me permission to finally admit my true feelings.
I finish writing the check and stick it inside an envelope, then I jump up and head to my refrigerator and grab a beer.
I don’t want to analyze the choices I make any more tonight; I’m going to have to be back in that world soon enough.
I reach for my phone and text Lizzie: Can we meet a little earlier?
I walk into the Lounge and scan the room, but Lizzie isn’t there yet. I’m not surprised; I’m ten minutes early. I see a pair of empty barstools and snag them.
Sanjay, the bartender, nods at me. “Hey, Jess.” I come here often; it’s three blocks away from my apartment, and happy-hour beers cost only three dollars.
“Sam Adams?” he asks.
I shake my head. “Vodka-cran-soda, please.” Happy-hour prices ended nearly an hour ago.
I’m halfway through my drink when Lizzie arrives, peeling of her scarf and jacket as she approaches. I pull my bag of the stool next to me.
“I had the weirdest thing happen today,” Lizzie says as she plops down and gives me a quick, hard hug. She looks like a Midwestern farm girl, all pink cheeks and tumbling blond hair, which is exactly what she was before she came to New York to try to break into theatrical costume design.
“To you? No way,” I say. The last time I talked to Lizzie, she told me she’d tried to buy a homeless guy a turkey sandwich and he’d expressed annoyance that she didn’t know he was a vegan. A few weeks earlier, she’d asked someone to help her find the aisle with bath towels at Target. It turned out to be Oscar-nominated actress Michelle Williams, not an employee. “She knew where they were, though,” Lizzie said when she’d recounted the story.
“I was in Washington Square Park—Wait, are you drinking a vodka-cran-soda? I’ll have one too, Sanjay, and how’s that hot boyfriend of yours? Anyway, Jess, where was I? Oh, the bunny. It was just right there in the middle of the path, blinking up at me.”
“A bunny? Like Thumper?”
Lizzie nods. “He’s precious! He’s got these long ears and the tiniest pink nose. I think someone must have lost him. He’s totally tame.”
“He’s in your apartment right now, isn’t he?”
“Only because it’s so cold out!” Lizzie says. “I’m going to call around to all the local schools on Monday to see if any of them wants a classroom pet.”
Sanjay slides Lizzie’s drink over and she takes a sip. “What about you? Anything interesting?”
For once, I had a day that could rival hers, but when I start to speak, the words on the laptop screen float before my eyes: By entering this study, you are agreeing to be bound by confidentiality.
“Just the usual,” I say, looking down as I stir my drink. Then I dig into my bag for a few quarters and jump up. “I’m going to pick out some tunes. Any requests?”
“Rolling Stones,” she says.
I punch in “Honky Tonk Women” for Lizzie, then I lean against the jukebox, flipping through the choices.
Lizzie and I met shortly after I moved here, when we both worked backstage at the same of-of-Broadway play, me as a makeup artist and her as part of the costume crew. The production closed after two nights, but by then we’d become friends. I’m closer to her than just about anyone. I went home with her for a long weekend and met her family, and she hung out with my parents and Becky when they visited New York a few years ago. She always gives me the pickle from her plate when we eat at our favorite deli because she knows how much I love them, just as I know that when a new Karin Slaughter book comes out she won’t leave her apartment until she’s finished it.