The Outliers (The Outliers, #1)(39)

“Ask him about what?” I was playing dumb.

Partly because I just didn’t want to deal and partly because I wasn’t in the mood to be doing Cassie any favors. But I knew she was desperate to take my dad’s test. Cassie had a glass slipper complex—forever hoping to discover she was a long-lost princess.

“Ask him about his test.” Cassie rolled her eyes.

“He’s going to say no,” I said. “This week especially he’s in a really bad mood. He had to fire that assistant guy he was obsessed with.”

“I thought he loved that guy,” Cassie said, because even she had been treated to one of my dad’s endless speeches about how everyone in the world should try to be more like the insightful and dedicated Dr. Caton.

“Thin line between love and hate.” I shrugged. “Why do you care so much about taking that stupid test anyway?”

“I feel like there has to be something more.”

“To life?”

I watched Cassie’s face sink. “To me.”

And now I felt bad. I wasn’t actually trying to hurt her feelings.

“You don’t need some dumb test to prove that you matter,” I said. “You matter to me.”

“Yeah, thanks,” she said with a wink. “But I still want to take that test.”

Fifteen minutes later, when my whole family was assembled around the dinner table, there Cassie went, asking my dad herself. She was tenacious. I had to give her that.

“Do you think Wylie and I could try your test after dinner, Dr. Lang? Just even like a little part of it?” Cassie asked. Her voice was intentionally high and squeaky like a little girl.

My dad frowned into his beet salad. “I don’t think that—”

“Please, please, please,” Cassie begged. And it kind of made me love her that she couldn’t care less that my dad seemed so displeased. “Knowing our results could be super useful, you know, in school.”

“In school?” Gideon asked, staring at Cassie as usual like he both loved and loathed her.

Cassie rolled her eyes at him like he was her brother, too. “Or fine, just for our own personal use. Or whatever.”

I could tell from the look on my dad’s face that there was no way he was going to say yes.

“Yes, well, as much as I’d like—”

“Oh, let them, Ben,” my mom said, swooping in with one of those smiles of hers. The kind that always made my dad cave. “They’re the ones who haven’t seen you for months. It will give them a chance to be a part of it, a part of you.”

“A part of me?” My dad blinked at her like he had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. He really was becoming more and more like a robot every day.

“Yes, honey, share something of yourself with your kids.” My mom was being playful now, but firm. “You know, connect with them. It might help them better understand why your work is so important to you.”

“He’s never going to say yes,” Gideon said to Cassie. “I’ve already asked him a hundred times.”

“Oh, come on. Life is short, Ben.” My mom got up and wrapped her arms around my dad’s neck, then leaned over to kiss his ear. “Let them have a sneak peek of this thing you love. It’ll be fun. You used to have fun with them all the time, remember?”

We did used to have fun with him. He was always the best at making up puzzles or designing family treasure hunts whenever we were on a road trip, and once upon a time he would play Legos with us for hours. He was never the warm and fuzzy type like my mom, but he had his own things with us and I loved them, too. Until for some reason this particular study came along and devoured the part of him that had always belonged to us.

When my mom rested her forehead against his, his whole body softened.

“Okay, fine.” He leaned back in his chair and tossed his napkin down. “I surrender. Let’s do it.”

“What?” I asked, feeling queasy. It had not occurred to me that he could possibly say yes. I was not at all into any kind of mental assessment. I already knew all I needed to about my monkey mind. “Seriously?”

“Yeah!” Cassie pumped her arms in the air.

“What do you mean, ‘okay’?” Gideon looked like he’d just been slapped. “All Cassie has to do is ask and all of a sudden you say yes?”

“I am not saying yes to Cassie, Gideon. I am unable to say no to your mother. Someday you will understand.” My dad stood from the table, seeming brighter than he had in a long time. “Listen, I’ll make it up to you—how about you go first?”

Downstairs in the basement—my dad’s home lab—Gideon, Cassie, and I sat stiffly on my dad’s bright-red couch and watched him set up. It wasn’t bad-looking down there these days, not since my mom had insisted on improvements: a shaggy cream carpet, some posters on the walls, the bright Ikea sofa. With my dad spending so many hours down there, she’d worried he’d get depressed.

“I’ll hook you up to the electrodes to monitor your heart rate, perspiration, and all that,” he said. “We’ll run the test in pairs, two of you having a conversation, while the third does the reading. That is the bulk of the study. We’ll keep the whole thing shorter than the actual study, but we’ll also do it with the blindfold and with the noise-canceling headphones and then with both so you can get a general sense of that part, too.”