Lakewood(30)

Maybe the government was creating a vast psychic network they would use to monitor the globe. And they were doing it by using a questionnaire that seemed better suited to a Find Your Good Christian Spouse website.

Dr. Lisa handed Charlie’s envelopes to Lena. She said the envelopes were not to be opened, but Lena could hold them and respond to what Charlie had written. “Write down how you think he responded.” For the first, she wrote Bacon cheeseburger, good bun, no tomatoes, extra fries at the bottom of the bag. Lena pushed her fingers against the second envelope. Looked again at Charlie. His ears might be smaller than hers, despite him being so much bigger than her. She scrawled This dumb office. Scratched out dumb, scribbled over the scratches to make it impossible to read. For the last one, Lena wrote Coral (pink-orange, not pink-red).

When the exercise was complete and Dr. Lisa had read everyone’s responses, Lena expected her to make some grand announcement: Some of you have achieved perfect sync. But instead she gathered her clipboards, the envelopes, her laptop, and slid them into her tote. She kept checking her cell phone as if she had somewhere important to be. She took off the pullover she was wearing to reveal a T-shirt covered in a print of pink and yellow ponies galloping. Tied her hair back and told them all to have a good night. She looked like a cool mom. Lena imagined her sitting across the dinner table from two kids, asking them, in the exact same tone she used while doing hypotheticals: “On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the best school day and one being a disaster, how was your day?”





12


That night, sitting alone again in her apartment, Lena started a new list, titled it “You’re an Adult.” She wanted to learn how to cook more, take better care of her car to save money, better understand the insurance paperwork she was getting sent about her mother’s care.

She showed it to Charlie the next morning, Day 14, in the break room. He went through the list and starred all the things he could help her learn. They worked on that instead of the six-month job performance plan they were given in their folders. That night, he went to her apartment and showed her how to change the tires on her car. It was impossible for her to do it wearing her cast, but she wrote down all the steps.

As he worked on the tires, Charlie told her which people he knew in town were super-racist, as if she would go up to people and get their first and last names before they said or did something awful. He thought the best thing to do when around those people was to smile, be on your most polite behavior, and never make direct eye contact. Lena knew all that already, but it was kind of Charlie to try to give her advice. There was dirt under his fingernails from changing the tire, sweat on his forehead.

She didn’t tell him these were things she’d known her entire life. Or, just on the being-a-woman level, Lena made sure to almost always wear headphones when she was alone in public. Almost every time she walked or ran, a car or pickup truck would drive by with a Confederate flag bumper sticker or front plate. She would force herself to smile as if her favorite song was playing, and nothing they could do or yell would make her unhappy. Or how she kept the music loud enough so when people did try to yell slurs or sex stuff out their car windows, it was all distant. Charlie wiped his hands on a rag. Lena could tell he didn’t mean to be condescending—he wanted to feel like family.

The next morning, Bethany walked into the office clutching her chin and massaging her cheeks. Her face was swollen. She said nothing, which didn’t seem like her. Bethany loved to chitchat. She never slipped in and went directly to her desk; she liked to act like the mayor of the office. Going back and forth, greeting everyone as if it hadn’t been only less than a day since they’d last seen each other. Charlie and Lena exchanged looks. Mouthed at each other a conversation about whether they should, or could, ask if she was okay. Instead of logging into her computer, Bethany sat at her desk. She stared at her STRESSED IS JUST DESSERTS SPELLED BACKWARD! poster as if there was something deep and wonderful that she could learn from the motto or the cake illustration.

Day 15: You are told by Charlie (the manager) that you will be doing online leadership courses given by corporate. Someone is stealing Bethany’s (the receptionist) yogurt and she is fed up. The water continues to taste weird and everyone is annoyed that Bethany has forgotten to order a water cooler. Lena showed Charlie her sheet and whispered, “Maybe she’s really into the idea of being fed up that someone ate her yogurt.”

“Maybe,” Charlie replied. “She’s probably getting divorced. That seems like a my-romantic-life-is-a-mess face, not a someone-ate-my-fucking-yogurt face.”

They both turned to Mariah as if she were a real human resources person and might say something. She was watching a video of cats knocking things off desks and muttering to herself, “Nice one.”

Lena went back to her desk. She tried to psych herself up to ask Bethany what was wrong. Bethany was visibly crying now. She opened her mouth. Her tongue was black as if she had swallowed printer ink. She reached in and pulled out a tooth. Whole and bloody with what looked like a vein still attached. The moment pushed Lena briefly out of her body and away from her emotions. She felt she could see everything in high definition. Bethany’s blood-smeared chin. The drops of blood on the neck of the light-pink blouse she was wearing. Dark red on her fingertips. The off-white tooth. Bethany’s black tongue, the vein in the center a graphite-gray. Then Lena returned to her body, sure she was going to faint. She focused on her keyboard, the gray stain on the letter “I.” She took a gulp of water. Her neck and ears felt sweaty.