Lakewood(36)

During her break, Lena called Deziree to check in. Her mother was making a smoothie that a woman in her yoga class said would boost her muscle health.

“I like saying the word turmeric more than I like tasting it,” Deziree said. “It’s relaxing, though. I feel mellow after I have some.”

Lena shifted her phone to her other ear. “You’re still taking your medicine though, right?”

A blender whirred. A long pause. “Sometimes, you forget that I’m your mom.”

Lena counted to 10 in her head. She cleared her throat and said, “I’ll call you later. I have to go back to work.”

She went to the vending machines, felt like she deserved a candy bar after that conversation. The vending machines were empty. Crooked Nose tapped her on the shoulder. “Remember, no outside food.”

Lena nodded. He wrote down: “Subject LJ craved outside food after only two hours.”

At her desk, she looked at the bags of pellets again. They would probably make her super-high or shed all her body hair or lose her teeth. Tinge her skin purple. Make her vagina smell like gasoline for the rest of her life. Could she go the next four days without eating? Lena pulled out one of the cream lunch pellets, worried it between her fingers. Smelled it. Like baby powder. She threw it in the trash, tossed some napkins over it so no one would notice.

At noon, Dr. Lisa told them to take a group lunch. They all grabbed a bag of cream pellets and went to the break room. Mariah’s stomach complained. Lena hated hearing other people’s stomachs. It made her think about intestines and stomach acid and the word duodenum, which made her think of butts dying and seeing unexpected vomit on a city sidewalk.

They sat at the long lunch table, everyone looking at their pellets. By the way they were all quiet, looking at the pellets, it was clear how much things had changed, how much they had all seen, and experienced. Week one, Lena would have popped a pellet in her mouth, no big deal.

“On the count of five,” Charlie said. “Five.”

Mariah shrugged. They all reached into their bags and pulled out a pellet. They counted down together. Lena winced as she popped it into her mouth. It tasted like burnt toast.

“Dirty spinach?” Charlie said, eating another.

“Kale?” Ian said.

Crooked Nose made an interested noise.

Lena rolled her three remaining pellets around in her hand. “What are you going to do if these make you pull a Bethany?”

“I guess get dentures.” Charlie opened his mouth. “Everything look good?”

His tongue was coated light white, but there was no blood. All his teeth were present. A large silver filling in one of his back molars. Lena nodded.

“How much money do you think they gave Bethany as a bonus for that?” Mariah asked. She had eaten only half a pellet and was still holding the other half between her thumb and forefinger.

“I bet $2,000 per tooth,” Ian said.

“It has to be higher,” Lena said. “Your teeth are so important.”

“I’m going to guess $50,000,” Tom said. He had already eaten three out of his five pellets. “Does anyone else taste tomato?”

“For that much money, I would gladly lose my teeth,” Ian said. “I meant total, not per tooth.”

As the rest started talking about how much money would make losing their teeth worth it and what they would do with the money—pay off loans and credit card bills and buy their mothers houses—Lena put another pellet in her mouth. She rolled it over her tongue. This one tasted like dirt. If Crooked Nose hadn’t been sitting there, Lena would have said, “I think having my teeth for as long as possible is more valuable than money.”

That night, she wrote Tanya a letter describing the pellets. The dinner ones had tasted like olive oil, pepper. But she was so hungry now she couldn’t sleep. Lena wrote about what it was like to change her eye color. Put the letter in an envelope and addressed it, as if she might send it. Then tucked it between her box spring and the frame.

The next morning, Dr. Lisa called Lena to her office. 8 A.M.–6 P.M. was written on the whiteboard. Beneath each hour were five hot-pink sticky notes with small cursive notes on them that were too far away for Lena to read. A line graph with six different colors was secured with magnets. Dr. Lisa handed Lena a survey about the pellets, questions about how satisfied she felt within an hour, two, three, of eating the pellets. Their taste. Did she have any cravings?

Dr. Lisa started talking about her sister, how she had been in assisted living for years. Their parents had died unexpectedly within three months of each other. She stopped talking and rubbed her forehead. The sunlight coming in through the window showed that there were freckles on her cheeks, peeking through the light concealer she was wearing. The doctor was slumped over, as if her personal life was pushing her shoulders forward.

Lena looked up from the sheet. Her natural, immediate inclination was to talk about her own mom, the last month of her grandmother’s illness. Form a connection. Here was someone who—as long as she wasn’t lying—seemed like she understood what it was like to always have to think about someone else. Down the hall, it sounded like someone was playing a movie that featured children—the sound of laughter, screams. Lena leaned back and shut the door. She thought about how Dr. Lisa’s fingers felt on her wrist. The way she had spoken about her mother, her interest not in Lena as a person, but as data: from sympathy to frustration to anger to sympathy. She forced her face blank before the doctor could look up.