Lakewood(44)

“Do you have any questions?” Dr. Lisa asked.

“How will you be able to tell the difference between me now and me under the pill’s effects?” Judy laughed at her own joke.

Dr. Lisa smiled faintly and asked, “Any real questions?”

“Pink slip, froideur, sinking,” Mariah whispered.

“Can I ask a question?” Lena raised her hand.

“You just did,” Charlie muttered.

“If I decided to opt out of this study halfway through, what would happen?”

“You can’t opt out.”

Lena kept her face measured, nodded. “I have another question.”

Dr. Lisa raised her eyebrows. “Shoot.”

“What is froideur?”

“A word. It’s not important.”

“It can be used to describe a falling-out between people.” Lena turned. Smith’s eyes were on his clipboard. “It’s like a frostiness. Being reserved. I think.”

“Sure. Whatever.” Dr. Lisa scratched her neck. “It’s time to get started.”

Lena picked up her pill, put it in her mouth, and kept it beneath her tongue. It tasted like the stuff dentists used to numb the mouth when filling a cavity. “Seven, wrapping paper, exercise.”

“Excursion,” Tom corrected. “Wait, no. Exercise.”

“Excursion?” Ian rubbed his head.

The pill was starting to dissolve in Lena’s mouth. She took her water bottle and went to the break room. Lena turned on the sink faucet and put her mouth to it. She let the water run on her cheek, opened her mouth wide. The water, like most water in Lakewood, had a tang to it. The partially dissolved pill dropped out of her mouth into the sink. The water’s force pushed it down into the drain.

When she came back with a full water bottle, Lena said to Judy, “My mouth feels like it’s wearing a raincoat.”

“My tongue tastes like metals.” Judy took the bottle from Lena’s hands. Squeezed some into her mouth. It dropped onto her chin, down onto her blouse.

Ian was going through his desk drawers over and over as if he was looking for something. Charlie was flipping between a spreadsheet and what looked like his research for Fantasy Football. Mariah was singing the phrase “In the attic, you can smell the seeds” over and over in a flat tone while watching a video of someone meditating.

Lena sat down. She took all the pens out of the cup on her desk. Arranged them to look like a square, a house, an “L.”

The woman Lena called Angry Eyebrows tapped her on the shoulder. “Dr. Lisa would like to see you.”

The two of them walked up the stairs. Lena’s sandals slapping, and asking for attention with each step. Dr. Lisa was adjusting her air-conditioning unit. “I can’t get it to stop blowing directly on my face.”

“Crank it to the left,” said Angry Eyebrows.

“No, right,” Lena said.

There were piles of folders and notebooks strewn across the doctor’s desk. A photo of Dr. Lisa with kids peeked out of one. A little boy was holding a soccer ball. He was smiling and missing a front tooth. He looked so much happier here, not as if he was about to clutch the ball closer and start whispering, “I hate you, Dad.”

Dr. Lisa sat down. “I used to teach kindergarten.” She touched her hair as if checking to see if anything was out of place.

Lena made eye contact. “What was your favorite part of that?”

“So, I gave you some things to memorize.”

“Sinking, froideur, pink slip. One of my best friends is going to be a teacher. What made you choose kindergarten over middle school?”

Dr. Lisa checked a box. Wrote a note. “And the other set?”

“Headache. Wrapping paper. Swamp.”

“Do you have a headache?”

“Nope.”

Dr. Lisa handed Lena a form. On a scale of 0 to 10—with 0 being complete apathy and 10 being intense focus—how much effort have you put into memorizing the words? Lena wrote 5. She peeked at Dr. Lisa. The other woman was staring into the distance, chewing on the end of her pen. Which word did you find easiest to memorize? What did you have for breakfast? Were you experiencing mouth pain? How easy was it to focus? The doctor was looking at Angry Eyebrows. What did you have for breakfast?

“Are you okay?” Lena asked while writing down the word “toast.” She crossed it out and wrote cereal.

“What?”

“Never mind.” Lena wrote on the form Of course, I showered.

“Sometimes I wonder if this is all a box inside a box,” Dr. Lisa said.

“Nesting-doll style.”

The doctor had a birthmark in her left eye. A dark asteroid orbiting the light iris. She was looking up at the ceiling. Lena followed her gaze.

“I feel the same way,” Lena said. “A lot lately. I think it’s why this has been so hard.” She set the pen down on the table.

“You know, you really remind me so much of my best friend from college. She was tough like you. Hard to connect with. But if she loved you, like, really, really loved you, she would climb a mountain for you.”

Lena smiled.

“Lately.” Dr. Lisa stopped. She looked at Angry Eyebrows, the ceiling, her door.

A knock at the door. Smith poked his head in. “Is everything okay in here?”