Lakewood(45)

The doctor’s eyes watered. “Look over the phrases. And make sure to let me know immediately if you have a headache.”

Smith lingered in the doorway, his hand near the light switch.

“We’re fine,” Dr. Lisa said. She pulled out a pillbox and explained that this is a slightly higher dosage. Everyone would be given different dosages from what they were given this morning. She had Lena say, “pink slip, froideur. The eyes tell the brain what to devour. In the attic, you can smell the seeds.” The doctor handed Lena a small paper cup with two pills in it. “This round of pills is chewable,” she said.

Lena covered the small cup with her hand. She tried to figure out how to slide one into her hand. Didn’t think she could get away with palming one.

“You can’t leave until we watch you take them.”

She put the first pill up to her lips. It smelled like vitamins. When she chewed, it tasted terrible, as if someone had sprayed lemon-scented cleaning spray directly into her mouth. Both pills left a layer on Lena’s tongue. Smith’s eyes and the doctor’s were on her mouth. Lena chewed with her mouth open, hoped it looked disgusting.

“This tastes like shampoo in my mouth.”

Lena was taken downstairs. She sat at her desk, read an email from Judy about how to keep the microwave clean. Tried to think of the words they had told her to remember. The only one she could remember was froideur. There was a slimy feeling, radiating down from her brain to her sinuses to her esophagus. Lena gagged. Took a drink of water. She turned to Judy. “Why did you send that email?”

“You said that three minutes ago.”

“Stop messing with me.”

“I’m not,” Judy said. She scrunched her face up as if she was smelling something disgusting.

“When did I go see Dr. Lisa?”

“That was over an hour ago.”

“No, it wasn’t.” Lena blinked. She touched her hair and it felt like another hour passed as her fingers felt the strands, traced over the “S” and “Z” shapes her curls fell in. Judy was talking, but Lena couldn’t understand the words she was saying. What did her scalp look like underneath all her hair? What if she cut it all off? Dark, thick clumps on a shiny white floor. Would it look like blood?

Judy turned back to her computer.

Lena typed an email. She browsed online, looked at her tabs. She had opened the same article about an abandoned amusement park taken over by feral cats seven times. She had replied twice to Judy’s email about the microwave with a GIF of a champagne tower. Dr. Lisa said it was boxes inside of boxes. And what if that meant that she, too, was in an experiment? But what did that mean for everyone? She clicked a link to an interesting article about an amusement park.

“Did you know that Charlie has been eating my yogurt?” Judy held an empty container in front of Lena’s face.

“No, I’ve been eating your yogurt.”

“You don’t like key lime.” Judy smiled. It faltered. “Lena, honey. I think your dosage is too high.”

“I feel like they gave me the gas. And I want to lean my head on everything.” Lena laughed. It came out high and silly. She couldn’t stop laughing.

She stood up. Sat down. Tried to stand again, but her legs gave out. She hit her back on the chair’s seat. She tried to pull herself up, but her legs flopped and kicked. She moved her arms breaststroke style. People were yelling. Lena tried to tell them that they needed to ask her to smile, to say something complicated, to write something. People didn’t just fall. Her mouth refused to do what her brain said. It spoke only in gurgles and moans.

Charlie took her hands. “Are you okay?”

Lena’s head felt like someone was pushing it. She slapped at the area above it, but no one was there. Felt tears coming out of her eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. She reached for her face to wipe away the wet, but Charlie grabbed her hands and kept them still.

Dr. Lisa bent over her. Some of the observers were pushing everyone back, some were taking feverish notes.

“I need help,” Lena meant to say, but it came out as “wrapping paper.”





19


Dr. Lisa and Smith showed Lena a picture. A few other people wearing lab coats watched. Lena stared at the picture: four legs, a bottom, a back. The name was on the tip of her tongue.

“It’s something you sit on,” Smith prompted.

“Froideur,” Lena tried. The word felt important.

Dr. Lisa told her to walk around the room. Lena waved her arms in big circles. “Washing machine, dude.”

“That’s not right,” Smith said.

He asked Lena to tell him something about her childhood. She told a story about one of her childhood best friends, Saturday. She and two other kids in the neighborhood learned how to sign because they liked Saturday and because they could say whatever they wanted. But the neighborhood parents made such a big deal about Lena and her friends being “good kids” that the whole situation became awkward, made them self-conscious about signing. It strained their friendship; it made Saturday think that they did this only to feel good about themselves, not to be friends with her. When her mom found out, she said, If you’re doing something good—and you’re enjoying it—don’t let other people spoil things for you. Try to remember this your entire life, if you can. It still took years to sort out all her feelings about how everything went down.