Lessons in Chemistry(7)

The number-two pencil. With her free hand, Elizabeth had found it, gripped it, and driven it straight into his side. Not just part of it—all of it. Its sharply pointed lead, its friendly yellow wood, its shiny gold band—all seven inches of it versus all seven inches of him. And in doing so, she pierced not only his large and small intestine, but her academic career as well.



* * *



—

“Do you really go here?” the campus police officer said after an ambulance had taken Dr. Meyers away. “I need to see some student ID.”

Elizabeth, her clothes torn, her hands shaking, a large bruise beginning to bloom on her forehead, looked back, incredulous.

“It’s a valid question,” the officer said. “What would a woman be doing in a lab this time of night?”

“I’m a gr-graduate student,” she stuttered, feeling like she might be sick. “In chemistry.”

The officer exhaled as if he didn’t have time for this sort of nonsense, then took out a small notepad. “Why don’t you tell me what you think happened.”

Elizabeth supplied him with the details, her voice dulled by shock. He looked as if he was jotting it down, but when he turned away to tell another officer he “had it all under control,” she noticed that the notepad was blank.

“Please. I…I need a doctor.”

He flipped his notepad shut. “Would you like to make a statement of regret?” Then he gave her skirt a glance as if the fabric alone was an obvious invitation. “You stabbed the man. It’ll go better for you if you show some remorse.”

She looked back at him, hollow eyed. “You…you misunderstand, Officer. He attacked me. I…I defended myself. I need a doctor.”

The officer exhaled. “No statement of regret, then?” he said, clicking his pen shut.

She stared at him, her mouth slightly open, her body trembling. She looked down at her thigh where Meyers’s handprint was outlined in a light purple. She choked back the urge to vomit.

She looked up in time to see him checking his watch. That small movement was all it took. She reached out and snatched her ID card back from between his fingers. “Yes, Officer,” she said, her voice as taut as prison wire. “Now that I think about it, I do have one regret.”

“Much better,” he said. “Now we’re getting somewhere.” He clicked his pen back open. “Let’s hear it.”

“Pencils,” she said.

“Pencils,” he repeated, writing it down.

She raised her head to meet his eyes, a rivulet of blood coursing from her temple. “I regret not having more of them.”



* * *



—

The attack, or “unfortunate event,” as the admissions committee called it just before they formally rescinded her admittance to the doctoral program, had been her doing. Dr. Meyers had caught her cheating. She’d tried to change a test protocol to skew the experiment’s results—he had the proof right here—and when he’d confronted her, she’d thrown herself at him, offering sex. When that didn’t work, a physical fight ensued and before he knew it, he had a pencil in his gut. He was lucky to be alive.

Almost no one bought this story. Dr. Meyers had a reputation. But he was also important, and UCLA had no intention of losing someone of his stature. Elizabeth was out. Her master’s was complete. Her bruises would heal. Someone would write her a recommendation. Go.

That’s how she’d ended up at Hastings Research Institute. And now here she was, outside the Hastings lounge, her back pressed against a wall, sick to her stomach.



* * *



—

She looked up to find the lab tech peering at her. “You all right, Zott?” he asked. “You look kind of funny.”

She didn’t reply.

“My fault, Zott,” he admitted. “I shouldn’t have made such a big deal about the beakers. As for them,” he said, tipping his head toward lounge—it was clear he’d overheard the conversation—“they’re just being fellas. Ignore ’em.”

But she couldn’t ignore them. In fact, the very next day, her boss, Dr. Donatti—the one who’d called her a cunt—reassigned her to a new project. “It’ll be a lot easier,” he said. “More your intellectual speed.”

“Why, Dr. Donatti?” she asked. “Was there something wrong with my work?” She’d been the driving force behind her current group research project and as a result, they were close to publishing results. But Donatti pointed to the door. The next day, she was assigned to a low-level amino acid study.

The lab tech, noting her growing dissatisfaction, asked her why she wanted to be a scientist anyway.

“I don’t want to be a scientist,” she snapped. “I am a scientist!” And in her mind, she was not going to let some fat man at UCLA, or her boss, or a handful of small-minded colleagues keep her from achieving her goals. She’d faced tough things before. She would weather what came.

But weathering is called weathering for a reason: it erodes. As the months went by, her fortitude was tested again and again. The only thing that gave her any respite at all was the theater, and even that sometimes disappointed.



* * *