Scarlett Epstein Hates It Here(28)
The plan was to narrow down the top four categories that teenage boys looked for in a girl’s personality, search across the country for girls that best represented each category, and then contain them in the lab for five months in order to thoroughly observe their behavior.
Ava was an obvious candidate for one of the slots: intelligence. She entered only because her mother was determined she continue her studies at a top university, and being chosen would diversify her application, supplementing her excellent grades. She quickly made it past the preliminary interviews, then the finals, and made it through. (There was no broadcast on TV; networks uniformly turned it down, saying that even if there was a swimsuit element—which there wasn’t—nobody would tune in to see normal girls wearing them.)
The other slots, determined by a nationwide survey of men in an extremely wide demographic, were philanthropy, creativity, and educational voraciousness. The girls chosen were from all over the country: Tara, seventeen, had started volunteering at homeless shelters at age thirteen and was now a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN. Jill, eighteen, was an art prodigy whose abstract paintings had been shown at MoMA and the Sorbonne. Jen, sixteen, was a pretty normal girl who didn’t know anything about cool stuff but really, really wanted to be introduced to it, which showed a deep interest in art, music, film, programming, culture, and education at large. (When surveyed, the feedback from consumers was that Ordinarias would sit patiently as the men talked at length about noise bands, HTML, or Hemingway but never seemed to listen or appreciate the invaluable cultural education the men were so thoughtfully attempting to give the Ordinarias.)
Ava couldn’t have cared less about any of this, but to appease her mom, she spent the required five-month quarantine at the rebuilt headquarters, taking standardized subject tests and personality quizzes from Ordinaria engineers. The four girls shared two bunk beds above the lab, and the only thing they seemed to have in common was ulterior motives for being there, which they occasionally discussed late at night, in the dark.
“Well, I’m here only because I want to improve conditions at the factory. Did you know they’re paid only slightly above minimum wage?” said Tara, who was either heartfelt or sanctimonious depending on one’s mood.
“I’m here because I’m researching a multimedia installation that breaks down modern American femininity,” said Jill, who wore all black and read Sylvia Plath when she wasn’t in the lab, painting an abstract with electrodes taped to her forehead and engineers taking notes.
Jen cleared her throat. “Do you guys know anything about the Smiths?”
“No,” they all said. (Jill was lying, but she’d already had to talk to Jen about the Kinks, the Clash, and the Shins; she was done.)
“Me neither,” Jen said plaintively.
*
It was raining outside, for the third day straight, but Ava would still do anything for some fresh air. They weren’t allowed to leave—since they were test subjects, the engineers were paranoid that other people would try to influence them.
Ava crept out of the holding pen and tiptoed down the hall. Breaking rules made her nervous, and she was deciding whether to turn back or go ahead and push through the contraband side-exit door—just for a breath of air—when it swung open and a dripping-wet guy lumbered in. He saw her, and they both stood there for a second, realizing that both of them would get in trouble if the other one told.
“Are you one of those girls?” he asked. That’s what they called them. They didn’t really have a name for this five-month stretch.
She nodded.
“What are you doing out here?”
“I was just gonna . . . who are you?” she asked defensively.
“Oh. Um, name’s Mike. I’m just a deliveryman. I was on the highway with my truck”—he motioned to an enormous truck with Ordinaria Inc. painted over the company’s trademark logo, a curvy female silhouette—“but the rain got too bad, so I figured I’d pull in and wait it out. I’ve been driving for nine hours or so; my eyes were getting tired.”
He was around her age. He spoke slowly, she noticed, and fumbled words a lot. She found it endearing and couldn’t help but notice how his wet clothes had conformed to the outline of his very nice body. At that moment, they thought they heard the echoes of footsteps.
“Why don’t we move to the loading dock?” he asked. She hesitated, then nodded.
*
Over the next few weeks, secretly, they got to know each other better. Mike was from a few towns over from Ava’s. He hadn’t gotten into the academy, so when he’d turned seventeen, he became an Ordinaria deliveryman, like his father and grandfather had. He was a little bit in awe of her, and she was surprised how much she liked it, considering she hated the attention she’d always gotten from her mother, teachers, and fellow students for her intelligence. She’d always thought she’d feel this attracted only to another star student.
It became a weekly ritual: They’d meet on the loading dock, swinging their legs over the edge. He’d give her a piece of regional candy he’d gotten from whatever state he had to drive from, and they’d talk about their day, or the candy, or the weather, or whatever. They didn’t have a lot in common, and there were a lot of long silences, but they were packed with enough crackling sexual tension to fill entire books.
One afternoon, after his long drive back from New England, he gave her a maple sugar leaf. On this day, there was an unusual sense of urgency. Ava was coming to the end of her quarantine, and she was afraid they’d never see each other again. Rather than sitting, they stood, facing each other, him towering over her.