Chemistry Lessons

by Meredith Goldstein

  At about two in the morning, at which point I was cross-legged, my head resting against the wall, Ann emerged, the sound of the swinging doors causing me to scramble to a standing position.

  “Get in here,” she whispered, almost hissing.

  For a moment, I assessed what we looked like in the dim hallway. We did look like criminals. All we needed were ski masks for our faces.

  She waved her hand, urging me into the lab storage room, which was mostly dark, except for one row of glowing lights.

  “Sit,” she said, pointing to a stool.

  As I tried to get comfortable on the metal seat, Ann paused and asked, “By the way, how did you get out of the house? Where does your dad think you are?”

  “He was still at some hiking-club party when I left,” I told her. “Don’t worry,” I added when she looked nervous. “I’m not the kind of kid who sneaks out. Even if he notices I’m missing, he’ll assume I’m at Bryan’s.”

  I spotted the One Direction binder on the black workbench counter. It was open to a page I must have skipped when I first found it. I could almost make out a handwritten list of directions and chemicals. As soon as Ann noticed me eyeing it, trying to make sense of the recipe, she flipped to the back page of the book, where there was a yellow folder.

  She removed it and slid it in my direction.

  “This is for you,” Ann said.

  I opened it. The first page was a spreadsheet almost identical to the one my mom used to document her work. There were daily instructions and spaces for me to log the date, my temperature, and the dose of serum. It was to build from six to twelve drops in each cycle.

  “You’ll fill this in every day,” Ann said. “Be consistent and accurate. If you don’t want to fill it in by hand, make your own spreadsheet on your laptop—​just make sure you include all the same information.”

  I nodded.

  “This,” she said, pointing to a vial filled with amber liquid resting in a test-tube rack, “this is your first serum. It’s Subject Number One.”

  I stared at it like the image of Kyle’s face would somehow appear as a cloud in the formula. Then I grabbed for it, eager to begin the project, but Ann ripped it from my hand.

  “Careful,” she said, raising her voice. “Maya, listen to my instructions first.”

  Bringing her voice back to a near whisper, she explained that I would use the eyedropper to place six drops of the liquid under my tongue.

  “Let it sit, hold it under your tongue, and then swallow after two minutes. You can breathe through your nose,” she said. “Just let it sit under your tongue until I tell you it’s time to swallow.”

  There was something about her instructions, and maybe the fact that it was the middle of the night, that made me feel like Cinderella, like the serum might transform me into someone else right then and there—​a better and more appealing version of myself. My black sweatpants would become the kind of colorful fitted dress worn by Kimberly Katz. The rubber tie that held my hair back would become a jewel-encrusted tiara.

  Ann was the opposite of a fairy godmother, though; there had yet to be a moment when she didn’t look frustrated with me. In the low light, the circles under her eyes were darker, and her skin looked pale.

  “Take the first dose now. Six drops,” Ann said. “The sooner you start, the sooner we can watch for any problems or allergic reactions.”

  I unscrewed the top of the bottle and used the dropper in the cap to place the serum under my tongue. I took a breath to say something, but she cut me off.

  “Quiet,” Ann said, holding up her hand like a stop sign. “If you talk, you might accidentally swallow some of the serum too soon.”

  She eyed the wall clock. The room was so quiet, I could hear the second hand ticking. “You have until one thirty-six. Hold it under your tongue until then.”

  The two minutes felt long, especially with her staring at me like I was a lab rat, which I sort of was.

  “It tastes good,” I said, once she gave me permission to swallow. “Like children’s vitamins.”

  “That’s because there’s sugar in it,” she said.

  “Thanks. It’s much easier to swallow something that tastes like candy.”

  “You’re welcome, but I didn’t add sugar for taste. Sugar helps your body absorb the chemicals. It speeds up cell metabolism.”

  I ran my tongue over my teeth, imagining what Kyle would say if he knew that the serum based on his DNA tasted like it was cooked up by Willy Wonka.

  “Over the next half-hour, we’ll check your temperature. Then, after tonight, you’re on your own. It will be up to you to fill in all the data, the most important part being your temperature, which will spike but should never go above one hundred degrees, understand? The minute it goes over ninety-nine-point-nine degrees, you call me, and we reassess.”

  I nodded. I learned from scanning my mother’s notes that her temperature had gone up as she used the serum—​a tame side effect, but one she wanted to keep in check. The most appropriate dose was effective but kept her body temp at ninety-nine.

  “Should we wait for reactions outside, just so we’re out of the building?” I asked. “It seems risky to stay any longer than we need to.”

  “I’d rather stay in here, where there’s a first-aid kit,” Ann responded. “We’ll wait another ten minutes just to make sure you don’t go into anaphylactic shock or anything.”

  “Okay.”

  Then it was awkward, at least for me. I didn’t know how to sit there in silence with Ann just watching me, waiting for a reaction.

  “So, how is your work going?” I asked, after clearing my throat. “Are you . . . feeling good about your dissertation?”

  “No,” Ann said, her voice flat. “It’s not as easy to push forward with it now that . . . well, you know, I had a specific mentor, and now I’m a bit adrift. Dr. Araghi is doing his best.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, as if it were my fault my mom had died.

  Her face softened, and she took a deep breath.

  “Do you know what you’ll want to study at MIT? You’ll follow in your mom’s footsteps, I assume?”

  “Yeah, but I want to take her work with disease a step further. Like, my mom’s cancer went metastatic so quickly, and then our options disappeared. I want to look at the role of epigenetics in metastasis—​to see if epigenetic markers might determine how a cancer moves. If my mom’s cancer hadn’t spread, she’d be alive.”

  Ann moved closer, like we finally had something interesting to talk about, but before she could respond, the door swung open, and she yelled, “Shit!” as I registered why.

  A small frame came into the light.

  “Maya?” Yael barked.

  “Yael. Hi,” I said, waving hello like that was normal.

  Ann took the small vial of serum from the workbench and hid it in her fist. Yael flipped on a second set of lights so that brightness took over the room.

  “Maya, what are you doing here?” she asked, looking at me and then Ann, and then back at me.

  “I forgot my wallet, and then I ran into Ann,” I said, my voice rigid. “What are you doing here? It’s so late.”

  Yael rubbed her eyes; it was clear she’d rolled out of bed for this visit.

  “I woke up in a panic that I hadn’t closed the freezer. But of course I had. I always do. I’m so OCD these days that I literally had to get out of bed and check—​and then, once I got here and made sure everything was locked up, I wanted a Diet Coke, so I came down to the basement to the machine, and then I heard your voice and got freaked out. Maya, why wouldn’t you just wait until tomorrow to find your wallet? It’s not safe to be walking around campus this late.”

  My brain wasn’t alert enough for follow-up questions.

  “I don’t know.”

  She looked at Ann. I silently prayed that she wouldn’t ask any more questions.

  “You guys should keep the lights on. It’s freaky down here.”

  Ann didn�
��t react.

  “Well . . . okay,” Yael said. “Good night—​I guess.”

  Ann let out a breath as my friend exited and the door swung closed behind her.

  “Shit.”

  “It’s okay,” I assured her, even though I wasn’t certain it was.

  “I hope you’re right,” Ann said, looking even paler than she had before. “Open your mouth. Let me take your temperature, and then let’s get out of here.”

  It was 98.9. Just right for a first dose.

  “Take the bottle with you,” Ann said, handing the small vial to me. “Take your temperature again before you go to sleep.”

  She placed the One Direction binder in her black satchel and then returned the test-tube rack to the shelves of equipment.

  “Come on,” she said as I followed her out the lab doors. “Don’t get abducted on your walk home; that’s the last thing I need.”

  “I won’t,” I promised.

  For a moment, it felt like we should hug goodbye or something, but she about-faced and went for the stairs like I had already left.

  * * *

  I assumed that when I arrived back home, I’d be able to sit in the kitchen with a thermometer, taking my temperature and documenting my initial response in peace, but my dad was home and awake.

  I found him on his knees on the living room floor. He was in pajama pants and an old, stained MIT T-shirt, leaning over what appeared to be rock-climbing equipment. This was his life now, one constant string of outdoor activities that required harnesses, vests, and florescent backpacks.

  He turned to me, smiling as if he had no idea that I was returning home in the middle of the night, not asking why I was out past two a.m.

  “Do you think this is a bent-gate carabiner?” he asked, holding a silver clasp. “They all look the same to me.”

  “You might be shocked to hear this, Dad, but I don’t know much about carabiners,” I said, leaning against the staircase.

  He smirked. “Fair enough.”

  He glanced at the clock over the television. “You coming from Bryan’s?”

  “Yeah,” I lied.

  I watched my dad move around on all fours, hovering over different pieces of equipment. Nearby, his orange running vest was hanging on a hook between the front door and his bike, which was covered in mud. My mother would never have let him bring that thing into the house.

  “Can I ask you something, Dad?”

  “Of course,” he said, his eyes still on the silver clasps.

  “Do you actually like all this outdoor stuff? Like, enough that you really want to do it every day?”

  He paused and looked up at me and smiled.

  “Maybe? I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I like that I can do it. I like the challenge. And especially with the biking and the rock climbing, it takes so much focus that I can’t think about anything else. That’s probably why I do it. My mind can’t wander off to sad places if I’m hanging off a rock-climbing wall or biking down a trail.”

  His wide smile suggested he didn’t know how depressing that sounded—​that he’d just admitted to hanging off rocks so he didn’t have to think about my mom.

  “Am I leaving you alone too much, babe?” he asked, his smile gone. “I know I’m not home that often, just with all of these activities, and the fact that I’m doing more curriculum work this summer. Maybe I should be around more often before you leave for school. I know with Whit not around . . .”

  Sometimes we were awkward like this. I was so close with my mom, and my dad was always there, but without her around, our connection felt different, like we weren’t sure of the rules. He asked me for parenting advice, and I had no answers. I didn’t know what we were supposed to be doing.

  “No, Dad, it’s fine. I’m busy with work and Bryan. Really, it’s okay. I just wanted to make sure you’re having fun.”

  “Something like fun,” he said, his voice weak, his eyes back on the equipment. “Well, get some sleep, my dear.”

  “Good night, Dad,” I said, and ran upstairs to take my temperature one more time in my room, then pass out, knowing that the sooner it was tomorrow, the sooner I could take a second dose.

  9

  Ann said it would take five days to kick in, and right on Day Five, I woke up groggy and covered in sweat. It was already seventy-five degrees outside, according to my phone, so the perspiration could be attributed to the weather, but with everything going on and the new, dull ache that pounded against the front of my skull, I figured I should take my temperature as soon as possible. It felt as if one of those hand-warming heating packs used for camping had been ripped open inside my head.

  I was now on twelve drops of the serum—​the maximum dose. Ann said this was the most critical time to log temperatures and effects, and to consider the experiment active. My electronic thermometer said 99.6. It was high, but as long as I was under a hundred, I wasn’t breaking any rules by not reporting it to Ann.

  I pulled myself out of bed and walked downstairs to the kitchen, suddenly feeling so parched that I downed two glasses from the Brita and half a glass of orange juice.

  I tried not to panic about my thirst, reminding myself that this was supposed to happen. My mom had documented similar side effects—​the temperature change, restlessness, and more noticeable perspiration. If I was feeling any of these things, it probably meant that we were doing it right.

  I went into the hallway and stood in front of the long, antique mirror hanging over the table where we threw keys and mail. My mom had kept the table clean back in the day, but now it was covered with unopened envelopes and a few candy wrappers.

  I leaned toward the mirror to look at myself up close. The curls on top of my head were wet with sweat and pressed against my forehead. My lips looked weirdly full—​not enough to suggest a severe allergic reaction, but maybe a minor one. My face was flushed, like I’d been sprinting—​or kissing.

  After a long, cold shower, I put on a pair of jeans and the T-shirt with ladybugs on the shoulders that Aunt Cindy had given me for Hanukkah last year. Bryan always said it was my least flattering top, and that it made me look like Mrs. Holmes, our art teacher, but I figured that would help me set the tone for the experiment. I would wear something I put on when I didn’t care who was looking. I slipped into my favorite brown sneakers, grabbed my backpack, and began the walk to lab.

  Kyle had beaten me there, as usual. He arrived at the lab a half-hour early most days, eager to prove that he wanted to be there, that he was ready to be back in class. It was silly, because no one really noticed the extra effort besides Yael and me; Dr. Araghi rolled in around ten.

  We had already been on two whiff walks that week. He’d been concerned about my mood post-breakup, and kept asking if I needed more distractions in the form of more chess games or shrimp skewers.

  Yael had been just as concerned. One afternoon, she told me the story of her first breakup—​how a woman she’d met in undergrad pursued her for months only to dump her for a guy on the rugby team.

  The conversation made me feel worse, but I was grateful, mostly because Yael never said anything mean about Whit, unlike Bryan, who had taken to calling him names. His breakup soundtrack had entered an angry place, with Kelly Clarkson yelling more than she sang.

  With Yael, there were no deadlines or eye rolls whenever I said nice things about Whit and talked about missing him. She understood that I needed to love him and to be sad.

  Kyle stayed silent whenever Whit came up, sometimes shaking his head or apologizing for not being “good at girl talk.”

  Now, at the lab, I saw him hunched over his workbench, holding a pipette.

  I watched him as he worked, really examining him for the first time as a subject. His fitted light gray Beaver Nation T-shirt showed off his tan arms, which were covered in dark hair. For a lab guy, he was athletic, built more like the guys on my high school’s soccer team.

  “What?” Kyle said, looking up in a flash. “What are you looki
ng at?” He pointed at me with the pipette. “You’re making me self-conscious.”

  “Nothing,” I said, feeling myself blush.

  “You’re weird,” he said, his eyes down, back on his work.

  I didn’t have a plan, other than to be around him and to observe his response to me. I asked Ann if there was anything I should do to speed the process, like ask for a post-breakup hug so we could get close, but she said the more naturally I behaved, the better.

  “Just be normal,” she’d said in a calm tone I guessed she’d learned from my mother. “Whatever that means for you.”

  I left him alone until three, when I stopped by, hoping to talk.

  Before then, our only interactions were accidental bumps in our small space. I’ll admit that this nudge was intentional; I collided into him from behind and leaned in close to get my balance.

  “Watch, it Maya!” he said—​yelled, actually—​after the interaction caused him to drop a piece of equipment that looked like a screwdriver.

  “Shit,” he muttered, grabbing it from the ground.

  “Sorry.”

  “That’s, like—​a very expensive homogenizer.”

  “Did it break?” I asked, panicked.

  “Thank god, no,” he said, placing it back on his bench.

  My face flushed as I sat back down at my desk and put in my earbuds to hear Dr. Araghi’s latest tape for transcription. I had already stolen chemicals at midnight on the weekend, and now I was messing with expensive lab tools. No more intentional bumps, I promised myself. If I caused Kyle to break something, he’d be too stressed to even notice me.

  After a minute, my phone lit up with a message. Sorry, it said. It was from Kyle. I didn’t mean to snap at you.

  I almost broke your homogenizer, I wrote back. You wouldn’t have been able to homogenize.

  I saw the dots appear on my phone, but I wrote back before he could finish.