Chemistry Lessons

by Meredith Goldstein

  “So,” he said.

  “So,” I answered, nodding and smiling like the word meant something.

  “So, is there a song you want?”

  “What?” I asked confused.

  “For me to cover for you. A song. Any song you want.”

  I let out a sharp “Ha,” my laugh sounding like his.

  “No, really,” he said. “I’ll make a video for you. Just pick a song.”

  There were probably thousands of girls, most of them fourteen years old or younger, who would sell their siblings to get Asher Forman to record their favorite song. After watching just a few of those videos with Bryan, I’d seen enough for a lifetime. Still, I would never say no to this.

  “Beyoncé. ‘If I Were a Boy,’ ” I said. It was the only song I could think of, fresh in my mind from Bryan’s mix.

  “But I am a boy,” he said after a moment of consideration.

  “Right,” I said.

  “Nice,” he said with a nod. “I get it.”

  “Okay,” I said, adjusting my dress as I watched him leave.

  Bryan was in the backyard waiting for me when I got there.

  “Where were you? It’s almost ten. I couldn’t find you.”

  He didn’t look angry, just worried.

  “I took a walk with Asher Forman. I had no idea we were gone that long.”

  “Shut your mouth,” Bryan said. “Shut your lying mouth.”

  “I’m serious. That’s what happened.” I shrugged.

  “Where is he now?”

  “He went home. He doesn’t like parties.”

  Bryan looked at me like I was speaking a new language, and then his eyes fell to my neck.

  “Your neck is red.”

  I pursed my lips. I would tell Bryan about this, I decided. I couldn’t get around it. There wasn’t much to say, anyway, and I wouldn’t have to mention the experiment.

  “We can’t talk about this here.”

  “Then we’re gone,” he said, grabbing my hand and pulling me through the house and out the front door. As we slammed it shut, I could hear Rita barking behind us.

  Once we were down the street, I told him about the walk and the neck gnawing, and my concerns about Asher’s hands on my sweaty behind.

  “That must have been very stressful for you. Your behind does get very sweaty,” Bryan said thoughtfully, with pity.

  “That was the least of it,” I said, giving him a light push on the arm. “Someone has to tell him he’s a weird, terrible kisser. I’ve basically only kissed Whit, and even I know that you’re not supposed to suck on someone’s neck like you’re teething.”

  That was my one big lie of the night. Whit wasn’t my only basis of comparison anymore. I had also kissed Kyle, who, compared to Asher, seemed to have magic powers. I shook my head, trying to delete the memory.

  Bryan distracted me with questions about every single detail from the walk—​what Asher said and how he said it, what he did with his tongue, and how I turned him down and disclosed my lack of sexual experience.

  “You said ‘heteronormative,’ ” Bryan said. “You stole my line.”

  “Sorry. It’s a good line.”

  I thought the discussion was over after we got home, but Bryan wasn’t done.

  “Why are you so calm about this?” he said just before he went to crash in our guest room. “You’re weirdly breezy, like you didn’t just have neck intercourse with an internet superhero. This isn’t like you.”

  “I’m not breezy,” I promised. “Trust me, I’m not calm about anything right now. I think I’m just in shock.”

  It was weird to tell him the half-truth. I’d been lying to him for weeks now, making up stories about what I was doing when I was really with Ann.

  “Can I ask you something?” I said, tilting my head. “Is this going to turn into an embarrassing hickey?”

  “Probably.” Bryan sighed. “I’ll teach you how to put makeup on it in the morning.”

  17

  I stayed up late that night, documenting everything before I forgot the details. My mom’s notes had been clinical; there were quantitative data paired with small observations about my dad’s reaction to her at different doses, but my work was more qualitative—​and narrative.

  I tried to keep the language professional, but the more I wrote, the more it felt like a diary. Whatever awkwardness I felt with Ann in person went away when I was writing, and her responses had also become more casual—​and more frequent—​throughout the day.

  The minute I sent her a quick email to let her know that Serum Number Two had worked, she wrote back, Tell me everything . . . , to which I had responded, You’re not supposed to be living vicariously through this, to which she responded, Says you.

  By the time we were done going back and forth about my discoveries, it was three forty-five a.m. It took me another hour to relax and get to sleep. I barely got up in time to get to work by ten.

  I was chugging a big iced coffee in the hallway when Yael came in.

  “Thank god,” I said as she passed me and marched to her workbench. I left the coffee by Tish’s desk so I could follow Yael into the lab. “I was falling asleep sitting up. You have to keep me awake today. I barely slept.”

  “You. Outside,” Yael said, pointing back to the hallway.

  Yael wore a red cotton T-shirt that matched her fiery facial expression. “What’s wrong?”

  “Outside,” she barked again, already walking out. “We need to talk.”

  I followed her past Tish and into the hallway, and found myself almost running to keep up with her as we traveled down the stairs and outside onto the quad. She led me to the side of Building 68b, to a shaded area, making me feel like something awful was about to happen.

  “What?” I asked again in a panic. She was irate, her tiny brown curls slapping against her face as she crossed her arms in front of her chest.

  “Why didn’t you tell me? Did you think I wouldn’t know?”

  My heart pounded. She knew.

  If people found out about the experiment, Ann could get kicked out of her program. I’d be in trouble before I even started MIT, if they let me start at all.

  We’d stolen things. We’d misused materials.

  “What exactly are you talking about?” I was barely whispering. “What do you know?”

  “You hooked up with our friend. And you didn’t even tell me about it!”

  I exhaled. That’s what she knew; she’d found out about Kyle.

  “No wonder he keeps avoiding us,” Yael continued. “No wonder he’s been a basket case for weeks. What were you thinking?”

  “He told you?”

  “Yes, he told me,” Yael interrupted before I could begin to explain myself. “He showed up at my apartment last night looking like a mess. We were up until two in the morning. He slept on the couch.”

  I backed up against the side of Building 68b and sank to the ground, my head falling back against the concrete. Yael remained standing, looking down at me like she was ten feet tall.

  “I don’t know what happened,” I lied. “We went out. We went back to my house to watch television. And then we kissed, and I stopped it. It’s been confusing for me since the breakup, I guess. It was all an accident.”

  It was mostly true. Kissing had never been on the agenda.

  Yael kicked one of her espadrille heels into the grass and then plopped down to the ground next to me, crossing her legs.

  “But come on, Maya; he’s had a big crush on you since you got here. Suddenly you’re single and you invite him out—​without me. You bring him back to your place for a movie. You let him kiss you. And then you basically tell him you’re not interested, that it was a mistake. He’s just disappointed, and seeing you every day makes it hard to get over it.”

  I hugged my knees to my chest. A Frisbee landed a few feet away from us, and a bearded guy ran to retrieve it.

  I didn’t know how to respond because her version of the story didn’t
sound accurate.

  “Kyle hasn’t had a crush on me. We just started kissing. Then he said it didn’t matter. He said that kind of thing happens all the time.”

  She glared at me like I was stupid, like I was one of the pretty girls in school—​like Genevieve Moran—​who were always like, “Who, me?” whenever they found out some guy liked them. I was not that girl, and Kyle had always seemed happy with our friendship. He was the one who’d been ignoring me, the one who was already running off with other people.

  “If that’s how he felt, I didn’t know,” I whispered. “I swear.”

  “Really, I thought you were into him, too. You guys were texting all day, even when you were sitting next to each other. All the inside jokes. If it wasn’t happening in my face all day, I’d think it was cute.”

  “I was with Whit. I love Whit,” I said, my voice hoarse. “Bryan texts me all day too. I didn’t think anything of it.”

  She shook her head again. “That’s different; you’ve known him forever.”

  “What am I supposed to do?” I asked, my voice frantic. “He said it didn’t mean anything. He said this stuff happens all the time at college.”

  “What else was he supposed to say?” Yael said. Then she softened her tone. “It’s not just that . . . You’ve been weird lately. I see you in Ann Markley’s office, talking in whispers. You’re with her in the middle of the night. What’s up with you?”

  “Nothing,” I said, my head between my knees. “I swear, nothing. We just talk about my mom sometimes.”

  Yael nodded. I knew bringing up my mom would make it seem innocent.

  “Just tell me what to do to make it better with Kyle,” I said.

  “Be clear about your intentions. Respect his space. You know, relationships are confusing enough without mixed signals. I don’t know why every scientist I know is so smart in the lab yet so stupid when it comes to human behavior. Can you just try to be a human? Be with him or leave him alone.”

  I nodded and pulled myself up, following her back into the building.

  For the rest of the day, I drowned myself in Dr. Araghi’s tapes and kept my distance from Kyle, who spent most of the day cleaning equipment.

  I felt nauseated when I watched him. It wasn’t supposed to turn out like this. I was counting on knowing him next year, and not having him to talk to was making me miserable.

  I wondered what Ann would say if I told her that Kyle’s part of the experiment was inconclusive because he had liked me long before the serum. Then I decided I wouldn’t tell her—​because I couldn’t risk her shutting the project down before we moved on to Whit, who was the reason I pursued the research in the first place. I was so close.

  18

  I’ve never really been in trouble—​not real trouble—​because I’ve never really broken any big rules. When I was younger, I was scolded a few times for not doing chores, but when you’re a trustworthy kid with easygoing parents, it’s difficult to screw up. I wasn’t accustomed to deceit or the conflict that comes with it.

  But I had become a person who told lies. Many of them.

  I was lying every day to my dad and Bryan. I had alienated Kyle and had tarnished my relationship with Yael.

  And then Tish walked in with a clipboard, and suddenly it was clear I had become the kind of person who had risked everything—​my education, my career, my future.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Tish announced, Dr. Araghi standing behind her like a bodyguard, “I have a quick announcement. Yael, can you call everyone in from the other rooms?”

  Yael walked back to the other end of the winding lab and gathered the rest of the scientists, including Ann, who stalked out of her makeshift office like someone had interrupted her nap. She crossed her arms over her leather jacket, annoyed.

  “Sorry to bother you all. A quick announcement: Dr. Innis on Floor Two has reported some missing reagents from the first floor. It’s probably just a record-keeping mistake, but with budget cuts as they are and grant money tighter than ever, we’re asking all lab personnel to fill out one of these worksheets. You’ll see a space for your name, lab, area of research, your lab manager, and contact information. Below that, you’ll be asked to document all materials used in the past three weeks. You don’t have to list equipment, just materials and reagents.”

  Tish walked from bench to bench, dropping a photocopied form in front of each researcher. She skipped my bench, which made me nervous until I realized that I was just an intern. She had no reason to believe I used anything in the lab.

  I panicked and looked over at Ann without thinking, but she showed no signs of guilt. Her face was stony and calm, as if Tish had made an inane request that didn’t warrant her time.

  I had to place my hands on my thighs to remind myself not to run. My cheeks felt hot, and my stomach burned. I wished I could be as cool as Ann, who leaned against the wall and rolled her eyes.

  “What specifically went missing?”

  My head whipped from one side of the room to the other as I realized who asked the question. It was Yael, whose eyes were on me, and then on Ann.

  “Are there chemicals missing specifically from the basement? Do they know when they were taken?” Her voice cracked.

  How much had she seen that night?

  Ann broke character and turned to Yael. Her face was icy; the invisible threat unspoken. Yael didn’t flinch, though. She moved her eyes to Dr. Araghi, who answered, “Don’t concern yourself with any of the details, folks. Just document your work, and we’ll sort it all out. Nothing to worry about.”

  Yael looked like she might say more, but then she swallowed and nodded.

  I whipped around in my seat to face the wall before anyone noticed my jumpiness.

  My fingers fumbled as I turned on the tape recorder for transcription. I tried to concentrate on Dr. Araghi’s voice, pretending I had nothing to worry about, but seconds later, my phone buzzed.

  The text was from Ann. Bathroom. Now, it said.

  I rose from my desk, my legs wobbling, then shuffled to the restroom in the hallway closest to our lab. Ann followed seconds later.

  “This is over,” she said when she found me waiting in front of the stalls. “We’re done.”

  A florescent light flickered above us. With my back against the wall and Ann blocking the exit, I felt trapped.

  “Wait,” I said. “Wait, Ann. Just calm down.”

  “No, Maya, that’s it. I told you that if there was any risk of getting caught, we’d stop. Immediately. We shouldn’t have started this project to begin with. I was reckless and selfish. I missed the kind of work I did with your mom so much that I downplayed the consequences—​but I’ve used resources, cost them money . . . I could get kicked out. I could get booted so fast and wind up teaching middle school chemistry for the rest of my life.”

  “Hey,” I said, “my dad teaches middle school science.”

  “I know!” Ann said. “My aspirations are a bit higher than your dad’s, Maya. I’m in a PhD program in one of the most important epigenetics labs in the world!”

  She froze then and began running to each stall, looking underneath to make sure they were free of feet. Then she paced up and down the bathroom, her black boots sounding like hammers against the light blue floor tiles.

  “Maybe they’re not even talking about the materials we used. Maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with us, and this is all just a coincidence. How much does this experiment really require, anyway? We’re talking small doses, right?”

  She stopped and faced me; I could see our reflections like ghosts in the bathroom mirror.

  “I’m not your mother, Maya. It’s taken me a few tries to get it right. I tried not to use too many materials, but it was enough to be noticed, I guess. We can’t risk doing this anymore. We’ll just—​we can make an assessment about the experiment based on what we already know. We’ve had two possibly successful trials. That’s enough.”

  “Wait. No,” I grabbed her arm as sh
e started for the door. “Ann, the next phase is all that matters. I only did this for Whit. Subject Three is the whole point.”

  “Maya . . .” Ann pulled her arm away and leaned back against the bathroom door, blocking it so no one could come in. “Is he really worth it? Is anyone worth this?”

  “Wait,” I pleaded, not answering the question. “Just listen. We can still do this—​we just have to do it right now.”

  Ann shook her head. “Do what now?” she asked.

  “Well, they just did an inventory, right? And now they’re making everyone fill out a form to say what materials they’ve used. Dr. Araghi isn’t going to check the supplies again until everyone’s filled out those sheets. If you run down today and grab what you need, no one will know. They won’t recheck until after they restock. Right now they assume things are missing. It’s the perfect time to take what we need.”

  “It seems like a risk, Maya . . .” Ann said.

  “No. Look, Ann, if anything, they’ll just think they miscounted the first time around. They know their inventory is all screwed up right now. If we get the third serum over with, we’ll be done, and they’ll have no reason to suspect.”

  “Yael already suspects—”

  “What does she suspect?”

  I cut her off in a voice I didn’t recognize. It was low and confident, like I was a movie assassin. Like in Hanna. “All Yael knows is that I was at the lab late at night with you. All she knows is that we’ve been hanging out, talking about my mom. We can do this one more time.”

  “Maya, you sound obsessed. Like, Dr. Frankenstein obsessed.”

  “I just want to finish this. Don’t you want to finish this too?”

  She sighed.

  “I already gave you Whit’s sweatshirt. You have that information, right? All you need to do is make the serum, right?”

  She’d placed her hands on her head, her elbows together covering her ears.

  “Maya.”

  “Ann, we can do this.”

  She turned her back to me.

  “I’ll stay late tonight,” she whispered. “But if I see one light on, if I see another human on my way in, I’m calling it off.”