by Abby Sher
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah!” said Becca. “Just wanted to come in and see ya!”
“Oh … kay. But I don’t think Steig wants a whole crowd unless you’re buying something, babe.”
“Lenny’s buying something,” offered Sylvie hopefully.
“Well, I might. How much is the MSA Millennium you were just hanging up?”
Kevin looked amazed. “Hey, you know about the Millennium? Steig! I’m showing her some stuff.”
The mold and mustiness got more intense the farther in we walked. I could feel sweat collecting under my bra. But it was worth it—the gas mask collection in the back was even more extensive than in the front. Steig had the Millennium, the Advantage, a bunch of Russian PBFs, and a huge section of Israel Defense Forces equipment. I felt like I should go with something made over there because it was cheaper and it made me feel at least a little like a good Jew.
Kevin agreed that the Israeli civilian gas-mask kit was the most bang for the buck. It could be used for nuclear or chemical attacks. The canteen was included and it had adjustable straps. I was grateful that I could fit into the small adult size, because the kids’ kits were much more expensive. Kevin told me he’d talk to Steig about giving me a friends-and-family discount. He also showed me his favorite tag that he’d shellacked to one of the shelves.
THIS EQUIPMENT WILL NOT PREVENT YOUR DEATH, BUT IT CAN POSTPONE IT.
He thought that was hilarious. I found it mildly funny.
Kevin looked really pleased as he led me and the mask kit up to the register. Steig grunted, “No returns,” and rang me up for $129.99. That was exactly five dollars off, and about forty-five more than I had in my babysitting savings. I handed over the emergency credit card and started calculating how much I’d have to babysit in the next month to get the account balance back up. Steig gave me a complimentary Troops magnet and went back to his puzzles.
When I got outside, the girls were huddled around Becca. Sylvie was elected to come forward.
“Um, Lenny, that was very not cool.”
“What was very not cool?” I asked.
“I don’t know how you know that much about gas masks or if any of that was even true, but I think you should know that Becca and Kevin are super serious and you’re not going to steal him away from her.”
“What?” It was hard to know whether I wanted to laugh, spit, or scream. Sylvie looked back at the girls for support. Leigh was shielding Becca’s face from me. I guess even my presence was now deemed a threat. Madison cleared her throat dramatically and gave the hitchhiker thumb, as in Get lost. The verdict was clear.
“Yeah, it doesn’t matter,” Sylvie said. “When you betray Becca, you betray all of us. Lenny, it’s time for you to leave.”
Artificial Intelligence
Humans
Robots
Can do long division without using paper
Yes
Yes
Can perform brain surgery successfully
Yes
Yes
Can reproduce itself without any intimacy issues
No
Yes
Needs constant snacks, sleep, and positive reinforcement
Yes
No
Has any sense of morality about wiping out the human race
We hope
NO!!
Chapter 13
DR. THATCHER’S STICK
Even the best gas masks on the market couldn’t filter out lies or loneliness. Tuesday night, after the Troops fiasco, I made one last attempt at texting Dr. Ganesh. I wrote,
ERROR ERROR ERROR
All messages from this number to be disregard.
The typo was insulting, but I wanted it to look like a robot generated it. I didn’t even hope for Dr. Ganesh to respond to that. I just needed to feel like I had thrown out some sort of lifeline before sinking completely.
The next day was Wednesday, which was miserable with a side of yuck.
I was mad that Julian didn’t even stop by to offer a ride, even though I would have refused. I was mad that my morning news email included an exposé on E. coli in most of the water supplies of North America and I hadn’t gotten even an automated response to my calls to our assemblyman. I was particularly mad that Mom mentioned in passing that she was taking off a few more days from work, which was surely a sign of the apocalypse, but when I quizzed her about it, she acted like it was no big deal.
“I just thought, with Emma coming in tomorrow, and Dad has a few more scans…”
“Enough with the scans. What is the plan of attack?” I asked.
Mom didn’t know. She said that the first set of scans had to come back first, and Lowenstein was in New York for just a small window of time before heading out to another conference, but hopefully there would be an hour for a face-to-face chat before he left and they could go over everything.
“Not hopefully,” I barked. “That man is not leaving until we get some answers. Why does everyone who looks into microscopes forget how to talk to humans? That guy is a complete asshole. Are you going there now? Because if so, I’m coming.”
Mom just stared at me. I’d never really sworn like that in front of her before. She took off her reading glasses as if she had to study me through a new lens.
“I wasn’t planning on going in today until later,” she said calmly. “I believe Lowenstein does his rounds in the afternoon and I will make sure to see him.”
“Do you need me to—”
“No,” she cut me off firmly. “I’m sorry this is hard for you, Lenny. But what I really need is for you to go to school now.”
I sludged through most of the school day without saying anything besides, “Sine, cosine, sine,” and “The invention of the pendulum clock.” Both because I was called on, not because I raised my hand.
VaGeorgia rehearsal was uneventful and isolating. Julian worked onstage with a small gaggle of girls on some pyramid-looking human sculpture. Marty took the rest of us outside to the bike racks and gave us a bunch of poems she’d written describing O’Keeffe’s life. I thought they were halfway decently written, though she used the word moist way too often. We had to recite them out loud while walking in slow motion.
On our one pee break, I restarted my phone three times just in case technology or mercury in retrograde or a synchronized uprising of human-designed robotics was to blame for my lack of Ganesh texts. Still nothing. So I hatched my most futile plan yet. I walked down the hall and called the front desk of the hospital, asking to be transferred to “my good friend and esteemed colleague, Dr. Radhakrishnan Ganesh.” I used a vaguely British accent, because I couldn’t do Indian without sounding really rude.
Then one of the tenth-floor nurses—I think Mariel—grilled me.
“Who is this?”
“An old colleague of the esteemed Dr. Radhakrishnan Ganesh.”
“Your name?”
“Doctor … Thatcher.”
“Can you spell that please?”
“T-h-a-t-c-e-r.” I heard her sigh. “Oh dear me, I left out the h.” She giggled. Then I heard a ripple of giggles and realized I was on speakerphone. “Is your refrigerator running or do you like Prince Albert in a can?” I blurted and hung up.
Slipping back into the auditorium, I thought I heard my name being whispered by Sylvie and Madison. Sylvie saw me and started flapping her elbows to cue everyone to shut up. I wanted to tell her that she could keep going—I had too much else to worry about besides being kicked out of their cult. There was no time for another confrontation, though. Julian called us all back onto the stage and had us start going through the full ensemble piece again. And again. Until we got it right.
We didn’t finish up until seven that night, and I pretended walking home in the dusky light didn’t freak me out. The house was empty and smelled like guinea-pig poop. I gave TinyGinsberg some pretzels since we’d run out of her food days ago. She screeched at me angrily, and I had to admit she won the prize for
most forsaken.
I called Dad to see how his day had gone. He sounded subdued and said that Mom had left just a few minutes ago. Also did I know that Emma was coming home for the weekend and there was a reality show about robots and humans dating? Pretty soon, he started snoring.
“Hey,” I said. “Is that a lawn mower or are you just happy to see me?”
“Huh?”
“It’s okay,” I said. “Those new drugs must knock you out.”
Dad sighed. “No, they couldn’t even start me on the new stuff yet.”
“What? Why?”
Dad said Lowenstein was back from Toronto but he had “some major concerns” about the drug trial and wasn’t ready to give it the green light.
“It can’t cause any harm, right?” I asked. “Why not just try it?”
“I hear ya, kiddo.” Dad yawned. “We’re appealing.”
“We need to start it now!” I knew that I sounded alarmist, but I didn’t care. Apparently, neither did Dad. I could tell from his long exhales that he was falling back to sleep again.
“Love you to the moon,” I said, trying to be softer.
“And back,” he mumbled.
I couldn’t understand why Dad was being so passive about this. It was like they’d drugged him into submission.
Butts in at 4:20, texted Emma.
Then a few seconds later: Hahahahaha! I love autocorrect! Bus not butts!
I couldn’t even answer her. There was nothing funny about her phone rescrambling her words or robots dating humans and I was beginning to think that Dr. Lowenstein was a cyborg himself with his lack of empathy. I stormed out to the bunker with my phone and wrote everything to Dr. Ganesh I should’ve said to begin with.
As in, Okay, it was me, and I know that was wrong. Can we please pretend that never happened unless you need to talk about it but I don’t because I know it was a mistake and I’m really sorry I put you in an awkward position and it will never ever happen again? But I really need to talk to you because Dr. Lowenstein is refusing to start the trial and I’m getting nervous because time is of the essence and I don’t really know anyone besides you who understands.
This time, there was a message back within minutes. It was a little cryptic, but at least it was something.
Eleanor, I am very sorry I cannot be at the meeting tomorrow. But you are in the best hands. Take care.
What meeting? I texted. Again, no response.
I pounced on Mom as soon as she pulled into the driveway. “Is there a meeting at the hospital tomorrow?”
“Hello to you too, my dear.”
“Hi. Sorry. Hi. What is this meeting about?”
“I don’t know.” She shook her head. “There’s always a meeting.”
“Okay, but why would Ganesh text me about a meeting?”
“The question is, why would Ganesh text you at all?”
I rolled my eyes. “We can talk about that later. What’s going on? Did you see Lowenstein today?”
“Yes.” There was a horrible pause. “Can we please talk about this inside, Lenny? I’d really like to take off my shoes. I thought you’d be getting ready for bed.”
I trailed after her, not letting up for a second. “I already spoke to Dad. He sounds like a zombie. Which is a whole other story, and I also want to speak to whoever is administering his meds. But he was coherent enough to tell me that they didn’t start the PD-1 yet, and they have to. Dr. Ganesh said he could.”
“Yes, but Dad is not really a patient of Dr. Ganesh, sweetie. Lowenstein is the one who is leading this trial and he’s the head honcho, so we have to—”
“No! We don’t have to do anything! We don’t have to blindly accept what this guy says just because he has fancy diplomas on his wall and gets speaking gigs in Canada! I don’t even think he’s human anymore!”
“Okay.” Mom breathed slowly. “Excuse me, please.” She walked past me and poured herself a glass of white wine from the fridge. Then she took a jar of flax seeds from the counter, opened the top, and tipped it toward me. I pushed it away.
“I’m skipping school tomorrow and coming to whatever meeting is happening,” I told her. I left her in the middle of the kitchen, munching.
That night, I stayed up until two in the morning doing more research on clinical drug trials, then dumped out my padlocked suitcase and made a list of all the meds that Dad had ever been on since diagnosis, in case that could be informative. I also jotted down a few alternative treatments I’d been looking up, like noni fruits, soursop leaves, cannabis oil, and some village in the Andes Mountains where people had mutated genes but were disease-free.
I refused to open the envelope of Ambrosia pictures again. In many ways, she’d gotten me into this mess. I wondered if she even knew how much she’d scarred my dad. If he died, I was going to track her down and send her a copy of his obituary.
I’d forgotten I’d stowed my rare-diseases book in here. That diverted my attention for a solid four minutes. I even added another page for something I’d read about called pink tooth of Mummery and made up a few more, like “laughing too much at knock-knock jokes disease” and “overproduction of sweat glands while eating kale disease.” I knew Dr. Ganesh wouldn’t be at the meeting. But I was determined to find him and make this right somehow.
Of course, what I really wanted to do was hit my head five hundred times without stopping. Just smash and slam myself until I demolished every knotted brainwave inside. But I thought again about Oscar Birnbaum making me commit to that stupid promise. Standing there in all his trilingual nonchalance, unnerving me. I was sure he’d forgotten about that moment entirely, which only made me feel worse. To me, that exchange was somehow the only thing vaguely keeping me tethered to Earth.
Thursday morning, I called the high school office to say Eleanor Rosenthal-Hermann would be out because of a family crisis. I was talking to a voice-mail box, but it felt good to name this ominous feeling out loud. Mom told me the meeting with Lowenstein was set for 11:50 a.m., which I thought was an obnoxious way of saying, “I’m too busy and important to waste a few minutes and just say noon.” It also meant we needed to leave our house by ten just in case of tie-ups. At 9:52, Mom came back so flushed from her morning jog I thought she would explode.
“We’ll be fine,” she assured me. I told her I was waiting in the car and stomped outside.
An hour later, as we sat in traffic, she said, “Maybe the train would’ve been faster.”
“Or leaving on time,” I muttered.
“It’ll give Lowenstein a few minutes to have a cup of coffee,” Mom assured. “Or discover a new genetic sequence. Did I tell you there was an article in the Times about him being on the forefront of modern immunology?”
“Wow,” I said blandly.
Then she prattled on about all the things Emma wanted to do when she got into town and how impressive the Binghamton bus schedule was.
Lowenstein had not discovered a new genetic sequence or had a cup of coffee in the forty-five minutes we gifted him with our lateness. He was in a secret chamber behind the nurses’ Island of Unanswerable Questions, waiting for us with a can of diet ginger ale and a frown. His hair looked thinner and lintier than I remembered.
“So sorry for the delay. You remember my youngest daughter, Eleanor? My eldest is coming in later today on the bus. She’s studying public policy and transgender normatives, which is as confusing as it sounds, but I’m sure you can appreciate the expansiveness of college curriculum these days. Lenny, I think I told you Dr. Lowenstein was honored by New York University for the work he did integrating premed students into the lab for more hands-on studies.”
“Yes, yes,” he said, waving her away but obviously a little flattered. “This is fine. Are we ready?”
“Yes, please,” I said.
Lowenstein led the way into Dad’s room. Dad was propped up in one of those vinyl lounge chairs with his WAHONSETT IS FOR ALGAE LOVERS T-shirt, which I appreciated, even if it looked five sizes too big
on him now. There wasn’t really enough room for us all to sit. Lowenstein leaned against a wall. I started rinsing out Dad’s plastic pink water pitchers in his sink. Mom kissed Dad’s forehead and then perched herself on his bedside commode.
Lowenstein opened a manila folder, looked at the notes inside for a few seconds, and closed it again. He cracked his neck and cleared his throat.
“I’m sorry I was away earlier this week. I’m sorry that I didn’t order these scans sooner. And of course, I’m sorry we’re having this talk now.” He stopped and looked right at me. His brown eyes were tiny behind his glasses. His gray sprouts of eyebrows, on the other hand, needed their own zip code.
He cleared his throat again. Coughed a bit. I wanted to hand him a SARS mask.
“So, as I mentioned, it looks like we won’t be able to put you in this trial after all,” he began.
“What do you mean ‘won’t be able to’?” I asked.
“Well, these latest scans disqualified us.”
“Who’s the judge? That guy from American Idol?”
Dad winked at me after I said that. Which could’ve meant he thought I was hilarious or that I needed to shut up and let the doctor talk.
Lowenstein cleared his throat two more times before continuing. “Well, we knew there was risk of this, but there are significant new metastases—including these glioblastomas, which are tricky…”
His mouth was moving and the rumble of vowels and consonants was clearly coming from him, but I couldn’t process anything he was saying. I poured out the lukewarm water in Dad’s plastic bedside pitcher and started rinsing it over and over again. The soap wasn’t doing anything except making my hands slippery, and every time I dropped the pitcher in the sink I knew it was collecting more bacteria from the bottom. This whole room was dripping with disease.
“But the progression has been so rapid … We originally thought that the targeted monoclonal antibody treatments would work because they’ve been so successful before. But then we had to move on to a more defensive approach, which, as we know, often runs the risk of depleting the body’s resources. And now … well, it looks like we’ve run out of time. And options. Again, I’m so sorry.”
