Cure for Insomnia

by Laina Villeneuve

  The quiet stretched before Remi answered. “We are.”

  “You see him often?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wait.” I remembered the way Remi had looked at the arcade. The two drinks. “Was your brother with you at Sloan’s?”

  “He was there, yes.”

  “Valerie was sure you were there with a date. She wanted me to go in and scope out the competition.”

  Remi laughed without humor. “Depending on the perspective, that is a very accurate statement.”

  “He’s important to you.”

  Remi paused at this, and something inside of her relaxed. She reached for my hand and continued walking. “My parents’ marriage was the first casualty. He is not an easy person, and their frustration ate away their relationship. My dad left first. My mother tried longer, but it was easier for her once she found a placement for my brother.”

  We walked as I weighed what to say.

  “Don’t say you’re sorry. He is who he is.”

  I absorbed Remi’s words. I had been about to apologize and wondered how many times people had apologized for something that could not be fixed. “They ran away, but you didn’t.”

  “No. I cannot. I will not. I’m all he has left.”

  “Did he influence your decision to become a psychologist?”

  “Yes. I wanted to understand him. I gained more than that, like a better understanding of my mother and my father.”

  I squeezed her hand. “Where do they live now?”

  “My father is in Virginia, my mother Tel Aviv.”

  I don’t know what I’d expected her to say, but her answer stopped me in my tracks. “How did you and your brother end up in Southern California?”

  “We are here because of Legoland. Neil became more difficult when our father’s diplomatic appointment took us to Greece. They hoped that returning to the States would ‘fix’ him. The permanence of our home helped. But it was not what my father wanted. His unhappiness affected us all.”

  “He missed being overseas?”

  She nodded. “Everything about it, especially the prestige. When he left, he cashed in every favor owed to him in hopes of securing a professorship at Georgetown or Harvard. That would have at least maintained his sense of status. Instead, he is at a school without name recognition teaching students who could not care less about his experience.”

  “Being in the States was hard on your mom as well?”

  “Yes. She is a news correspondent, so moving did not affect her career as much. She was freelancing when we were young, and when we moved to Virginia, she got picked up by Reuters. She easily transferred to LA when Neil fell in love with all things Lego. She was more patient with Neil than my father, but about a year after I finished my master’s, a position overseas became available, and she took it.”

  “And you stayed.”

  “I stayed.”

  Remi stopped, and I turned to face her. “I like that. A lot. And if we’re being truthful, I like you. A lot.”

  “Then it is settled,” Remi said seriously, but the side of her mouth rose in a smile.

  “What is?”

  Remi took a step closer, and I felt a rush of anticipation for our first kiss zip from my belly button to my chest. Then I felt Remi’s soft lips on mine. I pressed closer, wrapping my arms around her to block out the world. Remi’s tongue traced my bottom lip, and I answered her invitation with mine, shuddering as I tasted her and felt the catch of her breath. I had to pull away before I completely lost myself. “We are going to need to spend a lot more time together.”

  “Agreed.”

  Remi’s lips found mine again, and I easily pushed where we were from my mind. I was imagining lowering Remi to the sand, knowing how good her body would feel with gravity pulling us closer.

  Cold water crashed on our calves, pushing us apart with shrieks and wild-limbed running for dry ground. I looked down at my soaked pants trying to avoid the eyes of bystanders laughing at us for tuning out the ocean. We laughed at each other for the proper soaking we’d received.

  “I guess someone is telling us to get a room,” I said, tipping my eyes skyward.

  “You surprise me. I expected the scientist to admonish herself for turning her back on the ocean.”

  “I was raised Catholic. They drum guilt in deep.”

  “I am hoping you don’t feel guilty about that because I was looking forward to more.”

  “No guilt in what I want, only where it happens. I’m not usually a PDA kind of a girl.”

  Remi took my hand again and studied me. “No lies. What else do you have on your schedule today?”

  I thought of my cells, glad I had asked a colleague to split and treat them. “Nothing. I am yours until you get tired of me.”

  “I don’t see that happening. How about food, an early dinner to give you more time to study my linguistic patterns?”

  “I wonder if linguistic patterns influence the way you kiss,” I said, tapping my chin.

  Remi pushed against my shoulder. “It is no wonder you are a scientist.”

  Chapter Nine

  “I don’t even know why I have to know this. It’s stupid,” Maricela said. She sat with me in my cubicle, worksheets from her General Biology class strewn across the desk.

  I scanned the graded sheets and piled them together, quickly assessing what Maricela needed to do on the current worksheet.

  “You have a basic understanding of photosynthesis, right? This is adding depth to what you should already have from high school.”

  “See? I already did this, so why aren’t they teaching us something useful? I want to learn about diabetes. I don’t care about plants.”

  “You don’t have to care about plants, but you do have to care about how things work. Your class is about life. Plants are an intricate part of that, and you have to understand how they work. First, we figure out how things work, so that when they don’t, we can try to figure out how to fix them.”

  I pushed the worksheet toward Maricela. I could have finished it in three minutes, but that wasn’t the issue. Helping Maricela see its significance was. Before I could speak, Judy appeared in the hallway. When it was clear that she was heading straight for my office, I leapt up to meet her at the door. Maricela remained seated, and I wished Judy had called me to her office instead of seeking me out.

  Her eyes on Maricela, Judy said, “I saw Jim on Saturday doing the three o’clock cell treatment and sample collection.”

  It wasn’t unusual for Judy to be on campus over the weekend, but I could not see a reason that she would be in the lab instead of in her office. “Yes,” I answered, figuring the less I said the less she had to use against me. I’d often traded weekend cell treatments if I had to be away from the lab all day.

  Finally turning her gaze to me, she said, “How soon will you be able to process the samples and have the analysis ready?”

  “Done and emailed last night.”

  “Oh! Marvelous. Were you in the lab last night? I must have missed you.”

  “It was late.”

  “I should have checked my email. I was worried that the project did not have your full concentration.” Again Judy glanced at Maricela, an obvious distraction.

  “It does. It determines my future.”

  “Indeed. This project is the culmination of my entire career. I need my team working to the absolute best of their ability.”

  “I understand that completely. That’s why I wanted you to have the figures first thing.”

  “I am anxious to see the results from last week. Thank you.”

  “Let me know if you have any questions. I’m in the lab all day.” I groaned as I sat back down, realizing the promise I had made essentially glued me to my desk. It wouldn’t look good if Judy sought me out and found my office empty. “I’m so sorry for the interruption, but I have to send a quick message.”

  Maricela nodded wordlessly.

  No exercise for me today. Promised Judy I’d be her
e to review data, I typed in a text to Valerie.

  “Okay. What were we talking about?” I said to Maricela. My phone had already pinged, keeping my attention.

  I was hoping to hear about Saturday’s exercise.

  I blushed deeply and frowned. “Sorry,” I said to Maricela, typing a quick, Mind on work. Not in gutter. I placed my phone facedown. “Okay. Photosynthesis. Why we care about plants.”

  “You have a sunburn,” Maricela stated.

  Before I could comprehend what Maricela was doing, she reached out and prodded my pink forearm. The memory of kissing Remi flooded through me and refused to retreat like the white circle did after Maricela poked me.

  We had strolled inland lazily, window-shopping and learning about each other. When I paused at a surf shop, she shared that she had never tried surfing, boogie boarding, or kayaking, and I told her how much I enjoyed boogie boarding with my family. She had always thought kayaking sounded fun, and I easily imagined spending time on the water with her. She lingered at apparel stores, which gave me time to admire her figure and her sense of style. I heard Emma chastising me about my limited wardrobe and imagined letting Remi pull me into stores and suggest clothes for me. It was easy to picture trying on new outfits to present to Remi, to see her eyes roam my body.

  I had a hard time keeping my mind from exploring how Remi had said that she had ideas for how to further my niece’s sleep study. I wrestled with whether I could come right out with a question about what she had in mind. I held my question back. As eager as I was to share a bed with Remi, I didn’t want to rush there. I was absolutely content to stand in front of the bookstore listening to her talk about books she had read and those on her to-read list.

  I had more to say about karate when we passed a dojo. My brother had enrolled Beto in martial arts to help control his boundless energy. Remi laughed appreciatively at the antics of my hyperactive nephew and assured me that most boys his age had energy to spare. She rested her hand on my arm and startled when she saw how much sun I’d gotten. Equal parts sympathetic and chastising, she pulled me into the cool darkness of a pizza joint down the street from the bookstore.

  Once we were seated, she ran her fingers over my forearm, her touch feather soft, as she listed remedies for sunburn. Aloe vera extracted from the plant. Black tea, cooled, applied with the teabag. Everything she had suggested ended up sounding far more erotic than medicinal, of course making me think about the sleep study again.

  But Rosa had argued that what I really needed was a girlfriend. The tenderness in Remi’s expression held the promise of something significant, and I was quite familiar with things of significance taking a long time. The retinal trial was the culmination of years and years of experimentation, grant applications, toxicity testing, stability studies, and ethics submissions.

  Maricela touched my arm again, and the contact sent me reeling. It slammed me back into the harsh bright lab and my work. Work! I was supposed to be thinking about work. But I was also supposed to be tutoring Maricela about something… I could not remember what. Most embarrassingly, though, it ignited the desire I’d felt when Remi touched me, something I definitely wasn’t supposed to be feeling in the lab. “I spent the day at the beach.” I pored over the worksheets on my desk, hoping Maricela would accept the redirect to our lesson.

  Maricela leaned forward and said softly, “With your girlfriend?”

  “Girlfriend?” My mind tried to grasp how Maricela had made that leap.

  “You were walking with her last week.”

  “Oh!” I laughed, relieved. “Valerie! We work here together. She’s my pal.”

  “I’m so sorry!” Maricela looked mortified. “I thought the two of you…”

  “No. She and her wife are very happily married.” I couldn’t figure out how this conversational track was still in motion.

  “So she is…gay,” Maricela all but whispered. “When my mom saw you and your…friend…she thought you two were a couple. She was very upset to find out that I have been spending time with a lesbian.”

  “I can see where she could get that impression. We’re very close.”

  “You’re not offended?”

  “Why would I be offended?”

  “That my mom thought you’re gay.”

  I sat back remembering not only the way the elder Gonzales had scowled at us but the wide-eyed wonder in Maricela’s eyes. I recalled thinking how difficult it would be to come out to that expression, and so much became clear. “Is she upset about gay people in general or about you?” I ventured.

  Maricela reacted like she’d been struck by a bus and a flood of Spanish rushed from her mouth.

  “What?” I was forced to ask.

  Maricela’s eyes darted around the lab as if she were worried about people eavesdropping. “Don’t you speak Spanish?”

  “Not that well.”

  Shaking her head, Maricela mumbled to herself in Spanish. Finally, she leaned closer. “My mother would kill me if I was gay.”

  She sounded as if she meant that literally. “I can’t imagine that any mother could cut herself away from her daughter.”

  “You don’t know my mother. She is very upset that you are gay. If she knew you’re connected to the clinic, she would stop donating samples.”

  “Wait. What did you say?”

  “My mother is so homophobic she wouldn’t volunteer here if she knew you had something to do with the research.”

  My mind spun for so many reasons.

  “Are you okay?” Maricela asked. “Should I not have said that?”

  “I didn’t know your mom was volunteering samples.”

  Everything that came from the clinic was de-identified and coded to protect confidentiality and blind the data. I had no idea what samples belonged to her mother. Still, knowing Maricela, talking to her, helping her… I took a deep breath trying to determine whether I had an ethical problem. “What did you tell her when she assumed Valerie and I were a couple?”

  “I said I barely see you and that you work in a different lab. She has no idea your lab works with the samples from the clinic.”

  I nodded. That was good. The question was whether Judy should be made aware of Maricela’s connection to my research.

  “So who did you go to the beach with?” Maricela asked.

  “Have you come out to your mom yet?”

  The two questions hung in the air. She didn’t answer, and I felt no need to break the silence.

  “I can’t talk to my mother,” Maricela finally said.

  “She supports your education. My mother is more understanding about me dating women than she is about my career.”

  “So you are gay!”

  When I had decided to mentor Maricela, I’d pictured discussions about science and university applications. It never occurred to me that I would be talking about my personal life. “I am.” Maricela reached out and touched my arm again. I scooted my chair back, out of Maricela’s reach.

  “And you were at the beach with your girlfriend.”

  Why wasn’t she letting this go? If I didn’t claim a girlfriend, was Maricela going to develop a crush? “If you don’t have any other questions about your photosynthesis homework, I need to get back to my samples.”

  My words hurt her. Her whole expression shut down when I refused to talk about the beach. “No. I don’t have questions. I can write whatever and get credit. It doesn’t have to be right.” She gathered her homework sheets.

  “But you’ll need to understand it for the exam.”

  “Fine. Whatever.”

  “Maricela?” I struggled with the dilemma of whether to stay professional or allow the personal and wished I had more time to plot out each decision. Pressed, I thought about what I would have wanted at twenty and relented. “It was a first date.”

  Interest sparked in Maricela’s eyes. “And it went good. That’s why you got sunburned?”

  “It did. It was really good.” I said this for the same reason I had told h
er not to drop out of school. I wanted Maricela to know I was not ashamed of being a lesbian.

  Maricela nodded, satisfied.

  “Do you have any more questions about your homework?”

  “Nah, I’m good,” she said and left me sitting alone trying to switch my brain back to work. I pulled out my phone and texted Remi. Someone noticed my sunburn.

  Remi’s reply pinged immediately. Need aloe? Could help with application…

  I smiled. Tempting, but stuck working late.

  Call me.

  Later? Now? I took a chance and pushed the phone icon at the top of my screen.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s not that I don’t want to see you again. I had a really good time.”

  “So did I.”

  I could hear the smile in her voice, one that made her lips all the more tempting. I closed my eyes, wishing I could steal another kiss. Remi’s velvety lips nestled so perfectly to mine, and I longed to continue the discussion we had started with our kisses.

  Remi interrupted my daydream. “I’ve got an IEP meeting. I meant call me later, and we’ll set up a date.”

  “IEP?”

  “Individualized Educational Plan for a student. They’re incredibly difficult to schedule.”

  “Got it. It might be late by the time I call. Is that okay?”

  “I can handle it. Go do your work.”

  “Right. Have a good day.” I tapped my phone against my thigh, smiling at her command. I wasn’t used to being told to get back to work, and it felt nice. I finally understood what Emma meant about needing someone who had her own life. Free of guilt, I got back to work.

  Chapter Ten

  Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit I chanted, trying to pipette faster. My right hand cramping, I switched to the left. Don’t look at the clock again, I snapped at myself. It will not change the fact that you are running late. I looked anyway. Very late.

  I had hoped to be on my way out of the building by now to meet Remi in the parking lot. At least she hadn’t texted yet. I should have texted her when I realized the patient samples were taking more time to process than I had anticipated. Maybe luck would be on my side and her last meeting would have run long, or maybe a traffic jam would buffer the time.