“You make me feel like we could have it all, Karla Hernandez.”
I squeezed her tight. In that moment, I believed we could.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Weeks passed, and though Remi sometimes called me “Popcorn,” she said it in a way that made me feel included in her life instead of reminded about the movie theater mistake. Remi and I fell into a routine where she slept over several nights a week, adding data to verify Rosa’s hypothesis. As long as she was with me, I dropped off to sleep without issue. I watched The Lego Movie and spent most days humming “Everything is Awesome” as I pictured curbing vision loss in diabetics like preventing the Lego city from being stuck permanently with Kragle.
The buzz of my phone paused my soundtrack, especially when I read Remi’s text.
Had THE WORST IEP meeting ever. So looking forward to dinner.
Me too. Sorry about the meeting.
She sent a kissing emoji and I tucked my phone back into my pocket, grateful, as always, that Remi and I worked with the same level of dedication and focus.
I resumed my work and my song and was happily typing when Ashleigh found me at my desk. “Judy wants to see you?”
“I don’t know,” I answered even though I knew that for Ashleigh the question was a statement.
“She wants to see you? She said for me to wait for you?”
That wasn’t like Judy. Usually she understood that I would come when I found a natural pause in what I was doing. Luckily, it was easy to save my work and follow Ashleigh immediately.
Judy was standing when I got to her office, and she was angry. I had never seen Judy angry, and instantly I flashed hot.
“Explain this to me.” She extended a letter but before I could take it, she snatched it back. “It’s from the Miracle Center’s institutional review board with a complaint about our project. Apparently, one of the volunteers has withdrawn because…” She skimmed through the letter. “The research conflicts with her moral beliefs.”
I felt so sick to my stomach, I had to sit down. Judy towered over me.
“Do you know what she could be talking about? She says that being around gay people in both the clinic and the lab has ruined her daughter.”
Maricela must have told her mother. I shut my eyes.
Judy paced along her window, never once looking out at the view. “Such ignorance! To believe that being exposed to gay people will somehow infect her child? Who is this child and who is this gay person she has worked with in my lab?”
Heart hammering in my chest, I managed to say, “Me. I’m gay.”
She whipped around and stared down at me. Life slowed like it did in The Lego Movie, but not like it did when the romantic interest entered the picture. This was the scene that could wipe out the protagonist, and I had no clue what to do. She threw her arms in the air, and I prepared myself. Could she fire me for mentoring Maricela when I knew her mother was one of our volunteers? “Why would that even matter? I don’t care if you’re gay. I care that you can design good experiments and interpret data. Who the hell cares if you have sex with women? You could screw a god-damned goat in the middle of campus at high noon and I wouldn’t care so long as you were doing your work.”
My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I thanked my lucky stars that it was on silent. I didn’t take my eyes off Judy.
“How the hell does she even know you’re gay?”
I heard the waver in my voice when explained how I had tutored her daughter while she was working in the neighboring lab.
“She did no work in our lab?”
“None,” I said. “But she is Latina, and she was floundering in Bautista’s lab trying to understand the Chinese postdoc who was supposed to be helping her. At first, I was protecting the equipment from her inexperience, but when I found out she was struggling in her college class, I offered to help.”
My phone buzzed again. Remi never texted this often. Neither did anyone in my family, but I didn’t dare pull it out to look. Not when I was caught in Judy’s crosshairs.
“This is a critical time. If she broadcasts this message to the community, it could seriously impede recruitment.”
“She’s the only volunteer I encountered. I haven’t pissed off anyone else, I think.”
“Do you know how many of the volunteers are Hispanic?”
“Eighty-three percent,” I said. I ran the data, and besides that I had personal knowledge of the increased probability of diabetes in that population.
“I do not like hypothesizing about how many of those Hispanics happen to be Catholic and hold the same moral views as the mother you pissed off. What is to stop this woman from spreading her ignorance to other Miracle Center patients?”
“It’s personal. It’s about her daughter. She wants to punish me and her daughter, not ruin the trial.”
“Of all the things…” Judy kept pacing, the letter clutched in the fisted hand on her hip. I sat mute and trapped when my phone buzzed with an incoming call. “We will have to respond to the IRB. This is a good time for you to take more responsibility. Give me a draft within the hour.”
I glanced at my watch. I was going to be late to dinner. “Understood,” I said to Judy. I strode from the office, behaving how Judy would expect a research scientist to take the helm. I checked my phone on my way back to my desk.
Call me when you can talk?
I hit the phone icon at the top of the screen and waited impatiently for the call to connect.
“Looks like it’s a crap day for both of us,” I said when she answered. “Maricela’s mom sent a letter of complaint, so now I’m in the hot seat explaining my relationship with them as well as my sex life to my boss. I have an hour to respond to the letter Judy received from the IRB, so there’s no way I’m going to make it to dinner.”
I sat down at my desk and opened my email, phone squished between my shoulder and face. “Call you later?” I asked.
“If you have time.”
“Great. Thanks! This is…ugh. I have so much to do.”
“I’ll let you go.”
I thanked her again and pocketed my phone. Before leaving it there, I reflected briefly on Remi’s tone. Her voice sounded tight, but I was certain she had not been crying. If whatever she wanted to tell me about couldn’t wait, she would have said so, right? Blank document in front of me, I got to work.
* * *
By the time Judy nodded her approval and let me go, my eyes burned, my back ached and I was starving. My growling belly reminded me of the dinner I’d missed with Remi, and I dialed her number on my way out of the building.
“Hey.” Remi did not sound like herself at all.
“You sound how I feel,” I said.
When she didn’t respond, I peeked at the phone to make sure we were still connected. We were. “Want to tell me about the terrible IEP meeting?”
“Not really.”
“I don’t understand. You said earlier that your day sucked because of a meeting.”
“Is that all you read? You did not read any of the other texts or listen to your voice mail?”
She’d left me a message? I stopped walking. “Should I read the texts?”
“Whatever you want, Karla.”
Remi’s words made my body go cold. Something was wrong. I clicked Remi onto speakerphone and opened the texts. I thumbed back to the IEP message and quickly skimmed the following texts.
Prob w Neil. Can you talk?
Neil had an accident in the kitchen. Staff says he is still quite agitated. On my way there.
Worse than I thought. Where are you?
On our way to the hospital. Can you call?
Are you still working?
Karla?
I gasped. “Remi, I’m so sorry I didn’t see these this afternoon. I didn’t mean to go radio silent on you today. I just…” I pressed the palm of my hand to my forehead. “There was literally no time for me to stop today.” Too much time passed in silence, but I didn’t know what to say. “R
emi?”
“I think it is best if I say goodnight.”
“Remi, no please don’t. I’d like to hear what happened with Neil. I can be at your place in twenty minutes.”
“That is what I needed hours ago. It is late, Karla. I cannot talk now.”
“I know how bad this looks, that I was stuck at work again. I wish…”
“Stop. Please.”
I wanted to talk a mile a minute thinking that I could somehow find words that would soften Remi to me. I wanted her to change her mind and ask me to drive over. But she had said stop, so I did. I stopped my feet and my mouth and waited, my heart in my throat, my pulse pounding in my ears. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
“I have faced this dilemma before, and my feelings about my brother haven’t changed.”
“I understand that…”
“Please let me talk. What is happening between us…” Remi paused, and I dreaded hearing what she was trying to put into words. “It is stretching me in two directions, and it is affecting Neil. I thought that I could explain to him who you were to me, but it is taking a toll on him. His difficulty coping today…This, dating you…I am afraid that it might not be possible for me to have a relationship and maintain my brother’s care.”
Her words squeezed my heart until it hurt so badly I pushed the palm of my free hand to my chest.
“Can you at least tell me what happened to Neil and whether he is okay? I care about him, and your being at the hospital worries me.”
“He was learning how to make a BLT. He caught the handle of the pan somehow and the grease splashed onto his legs.”
“Did it come in direct contact with his skin? Is it blistering?”
“I must go now. I have to concentrate on Neil.”
There was no arguing with her. “Can I call you tomorrow?”
“Give me some time, Karla. I don’t know when he will be released from the hospital.”
I waited for her to say more, hoping that once she started talking, she would see that I was available now and ready to support her.
“Goodnight, Karla. I will call when I can.”
She hung up, and my screen went dark. I stood alone on the sidewalk as the night air chilled. I told myself that it could be worse. I still had my job. It would be awkward tomorrow, but Judy prioritized science, and I was still a good scientist. And Remi had not said goodbye. She’d said goodnight. She had to care for Neil and didn’t feel like she could count on me. I would give her time to see that she could. I would find a way to prove it.
Chapter Twenty-Six
I was in my bedroom changing into pajamas, emotionally wrung out from two days of waiting to hear from Remi. I should have been on my way to my parents’ house, but it was late, late enough that I wasn’t going to bother going over. Still in my closet, I heard the front door slam.
“You are so dead!” Antonia hollered from the kitchen.
“Luis doesn’t care if I’m at his birthday party or not. More cake for him.”
“Mom does.”
My guilt deepened as I listened to my sister putting the leftovers my mother had sent into the fridge. I’d purposely avoided driving by the house hoping I’d be able to tell my mother I’d gotten in too late to go over. “They’re not waiting on me for cake, are they?”
Antonia’s silence worried me. Cheerful barbs, I could handle, but the silence meant there were real hurt feelings to fix. When I joined my sister, I was surprised to see her sitting on the couch with two beers, one extended toward me. Cautiously, I crossed the room and perched next to my sister on the couch. “Why are you being nice to me? Is this my last beer or something? How’d you know I was here, anyway?”
“Mom had a sense.”
“How mad is she?”
“She didn’t talk at dinner.”
I took the beer and sank back into the couch. Petri jumped up next to me, and I stroked her fur. I tried not to think of my mother’s silence. The more my mom had to say, the quieter she became, and no amount of badgering could get her to come out with what she was thinking. When she had figured out how to put her disappointment into words, without fail, those few words would cut clean and deep. “She didn’t give you orders to drag me home?”
“Dad said to hear you out. He gave me a hand signal to use if your excuse is legit.”
“And if it’s not?”
“Then it’s been nice being your sister.”
A small smile pulled at the corner of my mouth.
“You look terrible. Are you sleeping at all?”
“Not so much.”
“Something wrong at work?”
I stared hard at Antonia. She always claimed she knew nothing about my work. “You really want to know?”
“Are you kidding? No! Rosa said to ask you. She’s worried about you.”
“The research is fine. I’ll tell her.”
“You’re coming back with me?”
“After I finish this beer.” I rested my head against the back of the couch and closed my eyes, already feeling the alcohol relax my limbs. It felt so good, I added, “and yours.” I downed the rest of mine and held out my hand.
“So why aren’t you sleeping if work is fine.”
“I didn’t say work was fine. The research is fine. My work sucks since my mentee’s mom filed a letter of complaint and outed me to my boss. She saw that as a great opportunity to give me more responsibility which means putting in longer hours.”
“That does suck. Especially if it cuts into time you can spend with Remi.”
I drank Antonia’s beer in silence thinking about the messages I had left Remi asking when I could see her again. “It’s worse than that, I’m pretty sure I fucked that up.”
Antonia smacked me. “No! We like her! What did you do?”
I explained how I’d had to ignore her texts and call while my boss filled me in on Maricela’s mom refusing to continue as a volunteer and berate me about the potential effect her idiocy could have on recruitment for the trial. I didn’t have to look at Antonia to feel her disappointment and know that she didn’t fully understand why I couldn’t have held up a finger to check my messages. She didn’t have to voice her question for me to offer my excuse that sometimes I can’t interrupt my work.
“If you were a brain surgeon, I’d give you that.” She frowned in thought and then took it back. “Nah. You know what, even that would be bullshit. I’m sure brain surgeons have someone who could read them a message, and if it’s an emergency, you face it right then.”
“You have me in the wrong spot. My boss could have checked her phone, but not me! You think the person doing suction can say, hold up a minute, my phone keeps going off?”
“How many times did she text you?”
I hung my head. “Maybe six. And she called.”
“Shoulda picked up.”
I hadn’t even told my sister how I’d talked to her after my meeting and didn’t even bother asking whether something was wrong. I’d been so focused on myself that I didn’t let her get a word in edgewise. Lead settled in my belly. I had messed up so badly, and I had no idea how to fix it. “I let her down.”
“Come on.” Antonia took back her beer, stood and took my hand to pull me to my feet.
“What? I’m not ready.”
“I can’t fix this alone. You’re going to have to talk to mom.”
I groaned but followed orders, knowing I would eventually have to tell my mother everything. Antonia waited as I pulled sweats over my pajama bottoms, put on shoes and grabbed a light jacket. We walked to our parents’ house in silence, and my mom managed to ratchet up my guilt with the once-over she gave my outfit.
“I’d just gotten home,” I tried to explain.
“You didn’t stop here to wish your brother a happy birthday.”
“Happy Birthday, Luis!” I shouted toward the living room.
“Thanks for your slice of cake!” he said, shoving a big bite in his mouth.
I knew he wouldn’t care. My mot
her, on the other hand…I could still feel the heat of her glare.
“It’s not just work,” Antonia said. “It’s girl trouble. That’s why I dragged her over.” Having done her duty as older sister, she gave me a side hug and bowed out with the excuse of Olivia’s bath time.
“What kind of trouble?” my mother asked when I turned back to her. Her eyebrows were pinched together and her arms crossed tightly across her chest. I opened my mouth to respond, but then she held up her hand. “Did you eat?”
I shook my head.
“Food first.” She hustled into the kitchen.
I looked at my dad who shrugged. “Eat a big dinner. That’ll make her happy.”
“I’ll be happy when she stops working too hard,” my mom responded from the kitchen.
“That means she’ll never be happy,” I quipped.
My dad wrapped his arm around me. “There is no shame in that,” he whispered. “You work as hard as you need to. This project of yours, it’s good?”
“Yeah, it’s fine. My PI is busy helping set up the clinical trial, so she’s been handing off a lot of the administrative side of this one to me. It’s great experience, but it means more travel, more late nights.”
“The kind Ann used to complain about? Is that why you look so guilty?” my mother asked.
“It’s not the same,” I said.
My mother pursed her lips and sent some sort of signal to my dad. He patted me on the shoulder and retreated to the living room. “Why not?” she asked once we were alone.
I watched my mother put together a plate for me and tried to sort out the difference. I remembered Emma telling me that I needed to be with someone who had her own drive, not someone who expected me to hold her on the couch every night. “Ann wanted all my time. When I got home, it felt like she had everything on hold waiting for me. Remi’s not like that. She has her own work, so she understands that my work can be demanding.”
“Then why do you look guilty?”
“I pushed her understanding too far. She gets it, but her brother does not, and they are very close. He functions on a very strict schedule, and a few weeks ago, I had to cancel on them which caused some tension.” I spooned carne asada and pico de gallo onto a steaming tortilla, folded it and took a big bite which muffled the part about how I’d blown it enough that I was worried she was thinking I wasn’t worth the grief I was causing Neil.
Cure for Insomnia Page 20
