The Super Ladies

by Petrone, Susan

  Everyone but Eli had been sucked into the science fair vortex. As a senior, he had opted out of the whole affair (and was, Margie thought, perhaps a bit too smugly gleeful about it). Grant had dutifully created a respectable-but-probably-not-prize-winning project on the physics of baseball. His project mainly consisted of close-up photos (with explanations) of his right hand demonstrating how to grip a curveball, slider, and four-seam fastball and a video played on Oh-So-Continuous loop of him demonstrating each pitch and explaining why the grip made the ball move a certain way. Karl just stayed the hell out of the way, leaving his wife to listen to Joan’s detailed explanations of the project (which was fun to hear) and her even-more-detailed rants about a girl named Eileen O’Brien, who was the only serious competition in the district at the eighth grade level (which was a drag to hear).

  “The state science fair only takes one entrant per grade level from each school district,” Joan informed her for the twenty-seventh time the day before the science fair.

  “I know,” Margie said calmly. They were at the grocery store doing the regular shopping and buying more tofu for Joan’s experiment, part of which consisted of extracting the phytoestrogen from the tofu by the impressively named process of supercritical fluid extraction.

  “Don’t get the sprouted kind,” Joan said as Margie reached out to grab a package of tofu from the meat substitute section of Heinen’s.

  “That’s the kind we always get.”

  “That’s the kind we always eat, but you know I need the Cleveland Tofu Company kind for the experiment. It’s crumblier and that gives it a lower reaction point.”

  Margie took a deep breath. “Look in the cooler. They’re out of Cleveland Tofu Company brand. The other kind will work just as well.”

  Joan tilted her head slightly to one side, a move that she had perfected to visually express her disgust in lieu of rolling her eyes because Karl had once made a comment about eye-rolling teenagers. “How do you know?”

  Margie sighed. “You’re right. I don’t know for sure. I’m speculating.” She held up the rectangular package of sprouted tofu. It was marked “Extra Firm” but still felt mushy in her hand. “What I do know is this is the only store I’ve seen that sells the Cleveland Tofu Company brand, and they’re out of it. This is the only kind of tofu they have in stock, the science fair is tomorrow night, and I have to work tomorrow.”

  “Fine…” Joan said, taking the package out of Margie’s hand and tossing it in the grocery cart.

  “Look, you have an incredible experiment that is way beyond the level of any other eighth grader—” Margie began only to be interrupted.

  “You haven’t seen Eileen’s project. She made her own solar panels that actually work, and they power this little dollhouse, and I still don’t have enough variance in my results to get anything conclusive…”

  Joan went on like this through the frozen foods, the deli, the checkout, the ride home, and pretty much the next day and a half. It didn’t matter what Margie or Karl said, so Margie didn’t say anything, just listened. Karl apparently couldn’t help himself and kept trying to use his lawyer brain to pose alternative solutions to Joan’s perceived problems when what she really needed was a parent brain to listen and nod and tell her everything would be all right.

  The night of the science fair, Margie still believed everything would be all right. There was the standard schlepping of Joan’s and Grant’s projects up to the high school, but she was used to that. This year was actually easier because there were only two projects to transport, not three. However, Joan’s equipment needed to be set up extra early because it would take over an hour to run one final extraction and analysis. Margie elected to do the early run.

  The elementary school kids were set up in the gym, while the middle schoolers and high schoolers had their projects scattered in other rooms around the building. Joan was the only middle schooler with an advanced chemistry project, so she was set up in the chemistry lab along with a couple of surly high school boys who looked as annoyed about being at the science fair an hour early as they were to be sharing space with a middle schooler.

  Margie watched Joan set up the pump, heat source, pressure cell, and collecting vessel. The CO2 pump worried her a bit. Joan had used a similar one during a one-week science camp the previous summer (for which Margie and Karl had paid through the nose because Karl was on a girls-need-to-be-encouraged-in-STEM kick, even though their daughter had been a science junkie since toddlerhood). The high school had a CO2 pump, but Joan was technically still at the middle school and couldn’t use it. Plus, as Joan had pointed out far more than once, the school pumps didn’t have the pressure capacity of the one she’d borrowed from Hal’s lab. She managed to imbue the phrase “It isn’t professional grade” with multiple layers of condescension.

  In lieu of desks, the chemistry lab featured brown and black wooden counters sticking out from two of the walls. Each counter sported a sink on the wall end, making it look like a row of tiny kitchens. Margie plopped down on one of the tall wood and metal stools at the counter next to Joan’s experiment and gave it a little spin, taking in a three hundred and sixty–degree view view of the chemistry lab. She had leaned toward the arts and humanities in high school. That bent continued in college, and she ended up majoring in philosophy. She’d done well in her science courses; there just hadn’t been very many of them. The chemistry lab was an undiscovered country. It looked like a place where an enterprising girl could have a good time.

  The surly high school boys finished setting up their projects and left the chemistry lab, leaving Joan sorting out her swab samples and Margie twiddling her thumbs. In the open cupboard in the base of the counter lay a stray purple folder. It was empty, so Margie used it as a fan. The low hum of the air conditioning rattled through the metal vents along the bottom of the wall, but she was still sweating. Her hot flashes had a mind of their own.

  “What can I do to help?” she asked, giving her stool another spin.

  “You’re not allowed to help. I have to do this all on my own or it negates the whole point of it being my project.”

  “Okay, then I’ll go down to the gym and see if Dad and Grant are here yet.”

  “No,” Joan replied a little too quickly. Margie met her only daughter’s eyes. “I want you to stay with me,” Joan added, a little quieter now.

  “Gladly,” Margie said. Being treated like a potted plant can still be a decent-sized parenting win. She watched Joan look through her data sheets. It wasn’t as exciting as watching her daughter at a swim meet but definitely elicited the same amount of pride. “Need a fresh cheek swab?” Margie asked brightly.

  Joan looked up from her papers. “Actually, yes. I mean, I have to run an extraction now, so the judges know this is all my work and that I’m not just analyzing somebody else’s data. But your sample is weird. So are Aunt Abra’s and Aunt Katherine’s. I should run theirs again too.”

  “Weird how?”

  “Okay, I’m looking for changes in the number of estrogen molecules after I combine the cheek swabs with the phytoestrogen, right? So I ran every sample three times, to make sure the results were correct, and they all showed a consistent level every time, except yours, and Aunt Abra’s and Aunt Katherine’s. They’re all over the place, with way different levels every time I run them.”

  Margie took an overly dramatic deep breath. “Sweetie, I have to tell you something. Your mother is a mutant.”

  Joan did the annoyed head tilt. “I know. But would you please give me another cheek swab? And can you get me swabs from Katherine and Abra, like, right now?”

  This was the first time Margie had heard Joan call Katherine and Abra by their first names, with no “Aunt” preceding them. There had been a short period where she tried to get the kids to call people “Mr.” and “Mrs.” But all her fellow laid-back Gen Xer friends were uncomfortable being called “Mr.,” half
the women preferred “Ms.,” and many of them hadn’t changed their names when they got married, making the nomenclature even trickier. In the end, it was just easier for everybody to go by their first names, except Katherine and Abra, who received the honorific titles of “Aunt” out of affection rather than obligation. Margie sent them each a quick text, asking if they could come to the science fair extra early to give Joan one last cheek swab so she could run the analysis again.

  Abra replied with a quick “Sure.” After a moment, Katherine texted back, “I never thought my saliva would be in such demand. Be there in 10.”

  “They’re on their way,” Margie said. Joan nodded and bit her bottom lip, a sure sign she was worried. Margie thought fast. “You know, you’re helping to answer a sticky question that no one really knows the answer to. Any doofus with an internet connection and two panes of glass can learn how to make a solar panel on YouTube.”

  “Solar panels that power a dollhouse.”

  “They’re dolls. They don’t need electricity.” Joan went from biting her lip to snorting back half a laugh. Half a laugh is better than none, Margie thought as she gave Joan a quick hug.

  Abra got to the high school first, her sandals clicking their way down the second-floor hallway. Margie could hear more students and parents milling around the halls, but Abra’s footsteps had a particular resonance, as though the person to whom they belonged was on a mission. Ever the marketing director, Abra could always be counted on to show up impeccably dressed for any occasion. Even if she was just wearing shorts and a T-shirt to a cookout, the shorts were well tailored, the T-shirt fitted, and nothing had a stain on it from a previous wearing. It was a level of well-put-togetherness that Margie had long ago stopped striving to achieve.

  “Hey there, District Science Fair Champion,” Abra said as she walked into the chemistry lab.

  “I’m not the district champion,” Joan said without looking up from the CO2 pump. “And I won’t be if I can’t get some conclusive data.”

  “Apparently our saliva is causing problems,” Margie said.

  “There’s a sentence I never thought I’d hear,” Abra replied.

  Just then, Katherine appeared at the chem lab door. “I have twelve minutes before I have to go back down to Anna. Where do I swab in?”

  “Hi to you too,” Margie said, handing each of them what looked like an extra-long, extra-fuzzy Q-tip. “Here.”

  “You don’t need to swab just yet,” Joan said. She finished filling the stainless steel pressure cell with chunks of tofu, attached the CO2 pump, sealed it, and attached the collection vessel.

  “Careful with the pressure on the pump,” Katherine said. “Hal said it can be temperamental.”

  “I am.”

  Every time Margie watched her daughter run the extraction, she felt a surge of pride and wonder that someone who had spent nine months reclining in her abdomen was now capable of such things. At this point, Joan could probably set up the pump, the Bunsen burner, the stainless steel extraction vessel, and the separator in her sleep. She noticed Abra’s eyes grow slightly larger as she took in the array of equipment lined up on the counter like an assembly line, all of it connected with rubber piping.

  “Is that tofu?” Abra asked, pointing at the little pool of water next to an almost-empty plastic tray holding a lonely white cube.

  “Yeah,” Joan replied, her attention focused on slowly adjusting the CO2 pump and keeping an eye on the extraction process. “Sprouted tofu,” she added with no small amount of disdain.

  “Why don’t you do your spiel for Katherine and Abra? It’ll be good practice for the judges,” Margie suggested.

  “Okay.” Joan took a thought-collecting deep breath, straightened up, and went into honor student mode. “Soy and soy products contain phytoestrogens, which are essentially plant-based estrogen. The scientific community is in disagreement over whether there is a link between soy intake and breast cancer. In this experiment, I’m extracting phytoestrogens from tofu by means of supercritical fluid extraction. I’m pumping carbon dioxide and heating it to supercritical conditions, which in this case is approximately eight hundred and seventy degrees.” As Joan described each step of the process, she framed that portion of the setup with her hands like the hostess on a game show.

  “From there, it’ll go into the extraction vessel, where the carbon dioxide will diffuse into the matrix—in this case, the tofu—and dissolve it. At a lower pressure, the dissolved material will then be swept into the separator, and the extracted material will settle out.”

  “That’s impressive,” Abra said.

  “It is,” Katherine added. “But I suspect there’s even more to be impressed about.”

  “Definitely,” Margie murmured. It was fun to watch her friends be wowed by her kid.

  Joan seemed a little annoyed by the compliments but plowed right on through with her presentation. “The supercritical fluid extraction is the first step.”

  “I think she just likes saying ‘supercritical fluid extraction,’” Katherine quipped.

  “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” added Abra.

  Margie shushed them even though she knew that once Joan was in honor student mode, nothing could stop her. “Once the phytoestrogen has been extracted, I’m combining it with saliva samples from twelve women, five of whom are breast cancer survivors, seven of whom have no history of breast cancer. In analyzing the combined solutions, I looked for an increase or decrease in the number of estrogen molecules.”

  Katherine puffed herself up like a big guy and said in a deep science fair judge voice, “And what were the results of your analysis, young lady?”

  “Stop it, Aunt Katherine,” Joan said.

  “Sorry.”

  “The results were…” Joan frowned. “Inconclusive. Your three samples didn’t match the other ones. Mom’s didn’t match the other cancer survivors, and your two didn’t resemble the other ones in the control group. That’s why I asked you all to give me another swab.”

  The door to the chemistry lab opened, and a blond-haired girl with perfect skin and a skirt that showed off thighs the circumference of #2 pencils sauntered into the lab. Margie braced herself for the teacher’s pet, back-stabbing frenemy that was Eileen O’Brien. “Hey, Joan,” the girl said. “How’s your data analysis going?”

  Joan hardly looked up as she mumbled, “Hi, Eileen.”

  “Did you get your results straightened out? I mean, they’re going to start judging any minute.”

  Margie exchanged a glance with Joan. She couldn’t block Eileen, but she could run interference. She quickly walked to the door and used her best gushy mom voice. “Eileen, how nice to see you. I’ve heard so much about your project. I’ll be sure to go down and see it later. Please tell your mom I said hello,” she babbled as she ushered Eileen to the door. The look on Eileen’s face said she enjoyed Joan’s visible annoyance. Margie wondered what went into making a kid who was so full of sour bile. She didn’t even seem to mind being kicked out of the chem lab so quickly.

  As soon as she had closed the chem lab door, Joan asked her to lock it. “I really don’t think that’s necessary, sweetie,” Margie replied.

  “Yes, it is,” Joan exclaimed. “Eileen probably has her whole project all set up and she just came up here to sabotage my work.”

  Margie sighed but locked the door and went back to the counter where Joan’s project was set up. “I think you’re giving Eileen way too much power. She’s not perfect.”

  “Her experiment works,” Joan said, and threw a pencil across the room.

  “Joan…” Margie knew that no matter what she said at this moment, it would probably be the wrong thing. “What can I do that won’t make things worse?”

  “Nothing.”

  Katherine came to the rescue. She pulled out her phone and typed out a quick text as she spoke. “Okay, I jus
t need to let Hal and Anna know that I’m going to be up here a little longer. Eileen was exaggerating. The judging doesn’t start for twenty minutes.”

  “And you know they always do the little kids first,” Margie added, grateful for Katherine’s take-charge-and-take-no-prisoners attitude. “You have plenty of time to finish running the extraction and the analysis.”

  Katherine nodded and held out her cheek swab as though she was presenting Joan with a skinny, fluff-topped flower. “You have all kinds of time. Run the analysis again.”

  Joan gave a hesitant smile. “Okay.”

  It sometimes amazed Margie that her daughter could alternately be so in command one moment and utterly reduced to tears the next. Hormones, she thought. Teenage girls are full of them. Maybe some of Katherine’s high school biology teacher vibes were rubbing off on her, because Joan seemed to have a renewed burst of confidence. And if she was running the analysis as the judges came in, so much the better.

  “You can show them all the data from the first few analyses, right?” Margie asked. Joan had asked her three different times to take a look at the nifty chart she’d made tracking the results of all the samples with the phytoestrogen. “It’s probably more impressive that you aren’t satisfied with the preliminary results and are running the problematic ones again.”

  “Leave it to your mother to be problematic,” Katherine deadpanned.

  Abra snickered and asked, “What do we do now?”

  “Give her some new swabs,” Margie answered and put the swab in her mouth. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw steam rising from the container on the Bunsen burner and from the CO2 pump. Katherine and Abra were joking around, pretending to sword fight with the tiny swab sticks. Joan was actually laughing at them. It was nice to see her stop freaking out over the project for a moment and have a little fun. But the steam was coming more powerfully now, powerfully enough to make Margie stop in midcheek swipe and ask, “Joan, is it supposed to be doing that?” The other three turned to look at the steam rising from the pump and the collection vessel.