Ophelia, Alive Read online

  “What?”

  She’s nodding toward her bathroom scale. “Get on the scale,” she says again.

  I want to say No, but she won’t look away, and her eyes, locked on mine, hold my tongue tightly closed in my teeth. And I look toward the door, and it’s closed, and she’s standing in front of it, blocking my path, while my sneakers hang over her bright, orange carpet, just dangling. I’m trying to look away, trying to think of a way I can teleport back to the hall or the lounge or my bed or a big, leather chair. But her eyes won’t relent, and I shrink under them till my feet touch her rug and it squishes a bit of its orangey dye down the old, rusty drain as I step on a scale with a worn Biggest Loser decal on top of it. It’s a cheap scale, mechanical, one of those types with a dial inside that swings back and forth, and it’s clicking and clacking (it’s mocking me), making me wait for my weight. I try not to wince when I see it and she writes it down on her clipboard, and says “Okay, you can sit back down if you want.”

  “If I want?”

  “Have a seat.”

  Each step on her rug fills the room with a smell—an old-rug smell, mildew, I guess—and I look toward the door again, but she’s leaning against it now, and I sigh and collapse onto her desk. “Sara, what’s this all about?”

  “Shh.” She’s back on the floor, shoving her hand around in a desk drawer again, like she’s giving it a violent pelvic exam.

  “And why do you keep shushing me?”

  “I just—ow—just keep thinking I’m hearing someone coming, and—ow—there.” Triumphantly, she slams a pill bottle down on her desk. It’s one of those orange bottles, like you’d get at Walgreens, except without a label. It’s full of chalky white pills that rattle around when it moves, and it casts orangey shadows in the orangey light. “Well?”

  “Well what?” I say.

  “This is it,” she says. “This is my...miracle drug.”

  I snort. I can’t help it. But she shoots me a look that withers my grin.

  “What?” she says.

  “That’s seriously what you’re calling it? ‘My miracle drug’? That’s, uh, overselling it a bit, don’t you think?”

  She frowns.

  “This is it, though, huh? The results from that thesis that was going to change the world, but got you kicked out of Yale instead? I’m trying to remember why you said it fell through—”

  She grabs it off the table and squeezes it in her hand till her knuckles are white. Bites her lip. “It just didn’t work out.” And she moves in front of the light bulb, and her shadow swallows me.

  “Sara, ‘didn’t work out’ and ‘got me kicked out of Yale’ are barely even in the same solar system.”

  “It was all bullshit,” she says. “I lost my funding, I lost my advisor, and yeah, they kicked me out, but it was all just political bullshit. The science is sound, the stuff will work. I just need to prove it. I should be in a well-funded lab proving it right now, but instead I’m in a closet that smells like formaldehyde and mildew, trying to explain the minutiae of the drug development process to my English-lit-major little sister.”

  “You’re not trying very hard.”

  “Just—don’t. Just stop.” Then her eyes close for a second while she unwinds her purple knuckles, and she sits down next to me on the desk and says “Sorry. Just—I just need your help.”

  “I...don’t think I like where this is going.”

  “Don’t you even want to know what it does?”

  I look toward the door again—solid wood, no windows. “I mean, I guess you can tell me if you want.”

  Her eyes light up. “It’s a diet drug.”

  I snort again. I can’t help it.

  “What?”

  “A weight-loss drug? That’s your miracle pill, Sara?”

  “No, this is different from other weight-loss pills, okay?”

  “I’m sorry, I have to—”

  “Wait, listen.” It’s an order, not a plea. I was about to stand up, but I can’t—her face is inches from mine now, lit orange by the room and the pill bottle, and the light pulses like a flame. “It’s psychoactive,” she says. “It’s—well—how can I put this in terms you’ll understand? Hmm.” She’s chewing on a hangnail as she thinks. “Well—first, it makes it so you don’t want to eat. It shuts off your brain’s pleasure receptors for food. And then—well—it gets technical, but—basically it activates your thyroid to burn energy several times faster than normal. It’ll blow your mind how fast it works.”

  “So?”

  “So, it could help a lot of people. Do you have any idea how many people there are out there who want to lose weight, but can’t? It’s going to be huge.”

  “What’s any of this got to do with me?”

  She smiles. “You’re going to test it for me.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah,” she says. “I don’t have the resources for a clinical trial. But if I can prove it works and it’s safe for humans, someone will have to fund a serious study. Maybe Yale will take me back, maybe the for-profit sector will step up, but—seriously—everyone will want a piece of this.”

  “I’m just not—I’m not even a little bit—”

  “Don’t tell me you don’t want to lose weight.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Because we both know you’re the fat one.”

  Her green eyes, lit orange, won’t leave me alone, and I was trying to stand up, but when she says those words, my whole body feels heavy. My muscles go limp.

  “I mean, I’d try it on myself,” she says, “but—obviously, I don’t need it.”

  “I’m fine with the way I am,” I tell her. “I don’t need—”

  “When’s the last time you had a boyfriend?”

  I breathe. Fast, through my mouth. “That—that’s stupid. I don’t need a boyfriend.” But she’s right, obviously. All I can think about is the way Sam was looking at Rachel, and how different it was from the way he looked at me.

  “So you won’t help me, then?”

  “Help you play God? I mean, have you ever even watched a science fiction movie in your life? This is ridiculous.” I get up to leave.

  “That’s too bad,” she says. And there’s ice in her voice—sharp icicles that stab at my nape.

  My hand is on the doorknob. It’s cold and it’s hard like a stone, and when I squeeze it it hurts my bones. I try to turn it to open the door, but my eyes close and I bite my lip, and I can’t leave because I still feel her eyes in my back. I try to say words, but they’re whispers and croaks. (Why won’t you just leave me alone?)

  Finally, she talks again, just a few words: “I got you this job,” she says. “You know I could take it away.”

  I try to think of something to say. She’s bluffing.

  Right?

  Has to be. She’s a mortician working out of a closet. She doesn’t own the place, she’s not in charge of anything but a bunch of corpses. She’s lying. Has to be. (Right?)

  But if I learned anything from my last couple of jobs (at the school, at the publisher), it’s that office politics work in mysterious ways. I’ve seen the kind of power she has, I know how she can control people. Her eyes are raking over my back, and her smile wraps around me, and this is stupid.

  “I can’t—”

  “Come on, Oaf.”

  When I hear my old nickname, the one that’s she’s called me for forever, my knees give out, and I almost fall down. I’m squeezing the doorknob until my hand bruises just so I don’t land on my ass. “What if something goes wrong?”

  “What is it you think is going to go wrong?”

  “I mean—”

  “Don’t you trust me?”

  Why would I? Of course I don’t. “I—”

  “Look,” she says, “I know you’re scientifically illiterate. I know you’re one of the ones lined up to burn me at the stake for trying to make people’s lives better—”

  “I—”

  “—but for once in your life, do some
thing for humanity.”

  “Is that what you think?” I feel myself whipping around, picking hard at the cover of Hamlet in my pocket while my feet mush back into her rug. She smiles as I jerk the pills free from her outstretched hand and I say, “Give me those.” I jerk on the childproof cap till it’s off, and I think This is stupid, but now it’s too late to turn back, I can’t not do this now—“How much do I take?”

  “Just one. Once a day.” She’s not even shaking. She’s sitting there calm, smiling like God, while the pills rattle in my hand. I try to tap one out into my palm, but six or seven come all at once, and they’re white in the orange air.

  I pick one out and bring it to my lips, and it’s chalky and dry and it tastes like Velcro and sand. I choke and I sputter. I had no idea it would be so hard to get down. But I swallow it, hard, and I finally remember to breathe.

  “You need some water?”

  “Nope. I’m good.”

  “You sure?”

  I push down once more and the lump finally disappears into my insides. “I’m fine.”

  “Good.” She takes the bottle from me, screws the cap back on, and shoves it back into my hand. “Keep taking one every day around this time. And come down here before all your shifts, and I’ll check your vitals and stuff. Oh, and—don’t tell anyone you’re doing this for me, okay? It’s our secret. For now. Till we can prove it works.” And now she’s giving me a gentle push toward the door. “Listen—” she says—“this took a lot longer than it should have, so I gotta run. You can find your way back?”

  “I guess—”

  “Good.” And she disappears out the door and into the hallway and I blink and she’s gone. And then I’m alone in the dark.

  tues. jan. 11.

  6:47 pm.

  exhausted

  “No—that’s not how that—” Rachel winces at me for the ninety-ninth time today as I jerk on the lever under yet another bed, and it grinds in the wrong direction, and I tell her I’m super sorry. “It’s fine, just—just stop pulling on it—stop pulling on it. Seriously.”

  “Sorry.”

  She sighs. Sits. Rubs her temples. “It’s gonna be like this. Every day you’re here. I can tell.”

  I wonder if I’m supposed to say something, but she’s talking to herself.

  “And he’s gonna keep giving you to me, because of course he is, and it’s gonna be my problem every time you break something or collapse on the floor sobbing. Great. I’m excited about this.”

  “Look, I’m sorry that—”

  “No. Stop. I can’t take another apology today. I just—I don’t have the energy.” She stands, sighs, pulls a clipboard off the wall, makes a few marks. “It’s basically the end of your shift anyway. Did anyone show you how to clock out?”

  “Uh—”

  “Or in? Did you even clock in this morning?”

  “I—”

  “Yeah, okay,” she says. “We’ll just—we’ll work on it next time you’re here. You’re pulling the night shift Thursday, right? Right. Yeah. We’ll do it then.”

  “Oh. Okay. Uh—”

  “For now, just—just go home. I’ll finish up here. Just—get some rest and be ready to work Thursday night, all right?”

  “Uh—yeah. Okay.”

  “G’night,” she says, and I stumble down the hall and out the door, rubbing my eyes.

  I’m not quite to my car when my cell phone rings. It’s rattling in my pocket, and I nearly trip when I reach in to get it. Stupid scrub pants with stupidly deep pockets. “Hello?” My voice is a croak.

  Hers cuts through the static. “Where were you tonight?”

  “Uh—Mom?”

  “Who else would it be? Where were you tonight?”

  I’m fumbling with my keys. “Working.”

  “Well, you missed dinner.”

  “What?”

  “You missed dinner,” she says. “Sara and I ate by ourselves.”

  She’s talking, of course, about our standing Tuesday night dinner appointment, which has been in place ever since I went away—across town—for college. “I didn’t know I was supposed to come, Mom.”

  “What? Of course you were. Why would you not come?”

  “Well, Mom, when you cut me off, I took that as a pretty strong signal that you didn’t want me around.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “How is it ridiculous?” I’m still fumbling with my keys, stabbing around the lock. My fugly ’91 Escort has more scratches than paint on it.

  “Uh—” and then she has to think about it—“I don’t know. But—” I get the key in the lock and it grinds like a pair of old dentures. The dome light flickers as I pry the door open, and when I climb in I’m swallowed by a musty smell. “But I do have some stuff I need to give you.”

  Ugh. “‘Stuff’?” I sink into the sun-faded seat and crack my back.

  “Yeah, important stuff. Can you come by?”

  “I—” I inadvertently tap the horn, spooking a cat who was in the middle of crossing the parking lot, and it glares at me with its yellow cat eyes. “I mean, I guess I could.”

  “Great. Have you eaten yet?”

  “When would I have had time to eat?”

  “I’ll fix you a plate,” she says, and she hangs up. (People used to say Goodbye before they did that.)

  I fumble until my hand lands on the hoodie in my backseat, which I jerk over my head; then, groaning, I pull down the visor with the mirror clipped to it and look myself over. Hair pulled back and sweaty, with roots that ache. A zit above my lip, no makeup. I pull my hair free and run my hands through it, a million pounds of grease and frizz. I don’t have a brush with me, but maybe there’s a compact in the glove box? I open it and it swings 180 degrees and dumps everything on the floor. (This is the only glove box I’ve ever seen that happen to, but apparently, every glove box in the world is just a single broken plastic tab away from dumping everything out whenever you open it. What I’m trying to say is, everything in the universe is stupid.)

  (Anyway.)

  So now I’m doubled over, crushing my guts, groping for the compact, and my blood runs into my ears and I can hear my intestines. In the dark, my hand fumbles over the car handbook, a pair of tweezers, the insurance papers, and a year-old Nutrigrain that’s leaking.

  Ew.

  I go to wipe the fruit-tar on the carpet and my hand sticks to the missing compact.

  I grunt as I straighten back up and flip it open and try to even out the purple splotches on my face. Then I squint at the half-lit results, and they’re not great, and I can feel my feet swelling in my sneakers, but I guess I’m ready to go.

  I turn the key, and it chokes, and I pump the gas twice, and it coughs to a start. I throw it into reverse, and I pull a muscle turning the wheel because the power steering hasn’t kicked on yet. It jerks forward when I put it in drive, and I whack the radio but it won’t turn on, and I pull (haltingly) onto the street. It’s about a million miles from downtown to my mom’s place. I drive by a Burger King that’s always deserted at night, and the same kid is always mopping the floor (as if it’ll make a difference). A grocery store that’s always open and always has part of its lit-up sign burnt out. A pothole that’s always full of oily water, even when it hasn’t rained for weeks, and I always swerve to avoid it but always hit it anyway.

  A thousand stores followed by a thousand suburbs leading to the edge of town, where a dozen farms were torn out to make room for a bloated glob of McMansions, shiny plastic houses that shake their fists at the cornfields across the street, cursing them for not being kale and lentils. I grind my car into park as I hit the curb, and I step out and slam the door and smooth the wrinkles from my bright green pants. I can see the stars and the moon in spite of the overpowered plastic lampposts, and they make the perpetually-wet-but-still-brown grass glow.

  And of course the houses all look the same, but my mom’s is the one with the perfect brown lawn and the gaudy koi pond that’s an insult to the ta
ste of carp everywhere. It’s an enormous house, one that’s taught me the benefits of marrying a rich doctor and then using his money to hire a pricey divorce lawyer. The pointlessly twisty cobblestone path leads up to a brick porch and an insultingly huge door, one that has a glowing doorbell I’ve never used and a lion-shaped knocker that’s cloyingly majestic enough to embarrass C.S. Lewis.

  I’ve found that every week it feels better than the last to pound on McAslan’s face. I grab the knocker and pull it all the way back.

  The door opens before I get the chance.

  “Hey Oaf.” It’s Sara, leaning on the doorjamb, biting a dinner roll, wearing a nice dress because of course she is. She’s blocking the way in, haloed by the yellow light from a cheap chandelier.

  “Uh—hi.” I’m trying to stand up straighter. The porch light is playing across my splotchy skin and she won’t stop smiling.

  “Does it work?” Whispering.

  “Does what work?” I can see my breath, and it’s cold outside, and I don’t have a coat on.

  “The drug! Does it work?” she says, the fog from her breath slapping me in the face.

  “If you’re asking whether I’ve lost 50 pounds in the last eight hours, the answer’s no, Sara. Now will you please let me in? It’s cold.”

  “Ssssshhhh, I know, I know.” She sticks her head back inside for a moment and shouts: “Yeah, Mom, she’s here. She’ll be in in a sec.” Turns back and says, “But, I mean, have you been hungry yet?”

  “Like I said, it’s only been a few hours.”

  “I know, just answer the question. Have you felt like eating?”

  “Well—no—”

  “See, I told you it works.” She grins like the Cheshire cat, like she always does.

  “Okay.”

  “Okay.” And she walks away, leaving the door open.

  I step inside. The foyer glows yellow, but it doesn’t feel any warmer. Sara’s three rooms away, bashing out some Duke Ellington on my mom’s baby grand. I shift on my feet, watching my vaguely defined reflection in the oak floor. My mouth is dry and I’m too tired to think.