I realize all at once that Will left the rat dead for April to find. “That was Will’s fault,” I say desperately. “He was supposed to dispose of the—”
“I left you in charge!”
I have no way of telling her the truth. No way to make her feel better. “Would it help if you knew the experiment was very important?” I ask.
April makes a clucking sound with her tongue, then turns away again. “Everything we do is ‘very important,’” she scoffs. “Or imagined to be so before it is revealed later, as usual, that the experiment was unnecessary. Or that it hasn’t worked.”
“I don’t know what to say. I’m really sorry—”
“Nothing! Say nothing,” April says. “Just leave.”
I turn to go, catching a glimpse of Cornelius. He can’t go home with April now as he’s way too important to the lab. Daisy, still clumsy in her movements, has to live in a cage with only a single level.
“Maybe I’ll see you later,” I say.
April doesn’t respond. She’s cleaning again, ignoring me as though I’ve already left the room.
I know April can be prickly, but it’s only because she takes seriously her husbandry of the animals. I wish I could at least tell her why Daisy limps, why Not Daisy is dead. Not only dead, but missing her brain. Will was told by Munn to dispose of the rat’s body properly, and I assumed he would do so. I should have known better.
I find him at the coffee bar, the one he disapproves of so much, typing on a laptop.
“April blames me for the rats,” I say. “You could have at least cleaned up.”
He stops typing. I’m waiting for him to tell me he didn’t get a PhD from Cambridge to be a lab maid, that it’s my job to clean, not his, and that I should stop whining. But instead, he says, “I agree, I should have been more tidy.”
“You agree?” I’ve never heard him say such a thing.
“Of course. Especially because it’s you who is being blamed. I’ll speak to April and try to put it right.”
It’s like he’s changed personalities. “That would be very nice of you,” I say. I look at him, studying his face to see if he’s only pretending and will shortly return to his usual self. But he remains as before, understanding, compassionate. It’s like he’s been replaced by his brother, Aiden, who had struck me as a nice guy.
“It was a very strange morning,” he says. “And I was distracted. Not that this excuses my oversight regarding April’s rat.”
April’s rat? He actually acknowledges April’s care for the rats and the need to respect that?
“I still can’t remember all the details of post-death recovery,” he continues. “Maybe you could help me with that. This paper is sucking up all my available brain cells, it seems. I can’t remember exactly what you did to bring the rats back to life.”
When I don’t say anything he adds, “It’s a project we are both going to be involved in. I’m curious, that’s all. Exactly what did you do in there? Talk me through it step-by-step. I have time.”
Of course, he’s correct that we’ll be working together and that he needs to know everything he can about post-death recovery. But something isn’t right. I’ve never seen him behave like this, and it’s making me nervous.
I tell him I’ll fill him in later. Right now, I’m due over at Dmitry’s area.
Then I get the heck out of there.
I walk off as though I’m heading toward Dmitry’s lab, but instead I track toward an exit. Outside, in the bright sun, I text Lauren:
Will acting more oily and devious than normal. I think he’s the cuckoo and I’m the baby reed warbler.
She sends me back this:
Push him out of the nest. Anyway, why are you worried about him? What is happening with RIK?
18
I’M SITTING ACROSS from Dmitry at the coffee bar playing chess. He’s pinned my bishop and I’m in deep concentration, trying to figure out how to hang on in this game, when Rik’s voice pulls me suddenly to attention.
“What about Saturday night?” he says. I wheel around on the stool, and there he is, fresh from Washington. His jacket is draped over his arm and his hair is wet with rain so that it’s glossier than ever. “It’s awful out there,” he says, wiping a sleeve across his brow. “I thought eight o’clock. That okay with you?”
He’s going to have the entire lab talking about this date.
“Saturday is, uh, good!” I say. I sound weird, even to myself.
“Will there be food?” says Dmitry.
I glare at him. “Dmitry!”
But Rik only laughs. He pulls up a barstool and says, “You’ll love the restaurant. Fabulous views, beautiful décor. It even has floor-to-ceiling aquariums.”
“With fish?” I say.
He laughs. “Yes, fish.”
I’m flattered by the effort he’s put in. I’m also very nervous. I look at Rik and smile. I notice his eyes with their sweep of soft lashes, his open, inviting face. I think (not for the first time) that it would be easier for me if he weren’t so handsome. Maybe I could relax more.
Dmitry points at the chessboard. “Why are you protecting your bishop at the expense of your queen?”
“Where is it? The restaurant, I mean,” I ask Rik.
“It’s up on a cliff overlooking the water.”
“Your queen,” says Dmitry.
Rik has clearly found the perfect place for our date. I’m overwhelmed, speechless. But then he says, “And you can eat indoors with security.”
Security?
“That’ll be for me,” Dmitry says, still with his eyes on the board.
“You?” I say.
Dmitry glances up from the game. “Munn prefers me in an armored car. It’s not necessary, but—”
I don’t hear the rest of what he says. My cheeks burn as I start putting the pieces together. This isn’t a date. Not at all. This is a dinner for all of us. Munn, Dmitry, Will, Rik. And me. The “celebration” is for our secret little group that knows about post-death recovery.
“Oh,” I say. “Oh, of course.”
Dmitry points at a spot on the board. “This is the move. There.”
But I’m not thinking about the game. I’m thinking that for almost a week I’ve been daydreaming about a date that isn’t even a date. It has nothing to do with Rik and me. There is no Rik and me. How could I have been so foolish, so stupid as to think Rik had asked me out? I want to run out of the room, change my identity, and return as the girl who never imagined Rik would ever ask her out.
“You’re leaving your queen?” says Dmitry.
I move a piece, trying desperately to appear nonchalant. As long as Rik doesn’t figure out that I’d thought we had a date, it will be all be okay. Don’t let him figure it out, I think. No no no no no.
“What is no?” Dmitry says. And I realize with horror that I’ve spoken aloud.
“Um . . . nothing,” I say. I move another piece on the board, somewhat randomly, my mind a jumble of thoughts all coming at once. I don’t even know what I’ve done until Dmitry makes a face.
“If you insist,” he says, then shrugs as though to say if I’m going to let a queen go that easily he’s certainly going to take it.
Rik says, “I’ll arrange for a car to pick you up.” He writes out the name of the restaurant on his business card and hands it to me. “You might want to check it out.”
Dmitry says, “Kira, are you paying any attention to this game? You could still win this, you know.”
But I can’t win this. I can’t even think straight.
“You’re an excellent player! Don’t give up. Remember that it was you who revived the rats. I am two rats behind you, as a matter of fact.”
Rik laughs. “We’re all two rats behind Kira,” he says.
For the rest of week I think about this date that isn’t a date. To Rik, I’m just that awkward girl he met at SFOF who gives Will a headache. Nothing more. And there I was imagining being alone with him in the restaurant w
ith the views and the fish. How naive I’ve been.
Even so, Saturday arrives and I freak out about what to wear. The website for the restaurant shows a glamorous glass structure set into cliffs overlooking the Marin headlands. It is just as beautiful as Rik described. I can’t exactly show up in jeans.
The only good dress in my closet is the dragonfly dress, which isn’t even mine. I tried to give it back to Lauren, but she refused, claiming it doesn’t fit her. “Too long!” she’d said, when I tried to return it.
I tell myself it doesn’t matter what I wear because this is not a date. It may as well be the blue skirt and blouse, the outfit I wore for my giftwrapping job. Nobody will care.
But I can’t resist the dragonfly dress. I take it to the window, turning the fabric in the light, admiring the beads that shimmer and flash. I remember the last time I wore it: that cold December night on a ship alight with bulbs, dancing with Rik.
“Stop it,” I say, this time out loud. “He’s not interested in you.”
Meanwhile, my hair has gone all Medusa. And tonight I can’t just pull it into a ponytail and forget it, which is what I normally do.
I’m miserable and I don’t know why. I should be happy.
I go to the kitchen and drop into a chair. “What do I do with my hair?” I ask my mother.
She’s wearing a headscarf because her own hair has never fully grown back after all the rounds of chemo. She gives me a stern look, crosses her arms in front of her, and says, “Be grateful for it.”
“I know, Mom, sorry. But—”
She comes closer, peering down on my head. “Nothing wrong with your hair.”
I try pinning it up, then get out a straightener and experiment with that. No luck, so I wash it freshly, filling my palm with conditioner and working it in. I rinse it again, but only lightly, hoping that the conditioner weighs down the curls. By some miracle, this works. When finally I put together the whole thing—dress, shoes, hair, makeup—I check the mirror. With the dark frames of my eyeglasses I look like a fashionable bookworm. That’s not so bad, is it?
My mother comes into the room, walking slowly toward me, touching me as one might touch a work of art.
“Then you are going, after all,” she says quietly.
I have no idea what she’s talking about. “Of course I’m going. It’ll be good—I think. I don’t have a . . . you know . . . a bag.”
She holds up a finger, signaling for me to wait as she disappears into her bedroom. She returns with something wrapped in tissue paper. I’m a little worried it’s some kind of hideous necklace. My mother is given to “statement” jewelry involving big glass beads. But when I unwrap it I find a beautiful sequined clutch bag.
“I wasn’t much older than you when I last wore it,” she says, nodding at the bag. It’s a lovely rectangle of sparkles with a kiss-lock closure. “It’s yours now.”
I touch the sequins, feel the texture of the beads. There’s something old-fashioned and elegant yet strangely contemporary and boho about it. I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect bag. “Thank you,” I say, and kiss my mother’s cheek. “It’s stunning.”
I’m watching out the window for the car that Rik has arranged. At last, I see something fancy, but it’s definitely not what I expect. For a moment I think it’s Lauren and my heart leaps at the thought that for some crazy reason she has left her post for the weekend. I miss her so much. I want to show her the dress again and the bag from my mother, and of course the beautiful watch now strapped to my wrist. It hadn’t been easy for me to take it from its box, but if I’m not going to wear it tonight, then when? And I know that Lauren would want me to wear it.
But it isn’t Lauren. It’s Will’s little MX5, a different shade of red from Lauren’s car and lower to the ground. I’m suddenly on my feet, my heart pumping. I watch him get out of the car and walk the short path to the house. I don’t want him in our house again. I don’t want him to see me waiting here, all dressed up. It embarrasses me. I don’t know why. But the doorbell rings and suddenly he’s here.
My mother remembers Will, of course. “So good to see you! Do come in!” she says.
I want to run away. It would be possible to slip through the window and get into my own car, but we’ve got three locks on these windows and, anyway, I can hear my mother talking to him now. I peek out of my room and there she is, smiling broadly and holding his arm. He’s being super polite, attentive, and is somewhat dashing in his dark blazer. Of course, I hate him for all that.
“Kira, there’s someone here for you!” my mother sings, escorting him into the living room.
It’s a room I grew up in and love, a place I feel at home, however battered the furniture, however old the carpets. I can imagine Will having some hateful remark to make about it later.
An ache erupts at my temples as I enter the living room. This is so awkward. Will stands with his feet slightly apart, his hands clasped in front of him. He takes in the sight of my dress and bag and efforts with hair and makeup. His face is controlled: a fixed smile, nothing you can read.
“Let’s go,” I say, heading for the front door.
My mother catches my hand. “Wait! Would you both mind if I got one quick picture?” she asks sweetly.
I feel a greater humiliation, every part of me wanting to scream No!
“I don’t see why not,” Will says. His smile is pinched and he rubs his fingers together impatiently, but he stands like a soldier, dutifully waiting as my mother retrieves the camera.
It isn’t until we are outside, taking the path to Will’s car, that I figure out why my mother is so happy, why the evening means so much to her. She thinks the sudden appearance of a beautiful dress and all this effort is because I’m going to the senior prom.
Even worse, she imagines that Will is my date. Can’t she see he’s too old and too much of a jerk to be anyone’s prom date?
Will politely opens the car door for me, and I drop into the bucket seat as gracefully as is possible given the dress and long legs and the fact that the car is so small it’s like getting into a roller-coaster car. I look back at my mother, framed in the doorway in her housedress, her floral scarf, a Kleenex clenched in one fist as she waves with the other hand. She blows me a kiss.
“You didn’t have to come inside to get me,” I say to Will.
“Shall I park at the curb and shout out the window next time?”
“What next time?”
He shakes his head. “You really are a most difficult creature,” he says. “I was being polite. What was all that picture-taking about, anyway? I thought for a moment she was going to insist on videoing us.”
“I have no idea,” I say. But, of course, I do know. So would Will if he understood the excitement (bordering on hysteria) that a senior prom brings, with all its promposals and pageantry.
“Are you all dressed up because your boyfriend is going to be there?” he says.
“I’m dressed up because it’s a nice place,” I growl. I notice that Will wears a tie and a pair of cuff links, simple silver knots that grace his sleeves. “And he’s not my boyfriend. He’s like that with everyone.”
We pull up to a stoplight and Will gives me a look. “I can assure you that he is not like that with everyone,” he says.
“It’s his job to be nice.”
“If you imagine he takes every new recruit under his wing, tells them his secrets, and teaches them how to play chess, you are very much mistaken, my girl.”
And that’s when I realize he’s talking about Dmitry. “Dmitry?” I say, before I can stop myself.
“Who did you think I was talking about? Oh, I see,” Will says knowingly. He pulls forward onto the entrance to the highway. “You thought I was talking about young Rik.”
“No, I didn’t!”
“That’s exactly what you thought,” he teases.
I wish he’d shut up. Also that I could get out of the car. And why am I in his car, anyway? Rik said he’d send an Uber, not send
Will.
“I think Dmitry is the better man,” says Will. “Not that you’re asking my opinion.”
A few miles pass in silence, and then he says, “I’m sorry.” He’s putting on the nice act again. “And I’m sorry about how I’ve treated you in the past. I’ve been trying to put things right. Or haven’t you noticed?”
Yes, I’ve noticed, but I say, “Just tell me what you want.” Because I’m sure it’s something. “And explain to me why you arrived instead of the car that Rik had arranged.”
He sighs. “Because I thought it would be more pleasant to ride together. Far more personable and, as the venue is thirty miles away, a lot less costly to Mellin.”
“Since when do you think about the cost of anything?” I say.
Will makes a little tsk-ing sound. “I don’t think about cost. I think about value,” he says pompously. And then, as though he’s tired of having to defend himself, he adds, “There isn’t any value in your being ferried by a stranger up a highway. There is value in our talking about the post-death recovery project before our dinner. Don’t you agree?”
“Not to me,” I say. “I already know all about it.”
“I’m talking about the project. We can’t think about ourselves. You insist on seeing everything as a personal attack, Kira, have you noticed that? I think you might be depressed.”
He’s like a politician, angling one way, then another, saying anything that might further his campaign.
“You don’t always notice the things people do for you, do you?” he continues. “Just tonight, for example. I might have spoiled what appeared to be a very special event to your mother. It seems she was quite moved to see her daughter all dressed up, being escorted to dinner. I might have refused the photographs or been much less friendly. Think about it, Kira, and you’ll know I’m right.”
My mother had been happy tonight. Even joyful. Seeing her in the doorway as we left in the car, so proud and loving and somehow, too, a bit nostalgic. Yes, Will had given her that. He’d stood for the photographs, grinning as though he was actually looking forward to spending the evening with me.
Dragonfly Girl Page 18