by Ginger Scott
“I’ll give this back to you after release, thank you,” the librarian states. She’s gone with it before the object of my infatuation can open her lips to protest. Eyes wide and face pale, probably with panic, she blinks away the threat of tears.
I lean forward with my palms flat on the table and my head low enough to whisper loudly at her.
“They don’t let you have tech in here. Like, phones can’t even be out. I should have said something.” I’m apologizing for not being a great detention tour guide.
Her gaze drops first to the table, then to her side where her bag sits open and still full. I’m sure she has a million other things to do in there. I relax when she juts her hand up in the air and pulses her arm for attention, bending and straightening her elbow so hard I think she might dislocate it.
“Excuse me,” she says, the strongest I’ve heard her voice project since we’ve known each other—all of a day.
I wince out of habit. I’m used to people getting reamed in here for talking back. Ms. Lynn is a sixty-five-year-old former Navy sergeant. Her voice is raspy from yelling for years, and her shoulders still look as if she can out bench-press most of the football team. She teaches PE part-time and runs this detention hall like a boot camp. She does it for the insurance. She and I, we’ve had a lot of Saturdays to get to know one another. Ms. Lynn turns with an already arched brow, and I let my head fall forward in anticipation of those familiar seething undertones she likes to use on rule breakers.
“I wasn’t aware of the “no-tech rule”.” I look up and catch the air quotes my table mate is making, wince and let my head fall forward enough to focus solely on the carved initials in the woodgrain of the table.
“And now you are.” Ms. Lynn’s answer is short and sweet. My girl got lucky. She should retreat now while she’s still intact, yet somehow, I just know . . .
“Right. Now I am. So, if it’s all right, since I wasn’t privy to these rules prior to preparing for my day, would it be all right if I visit the textbook section for a few moments so I might get the book I planned to work from electronically?” There’s no snark in her tone. She’s being almost professional. The wonder of it forces my eyes up and my body to turn to catch Ms. Lynn’s reaction. The rest of the room is doing the exact same thing. We’ve never seen something like this before.
The former Navy woman’s eyes squint, a baffled expression stretching her cheeks and tilting her mouth. Eventually, she nods her head in short, quick movements.
“Yeah. Whatever,” she says, pointing toward the other end of the library.
I sit back in my chair and fold my arms over my chest.
“Huh,” I let out, only loud enough for me and maybe my detention friend to hear.
“Actually,” my girl starts. I kick the leg of her chair in warning, and her eyes glance to me for a beat, silently warning me to not interrupt.
I. Am. Fascinated.
“The textbooks are over there,” she says, pointing in the correct—and opposite--direction. “I was the one who helped reorganize last spring, so not everyone knows—”
“I don’t care, honey. Go get your damn book and then zip it.”
I chuckle to myself because there are some things you can just count on. My table mate’s chair scratches at the laminate floor as she backs away from the table. She heads undeterred toward the middle set of shelves and returns in under a minute, setting down the heavy book labeled ADVANCED PHYSICS FOR COLLEGE PREP with a thump. Her eyes bounce up to meet mine, and gone are the worry lines and timid flits of her gaze. She’s no longer a trapped rabbit in hunting season; she’s acclimated and has become an alpha of sorts in a room filled with directionless apathy.
“Got my damn book.” She smirks. I nod with approval and leave my eyes on her for a few extra seconds as she legit goes to work. This is not the same frightened girl I found shuddering with tears in the bathroom. This girl is a lioness. This girl is fearless.
This girl owns me, and that’s probably not okay because I’m a worthless pile of shit. Or so I’ve been told.
6
Damsel
I wonder if he can feel the table shake while I write notes at a million words per second. I’m so pumped right now I could run a two-minute mile and solve one of the seven Millennium Prize Problems . . . at the same time.
I wish there was a way this feeling could last. Confidence is like a drug to me. It fuels me, but its effects are fleeting, as is its supply. Subservient girl who knows her place and does her job in a family of seven—that’s what my father expects, and it’s what I do. We all play our parts.
In a country built on immigrants, being the daughter of one comes with a layer of inherent paranoia. My dad is one of the most lauded math chairs in Midwestern U’s history. He’s been on the cover of the International Congress of Mathematicians’ journal. He’s won medals for his work on quantum theory. He is also Mexican. Mom is too. The fear that everything can be taken away, even with having papers promising it won’t, almost always beats wildly in my chest.
I was born here.
My older sisters and my parents weren’t.
If something ever happens, I become the guardian to Angelica and Bea.
I can’t think of a single thing I want less.
Selfish. That’s what Dad calls that feeling. Is it, though? My sisters don’t have to worry about becoming a parent overnight. Hell, I’ve never had sex; I’ve barely been kissed! I suppose I could tell people it was a miraculous conception rather than someone was afraid of the smart brown man so they sent him back to where he came from and left me with his kids. That would be the truth, though.
Mom says I worry for nothing, but it’s getting harder to sell me that idea. The more people we see deported to places they’ve never called home, the less confident she seems about that piece of paper that says she’s allowed to stay . . . and so is my dad.
Once again, confidence is everything, and it’s fleeting.
I thrive off the buzz though, blazing through my homework and finishing the next two days of work as well. If I keep this pace up for the rest of the afternoon, I’ll be able to test out of another unit early. If I can master this class before holiday break, I can work in two more college credits through dual enrollment next semester. Every penny saved means school in DC becomes more possible. While math has certainly showered my father with awards, it hasn’t padded our family savings. And with four sisters also wanting to attend school somewhere . . .
I flatten my pencil on the page and blow the bits of eraser away. I’ve written and rewritten so many times, I’m close to wearing the paper thin. I stretch my fingers, splaying them on the table and rolling my wrists, and I take a moment to study my odd new friend across from me. I expect him to be asleep by now, but he hasn’t taken his eyes off me. Not for two and a half hours. I’ve felt his stare this whole time.
“Wow,” he mouths.
A blush creeps up my neck. I wish I knew whether he was really flirting with me or not. I wish I knew if I wanted him to. He’s kind of a . . . troubled kid, I guess? Not exactly clean-cut, and one of those guys who sells out by the graveyard and in the alleyway. He seems different from the other guys I’ve seen over there, though. Maybe it’s because I’ve talked to him. Maybe all those guys would be surprising if I stopped to get to know them, even a little.
I decide to bunch my brow and send him a quizzical look instead of feel the burn of flattery.
“You did more work just then than I have in twelve years of school,” he says, his voice a little too loud. Ms. Lynn hushes us, and my confidence wanes.
I shrug and check to see if we’re still being watched before I speak.
“It’s easy . . . to me. Math?”
My heart beats fast all of a sudden, as though I’m anxious for his approval to be good at math.
“Me, too, but still.”
Not the answer I expect, and my face must reflect my inner thoughts. He laughs silently and leans forward on his elbows, bringing hi
s hood up to give him more cover.
“I count a lot of cash.” He winks.
I swallow.
Flirting with a drug dealer, this is what detention has done to me.
“Oh,” I say.
A woman, a slender blonde with smooth hair cropped bluntly at her shoulders and pale pink lips, enters the room and moves to stand beside Ms. Lynn. I stretch my fingers while I envy how together she looks, before grabbing the pencil and flipping the page, ready to dive in for more. Seems I’ve stumbled into a very lucky detention group, though. Ms. Lynn knocks on one of the bookcases to get everyone’s attention—to wake most of the room up. She claps a few times for good measure, startling us all enough to feel the energizing rush of adrenaline. I check my drug-dealing flirt friend’s face to see if this is normal, but he scrunches up the right side of his face in apparent suspicion before turning in his seat to give Ms. Lynn his full attention.
“Hey!” I’ve noticed she does this in here—calls us by a collective hey. This room doesn’t rise to the status of ladies and gentlemen in her eyes, I guess. We’re all just “hey.”
“I’m sure you all are having a good nap in here, and I’m so very sorry to interrupt it, but the district thought this would be an excellent opportunity for us to work together so maybe—just maybe—I won’t see some of you in here every Saturday morning. Wouldn’t that be nice?”
Ms. Lynn’s eyes are right on my friend. He shifts in his seat and pulls his hoodie down lower.
Ms. Lynn holds an open palm toward the guest in the room. “This is Megan Esher, and she’s a PhD candidate in psychology over at the university. She will be on campus for a few months, meeting with many of your parents. She’s been given a grant for some new counselling methods, I guess you could call them?” The woman runs her hands down the front of her maroon turtleneck, smoothing down the bottom where it meets the waist of her gray pencil skirt. Her laugh comes out polite but forced.
“Not really . . . counselling.”
I like this woman already for the condescending tone she used with Ms. Lynn.
Yes, she and I are smarter than the other people in this room. Maybe she’s come for me, to take me out of this place I don’t belong, and enroll me immediately in Georgetown or William & Mary.
“Thank you, Ms. Lynn,” she says following her introduction. “I’m actually working with one of the country’s largest technical-pharmaceutical companies on a new treatment. It has the potential to reshape the patterns we’ve been seeing in young people’s brains in terms of their emotional states and mental health.”
“You got pills, lady?” The guy who was literally snoring two minutes ago sits up straight with his question.
She isn’t rattled by his hazing. Her head falls to the side a little and she levels him with a matter-of-fact stare. “I have amazing pills, but they aren’t for you, I’m afraid.”
“Pfft,” the guy says, shifting his hat on his head and lowering the bill to shade his eyes. He folds his arms on the table and pretends he’s going back to sleep. He’s embarrassed. We all see it. We’ll let him play dismissive, though.
“What makes them amazing?” My only friend in this room has pushed the hoodie from his head, revealing the tousled brown hair that caught my eye the first time I saw him . . . in the ladies room. It’s messy but it’s clean. I just know it’s soft.
Megan Esher, PhD candidate, moves closer, stopping at the table across the aisle and leaning her hip into it to cross her legs and do this sexy half-sitting thing. She seems so powerful, so . . . confident. She folds her arms and smiles, her gaze settled but not really on anything in particular. It’s such a smart look.
“You know how sometimes, when you dream at night, you can do incredible things?” Her eyes shift and rest on my friend, and he remains utterly still except for the slow breath he takes, lifting his shoulders with the expansion of his chest.
“Like fly?” The guy who was supposed to be sleeping is engaged again. She doesn’t even flinch at his stupid question.
“Yeah,” my friend says, his head falling to the side. I imagine the thoughtful blink he does. I’m sure he’s done it.
Our guest shifts so more of her weight is on the table, and she reaches into a small pocket at the side of her skirt, seeming to pull something out in the palm of her hand. She keeps it concealed but leans forward, inching closer to our table.
“In our dreams, our emotions are . . . heightened. There really isn’t a wondering as to what we’re feeling. We’re anxious or stressed because we can’t find the classroom we’re supposed to take a final in.”
Both Ms. Lynn and I laugh; I bet we’ve shared that very same dream.
“Or we fly and feel free or elated. Or maybe . . . in our dream we fall in love.” Her eyes skim to me briefly, and my own widen. My friend’s head turns slightly to the side and I’m left staring at the sharp edge of his jaw, his full lips, and dark lashes. My heartbeat picks up and my palms sweat. I move them to rest on my thighs, hidden by the table.
I’m relieved when Megan Esher’s eyes move on to others around the room. She eventually stands, sauntering closer to my friend, slowly opening her palm to reveal what appears to be a capsule filled with tiny black and silver bits. She offers it to him to hold and he doesn’t hesitate, pinching it between his thumb and forefinger to hold closer to his own eyes. He turns to face me, holding it over the table, and our eyes meet for a brief moment. I lean closer and he holds the tiny capsule in his open palm at the center of our table. A few others leave their seats for a better view. Even Ms. Lynn is hovering over my shoulder.
“It’s a camera, sort of, or maybe, more accurately, a computer. It passes through your body very slowly, recording hundreds of thousands of data points while you sleep. When you have a nightmare, it registers what happens inside to make you feel that terror. And when you dream you’ve conquered your biggest fear, it captures every single cell in your body that’s responsible for filling you with pride. With joy. With confidence.”
I take the small device in my own hand and imagine what it might see inside me.
“What happens then? How long does it take—?”
“What’s the point?” My friend finishes the questions for me, saying what I couldn’t, as if he somehow knew I needed that answer too.
Both of our gazes shift from the capsule to our guest. A haze casts over her expression, a slow grin turning up. I recognize it; she’s excited by the science.
“That is where we test our theories.” Her grin becomes more solid, punctuated by perfect, glossy lips.
“You need test subjects.” My friend has put it together. He may be smarter than most of the people in here.
“I do need subjects,” she says, moving to take the chair next to him. I hand the miniscule computer pill over to my friend and he gives it back to its owner. Her eyes lock on him with a fierce intensity and I can tell that he, in her mind, is exactly whom these pills are for.
“What are your theories?” I ask. Part of my urgency is the scientist in me, but the other part is jealousy—I want to be worthy of her pills, too. Not that I would ever be part of such a crazy-ass experiment, but I need to know I’m mysterious enough to study.
“What if we could find all of those best feelings—the things that make us our dream versions of ourselves—and then build the perfect medication to correct those things that pull us down?” The silence after her query is dense enough that I can hear the crackles of the air ducts above our head and the buzz of traffic on the main roadway blocks away.
“We have no idea how long the capsule will stay in your system. It’s meant to be semi-independent, so it doesn’t follow the same exact course as the digestive system. It’s meant to roam, and camp, for lack of a better word.”
“So there’s a chance it might be lodged in my gut for, like, ever?” I recognize Alex as he asks the question. He’s a worrier, and he has been since he was my reading partner in second grade. Things come to him slower than the rest of us. H
e gets in trouble because he gets frustrated. It’s actually kind of shitty that he’s in detention; I bet he didn’t do anything really deserving to spend his Saturday in here. If our principal and teacher really cared, they’d have him spend his Saturday with special teachers and tutors so he wouldn’t feel so awful about being two grades behind everyone he started school with at age five.
Ms. Esher laughs politely, and I admire the way she’s careful not to sound condescending about his question.
“We certainly hope not,” she says, stunning most of us to a brief silence before letting us off the hook. “I’m kidding. No, we have no reason to believe it will be lodged inside the body forever. The longest ingestion we’ve had has been forty-seven days.”
Alex’s tight face relaxes, and the redness that was starting to take over his cheeks and forehead levels out to a soft pink. He holds his breath when he’s scared. He passed out once in second grade because he was terrified of being called on to read out loud. He held his breath through the first several pages of Junie B. Jones.
“Seems kinda like one of those designer things. I mean, doesn’t it?” My friend leans back in his chair and looks comfortable, perhaps a little cocky.
“I suppose so, in a way,” Megan Esher admits. “But let me ask you, if you could design the way you feel, taking away maybe . . . tightness in the chest, or. . . fear . . .
My friend’s muscles tighten; I see it in his shoulders. The arteries along his neck become more defined, arms rigid to ward off what he could perceive to be an insult. He also sits up another inch or two. She’s found the crux of him.
“We are hoping to find new ways to rid our bodies of anxiety without feeding it chemicals, but first we need to know exactly what we’re up against.” She leans forward and taps her finger on the center of his head, landing in the nest of hair, causing one curl to fall over his left eye. “We need to see in here, and quit guessing.”