Chemistry Lessons

by Meredith Goldstein

  Ann took another sip of her drink. With the cream soda can in her hand, she looked younger. She was young. But like Yael said, Ann did act like she was older than everyone. It was intimidating. Ann cleared her throat but didn’t say anything. My instinct was to beg.

  “Can you at least tell me what she hoped to get out of whatever project she was doing with my dad? That’s the one I care about.”

  Ann stood up and walked back to the fish tank, staring at it, deep in thought. After a long pause, she spoke.

  “Your mother and I had long been interested in a Swiss study—​and some similar research projects—​that look closely at pheromones and mate choice.

  “In the simplest terms,” she continued in a voice that suggested she was dumbing it down for someone with a high school diploma, “decades ago, a scientist gave T-shirts worn by men to a group of female subjects. Each woman was instructed to smell all the dirty shirts and then identify the one that smelled the best to her—​without seeing the men. The science here is that each woman picked the shirt worn by the man whose immune system complemented hers—​or, more accurately, the man whose immune system most opposed her own. It was as if without seeing or knowing these men, the women were programmed to consider genetic information in their mate choice.

  “Your mom used to do this thing where she’d ask me to theorize based on other studies; ‘ideas from ideas,’ she’d say. We’d read something and then she’d tell me to brainstorm all that could be done with it. Then sometimes we’d try to think up our own experiment.

  “I was shocked she was interested in this one; even I dismissed the study as useless when I read it. There are so many reasons to choose a partner, so who cares how someone’s T-shirt smells? But your mom loved the idea that perhaps attraction could be revived or sustained—​so we started the project.”

  “And what, specifically, was the project?”

  Ann looked around the office, like she was making sure we were alone. She walked to the door and closed it.

  “I said to your mother,” she continued in a whisper, “ ‘What if people could give off the pheromones that complement their romantic partners?’ If we could figure out how to manipulate pheromones to express the right traits, perhaps we could prolong attraction in couples who have lost it. Like, what if we could all wear the perfect T-shirt for our partners, all the time?”

  I considered this. “So you wanted to make, like . . . Viagra for couples,” I said.

  “No, a drug like Viagra helps erectile dysfunction,” she said, losing patience. “Our work would boost attraction between two people.”

  She walked back to her desk and sat again.

  “I have to tell you,” Ann continued, “your mom jumped on this one. She went all in. We had started some preliminary tests, off the books, that were rather successful. It’s a wild theory, but your mother liked wild.”

  I’d never heard my mother described as “wild.” I’d heard her called driven, ambitious, focused. My dad called her obsessive-compulsive because of how she organized the house, each glass in the cabinet a perfect half-inch from the next.

  My mom was a creative scientist, but not the kind who’d do anything off the books or focus on questionable studies.

  Except that she was, apparently.

  “So,” I said, trying to make sense of Ann’s explanation, “you wanted people to be able to change their smell so that their partners were more attracted to them?”

  “Pheromones aren’t really the same thing as smell. They’re chemicals released by the body—​it’s not like perfume,” Ann said, as if the unspoken end of her sentence was “you idiot.” I took a deep breath and remembered that, compared to her, I was an idiot. I was the science and math star at my high school and had aced all related advanced-placement tests, but talking to Ann was a reminder that I was about to start MIT, where I’d be a tiny smart fish in a big pond of geniuses.

  Ann took a deep, frustrated breath as she chose her words to help me understand.

  “See,” she continued, leaning back in her chair, “her particular goal with the experiment was to save relationships. Your mother wanted to alter the way people’s pheromones expressed themselves to revive waning attraction. People fall in love for all the right reasons, but then, over the years, the love dies because the physical attraction fades. Couples get bored. They fall for others. She believed that many midlife divorces could be avoided if we could just get a second wind of desire. She believed there were pharmaceutical applications for this work.”

  “Pharmaceutical?”

  “Well, yes. You mentioned Viagra, a pill that helps with function and libido. Why shouldn’t there be a prescription to boost physical chemistry for couples?”

  It took me a few full beats to consider why my mom wanted to do this work. I could tell by looking at those charts in the binder that my mom had been doing her secret research on herself and my dad. That didn’t make sense to me, because my parents were pretty much all over each other up until she died. They were always madly in love. Goofy about each other. It was their thing.

  But now I wondered if Ann knew things about my parents’ marriage that I didn’t. Something must have inspired the work—​because why else do it and test it on my father?

  “And you kept this project from Dr. Araghi? I thought they were best friends—​that my mom told him everything.”

  It was a safer question to ask. I wasn’t sure whether I was ready to hear anything that would spoil the narrative of my parents’ perfect relationship.

  “Of course,” Ann said. “Not that we had to lie. It was your mother’s lab; Dr. Araghi was already in emeritus status, just working out of her space, giving talks and teaching classes. He only came back to run the lab after your mom died so people like me could stay put for a few more years. I imagine he’ll wrap up that work soon too. I’m sure he’ll announce a real retirement next year.”

  I frowned, thinking that Dr. Araghi’s shuttering of the lab would be the real end of my mom’s presence on campus.

  “Maya,” Ann said, leaning in. Her voice was soft, almost kind, for a moment. “What is it you really want to know? We paused these experiments after your mother’s diagnosis. And when her will was so specific about all her research going to you, I had to make peace with it. I figured it was her way of telling me to let go. Otherwise, she would have left it to me.”

  I felt a jolt in the pit of my stomach thinking about how we shut Ann out of her own work by keeping it for ourselves.

  “I guess I just wanted to know what it was—​and whether it worked,” I said.

  Ann managed a sly smile.

  “Well, we believed that it worked. There was more testing to do. We wanted to try more subjects, with different variables. But yes, I believe that it was working. We certainly saw results.”

  “Was she having trouble with my dad?” I blurted out, my voice cracking as it tripped over the last two words.

  Ann looked troubled as she considered her answer.

  I waved my hands in front of her. “Never mind. I don’t want to know. Don’t say anything.”

  We watched each other in silence after that, and I could tell that she was ready for me to leave. She glanced at the laptop on her desk, a not-so-subtle hint that she had work to do.

  There was little to lose, so I sat up straight and attempted to channel the professional, clinical tone that my mother used when she spoke to colleagues.

  “I’d like to continue this project,” I said.

  It came out strange and too formal.

  Ann’s face was blank as she took the last sip of her cream soda and threw the can in the recycling bin, which I now noticed was full of empty cans of the same brand. Her eye contact was so direct I felt scolded, even though she hadn’t said anything.

  “My mom left this research to me,” I said, knowing Ann was going to dismiss me in seconds. “She wanted me to see it, and she knew I’d see your handwriting. Don’t you think there’s a reason she did th
at? Don’t you think she wanted us to continue her work? Maybe even together?”

  It was manipulative; who knows what my mom would have wanted? Still, it was my best shot.

  “You think that’s true, Maya? You think that if your mother were alive, she would want you to do this kind of research?”

  Ann leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms in front of her chest.

  “Yes. I do,” I answered.

  It was a half-truth, but I said it with confidence. My mother wanted me to be a passionate researcher; that much I knew.

  “It takes materials—​equipment. With your mother around, that was easy. It was her lab, her budget. But now I’m just writing, and I’m barely doing that. If Dr. Araghi—​if anyone, for that matter—​saw me messing around, they’d have questions. They’d figure it out.”

  “He wouldn’t see you. We could meet off-hours. No one would know.”

  I began to beg some more.

  “I wouldn’t tell anyone—​not Dr. Araghi, not my dad. I just feel like I’m supposed to do something with this research. I know that sounds crazy, but I’m sure of it.”

  I dared to look up and was shocked to see that Ann’s eyes were red. She wasn’t quite crying, but she was on the verge. Yael and Kyle wouldn’t believe me if I told them. Yael didn’t think Ann was capable of human emotions, and Kyle was frightened to death of her.

  “I miss her a lot, you know,” Ann said after a blink.

  She opened her desk drawer and pulled out a tissue. Then she blew her nose so loud I wanted to laugh, but I was too afraid to move.

  “My parents didn’t want this for me, you know. They’ve never understood what I do, why I’m not out there focused on starting a family. It’s like, for every award I’ve won, every accolade I’ve received, they’ve just been more confused. My mom actually said to me, when I got into the program, ‘Maybe you’ll meet someone nice.’ That’s her one concern—​marrying me off. As if that worked out well for my sister. Two kids. No support from her ex.

  “Working with your mother, it wasn’t just the research that inspired me; it was how she did it. She lived her work. She was the person I wanted to become. And she never had to choose. She had a family and the lab and it seemed effortless. Everything she did was a passion.”

  Ann blew her nose again, and then I found myself fighting tears too, mostly because I was relieved that she had felt so strongly about my mother. It had been disheartening last year to watch Ann at the funeral, to see how she declined to speak when everyone got up to say nice things, and how she walked through the room like a stranger, her facial expressions suggesting that she was actually bored.

  The day my dad and I stopped by the lab to tell her my mom had died, she was so void of expression that we started to wonder whether we had overestimated their personal relationship. It made me angry back then, mainly because I knew how much my mom had cared about Ann. Always worrying about her. Always wishing she’d make more friends. Now it was clear that Ann had probably just been in shock when my mom died. I guess we were too.

  Ann now looked at the binder on her desk like it was a long-lost love letter.

  “Why don’t you borrow it?” I said. “Just look it over, maybe think about what we could do with it, how we could continue that experiment.”

  She took the binder into her lap and ran her hands across the cover. Suddenly I felt like I was intruding on her and my mom just by being there.

  I got up and moved toward the door, hoping that nostalgia and curiosity would take over and that Ann would just say yes. Before I disappeared back into the lab, I looked back at her and said, “I think it’s cool that you and Mom did this. I really do think that she left it all to me because she knew I’d bring it to you. Imagine what she’d say if she knew we were working together.”

  “You’re about to start school, Maya,” Ann said, her thumb over the face of Harry Styles. “You’re . . . what are you, seventeen?”

  “Eighteen.” I was lying by only a few months. “It’s only June. I’m on campus every day anyway now, and I have almost three months off before school. We could just pick up where Mom left off, and I won’t tell anyone. Not a soul.”

  She was gripping the binder, her knuckles white. I wanted to believe that was a good sign.

  “Maya, what is it you want from this? I just don’t understand why you’d want to continue this experiment, to keep secrets from Dr. Araghi or your dad. What’s in it for you?”

  “I just want to fulfill my mother’s destiny,” I lied.

  At least it felt like a lie.

  Ann shot me the dirty look she gave me on the first day of my internship, when I came into the lab with an open bottle of soda in my hand, forgetting that drinks were prohibited around equipment.

  I bit my lip, closed my eyes, and made a quick decision to try some honesty. I had nothing to lose.

  “Also, my boyfriend broke up with me, and I want to get him back. I want to do the experiment on him.”

  It came out in a rush. I hadn’t realized how juvenile it would sound until the words echoed in her small workspace. My instinct was to run out of Building 68b in shame, but I kept my feet fused to the floor, looking down, waiting for her to react.

  “Here I was wondering how you intended to continue the re‑search. But it seems you have a subject in mind.”

  I looked up to find her showing a small smile again.

  Before I could decide whether it was an encouraging grin, she opened another desk drawer and placed the binder inside. The smile was gone, her game face back up. “Go home, Maya. We’ll talk more next week.”

  “You’ll think about it?”

  “I will think about it,” she said, sounding a little surprised by her own words.

  “That binder,” I said as I watched it disappear, “it’s the story of her life.”

  I don’t know why I said it. It was a One Direction joke, something Bryan would laugh at. “The Story of My Life” was a One Direction song my mom actually liked. It was on the radio probably every fifteen minutes during one of the last years of her life, and when it came on while we were in the car, we sang together in harmony.

  But of course Ann Markley wouldn’t get it. She probably didn’t even listen to music. She stared at me, confused, as I muttered, “Forget it. Just think about it,” and then ran out of the building, feeling two percent more alive than I had when I walked in.

  6

  I followed Bryan up the stairs of a historic brownstone on one of the grandest, most cobblestone-packed streets on Beacon Hill. There were balloons out front attached to a glittery handmade sign that said WELCOME, JUNIOR BARDERS!

  “They need to change that name,” Bryan said. “When I’m older and famous and give them money, I’m going to demand that they get rid of ‘Junior.’ It’s so patronizing.”

  Bryan had been a member of the Junior Barders company since our freshman year. Despite the name of the organization, which Bryan said sounded like an offshoot of the Girl Scouts, the Junior Barders was an exclusive program for young actors run by the group that produced the professional Shakespeare plays performed on Boston Common every summer. Each spring, after the company chose actors for its main production, the director went on to cast area teens in parallel roles. The young performers trained alongside their adult counterparts and shadowed rehearsals. Then, during the course of the run, the teen actors did three performances of their own, on the big stage, with all its professional bells and whistles. On the teens’ off nights, when the adults performed, the Junior Barders manned the T-shirt booths and worked as ushers.

  The program was super competitive and had a national reputation. Kids traveled from all over New England to audition. Bryan, who had leads in every single one of our high school productions from the time he was a freshman, didn’t even get a speaking role during his first year as a Barder but was content to stand there as a friend of Tybalt’s in Romeo and Juliet.

  This summer’s production was All’s Well That Ends
Well, a fitting title for the end of Bryan’s run with the Junior Barders, now that he was just a few months away from starting college at Syracuse University.

  There had been only a few rehearsals, but Bryan was already sour on the production. He assumed he’d have the lead, but he’d been passed over as Count Bertram and cast as Parolles, who, while still an instrumental character, was not the star of the show.

  The only consolation was that Bertram would be played by Asher Forman, a Boston native who was sort of a minor celebrity. Most adults had never heard of him, but Asher made YouTube videos that got millions of views. He was a big name among most girls at my high school.

  Asher, who was twenty, had been hired to play Bertram in both the adult and teen casts. Bryan said the Shakespeare producers figured he’d draw a younger audience to the productions, and maybe some new donors. Most of the teens were excited to work with him, except for Bryan, who could see Asher Forman only as the guy who stole his part.

  “We’re supposed to learn from him, like he’s the expert,” Bryan whispered as we made our way into the Junior Barders’ welcoming party. “Meanwhile, I’m pretty sure I have more stage experience than he does. He did one play on the North Shore when he was a kid, and now he sings bad covers on the internet. I can act circles around him. I can sing circles around him. It’s bullshit.”

  I wasn’t someone who followed YouTube stars and Tumblr-boys, and they all seemed to blend into one nondescript, blurry face on the internet, but I spotted Asher within seconds. He stood across the room, looking bored and staring at the wall, which was covered in a purple and green textured paper that, knowing the neighborhood, was probably three generations old.

  Asher had floppy blondish hair and big eyes. It was his tan skin, though, that made him look famous. It was smooth and clean, like he’d never had a blemish in his life.

  “Look at him, mouth breathing over there,” Bryan mumbled.