Chemistry Lessons

by Meredith Goldstein

  But I would remember all of this—​every detail. If I could get him to change his mind, I would tell him everything he missed.

  7

  It was still as bright as morning when I arrived at Ann’s office on the following Monday afternoon. My brain felt foggy. The June run of the longest days of the year had begun, which only made it harder to sleep. I tried to get to bed early all weekend, allowing myself to listen to a few songs on Bryan’s playlist each night (I was on track forty, Beyoncé’s “If I Were a Boy,” which I found myself putting on repeat). After music, I’d toss and turn for a few hours until my eyes popped open with the sun, feeling a hollowness in my chest as I counted the hours until I could get to the lab to be around people, specifically Kyle, who was now distracting me by sending links to Star Wars fan fiction, some of which was really good.

  Ann had sent me an email earlier in the day asking me to drop by, which I assumed meant she’d made a decision about our secret project. Based on how she carried herself when I entered her office, I figured she was about to say no.

  After all, what I was proposing was reckless and irresponsible. It was one thing for her to do covert research as an assistant to my mother, who had three degrees and was an expert in her field, but it was another thing to run it with me, a not-quite-eighteen-year-old who hadn’t even started her undergraduate education.

  I walked into her small office and stood in front of her desk, waiting for her rejection.

  “Maya,” Ann started, pulling the binder from her desk drawer. She held it vertically and upside down so that Harry Styles was looking right at me, his grin taunting and cruel. “Take a seat.”

  Yael was right; Ann had no authority in this lab—​she was just like any other PhD student—​but she behaved as though she were a tenured professor. She wanted to be intimating, and it worked. I was already feeling the heat of embarrassment creep up my neck, and, for a moment, I wished I’d never asked her about the binder in the first place.

  “If we do this,” Ann said, “I need to be able to trust that you won’t tell anyone. I expect detailed notes. I expect complete transparency.”

  My head snapped up. “You’re saying yes?”

  She leaned back in her chair, her lips pursing as she tried to suppress a smile.

  “I’m saying yes for now . . . But if Dr. Araghi finds out we’re doing this, we’re in big trouble—​like kicked-out-level trouble—​so there are rules,” she said.

  “First rule,” Ann continued, “we work quickly, and finish the project before the end of the summer. That’s the only way we won’t get caught. In June and July, the lab is short-staffed, with fewer people around to notice missing resources. But come late August, everybody’s back and paying attention. I want this done by then.”

  I nodded. I liked the idea of fast.

  “Rule Two: No telling anyone. Not even your lab friends. And definitely not your dad.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “And Rule Three: At any point, depending on how you respond to the project,” Ann said, her voice stern, “I reserve the right to shut it down.”

  “Of course,” I whispered. “I understand—”

  She cut me off.

  “When I say respond, I’m talking about your physical response to the reagents. This experiment involves taking something—​a serum—​to mask the expression of your pheromones. Your mother developed a formula for this, and I worked with her to come up with an ideal dosage, which proved to be safe, but we never tested it on anyone but her. If you suffer any negative side effects, we’ll end the work. Already, I fear putting you at risk, but . . .”

  “If it was safe for my mother, it’ll be safe on me,” I assured her before she could talk herself out of it. “You’ll never find another subject who’s as close to my mother as me, right?”

  “Every subject is unique,” Ann said. “But this project requires only a very small dose of the serum that builds up over days. We should know early on whether there’s an allergy or any adverse side effects—​hopefully long before there’s a real problem. Your mother’s body temperature did go up throughout the experiment. That’s something we’ll have to monitor.”

  I nodded. The emptiness in my stomach was replaced by a buzzing that happened whenever I got excited about an experiment. Beyond trying to get Whit back, I was finally going to be doing something hands-on instead of just transcribing someone else’s notes.

  Ann opened the One Direction binder to a page marked with dates, temperatures, and numbers, and began to explain what it all meant. I was pleased at how much I understood; paying attention to my mother had taught me a shorthand for research talk.

  Ann and my mom had already figured out the most complicated part of the project, developing the serum that altered the appearance of pheromones and HLAs, or human leukocyte antigens, which are what regulate our immune systems.

  When Ann explained how the sublingual process would work, I cut her off.

  “I know this part.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes, sublingual means under the tongue. The serum is absorbed by the tissues under the tongue, through the bloodstream. Smart that you and my mom used this method; it was probably the easiest way to get it into her system.”

  Ann nodded, looking more uncomfortable than impressed with my knowledge.

  Then she had questions for me. My mother had one obvious subject: my dad. Whit, my desired subject, was an ex, meaning he wasn’t around anymore.

  “Your mother lived with your father. Saw him every day. Your subject is not with you. How did you plan on using him for this project?” Ann asked.

  “I could take the serum until it enters my system and then make a plan to see Whit. Wouldn’t we be able to gauge its effect by how he responds to me then? I could tell him I need to see him and spend time with him. Then we could see how he responds to me.”

  “Maya, there needs to be some method here,” Ann said, sounding a bit like my mom. “How would we know whether it was the serum working or if he just missed you? Your ex-boyfriend isn’t the best control subject at the moment.”

  I frowned. He was the whole reason I wanted to do this.

  “Wouldn’t you have had the same issue with Mom and Dad? How did she know whether my dad was responding to the serum or whether he was just attracted to her on specific days because of his mood—​or what she was wearing? I don’t want to do this if I can’t do it with Whit, Ann.”

  “I understand,” Ann said, opening a can of cream soda. I hadn’t even seen where the can came from. It was like she pulled it out of thin air.

  “Don’t get upset; Whit is still in the mix here. But I thought we could try something different, something your mom and I hoped to address in our next phase of research. I’d like to broaden the experiment and test it with more than one subject. Three subjects; three types of relationships. A friend, a stranger, and eventually, to finish the project, your ex. These would be short-term tests, the results qualitative but informative based on what we already know from your mother.”

  “Three subjects? I’d just hoped for the one . . .”

  “It would give us more data, which makes it better for me. Also, your mother’s research indicates that she saw a response within two weeks of use of the serum. That gives us exactly enough time to get through three experiments by the end of the summer. All you have to do is choose them and get DNA samples to make the serum.”

  Ann looked down at her laptop.

  “It’s late June already. We’d should start now,” she said. “So . . . am I calling your bluff, or are you in?”

  My mind went to the sweatshirt balled up in the corner of my room with Whit’s hair all over it. He’d worn it through the winter, whenever my dad was being cheap about the heat.

  Those strands of hair were the key to this.

  I’d already mapped out a fantasy scenario where we’d set a date to catch up, and I’d smell just right. We’d be like the darcin mice, recalling the memor
ies of attraction and falling in love all over again. We’d go back to his new apartment, and that’d be our new beginning.

  But two other subjects. A friend? A stranger? No one crossed my mind.

  “Please think of someone you’re around frequently for the first test. Someone with whom you share a specific, platonic routine.”

  “Routine,” I whispered.

  A vision of the chess app flashed in my mind. “Kyle,” I said.

  He was a guy who liked me as a friend and saw me in the lab almost every day. He was clear about his intentions or lack thereof. He had spent the previous night sending me pictures of his roommate’s bedroom. I signed a summer sublet with this guy, Kyle had texted after sending a shot of the roommate’s dirty underwear on the floor next to spaghetti stuck to the carpet. Three whole months with this angel of a human.

  What we’d developed over the past couple of weeks was sort of like my friendship with Bryan, in terms of ease of conversation, but it was new, and maybe less familial.

  “Kyle,” I repeated. “Kyle works. I don’t know about a second subject, though.”

  “There’s time; the first test will take a few weeks, just to set it all up and begin. But for now,” Ann continued, “get me samples for subjects one and three as soon as possible. It will take me five days to do the DNA test and to get the reagents we need to make the serum, so we should get going as soon as we can.”

  “Samples,” I said out loud.

  “Hair. Saliva. Something I can use with a DNA kit,” Ann said casually, as if it would be easy to just stick my hand inside Kyle’s mouth.

  “Okay. I think I can make it happen.”

  “Good. And Maya, I know I’m repeating myself, but this is a secret. Just you and me. If anyone knew I was doing this work, especially with you, I’d be kicked out. Already they don’t know what to do with me. I’m sure Dr. Araghi probably thinks I’ll never finish this PhD. I’m sure he thinks I’m wasting space just by being here.”

  “I know how to keep a secret,” I told her. “Also . . . I don’t think Dr. Araghi thinks that.”

  Ann narrowed her eyes at me.

  “I don’t blame him,” she said, her voice soft. “Sometimes I think I’m wasting space here too.”

  Before I could come up with something positive to say, she stowed the One Direction binder in her desk and began to pack her bag for the night. I wondered what she’d do then, and what she did every night after she left her office. I imagined her in a small, cell-like apartment, a larger version of her office, eating a frozen vegan dinner with a can of cream soda, alone.

  “Ann?”

  “Mmm?” she mumbled, looking up, her softer expression making her look like a different person for a second.

  “This means a lot to me—​more than you know,” I said, turning to the door before she could change her mind.

  “Me too,” I thought I heard her whisper as I shut the door behind me.

  8

  The unfortunate reality of lab work, based on what I’ve seen, is that ninety percent of it or more is busywork without results.

  In elementary school, you put baking soda into vinegar and it explodes right in front of you, within seconds. Or you put red food coloring in water, stick the stem of a white flower in the mix, and watch the colorless buds turn scarlet over days. Experiments for kids are great that way. They make science look like magic.

  But when you get older and you’re researching something specific that might involve a small change in temperature or the structure of a protein, you have to be prepared for hours and hours of nothing. Even if you’re lucky enough to see big results in your work, they’re often anticlimactic and difficult to explain to someone who’s not a scientist.

  Yael, for instance, is working on a project involving epigenetics and pyelonephritis, which is basically the science of why people have troublesome kidneys. Her greater goal is to figure out why some bodies are prone to urinary tract infections. The work she does now could help women who get chronic UTIs in the future, but on a daily basis, not much happens. Yael has spent most of her time at MIT dropping various chemical reagents onto cells on slides, over and over, like she’s stuck on repeat.

  My mom used to tell me that being a good researcher meant accepting small victories. Even her epigenetics breakthroughs sometimes seemed underwhelming when you explained them outside the lab. She had developed seeds of possible cures for diseases, but still, just seeds.

  I think that’s one of the things that surprised me most about my mom and Ann’s work: that there was a baking-soda-volcano type of result. A formula dropped under the tongue, and a potential change to the system within weeks. My mom had trained me to believe that it shouldn’t be possible.

  I gave Ann Whit’s sweatshirt and the sample for Kyle, handing over three of his favorite pens in a plastic bag. One was particularly wet when I found it. He’d taken it out of his mouth, left it on his bench, and walked away, almost like he’d wanted me to take it.

  It was just a pen, but grabbing it and sealing it in a plastic bag made me think about the ethics of the experiment for the first time.

  While it bothered me that my mom had done an experiment on my dad without him knowing, her intentions had been good. She was only trying to improve marriages, and there was something about doing this with a spouse—​someone who’d already signed up for a lifetime commitment—​that made the work seem less sinister.

  But taking Kyle’s pen made me feel like I was doing something immoral, especially when I returned to the lab and had to face him for the rest of the day. He wasn’t my husband or even my boyfriend. He was a friend I really liked, someone I wanted to talk to all day, which was important and new.

  But this was a temporary project, I told myself. Sort of like putting on the perfect perfume and seeing if someone noticed. After we completed the first test, the serum would be out of my system within a matter of days. It probably wouldn’t even work on a platonic friend anyway.

  I was experimenting with the first two subjects only to appease Ann, I told myself. The only part of the experiment I cared about was Subject Number Three.

  For the rest of the day, after stowing the bag with the pen in it in my backpack, it seemed that Kyle was everywhere, bumping into me as he reached for equipment, offering to grab me lunch, and hovering by my workbench—​his long lashes batting, his eyebrows raised—​as he told me about his roommate’s latest hygienic transgression.

  Our lab was a maze of parallel and perpendicular workbenches built so close to one another that there was no room for personal space. The tightness of the layout had annoyed me before—​people often bumped my back as they whizzed by while I was transcribing—​but now I was thankful for the proximity; at the very least, I could count on Kyle noticing any changes in my pheromones. This sterile, cramped lab provided an almost ideal set of circumstances for the plan.

  * * *

  Ann did her part. Within days, she’d used the pens to do the DNA test. Now we had to make the formula, though, and that required materials. My mom had access to everything in Building 68b, and no one would have ever questioned why she needed specific materials for her work. But Ann, who, despite her air of authority, had gone from a superstar’s protégé to an ordinary PhD student—​one who was close to a year behind on her dissertation—​had access to nothing.

  “Basically, this is theft. It’s a crime,” she said when I met her in the quad that Sunday night.

  “First of all, it’s not a crime. I mean, not really. We’re just using some chemicals. It’s not like we’re walking away with some thousand-dollar centrifuge,” I told her.

  “Then why are you wearing that outfit?” she asked. “You going to rob a bank after this?”

  I’d dressed in black sweatpants and a long black T-shirt because it seemed appropriate for our night’s work. Ann also wore black jeans and a black T-shirt, but that was her daily uniform.

  Ann shook her head and brushed past me, opening the door o
f Building 68b and ushering me inside.

  The facility looked sinister at midnight, the almost-full moon casting weird shadows on the walls of the sterile lab building. It didn’t help that 68b was so close to MIT’s Stata Center. The multicolored Frank Gehry building, one of the more famous structures on campus, looked like a cheery, colorful setting for a Dr. Seuss book by day, but after dark it resembled a horror-film fun house, with crazy angles that made it appear as though the building were collapsing under its own weight.

  It seemed unnecessarily dramatic to meet right at midnight, but this was the best time to do work without a major risk of being caught. Ann knew that the basement lab and storage area would be dark and unmanned. She could grab what she needed and make the formula in about two hours, but she needed a lookout.

  “What’s your story?” Ann asked in front of the lab doors.

  “If security shows up, my story is that I lost my wallet. I’ll ask the guard to take me up to the third floor to look for it.”

  “And what if he asks you why you’re in the basement?”

  “I’ll say that I used the bathroom down here on Friday. I’ll say I looked for the wallet here first but haven’t found anything.”

  “Good,” she said. She paused at the door of the lab like she was afraid to go in, because once she did, she couldn’t turn back. I knew that she was desperate to do the project—​to get back to the kind of work she was doing with my mom—​but that she also knew she shouldn’t be doing it with me.

  Her desire won out. She swung open the door and shut it behind her. I sank to the floor while Ann got to work making a quick grab for what she needed so we could be out of the building as fast as possible.

  For the next hour, every noise sent me into panic mode. At some point, the building’s air conditioner turned off, and the sputtering of the vents made my heart skip. Occasionally I’d hear footsteps, and I’d practice my lie—​“I lost my wallet,” repeated to myself in a confident whisper—​but the padding against the lab’s linoleum floors always turned out to be Ann’s feet. I could hear her moving from one side of the room to the other.