Invisible

by Carla Buckley

“Name one that’s turning a profit, one that’s broken into the top ten. Hell, the top fifty.” He switched off the overhead light and held open his office door. The hallway was shushed with emptiness. “I’ve worked hard to turn this crappy little mom-and-pop business into a real success story, and I’m not messing with it just because you got a wild hair about nano zinc.”

  “It’s not just me. There’s tons of research beginning—”

  “Research. Right.”

  “Check it out for yourself. It’s all online.”

  “If you don’t mind, I’ll let the government tell me what’s safe and what’s not.”

  “You can be the forerunner . . .”

  “I can make sure my employees get paid.”

  “You owe it to them to make sure their workplace is safe.”

  He gave me a sharp look. “I know what my obligation to my employees is.”

  “Just let me take a few readings,” I begged. “I can come in after everyone’s gone for the day. No one needs to know.”

  “You make it sound like I’m hiding something.” He turned a corner and I lengthened my stride to keep up.

  “You’re not listening.”

  Flip, flip. He was switching off lights as we went, the king of his castle.

  “You’re the one who isn’t listening, Dana. This stuff is all FDA-approved. Until they tell me I should stop using it, I’m going to keep on keeping on.”

  “Who knows how long it will take for the FDA to respond? Julie’s dead. And Sheri’s little boy may not make it.”

  He stopped, the sound of his footsteps falling into silence. We’d reached the lobby. The halls stretched out in all directions. The parking lot outside the front doors was bathed in the tangerine and rosy glow of a sunset. In here, everything was bleached bone.

  “Don’t you pin that on me.” His face was stone, the face of a stranger, and I glimpsed the man who ran a small empire, the man who made a salesman wait for a week before dismissing him, the one who by sheer force of will had turned a small town around from the edge of despair.

  I searched his features for the friend I’d once had. “Brian—I’m not pinning anything on you. But you can’t just ignore what I’m telling you.”

  He sucked in a breath, released it. “Look,” he said. “I know you’re upset about that. Julie was great. I get it that you’re having a hard time dealing with her death.”

  Julie was great? That was how you summed up a person? “That has nothing to do with anything.”

  “Tell me something, Dana. How come you’re so cut up about a sister you haven’t even bothered to visit since high school?”

  “You can’t win this, Brian.”

  “Look around you, Dana. I’ve already won.”

  Hawley Hospital was twenty-six miles southwest of Black Bear, thirty minutes by car, twenty-five if you gunned it and weren’t held up at the train trestle. I sat in my car and studied the bland stucco building through the windshield. It looked exactly as I remembered; even the maples lining the front walk were the same height, but I had to be wrong about that. I hadn’t exactly been paying attention to the landscaping.

  A sedan drove by, slowed to take the curve into the visitors’ lot. A young couple emerged, the woman leaning on the man’s arm, their faces turned toward each other as they walked toward the entrance. I imagined them heading to that room on the second floor, the one facing south with the sink missing a chunk of porcelain along the back rim, with a window that didn’t offer a sunrise or sunset, just middling sky that gradually darkened and lightened.

  Julie had arrived home just after six that day. Sorry I’m late, she said.

  It’s got to be a million degrees in here, I complained.

  She laid a cool hand on my forehead. Are you sure it’s just the heat?

  She worried about everything. Was I eating enough, sleeping enough? Was there enough gas in the car in case we made a midnight run? Julie grew very protective those last few months. And distant, as though she could see something coming from far away.

  I wished she were here now, to tell me what to do.

  I started up my car, drove slowly out of the parking lot and turned onto the highway leading back to Black Bear.

  It was late by the time I got back. I let myself in with the key I’d found hanging on the brass hook. A brass J dangled from it. Julie’s key. I held it loosely in my cupped hand, imagining it resting in my sister’s palm, then turned to hang it back up.

  A voice spoke out of the darkness. “So you’re back.”

  Frank sat by the kitchen window, moonlight throwing his face into high relief. He’d meant to startle me.

  “Brian called,” he said. “He wants that lab coat back. I looked but I couldn’t find it.”

  The lab coat was stowed in the trunk of my car, where I hoped it couldn’t release any more particles. “I’ve got it,” I said. He’d been drinking, I realized with dismay. The air stank of whiskey, and a bottle sat on the table before him. “And even if I returned it, he can’t cover up what I found. I’ve already downloaded the readings onto my computer.”

  “No one’s talking about covering anything up.” He tipped the bottle to the glass by his hand. “That coat’s his. Peyton shouldn’t have taken it out of the building.”

  “I’ll talk to him. I’ll let him know Peyton has nothing to do with this.”

  “I don’t want you talking to anyone. You’ve already done enough talking.”

  It was late and I was tired. Frank and I would never agree on anything, so why try? “You’re drunk,” I said with disgust. “Go to bed.” I turned to go.

  “My God,” he said. “You sound just like Julie.”

  I whirled around. “Do I, Frank? I’m glad. Someone needs to talk to you. Someone needs to straighten you out.”

  “You’re the last person to straighten anyone out. Last I heard, you killed someone.”

  I gritted my teeth. That had nothing to do with anything. “You’re the one who has the problem. You need to get yourself under control.”

  “Or what?”

  “Or I’ll take Peyton.” The words just slipped out. I hadn’t even realized I’d been thinking them.

  He snorted. “Peyton’s not going anywhere.”

  “She’s not safe here.”

  “You don’t get to decide that. She’s my daughter.”

  My heart pounded. Tell him. “You think she doesn’t know you’re in here, drinking? You think she doesn’t smell it on you the next day?”

  The scrape of a chair and he was there, looming out of the darkness. “You don’t know anything.”

  “Julie should have never come back. She should have kept Peyton as far away from you as possible.”

  He grabbed my arms and shook me. “Shut up.”

  My heart pounded. I’d never seen this side to him, this violence. Afghanistan had changed this man in ways I’d never understand. What kind of life had Julie lived? What kind of house had Peyton grown up in? “Did you hit Julie?” I hissed. “Is that why she left you?”

  “No!” He released me and I stumbled back. “Of course not! I loved her.”

  I rubbed my arms. He was telling the truth. “Maybe you never touched her,” I said. “But you hurt her anyway.”

  “Don’t you think I know that?” He fell into his chair and sat there, head bowed.

  I left him there, lost among his own memories, his own regrets. I stayed up for hours, huddled on my makeshift bed, scrolling website after website. There were hundreds of products containing nanoparticles being manufactured and sold all over the world. Scientists were raising concerns, and consumer organizations were issuing warnings. So Greg had been right. There was something terrible going on.

  Toward dawn, I picked up the phone and pressed the buttons. It was early and I was prepared to leave a message, when someone answered.

  “My name is Dana Carlson,” I said quietly. Was I doing the right thing? Was this what Julie would have wanted? “I believe the factory in my h
ometown is making people sick.”

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  [PEYTON]

  SEA ANEMONES ARE CANDY-COLORED SQUISHY ANIMALS so delicious looking, you’d want to pinch off a piece and pop it in your mouth. You wouldn’t get that far, though. The instant you touched it, a coiled stinger buried beneath a trap cell door would lash out and punch a painful poison into your skin. It’s the law of the ocean: the prettier something is, the more dangerous it is.

  Anemone mouths are pursed tight in the middle of their juicy little bodies. On the opposite ends are pedal disks that glue them into place on a rock or piece of coral. They can creep along very slowly, and some can swim, but on the whole, they usually prefer to patiently wait for food to find them. Their cute little selves just sit there, arms waving delicately in the water, and an octopus or a starfish or a fish can’t help it. They swim over to take a look and pow! The anemone grabs them, stuns them with poison, and leisurely nibbles away. That’s another law of the ocean.

  Curiosity will kill you.

  The news crawled through school like a centipede, climbing up and down the walls and across all the floors, its little legs working busily. By second period, it was all people were talking about. Peyton sat there and wished someone, anyone, would just freaking change the subject.

  “I heard it was a gas leak,” Hannah said.

  Gerkey’s didn’t operate on gas.

  “They found drugs in the locker room.”

  Probably Ronni’s prenatal vitamins, the ones she took just in case.

  “I heard a boiler blew up and people got burned.”

  Yeah? What boiler would that have been, the one in the next county over?

  Mrs. Milchman sat on her desk, swinging her legs like she was proud of them. She wasn’t as bad as Peyton’s Spanish teacher, who always wore low-cut shirts and tight skirts that made it particularly gross when she was acting out a scene for them. “I don’t think so, guys,” Mrs. Milchman said. “The front office would have gotten calls from your parents.”

  Hannah nodded. “This is a safety zone.”

  “You mean tornado zone,” someone corrected.

  “No, safety zone. Like if there was a terrorist act or something. This is where people would go.”

  “Like Black Bear’s a training camp for terrorists.”

  “I’m just saying.”

  They were all just saying, but none of them knew. Peyton had passed Eric in the hall earlier, and even he’d looked a little worried.

  “They don’t put people in quarantine for an industrial accident.” That was Hannah Know-It-All. “They just hose them down.”

  “You learn that from Criminal Minds?”

  Laughter.

  “Someone poisoned the lotion and that’s why the EPA’s there.”

  “Poisoned lotion. Ooh. Scary.”

  More laughter.

  Peyton wondered if the EPA had badges and guns. Maybe they were corralling everyone outside on the parking lot.

  “I’m just telling you what I heard.”

  Maybe nanoparticles sank to the bottom of a person and rose to fill every organ, until a person couldn’t breathe or swallow. Or maybe they started on the outside and pressed their way in through a person’s pores. Maybe it had all been there, right in front of them, and no one had been able to see any of it.

  Everyone was staring at her.

  Milchman said gently, “That’s all right, Peyton. Never mind.”

  When the bell rang, Peyton was the first one out the door.

  After gym, while everyone was getting changed, Peyton stood in the entryway, just around the bend in the wall that kept the boys from seeing in but far enough out of the tiled room so there’d be cellphone reception. A couple of other girls huddled nearby with their own phones pressed to their ears.

  Her dad answered on the third ring. There was background noise and he spoke loudly. “Peyton? Is everything all right?”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Hold on.” The noise dissipated. He must have shut a door or something. “You heard the EPA’s here?”

  “Everyone’s talking about it. They’re saying there’s poison in the sunscreen.”

  “Goddamn it.”

  Peyton was shocked. Her dad never swore.

  “Well, you know better, right?”

  “But Dana said—”

  “I don’t care what Dana said. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

  “She found that stuff on my coat, Dad. And what about those Chinese scientists?”

  “This is how rumors get started.”

  “Stop treating me like I’m stupid.”

  “I’m not doing that.”

  “You’ve been doing it since Mom got sick. ‘Everything’s going to be okay. It’s not a big deal. Lots of people get kidney disease.’ Well, it wasn’t okay, was it, Dad? You made me think it was! You made me think it was okay to go to school and forget about it.”

  The other girls were looking at her. She glared at them until they turned away. “Tell me the truth for once, Dad.”

  “The EPA showed up this morning. They talked to Brian. He’s been showing them all over the plant, and they’ve been collecting samples.”

  “Like Dana did?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Are they closing down the plant?”

  “Of course not.”

  She heard the truth in his voice. Okay. Things couldn’t be that terrible, then. But still. “Have they found anything?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  Maybe it took time to know. “What if they do find something?”

  “Then it means we have to tighten up on our safety protocols.”

  That made sense. Maybe they had thicker masks that would work. She lowered her voice. “It was Dana who called them, wasn’t it, Dad?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Yes, he did. He knew as well as she did. “The EPA wouldn’t have shown up if she was wrong about this, Dad.”

  “I’m sure they have to investigate every complaint, even the ones that don’t make sense.”

  Peyton hadn’t known that. The other girls were straightening up and shoving their phones in their pockets. A teacher must be coming. “I have to go, Dad.” She hung up before he could say another word.

  Eric was waiting for her after school, leaning against her locker. “Hey,” he said, pushing himself up.

  “Hi.” She worked the lock and swung the door open. “I missed you at lunch.”

  “Yeah, sorry about that. I stayed behind to do a chem lab.”

  They pushed through the school doors. The parking lot was emptying, cars screeching out, radios blasting. The track team ran laps around the football field. Balls thudded in tennis courts so new Peyton could still smell the paint.

  “Crazy day, huh?” He took her hand, the callus on his thumb from the sax scratchy along her palm.

  “Dana was the one who called them.”

  “I figured.”

  “My dad said the EPA had to come out, but I don’t know. Maybe she’s right. Maybe this nano stuff is dangerous.”

  Eric didn’t say anything.

  “Hello?” she said impatiently. “Did you hear what I said?”

  “I heard.” They stopped at the intersection to wait for the light to change.

  “Doesn’t that freak you out?”

  He shrugged.

  Why was he being like that? She persisted. “So what if it turns out she was right?”

  “I told you. The government wouldn’t let people use nanotech if it wasn’t safe.”

  “You were the one who said it was a good thing that Dana was checking things out.”

  He frowned, staring at the light. It glowed, a long steady red. At last, he said, “My dad works there.”

  “So it’s okay to talk about it when it’s just about my mom, but when it’s about your dad, we can’t?”

  He didn’t answer.

  So there it was, that thick solid line between them, the one
that had always been there but that she hadn’t seen until now. She stood on one side looking over with longing, and he stood on the other, looking away. She pulled her hand out of his and wrapped both her arms around her books.

  “I’m sorry,” Eric said at last.

  He never said he was sorry. He meant it, though; she could tell. Was she ready to let it go? His profile was to her, his mouth turned down. He was her best friend. He knew her like no one else did. “Forget it,” she said.

  He didn’t look at her, but his face firmed with relief. “Okay, then.”

  “Okay.” She let him take back her hand. Okay.

  THIRTY-NINE

  [DANA]

  NICE AFTERNOON, ISN’T IT?” THE WAITRESS FLIPPED the thick white mug over and filled it with coffee. Her nametag read Leslie. “You ready to order?”

  “I’ll stick with coffee, thanks.”

  “Oh, sure, but if you want any chocolate silk, better let me know right away. We’ve only got a couple pieces left.”

  The plump pieces of pie were prominently displayed on the counter behind her. Homemade, the hand-lettered sign announced, and normally, I would have succumbed to temptation. But I couldn’t bear the thought of eating anything, so I just said, “I’m fine. Thanks.”

  She moved to the booth behind me. “You hear about the trouble down at the plant?” she said to the people sitting there.

  They grumbled a reply. I tuned them out. A tube of sunscreen poked out of my purse. I’d automatically started to apply it that morning and caught myself just in time. A new tube, an expensive brand filled with antioxidants. I couldn’t bring myself to throw it out. Was the danger in the manufacturing process or in the product itself ? Until I knew, I’d hold on to it, just in case. It would serve as a reminder of all the other things I’d have to be on the watch for. Athletic socks, glass cleaner, shampoo. Toothpaste.

  Bells jangled. Two men stood in the doorway, one tall with a short brown beard, the other younger, wearing gold-rimmed glasses. It had to be them. They had the weary look of not belonging.

  I raised my hand, and the older man nodded. The two of them threaded between the tables toward me. “Dana Carlson?”