by Ryan Schow
“I’m sorry for what’s happened to her,” I say. Instinct alone has me reaching out to him. I take his hand, squeeze it. He barely responds.
Right then Theresa Prichard and Maggie Jaynes stroll by, Theresa’s eyes soaking in the details of me and Damien, our hands touching. Damien sees them seeing us. He slips his hand out of mine and tries to act like we weren’t having a moment.
“Aiming a little low on the rebound?” Theresa says with biting, demonic eyes.
Damien says nothing. That’s not good enough for me, so I say, “Where’s your camera, Theresa? Where’s your life, Theresa?”
She blows me a kiss that ends in a middle finger. I grin at her. This truce I’m supposed to have with Cameron and Julie, apparently it isn’t with Theresa. Maggie, as always, looks lost. Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about her.
“What’s with Maggie?” I ask Damien. “She’s the oddball in that shitty crowd.”
He shrugs his shoulders.
Typical.
“So, what do you know about Kaitlyn’s disappearance?”
“If I tell you, it’s not for your Investigative Journalism report,” he answers. “It’s just between you and me, okay? It has to be this way.”
“Fine, deal.”
“I’ll come over tonight. What time?”
Wait a minute, he’s coming over? Suddenly my stomach is the most hollow organ in the world. It feels bottomless, if that’s possible. Or maybe it’s stuffed with butterflies and nervous barf. I go to speak, but my throat is too dry and constricted for anything worthwhile to come out. He saves me by saying, “How about eight?”
“It’s a date,” I finally manage to say.
“No it’s not. It’s just a time and a place.”
With that, he says an emotionless good-bye, then leaves me standing alone in the hall feeling like a complete buffoon. It’s a date? OMG, did I just say that?
I’m such an idiot!
Non-Date with the Boy-God
1
I keep checking the clock: Seven o’clock.
Seven-fifteen.
Seven-thirty.
It seems I have been standing in the mirror fussing with my hair and my makeup forever. Maybe this is because I’m still marveling over the differences in me. Like how my frizzy brown hair isn’t frizzy anymore, that it’s in fact darkening from a washed-out brown to a more lustrous black. Or how my skin seems less porous, more clear. Even the bulkier sections of my face are now not so meaty. My cheek bones are showing for the first time. I have cheekbones! And the sad, outside corners of my eyes? Even they have shifted upwards slightly, making my face look less droopy, less pathetic. Can this really be?
Gerhard’s shots are changing my body structure and as much as this terrifies me, I don’t want the changes to stop. I miss my treatments. I don’t miss the pain, but I desperately miss the feeling of the hope that one day I’ll be attractive.
There’s a knock at the door. Excited, I open it only to find Brayden standing there with a lopsided smile on his not-handsome face. He has microwave popcorn and a DVD in hand. The movie is I Am Number Four and the popcorn is condom-wrapped in clear plastic.
“Oh, Brayden, you should have called. I need a rain check tonight.”
“Why? What’s going on?”
Just then Damien appears, looking a little awkward himself. Disheveled. He says, “If I’m interrupting—”
“No,” I say. “I was just telling Brayden we have homework to do.”
The stricken look on Brayden’s face, the jealousy, has me feeling traitorous inside. But I can’t turn Damien away. I need to know everything he knows about Kaitlyn. Plus I want him to myself. It’s stupid, thinking he’d want me back, but fat girls have fantasies, too.
“Tomorrow night then?” Brayden says, trying to save face.
“For sure. And bring that movie. It’s one of my favorites.” Feeling bad for him, I lean in and give him a kiss on his cheek and though I will admit it was a consolation kiss, not even a real one at that, it seems to soften the blow.
I close the door and Damien says, “Are you guys—”
“No, no, no. We’re just friends. Us bush pigs need to stick together.” I regret referring to myself as a bush pig the minute I say it, but it’s a force of habit. Margaret’s voice pops in my head, unwanted. She’s always saying how self-deprecating talk is merely ugly people becoming uglier.
“You’re not a bush pig,” Damien says.
“Why, Damien,” I pronounce, using a deep southern accent, “you sure do know how to charm a lady. Why, I think that’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“That’s not…I mean—” His face goes red with embarrassment. Like he doesn’t know what to say.
Backpedaling, I try to put him at ease with a quick laugh. It doesn’t work. God, he’s so freaking uptight!
“Look,” I say, “I’m kidding. I’m not a Cameron or a Bridget. I know I’m not pretty the way other people are. Not even close. The thing about people like me and Brayden is we know how people like you view us. We don’t like it, but joking keeps us from getting too depressed.” Again, he seems to lack the imagination needed to…I don’t know…be a real human being, so I say, “Your missing sense of humor is not your finest quality. Really.”
“I thought we were talking about Kaitlyn.”
“Yeah,” I say, marveling at how he’s getting an F- for effort, “like four hours ago.”
After what he said about this not being a date, I realize he’s never going to be attracted to me—especially if I end up looking like a brown-skinned version of his beloved step-sister. This afternoon’s realization makes me want to stop trying to be anything other than me.
Funny how when I’m myself, like just now, people don’t know how to take me.
“I want to talk to you about Dr. Gerhard,” he says. “Wolfgang Gerhard.”
“Fine. Go.”
He stalls a bit, recognizing the words he used on me earlier today. Then: “Do you know what his specialty is, his field of study?”
“Genetics.”
“Yes,” he replies, “but more specifically, somatic human genetic modification. Imagine a girl wants breast implants but instead of having her breasts get cut open, stuffed with the rubbery tits they’re using today then sewn back up, she simply has her genetic structure altered and poof! she grows her own set. Perfectly natural. No scars, no pain. Barely any downtime.”
“I wouldn’t say ‘no pain.’” He just looks at me, confused. I grab my breasts and say, “If you would’ve seen these pathetic things before I started with Gerhard’s shots, you would know I don’t have to imagine anything. My girls are proof your assertion is not a theory but a fact.”
The way he looks at me, how I’m being so forthright, I wonder if I should really reel it in.
“Kaitlyn never told me about the shots. Is that how he does it?”
“Kaitlyn didn’t tell you any of this?”
“She was very hush, hush about it. The way she changed so quickly, she told me she was going through rapid growth spurts. I followed her to Gerhard’s office one afternoon. She wasn’t happy about it. She was pissed off actually. She said, ‘Do you want to know how we can afford this school on your father’s salary? I’m how.’ I pressed her, tried to find out what was going on, but she shut me out. She said all I had to know was her leukemia was gone. Permanently. Then days later she goes missing and authorities find her abandoned car with the door wrenched open and about four pints of her blood all over the front seat. After that, I stopped caring about school and being popular. Instead, I became obsessed with finding out what happened. You know they never even found her body?”
“I know.”
“What?” he asks. “How do you know?”
“I just do. The question is, what does Gerhard know about her disappearance?”
“He won’t talk to me. And when I tried, I got a handful of threatening notes telling me to back off, each a little worse than the last. Then
someone started following me, so I stopped with all the questions. Backed off, like they said.”
“Do you even know how much your tuition is?” I ask.
“A lot, I gather.”
“But specifically?”
“No.”
“Two hundred and fifty thousand a year.”
His eyes fly open and he says, “For real?”
“And Kaitlyn’s treatments, do you know how much they cost today?”
“No, how much?”
“Swear to secrecy,” I tell him. “If this gets out, I’m done. Kicked out of the school, my father’s money not refunded.” He swears himself to secrecy, the look in his eyes intense and at the same time sincere. “Twenty-five million.”
“What?” he says, running a hand through his hair and looking bewildered.
“Yep. Whatever you’re digging up, what we’re both looking into, this is no small ordeal here. And your father, well, it’s not exactly like he has the pedigree for a place like this, so there has to be some kind of a deal that’s been struck between him and Gerhard.”
By now he’s pacing the room, looking more and more disheveled. “You think my father is somehow involved?”
“What did Professor Rhonimus say was the first rule of investigative journalism?”
He ponders this for second then says, “Follow the money.”
“Or in this case, the lack of money. Gerhard doesn’t strike me as the kind of man who does this sort of work pro-bono.”
“He’s a eugenicist,” Damien says. “Like the Nazi’s from World War Two. He’s quoted in several medical papers from the past about how he longs to create the perfect race. A master race of disease-free humans.”
I try to act surprised, but this doesn’t surprise me at all. That’s like saying a cosmetic surgeon believes all people should be more beautiful. It’s not exactly a huge stretch…
“What else have you got that’s more interesting than this?”
He looks offended.
“Sorry. It’s just that you’re not interested in me other than what I know about Kaitlyn and I’m not interested in dead ends, so why don’t you just cut to the chase and tell me something I don’t know already.”
“Okay.”
“Go.”
He looks at me funny, like I’m almost too much for him, then he says: “I’m here to find out what you know, and what your angle is.”
I say, “Hang on a second.” I pick up my phone, dial Brayden and when he picks up I say, “You still want to watch that movie tonight?” He says he does. “Good, come on over.” I hang up and say to Damien, “You’ve got five minutes.”
“You’re not a nice person,” he says.
“I am a nice person. You just don’t get it. I’m really attracted to how you look, but the feeling is not mutual, and if I ever get pretty, it’s because of Gerhard’s treatments in which case I’ll probably end up looking like your step-sister and then you really won’t be attracted to me. So rather than wasting each other’s time, I’m going to spend the evening with my friend and you can go and do whatever the hell it is you do at night.”
“So you don’t know anything else about Kaitlyn,” he asks.
A one track mind, this one.
“I’ll keep you apprised of everything I find.”
When he leaves, I feel like I’m watching a dream escape. I want to grab hold of it, hang on, but even I know ugly girls never get the hot guys. That kind of nonsensical plot only works in the movies, and only after the girl sheds her glasses, combs her hair and gets designer clothes and maybe a sexier walk and a push-up bra. That would be a movie Anne Hathaway would star in, or Rachel McAdams.
Not me.
2
Days turn into weeks as I wait almost impatiently for a note from Gerhard. Twice I stopped by his office and ended up interrogating Arabelle when I couldn’t see him. Finally, two days ago she said he wasn’t seeing patients except on an emergency basis only. I said, “Hello, this is an emergency.”
It wasn’t and she knew it.
Beautiful, plastic Arabelle just batted her eyelashes at me. I was hypnotized. Then, to her, I said, “Wherever did you get those gorgeous eyes of yours?” She simply smiled and told me the doctor was busy in his lab.
His lab.
“What lab?” I asked. “Is it on campus?”
For the first time in a long time I watched something shift across her plastic face. It made me wonder if she might actually be human. She said, “You should go, Miss Van Duyn. I’m sure he’ll be in touch of you soon.” Then she did something I never expected. She lifted a paperback book, a true bodice ripper by the look of the cover, and said, “I am inside of novel now.”
I leave the office stunned. Who knew Nurse Arabelle was into romance? More than that, who knew Gerhard’s had a lab on campus? At least, that’s what Arabelle’s amethyst eyes hinted at.
Late that evening, I log into school records, locate the employee files and then type in Dr. Gerhard’s full name. All I want is everything personal about him. Is that too much to ask? For a moment I think I should feel bad snooping if there was more information to have, but there is but a few tasteless morsels: Home address, phone number, parking permit number for a Porsche Cayenne, which is three years old and maroon colored.
What a bust.
The next day I visit Nurse Arabelle again, asking for the doctor. She says he’s not here and I ask, “Is he in the lab?” She hesitates, then nods. After class I sat in my car in the parking lot until late that night. At just after one in the morning, an exhausted looking Wolfgang Gerhard appears, climbs into his Porsche SUV and leaves. I consider following him home, but not just yet. Tonight was only me confirming he’s got a lab on campus. And by the look of things, he does. Why else would he stay so late? Hopefully he’s working on my cure.
3
Lately Brayden has been looking for every reason to come over and see me. When I tell him I have a challenge for him, he doesn’t take but five minutes to get to my room. His face is beet red and he’s out of breath. Like he sprinted across campus to get here.
“Good Lord,” I tease. “I’m not in that much of a hurry.”
“I’m working on my cardio,” he says, walking in and practically collapsing on the bed.
“What for?” He shrugs his shoulders. “Well, good luck with that. And don’t sweat on my bed. That’s nasty.”
He rolls off the bed, lays out flat on the hardwood floor, his chest heaving, sweat pouring down his face. He looks over at something on the floor.
“Is that a pubic hair?”
I swear, if I didn’t start laughing, I might have kicked him.
“If it is, it’s not mine.”
“Damien’s?”
Now I do kick him. “You’re gross! Of course it’s not.”
He laughs, catches his breath, then sits up and says, “So, what’s the hack?”
“Public records. I think the Planning Department. Or something like that. I need the building plans for the school.”
He laughs again and says, “The building plans?”
“Yeah. Dr. Gerhard has a lab on campus, but when I spoke with Janine up front, she said there aren’t any labs on campus other than the official labs, and his isn’t listed among them. She says he just runs the infirmary and that’s it. But Nurse Arabelle—”
“Oh man, she’s hot AF!”
—“says he’s at the lab. And she’s not hot because she’s barely human.”
“Yes, but those eyes.”
“I know,” I say, my voice soft, lost in the memory. He has a point. “I think I’m in love with those eyes, too. You said hot ‘AF.’ What does AF mean?”
“As fuck.”
“Oh,” I say. I get it.
“So you want me to hack government files in the hopes of finding a secret lab,” he says, rubbing the flats of his hands together, grinning. “This is so simple you could probably do it, but since I’m here…”
Sometimes I can’t believ
e how happy I am to see Brayden, or how much I adore his sense of humor. It’s insane how this person who’s hilarious and charismatic and amazing on the inside has been cursed into looking as weak and flimsy as he does on the outside.
“You’re digging me right now, aren’t you?” he says. He isn’t even looking at me, yet he knows somehow.
“Kind of.”
“It’s cool, you can. But don’t try anything because you’re not my type.”
“Nor are you mine,” I say. “Which is too bad because we’d be almost perfect together.”
“Yep.” His fingers are flying over the keyboard, the clicking of the mouse pad rhythmic as he jumps from site to site. Eventually he says, “Bingo,” and the air around him burns electric. I heat a cup of hot chocolate—his favorite—and set the mug down beside him. He doesn’t even look at me; he just thanks me and takes a sip, his eyes never leaving the computer screen.
“This is perfect,” he says, licking his upper lip. “Thank you.”
It’s almost uncanny how we have fallen into a groove together. And it’s a shame how we are two ugly people (well not me so much anymore), but how he’s too unattractive on the outside for me to consider being with him. Yet part of me wants to somehow rationalize his looks away, because inside, he’s quite possibly perfect.
“I wish you were better looking,” I finally admit.
He doesn’t even flinch. “Yeah, me too.”
“Okay,” he says, “I have them. Let me just convert them to…holy freaking f-bombs!”
“What?” I ask, my heart now pounding a little harder and a little faster.
He turns to me with disbelief and says, “You are not going to believe what I just found.” I stand up, look over his shoulder, finally see what he’s seeing.
How this can be? Me and Brayden just stare at each other, this weird silent wondering. “Are you sure that’s right?” I say.
“I double checked.”
“His lab is three levels down?”
“Uh-huh,” he says.
“How is that even possible?”
“An elevator shaft,” he says, looking at me. “It’s on the wall at the back of his office.”