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A woman at the top of the horseshoe raises her hand.
“Yes.” George smiles but he doesn’t look pleased with the interruption.
“Sorry. I don’t think I’ve gotten a copy of the rules.”
George is skeptical. He would have printed out enough for everyone. “That’s OK. Get one from me after we’re done here, but the most important thing to know is...” He pauses, waiting for the group’s undivided attention. “Participantscannotenter into sexual relationships with other participants over the course of the study.”
Maybe it’s because I’ve been thinking of her so much. Or because we kissed that one time, one of the hottest kisses of my life. Or maybe I am the most awkward person on the planet, but when George says “sex,” I look at Lulu.
And maybe she’s thinking about that kiss, too. Lulu looks back at me. Her blue eyes are darker in this bright light, like the deep ocean.
George clears his throat, and we turn away from each other. He’s caught us staring and holds our gazes for another moment, blinking between us in a way that reminds me distinctly of getting caught passing notes in middle school. “This is an academic study,” he says. “Not a dating app.”
We’re divided into groups and ushered across the quad to the medical school. A nurse takes my blood, all of us sitting on cushioned recliners with motivational posters for entertainment. “What’s the blood for?” I ask.
“Cortisol levels mostly,” my nurse answers. She taps my elbow, smiling fondly. “Good veins.”
I bury my proud smile beneath a frown. My grandmother was a nurse for thirty-five years. Anything that makes a nurse’s life easier makes me happy. “You’re all done.” She hands me a cookie and her hand to help me up. “They’ll book your scan in there.” She ushers me to another room, like this is an assembly line of standard medical procedures. After being fitted with wristband heart monitors that we’re to wear 24/7, like waterproof watches, we’re herded back to the psych department for intake interviews.
My thigh aches. The pain radiates down into my knee, up into my hip and back so that by the time we’re seated again, waiting to be called for our interviews, I can’t find a comfortable position.
Lulu is one of the first people to go in for her interview. She wrings her hands together as she walks out of the room and I’m stupidly disappointed when she doesn’t look back at me. The room is quiet, settled. People pick at their Band-Aids or spin the wristbands, and a few have already grouped off, starting conversations. I don’t know what I was expecting; hermits with social anxiety? Basement dwellers who burn in the sun too easily? But everyone seems...normal. Turns out millennials who can’t make friends are, literally, just like me.
More people leave for their intake interviews. And come back. But Lulu doesn’t. Lulu was a whirlwind, she left me a little breathless. I wonder why she’s here at all. If something happened to her that I never bothered asking her about on our date that changed the way she interacted with the world. George had mentioned she was lonely. I thought he meant in a romantic way. Not a life way.
I wonder why all these people are here. Maybe they’re not real participants. Maybe they’re plants.
I glance around the room, like the plants will reveal themselves to me if I frown at them hard enough. A brown-skinned guy shoots a smile at me across the room. He’s handsome. With the sort of wavy hair and friendly, crooked smile that would have charmed me enough to go over to say hello to him a few years ago. Now, it takes me too long to notice I’ve not smiled back, that I’m scowling. That I could, should, respond. Say hello.Make a friend.That is the whole point of this study.
And yet, I do nothing. My mouth stays closed, my face blank, even as internally I feel like I’m screaming—at myself mostly—to dosomething. The guy frowns. Turns away.
Maybe I should leave. Maybe this isn’t the path for me.
Stiffly, I stand, my hip throbbing, but as I step away from the desk, my cane tangles with the strap of a canvas knapsack. The top flips open, and a phone falls out, a large pink and green flower with “Votes for Women!” on the case.
The very least I could do is wait for Lulu, explain to her that this was a mistake, that it’s not her, it’s me. And that it wasn’t her before, either. It was me then, too. I slump back into the chair. I’m scrolling a fitness equipment website for stuff I don’t need in my home gym and can’t afford anyway when Lulu finally walks in a few minutes later. Her eyes are red and puffy, her cheeks blotchy. She sniffles, dabbing her nose with a tissue, and leans forward in her chair, her hair hiding her face. Her body language saysdon’t talk to me.
“Your shoes are very white,” I say anyway, pointing. Other than a scuff on the toe, her Keds glow like she wipes them down every night. “I like them.”
She sniffles again. “Thanks.”
“I...” I search for something to say to her other than the worst things, likewhat’s wrongorare you OK?“I got T-boned on my way home from work.” I lift the cane. “That’s why I’m not a firefighter anymore. Broke my femur.”
She doesn’t pay any attention to my leg, or my cane. She looks in my eyes and asks, “What happened to the person who hit you?”
People make a lot of noise about the accident or want to see scars usually, so I have to recalibrate before I can answer. “She was OK. It was my fault, really. I lost control on a patch of ice and spun out. Apparently, she felt really terrible about it.” I shrug. “I was pretty out of it. I didn’t talk to her.”
“I fell out of a tree,” she says. A quiet laugh slips out of her. I pause; coming from almost any other person, I would assume that was a joke, an attempt at sarcasm.
“Wh—How?”
She frowns. “Like, gravity I guess?”
“Why were you in the tree in the first place?” I clarify.
She hums quietly, looking at the people around us from the corner of her eyes, then nods like she’s made a decision. “I was avoiding my coworkers.” She smiles weakly.
“They...they’re part of the reason why I’m here. Well, not them. They’re not like responsible for my feelings or whatever...” She stops, starts again. “I just mean, when I was younger, I thought I’d be friends with the people I work with. That’s what it’s like on sitcoms, right? Everyone is together for eight hours a day so why wouldn’t they become friends? But it turns out that sometimes your coworkers are just your coworkers. You don’t have to like them. You just have to work with them.”
