nothing is left in the washer, the second washer comes spinning down. Once last year I worked out the relationship between the frictional force slowing the rotation and the frequency of the sound it makes. I did it by myself, without a computer, which made it more fun.
I take my clothes from the second machine, and there at the bottom is the missing coin, shiny and clean and smooth in my fingers. I put it in my pocket, put the clothes into the dryer, insert the coins, and start it up. Long ago, I used to watch the tumbling clothes and try to figure out what the pattern was—why this time the arm of a red sweatshirt was in front of the blue robe, falling down and around, and next time the same red arm was between the yellow sweatpants and the pillowcase instead. My mother didn’t like it when I mumbled while watching the clothes rise and fall, so I learned to do it all in my head.
Miss Kimberly comes back just as the dryer with her clothes in it stops. She smiles at me. She has a plate with some cookies on it. “Thanks, Lou,” she says. She holds out the plate. “Have a cookie. I know boys—I mean young men—like cookies.”
She brings cookies almost every week. I do not always like the kind of cookie she brings, but it is not polite to say so. This week it is lemon crisps. I like them a lot. I take three. She puts the plate on the folding table and takes her things out of the dryer. She puts them in her basket; she does not fold her clothes down here. “Just bring the plate up when you’re done, Lou,” she says. This is the same as last week.
“Thank you, Miss Kimberly,” I say.
“You’re quite welcome,” she says, as she always does.
I finish the cookies, dust the crumbs into the trash basket, and fold my laundry before going upstairs. I hand her the plate and go on to my apartment.
ON SATURDAY MORNINGS, I GO TO THE CENTER. ONE OF THE counselors is available from 8:30 to 12:00, and once a month there’s a special program. Today there is no program, but Maxine, one of the counselors, is walking toward the conference room when I arrive. Bailey did not say if she was the counselor they talked to last week. Maxine wears orange lipstick and purple eye shadow; I never ask her anything. I think about asking her anyway, but someone else goes in before I make up my mind.
The counselors know how to find us legal assistance or an apartment, but I do not know if they will understand the problem we face now. They always encourage us to do everything to become more normal. I think they will say we should want this treatment even if they think it is too dangerous to try while it is still experimental. Eventually I will have to talk to someone here, but I am glad someone is ahead of me. I do not have to do it right now.
I am looking at the bulletin board with its notices of AA meetings and other support group meetings (single parents, parents of teens, job seekers) and interest group meetings ( funkdance, bowling, technology assistance) when Emmy comes up to me. “Well, how’s your girlfriend?”
“I do not have a girlfriend,” I say.
“I saw her,” Emmy says. “You know I did. Don’t lie about it.”
“You saw my friend,” I say. “Not my girlfriend. A girlfriend is someone who agrees to be your girlfriend and she has not agreed.” I am not being honest and that is wrong, but I still do not want to talk to Emmy, or listen to Emmy, about Marjory.
“You asked her?” Emmy says.
“I do not want to talk to you about her,” I say, and turn away.
“Because you know I’m right,” Emmy says. She moves around me quickly, standing in front of me again.
“She is one of those—call themselves normal—using us like lab rats. You’re always hanging around with that kind, Lou, and it’s not right.”
“I do not know what you mean,” I say. I see Marjory only once a week—twice the week of the grocery store—so how can that be “hanging around” with her? If I come to the Center every week and Emmy is there, does this mean I am hanging around with Emmy? I do not like that thought.