he closes the door.
The room is silent.
A laptop waits on a desk in the first row. It is already open. Your footsteps echo across the expanse of the floor as you walk toward it.
You ease into the seat, pulling it up to the desk. The metal leg of your chair grates against the linoleum.
A message is visible on the screen:
Subject 52: Thank you for your participation in Dr. Shields’s morality and ethics research project. By entering this study, you agree to be bound by confidentiality. You are expressly prohibited from discussing the study or its contents with anyone.
There are no right or wrong answers. It is essential that you are honest and give your first, instinctive response. Your explanations should be thorough. You will not be permitted to move on to the next question until the prior one is completed.
A five-minute warning will be issued before the conclusion of your two hours.
Press the Return key when you are ready to begin.
Do you have any idea of what to expect?
You bring your finger to the Return key, but instead of touching it, your hand hovers over the keyboard. You are not alone in your hesitation. Some of the fifty-one subjects before you exhibited varying degrees of uncertainty, too.
It can be frightening to become acquainted with parts of yourself that you don’t like to admit exist.
Finally, you press the key.
You wait, watching the blinking cursor. Your hazel eyes are wide.
When the first question blooms on the screen, you flinch.
Perhaps it feels strange to have someone probing intimate parts of your psyche in such a sterile setting, without disclosing why the information is so valuable. It is natural to shy away from feelings of vulnerability, but you will need to surrender to this process if it is to be successful.
Remember the rules: Be open and truthful, and avoid pivoting away from any embarrassment or pain these questions provoke.
If this initial query, which is relatively mild, unsettles you, then you might be one of the women who wash out of the study. Some subjects don’t return. This test isn’t for everyone.
You continue to stare at the question.
Maybe your instincts are telling you to leave without even starting.
You wouldn’t be the first.
But you lift your hands to the keyboard again, and you begin to type.
CHAPTER
THREE
Saturday, November 17
As I stare at the laptop in the unnaturally quiet classroom, I feel kind of anxious. The instructions say there are no wrong answers, but won’t my responses to a morality test reveal a lot about my character?
The room is cold, and I wonder if that is deliberate, to keep me alert. I can almost hear phantom noises—the rustle of papers, the thud of feet against the hard floors, the jostling and joking of students.
I touch the Return key with my index finger and wait for the first question.
Could you tell a lie without feeling guilt?
I jerk back.
This wasn’t what I expected when Taylor mentioned the study with a dismissive flip of her hand. I guess I didn’t anticipate being asked to write about myself; for some reason, I assumed this would be a multiple choice or yes/no survey. To be confronted with a question that feels so personal, as if Dr. Shields already knows too much about me, as if he knows I lied about Taylor . . . well, it rattles me more than a little.
I give myself a mental shake and lift my fingers to the keyboard.
There are many types of lies. I could write about lies of omission or huge, life-changing ones—the kind I know too well—but I choose a safer course.
Sure, I type. I’m a makeup artist, but not one of the ones you’ve read about. I don’t work on models or movie stars. I get Upper East Side teenagers ready for prom, and their moms ready for fancy benefits. I do weddings and bat mitzvahs, too. So yeah, I could tell a high-strung mother that she could still be carded, or convince an insecure sixteen-year-old that I didn’t even notice her pimple. Especially because they’re more likely to give me a nice tip if I flatter them.
I hit Enter, not knowing if this is the kind of response the professor wants. But I guess I’m doing it right, because the second question appears quickly.
Describe a time in your life when you cheated.
Whoa. That feels like a presumption.
But maybe everybody has cheated, even if just at a game of Monopoly when they were little. I think about it a bit, then type: In the