Lakewood - Megan Giddings Page 0,11

was to the people at the table, who were silent. It felt as if they were all staring. Lena resisted the impulse to turn and see if they were. She grabbed a container of cream cheese, some jam. This was fine. On the way back to her seat, they were all looking at papers in front of them. But all three of their motions were exaggerated: The man who hadn’t spoken yet made a deep, attention-grabbing hmmmm, the woman rifled through hers as if looking for a specific line, and Tim stared at his own papers as if he was trying to solve a puzzle.

Lena sat down and took a big bite of the bagel. As she chewed, the woman came over and tapped her shoulder.

“Did you turn in your cell phone?”

Lena covered her mouth. “Yes.”

“I’m sorry, but I still need to do this. Please stand.”

The woman patted Lena down. She was saying things about confidentiality and safety, but Lena couldn’t focus on the woman’s words. She was thinking about the woman’s fingers, the palms of her hands, and why she thought that Lena would stow her phone in her butt, in her hair, in her vagina. The men didn’t look away when Lena made eye contact with them. The woman pressed in on Lena’s stomach and between her breasts.

“You’re all set.” The woman gave the men a thumbs-up.

The one who hadn’t spoken moved his hand away from his lapel and put it back on the table. Then he cleared his throat and stood up. He said that the things you would do here would benefit countless others. It was a service to her country, to the world. The United States is a symbol of goodwill, of innovation, of joy to the rest of the world. When we succeed, everyone succeeds. The studies we do here put our scientists and officials on the forefront. The man smiled at Lena. She nodded. He put up a PowerPoint presentation with white text on a black background. Disease Eradication. Economic Prosperity. Global Leadership. Innovative Solutions. You.

“That was great,” Tim said as the man sat down.

Lena sipped her cold coffee. Then the woman stood up and began her presentation. Her speech was essentially the same as the man’s before her. As she spoke, she looked around the room, smiling at times, as if she were making eye contact with several participants. It was like going to one of those restaurants that was an entertainment zone and play place for children. The woman reminded Lena of an animatronic mouse built to entertain. As she listened, Lena continued nodding and drinking the cold coffee.

Now it was Tim’s turn. Like the others, he kept saying the same words: “innovation,” “excitement,” “prosperity,” and “solutions.” It reminded Lena of when Tanya was doing her summer internship at a marketing firm and kept saying things like “pollinators” and “heat.” Tim kept beginning sentences with the phrase “You give of yourself.”

“It’s the culture there,” Tanya had said. “You use the language to show that you want to fit in.”

At the time, Lena had thought, oh yeah, it was a marketing thing. It was a job whose whole point was to get people to talk about something in hopefully the same positive way. Why wouldn’t it filter down to the way everyone spoke to each other? But listening to the three people at the table, Lena thought that maybe this was just how people in this country were starting to speak to each other now. Even when they weren’t online, people spoke as if they were bots designed to get clicks. Phrases repeated to get a person’s attention, with nothing substantial beneath them. Jokes that meant we have seen the same image on the internet. Lena’s grandmother used to say she was part of the last generation that could go for as long as 15 minutes without talking nonsense.

Tim paused and the door swung open. Another white woman, this one wearing a white lab coat, strolled in holding two bags. She placed them on Lena’s table, almost knocking over the nearly empty coffee cup.

“I’m Dr. Maggie.” She put a thermometer in Lena’s ear. Involuntarily, Lena winced. “Your ears are very small for an adult.” Dr. Maggie’s hair was luxurious: thick, curly, brown, but with shine. It made her look twice as alive as every other person in the room. “Temperature good. Arm, please.”

Lena held out her left arm and rolled up the sleeve.

“Are you nervous or is your blood pressure always this