Lakewood - Megan Giddings Page 0,38
plate. She would force herself to smile as if her favorite song was playing, and nothing they could do or yell would make her unhappy. Or how she kept the music loud enough so when people did try to yell slurs or sex stuff out their car windows, it was all distant. Charlie wiped his hands on a rag. Lena could tell he didn’t mean to be condescending—he wanted to feel like family.
The next morning, Bethany walked into the office clutching her chin and massaging her cheeks. Her face was swollen. She said nothing, which didn’t seem like her. Bethany loved to chitchat. She never slipped in and went directly to her desk; she liked to act like the mayor of the office. Going back and forth, greeting everyone as if it hadn’t been only less than a day since they’d last seen each other. Charlie and Lena exchanged looks. Mouthed at each other a conversation about whether they should, or could, ask if she was okay. Instead of logging into her computer, Bethany sat at her desk. She stared at her STRESSED IS JUST DESSERTS SPELLED BACKWARD! poster as if there was something deep and wonderful that she could learn from the motto or the cake illustration.
Day 15: You are told by Charlie (the manager) that you will be doing online leadership courses given by corporate. Someone is stealing Bethany’s (the receptionist) yogurt and she is fed up. The water continues to taste weird and everyone is annoyed that Bethany has forgotten to order a water cooler. Lena showed Charlie her sheet and whispered, “Maybe she’s really into the idea of being fed up that someone ate her yogurt.”
“Maybe,” Charlie replied. “She’s probably getting divorced. That seems like a my-romantic-life-is-a-mess face, not a someone-ate-my-fucking-yogurt face.”
They both turned to Mariah as if she were a real human resources person and might say something. She was watching a video of cats knocking things off desks and muttering to herself, “Nice one.”
Lena went back to her desk. She tried to psych herself up to ask Bethany what was wrong. Bethany was visibly crying now. She opened her mouth. Her tongue was black as if she had swallowed printer ink. She reached in and pulled out a tooth. Whole and bloody with what looked like a vein still attached. The moment pushed Lena briefly out of her body and away from her emotions. She felt she could see everything in high definition. Bethany’s blood-smeared chin. The drops of blood on the neck of the light-pink blouse she was wearing. Dark red on her fingertips. The off-white tooth. Bethany’s black tongue, the vein in the center a graphite-gray. Then Lena returned to her body, sure she was going to faint. She focused on her keyboard, the gray stain on the letter “I.” She took a gulp of water. Her neck and ears felt sweaty.
Charlie stood behind her. He put his hands over his eyes.
One of the observers, whom Lena thought of as Haircut, scribbled a note but didn’t say anything.
Lena dug in her purse, pulled out a bottle of pain pills she was prescribed for her wrist and her tiny first-aid kit. She placed them on Bethany’s desk without looking directly at her bloody chin and mouth. “Bethany, maybe you should go home.”
Bethany opened her mouth and another tooth fell out. It was pointed, probably a canine.
Ian walked back in holding a bag of potato chips from the vending machine. His eyes traveled from Bethany’s bloody mouth to the tooth on the ground to the tooth she was still clutching in her hand. He sat down in the closest chair. Dropped his chips. They scattered on the floor.
Charlie’s voice was firm. “Please go to the hospital, Bethany.” The observers, all of them, were looking at Bethany or looking at their notepads as they scribbled down everything that was happening, their mouths a thin line. One murmured, “Interesting.” The sound of their pens scratching on the paper sped up as Bethany moaned in pain.
“Good data,” one said, pointing at another’s sheet.
“I’m fine,” Bethany said, her voice muffled.
Lena wondered how Bethany could talk. The pain must have been incredible.
Tom put his head between his knees and was taking deep breaths. Lena clicked around on her screen, pretended she was working. Disgust was pressing its lips against her ears, her mouth, her neck. The tangy smell of blood and bad breath was in the air. Lena’s face was hot. She refused to give in, to vomit or