Lakewood - Megan Giddings Page 0,46

Lena to her office. 8 A.M.–6 P.M. was written on the whiteboard. Beneath each hour were five hot-pink sticky notes with small cursive notes on them that were too far away for Lena to read. A line graph with six different colors was secured with magnets. Dr. Lisa handed Lena a survey about the pellets, questions about how satisfied she felt within an hour, two, three, of eating the pellets. Their taste. Did she have any cravings?

Dr. Lisa started talking about her sister, how she had been in assisted living for years. Their parents had died unexpectedly within three months of each other. She stopped talking and rubbed her forehead. The sunlight coming in through the window showed that there were freckles on her cheeks, peeking through the light concealer she was wearing. The doctor was slumped over, as if her personal life was pushing her shoulders forward.

Lena looked up from the sheet. Her natural, immediate inclination was to talk about her own mom, the last month of her grandmother’s illness. Form a connection. Here was someone who—as long as she wasn’t lying—seemed like she understood what it was like to always have to think about someone else. Down the hall, it sounded like someone was playing a movie that featured children—the sound of laughter, screams. Lena leaned back and shut the door. She thought about how Dr. Lisa’s fingers felt on her wrist. The way she had spoken about her mother, her interest not in Lena as a person, but as data: from sympathy to frustration to anger to sympathy. She forced her face blank before the doctor could look up.

“Sorry, I’m being inappropriate.” Dr. Lisa cleared her throat. She sat up straight and became the person Lena knew.

After work, Lena sat alone on a bench reading a book. She was so hungry she had to get out of the house. There was an apple she had thrown in the trash, coffee grounds with some dirty paper towels over it, but it would still be so easy to get it clean. Her neck and shoulders were stiff and painful; she couldn’t tell if it was from the office chairs or from repressing emotions, pushing herself away every day from wanting to go home.

A man crossed the park and sat next to her.

“I saw the most incredible thing in the woods near Long Lake,” he said, his voice high and excited. “I saw Bigfoot.”

Lena kept her eyes on her book as he spoke.

“I don’t mean like a big, detached human foot.” He spoke so quickly. “Although that would be gross and cool too. I mean Bigfoot. His fur was so clean. Holy shit, so clean.”

Lena looked up from her book and asked to see a photo. The man smiled—his teeth were straight, movie-star white. They were shocking next to his dirt-smeared cheeks. Leaves were stuck in his thick, wavy hair. He reached for his pockets, patted down his chest. Stood up, reached in his back pockets.

“No,” he said. “Stay here, okay? I’ll be right back.” He looked around and broke into a sprint.

“Talk to you later,” Lena yelled at his back. She picked up her phone and texted Tanya: People are nuts here.

By the end of the experiment, Lena was so hungry it was all she could think about. The pellets tasted like grains with no sugar, a generic nut taste, and seemed to make the hunger go away for only 30 minutes. Then her stomach would start complaining again. She had already lost seven pounds and felt like most of the weight had somehow come off her face.

“What is the point of this?” she asked Charlie, with only four more hours to go.

“To get us all bikini ready.”

Lena pulled a stack of yellow sticky notes out of her desk. “I’m so hungry these look delicious.”

Charlie laughed. Lena picked up one, stuffed it into her mouth. It was a pleasure to chew on it, just to feel something different that wasn’t water or pellet.

“If you swallow that,” Pancake Butt said, “you’ll have to start over.”

“It was a joke,” Lena said, the words hard to understand through the sticky note. She leaned over and spit it out. The sticky adhesive had been the best-tasting thing that had been in her mouth in days.

Day 31: You meet Judy (the receptionist). You accept deliveries throughout the day. Charlie (the manager) is still considering your earpiece request. Someone is still leaving the microwave filthy.

Dr. Lisa took the new receptionist to each person, introduced her