Lakewood - Megan Giddings Page 0,56

box. Wrote a note. “And the other set?”

“Headache. Wrapping paper. Swamp.”

“Do you have a headache?”

“Nope.”

Dr. Lisa handed Lena a form. On a scale of 0 to 10—with 0 being complete apathy and 10 being intense focus—how much effort have you put into memorizing the words? Lena wrote 5. She peeked at Dr. Lisa. The other woman was staring into the distance, chewing on the end of her pen. Which word did you find easiest to memorize? What did you have for breakfast? Were you experiencing mouth pain? How easy was it to focus? The doctor was looking at Angry Eyebrows. What did you have for breakfast?

“Are you okay?” Lena asked while writing down the word “toast.” She crossed it out and wrote cereal.

“What?”

“Never mind.” Lena wrote on the form Of course, I showered.

“Sometimes I wonder if this is all a box inside a box,” Dr. Lisa said.

“Nesting-doll style.”

The doctor had a birthmark in her left eye. A dark asteroid orbiting the light iris. She was looking up at the ceiling. Lena followed her gaze.

“I feel the same way,” Lena said. “A lot lately. I think it’s why this has been so hard.” She set the pen down on the table.

“You know, you really remind me so much of my best friend from college. She was tough like you. Hard to connect with. But if she loved you, like, really, really loved you, she would climb a mountain for you.”

Lena smiled.

“Lately.” Dr. Lisa stopped. She looked at Angry Eyebrows, the ceiling, her door.

A knock at the door. Smith poked his head in. “Is everything okay in here?”

The doctor’s eyes watered. “Look over the phrases. And make sure to let me know immediately if you have a headache.”

Smith lingered in the doorway, his hand near the light switch.

“We’re fine,” Dr. Lisa said. She pulled out a pillbox and explained that this is a slightly higher dosage. Everyone would be given different dosages from what they were given this morning. She had Lena say, “pink slip, froideur. The eyes tell the brain what to devour. In the attic, you can smell the seeds.” The doctor handed Lena a small paper cup with two pills in it. “This round of pills is chewable,” she said.

Lena covered the small cup with her hand. She tried to figure out how to slide one into her hand. Didn’t think she could get away with palming one.

“You can’t leave until we watch you take them.”

She put the first pill up to her lips. It smelled like vitamins. When she chewed, it tasted terrible, as if someone had sprayed lemon-scented cleaning spray directly into her mouth. Both pills left a layer on Lena’s tongue. Smith’s eyes and the doctor’s were on her mouth. Lena chewed with her mouth open, hoped it looked disgusting.

“This tastes like shampoo in my mouth.”

Lena was taken downstairs. She sat at her desk, read an email from Judy about how to keep the microwave clean. Tried to think of the words they had told her to remember. The only one she could remember was froideur. There was a slimy feeling, radiating down from her brain to her sinuses to her esophagus. Lena gagged. Took a drink of water. She turned to Judy. “Why did you send that email?”

“You said that three minutes ago.”

“Stop messing with me.”

“I’m not,” Judy said. She scrunched her face up as if she was smelling something disgusting.

“When did I go see Dr. Lisa?”

“That was over an hour ago.”

“No, it wasn’t.” Lena blinked. She touched her hair and it felt like another hour passed as her fingers felt the strands, traced over the “S” and “Z” shapes her curls fell in. Judy was talking, but Lena couldn’t understand the words she was saying. What did her scalp look like underneath all her hair? What if she cut it all off? Dark, thick clumps on a shiny white floor. Would it look like blood?

Judy turned back to her computer.

Lena typed an email. She browsed online, looked at her tabs. She had opened the same article about an abandoned amusement park taken over by feral cats seven times. She had replied twice to Judy’s email about the microwave with a GIF of a champagne tower. Dr. Lisa said it was boxes inside of boxes. And what if that meant that she, too, was in an experiment? But what did that mean for everyone? She clicked a link to an interesting article about an amusement park.

“Did you know that Charlie has been eating my yogurt?”