Eve and Adam (4 page)

After they kicked me out, Terra gave me two options: I could live at her place, or I could live at Spiker.

We both knew which one I’d choose.

I have a single room, but it’s big enough for a queen-sized bed and a sofa, TV, desk, beanbag chair, and mini kitchen. Except for the two framed photos on my desk, it’s as sterile as a hotel room. I like it that way.

I barely notice the photos anymore. There’s one of my parents at a podium, my mom in a shimmering green evening gown, my dad in a tux. They’re accepting an award, flashing smiles. And there’s one of me and my mom reading a book together. We’re in some kind of waiting room, sitting on orange vinyl chairs. I don’t remember where it was, or why we were there.

But then, I don’t remember much of anything.

Next to the mini kitchen is a small bathroom. That’s where I strip down, soap up, and shower off.

That’s where I start thinking about the girl.

Like I don’t know her name: the girl. Please, Solo. I know her name. Evening. E.V. to her friends.

Eve.

There’s a problem with that name, Eve. You say “Eve” and you think Garden of Eden, and then you think of Eve and Adam, naked but tastefully concealed by strategic shrubbery.

Except at this particular moment, my brain is not generating shrubbery.

So, basically, that’s despicable. The girl had her leg chopped off. She just got out of surgery. So I add shrubbery.

And yet the shrubbery doesn’t stay put. It’s moving shrubbery. It’s disappearing shrubbery.

Which is deeply wrong of me. I step back under the twin showerheads and blast myself with hot water. Maybe I should make it cold water. But I don’t want to.

“That’s the problem with you, dude,” I say, speaking to myself. “You suck at doing things you don’t want to do.”

I don’t feel bad speaking to myself.

Who else have I got?

Solo isn’t just a name, it’s a description. I have no actual friends. I have some online ones, but that’s not quite the same.

I’ve never had a girlfriend.

When I touched Eve, she was the first girl I’d touched since coming here to live six years ago. Unless you count women scientists and techs and office workers I’ve accidentally brushed in the hallways.

Sometimes I do count those. It’s a normal human behavior to count whatever you have to count.

“Back up, man,” I tell myself softly. “She’s a Spiker. She’s one of the enemy.”

The microphones won’t pick up what I say with the shower running. I know these things. Even though I’m not supposed to. For six years I’ve lived and breathed this place. I know it. I know it all.

And I know what I’m going to do with it.

As soon as Eve is gone.

– 9 –

Three little days, but oh my God, can they be long.

Time is relative. An hour spent watching paint dry is much longer than an hour getting a massage.

Which is exactly what I’m doing. Getting a massage from Luna, the massage therapist.

Luna doesn’t touch The Leg.

In my head, The Leg is capitalized because The Leg is what my whole life seems to be about now. Every single person I’ve seen in the past few days asks me about The Leg.

How is it?

How’s The Leg?

The Leg is attached. Thanks for asking.
There’s The Leg right there. It’s on display, always outside of the sheets and blanket, although the whole thing is still so wrapped up it looks like I borrowed The Leg from some ancient Egyptian mummy.

How’s The Leg?

It seems a bit mummyish, thanks.

I had a dream where The Leg was no longer attached. Not a happy dream, that. It scared me. I try to be glib and tough and all SEAL Team Six about it, but in all desperate seriousness: I was scared.

“I need Aislin,” I say to my mother.

“Aislin is a drunken slut,” she replies, without looking up from her laptop.

This is diplomatic for her.

I decide to change the subject. “What are you working on?”

With effort, she pulls her gaze from the screen. “Fluff. A vanity project for one of the biochems.”

“Fluff?”

“Educational software. Project 88715.”

“Catchy. The kids’ll eat that up.”

“Mm-hmm.” She returns to her screen.

“Aislin is not a slut,” I say. I don’t deny the drunken part. “She’s been in a steady relationship for months. Anyway, she’s my friend. I miss her.”

“Talk to the masseuse,” my mother says. She glares at Luna. “Who are you? Talk to my daughter.”

I feel the tremor go through Luna. Luna is probably fifty years old, a very nice Haitian woman. I like Luna. She doesn’t hurt me as much as the various other physical therapists.

Luna has six kids. Two are in college and one is a real estate broker in San Rafael.

Number of things I have in common with Luna? Zero.

“I want my friends,” I say.

“Pfff. Friends, plural?” my mother asks. “Since when do you have friends, plural? You have one friend and she’s a drunken slut.”

“I’m lonely. There aren’t even any other patients. The only one around who’s my age is Solo.”

“You haven’t talked to him, have you?” my mother asks, feigning a casual tone. Casual, like warm and fuzzy, is not part of her emotional repertoire.

“No,” I lie, wondering why she cares.

Actually, I’ve seen him every day since my arrival, passing by my room with studied indifference. He only spoke once, to tell me that he called Aislin and told her not to worry about me.

His eyes are disturbingly blue.

Against my better judgment I ask, “Who is Solo, anyway? And why is he here?”

My mother ignores me. She has different Ignore settings, and this one means she’s hiding something. She thinks she is inscrutable, and maybe she is, to her minions, but I’ve had seventeen years to deconstruct her poker face.

Before I can press her to answer, Dr. Anderson strides purposefully into the room. He always strides purposefully, although he doesn’t seem to have much purpose, what with me being his sole patient.

“How’s the leg?” he asks.

“The Leg is bored,” I answer. “The Leg wants to know why it can’t go home and recover.”

“You’ve been here three days, Evening! Are you insane?” my mother cries.

“I should leave,” Luna says meekly, half-question, half-hope.

“Stay,” my mother commands. “Calm her down.”

“I don’t need to be calmed down. I need Aislin. I need something to
do.
”

“You have to take this slowly, Evening,” Dr. Anderson intones. He has perfect teeth and the graying temples of a Just For Men model. “This kind of recovery is measured in months, not days.”

“I’m missing the end of the school year.” I am starting to feel quite sorry for myself. “I have homework, tests. Oh crap, my bio exam is Tuesday! And my Life Drawing project is half my semester grade.”

“You can’t draw,” my mother says. “Your fingers are crushed. Your arm’s a mess.” She pauses, mentally thumbing through her What Mothers Are Supposed To Know file. “She
is
right-handed, isn’t she?” she asks Dr. Anderson.

He nods discreetly.

“At least can I have my laptop? I can type with my left hand.”

My mother glances at her own laptop.

She is having an inspiration. You can practically see the giant lightbulb throbbing over her head.

“Evening, I have just the project for you! Something to keep you thoroughly occupied.”

“I don’t want a project. I want to spend a couple of hours with Aislin. I want you to send a car for her and bring her here.”

Luna has moved to my lower back, and seriously, my desire to fight with my mother—even if it is a respite from boredom—is diminishing with each deep, healing stroke.

“It involves genetics.” My mother sets aside her computer and comes to my bedside. “You love genetics. I would even pay you to do it.”

“Pay me?”

“Why not? I’d have to pay someone else to test it. What do you want? A hundred dollars? A thousand?”

My mother, ladies and gentlemen: one of America’s preeminent businesswomen. Not a clue as to what a dollar is.

“I want ten thousand dollars,” I say.

Dr. Anderson nods his approval.

“Is that a good number?” my mother asks. She turns the question over to Luna. “Is that a good number?”

“Ma’am, I don’t—”

“Whatever,” my mother snaps. She makes a brusque gesture with her hand. “The point is, I have something that will keep you busy.”

“Aislin will keep me busy. That’s my price: Aislin. You can keep the money.”

She taps her freshly tended nails. French manicures, twice a week. Five tiny crescent moons dance on my bed rail.

She sighs.

Dr. Anderson examines a smudge on his stethoscope.

“One visit,” my mother says at last. “I’ll have security search her. If she has any drugs or booze on her, I’ll confiscate them and have security rough her up.”

I assume that’s bluster.

Then I look at her again, at my mother, and I’m not so sure it is. This is a woman with a billion-dollar company. This building is big enough to house what amounts to a small hospital among many, many other things.

Can my mother actually have people beaten up?

Maybe. Maybe she can.

She smiles to show she doesn’t mean it. The smile convinces me that she can.

“So what’s the project? You want me to wash some test tubes?”

“No, that’s why we have people like Solo,” she says. “You’re a Spiker.”

I feel a slight twinge of sympathy for Solo. I’d been assuming he’s some kind of wunderkind, and here she’s talking about him as if he were her servant.

People like
 …

Quite a bit of condescension locked up in those two words.

“This will be a wonderful introduction to the kind of thinking and creativity we require at Spiker,” my mother says. “It’ll challenge you, sweetheart. Bring out the talent I know you have hidden deep, deep down inside you.” She’s getting excited now. The lines in her forehead seem to smooth; her eyes gaze with a certain wild excitement at the horizon.

She pauses, waiting to be sure she has my undivided attention.

“I want you, Evening, to design the perfect boy.”

Luna stops rubbing.

“Am I doing this with crayons? Or will I be working with Play-Doh?”

My mother smiles tolerantly. “Oh, I think we can do a little better than that. You can start tomorrow morning. If you do it, I’ll have your little friend here tomorrow afternoon.”

“I think Aislin has her dance class on—”

“Evening. When I send for people, they come.”

– 10 –

“This is where you’ll be working. Playing.”

My mother hesitates, frowns, realizes she’s frowning and that frowning causes lines, and unfrowns. “Play, work, call it whatever you like.”

“So long as I do it.”

“Exactly.”

Solo is pushing my wheelchair while my mother leads the way. At the last minute, the orderly who was supposed to be assisting us this morning had an attack of stomach pains. His backup couldn’t be located.

It crosses my mind, just for a nanosecond, that Solo might have arranged to be here with me. Maybe he’s as desperate for company as I am.

Solo pushes my wheelchair into a horseshoe-shaped work station. It’s an amazing space with soaring ceilings and low-slung black leather furniture. There’s a huge ficus tree next to the desk. It’s strung with white twinkle lights, probably a remnant of the long-past holiday season. It’s oddly whimsical in the clean, minimalist setting.

I don’t have time to admire the decor, though, because I’m too busy gaping at the twenty-foot-tall, floor-to-ceiling monitor. I’ve never seen a screen so big. Movie theater big.

A strand of DNA is displayed on the monitor. This is not just some run-of-the-mill textbook image. And it’s definitely nothing like the primitive double helix model I made in sixth grade out of Styrofoam balls and toothpicks. (My mother’s assessment: “What are we, Amish?”)

This thing … this thing is pulsating with energy. It’s alive.

“That’s the project,” my mother says. “That’s 88715.”

“It’s real,” I murmur.

“No, just a simulation. You can see the DNA, you can see entire chromosomes, you can pull out further—” She demonstrates by tracing a finger across the touch screen that is set at wheelchair level. The image on the wall zooms out. “Now you see a chromosome. Out further, it’s a cell.”

Solo locks my chair wheel and grabs a chair. He yawns. Clearly, he’s not as mesmerized as I am.

“The best part is that you can use any number of different interfaces.” Tap, tap, drag. “This one’s made of Lego blocks, for younger kids. See how there’s a Lego representation of the DNA?”

My mother’s in the zone, her voice animated. She gets like this when she’s excited about an idea. And this little project—this “fluff”—is nothing compared to her real work, the work she’s overseen on new drug therapies. When she’s laboring on something she’s excited about, she’ll move into Spiker’s lab for days, even weeks, at a time. More than once, she’s come home with her mascara smudged, her nails bitten to the quick, her eyes bleary.