Head Case (10 page)

“Dr. Soldoff?”

“Yeah. How did you—”

“Don’t worry. Soldoff is on one of our advisory boards. I looked into it. It’s fine.”

“He is?”

“Yes, Olivia. He is. So are half of the Institute’s professors.”

“So why me?”

“It was your idea, Olivia. Anyway, aren’t you the one focusing on targeting emotional chemicals?”

“The chemistry of emotion. Mostly guilt, really, but are you sure—”

“Olivia, you can do this. You need money, right? And I think we can work well together. Relax. This is going to be great.”

“But what if I can’t give you what you want? What if I don’t agree with the findings?”

“You will,” she said, patting the large pile of documents I had just signed that was now stacked on her desk. “Plus, you know all of those pills that you and your friend stole?”

“We didn’t exactly steal them,” I said, even though I knew that technically one could argue that we had. And forget about the legality of distributing them.

“Look, Olivia,” Missy said. She patted the top of her up-do, checking to see that all the strands were in place. I could hear the quiet crunching of dried hair spray. “All I’m saying is that you can make this hard, or you can make this easy. Easy for you, easy for me, easy for your wallet, and easy for your friend and her father. End of story.”

I thought about it for a moment. And I thought about how the Warners had taken me in, welcomed me into their family when my own was so remote. I thought about how much Dr. Warner had encouraged me and believed in me over the years. Maybe it really wasn’t such a big thing Missy was asking of me.

“Well, I suppose the material I would be looking at is right up my alley, anyway,” I said. “I mean, in the end, if nothing else, it can only help me with my research. I’d be curious to see how Ziperal breaks down along certain synaptic pathways, especially in the frontal lobe.”

“There you go. And here you go,” Missy Pander said, handing me a corporate American Express card. “It has my name on it,” she said, “but you can use it however you like. And you can carry it in this.” She pulled a red Hermes Birkin bag from behind her desk. A real one, not a knock-off.

“Oh my God. I can’t take this,” I said, taking it.

“Consider it a signing bonus.” She winked and sat back in her pungently new leather chair and crossed her arms. “Good choice of suit, by the way,” she said. “It fits you quite nicely.”

26

June 21 (B.D.)

Three Hours Later.

“Wow,” Polly said, twisting a towel around her hair as she stepped out of the bathroom.

I startled. I had just entered the apartment, and Polly being at home in the late afternoon was the last thing I expected to see. Or wanted to. “What are you doing here?”

“I live here, remember?” She smiled as if nothing had changed. “You look nice.”

“You like?” I asked, figuring I would go along with the faked normalcy. Who knows. If forcing yourself to smile can increase your endorphins and therefore make you feel happier, maybe the same could be said of forcing yourself to be civil. Maybe it wasn’t just me who was eager for a truce.

I hung my keys on the hook behind the door and spun around so that Polly could get a full view, not only of my new tweed skirt suit and the matching platform pumps, but also of the department store shopping bags now lined up on the floor in front of me.

“It looks like you got a little carried away, there, Ols. I thought your credit cards were maxed out?”

“I used Amex.” I stepped over the bags and crossed the room to look at myself in the funhouse mirror.

Polly tightened the belt of her white terrycloth robe and sat down, tucking her feet beneath her in her usual position on the couch. “You look like an overstuffed tweed chair,” she said, because from her angle the mirror had me squashed down and spread out, like what might happen if a piano had been dropped on my head.

“Thanks,” I said and plopped myself next to her, kicking off my new shoes.

Polly fingered the collar of my jacket. “Nice threads. But seriously, Olivia, I think you might want to return some of that stuff.”

“I didn’t realize you were so concerned,” I said. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”

Polly rolled her eyes. “Come on, Olivia. I know things have been tense, but it’s me. Your best friend, remember? So of course I’m concerned about you.”

“Now there’s a role reversal for you,” I muttered. “Really, it’s actually okay.”

“Okay?” she said, graciously ignoring my first comment. “Did you win the lotto or something? Something you aren’t telling me?”

“Actually,” I started to say. But I had to stop myself. I didn’t want to tell her about my meeting with Stanley Novartny, about Fatico Dystopia or about the new project they wanted me to commence. I didn’t want to drag her into it. And since I’d signed confidentiality papers, I couldn’t really tell her very much at all anyway. Besides, if the subject wasn’t Mitya, her attention span was worse than Raskolnikov’s on Sominex.

“My funding came through,” I said.

“And you spent the money on Ralph Lauren instead of on your rats?”

“Well, no. There was a bonus …”

“The government gave you a bonus? That’s an interesting grant structure.”

“No. No. It’s not a government grant,” I sighed. “I’m sorry, Polly. There are some confidentiality issues I’m dealing with, and I’m not at liberty to tell you about it right now. Just trust me that everything is okay.”

“You’re ‘not at liberty’ to tell me? Me? Wow.” She shook her head and stood up. “I’ve got to get going,” she said. “I have a date.”

“With him?” I tried to make my inflection go up, like I was excited for her, like it was an apology and we were moving on. Which, in fact, is what I had intended.

“If you mean Mitya, than yes, with him,” she snapped.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Right. I’m sure.”

“So where are you going?”

“I’m sorry,” Polly said, turning on her heel. “I’m not at liberty to disclose that information.” She walked into her room and slammed the door.

27

July 28 (B.D.)

A Few Weeks Later.

Honestly, I thought I knew Polly. Better than myself, even. But then she did her disappearing act on me and got herself involved in all sorts of nefarious doings. Up until Mitya arrived on the scene, we routinely spoke two to three times a day, texted each other constantly, and curled up on our couch every night, telling each other everything about how we spent our day. But then that all stopped. Suddenly. Because of Mitya. Because she thought I was being judgmental. Because, as she said, maybe after all these years, we were only friends out of habit.

It hurt terribly when she said that, though in retrospect, I probably deserved it. I was definitely not on my best behavior that night. I’m deeply regretting that now, four months and a few hours too late.

We had met up for dinner at a mediocre Italian restaurant on Columbus Avenue, one of those restaurants that seem to exist only for moments like these, moments when having a meal is just an excuse to have a conversation lubricated with a glass of cheap red wine. It was her idea to meet up. It was just a couple of weeks after that night when I had brought Missy to Charity, but it may as well have been years later, given how much had changed for both of us since then. Polly called me at work and said she needed to talk. It was important, she said. I suggested we just meet at the apartment, but she insisted we go out. She said she would even foot the bill.

“Extending an olive branch?” I asked when she called to invite me.

“Call it a stick of serotonin,” she said.

I missed her.

I packed up my bag, locked up the lab, and rushed to catch a cab across town.

Polly arrived late as usual, dragging the humid summer air behind her as she swept through the door.

“Nice shirt,” she said once we sat down. “Normally pastels wash you out a bit, but that shade of green looks nice. It brings out the specks of hazel in your eyes.”

I struggled to give her a compliment in return. She was getting thinner daily and her skin was smothered in so much foundation it looked waxy. “Nice dress,” was all I could come up with.

“It’s yours.”

“I know.” I smiled. It was a cool dress. It was made of a rich brown T-shirty material that wrapped tightly around the bodice. My Visa card was declined when I tried to buy it. I used my MasterCard instead. I made a mental note to pay off that bill as soon as Pharmax sent the next check.

“Are you wearing false eyelashes?” I asked, more curious than unkind, hoping that some light banter might help break the thick icy wall that had gone up between us. 

Polly laughed. “No. I guess I was a little distracted when I was putting on my mascara. Do I look crazy? Like Tammy Faye or something?” In fact, she looked like a bad mug shot. It was clear that the makeup was overcompensating for severely bloodshot eyes and a newly sallow complexion. She looked like shit. I can’t believe I didn’t see then how troubled she was. But I was too tied up in my own head to really be looking. 

“What’s with the Vegas face, anyway?” I asked. “You never wear this much makeup.”

“It’s bad, huh? It’s been a long week.” She wrinkled her nose.

The waiter came to take our order. Neither of us had looked at the menu.

“Split a pasta?” Polly asked.

“Sure.”

“Bolognese?”

“Sure.”

That was all we ever ordered. Spaghetti Bolognese. We had created an illogical rationale that because there was meat in the sauce, the pasta was high-protein and therefore not bloating.

The waiter scurried away and Polly looked at me, eyebrows raised to ask a question.

“So, what’s going on with you, Olivia? You look a bit peaked yourself.”

“I’m just tired,” I said. “I’ve been working a lot.” Which was true—I’d been putting in extremely long hours for Novartny, and was still trying to get some of my own research done, all of which made me feel like my brain might explode.

We made inconsequential small talk—how humid the weather was, how much her job still sucked, how Raskolnikov had started overeating, how I’d heard there would be a great Trina Turk sample sale starting that Saturday. I said I could take a few hours off that day, and suggested she come with me. It was the kind of thing we used to do together all the time.

She said that’s what she needed to talk to me about, that she and Mitya were going to visit his sick aunt in Brighton Beach on Saturday and—

“Of course you are,” I said, pushing some pasta around on my plate.

“I really wish you would stop doing that,” Polly said.

“Playing with my food?”

“Don’t be an ass. I wish you would stop being so judgmental. I mean, you’ve hardly spent any time with Mitya. You think you know all about him, but the truth is, you have no idea what’s going on or who he really is.”

“So, who is he?” I asked.

Polly crossed her arms and shook her head. “You know what I mean. You need to give him a chance.”

“Why do you need my approval so badly anyway?”

“Don’t give me that.”

“Give you what?”

“Jesus, Olivia. Just because he never finished college or worked in a conventional job, it doesn’t mean he’s a terrible human being. He’s actually a really good guy. And his aunt, she’s in really bad shape, and—”

“I never said he was a terrible human being. I just think you can do better. I mean, for all of your talk about finding some meaning in your life, I just don’t see how you think getting deeper in the club scene is going to get you there. I don’t get why you’re investing so much in this relationship. It’s distracting you.”

“Oh come on, Olivia. It’s not like that.”

“So, what is it? Is the sex really good? Have you guys found the right combination of pills to really make it sizzle?”

“Wow.” Polly shook her head.

The waiter skittered up to the table, placed down the belatedly delivered breadbasket and side salads, and quickly slipped away. 

“That’s it, right?” I said, reaching for a dinner roll.

“Fuck you, Olivia. And not that it’s your business, but sex is not the focus of my relationship with Mitya.”

“Really? Are you serious? Is that SSRI you’re taking killing your libido or something?”

Polly rolled her eyes. “Actually, no. It’s not. Not that that’s your business, either.”

In that past, though, it had always been my business. In the past she always told me. Back in college, we made a pact to always tell each other everything. We made everything each other’s business. Now she was cutting me out. 

“So what do you guys do if you’re not humping like bunnies?” I asked. “What do you even talk about?”

“Jesus. Do you really think sex is the only way Mitya and I could possibly find a connection? You are so, ugh, I don’t even know the word for it. Myopic? Limited? Asinine? Or is it just that you’re so jealous that I’m in a relationship and you’re not that you can’t even see what a bitch you’ve become?”

“I think you’re a bit out of line there, Polly. I was just kidding around.”

“I’m out of line? That’s rich.”

It went on like this for a while. Polly accused me of being narrow-minded and jealous. I accused her of being superficial and naive. We ordered more Chianti. And then we sat silently and for a few minutes suffered from the tension of who would be the one to speak first. One of us had to apologize, or one of us had to change the subject. Or both. Polly chose the latter.

“So,” she said.

“So.”

“That shirt really does look good on you.” She smiled.

I laughed. “And those eyelashes really are fabulous.” I shoved a piece of bread in my mouth. Polly rose her near empty glass. “Cheers,” she said.

“Cheers.” I lifted up mine.

We ate some more pasta.

“So,” Polly said as she broke off some more bread and reached for the olive oil to pour over it. You could see whole garlic cloves floating around inside the bottle, marinating—a guarantee of deliciously bad breath. “Is there anything you can tell me about how your work’s going? I know it’s all hush-hush top secret, but can you at least tell me if you’re enjoying yourself?”

I leaned back and looked at her. “Okay,” I said, putting down my wine glass.

“Okay, what?”

“Look, you really cannot tell anyone about this. Not Mitya, not anyone.” She was Polly after all. She was my best friend. 

I leaned forward. Polly did too.

“I’ve been working for Missy Pander,” I said in a whisper.

Polly sat back. I noticed an odd, consternated look washing over her face.

“What?” I asked, curious.

“Nothing. It’s weird. I was just thinking … Never mind.” She folded her arms and leaned in again, resuming the conspiratorial pose. “Missy? You’ve been working for Missy? That’s what you couldn’t tell me?”

“Well, really it’s for Pharmax—you know, the company she works for. She hooked me up with some research to help get money to fund my studies. And pay my credit card bills.” I winked. “It works out well, though. The work they’re having me do kind of overlaps with my research, anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s all about mood stuff. You know, brain chemistry. The chemistry of emotions. Right up my alley.”

“Are they interested in the chemistry of jealousy? I imagine there might be a big market for that. But what do I know?”

“Well, I’m not supposed to talk about the details,” I said, ignoring the slight.

“Oh, come on, Olivia. Talking to me is practically pillow talk. Isn’t there spousal dispensation?”

I grinned. I really did want to tell her about what I’d been working on. It was all so bizarre and I knew Polly of all people would get a real kick out of it. So I relented. “Okay. But you really can’t tell a soul,” I said. “Definitely not Mitya. No pillow talk for you two.”

“Fine.”

“I’m doing some work on a new disorder Missy helped identify.”

“Identify? Isn’t she like a sales rep or something?”

“Well, identify for the market. It’s called Fatico Dystopia.”

“Sounds serious,” said Polly, picking up her glass again. “What is it?”

“It’s a mental condition in which a person is unable to find satisfaction in his or her career.”

Polly almost spit out her wine. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No, seriously. It’s a subset of depression, like a more defined and targeted version.”

Polly laughed. “Well, I imagine there would be quite a market for a medication that could treat something like that.”

“Exactly.” I grinned.

“But what does that have to do with you? Don’t they have their own scientists?”

“They wanted to work with a scientist in an independent laboratory, outsource some of the development research to a non-biased party.”

“I suppose it looks a little suspicious to create the medication for the disorder your own company invented.”

I shrugged. “One could also argue that makes better science. But …”—I smiled—“they’re giving me an enormous amount of funding.”

“I’m sure,” she said. “So, what are you doing, exactly? Scanning more rat brains injected with dyes?”

“Actually, you might get a kick out of this. I’ve been dying to tell you about it. The whole thing is kind of weird.”

Polly raised her eyebrows, encouraging me to continue.

“I’m working with a version of that drug Missy gave us so many samples of. You know, Ziperal. They want to tweak it for a re-branding, and—”

“Ziperal?” Polly dropped her fork. “Really?”

“What? Why are you biting your lip like that?”

Polly took at deep breath. “I don’t know how to ask you this…”

“Ask me what?”

“I have a favor to ask you. I was going to ask you about this anyway, but now, well … Look, Ols, I’m not sure you’re going to like this, but it’s actually why I called.”

“I’m not going to like what?”

“I really need your help, and I know the timing isn’t great but, this is all so—”

“Okay,” I said, drawing it out. O-kaaay. But I have to say, if you have to ask someone a favor, it’s probably best not to do it immediately on the heels of a fight, even if it has been defused. “What is it?”

Polly pursed her lips. She did that when she was nervous or embarrassed. I wasn’t sure which one it was at that moment.

“I’m all out,” she said.

“All out?”

“The  meds. Finito. Especially the Ziperal. It’s all gone.” She wiped her hands together to emphasize the point.

“What do you mean?”

“What I said, Olivia. I’m out. I don’t have any more. And I really need some.”

I crossed my arms. “I thought we were done with all of that? I certainly am.”

“It’s just for me.”

“For you? Can’t you ask your dad?”

“I can’t keep asking him. He’ll start to get worried. Anyway, I don’t think he could give me enough.” Polly looked into her empty glass.

“Enough? Polly, you really shouldn’t take too much of that stuff. Actually, with what I’ve been seeing with Raskolnikov, you probably shouldn’t take it at all.” 

“Really?” Polly startled. “Why not? What’s he doing?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. Something’s not right, at least not at super high doses. I wouldn’t take it, though. I’m sure your dad can give you something else. Or better yet, go see a shrink. You could probably use one.”

“That’s an obnoxious thing to say.”

“Oh please, Polly. Don’t be so sensitive. I’m just trying to help. I mean come on. You look like shit and now you’re asking me to help you get medicated. What do you want me to say? Anyway, who couldn’t use a little therapy?”

We sat silently for a few minutes, nursing our wine as we stared each other down.

“Look, I lied,” Polly said, placing her hands together on the table as if in prayer. “It isn’t for me, Olivia. It’s for someone who really does need help. Life-or-death kind of help.”

“That’s a lot of help you’re talking about.”

“It’s serious,” she said. “I’m serious.”

“Then tell your suicidal friend to call a doctor. Or drag him there yourself. Is it Mitya? Are you trying to get drugs for him?”

“No. It’s not Mitya. And it’s not that simple.”

“Nothing ever is,” I said.

“It’s just that I promised someone … well, Mitya promised …”

I had to laugh. “So this is for Mitya? You’re kidding, right?”

Polly exhaled with great exaggeration. “It’s not that simple,” she said again.

“You already told me that.”

What she didn’t tell me about that evening, however, was the connection to Boris Shotkyn. She didn’t tell me about the Black Market Grannies. She didn’t tell me about the turf battle brewing down in Brighton Beach or Mitya’s well-intentioned but slightly deranged relations who had gotten her into this mess. I wish she had. Instead, she told me something else.

“Look. Can you just trust me that I need some Ziperal and leave it at that? I know you have access to it. At the hospital, in your lab. I mean, come on, now you’re even working with our old source herself.”