It was Susan’s first day back from spring break: fifteen days in Mexico. Lyle was imagining her, all excited and tan and, if he was lucky, still clinging to a relaxed beach dress code. He’d worn his best shirt and gotten to work early. Susan staggered in half an hour late, her body hidden under a pair of baggy sweats and her hair wispily escaping from a pair of old pigtails.
“Holy crap,” she said. Her voice was deep and sluggish, like she had a cold. “This is what I get for burning all my sick days on this vacation. I totally shouldn’t be here today.”
“Oh,” said Lyle, scooting his chair just slightly farther away. He registered his disappointment at her appearance and pushed it aside, changing tactics on the fly. Now I can help her; show her what a nice guy I am. “I’m sorry to hear that. Is there anything I can do for you?”
Susan put her head on her desk. “Kill me.”
Lyle scooted closer. “Did you eat something bad in Mexico?”
Susan’s voice was muffled by the desk. “I have no idea. Ate something or picked up a bug. I thought I was being careful.”
Seeing her this close he could tell she was heavier than before—not fat, but she’d definitely gained weight. There was something weird about it, though; the weight hadn’t appeared in the places he’d expected.
That’s what fifteen years of staring at skin will get you, he thought, feeling guilty. Someone has a bad day and you get all judgmental.
“Look,” he said, “you don’t look bad.”
“What do you mean I don’t look bad?”
“I…” He paused, unsure. “I mean you don’t look bad.”
“Who said anything about me looking bad? How did that become a topic of conversation if it isn’t true and no one was talking about it?”
“I didn’t mean—”
“I already told you I’m sick, okay? I’m sorry I don’t look like your stupid makeup models for your stupid photo shoots! You’re supposed to eat a lot when you’re sick, and I’m sick, and I wasted my whole vacation, and I feel like a whale and my—” Suddenly her voice cracked, a high-pitched break in the low, congested tirade, and she broke down in tears. “My voice cracks and I’m breaking out in zits all over the place and all I want to do is eat more!”
Lyle stared at her, his mouth moving uselessly as he tried to consider what to say. How did my chance to seem sympathetic go so horribly wrong?
“I just want to go home,” said Susan, putting her head back down.
“Yes,” said Lyle quickly. “Go home. That’s exactly what you should do.”
“I can’t,” she growled, facedown on the desk. “I don’t have any sick days left.”
“I won’t tell anyone,” said Lyle. “I’ll count it as a full day, and you can go home and rest and come back whenever you feel better.”
Susan rolled her head to the side looking up at him suspiciously. “Seriously?”
“Seriously. This is a lab, for crying out loud—I can’t have a sick person in here anyway. Here—we’ll make it official.” He pushed his chair back to his desk, rooted around among the papers, and held one up in triumph. “I need a supply run—one bottle each of every hand lotion you can find. Use the company card, but don’t go until you feel better; I don’t have to start this test until May anyway, and it’s the perfect excuse for being out of the office.” He shrugged. “Just get better.”
“Are you sure?”
“Go,” he said, holding out the paper and nodding. “If you’re not better by Monday just give me a call.”
Susan stood up and wiped her nose on the cuff of her sweatshirt. “Thanks, Lyle.” She smiled feebly. “I’ll call you on Monday.” She took the paper and walked to the door, then stopped, turned, and looked back. “You’re really sweet.”
She left, and Lyle tried very hard to keep his heart rate down.
This is childish, he told himself. I’m being childish and stupid. Where am I, in junior high? I’m an adult. I shouldn’t be mooning over girls like some kind of sick puppy—I should be ignoring them or, if I like them, I should be asking them out. I should be asking her out. There is no earthly reason why I shouldn’t just ask Susan out on a date, like two adults …
… who work together, in a direct managerial situation, and who graduated high school more than a full decade apart. For all I know she wasn’t even born when I graduated high school.
Lyle turned to his computer, clicking the mouse idly through a series of spreadsheets, not paying any attention to them. I think she’s just too tense. I can’t date her, maybe, but I could give her a quick neck rub some time, right? Nothing serious, just something to ease the tension. I could use that spa lotion we put out a few years ago—the coconut stuff. That would b—
Lyle froze: mid-word, mid-thought, mid-action.
Susan had used 14G.
He could see it clearly in his mind: he’d left the test to call Jon Ford, stayed to research something, and when Susan came back from the test she was rubbing her hands and saying “great lotion, by the way.” She’d used it. Two of the test subjects were experiencing completely random, unrelated results—sickness and weight loss—and now Susan was sick, as well. And she wasn’t losing weight, but she was gaining it. No one was reporting these results because they made no sense individually—they couldn’t possibly be connected to each other or to the lotion—but seen together they formed a pattern. A senseless, meaningless, inexplicable pattern, maybe, but a pattern nonetheless.
What other results had gone unreported?
Lyle opened his filing cabinet and ticked through the folder until he found what he wanted: the liability waivers for all 128 test subjects, complete with their full contact info. He started at the beginning, with formula 5A—the first one he’d done human testing for—and started calling.
Two hours later he’d called twenty-one women, asking the same questions and getting the same general answers: they felt fine, they didn’t like being asked about their weight, and the test was so long ago they couldn’t recall any kind of poor reactions to the lotion. On the positive side, most of them said they remembered liking it. Lyle sighed and put the phone back in the cradle, grimacing and stretching his arms above his head. Maybe I need to start at the other end, he thought. Talk to the recent subjects who can still remember their results. But if the results are so innocuous you can’t remember them, isn’t that just as telling?
Lyle stared at the stack of papers—there were still 107 names to go. He braced himself for the task, knowing he had to just dive in and do it. He reached for the stack when suddenly the phone rang, startling him. The ID screen said it was the receptionist. He picked it up.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Dr. Fontanelle, I have a William England on the phone for you.”
Lyle cocked his head, holding the phone against his shoulder, and reached for the papers. That’s one of the 14G subjects. “Sure, put him through.”
“I warn you, he sounds pretty angry.”
“That’s fine, put him through.” The phone clicked, went dead, then clicked again. He could hear breathing. “Hello, Mr. England, how are you today?”
