“I’m very upset,” said the man; his voice was curt and angry. “Is this the guy who did the testing?”
“Yes,” said Lyle. “My name is Lyle Fontanelle.” He found William England’s form and laid it out in front of him: thirty-eight years old; an address on Long Island. “What seems to be the problem?”
“I know I filled out a waiver when I came in for your little test,” he said, “but that waiver is completely void if you fail to give us full disclosure on the product you’re testing, and I want you to know I have every intention of suing you if I am not fully recompensed.”
“Why? Just tell me what’s happened.”
“As if you didn’t know. You told us we were testing a hydrating lotion—a moisturizer—and then you slipped us a skin-bleaching crème. That’s completely unacceptable! I am very proud of my heritage and my color, and I do not look lightly at this at all—”
“Wait,” said Lyle, “a skin-bleaching crème? Did the lotion bleach your skin?”
“Don’t pretend you didn’t know about this,” said the man on the phone. “You were running the test—even if you gave me a skin bleacher by accident, you’re still liable for it. Your whole company is.”
Lyle searched frantically on the form before him, finally finding the skin type information: William England had marked “Asian.” “Wait, Mr. England, you’re Asian?”
“Of course I’m Asian.”
“I just … I remember we had a man with Asian skin in the test, I just didn’t connect it with your name.”
“I am not interested in your racist assumptions about my name, Mr. Fontanelle. I want to know what you’re going to do about this. My face is white—I’m practically Caucasian!”
“How white?” asked Lyle, reaching for a pen.
“What does it matter how white? Just fix it!”
“But there’s a lot of range in Caucasian skin,” said Lyle. “Are we talking white-white, or tan, or kind of pinkish? What is it?”
“Kind of … average color, I guess. Just … white.”
Lyle scribbled notes furiously. “When did this start?”
“A week or two ago, I guess. Pretty soon after the test.”
“Is that the only change?”
“Change?”
“Have you had any other symptoms? Flu, weight loss, weight gain … anything else?”
“Why, is there a problem? Should I see a doctor?”
“There’s no problem,” said Lyle quickly. “Listen, I want you to call me if you notice anything else strange, okay? Anything at all.”
“Oh, I’m calling all right, I’m calling a lawyer.”
“There’s no need for that, I’m just … I just want to know what you experience so I can tell you if it’s our lotion or not. I’ll go through every record we have, every sample bottle on our shelves, and figure out exactly what happened. Okay? But I need you to call me if anything changes.”
William England sighed. “Okay. But I wasn’t kidding about the lawyer—if you can’t give me a good answer, and soon, I will go public and I will sue.”
“Just a few days, Mr. England, that’s all it should take.”
“Fine,” said the man, and hung up. Lyle dropped the phone in the cradle and whistled. This made no sense—everyone in the most recent test was reacting, but they were all reacting differently. There was no trend; no way of knowing where the reactions were going, or where they might be coming from.
I need more information, thought Lyle. If any of the earlier tests had reacted this strongly, I would have heard about it; I need to start with 14G. The men. Is there something about men specifically? But no—Susan was sick, too. Everyone who touched that batch of lotion.…
Lyle froze. I touched that lotion. I touched it in the plant, and again here in the office. I used it a few times. Am I going to get sick, as well?
Am I going to die, like Jon Ford?
Lyle turned to the next sheet of paper: a man named Tony Hicks. I have to call them all.
He picked up the phone and dialed.
9
Friday, April 27
Ibis headquarters, Manhattan
231 DAYS TO THE END OF THE WORLD
“Congratulations!”
Ira Brady, the CEO of Ibis Cosmetics, raised the lotion bottle in a mock toast. It was a small plastic cylinder about four inches tall, maybe an inch in diameter. The white sticker on the side said “14G,” carefully written in thin black marker. “Thanks to this product, Ibis is set to create a new future for the cosmetics industry!”
The executives cheered. Ira had ordered steaks, and the beer was flowing freely. Ronald smiled in the back of the room, just happy to be included.
