Chapter 42
HEATHER
––––––––
[EXTRACT FROM HEATHER’S LOG NOTES]
The first day of the toxicity study of an experimental cancer chemopreventive agent. The eighteen beagles will be given the test material via a capsule in their food. The other six control dogs will receive only a gelatine capsule.
I help Glen prepare the doses.
While many of the older dogs are wary when a cage door is opened, these puppies don’t cringe at human handling. Turbo, in particular, is so excited to see me, pressing himself against my gloved hand, begging to be held and cuddled.
Under Glen’s watchful gaze, I pat him briefly and give him his bowl of food with its 80mg of test material hidden inside. He eats everything.
#
I don’t need to look up from my coffee mug to know Justin has entered the restaurant. Even amid the buzz of animated chatter and a busy espresso machine, his presence has the effect of lending a charge to air I’m drawing into my lungs.
Crossing the room, Justin slides into the seat opposite me, stripping off his jacket and depositing his helmet onto a chair. “Still sticking to ginger tea?” he asks as he flags down a server.
“Decaf.”
“So you’re pretending to have the real thing while going with a poor substitute?”
“Sounds like your dating life,” I retort.
He chuckles. “You interested in my dating life, TT?”
“I couldn’t be less interested.”
“Admit it, you’re drawn to the dark side.”
“You know, I don’t think you believe half of the outrageous statements you make.” The words have barely left my mouth before a sporty-looking, red-haired server materializes at our table.
“What can I get you?” she asks Justin, ignoring me.
He flashes a slow smile at her. “After the week I’ve had, only a double shot of espresso will do.”
“Oh, I know the feeling!” she gushes, spilling sympathy and cleavage all over him.
I roll my eyes while Justin stretches out his long legs and soaks it up.
“You hungry?” he asks me when the server pauses for a breath.
“Starving.” I order a pumpkin soup, while Justin settles for a vegan quesadilla. When the server finally drags herself away, I raise my eyebrows at him. “Do they all fall for you like that?”
“Not everyone’s able to conceal their feelings as well as you.”
I smile despite myself. “I’m sure the bike’s the clincher.”
“Second only to my charm.”
“The charm you manage to hide so well from me.”
“What’s the matter, TT? Feeling neglected?”
The question is a little too close to the truth. “No.”
The server returns with his coffee. He waits until she leaves before he asks me, “Do you have a boyfriend?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Simply making conversation,” he says idly. “Any particular reason you don’t have one?”
I level a look at him. “Why do you assume there’s no boyfriend?”
His lips twitch. “Call it a lucky guess. So, what’s the reason? Can’t the guys see past your glasses or can’t you see past your prejudices? Or,” he says, drawing the word out with a knowing smile, “has no one got past Daddy?”
Ignoring the baited comment about my father—Justin’s the one with parental issues, not me—I think of the guys who have asked me out.
Steady young men with solid career plans.
All given my father’s stamp of approval.
None of them, however, progressed to beyond the fourth date.
They were all okay but lacking something.
“I’m still looking,” I tell him.
“For Mister Right?”
“Yes.”
He rolls his eyes. “Please, pass me a bucket. I just gagged on a cliché.”
“There’s nothing wrong with wanting a husband, Justin.”
He looks horrified at the mention of the word husband, like it’s a virus he’s in danger of catching. “We’re from two different planets, TT. You’re wanting a forever ending with someone and I haven’t dated anyone longer than a month.”
I suspected as much, but his admission still leaves me oddly disappointed. This man that I’m unfortunately attracted to can’t give me the life I want. Not that I was seeing him in that way, I tell myself hastily. Not at all. But I can’t shake the disappointed feeling.
Justin takes a sip of his coffee. “I suppose you want children too.”
“One day, yes.”
He pulls at the neck of his T-shirt, as though he’s feeling suffocated.
“What about you?” I ask.
“Nope.”
Curiosity gets the better of me. “Why not?”
His jaw tightens. “Why would I want children? So I can screw them up like my parents did me?”
I want to reach for his hand and assure him he’s not a screw-up, but I suspect any gesture I make would be misinterpreted as pity. And Justin doesn’t appear to be a man who would take kindly to being pitied.
“What are you looking for then?” I ask him instead.
His eyes mock me over his coffee. “At the moment, only Miss Good Times.”
Before I can respond, the server returns with our food.
Considering how speedily she crossed over to us, she’s taking an awfully long time leaning over Justin to deposit his plate in front of him.
Her eyes linger on his biceps straining the sleeves of his T-shirt.
I’m embarrassed to admit my eyes enjoy lingering there too.
The man has an exceptional body. Justin doesn’t seem to mind the attention.
As soon as she’s gone, I say, “All this adoration can’t be easy for you.”
“No,” he agrees easily. “Not when I keep falling off the pedestal.”
With a start of surprise, I realize I’m enjoying the easy banter between us.
I recall Justin’s strange visit to my house last night.
The memory of him straddling that giant bike of his while staring up at my window causes a flush of heat to work its way up my spine.
I wonder if he’ll bring it up. Will I? Probably not.
I dressed with extra care today, knowing I’d be meeting with him later. At the end of the workday, I changed into a fitted white blouse and denims, spritzing perfume on my pulse points. My hair is free from its customary practical bun, falling to my shoulders in thick, shiny waves.
Not that he’s said anything. Not that I care he hasn’t said anything.
Out of the corner of my eye, I notice him pocketing a folded slip of paper. “She didn’t,” I blurt out, almost choking on a mouthful of soup.
He smiles broadly in the face of my disbelief. “She did.”
“Unbelievable.”
He cuts into his quesadilla. “Frankly, I’m a little hurt you’re so surprised.”
“Since we’re talking so frankly, your ego could do with a little bruising.”
“That role’s already been taken.”
I start to ask jokingly who’s taken it, but the look on his face warns me the subject is not open for discussion. His parents, I guess, remembering our conversation in the park. Whenever they’re mentioned, a closed expression comes over his face. An expression like the one he’s wearing now.
“Are you going to call her?” I ask before I can stop myself.
Justin gives me a blank stare. “Call who?”
“The server, the one who slipped you her number.”
“What’s it to you?”
His abrupt withdrawal triggers a peculiar sense of loss and I finish my soup in a miserable, jealous silence.
“Did you bring the log notes?” he asks, pushing his empty plate away.
I nod, fishing them out of my handbag and handing them over. His face is expressionless as he flips through them.
After only a few seconds, he looks up with a frown. “I told you not to get personal.”
“What are you talking about?”
He taps a page. “You’re getting attached to one of the dogs. Heck, you’ve even named him.”
“I’m not calling Turbo number six-seven-five,” I insist.
“Look, I don’t like it any more than you do, that these dogs are identified by numbers. I know it’s difficult, but you need to remain emotionally distant.”
“I can’t,” I whisper. “I’m not a machine. I love animals. That’s why I’m here, doing this horrible job that I hate. They can’t be only numbers to me because then I’m exactly like the people I work with in the lab.”
“Your attachment is going to interfere with your job,” he warns.
“It won’t.” But even to my own ears my promise sounds weak and shaky.
The server clears away our plates, brushing up against Justin in a way that has me sitting on my hands to stop them from shoving that woman away.
“You want something else?” he asks me.
Not particularly, but I don’t want our meeting to end so soon either. I tell myself that what’s keeping me in my seat is the thought of doing something different on a Friday night. I almost believe the lie.
“Iced tea, please,” I answer finally.
Justin orders another coffee. When he offers the server no comment on the piece of paper she slipped to him, a look of disappointment flashes across her face and she turns away sulkily. I sit up straighter.
“Your log recordings end yesterday,” Justin points out, flicking through my notes. “You want to update me on what happened today?”
No is the word hovering on my tongue. Right here, right now, I don’t want to be working undercover at SolomiChem, pretending to be someone I’m not, deceiving my coworkers and my family.
Instead, I want to be a woman on a date with a handsome guy, eating great food and laughing freely while exchanging life stories and flirtatious glances. Except even that would be an illusion because Justin and I are oil and water, divided by our differences.
So I take a fortifying breath and I tell him about Turbo and the rest of the beagles in room 220.
I tell him about some of the other experiments.
Not once does he interrupt me. He listens to my halting account with an intentness that leaves me self-conscious.
Whenever I falter over a particularly difficult retelling, he nudges my iced tea with an index finger and I take a sip, grateful for the reprieve.
When I finally finish talking, I feel drained.
Justin is quiet, a faraway look in his eyes. After nearly a minute of silence, he says softly, “You have to wonder if we’ll ever make a difference, if all this suffering will ever end.”