Death Spiral (10 page)

I look around the room as she talks, but this time it's not the machinery and books I think about. It's Dr. Monroe. She's a real scientist, a professor, someone who does research and teaches classes and has office hours. What would it be like to be the one sitting here, the one inventing new cures and analyzing DNA? For the briefest moment I see my life stretch in front of me, and in that flash it
is
me sitting here. It
is
me with the big degree. I'm no longer Faith Flores, junkie's daughter. I'm Faith Flores, PhD.

“Well, I'll leave you to it,” the man says, snapping me out of my fantasy. “I'll see you this afternoon.”

Dr. Monroe comes back into her office once he's gone and drops the folder on the table, knocking over one of the Chinese food boxes. “You know you're up for tenure when the delivery kid at Beijing knows your office address by heart,” she says, tossing the box at the trash and missing. “Okay, where were we? Immune reactions I believe.” She sits in the only seat not being used as storage and clears textbooks from the other chair for me. “An immune reaction happens sometimes when the body rejects the virus carrying the DNA strand. It might see the vector as foreign material and attack it with antibodies. That can, of course, cause all sorts of problems.”

“Vector?” I ask, remembering Jesse's discourse this morning. “Is the drug some kind of gene therapy?”

“It sounds like you've done your homework.” She picks up a pen and taps it on the table. “The drug is like a gene therapy, but a little different. What I use in this treatment is something called antisense RNA.”

“What's the difference?”

“The difference is that in gene therapy, you replace a defective gene. What my drug does is work to shut a gene down.” She looks at me to see if I'm following. “In addicts, we want to shut the gene down that causes the craving. But both things use a modified human virus, a vector, to get the DNA into the body. Does that make sense?”

“I guess,” I say.

“None of that really matters, though, does it? It's a bunch of scientist talk. The important thing is your mother. How's she doing now?”

I'm sure she's hoping for some kind of success story. My mother quit smack, got a job, and we lived happily ever after. I feel ashamed now, coming here to trouble some professor about my mother's death. I look at a poster about the human genome on the wall above her head when I answer, so I don't have to meet her eyes.

“She's dead.”

“Dead?” Dr. Monroe runs a hand through her hair, pulling loose her ponytail. I notice lines around her eyes I hadn't seen before when she was smiling. “I'm so sorry. What happened?”

“The medical examiner's report said it was a heroin overdose, but she was clean. I know she was.” I try to sound scientific, or at least factual, as I explain what I believe about the end of my mother's life, but the truth is, no matter how I spin the story I don't have any facts to back it up.

“She could've stopped going in for the treatment and relapsed,” she says when I've finished my tale. “You have to inject the drug weekly for several sessions for it to work. But even if she did relapse and had morphine in her blood, with the symptoms you described, I think you're right to be skeptical. There was probably an underlying problem.”

I don't say anything. We sit in wordless silence, listening to the whir of the sequencing machine as it works to decode some person's inner mystery, to reveal the secrets of their health, sickness, longevity, whatever it is scientists understand from reading the order of those four letters.

“Well, I'm sorry I couldn't be more of a help, and I'm terribly sorry for your loss,” Dr. Monroe says at last. She pushes the chair back from the table with an abruptness that makes me jump.

“Wait! Please. There's one more thing. I wouldn't have come down here and bothered you about my mother if it didn't seem strange.”

“If what didn't seem strange?”

“My mom had a friend who was in the clinical trial with her. I saw her a few days ago. She said she was clean, but she had the same symptoms as my mom, and then she died too.”

Something cold flashes in Dr. Monroe's eyes, but before she can respond there's another knock. She walks briskly across the room and opens the door.

“Carla,” she says to the skinny, dark-haired girl waiting in the hall, “I'll be right with you.” She closes the door and turns back to me, but leaves her hand on the knob. “Look, I don't know what you're hoping to find out, but I can tell you there is nothing wrong with RNA 120. I spent the past six years developing this treatment. Do you know how many post-docs have worked on this? How many lab techs and research assistants? NIH money. Grants. There's no evidence in all my years of preclinical studies to support any symptoms like you're describing.” She draws a sharp breath and glances at the folder on the table. “The symptoms your mother and her friend shared were a coincidence. Addicts are susceptible to all sorts of problems: liver disease, respiratory issues, viruses, collapsed veins, abscesses, pneumonia.…” I think she's done talking, but then, in a softer voice, she says, “I don't know you, but it seems to me maybe it's best if you accept that your mother died of an overdose and move on. I'm sorry.” She opens the door to a pack of students gathered outside her office. “Is there anything else?”

“Nothing else,” I say, standing.

“Then if you'll excuse me. It's office hours.”

I walk past the students without making eye contact and beeline for the bathroom where I lock myself in a stall. I sit on the toilet, head in my hands, and think about how silly it is to be disappointed that the symptoms my mother had weren't connected to the treatment in the clinical trial, but I can't help feeling let down. At least the clinical trial gave me a direction to pursue, a possibility of finding an answer, even if it was an answer I didn't like.

I'm still sitting in the stall, working my brain cells for how all the pieces fit together, when I feel my phone vibrate against my thigh. I yank it from my front pocket and see a text from Anj:
Are you totally ignoring me or what?

I'm confused until I notice the two other messages—one text, one voice. I check the text first:
WHERE ARE YOU????? WE WERE SUPPOSED TO MEET THIS MORNING!!!!

I cover my face with my hand and groan. I'm so busted. The social studies project. Today's Tuesday. I promised to meet Anj in the library before school to work on it.

I have to hold the phone about a foot from my ear so I don't go deaf when I listen to the voice message.
IT'S EIGHT O' CLOCK AND THE BELL'S RINGING
AND
YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO MEET ME IN THE LIBRARY AT SEVEN THIRTY!

My head fills with this new crisis. Anj might be all sugar and sweetness on the outside, but stand her up, or burn her in some other way, and all her volatile chemicals release. She caramelizes into something hard and brittle. I have to get back to school and talk to her. Maybe she'll forgive me if I promise to go home and learn Arawak.

***

An hour and a half later I'm in the cafeteria, expecting to find Anj at the center table with Tara and crew, eating organic vegan sandwiches and plotting the overthrow of all things unjust. Instead, I find her nestled at a corner table with Duncan, her Scottish lover boy. I loiter in the corner of the cafeteria between the table shared by the Goths and emos and the milk cart station and watch. Duncan, with his coppery hair sweeping across his blue-gray eyes, laughs at something Anj says, showing off his perfect chin dimple. Anj, in her flirty off-the-shoulder tee and mock diamond choker, basks in his attention.

I'm thinking of leaving the lovebirds alone and blowing off the whole apology thing until later when Anj looks up and catches my eye. I give a little smile and wave, but she doesn't return the greeting. Even from across the cafeteria I can tell she's still pissed. I take a deep breath and go over to make amends.

“Where were you this morning?” she demands the second I get to the table.

“I'm—”

“You're what? Sorry?” she interrupts, shoving her lunch aside. Her chocolate pudding splats to the floor, but she ignores the mess. “Because for your information I need an A on this project from Mr. Robertson, and it happens to be due next week, and I can't do it without you. So, what's your story?”

“I was—”

“And don't even tell me you had something more important to do.”

“Anj, will you let the lass talk?” Duncan says. The lilt of his words gives the sentence a musical quality that for a second makes me blank and forget why I'm here.

“Fine.” She folds her arms across her chest and gives me the death stare. “I'm waiting.”

I stand on the sticky floor, next to the smear of chocolate pudding slime, brain dead about what to say. I could follow the path of least resistance and make up something (Great sale at Wanamaker's! Couldn't miss it!), so I can avoid the whole mother thing, but Anj has a BS barometer that can detect even the tiniest rise in bullshit. If I want a friend five minutes from now, I have to tell her what's going on.

“Well?”

A denim-clad dude from the ghetto crowd looks up from his table and checks me out as if assessing my suitability for recruitment into their cult of suburban gangster wannabes. I ignore him, take a deep breath, and give Anj, and by proximity, Duncan, the scoop on the last few days: Melinda, the RNA 120 clinical trial, my visit to the university. I don't want to send Anj into a panicked tizzy though, so I spare them the part about the Rat Catcher and his threats.

Anj clasps my hand in both of hers when I'm done talking. “Ohmigod, Sweetpea,” she moans. “I can't believe all that! Why didn't you tell me what was going on yesterday when we went to the clinic?”

I start to answer, but she cuts me off.

“Never mind. It doesn't matter. I know now.” She pauses and lowers her eyes. “I'm
so
sorry I freaked out on you. I guess I'm just really stressed about this project. It means a lot to me.”

“But why's it such a big deal?” I ask, snagging a jalapeño-flavored potato chip from her lunch and sitting down, relieved to move on to a topic that doesn't have to do with me.

Anj glances at Duncan, who gives a barely perceptible shake of his head. “No reason,” she says, twisting the pink plastic gemstone on her right index finger.

“I'd want to know what happened if it was my mum,” Duncan says, changing the subject. “I remember when my cousin Andrew died in Wales and my aunt needed the coroner to give her every detail of what happened to him before she could—”

“Wait. What did you say?”

Duncan lifts an eyebrow. “I said when my cousin Andrew died, my aunt needed the coroner to go over every detail of his autopsy report before she could accept his death.”

“That's it!”

“
What's
it?” Anj asks, pulling out a compact from her purse and checking her teeth.

“Why didn't I think of it before? Duncan, you're brilliant!”

Anj snaps the compact shut and looks at me. “Hel-lo. Earth to Faith. What are you talking about?”

“Don't you see?” I lick the artificial orange coloring from my fingers. “The coroner, well we call them medical examiners here, but whatever. The medical examiner's the perfect person to talk to. All I saw was the death certificate after Mom died. If you're doing research, always go to the primary source.”

I think of Dr. Monroe's words: W
ith the symptoms you described, I think you're right to be skeptical. There was probably an underlying problem.
Then I think of what the Rat Catcher said:
You don't want to get involved in this. I work for some powerful people who do not favor a kid poking into their business.
How could talking to the medical examiner count as poking my head into their business? It's not like the medical examiner killed my mom.

I snag another potato chip and grab a carrot stick as a healthy chaser. “Maybe there's some subtler condition the medical examiner ignored or missed because the police report said they found heroin and Mom looked like a junkie and calling it morphine was so obvious. Maybe he could read through the autopsy report with me. See if anything was overlooked.”

“Uh, I don't mean to sound unsupportive,” Anj says, a lead-in to why she's about to be unsupportive. “I know how much this means to you, but you can't just walk in and talk to the medical examiner. You were living in Philly when she died.”

“So.”

“Think about it.
West Philly
. I'm sure the guy has like a million deaths and murders a day to deal with.” She shivers and scoots closer to Duncan. “I just think maybe you're taking this too far.”

“Taking what too far?” Jesse asks, arriving from god knows where and nearly taking off my fingers with a textbook he drops onto the table.

“What happened to her mother,” Anj says. “Faith wants to go talk to the medical examiner.”

I do my best to ignore the sizzle of warmth shooting through my stomach as Jesse squeezes onto the bench next to me, and I update him on what happened at Dr. Monroe's office. I still leave out the part about being followed by the Rat Catcher and the whole you'd-better-stop-asking-questions
thing. More like stuff it down and pretend it never happened. Two of my favorite survival strategies: avoidance and denial.

“Cool,” he says when I'm done. He reaches into his backpack and digs out a peanut butter and jelly sandwich from somewhere on the bottom. “Total CSI. Can I come?”

I twist in my seat and put my hands on my hips. “What about your appointment with your speech coach?”

“Done deal. We met this morning. As long as I follow the college automaton script and don't say anything original, I'll ace the interview, so I'm free until Friday. We can go tomorrow.”