The Valeditztorian (5 page)

For the rest of the evening
, the two of us lounge around the apartment, catching up on reading and occasionally breaking into peals of laughter. While Grace delves into some papers on melanoma, I study several thick medical textbooks, reviewing everything I can find on leptospirosis, the disease I’ll be researching in the lab.

When my
eyelids get so heavy that I can’t hold them open, I curl up in my beautiful bed. For a while I savor the sweet evening breeze, which is wafting into our bedroom through Grace’s open window. The aroma is anything but sulfurous. Rich and intoxicating, the floral scent sends waves of happy endorphins coursing through my blood stream.

Oh, my
. Life is good. I am young and unattached, living in a foreign country where everything is strange and new. Despite the minor problems I’ve encountered thus far, I am thrilled to be here, happy just to be alive.

Before long
, sleepiness conquers excitement, and my consciousness fades into dreamland. Soon my head is spinning with visions of…fried chicken. The sensory experience is so real that I can feel my canines ripping through salty, crunchy breading, releasing rivulets of fatty juice that run over my tongue, tantalizing my voracious taste buds. In my dreams, I devour multiple buckets of satisfying, high-calorie breast meat. Upon awakening the next morning, my stomach is rumbling loudly, but I’m actually relieved. Completely focused on food, my dreamscape apparently had no room for Thomas. Who knows? Perhaps unrelenting hunger is the key to finally unlocking the handcuffs that bind me to my sexy tormentor back home.

Chapter Three

Masochists
and Muggers

When Grace informs me that it’s Monday morning and time to head to the lab, I’m shocked. Due to all the traveling, I completely lost track of time. Checking my pack of oral contraceptives, I almost keel over. How on earth did I forget to take the last three pills? Maybe it’s a good thing Thomas didn’t show up for our last date, since disastrous consequences could’ve ensued. Though it wouldn’t be the first time I screwed up the use of contraception, I’d like to avoid getting pregnant again (at least until I’m married).

While
I should be thankful, when I visit the bathroom I’m annoyed to find that my period has arrived two weeks early. I suppose this is an example of why you can’t have your cake and eat it, too. Fortunately, I’ve no lack of supplies. Inside my suitcase I’ve stashed a box with enough pharmaceutical items to run a small emergency room, should the need arise. Antibiotics, antiemetics, antihistamines, antiseptics, rehydration solutions, tampons, maxi pads, and more. You name it, I’ve brought it—excluding razors. Although it’s comforting to have them, I sincerely hope I won’t be requiring any of the drugs.

After breakfa
st—more abara, which is starting to get repetitive—Grace walks me over to Luciano’s office and passes me off to my new boss. Not unintentionally, I’ve worn my baggiest sweatshirt.

“Good morning, Emma
! I’m happy to see you made it here one piece,” he says, glancing furtively at my breast area.

“G
ood morning,” I reply, crossing my arms over my chest.

Hopefully
Paula has given him warning. For her sake—and mine—he’d better behave himself.

“Let me introduce you to
the rest of the staff,” says Luciano, directing me into the lab.

“Heads u
p, everybody,” he announces as we enter. “This is Emma, our new Gringa from New York Hospital. Please be nice to her.”

He then repeats a second gr
eeting in Portuguese.

L
eaning his head conspiratorially in my direction, Luciano whispers, “Don’t worry, they don’t bite…much.”

Though I don’t want to encourage any flirtation, Luciano is surprisingly charming, and I can’t help laughing.

A young-looking man, whose face is covered with terrible pustular acne, walks over to shake my hand.

“This is Peter,” says Luciano.

“Tudo bem?” asks Peter.

“Muito bem
,” I reply.

Unfortunately, that’s the extent of my conve
rsational Portuguese. Hopefully he’ll go easy on me.

“Nice to meet you,” Peter adds, with a heavy Portuguese accent.

“Excuse the redundancy, but as you’ve just heard, Peter speaks some English,” says Luciano.

“Over here we have Julia,” says Luciano, pointing to an older woman wearing indu
strial-length rubber gloves and a long white lab coat.

P
ulled back into a tight little bun, Julia’s thinning gray hair doesn’t fully cover the bald spot in the middle of her forehead. Traction alopecia is a bitch, and as it turns out, so is Julia. The woman glares at me over the top of her glasses, spins around, and slams an Erlenmeyer flask under the hood at the back of the lab.

“Oh
my,” I murmur.

Leaning
in close to my ear—almost too close—Luciano says softly, “Many years of working with poisonous fumes have soured her personality. If I were you, I’d stay away from her.”

Th
e look on his face is deadly serious.

“Last but not least, this is the lovely Soelia (pronounced
‘Saw-ell-ee-yuh’),” he says, pointing to an energetic-looking young woman who is currently bouncing between rows of blood agar Petri dishes lined up on the counter.

Though busy with a pipette and wax crayon, Soelia glances up long enough
to blow Luciano a kiss and flash a friendly smile in my direction. Her large, green eyes and café-con-leche skin immediately remind me of Paula. Wow. Are all young Brazilian women astonishingly beautiful? It’s amazing that the men can get any work done around here.

Waving back,
Luciano says, “Soelia speaks very little English. If you have problems or questions, it’s best to ask me or Peter for help.”

While I’m reluctant to develop anything more than a superficial re
lationship with Luciano, I can’t help inquiring, “Why is your English so perfect?”

Luciano beams
.

“My mother is Brazilian, but my father is American, from California o
riginally.”

“So you were
raised in a bilingual home?”

“
That’s right. Even now, my parents still speak a mixture of Portuguese and English,” says Luciano.

“Did you grow up in California?”
I ask.

“No
. As a kid I lived right here in Salvador, but I went to the States for college and graduate school.”

“That exp
lains your accent…or lack thereof,” I say.

Luciano inclines his head in agreement and then gets down to business
.

“Since you’re an American
Gringa, you might not know much about leptospirosis.”

I try not to roll my eyes
.

“I’ve read up on the subject extensively.”

“Humor me, then,” says Luciano. “As you may or may not know, leptospirosis is an illness transmitted from animals to humans by a spirochete, or spiral bacterium. A wide range of animals carry the disease, but here in Brazil, rats are the biggest problem. Consider the favela behind your building, for instance.”

“
Does the favela have a problem with rats?” I ask.

“Did you
ever see the movie
The Princess Bride
?”

“I loved that movie.”

“Remember the ‘rodents of unusual size?’” asks Luciano.

“
Of course,” I say.

“
Well, just like the Fire Swamp in the movie, the favela is teeming with horrible, giant rats.”

“Actually,
I thought the rats in
The Princess Bride
were kinda cute.”

Luciano
gives me a funny look.

“
I've always liked rodents,” I say.

“
Alright, then,” says Luciano, looking at me like I’ve got two heads. “After the rats urinate in the dirt, rain water spreads the bacteria throughout the slum. The disease then infects the human inhabitants, getting into their blood through the skin and mucous membranes. Most infected people get better, but the unlucky ones get worse, ultimately dying from multisystem-organ failure.”

“Maybe I should’ve brought some waterproof boots,” I say
.

S
itting on the floor of my closet back home are one such pair of high-quality, knee-high LL Bean rain boots. Too bad I didn’t think to bring them. I’m sure the barefoot street urchins that Grace and I encountered yesterday could use a few pairs as well.

“U
nless you’re planning on moving into the favela, and extending your stay through the rainy season, I wouldn’t worry about it,” says Luciano. “For your project, Emma, you’ll be entering information about local patients with leptospirosis into two databases. The first contains clinical data, such as demographics, symptoms, and outcomes; whereas the second holds the DNA fingerprints that define the strains of leptospirosis on a molecular level. Eventually, you’ll be merging the two together.”

“What happens when
I’m finished?”

“Once the data entry is com
plete, I’ll conduct the analysis. Our ultimate goal is to predict disease severity, based upon a combination of clinical presentation and strain identification. If patient outcomes are predictable, then high-risk individuals infected with virulent strains can be targeted early for more aggressive treatment, thus saving lives. Does that make sense?”

“For the most part.”

“Good. Now, let me direct your attention to the data collection sheets,” says Luciano, pointing to two, approximately eight-inch deep boxes sitting next to a computer—my computer. “It’s taken us several years to pull these together, so please be careful with them, okay?”

“I’ll try
not to drop any matches on them….I’m kidding,” I say, when Luciano gets a worried look on his face. “I don’t even smoke.”

Both boxes are filled to the brim with raw da
ta sheets. Just looking at the stacks is enough to give me a migraine. Nonetheless, this is the perfect job for me. No scalpel required means no unnecessary bloodshed—excluding paper cuts.

“So,”
Luciano says, “this project is probably too dense for a short-term medical student. Over the last four months, I’ve only gotten through half the data myself. You’re here for what—two months?”

He shrugs like the
whole thing is a bad idea.

“Walter thought you could handle
it, though.” Smirking, Luciano says, “Want me to read you his e-mail?”

The director
of New York Hospital’s infectious disease lab, Walter Jackson is also my mentor. Though I’m curious to hear what he’s written, I’m also quite shy when it comes to professional criticism. Momentarily, I’m torn between saying “yes” and hiding in the broom closet.

Luciano doesn’t giv
e me time to finalize my answer.

“‘Hel
lo, Luciano,’” he reads from a print out. “‘I know a medical student who can assist you with the leptospirosis project. Recently she helped to complete a large study on multidrug-resistant tuberculosis in New York. Don’t tell her I said so, but I think she has a photographic memory.’” 

Luciano raises his eyebrows, waiting for my reaction
. It’s a good one. Instantly my cheeks are redder than the cherry tomatoes in my father’s annual vegetable garden.

Though I don’t protest
, Walter’s assessment was much too generous. My memory is far from perfect. Were it not for my neck, I’d be forgetting my head everywhere I went. Not to mention the fact that I nearly failed art history in college, though that’s probably because I fell asleep every time they turned out the lights. In particular, I’m terrible at remembering faces, names, and which ones go with which, causing me no end of social embarrassment. At a bar mitzvah two years ago, for example, I blanked on my Great Aunt Maude’s name during a critical moment of family introductions. In years past, the woman occasionally sent a check to help with my student loans, but since that day of stunning forgetfulness, she hasn’t given me one penny. Sometimes I think I should wear a “socially handicapped” sign around my neck, to avoid insulting anyone in the future.

On the other hand, I am pretty good with recalling data
. After studying a detailed spread sheet, I can accurately regurgitate the information without a second look. If the nerd Olympics existed and data entry was a sport, I’d be a shoo-in for the American team.

“Well?” Luciano asks, when I
remain red faced and mute. “Do you think you can finish it? I really don’t want to reassign this project again after you leave.”

“No problem,” I answer in my best deadpan voice.

“Good,” he says. “You input the data quickly and accurately, and I’ll take care of the analysis.”

Drowning in
the morass of clinical data for the next two hours, I quickly regret my words. Even if I understood the medical Portuguese, which I don’t, I can barely decipher the atrocious handwriting scrawled across the endless sheets of paper. When my eyes start burning, I drop my forehead onto my keyboard.

“Need help?” Peter asks from behind.

“That…and a good whipping,” I say, turning my cheek sideways, “for being stupid enough to take this job.”

“What is
wee-ping?” asks Peter.

“You don’t want to know
,” I say, lifting up my head. “But I’d love some help.”

As we tackle the sheets
together, Peter does his best to come up with the correct English words (i.e. fever, vomiting, rash) for the Portuguese equivalents (febre, vomitos, exantema). Occasionally making eye contact and offering a shy smile, Peter seems the opposite of Luciano—sweet, respectful, and genuine—without a sleazy bone in his body. From a personality standpoint, he’s exactly the type of guy that I ought to find attractive; yet I’m surprised to find that Peter’s innocence is completely uninteresting. Dating Thomas has obviously screwed up my taste in men.

“Want to accompany me on a little trip this evening?” Thoma
s asked a few weeks before my departure.

“Sure
. Where are you going?”

“To the Vault,” he said.

“The Vault? What’s that?”

“It’s a giant safe
, where rich and famous New Yorkers store their valuables.”

“That sounds interesting,” I said
. “Is it like a museum, where you get to check out other people’s fancy clothes and jewelry?”