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Eden

My pen tapped out the drumbeat to the earworm playing through my laptop speakers. I glanced around to make sure I was alone, then grabbed an Erlenmeyer flask and belted out the chorus into my makeshift microphone.

“I’m beeeegging you…”

With the countertop centrifuge spinning out white noise, I could imagine a stadium crowd cheering. My eyes closed, and the blinding lab fell away. I stood onstage in the spotlight.

“Eden?” came a voice from the outer hall.

I swiveled my stool toward the door, anticipating the arrival of my first fan. When Stacy came in, I bowed my head. “Thank you. Thank you very much.”

She shrugged out of her jacket and hung it on a wooden peg, unimpressed by my performance. “You’re early. How long have you been here?”

“Since seven.” The centrifuge slowed, and I pulled out tubes filled with rodent sperm.

“I’m gonna leave a bit early to head into the city and catch Micah’s show.”

She dragged a stool over. “Kelly and I are going bar hopping tonight. You should come with.”

“Pass. Why don’t you come with me? Kelly can be—”

“Kelly can be what?” Speak of the devil, Kelly stood in the doorway, phone in hand.

Mean, I wanted to say, but it was too early to start a fight. “A total guy magnet. Nobody can compete with you.”

Kelly didn’t argue and turned her attention back to the phone. 

Stacy leaned her elbow on the counter, conspiratorially talking over my head. “Eden’s going to abandon us again to go hang out with Micah.”

“At that filthy club?” Kelly’s lip curled. “But there are never even any guys there. It’s always just a bunch of moms.”

I gritted my teeth. “Micah’s fans are not all moms.” When Micah made it big, I was going to enjoy refusing her backstage passes to his eventual sold-out shows. I had faith in him.

Kelly snorted. “Oh, right. I suppose their husbands might be there, too.”

“That’s not fair,” Stacy said. “I’ve seen young guys at his shows.”

“Teenage boys don’t count.” Kelly dropped an invisible microphone and turned toward her desk. 

I’d never admit that she was right about the crowd that came out to hear Micah perform. But unlike Kelly, I wasn’t there to pick up random guys at bars. I spun a test tube like a top then clamped my hand down on it before it could careen off the counter. “Whatever. Sometimes Micah lets me sing.”

Apparently Kelly smelled blood; her voice turned singsong. “Ooh, I think Eden’s got the hots for her brother.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Kelly.” Stacy rolled her eyes and gave me her best don’t listen to her look.

“Oh, right.” Kelly threw her head back for one last barb. “Eden would never consider dating a struggling musician.”

I stiffened at the accusation. My extreme pickiness over men had made me the target of many a fail attempt to set me up, either through blind dates or dating apps. So what if I had high standards? Why should I settle when I was perfectly content on my own?

The clock on the wall reminded me I had seven hours of prison left. I hated the feeling that I was wishing my life away one workday at a time.

Thanh peeked his head around the door and saved me. “Eden, I need you to come monitor one of the test subjects.”

Inhaling deep to get my residual irritation under control, I followed Thanh down the hall to the holding cells. Behind the window, a cute blond dude sat with a wire snaking out of his charcoal-gray Dockers. Thanh instructed him to watch a screen flashing more or less pornographic images while I kept one eye on his vital signs.

I bit my pen and put the test subject through my usual Terminator-robot full-body analysis to gauge his romantic eligibility. He wore a crisp dress shirt with a white cotton undershirt peeking out below the unbuttoned collar. I wagered he held a desk job in programming, accounting, or maybe architecture. His fading tan, manicured nails, and fit build lent the impression that he had enough money and time to vacation, pamper himself, and work out. No ring on his finger. And blue eyes at that. On paper, he seemed to fit my basic mental checklist to a T.

Even if he was strapped up to his balls in wires. 

Hmm. Scratch that. If he was financially secure, why was he participating in a clinical trial for boner research? And if it wasn’t for the compensation, I didn’t want to know. Never mind.

Thanh sat next to me, punching buttons on the complex machine monitoring the erectile event in the other room. 

I stifled a yawn and stretched my arms. “Don’t get me wrong. This is all very exciting, but could you please slip some arsenic in my coffee?”

He side-eyed me. “Why are you still working here, Eden? Weren’t you supposed to start grad school this year?”

“I was.” I sketched a small circle in the margin of the paper on the table.

“You need to start applying soon for next year. Are you waiting till you’ve saved enough money?”

“No, I’ve saved enough.” I drew a flower around the circle and shaded it in. I’d already had this conversation with my parents.

“If you want to do much more than what you’re doing now, you need to get your PhD.”
I sighed and turned in my chair to face him. “Thanh, you’ve got your PhD, and you’re doing the same thing as me.” 

When he smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkled. “Yes, but it has always been my lifelong dream to help men maintain a medically induced long-lasting erection.”

I cracked a smile, but his joke barely took the edge off my mood. “I’m not sure this is what I want to do with my life. I’ve lost that loving feeling.”

“Well, then, you’re in the right place.”

I snickered at the erectile dysfunction humor. The guy in the testing room shifted, and I thought for the first time to ask. “What are you even testing today?”

“Top secret.”

“You can’t tell me?”

“No, I mean you’d already know if you read your emails.” 

“I do read the emails.” That was partly true. I skimmed and deleted them unless they pertained to my own work. I didn’t care about policy changes, management reorgs, congratulations to the sales division, farewells to employees leaving after six wonderful years, tickets to be pawned, baby pictures, or the company chili cook-off. I wasn’t well suited for corporate life.

He reached into a drawer and brought out a small vial containing a pale yellow liquid. When he removed the stopper, a sweet aroma filled the room, like jasmine.

“What’s that?”

He handed it to me. “Put some on, right here.” He touched my arm. 

I tipped it onto my finger and dabbed both my wrists. Then I waited. “What’s it supposed to do?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Do you feel any different?”

I ran an internal assessment. “Uh, nope. Should I?”

“Do me a favor. Walk into that room.”

“With the test subject?” It was bad enough that poor guy’s schwanz was hooked up to monitors, but he didn’t need to know exactly who was observing changes in his penile turgidity. Thanh shooed me on through the door, so I went in.

The erotica continued to run, but the guy’s eyes were now on me. As the machine behind me buzzed, I thought, Is that a sensor monitoring you, or are you just happy to see me?

“Uh, hi.” I glanced back at the one-way mirror, as if I could telepathically understand when Thanh would release me from this embarrassing ordeal.

The guy sat patiently, like he expected me to do something. So I reached over and adjusted one of the wires, up by the machines. He went back to watching the screen, as if I were just another technician. Nobody interesting.

I backed out of the room. As soon as the door clicked shut, I asked Thanh, “What the hell was that?”

He frowned. “I don’t know. I expected something more. Some kind of reaction.” He started to place the vial back in the drawer. Then he had a second thought. “Do you like how this smells?”

I nodded. “Yeah, it’s good.”

“Take it.” He slid it over. “Let me know if anyone comments on it.”

I shrugged and pocketed the vial, curious why Thanh was wasting his time testing aphrodisiacs. At least the perfume smelled nice.

When four o’clock finally rolled around, I swung into the ladies’ room and changed out of my suit skirt and button-up shirt. Knowing I’d be hanging with Micah in the club later, I’d packed a pair of comfortable jeans and one of his band’s T-shirts. I shook my ponytail out and let my hair fall to my shoulders. I’d taken the perfume from my lab coat, and before dropping it in my bag, I dabbed a little on my neck, breathing it in. The top note was definitely jasmine, but I went nose blind searching for the undertones.

I passed through the lab on my way out, and as I grabbed my purse and laptop, Kelly gave me a once-over. “I have a low-cut shirt in my car if you want something more attractive.”

“I’m fine, thanks,” I said, trying to sound appreciative of her uncharacteristic generosity, but our styles were wildly at odds.

But when she added, “At least let me fix your makeup. Are you even wearing any?” I heard the insult hiding in her offer.

I pretended she wasn’t bothering me. “No time. I have a train to catch.”

She sniffed. “Well, you smell nice anyway. New perfume?”

“Uh, yeah. It was a gift.” Before she could get in another jab, I zipped my computer bag and said, “Gotta go. See ya tomorrow, Stacy?”

Stacy waved without turning her head away from whatever gossip site she’d logged on to, and I slipped out the door.

As I stood on the train platform waiting for the 5:35 Northeast Corridor train to Penn Station, I heard someone calling “Hello?” from inside my purse. I fetched my phone and found it connected somehow to my mom, whose voice messages I’d been ignoring.

Foiled by technology and the gremlins living in my bag, I placed the phone to my ear. “Mom?”

“Oh, there you are, Eden. I’m making corned beef and gravy tonight. Why don’t you come by before you go out?”

I didn’t know how to cook, so my mom’s invitation was meant as charity. But since her own ineptness in the kitchen was the reason for mine, her promise of shit on a shingle couldn’t lure me from my original plans.

“No, thanks, Mom. I’m on my way into the city to hear Micah play tonight.”

“Oh. Well, we’ll see you Sunday I hope. Would you come to church with us? We have a wonderful new minister and—”

“No, Mom. But I’ll come by the house later.”

“All right. Oh, don’t forget you’ve got a date with Dr. Whedon tomorrow night.”

I groaned. She was relentless. “Is it too late to cancel?”

“What’s the problem now, Eden?”

I pictured Dr. Rick Whedon, DDS, tonguing my bicuspid as we French kissed. But she wouldn’t understand why that gave me the ick, so instead, I presented an iron-clad excuse. “Mom, if we got married, I’d be Eden Whedon.”

Her sigh came across loud and clear. “Eden, don’t be so unreasonable.”

“I keep telling you you’re wasting your time, Mom.”

“And you’re letting it slip by, waiting on a nonexistent man. You’re going to be twenty-nine soon."

The train approached the station, so I put my finger in my ear and yelled into the phone,

“In six months.” 

“What was wrong with Jack Talbot?”

I thought for a second and then placed the last guy she’d tried to set me up with. “He had a porn mustache and a Don’t tread on me tattoo. Also, he lives with his parents.”

“That’s only temporary,” she snapped.

“The mustache or the tattoo?” I thought back to the guy from the lab. “And you never know. Maybe I’ll meet Mr. Perfect soon.”

“Well, if you do, bring him over on Sunday.”

I chortled. The idea of bringing a guy over to my ridiculous house before I’d secured a ring on my finger was ludicrous. “Sure, Mom. I’ll see you Sunday.”

“Tell Micah to come, too?”

My turn to sigh. Their pride in him was unflappable, and yet, I’d been the one to do everything they’d ever encouraged me to do, while he’d run off to pursue a pipe dream in music. So maybe they hadn’t encouraged me to work in the sex-drug industry, but at least I had a college degree and a stable income.

“Okay, Mom. I’ll mention it. The train’s here. I have to go.”

I climbed aboard and relaxed, so tired of everyone harassing me. At least I could count on Micah not to meddle in my love life.