“I’m responsible for The Fantasy, Leelah. Everyone’s jobs. Everyone’s futures. Clara’s money. The investors’ money. My own reputation. I can’t risk it.”
She assessed me. All around us, workers laughed and chatted and devoured oversized sandwiches and coffees, enjoying the sunshine tainted by the first throat-clear of fall. But she did not look at anything but me. I was under her microscope.
For years, I’d looked at people like complex machines. Ones that I could figure out and navigate if only I could study them long and hard enough.
Was this what other people felt when I looked at them? Like they were being unraveled?
“Now, I know this is going to sound cheesy,” she began, thinking through each word before carefully releasing it like a test balloon between us. “But you are your most important experiment. One that you’ll be iterating on forever. You have a handsome, smart, thoughtful, funny—if a little personally reserved, for reasons we have yet to discover—guy who wants to spend time with you. Dating is just data. You find out what you like, what you don’t, what makes you happy,whomakes youhappy. That’sdatafor the experiment that is your life. Data that could make your time on this rock better. You don’t have to go steady with him. You don’t have to get emotionally involved. But you should let yourselftry. At least for the purposes of science.”
Her microscope intensified around me. I struggled under its white-hot light.
“Just think about it. You’d never deny yourself the opportunity to learn about anything else. Why deny yourselfthis? Especially when you can let the rest of us pick up the slack. To help you at work so you don’t have to worry so much. So you can have a real existence outside of these walls.”
I was used to people knowing more than me. About pop culture, about driving cars, about how to interact with other human beings.
I wasnotused to people knowing more about science than me. Or at least seeing science in a more accurate way.
She was right, of course. I did owe it to myself to learn. To indulge my curiosity. After all, I’d never been on a date before—or anything that evenlookedlike a date.
It was…nice to think of myself as an experiment to cultivate, to nurture, to feed and cherish.
I took such care with my experiments. Why didn’t I ever take care of myself?
Besides, Hudsonhadtaken my virginity. Why not my date virginity, too?
“And barring that,” she said, tossing a piece of gum into her mouth, “I’ve read plenty of peer-reviewed articles that say work performance significantly improves when one has fresh air and exercise. What’s mini golf if not highly concentrated fresh air and exercise, hm? You might actually beimperilingyour work projects if you don’t indulge this one little outing.”
She popped her gum. I said nothing. She did me the solid ofchanging the subject. With casual offhandedness, Leelah passed along tidbits of office gossip, pitched some ideas for a new twist on a sex machine we were brainstorming, and got in a few sharp digs about her ex-boyfriend for good measure. It was an unconventional lunch for me, but at least I didn’t look down at my laptop anymore. At least I spent a good twenty minutes handling somethingotherthan work.
That pleasant joy ended when, horror of horrors, Hudson showed up to interrupt our little luncheon.
“Hi, Scout. I—” He waved at me, then stopped when he saw that I wasn’t alone. For the first time, I got to see the subtle differences in how Hudson treated me versus other people. He was always polite to a fault, but when he saw Leelah, a veneer fell over him. It wasn’t fake, per se, but there was a shift. It was the difference between the cozy warmth of a fireplace and the artificial hum of a space heater.
“And Leelah, it’s so good to see you. How have you been?”
Leela waggled her eyebrows. “Hello, loverboy.”
Hudson tipped his head, but there was no mistaking the beginnings of a blush at the tips of his ears. I swooped in to rescue him, tossing her candy bar wrapper at her.
“Can you be somewhere else, please?” I asked.
She took the dismissal in confident stride. “Sure.” Before she left, though, she tossed Hudson a piece of her gum. Spearmint. “Take this. You’ll need it. You’re welcome, by the way.”
He blinked at her. “For what?”
“For whatever is about to happen here and whatever amazing sex you get out of it later. Ciao.”
And then, she was gone. With a flounce of her oversized Fleetwood Mac sweater, she disappeared, leaving Hudson and me alone.
“Sorry about her,” I said.
“Don’t worry about it. I interrupted.”
“No, we were wrapping up.”
“Cool.”
Everyone around us carried on their conversations. The food pop-ups slung their final meals. A fountain trickled slowly. All as if to highlight our awkward silence.
