“Maybe that’s the innovative new weight loss plan.”
“I am begging you to shut the fuck up.”
CHAPTER 3
The promoted story was posted under the account weightlossinnovations, the sympathetic face of the company that was running the clinical trial. Upon being directed to their website, Emmett understood why such a veneer was necessary.
“En route to Monstera BioSciences,” said the navigation system of Lizette’s SUV as she backed it out of the cramped assigned space.
“Monstera?” she erupted, shifting into drive. “Could it be any more fucking sinister?”
“So dramatic. Monstera is a plant. Your aunt Paola has like ten of them.”
“Paola is borderline psychotic, so what’s your point?”
“Okay.”
“I’m just saying, the vibes are bad. When this all goes south, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
The Monstera BioSciences headquarters were a feat of modern architecture perched on the canyon side of the Torrey Preserve, a fortress of plate glass and pristine geometry reflecting the clarity of the California sky.
After explaining their purpose to the gate attendant, they parked in the underground lot and took the elevator up to the lobby level.2,500 lbs max capacity, read a plaque below the button panel. Emmett automatically added his and Lizette’s weights in his head to be sure they wouldn’t send the carriage crashing down.
The doors whooshed open onto a lofty expanse of white walls and high-gloss concrete floors, a Frankenstein’s monster of modern art museum, office building, and Mormon temple.
The lobby’s sole concession to color seemed to be the reception desk’s emerald backdrop, a living wall of monstera boughs, fanning and supine, embellished with a tasteful profusion of palm fronds, ferns, and birds-of-paradise. They were so lush and eye-catching it took Emmett a moment to realize they were all fake.
“Good morning,” sang the smiling receptionist as he and Lizette approached, her eyes rising instantly to Emmett’s hair. “Lovethe neon.”
He absently scrunched a lock of blazing orange. “Did it last night.”
“It looks great!”
A hidden pocket of confidence burst warmly in Emmett’s chest. He’d never been brave enough to get inked, fearing how a tattoo might distort if he gained more weight, but he never tired of experimenting with his hair. A mane of poison green or electric blue, he found, conferred a feeling of armor-like protection; the wilder the color, the quicker the eye glanced off his body.
“Are you here for the Obexity session?”
“Obexity?” Lizette glanced at Emmett, skeptical.
“Sorry, is that the clinical trial?” he said.
“It is, yes. Just take the elevator up three more floors. Room 405.”
They returned to the elevator. “Still time to run,” Lizette said. This time they were joined by a couple of men in lab coats. Their presence prevented Emmett from replying that if he were inclined to run, he wouldn’t have needed the trial in the first place. He guessed the strangers’ weights and mentally summed them.
On the fourth floor they found a meeting space prepared with chairs facing a projection screen. It hardly registered in comparison to the view. Even as they signed in, their eyes strayed to the floor-to-ceiling windows.
A moment later they approached and stood before the large windows, gazing down into a vast canyon blanketed with sage scrub, wild and thorny and teeming with wildlife. “Look at that.” Lizette pointed out a coyote scavenging a carcass. “Cool.”
“Ew,” said Emmett queasily.
Nevertheless, the view demanded a selfie.
“Say self-loathing!” Lizette said.
When the seats began to fill, they peeled themselves away and squeezed into the second-to-last row. Despite the session’s target audience, the chairs were tiny and plastic with legs like toothpicks. “If I break this shit, that’s on them,” Lizette announced to the room. A couple of people laughed.
She sat, spilling over onto the chairs on each side. Emmett sat beside her, crossing his arms over his chest with his thighs pressed together.
