Nothing happens all day except that I finish the first half of the current project and the test runs all come out clean. After lunch, Cameron tells me that the local autism society has posted a meeting at the Center about the research paper. He is going. He thinks we should all go. I had not planned anything this Saturday other than cleaning my car, and I go to the Center almost every Saturday morning anyway.
On Saturday morning, I walk over to the Center. It is a long walk, but it is not hot this early in the morning and it makes my legs feel good. Besides, there is a brick sidewalk on the way, with two colors of brick — tan and red — laid in interesting patterns. I like to see it.
At the Center, I see not only people from my work group but also those who are dispersed elsewhere in the city. Some, mostly the older ones, are in adult day care or sheltered workshops with a lot of supervision and live in group homes. Stefan is a professor at the smaller university here; he does research in some area of biology. Mai is a professor at the larger university; her field is in some overlap of mathematics and biophysics. Neither of them comes to meetings often. I have noticed that the people who are most impaired come most often; the young people who are like Joe Lee almost never show up.
I chat with some of the others I know and like, some from work and some from elsewhere, like Murray, who works for a big accounting firm. Murray wants to hear about my fencing; he studies aikido and also hasn’t told his psychiatrist about it. I know that Murray has heard about the new treatment, or for what reason would he be here today, but I think he does not want to talk about it. He doesn’t work with us; he may not know it is near human trials. Maybe he wants it and wishes it were. I do not want to ask him that, not today.
The Center isn’t just for autistic people; we see a lot of people with various other disabilities, too, especially on weekends. I do not know what all of the disabilities are. I do not want to think about all the things that can be wrong with someone.
Some are friendly and speak to us, and some do not. Emmy comes right up to me today. She is nearly always there. She is shorter than I am, with straight dark hair and thick glasses. I do not know why she has not had eye surgery. It is not polite to ask. Emmy always seems angry. Her eyebrows bunch together, and she has tight little wads of muscle at the corners of her mouth, and her mouth turns down. “You have a girlfriend,” she says.
“No,” I say.
“Yes. Linda told me. She’s not one of us.”
“No,” I say again. Marjory isn’t my girlfriend — yet — and I do not want to talk about her to Emmy. Linda should not have told Emmy anything, and certainly not that. I did not tell Linda Marjory was my girlfriend because she is not. It was not right.
“Where you go to play with swords,” Emmy says. “There’s a girl—”
“She is not a girl,” I say. “She is a woman, and she is not my girlfriend.” Yet, I think. I feel heat on my neck, thinking of Marjory and the look on her face last week.
“Linda says she is. She’s a spy, Lou.”
Emmy rarely uses people’s names; when she says my name it feels like a slap on the arm. “What do you mean, ‘spy’?”
“She works at the university. Where they do that project, you know.” She glares at me, as if I were doing the project. She means the research group on developmental disabilities. When I was a child, my parents took me there for evaluation and for three years I went to the special class. Then my parents decided that the group was more interested in doing research papers to get grant money than in helping children, so they put me in another program, at the regional clinic. It is the policy of our local society to require researchers to disclose their identity; we do not allow them to attend our meetings.
Emmy works at the university herself, as a custodian, and I suppose this is how she knows Marjory works there.
“Lots of people work at the university,” I say. “Not all are in the research group.”
“She is a spy, Lou,” Emmy says again. “She is only interested in your diagnosis, not in you as a person.”
I feel a hollow opening inside me; I am sure that Marjory is not a researcher, but not that sure.
“To her you are a freak,” Emmy says. “A subject.” She made subject sound obscene, if I understand obscene. Nasty. A mouse in a maze, a monkey in a cage. I think about the new treatment; the people who take it first will be subjects, just like the apes they tried it on first.
“That’s not true,” I say. I can feel the prickling of sweat under my arms, on my neck, and the faint tremor that comes when I feel threatened. “But anyway, she is not my girlfriend.”
“I’m glad you have that much sense,” Emmy says.
I go on to the meeting because if I left the Center Emmy would talk to the others about Marjory and me. It is hard to listen to the speaker, who is talking about the research protocol and its implications. I hear and do not hear what he says; I notice when he says something I have not heard before, but I do not pay much attention. I can read the posted speech on the Center Web site later. I was not thinking about Marjory until Emmy said that about her, but now I cannot stop thinking about Marjory.
Marjory likes me. I am sure she likes me. I am sure she likes me as myself, as Lou who fences with the group, as Lou she asked to come to the airport with her that Wednesday night. Lucia said Marjory liked me. Lucia does not lie.
But there is liking and liking. I like ham, as a food. I do not care what the ham thinks when I bite into it. I know that ham doesn’t think, so it does not bother me to bite into it. Some people will not eat meat because the animals it came from were once alive and maybe had feelings and thoughts, but this does not bother me once they are dead. Everything eaten was alive once, saving a few grams of minerals, and a tree might have thoughts and feelings if we knew how to access them.
What if Marjory likes me as Emmy says — as a thing, a subject, the equivalent of my bite of ham? What if she likes me more than some other research subject because I am quiet and friendly?
I do not feel quiet and friendly. I feel like hitting someone.
The counselor at the meeting does not say anything we have not already read on-line. He cannot explain the method; he does not know where someone would go to apply to be in the study. He does not say that the company I work for has bought up the research. Maybe he does not know. I do not say anything. I am not sure Mr. Aldrin is right about that.
After the meeting the others want to stay and talk about the new process, but I leave quickly. I want to go home and think about Marjory without Emmy around. I do not want to think about Marjory being a researcher; I want to think about her sitting beside me in the car. I want to think about her smell, and the lights in her hair, and even the way she fights with a rapier.
It is easier to think about Marjory while I am cleaning out my car. I untie the sheepskin seat pad and shake it out. No matter how careful I am, there are always things caught in it, dust and threads and — today — a paper clip. I do not know where that came from. I lay it on the front of the car and sweep the seats with a little brush, then vacuum the floor. The noise of the vacuum hurts my ears, but it is quicker than sweeping and less dust gets up my nose. I clean the inside of the windshield, being careful to go all the way into the corners, then clean the mirrors. Stores sell special cleaners for cars, but they all smell very bad and make me feel sick, so I just use a damp rag.
I put the sheepskin back on the seat and tie it snugly in place. Now my car is all clean for Sunday morning. Even though I take the bus to church, I like to think of my car sitting clean in its Sunday clothes on Sunday.
I take my shower quickly, not thinking about Marjory, and then I go to bed and think of her. She is moving, in my thoughts, always moving and yet always still. Her face expresses itself more clearly to me than most faces. The expressions stay long enough that I can interpret them. When I fall asleep, she is smiling.