Lab Girl (19 page)

Of all the regrets of my life, winning that game with the string features prominently among them. My route was indeed shorter—all of sixty miles shorter than Cal's. A single hour of driving: that's what I thought I was avoiding by hurtling us headlong into the worst winter storm of the 1990s.

As we reloaded the van, Cal and Linda's eight-year-old daughter, Olivia, decorated the inside with the crayon-colored flags that she had copied from the world atlas. While we hugged goodbye, I thought briefly about how I was always leaving the few people in the world who loved me, and then I shook it off and got behind the wheel.

My job was to drive to Rawlins, Wyoming, after which Teri would take over and get us to Evanston, just near where we would cross into Utah. As I drove, I heard Bill and Teri bickering about “the deli”—Bill's name for our cooler of food, which was by now a couple of inches of cold water with baloney floating in it and a few chunks of residual ice propping up some soggy cheese. It stank so horribly that Teri was pushing for a new rule: its lid could be opened only when two or more people wanted something inside, and even then only with the windows open. I sympathized with Teri, knowing full well that the stench was hardly going to improve in the next two days, but I felt obligated to side with Bill, as he was the only one of us who was still actually eating from the cooler. Because of the fight, everyone—maybe even Noah too—was in a sour mood when we stopped at a gas station on the west side of Rawlins so that Teri could take over the driving.

While I was waiting for everyone to finish in the bathroom, I stood and stared at the horizon, noting that the sky looked awfully dark for 1:00 p.m. I could also feel the temperature plummeting as the wind picked up. Teri came out of the gas station and climbed into the driver's seat, and I asked her to tap on the horn to signal to the others that we were ready to roll.

Bill and Noah jumped into the backseats, and Teri started the engine. I was tired and bored though the day was still young, and the map that I was holding made the road ahead look flat and uninteresting. I took off my boots and put my bare feet up against the heaters on the dashboard. I thought about putting my seat belt on but then decided against it: This was the flattest place on Earth; what could possibly happen?

As we merged onto I-80, Teri pressed forcefully on the accelerator and the van sped forward as if she were joining the commuter rat race on the Atlanta beltway. I shifted in my seat uneasily but said nothing for a mile or so. The very moment that we crossed the Great Divide, the weather changed drastically and I saw flurries starting to come down.

I looked at the wet road and realized that in the next few minutes it would become slick with ice. I looked at Teri and realized that
her
plan was just to keep ramming on the gas pedal and maintain eighty miles per hour. I spoke in the calm and steady voice that I use to instruct students while they are immersed in a dangerous and complicated laboratory procedure. “Okay, so it's going to get really icy here and you're going to want to
slow way dowwww…
”

I didn't get to finish my sentence, because instead of gradually slowing down, Teri had popped on the brake and, finding the road icy indeed, slammed down even harder until the brakes locked up. When we started to slide she compensated wildly with the steering wheel, and the van began waltzing in big, swinging fishtails as it flew forward. Teri was screaming at this point, having fully lost control of the vehicle, and I realized with horror that there was no way this was not going to end in some kind of crash.

The last upright thing that I saw was the speed limit sign snapping like a Popsicle stick as the van managed to hit the one single vertical object within a ten-mile radius of where we were. We spun around and around, and when we finally slowed we were facing backward into the oncoming traffic. My terror that another car would hit us was overtaken by a sickening awareness that the van was more than leaning to one side—it had begun to tip over. I tried to brace myself against the dashboard as I felt us slowly roll sideways into the ditch, accompanied by the sickening crunching sound of metal, the clattering of plastic, Teri's high-pitched shrieks, and what sounded like the fire of musket balls that heralded the first volley of the Civil War.

I was amazed at how slowly everything seemed to be happening, like a roller coaster going over the tallest peak of the ride. My head hit the cool glass of the window and then bumped and rested against the thin felt covering of the van's ceiling. All at once we were profoundly at rest. I opened my eyes and stood up awkwardly, the ceiling now serving as the floor. The other three passengers hung upside down like parachuters, effectively suspended by their seat belts.

I commenced running back and forth on the ceiling of the van, trying to check on everyone. Miraculously, we were all uninjured, save for my bloody nose, which gushed with vigor when I started to laugh hysterically. Bill was the first to unfasten his seat belt and fall ungracefully to the ceiling, and I noted that he didn't seem much fazed by the whole thing. Noah was in the far back, morosely wiping his grungy hipster hairdo with both hands. Teri simply hung there, looking dejected.

I started to worry that the van might blow up, since this is what always happens in the movies after a crash, but I wasn't sure what to do about it. Suddenly the back doors of the van flew open and a man's voice announced, “I'm a veterinarian. Is everyone okay?”

Apparently the car behind us had watched us go into the ditch, and the driver had pulled over to help.

I could hardly contain my relief; I was ready to throw my arms around the guy and kiss him. “Hey, yeah, we're fine!” I beamed.

“Weather's getting worse. Let's get you all into town.” I looked past our new friend and saw a second set of Good Samaritans ease toward us, hazard lights flashing.

“Okay,” I agreed happily. “Let's do it!”

The men helped us out and I was the last to leave, more because I had to dig my boots out of the van's spectacularly dispersed contents than because I was the captain of our capsized ship. We jumped into their trucks in pairs and drove off toward who knew where.

We didn't know the drivers and we didn't know where we were; we didn't have any vehicle, any money, or any real plan—and I felt awesome. I was so glad to be alive that I thought my heart would burst through my chest. I was so grateful that nobody was hurt that I wanted to sing out at the top of my lungs. Whatever came next, no matter what it was, it was going to be a gift that I could never hope to deserve. I looked back as we drove away and saw Olivia's flags fluttering across the ditch and onto the road; the yellow cross of Jamaica on its field of black and green caught my eye, and I smiled as I watched it scamper off into the distance.

Twenty minutes later we were dumped off at a filling station on Spruce Street in West Rawlins. I thanked our rescuers profusely and the more I talked, the more I could sense that they just wanted to get out of there. Teri looked positively suicidal, sulking darkly on the outskirts of the group. One of the men took Noah aside and said, “Hey, don't worry about it. You've had quite a scare.” It was only then that I realized how filthy we all were. When the van had overturned, so had everything in it, including the deli. It was particularly unfortunate that one of us had failed to adequately secure the top of our two-liter bottle after use, and by the look and smell of things, I surmised that Noah had been soaked in someone's urine during the crash. I supposed that the man comforting him had assumed that the poor kid had somehow lost continence onto his own head, and I briefly contemplated setting the record straight.

Bill interrupted my thoughts. “Well, whaddya know?” he said brightly. “We've got Triple-A!” Prior to abandoning our vehicle, he had removed the gas card from the glove box and started reading its fine print. Upon hearing this news, I turned to Bill and grinned in delight. “I'll go phone and get them to yank us out of the ditch,” he said, and walked off toward the pay phone.

“Tell them we're at the Super 8,” I yelled up to him as I noticed the motel up the block. When Bill came back from the phone we picked up our backpacks and started walking to the motel. Once inside, we found that the lobby stank so badly that by comparison we had nothing to worry about.

I greeted the woman behind the counter. “Hi there. We're gonna stay here if you let us.”

“Single room is thirty-five; double room is forty-five,” she told me without looking up or removing the cigarette from her mouth.

I looked at Teri, who was clearly still in shock. “How about three rooms,” I said. “Singles for them, and he and I can share,” I added, indicating me and Bill. “Hundred and fifteen dollars total, right?”

“And tax,” the woman added.

“And tax. You bet,” I said with a smile, and timidly provided my credit card. To my surprise, she accepted it and slammed it through the manual system of pressed receipts.

“All right, this just gets better and better,” I said, and then added, “Now, who wants dinner?”

Teri was sullen. “I just want to go to bed,” she said, and I couldn't tell whether she was angry at me or at herself. I wanted to ask her if she was okay, but then I thought that maybe that wasn't the right thing to do, so I stood there and did nothing, which I also knew wasn't the right thing to do. Noah had disappeared as soon as his room key was in his hand, so Bill and I left the motel and walked down Elm Street looking for a restaurant. We found a greasy steakhouse, ordered two rib eyes and two Cokes, and ate with gusto, only then realizing how hungry we were.

The walk back to the motel was a lot like every other walk we'd ever taken together, and yet something had changed. We were like two mobsters who had killed the wrong guy; something about the whole near-fatal debacle had bound us together forever. We got back to the motel and let ourselves into our room. There was a king-size bed, with a grotesquely patterned burgundy quilted bedspread on it, covering sheets that definitely hadn't been changed. The dark-paneled walls and heavy polyester curtains reeked of smoke and sweet-smelling disinfectant. The carpet was stained and sticky enough that we kept our boots on.

It was late at night, and while my body was beyond exhausted, my mind was still on and glowing. Some bruises had started to make themselves known, and I had seen some blood in my urine when I went to the bathroom at the restaurant, but it hadn't upset me. On that night I felt like nothing in the world would ever happen again that would be worth getting upset about.

Bill and I lay side by side on the bed, staring up at the water-stained ceiling, dimly lit by the room's single desk lamp. The faucet in the bathroom dripped, marking a gentle, steady beat. After about twenty minutes or so, Bill said, “Well, it's finally happened. One of the students tried to kill us.”

The ridiculousness of it all, put that way, made me giggle. My giggle turned into a laugh. I kept laughing, until I was laughing harder and harder from deeper and deeper inside. I laughed until my stomach cramped up and I couldn't breathe properly. I laughed until I couldn't control myself and I wet my pants just a little. I laughed until it hurt so much to laugh that I was begging not to laugh while I was laughing. I laughed until it sounded like I was crying. And Bill laughed too. We laughed out our joy and thanksgiving that we had somehow cheated Death and cheated him big-time. Our great good luck was a gift from Heaven and had revealed a world that was too sweet to leave. We would have another undeserved day and we would have it together. When our laughing finally tapered off, it was because our bodies were exhausted. I rested until I began to giggle again. Then I started to laugh, and Bill laughed too. We did it all over again. We lay side by side, fully clothed, and laughed and laughed with our boots on.

Bill got up and went into the bathroom, but came out directly, saying, “Guess what, the toilet's clogged. I knew we should have grabbed the bottles as we bailed.”

“Just piss on the carpet,” I suggested. “I think that's what people have been doing.”

He reacted with disgust. “Don't be an animal. The bathtub drains just fine.” I got up and took his suggestion, and then we both lay back down, side by side, and continued to stare at the ceiling.

“You know, I feel bad about Teri,” I confessed. “She probably hates me.”

“Oh, c'mon, she should be ecstatic that she's alive,” Bill said adamantly.

“She should be glad
we're all alive,
” I added with emphasis, but I was troubled. “I'm sure she blames me for this mess. And ultimately, I guess it is my fault; I'm the one who signed her up for the conference in San Francisco.”

“You made her travel across the country for free? In order to meet the people that she'll be trying to get a job from after she graduates? Yeah, you're a bitch all right. We should have stayed in Atlanta, where I can do all her lab work for her,” said Bill, voicing a hard-edged resentment that I hadn't heard before. “She's an adult,” he continued. “Shit, she's like
thirty-five
or something; that's a hell of a lot more grown-up than we are.”

“Well, that's not saying much,” I countered. “But it's not like anybody gave a crap if I ever went to a conference back when I was a student.” I retreated into my own resentments.

“Listen, you're never going to be friends with the students, so just get that through your head right now,” Bill sighed. “You and I are going to work our asses off, teach them shit over and over, risk our fucking lives for them, and they are going to unfailingly disappoint us. That's the job. That's what we both get paid for.”

“You're right.” I played into his cynicism, but only halfheartedly. “We don't really believe that, do we?”

“No, we don't,” Bill admitted. “But tonight we do.”