I’m seething silently as I tug open the door to the supply room. I find the pipettes and grab a handful of them, still preoccupied enough to nearly mow down Maia Diaz on her way into the supply room. Somehow I manage not to drop glass everywhere, and I mumble an apology on my way out when she stops me with a light hand on my arm.
“Lulu,” she says softly when I turn around. “You’re friends with Jek, right?”
I raise my eyebrows, wondering why everyone is so interested in my best friend this morning. “Yeah.”
“Right,” she says, nodding to herself a little. “Can I ask you something?”
I shrug and gesture for her to go ahead. She glances around the room nervously, then grips my arm and tugs me back into the supply room. I’m so caught off guard that I don’t even try to resist. I know I should really get back to Danny, but I have to admit I’m curious about what Maia has to say.
She flicks on the light and pulls the door shut. In the shadowy depths of the supply closet, I see the wall of boxes behind her, all different sizes, and all identically marked with a leafy vine creeping through a double helix—the company logo of London Chem, and our sports team, the Helices. They look like the bewitched brambles of fairy tales, and for a strange moment they almost seem to be closing in on us. I nod for Maia to get on with it before claustrophobia gets to me.
“Matt Klein’s kegger,” she says. “A couple of weeks back. Did you hear what happened to Natalie?”
I hesitate. I hate to admit I had anything to do with that kind of mindless gossip, but playing dumb won’t help. “I heard something about it, yeah,” I say with a nod.
“Look, this is kind of a big secret and I know Natalie wouldn’t want me talking to anyone about it, but there’s something weird going on and I think...I think someone should know.” She pauses. “I think Jek should know. I’m just trying to do the right thing.”
“I don’t understand. Jek wasn’t even at that party. What’s it got to do with him?”
“I don’t know, exactly,” she says. “The thing is, I never knew Jek’s real name before, but when Steve said it just now it sounded familiar. And I realized, I remembered it from Klein’s party. Natalie was really upset that night, so I took her outside to talk. I wanted her to tell me what happened, and if we needed to call the cops or go to the hospital and get a rape kit. But that guy, Hyde, he followed us out.” She shudders at the memory. “I didn’t even know what had happened between them, but he gave me a bad vibe. Creepy-looking, you know? I don’t know why she’d want to mess around with someone like that. Anyway, he called after Natalie, telling her to be reasonable, to let it drop. I told him to fuck off, but he ignored me. He just looked at Natalie and said, ‘Name your price.’”
“What?” I say, genuinely shocked. I still have no idea what this has to do with Jek, but I’m starting to have very bad feelings toward this guy Hyde. “He just...just like that? He offered to buy her off?”
“I couldn’t believe it, either. I started to tell him exactly where he could put his dirty money, but Natalie stopped me.” Maia looks down at her shoes, then glances up again. “It sounds bad,” she says. “I know. I didn’t want to believe Natalie would accept cash over something like this, but she has a point. Who’s going to believe a brown girl over a white boy when it comes to rape? You know how it goes—everyone’ll say, oh, that poor boy made one mistake and now she’s ruining his life.”
“A white boy?” I think back to Camila’s description of Hyde. “I heard he was Asian or something.”
Maia shrugs. “Looked white to me. Anyway, Natalie’s father’s been sick a lot, and her uncle, too, from the pesticides they work with. So they haven’t been able to work lately and they have all kinds of medical bills...”
“It’s okay,” I assure her, thinking of similar situations in my own family. “I understand.” Health insurance for the laborers at London Chem is a joke, and of course the company always denies that the chemicals are harmful. But it’s not like anyone has the cash for a lawyer.
Maia nods. “So, Natalie, she...she told him her price. And it wasn’t low. I thought for sure he’d drop his offer or try to bargain, but he didn’t even blink. He just took out his phone. He said all he needed was her app info, and he’d transfer it right away.”
“And she accepted the cash?”
“It was a lot of money.”
“I guess that explains why the story died,” I say, half to myself. “But I still don’t see what any of this has to do with Jek.”
“Because,” says Maia, “the name on the account that sent the money wasn’t Hyde. It was Jayesh Emerson Kapoor.”
I stare at her in the dim light of the supply closet, trying to parse what she’s telling me. “Are you sure?” I say. “That’s not possible.”
“That was the name,” she says firmly.
“Jek,” I say softly to myself. “What the hell? How’d he get access to Jek’s account?”
“That’s what I’m wondering. And I don’t want to stir up drama for Natalie if I can avoid it, but I’m worried for her. Worried that if Hyde hacked into Jek’s account or something, the money’s going to disappear and she’ll wind up with nothing. I wouldn’t put it past him.” She shakes her head in disgust. “Has Jek mentioned anything about any identity theft?”
“Not to me, but...we haven’t exactly been close lately.”
There’s a knock on the door.
“Lulu? You get lost in there?” It’s Danny. Shit, I almost forgot I’m supposed to be in class right now.
I put my hand on the doorknob, but at the last second I turn back to Maia.
“Thanks for letting me know about this. You’re right, there’s definitely something strange going on. I’ll talk to Jek about it as soon as I can.”
Assuming I can get him to talk to me.
I send a quick text to Jek on my way back to the lab bench, telling him I need to talk soon.
I’m not exactly surprised when the school day draws to a close with no reply.
Even at the best of times, Jek’s never been great about responding to texts, calls or any other method of communication. It’s frustrating, but it’s just part of his character. Even as I remind myself of this, I can’t help thinking back to what I told Maia in the supply room: We’re not exactly close these days. I surprised myself a little when I said it—I’ve never expressed that thought out loud before, though I have to admit that it’s not the first time I’ve thought it. Is it true? Or am I reading into things?
Like any well-trained scientist, I force myself to consider the evidence objectively. I don’t see Jek as much as I used to, but we’re both pretty busy with school and everything. Even though we’re both in the science track, our schedules are totally different because he does mostly chemistry, and my focus is on computing. He hardly responds to my texts and messages, but that’s not outside the realm of normal for him. I can’t remember us having any big fight recently. I worry all the time that my crush on him has made him uncomfortable, but I do try to be discreet, and if he’s put off by it, he’s never let on.
Results: inconclusive. Researcher is too close to the subject to remain objective in her analysis. As usual.
Maia’s story about Hyde has at least given me a good excuse to talk with Jek. If he’s not going to answer my urgent texts, I really have no choice but to go to his house