This Is My Brain on Boys (5 page)

“I want to be a doctor,” Mindy said.

Tess jumped in with mock dismissal. “As if that's anything to shoot for.” She and Fiona laughed, but Mindy looked confused.

“It's a compliment,” Kris said.

When she still didn't respond, he tried again in Mandarin, adding something about how being a doctor was far more noble.

“Oh!” She covered her smile. “Thank you. Yes. I've always wanted to help people.”

Tess gestured to the two boys. “And this is Sam and Jack.”

They bobbed their heads curtly. Sam pulled up the zipper of his blue Windbreaker and said, “It's noon, we should go.”

“Riiight.”
Tess glanced at Mr. Foy, who was talking to Jack. “We're supposed to have lunch with the headmaster in his private quarters. Are you coming, Kris?”

He was about to answer when Mindy said, “What about Harvard?”

“Harvard's on Friday, remember?” Tess said.

“But I have to go to Harvard today.”

Fiona put a reassuring hand on her arm. “It can wait,” she said in Mandarin. “He'll still be there.”

“I hope so.” Mindy pouted. “There's no point to this trip if we can't see each other.”

That was odd, Kris thought. Just when it crossed his mind that, perhaps, he should let someone know what the girls said, Mr. Foy clapped him on the shoulder. “I'm afraid I can't accompany you to the lab this afternoon. Go see Dr. Brooks. She has your assignments.”

Tess whipped around, red hair flying. “
You're
going to the lab?”

“I guess so.” He felt a thin film of sweat on his upper lip, a Pavlovian response to her last lashing. “And I better be going.” He checked a wristwatch that wasn't there.

“Yeah. You're almost two freckles past a hair,” she quipped. “Wait. I need to talk to you. Alone.”

Again?
“I got the message already,” he said as Foy led the students across the squishy lawn.

“This is a new and improved message,” she said. “Look, I'm sorry for being hard on you back at the airport. I was just being protective of Addie after what you and your girlfriend did to her last spring.”

He ran a hand through his wet hair. The rain had mostly stopped, but it was still drizzling. “It's okay.”

“No, it's not. I get too involved in other people's business. Ed's always telling me to butt out.”

Honestly, he was wet and cold and he just wanted to get someplace dry, even if was in Dr. Brooks's office being read the riot act. “We can talk later.” He thumbed behind him. “I have an appointment with Dr. Brooks. And if I don't make it . . .”

“Addie's not very good at reading people,” Tess interrupted, as if he wasn't speaking. “She takes things at face value.”

“Yup. I got that.” He tried stepping backward.

But Tess grabbed the sleeve of his sweatshirt and pulled him toward her. “I think she really likes you and wants you two to hang out . . . which is unusual. She's not normally that way.”

“Well, we kind of went through hell and back on that flight.” He tried wrenching free, but Tess McGrew had the talons of an eagle. “Imminent mortality has a way of bringing strangers together.”

She released him abruptly. “Yes, I know. Interesting. So you were scared?”

“Um, the plane lost an engine, there was smoke in the cabin, we dropped fifty feet in a matter of seconds, the woman next to me was giving herself last rites, and I started hyperventilating.” He pulled the hood of his sweatshirt over his head as an ominous black cloud
drifted by. “You might say I was more than uncomfortable.” What was Tess after? He felt like he was on the witness stand and she was the prosecutor.

“And how did Addie react?”

He shifted feet, trying to remember. “She read. And we talked about the brain. That's what got me through the turbulence, actually. There was something about the way she speaks that's so logical it was kind of . . .”

“Calming,” Tess finished for him. He got the impression she did that a lot. “Yeah. I've had the same experience. She's the yin to my yang or the yang to my yin. Which is it?”

“It doesn't matter. Yin balances out yang and vice versa.”

“Uh-huh.” Tess seemed lost in thought. Kris wondered if he could go without her sinking her claws into him.

Nope.

“One last thing,” she said, grabbing his sweatshirt again. “What were Mindy and Fiona talking about in Chinese?”

“Mandarin,” he corrected. “I don't know exactly. Going to Harvard, I think. There's some guy . . .”

“Oh, no. I knew it. David?”

“David? Um.” Kris scratched his head, feeling slightly uncomfortable, as if he was snitching. “They didn't mention a name.”

“The tour group leader said that under no circumstances are we to allow Mindy to meet up with David at the Harvard summer session. Their parents have both forbidden it.”

“And this is relevant to me because . . . ?”

Tess wagged a finger. “Because you better make sure that if you hear anything of a meeting with David that you tell Mr. Foy immediately. If Mindy runs off with David or whatever, it could cause an international incident. For real. Her dad's a diplomat. Like, the president would have to get involved.”

Kris almost burst out laughing, it was such an absurd concept. “Isn't she fifteen? That's a little young.”

“Sixteen next week. Haven't you read
Romeo and Juliet
?” Tess frowned when he started laughing at that. “It's not funny, Condos. You're in hot enough water as it is. If you add aiding and abetting an international kidnapping, forget ever coming back to school. Foy will throw you in prison.”

She hoisted her bag over her shoulder, flashed him one more stern look, and trudged to the administration building, leaving Kris to wonder if the entire world had gone crazy—or just him.

T
he Agnes B. Whitchurch Marine Biology Laboratory—aka the Whit—was tucked into the cliff overlooking the roiling Atlantic Ocean and happened to be exactly a 10.5-minute walk from Addie's dorm room in Wren, provided her forward progress was not impeded by unexpected, if well-intentioned, interlopers.

Tess said it was more polite to refer to them as “friends.”

An hour alone in her room, sorting, organizing, and cleaning, had done wonders to settle Addie's brain. First, she had unzipped each item of clothing from its individual Ziploc bag and placed them in drawers or hung them in the closet.

Then she arranged her toiletries by necessity and size
in her plastic caddy and took them down the hall for a quick shower to rinse off the grime of the airport. After blow-drying her hair, she combed it smooth into a ponytail and applied special sunblock to her face.

Once again, she contemplated makeup. Tess said she should at least try a little mascara and subtle eyeliner. Even just a swipe of lip gloss. Addie understood the technical advantages of these enhancements, the way they tricked the viewer's caudate nucleus into imagining that the eyes were a perfect 63.5 millimeters apart, that glossy lips created a perception of health and, therefore, reproductive potential.

Would Kris find her more attractive if she enhanced her features as a parasite-free partner? That, after all, was the purpose of blush, though perhaps not a selling point Clinique would choose in marketing its Cheek Pop line. Still, she would have to research extensively in order to select the best products, a prospect that left her feeling slightly overwhelmed.

Addie caught herself. What did she
care
whether Kris found her attractive? She hardly knew him and she definitely didn't want him as that kind of friend. Maybe in fifteen years after finishing her PhD at Oxford, but not now. Boyfriends demanded too much time and energy, every last bit of which needed to be devoted to earning a full scholarship to Harvard—or a school of similar
quality. (MIT would do in a pinch.)

Hmm. If she was developing feelings for Kris, then perhaps her amygdala had been temporarily damaged during the adrenaline rush of turbulence. She would have to review the literature. Somewhere there was an answer to her sudden interest in mascara, and if there wasn't . . . she would devise an experiment to find one.

She brushed her teeth and changed into a royal-blue tank top and white skirt. Blue was her calming color and she rarely deviated into the more alarming reds and oranges so adored by Tess, who also preferred greens, despite their tendency to trigger feelings of jealousy and envy in the subconscious of others. Addie had warned her of this, to which Tess's response had been an illogical “Excellent!”

After making up her bed, tucking the corners in tightly, she ran a tube of ChapStick over her lips, hooked her computer case over her shoulder, slipped her feet into a pair of ballet flats, and was about to head out when she spied the tiny bottle of perfume Tess had bought for her in Paris. Why not? she thought, spritzing a little on her wrist and taking a sniff.

Instantly she was transported to a flower garden of lilies of the valley. Smell was the most interesting and primal of the senses—instantly recalling the most vivid experiences: freshly cut grass on a summer day, wood smoke in winter.

She debated formulating an experiment measuring brain waves as they reacted to various scents, especially unusual smells to which those brains had never been exposed. Then again, the Whit didn't have the necessary equipment. That would be another benefit of winning the Athenian, the chance to get to use a CT scanner.

Pushing open Wren's heavy wooden front door, she crossed the quad to the stone wall that edged the cliffs and bordered the path down to the Whit. The morning's storm had swept away all the humidity and made everything green, sparkly, and invigorating.

Fierce waves crashed against the rocks below as seagulls swooped and dove into the blue-gray water. Addie inhaled the fresh sea air deeply into her lungs, since it might be hours before she was outside again. She tended to lose all sense of time when she was working in the lab and was often surprised to find when she left that day had somehow become night.

Footsteps pounded down the path. Lauren Lowes, one of the school's best field hockey players, ran past in blazing neon-green sneakers, her face bathed in sweat.

“Hey,” she said, doing a double take and backing up. “I wanna talk to you.”

“We are talking,” Addie said. “Are you okay?”

Lauren was squeezing her side and grimacing. “I've got a stitch, dammit. Sucks.”

She reminded Addie of a Russian ballerina. Slim with
blond, almost white, hair pulled into a bun, she ran with the grace of a gazelle—but displayed the manners of a long-haul trucker.

“You should exhale when your left foot lands,” Addie said. “For some reason, it prevents ERTAP.”

“What's that?” Lauren leaned against the wall.

“Exercise-related transient abdominal pain. Is that why you wanted to talk?”

“No. I wanted to ask what
you
were doing giving Kris Condos a ride?”

Addie stiffened. “You saw?”

“I was in the gazebo when you guys got out of the car this morning. I was like, what the . . .”

“Honestly, it's no big deal.” Addie flipped her ponytail in an effort to come across as unfazed. “We sat next to each other on the plane and Ed and Tess were picking me up, so . . . Yeah.” She adjusted the computer bag on her shoulder. “Are you ready for our experiments?”

At the end of last semester, Lauren had answered an advertisement Addie posted on the Academy's virtual bulletin board looking for volunteers to participate in “behavioral science studies” for extra credit. Having bombed AP Bio, Lauren was doing everything possible to bring up her GPA, including retaking the class over the summer and participating in Addie and Dex's experiment.

“I guess.” She began walking, still clutching her side. “Not quite sure what I'm supposed to do other than show up. We start tomorrow, right?”

“It depends,” Addie said, keeping pace. “We still need one more guy. That's what we're meeting with Dr. Brooks about in a few minutes. She apparently found another”—Addie reconsidered the euphemism
lab rat
—“participant. Once he agrees, we're good to go.”

“Who else is there?”

“Alex.”

“Do I know him?”

I hope not, Addie thought. “Doubtful. He's just here for the summer. I haven't met him, but Dexter has.”

Dexter had solicited (roped in) Alex Tavarez, a rising junior back at his prep school in California who was working at the Academy as a summer PC and assistant boys' lacrosse coach. He, too, was looking for extra credit. Between their athletics and difficulties with science, Alex and Lauren would make an ideal pair, a factor the Athenian Committee should appreciate when they analyzed the experiment's equanimity.

If all went according to plan, Lauren would be as equally attracted to Alex as she would be to the other volunteer at the start. Then the fascinating part would begin. Which guy she ultimately chose would depend entirely on the B.A.D.A.S.S. system. While it had worked flawlessly
on Tess and Ed, the Athenian guidelines mandated that the same result had to be replicated. If it wasn't, they were screwed.

Lauren said, “So if this guy is good to go, when should I be at the lab?”

“Let's see.” Addie took out her phone and called up her calendar. “Considering classes start at eight thirty and you most likely have some sort of athletic practice before that, I'm thinking maybe five.”

“At night? But that's dinner.”

Addie shook her head. “No. Five a.m.”

Lauren snorted. “Oh my god. You do not want to be within a ten-mile radius of me that early in the morning. I will bite your head off.”

“Well, we don't want that,” Addie said, scrolling to a different time. “How about noon?”

“That'll work. Is there going to be food? Because if I don't get something to eat by twelve thirty, I'll . . .”

“Bite my head off. Yes, I know.” Just then, Addie had a brilliant idea. “Actually, we'll give you lunch. No problem.”

“Excellent. Because I only have an hour between AP Bio and field hockey practice. If I'm doing this experiment, no way can I get to the cafeteria.”

“Your caloric intake is assured.”

With this settled, they broke apart, Addie quick-stepping to the lab and Lauren finishing her run, exhaling
purposefully with every left step.

Addie waved her key card over the scanner and a buzz signaled she had one minute to enter. After the vandalism spree, the administration had installed a state-of-the-art security system, and she was still getting used to the intimidating alarm and watchful camera eyes. It was very disconcerting.

Inside, however, the lab's foyer—with its familiar blue concrete floor and artificial tide pools—filled her with a sense of peace. She'd whiled away many happy hours in this building, peering through microscopes at ever-evolving plankton, measuring the electrical charge of frog muscles, comparing pH test strips to their charts, or simply gazing into the tank of her beloved moray eel. The Whit was her sanctuary, which was what made the break-in last spring such a violation. It was as if the lab was a church and she was a priest heartbroken over a smashed stained-glass window.

“There you are.” Dexter appeared in a pink polo shirt and madras shorts, the white-blond hairs on his legs prominent over his summer tan, which set off a sparkling new rope bracelet. “An hour behind schedule and you're procrastinating.”

“I was delayed by an interloper.” She did not dare mention the minutes she'd wasted gazing at the ocean, an activity that Dex would have dismissed as foolishly inefficient.

“Hmph.” He headed down to Dr. Brooks's office. “You need to learn to anticipate distractions and take them into account when setting your schedule. Otherwise, you'll be late—as you are now—which sends the message to others that you think your time is more valuable than theirs, which it is most definitely not.”

He was absolutely right. Even if he did sound exactly like her mother. “I'm sorry,” she murmured, hurrying to catch up.

“You'll find that I always add at least ten minutes to my itinerary to avoid this mistake.” He sniffed. “Is that . . .
perfume
?”

“A little. From Paris.”

“You know I'm allergic.” He reached into his pocket and removed a packet of prescription antihistamines, breaking open the blister pack and popping one in his mouth. He swallowed and scowled. “More inconsideration.”

“Sorry,” she said again, though she wasn't. She loved the perfume.

He uncapped a Vicks decongestant stick and shoved it up his right nostril, then the left. “That's better.” He sneezed and wiped his nose with a tissue from one of the tiny packets his mother sent him regularly. “We must hurry. Shouldn't keep Dr. Brooks waiting any longer than you already have.”

They passed his tanks of crabs toward Dr. Brooks's door on the left. When they entered, their advisor had one pair of glasses on her head and another on her nose.

“Oh, good. You've arrived, Adelaide,” she said warmly. “How was your flight?”

“Bumpy.” Addie shot a sideways glance at Dex, who was fiddling with his smart watch impatiently. “Turbulence was terrible.”

He sighed.

Dr. Brooks was a slight woman in her sixties who dressed like a college student, preferring jeans to slacks and flowing purple-and-blue batik dresses to the tweed suits so beloved by her colleagues. She wore her graying hair in long braids like an aging hippie in denial and often nibbled from a bag of granola she'd made herself.

She slipped a finger into the closed venetian blinds and peered out. “Understandable. An extremely unstable air mass passed just south of us this morning due to a cold front, causing extreme variations in temperature. Now there are updrafts.” She let the blinds fall. “Interesting to study, unless you're in it. Can be disconcerting even for the most rational of us.”

“Ahem.” Dex cleared his throat, impatiently. “Shall we begin? We're already behind.”

“If you're prepared, then yes.” Dr. Brooks perched at the edge of her desk. “I'm very eager to see how you've
progressed. This is your introduction to the committee, remember, and it bears repeating that first impressions count.”

Addie hooked up her computer, opened the pertinent file, and clicked to the first slide. All business.

Dex said, “I thought it might be valuable to begin with a quick overview of our thesis.”

Dr. Brooks nodded. “Proceed.”

“Addie and I have developed the Brain Adrenaline, Dopamine, and Amine Synthesis System—aka B.A.D.A.S.S.—based on observations that the human brain releases the same series of neurochemicals during high levels of stress as it does in the initial stages of love, i.e., infatuation. Therefore, we posit that it is possible to trick the brain, if you will, into believing it is in love by subjecting a person to trauma.”

Addie wanted to point out that, actually, she'd been the one to develop B.A.D.A.S.S. after researching cases where mere acquaintances “fell in love” after surviving tragedies—shipwrecks, the sudden deaths of friends, floods, fire, and war.

Perhaps the most striking example she found online of this phenomenon involved the supermodel Christie Brinkley, who survived a helicopter crash on a Colorado mountain in 1994 while she was married to singer Billy Joel. The helicopter dropped out of the sky and rolled
down the mountain more than 200 feet. One of the passengers was Richard Taubman, who, though being just a friend of a friend before the crash, asked Christie to marry him within two months. She accepted. They even held their wedding near the crash site where they “fell in love.” When they divorced a year later, she explained that she had mistaken post-traumatic stress syndrome for love.