THERE is almost always a breeze at dawn when Marnie paddleboards along the river. She likes to imagine the cool air chased away from the city toward the water, where it ducks under her board to wait out the day on the cold river rock.
Today, the water’s surface is glassy and flat. The river hasn’t yet caught much sunlight, the only evidence present in little flecks at the peaks and troughs on the ripples along the water.
This is where she comes to think.
Summer has arrived hard and deep, the only reprieve a few hours before dawn when the evening’s dark breeze has had time to settle in the space by your pillow. The cold is best and lingers longest on the river, remaining for an hour or two even when the sun has come up and the rest of the city’s temperature begins to rise.
Later, when the heat settles in, the town will glisten with wet upper lips and sweaty brows, a losing battle against the sun.
If the river weren’t so crowded Marnie would be here after work as well, but in the evening the sun blares and the river is peppered with other boards, boats, and too often, beer cans floating downstream. At dawn she has the river almost entirely to herself, a peaceful moment before a busy day.
When she was in grad school and there wasn’t a river, Marnie tried running but it didn’t suit her. Lacking a runner’s physique, she found the bulky parts of her body swayed too much from the movement, carrying her center of gravity to and fro in a rhythm that wasn’t apt for jogging. In the bikini she wears to paddleboard, her curves present in all the right ways, but they always have, filling out her clothes well, and easily drawing the attention of men. She was blessed with nice proportions, just not for running.
At work the men are a problem though they don’t intend to be. The simple fact is that there are few women working at her level in the lab. She often finds herself cornered into masculine conversations or curbing the urgency in her voice as not to appear premenstrual, a habit derived from constantly defending herself to a lazy lab partner.
Once, Marnie was caught in a current offshore and had a hard time paddling back in. She was running so late for work she put her clothes and lab coat on over her swimsuit. That day she caught more than a few sideways glances, roaming eyes that lingered too long on her chest, which the bikini didn’t support as well as her normal undergarments. Shamefully, she somewhat enjoyed it, understanding the special way in which she might control the climate around her, setting the stage for a womanly advantage. But there was a nasty undertow in such thinking and Marnie had quieted the thought. Still, she couldn’t help feeling these weren’t such progressive times; that our instincts are merely hushed, pulsing in surges just below the skin, surfacing in quiet whispers after too many drinks.
These thoughts and more crawl through Marnie’s mind as she paddles to her favorite spot along the river, some distance from the dock, to a secluded inlet where a female mallard has hatched a late clutch of ducklings. She read once that the mother’s strength will be paramount to the survival of the ducklings, so in her short’s pocket she carries two heels of bread.
Marnie eases herself into a sitting position on the board, letting her legs dangle in the cool water, and retrieves the bread from her shorts, tearing it into small pieces and tossing it in the mother’s direction.
Yesterday she sat as still as she could, letting the little family float around her pecking at insects, the group of them enjoying a quiet moment.
Today a duckling is missing and Marnie keeps looking beyond the pack of downy feathers and the mother’s nervous fluttering to see if a small body has emerged from the underbrush near the shore. But, no. The bread lands within striking distance and the mallard stabs at it, one second here, the next gone. The duck doesn’t look at Marnie but circles the spot as if looking for another piece to appear. Marnie throws more bread.
After several quick throws the group is eating quietly, skirting about and probing the water until the meal is gone. Marnie watches as the ducks begin their float away. They can waste little time now that there is no more food, no need to stay. She bids them goodbye, noting the breeze has warmed considerably in the last few minutes. She kicks her legs under the surface of the water, hoping to stir some of the cold up into the air. She wishes there were some way for her to carry it throughout the day, not just the breeze but the moment with the ducks, the easiness of the morning, the ebb and flow of life in the simple search for bread.
When the ducks have faded out of sight, Marnie leaves the inlet and travels back up the river, knowing without really knowing that it’s time to head back, time to get ready for work.
At the lab, she needs to begin working on a study to see if the antibodies in older patients respond differently to disease than in younger individuals. This particular study is approaching a deadline, funded by a grant that will need an update next month. She’s weeks behind on the research so she’ll have to put off her work, her real work, for the next month or so in order to give a full report, in order to keep the valuable grant money funneling into the lab.
She can’t help but feel one of the other researchers should be working on this project. It’s simple and straightforward enough for a research assistant, but for some reason it was handed off to her. Marnie thinks it’s because she’s a woman. She tries to tell herself it isn’t true, that she’s being oversensitive or simply begrudging a boring task, but she can’t shake the idea that Thomas, the newest assistant, who is more than capable of the job and whose only other responsibility at the moment is culturing cells for other researchers, should handle the task. She isn’t looking forward to the days and weeks of micropipetting, repeating the same procedure over and over, testing blood from the hundred or so older patients and then repeating the process for the younger group. She’ll then comb through the data for relevant conclusions, statistical significances that will give her work merit… or not. Marnie knows, based on what she has learned from analyzing anti-body titers in the past, not to mention countless studies in grad school, what the outcome will be. The grant study is simply a scientific redundancy. Producing data for a query that has already been answered. She laughs to herself thinking about how many labs in the world conduct research like this, re-proving facts as an act of petty validation. Look how many papers we’ve published. Oh, you didn’t know? Omega-3s are essential for heart health. Yes, we did a study on that just this year. She feels like the pretty girl in class making a comment about her thighs, and then, coyly, waiting for her classmates (preferably one of the boys) to remark otherwise. She’ll be annoyed though, if this is the only paper she gets out this year. She feels like she’s really onto something in the bigger lab, where she probes viral cells for evidence of a cure that she’s convinced lies just below the surface. She knows that somewhere in the endless combination of patterns and blueprints, in proteins and DNA, there is an answer she’s close to reaching.
She can imagine her classmates from grad school smirking over Scientific American, sipping coffees together, unable to stop themselves from making snarky comments about how Marnie boasted about joining the lab, how she beamed at graduation with pride.
Very important work, they’ll say. An anti-body assay for tetanus!
She can hear their laughs now.
It’s just like anything else, she thinks. This grant money helps fund other, more important research. I conduct this study in order to complete my real work. A little duck dies to feed a bird of prey.
Still, a pang.
Marnie replaces the thought with the sound of her paddle hitting the water and focuses on the beads of sweat forming on her chest and brow. As she approaches the dock where she launched earlier that morning, the sun pops up from behind the city’s silver buildings.
Morning has arrived.
• • •
Marnie turns down the long road to the lab, miles away from her beloved river and toward the big gates of the Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute. Outside, the same group of Monday protesters is present, their angry and misguided signs pleading with researchers to stop the inhuman treatment of monkeys.
Marnie wants to tell them primate research represents a very small part of the campus where they protest. For example, her work has nothing to do with primates. Furthermore, the treatment of the monkeys at the center is carefully regulated and is among the best in the country. The majority of the macaques sit on big dirt mounds in a large outdoor compound, sunning themselves throughout the day. They eat well and receive excellent medical care. Their lives represent something more akin to a zoo than some amoral wing in the house of Dr. Moreau. Some of the groundskeepers even know the birthdays of various monkeys and celebrate their favorites; usually the older males who are so used to people they nuzzle up to the bars for carrot sticks or a scratch on the head when you walk past.
Animal behavioralists come from time to time, but not to protest. Instead they’re ushered toward the compound, the groundskeepers beaming the whole time as they point out their favorite monkeys, then the troublesome youngsters and their subordinate siblings. The behavioralists sit on top of tall viewing towers watching the group of macaques for hours at a time. Mothers corralling babies away from dominate males, sisters stepping in to raise each other’s young; a microclimate of complex living. The monkeys are there for research but they’re mostly given benign vaccines and shots in order to gauge how their bodies are responding via twice-monthly blood draws. There is an occasional necropsy conducted for some of the larger, more important studies, but don’t the protesters understand how important the data derived from these studies can be? And don’t they know this type of science is the exception rather than the rule?
But Marnie is a woman of science. She understands the delicate balance between what is right and what is necessary, and she’s been in far too many several-drinks-deep conversations at bars and dinners with people who see otherwise—the second anyone mentions animal testing they see red.
She turns her head away from the protesters, desperately wanting to mock the woman in the tall boots for wearing leather of all things to an animal-rights protest. She hands her security badge and clearance ID to the guard before pulling into the parking lot at the lab.
Inside, the air is cool and sterile. The sticky heat of the outdoors and the group of protestors fade to nothing behind the loud hum of the ventilation system. Marnie’s shoes are still a little dusty from the riverbed and with each step along the white-tile floor she leaves flecks of brown trailing behind in diminishing amounts. Her shoes are almost clean as she turns the corner into her lab’s computer room, which also serves as the office.
The rhythm of her day is normal. After answering emails she stops by the cafeteria for coffee and a muffin, chats up some of the other researchers, and lofts a smile in the direction of the center director, hoping to imprint herself on his mind, before heading down the hall to her desk and the adjoining lab space.
She is the first person in her lab to arrive and prefers it this way. In grad school, pods of students swarmed from area to area while working, but Marnie was always better working alone.
At the computer she doesn’t open the file containing her project but instead eyes the calendar for the grant due date and does some quick math to see how many days her very dull task will require: fifteen lab days and another three for the write-up, at least. She tries to corral her mood with some music and settles down into the dry, solid feeling that accompanies a long and unavoidable chore. She prepares the assay trays and thinks of the water and then of the ducklings, and already her mind is in a calmer place.
By afternoon the lab is buzzing. Whirring machines, shuffling feet, and discussions over lab benches make up the pulse of the workroom. Marnie’s focus is on her assay trays and the consistency required to effectively use the multichannel pipette. Her task is dull enough as it is, at the very least she can minimize standard deviations so nothing needs to be repeated.
The fume hood’s ventilation is just enough that she doesn’t hear the commotion of others finishing up and leaving the room. Only after she labels and stacks her trays does she realize that she’s alone.
In the hallway outside the workroom Marnie catches Kevin leaving the P3 lab. His face has the unmistakable red marks that come from wearing goggles too tightly, and for too long. He was probably inside for hours.
“You coming?” he asks.
“To what?” she says. “I think I missed something.”
“Beers and cake in the lobby,” he says with his streaked face. “It’s Ellen’s last day. ”
Ellen is one of only seven other women at the institute. She works in the Slifka lab next door and occasionally Marnie sees her in the restroom or at building events. Marnie had completely forgotten about the party. It’s possible, she thinks, she was never told.
“I’ll be right there,” she says scanning her memory for a conversation with Ellen about leaving the lab. Ellen has been with the institute for years and is one of the most highly regarded women in her field.
Her enviable career sears hot inside Marnie, who is eager to learn more about the job and also, the possible opening next door.
In the common room, lab techs, researchers, and program directors mill around a table, which is sparsely decorated with plastic linens, a small cake, and a cooler of beer.
Marnie heads to the cooler.
She finds Kevin drinking happily near the table. He’s a nice enough guy—unmarried, uncomplicated, unattractive. He also works in the Slifka lab.
“I didn’t know Ellen was leaving,” says Marnie. “What position did she take?”
Kevin takes a swig of his beer and gives her a confused look. “She’s not leaving for a new position, she’s taking permanent leave.”
Marnie stares blankly.
“She got married two years ago and wants kids. It hasn’t been working so she and her husband are doing IVF. No time to waste at her age.” He lifts his beer, “Tick-tock” he says and takes another swig.
It occurs to Marnie in most other work environments a woman’s fertility wouldn’t be common knowledge. However in the lab, science of any kind, even personal, is often openly discussed.
Marnie can hear the incredulousness in her voice when she says, “She’s leaving the lab to go home and start a family?”
Kevin smiles and nods. “Do you have kids?”
Her words come out cold. “I don’t.”
Throughout the party, Marnie eyes Ellen, the happy epicenter of the gathering. She inspects her face for signs of resignation, anything to indicate her decision to leave is somehow forced or unwanted, or in anyway wrong. Instead Marnie’s examination is met by Ellen’s bright and happy smile. She is a woman completely at ease.
Across the room Thomas the lab assistant is telling some researchers a story. His motions are slow and labored, his face is long. Marnie is drawn to his sorrowful gestures. A little tipsy, she heads over to listen.
The group regards her, but the focus is on Thomas. The story he is telling is this:
Today was his first day downstairs. There are several rooms on the basement floor that serve as the laboratory for testing mice. Thomas had been given the opportunity to view the research with Hans, the program manager, an occasion normally reserved for only those scientists employed in the study. This particular research is mapping viruses through the liver cells of infected mice. Upon witnessing the mice, many of which were being were sacrificed for data, Thomas threw up on the laboratory floor.
His audience is sympathetic. The researchers are dog and cat owners. One of them grew up around horses. Hans himself owns a pet rat named Dumbo. “So much smarter than you think,” he tells Thomas.
A researcher tells the group he went into science to become a veterinarian.
The conversation takes its turn, each person weighing in. They tell Thomas he is not alone. The ethics are difficult. They all understand.
Marnie says, “I have some ducks,” wishing she were on the river now instead of enduring Thomas’ naivety. “A duckling died recently. I think it was a hawk.”
Thomas is silent. His eyes are wet. “I don’t think I can work here anymore,” he says and heads to the men’s room.
“What did he expect?” Marnie asks, a question that goes unanswered from the group. Many of them, Marnie included, applied to work at the institute specifically because of its notoriety in cancer research, research that was developed using genetic sequencing in mice. Although her study isn’t cancer-related, simply being associated with the Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute is highly regarded. Every sideways glance and jealous remark from her grad school classmates was worth working in this lab. Everything she had done to get here was.
As she watches someone from the group head after Thomas she catches the gaze of the center director, who is handing out slices of cake near the table. She locks eyes with him, perhaps a second too long, and he holds up a paper plate. His toothy grin and boyish eyes are offering her a slice if she’ll come talk. She does.
Everyone around the table, including the director, seemed to be as buzzed as Marnie.
“Cake!” says the director handing Marnie a large slice.
She gestures to her stomach and holds up a hand. “Just a small one. It will take ages to burn off.”
He makes a face. “Enjoy the cake,” he says thrusting the piece back at her. “Worry about it later. When your cholesterol is too high or when you’re trying to lose the baby weight.”
Marnie laughs. “Sounds like better advice for Ellen.”
The director licks some frosting from his thumb and looks up at the guest of honor. Marnie follows his gaze, meeting his eyes when they’re back.
He leans in, smiling. “You’re not wrong.”
She takes a demur bite. “All those trans-fats articles. It’s all I see when I look at this thing.”
“Then look at this,” he says handing her a piece of paper from his back pocket.
It’s the write-up for Ellen’s job in the lab.
“Interested?” he says.
Marnie is speechless. Everything, her whole world, has been waiting for a move in this direction. “You have no idea,” she says.
“Then grab me another beer. I have to give this going-away speech, but then you’re all mine.”
• • •
The night air is hot and thick and suffocates any clear thoughts from Marnie’s mind. The air conditioning in her car is too much like the air inside the lab, so she rolls down the windows. The sound of the passing landscape is white noise.
She focuses on the road ahead, feeling her clothes sticky on the leather seats. Her head swims from the drinks, from too many thoughts. The busy feeling inside her is a vacant one; she can find no facts to land on. The road to Marnie’s home is behind her. This road, the new one, leads to the director’s house.
Their discussion was professional. He knew Marnie was an ambitious woman—his words—and she’d agreed. There was a long discussion regarding Ellen’s research and the paper Marnie was hoping to publish after the grant study was complete. When the director asked her what she had worked on that day, she told him about the assay trays. He understood. She was above it. He was on her side.
He told her he wanted to replace Ellen with a woman who had a similar skill set. “We worked very closely together,” he said. Then, later, “Perhaps we should go over this in more detail at my house.” His face and smile had betrayed nothing. There was no hand on her thigh, no inappropriate language. But there was a suggestion. It was something.
Marnie is parked in the dark outside his home. The lights are on inside. She can see him in the kitchen opening a bottle of wine.
Back at the lab there are monkeys and mice. Somewhere along the river the mother and her ducklings are floating. Marnie thinks about the sacrifice, the lifting and pulling of life.
• • •
The dawn is cool but holds the promise of a sweltering day. Marnie’s paddle hits the water in rhythmic motions as she makes her way down the river. The sun is lifting above the horizon, but a haze hangs over the day. The sky is vast and washed out, Marnie can feel it breathing down on her.
When she reaches the inlet the mother and the ducklings are there, skirting about in their quiet way. Marnie throws bread and counts the ducklings, pleased to see no more are missing.
Yesterday was such a strange day, she thinks. Today, it seems, the balance is restored. Even the color is returning to the sky. Above her, streaks of blue begin to appear behind a grey sheet; a strong breeze catches the tops of the trees. Marnie closes her eyes and waits for the breeze to hit the river and then her face. She drinks in the cool air, filling her lungs with it.
When she opens her eyes she spots a piece of color among the tall, bleached-out reeds the wind has parted near shore. Feathers.
Easing herself into knee-deep water, she pushes her board onto the small bank in the cove and steps onto shore. Her presence in the water causes the ducks to dart away but she can hear their fluttering close by.
The wind picks up into a solid burst and the reeds beat sharply against her skin. There, just a few feet from the water lying in the grass is the baby duckling. His beak is twisted, his leg caught in a tangle of plastic.
Marnie lifts the little bird from the ground, acknowledging how truly small it feels in her hands.
She looks at the ducks in the water. The mallard floats along looking for bugs and bread, oblivious to the death of her duckling. She can’t be bothered to worry about the lost one, not with so many others still breathing.
Marnie chokes on the feeling inside her chest and sits on the ground to catch her breath. The dead duckling is still in her hands. She works its body free from the plastic and tries not to picture its struggle on shore while its mother and siblings floated so happily nearby.
She looks out across the water, the sun growing high in the sky, and begins to cry. Her sobs are heavy and hard and she lets them pour out of her until there is nothing left inside.
The hour is late. At the lab work has already begun, but Marnie stays by the river. She doesn’t think she can go back to that place.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kim Winternheimer's writing has appeared in The Rumpus, Lightspeed, Tin House, The Oregonian, Necessary Fiction, Flavorwire, theNewerYork, and Gigantic Magazine, to name a few. She is the founding editor of The Masters Review, a publication focusing on new and emerging writers.
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LF #072 © 2014 Kim Winternheimer. Published by Little Fiction | Big Truths, October 2014.
