Out of Reach (3 page)

She stood elegantly, head down, leaning over
the countertop. From my vantage point, a heated discussion was
being waged between two of the men directly behind her. That’s when
it happened.

The look on her face was a potent mixture of
intolerable rage and passion. It’s not a combination I’d ever seen
cross the face of one so lovely. To the rest of the group, it would
have looked as if she smacked the empty pop can with her hand,
sending it sailing through the air. But her hand never left the
table.

The power she’d used to send that can
spinning out of control wasn’t physical. Even she didn’t appear
aware of what had transpired. I watched, teeth clenched, a chill
creeping down to the base of my spine, hoping to witness another
display of her power. But the only other event I was privy to that
night was the tongue-lashing of the century as she publicly dressed
down her arguing constituents. She could give lessons to a drill
sergeant.

The next day I enrolled as a student at
UCSD, integrating myself into her world, tracking her every move,
knowing she may be our only hope. There is power in her but a
physical manifestation of that power has never occurred again,
which is why my brothers doubt my sanity, perceiving my continued
surveillance of Gwen as a colossal waste of time.

“Fuck me, will you look at that!”

Jolted from my reverie, the Yukon swerves
slightly as I quickly overcorrect, startled by Z’s sudden
outburst.

“What!” I scream at him.

“Soccer mom at two o’clock. Do you see it?
Kade, do you see it?” Straining to see around my agitated partner
is futile. I’d have better luck staring through a stone wall. Z’s
exasperation is being projected as a full body fit, his arms and
hands gesticulating wildly.

“See what, you oaf! I can’t see anything
when you’re dancing around in the seat like that,” I holler at
him.

Leaning back against the headrest, he points
out the window to the blue minivan in the next lane.

“Right there on the bumper ... ‘Never drive
faster than your guardian angel can fly.’” Reading the sticker, I
glance back at Z.

“So? She isn’t exactly speeding.”

Checking the odometer I estimate the van’s
speed to be about sixty-five miles per hour. Smacking himself in
the forehead, Z laughs.

“Guardian angels, ha! What a load of
horseshit. When’s the last time you saw an avenging angel out
protecting humans?!” He let the rhetorical question hang in the air
a brief second before carrying on.

“I’ll tell you when, never. Frankly I don’t
think they fancied God’s pet sheep any more than the rest of us
did.” Slumping down in the captain’s chair next to me, Z rambles
on.

“And where are they now, you ask? That’s
right, they’re gone. And who did they leave to do the dirty work,
Kade?” Jabbing a beefy thumb into the center of his chest, he
answers, “That’s right, us. Oh wait, I forgot it was a divine
blessing to be named Earth’s Janitors.”

Running a hand through my hair I take a deep
breath. “Are you finished?” I shoot an exasperated look at
Zafir,

“I know my history, Z. I don’t care for the
angels any more than you do.”

“Angels ... meddling assholes. Who needs
them.”

Gwen

I look up from my workbench and scowl. My
eyes hurt; I’ve been absentmindedly staring at the semi-reflective
sheen of the table top for the last several hours. Originally I’d
been reviewing my notes, but why bother really—I know they aren’t
about to yield any new clues to my current dilemma. The tabletop,
on the other hand, is stainless steel and has a fascinating way of
reflecting the brilliant fluorescent lights. I am closer to going
blind from those lights than I am to solving the equation in front
of me.

Putting my pen down, I let my gaze travel
around the lab, my lab. Two thousand square feet of perfectly
ordered and maintained equipment. We’re talking state of the art. A
nerd at heart, the sight always brings a smile to my lips, although
today, sadly, my grin doesn’t extend any farther than that.

To be completely honest, I share the lab, as
well as the leadership responsibilities of my 15-member team, with
Joe. An experienced, patient, and brilliant chemist, Joe makes an
excellent partner and I’ve learned a lot. Still, I consider it my
lab. We’ve been working together for almost a year now. It’s the
company’s way of mentoring younger project managers, while letting
older managers know their days are numbered and they should be
thinking about retirement in the near future. Joe’s patience is
what I wish I had a little bit more of these days. While I have
refrained from actually throwing equipment across the lab, mentally
I have broken a lot of windows recently.

The last three years of my life have been
devoted to the drug research and development department of
Preston-Ward Pharmaceuticals. While one of the smaller companies in
the game, Preston-Ward still ranks among the leaders in drug
development for genetic disorders and degenerative diseases. To a
glorified geek like me, the whole gig sounded sensational from the
get-go, right down to the white lab coat and glasses.

Ha!
I think to myself.
If I only knew
then what I know now—no job is as good as it seems on
paper.

They always forget to mention the pitfalls,
like while you will be screening hundreds of new or modified
compounds each year, only one or two may show enough potential to
move into the drug development and testing phase, from there a mere
handful will possess the promise to move into human trials and then
maybe one day make it to the drug market. Over-achiever that I am,
I assumed I’d have cancer cured by now, or at the very least
irritable bowel syndrome (for my grandmother).

It irks me that I can still recall with
perfect clarity the elation I felt the day I got the call offering
me a job at Preston-Ward.

Despite having finally finished my doctoral
program at Boston University and officially becoming Gwen Matthews,
Dr. Smarty Pants, I had no job prospects and no idea if I wanted to
continue living in Boston, move back home to California, or travel
the world. For the summer, I had been working on campus, having
begged a former genetics professor to take me on in his lab.
Grudgingly I had forced myself to submit a few job applications,
mostly to labs around town, all of which had been recommended by
Kade, a friend from undergrad, but nothing had come of it. One of
my problems was that I looked great on paper but had no real work
experience. School had been my job for a long time, and I had
excelled at that. Probably my biggest problem was I wasn’t excited
about any of the jobs and nothing kills an interview like an
apathetic applicant.

So there I was drinking coffee and hoping
for divine job inspiration from my Internet search when my purse
started vibrating. Fishing out my phone, I managed to answer before
it went to voicemail.

“Hello. This is Gwen ... Uh huh … Thank you
... Uh huh ... I would love to ... Yes ... Yes, I’m looking forward
to it.” And just like that I had accepted my first job at
Preston-Ward in sunny San Diego.

Not twenty seconds later I was on the phone
again. “Hello, Melanie? It’s Gwen. Pack your bags, girl, ‘cause
you’re helping me move home to California.”

“You got the job!” she screamed.

“Yup, I got the job.”

Truth be told, my application to
Preston-Ward was a fluke. One night, just after graduation, my
then-roommate Stephanie had been helping me complete online job
applications. On a whim, she had sent out several applications for
high profile jobs like the one at Preston-Ward, jobs that I was in
no way qualified for but she thought sounded cool. I never imagined
I’d be considered as a serious candidate for any of those
positions, but Preston-Ward had called a week later to set up a
phone interview with me.

Two weeks after accepting the position,
everything I owned was stuffed into the back of my car and well,
the rest is history.

“Hey, Gwen.”

Pulled from my thoughts, I look up to find
Joe gesturing for me to join him at the central worktable.

“Coming.” I grab my pen and drag myself
across the floor to see what all the fuss is about.

“We’ve managed to maintain stability for
five minutes and counting,” Joe announces with a smile. I laugh
when I notice he’s also got his fingers crossed behind his back.
Catching on to the guy’s enthusiasm, I reach for the plate.

“Okay, let me see.”

I no more than put my hand
on the plate when the briefly stable compound begins to break down,
and then vaporize completely.
Ugh
, I think to myself.

“Sorry, guys, I must be bad luck.”

“I just don’t understand it!” Joe exclaims.
“It shouldn’t be this hard to maintain stability at room
temperature.”

“Well, we can always market it as a freezer
pop,” I say.

Laughing, Joe looks at me. “I can see the
headlines now: ‘Two children dead after ingesting Grandma’s
Alzheimer’s medication because they thought it was an Otter
Pop.’”

I shrug. “Okay, so frozen food marketing is
out.”

Continuing around the counter, I head back
to my workstation, grab my spiral-bound notebook, and rejoin Joe
and Charlie.

“Tomorrow we are going to have to review our
available stabilizing agents again.” Meeting Joe’s eyes, I
continue, “I know what you’re thinking, but everything else about
the technique looks sound, and Charlie’s a pro.”

This earns me a half smile from our head
technician. I rarely give out praise. It’s not that I’m a bitch, or
don’t believe in giving credit where it’s due—I just expect
excellence from everyone, myself most of all.

“Right then!” Joe continues raising his
voice to be heard above the hum of equipment. “Gather up,
everyone.”

Through the converging
bodies and over the scraping sound of chairs being pushed around, I
glance over at Joe, eyebrow raised, and flash him my
You’ve got this!
look.
He nods, shooing me away with his hand, and proceeds to begin our
evening staff meeting. It’s become a habit since Joe and I started
working together. Every day at 4:30p.m., thirty minutes before
quitting time, we regroup to review our progress and strategize for
the next day. It was actually an exercise recommended by management
for Joe and I because of some difficulties we had working together
in the beginning. When I started at Preston-Ward, I worked in Lab
1A under another team leader. When I was elevated to my current
position last year, I moved into Joe’s lab, 4B. He and I had never
worked together before and we both had our own way of doing things.
I didn’t delegate or communicate well in the beginning. I worked
independently and, by the end of the first week, Joe realized I was
completing tasks he had either delegated to a technician or was
working on himself.

I had to learn to become a team player, and
fast. So we started meeting in the mornings to discuss our current
project and outline who was going to do what, then we would regroup
at 4:30p.m. to map out what needed to be done the next day. It
worked so well we started involving the whole team, and now it’s
become a daily ritual.

But today I’m done. I linger in the lab long
enough to clean up my things and then head back to my office. I
know Joe has everything in order and there’s nothing new for me to
contribute. Exiting the lab, I hang a right and head straight
toward the elevator. I slip inside the second the doors open and
enjoy a silent respite on the short ride down. The office floor is
busy. People are scrambling to complete last minute details so they
can head home for the day. I bypass the commotion unnoticed, round
the first corner, and enter the sanctuary of my office.

While I may share a lab, I
do not share an office, and right now the quiet atmosphere is very
inviting. I hang my coat on the hook behind the door, cross the
carpet, and set my notebooks neatly on my desk. After kicking my
ugly clogs under the desk, I rest my head in my hands for a moment
and close my eyes. Over and over I remind myself,
You are near a break-through; you are near a
break-through.

Halfway through my mental pep talk, Melanie
bursts through the office door, disrupting the peace. I slit one
eye open and peek up at her from my chair. She has a huge grin on
her face. In my frustrated and exhausted state, I hadn’t completely
forgotten what day it was, but I was having trouble channeling
enough energy to put on my fun face for the evening’s festivities.
On the second Monday of every month, the gang from work heads over
to McClaren’s after clocking out. It’s a sports bar and I love it
because it’s loud and there’s always a game of some kind playing
for people to focus their attention. The noise helps me to fly
under the radar on days I don’t feel like talking.

“You don’t look ready to go,” Melanie
chirps, still smiling. I rise from my desk and head toward my
private bathroom.

“I just need five minutes. Can you grab my
shoes? They’re in the bottom left desk drawer. I’ve got a pair of
jeans stashed in the bathroom,” I explain. I halfway close the door
then slip out of my slacks and wiggle into my jeans. Nudging the
door open, Melanie leans in and hands me a pair of black sling
backs.

“Here you go.”

“Thanks,” I say, grabbing the shoes and
sliding into them. Instantly I feel better. There is just something
about heels: cute in their own right, yes, but they also give you a
daring edge. I love how heels turn bleh and frumpy into glamorous
and sexy.

I open my make-up bag just as Melanie begins
to monologue, describing her day. “I had two presentations for that
new blood pressure med today, and wouldn’t ya know ...”