“Are you even listening to me?”
“Sure, I’m listening.” She lifted up a venti Starbucks cup. No. Not there. She lifted a plate. God, I really do need to clean up—Ha! There you are!
“Kimball-Geier!” She shook crumbs off the sticky note and held it up to Jonah, grinning triumphantly. “I knew I had something!” It had a coffee ring on it, but the ink was still legible. “Kimball-Geier Pharmaceuticals,” she read, feeling pleased. “They make Azicort, the asthma drug. They’re one of Dad’s clients. Dad and George work with Kimball-Geier.” She frowned. “They actually do a lot of work with Kimball-Geier.”
“I take it back,” Jonah said. “You are nuts.”
“Alix! Are you ready?” Mom called from downstairs. “Alix!”
“Coming!”
Kimball-Geier Pharmaceuticals was throwing a party with the CEO, board of directors, major shareholders, and other important colleagues and their families, and Alix’s parents expected her and Jonah to attend. She stood in front of her closet, trying to choose a dress and not think about the skate rat, Tank. Funny name for such a little kid…
They were going to be on the ocean. She chose a Rag & Bone flared dress, letting it slip over her shoulders. Fun Jimmy Choo heels. A Michael Kors shrug, because, really, it was still spring, and the ocean would probably still be cool.
She turned sideways in the mirror, smoothing the dress over her hips. Well, at least the outside is nicely packaged.
Inside, though? Her mind was a tangle of chemicals and products and government acronyms. EPA, C8, FDA, PCB, BPA… her brain wouldn’t stop working.
Alix started applying her lipstick. NARS. She looked down at the tube and was struck by the purple bruise color she’d been about to apply. Who lobbied for lipstick? Was there a Cosmetic Beauty Lobby? Probably. Only they wouldn’t call themselves a lobby. They’d probably call themselves the Consumer Beauty Resource Council. Or the Cosmetic Color Association, or something equally friendly and neutral. For sure, there was some group that made sure they could keep selling lipstick and that nobody looked too closely at where their colors came from or how they kept lipstick from melting.
Alix rummaged through the rest of her beauty products, the blushes and the sparkling washes and the glycerine soap with the fragrance of green tea and rose. She dug into her medicine cabinet, looking at the ingredients. Potassium this, sodium lauryl sulphate, propylene glycol that… she couldn’t really parse most of the chemical names, even with her AP Chem.
What the hell was in it? Who tested it? How did they test it? Had her father helped—Alix looked at the label of the small soap packet she was holding—had her father helped Tiptree & Soames put some balding guy on an advisory panel somewhere to make sure that soap wasn’t tested too much and didn’t have too many warning labels on it?
She put the soap down, feeling a little like she’d put down a snake. It’s just soap. Get a grip. She picked up her lipstick again and considered her half-done lips in the mirror. She studied the lipstick once more.
So? Is this stuff safe or not?
There was no way of knowing. She had a creepy feeling that if she even started to research this new topic, it would take her places she wouldn’t like.
“Alix!” Mom called from downstairs. “We’re going to be late!”
Alix gripped the bathroom sink, staring at herself in the mirror.
“Alix!”
She picked up the lipstick again and deliberately finished the job. Smearing color onto her lips. Marking herself with whatever NARS decided to stick in their cosmetics. She dropped the lipstick tube into her clutch. Turned her head this way and that, admiring herself in the mirror.
Perfect.
Not a single sign that something was rotten inside her.
31
THE LIMO SWEPT SOUTH AND toward the water, carrying Alix and her family toward the Kimball-Geier party. She sat next to Jonah and peered out through the tinted windows as darkness fell. Taillights and traffic, office buildings standing out against the blush of sunset sky. Manhattan rising as they got closer to the water.
“I don’t even see why we have to do this,” Jonah complained.
“Because Mr. Geier is your father’s client.”
“But he’s not my client,” Jonah groused. “It’s not like I’m in business with him.”
“Maybe you should be,” Alix said. “I hear they’re making a drug for impulse control.”
Dad glanced over at Alix, his expression surprised and pleased. “I didn’t know you paid that much attention.”
“You mean they’re going to turn me into a zombie,” Jonah said.
“It’s actually for appetite suppression,” Alix said, “so you’re safe for now.”
Dad was looking so approvingly at Alix that she felt ill. She couldn’t look at Dad without experiencing double vision. It felt like she was riding in an alternate, decayed version of the limo, while everyone else lived in the regular world.
For Jonah and Mom, Dad was still Dad.
For Alix, he was a sticky note that had become an index card that had become a computer file, and then a folder.
Simon Banks. Born 1962. Graduated from Princeton. Majored in economics and government. Went to work with Hill & Knowlton in the mid-eighties, where it seemed he’d come in contact with its client Philip Morris, the tobacco giant. He moved from Hill & Knowlton to The Weinberg Group and continued to work with Philip Morris. From there, Simon Banks departed Weinberg for a brief and unhappy stint at ChemRisk, another product-defense company. And then, in 2002, he’d started Banks Strategy Partners, with him as the PR lead and George Saamsi as the chief science liaison.
Alix hazily remembered that period of time. Dad worked more hours, and sometime after that, they’d moved into a newer, bigger house.
From there, BSP became the story. Banks Strategy Partners. They didn’t list their clients publicly, but they did list industries. GM crops. Pesticides and herbicides. Pharmaceuticals. Consumer products. Energy and petroleum.
Dad was on his cell, texting someone, as Jonah continued to grouse about the event.
“It’s on a yacht, Jonah.”
“I’ve been on yachts.”
Dad smiled knowingly. “Not one like this, you haven’t.”
“Who else is going?” Alix asked, staring out the window. She was still thinking about all the things she’d been reading. She couldn’t look at her father. He appeared the same as before: same tall man, same hair just receding a little bit, a tiny bit of gray—but not like George, who had gone round and bald. Dad was vital from CrossFit, tanned from sailing. Alix had his eyes, people said.
“Your friends should be there. I know Tim and Maya are coming, so Denise should be there. The Patels should be there. I know you like Ritika and Mona.”
“Sounds like half of Seitz is going to be there,” Jonah groaned.
“Oh stop it,” Mom said. “I don’t think you hate the school nearly as much as you say. I even heard from your biology teacher that you’re doing well all of a sudden.”
Jonah grinned. “We’re cutting open cow hearts.”
Mom made a face. “Then why not say you’re enjoying it? It’s okay to enjoy things once in a while, Jonah.”
The coastline came into view, and then the marina. “Wow,” Alix said, surprised. “That’s a big boat.”
Jonah crowded beside her, peering out. “What is that thing?”