“I’m Daniel Atcheson Johnson, president of Veritas Integrated Defense Systems, or VIDS. For over seventy-five years we have worked to develop advanced technologies that help planes navigate, reduce traffic congestion, even land astronauts on the moon. With such diverse capabilities, VIDS is much more than a defense contractor. We are a global citizen invested in our collective future. Defense technologies with civilian applications, and the building of bridges between the defense industry and the people we protect. That is our commitment to you. The guidance chip in a medium-range ballistic missile shares the same technology found in your car’s airbag. Think about that for a moment, and you’ll realize that the future is VIDS.” After a brief pause, during which someone behind the camera seemed to be instructing him to continue, Johnson added, “VIDS—the first line of defense and your trusted partner for a better tomorrow.”
The door rattled open, and Cooper turned to see one of the psychologists beckoning her toward the door. Together, the women walked down the hall and into a windowless room. Inside were a desk, two chairs, and a limp spider plant with no hope of achieving photosynthesis.
Once they were seated, the psychologist offered Cooper a sympathetic smile. “Glad that’s over, right? I mean, what a drag, all those questions.”
“You have to ask them, I guess,” Cooper replied, cautious.
“Why do you think we have to ask those questions, Cooper?”
“Why do you ask those questions?” Christ, why was she repeating the questions back? “My guess would be to weed out people who may not be mentally fit for polar service,” she said.
“Do you consider yourself fit for South Pole?”
“If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be here,” Cooper said, even though she had no idea what made a person “fit for South Pole.” But she realized that to a psychologist looking for a problem, she sounded impatient. “I can clarify, if that’s allowed.”
“Relax”—the psychologist consulted her papers—“Cooper. This isn’t a test. It’s a conversation.”
“I guess what I was trying to say is that I’m going down on an artist fellowship. It’s not like I’m an astrophysicist or someone really important on the support side.”
“You don’t consider yourself important?”
“I just mean that it will probably be easier for me. It’s not like people’s lives depend on whether I complete a painting or not.” Just mine, she thought.
The psychologist pulled a piece of paper out of a file, read it, then looked up at Cooper. “Are there any emotional or psychological traumas you feel could impact your potential for success at Pole?” Cooper was irritated by the psychologist’s work-around of the obvious trauma—the emotional liability—that she had disclosed on her paperwork. It was as if the woman were trying to extract a confession. Cooper tried to rearrange her face in a way that conveyed both sadness and stability. That it was bad, yes, but that the jagged-glass edges of it had been smoothed over by the last nine months, even if they hadn’t. Cooper had never known a jagged edge to become smooth, not unless it was broken off completely.
“You’re talking about my brother, right? I mean, if that’s what you mean by emotional ‘trauma.’” Cooper made quote hooks around the word trauma, and the psychologist frowned. “Sorry,” Cooper said, and added, “Trauma,” this time without the quote hooks.
“Suicide is a major emotional trauma.” The psychologist paused, waiting. “Would you like to talk about it?”
Cooper stared into the woman’s face, a Glamour Shots advertisement come to life. Did she want to “talk about it”? Did she have a pressing need to unburden herself to a woman wearing faux leather knee-high boots in a building on the campus of the world’s second-largest defense contractor? How could she explain that this was the only way you could talk about it, by disclosing it in paperwork, by putting air quotes around it, by gliding along the surface? Cooper knew that explaining this would make her unfit for polar service. That, and telling the truth about David, because if there was a gene for what he had, for the schizophrenic madness that boldly announced itself one day like a Mary Kay saleswoman, then maybe it was somewhere in Cooper, too. Unexpressed, perhaps, or merely waiting for a trigger.
She braced herself for more probing, more note-taking, but suddenly the psychologist shifted gears and told Cooper they could come back to the David question. Cooper knew from months of sliding-scale therapy that the sudden shift away from what her therapist called Cooper’s “dominant story” did not bode well for her chances of landing at Pole. She was overwhelmed by the feeling of having been summarily dismissed. She wanted to go to Pole. She had to go to Pole. Cooper had no idea where the sudden desperation was coming from, but she knew she’d rather lie down in a snow trench and kick in the roof than not go to Pole.
The psychologist handed Cooper a sheaf of papers.
“Here are the results of those tests, by the way.”
“Already?”
“We have a machine.”
Cooper folded the papers in half without looking at them. This caught the psychologist’s attention.
“You don’t want to see your results? It’s actually very interesting. It takes your answers and graphs your responses, showing where you fall in several categories of human neuroses.” She turned her copy of Cooper’s test toward her. “Take ‘tendency toward delusional thinking,’ for example.”
It seemed to Cooper as if the earth had tilted slightly, by degrees. She gripped the arms of the chair in a way that didn’t suggest panic.
“Here is the center line,” the psychologist continued, “which represents a statistically ‘normal’ person. This x here shows us where your answers indicate you’d fall. No one falls right on the line.” Cooper did not look up from her hands to see where the x was.
“Cooper?”
“I’m sorry,” Cooper replied. “I’m not much into explanations.” The psychologist stared at Cooper for a moment, the tests limp in her hand. Look her in the eyes. “I just want to paint at the bottom of the earth,” Cooper heard herself say.
The psychologist surveyed Cooper as if she were a thrift store evening gown.
Finally, she said, “Just sit tight for a minute, would you?”
Once the door clicked shut, Cooper pulled at the fabric of her shirt from beneath her armpits, trying to get some ventilation. She fished a compact out of her bag and began studying the swollen zit under her nose. A moment later, she heard the door open.
“People will pity a person with rosacea or shingles,” a voice said, “but there is no sympathy in the world for a person with acne. I’m living proof of this.” Cooper twisted around in her seat to see a man wearing a tight thermal shirt tucked into what looked like very expensive jeans. “I’m being sympathetic,” he added, “not judgmental.”
Cooper had never seen a human enter a room in this way, like an android whose design hadn’t included joint flexion. After his confident pronouncement on acne, the man shuffled in, head down, and offered her a painful-looking smile. “Miss Gosling,” he said in a faint Southern accent, “I’m Tucker Bollinger, your friendly South Pole area director.”
He was a black man with eyes a color she’d never seen before, a mix of yellow and green—Golden Beryl, if you were going by a paint box. He had three piercings in his left ear, all of them empty. His cheeks were hollow and acne-scarred, and Cooper saw there was a kind of beauty about him; yet it was a beauty that had been coaxed into existence. He seemed as guilty as if he’d stolen it, as unconvinced of its authenticity as someone who’d witnessed its creation and knew it to be false.
“They brought in the big gun,” Cooper said, snapping the compact closed.