Not Danny. Oh, Danny.
I stare into his bright, purple eyes. His neck jerks and he looks at the ground. He tugs at his ear.
I don’t like to see him worry. I like to see him smile, like when we’re making fun of our art professor’s tics, such as saying “HELLO” loudly when she thinks something she’s saying is obvious, or the way she sometimes takes off her shoes and paces around our paintings in red socks with yellow-tipped toes.
But Danny’s not laughing at socks now. He’s rocking slightly and twisting his high school ring round and round his finger.
I get up, but he ducks his head and walks down the hall. He opens the large wooden door to the chapel.
A too-sweet voice wafts from the interrogation, um, I mean conference room. “You must be Quinn Bellingham. Please, come in.” I gingerly close the door behind me and approach a man in a gray suit with a peach shirt—which he would probably say was salmon but, trust me, it’s peach. He wears a surgical mask.
“Hello, I’m Mr. Jenkins,” Peachy says, holding his hand out but snapping it back, like we’re playing a game of Whack-a-Mole, with me filling the role of the ticket-hungry middle-schooler as he plays the role of said mole. Some public health person—he totally forgot I might have cooties.
Even with most of his face covered by the mask, I can tell he has an easy, fake smile. “Thank you for meeting with me.” His breathing is thick against the mask. “As Dr. Brown might have told you, I’m from the Allan County Department of Health. The folks at the Virginia Department of Health don’t think this is something to be alarmed at yet, given the minimal number of cases and the fact that, well, no one appears to be ill. But, off the record, I think they’re wrong. Multiple cases of iris color change, along with a possible corresponding abnormality in the white blood cell count should be investigated. There has to be a connection between the patients.”
He looks at me as though he’s waiting for me to agree. “Yes,” I say. “It’s strange, and I think it’s clear now that this isn’t caused by that new party drug. I’ve never taken that.”
“What new party drug? Do you use drugs recreationally?” he asks, tilting his head. Maybe there’s some patient confidentiality thing going on? Anyway, Zachary’s point is moot now, so whatever.
“No, I don’t do drugs,” I say. “I just want to know what’s going on.” I grasp at my hands but they slip from the moisture on my palms.
His voice is soft against the mask. “I’m sure, my dear, there is nothing to be alarmed about. You’re in good hands. But, in order for me to help you, you have to help me. I need you to be honest with me. I need to know some personal things if I’m going to get to the root of this.”
“What do you think is going on?” I ask.
“At this point, I’m trying to keep an open mind. Were you all poisoned? Were you all exposed to a plant that has properties we’re unaware of? Is there some combination of environmental factors at work? And, of course, I must discover as soon as possible if this is the worst case scenario.”
“What’s the worst case scenario?” I ask.
“That it’s communicable.” Peachy points to his mask. My stomach lurches. But, then again, I bet he has had that in a drawer for months, just waiting for the opportune moment to pull it out. “This mask is only a precaution, until we rule out that it is transmittable through the air. It’s unlikely, of course, or we would expect to see many more cases. Still, it’s always best to be safe. What is more likely, if it’s in fact a disease, is that it would be transmitted sexually or through some other exchange of fluids. Now, please be honest with me, are you sexually active?”
“Yes,” I say. No reason to beat around the bush.
“To your knowledge, have any of your sexual partners developed similar symptoms?”
“No,” I say. Luke’s eyes are sharp and green. But we had sex last night. I got purple eyes today. Could I have had this last night and not known it? Could I have accidentally given this to Luke?
“Are there others who you may have shared a drink with or kissed or engaged in any other fluid-exchanging activity with? Do any of them have similar symptoms?”
“No,” I say. Rashid has deep, warm brown eyes. Well, at least he did the last time I saw him.
“You’re sure?” He wrinkles his forehead.
“Yeah, I think so,” I say.
He nods and folds his hands on the table.
“Were you at the Alpha Chi Beta party last week?”
This is a rather specific question to jump to, but I nod.
“Was your roommate, Mandy Malone, with you?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“Did the two of you share a drink?”
“No,” I say, thinking sharing a beer at a frat party would be weird. I mean, you don’t have to pay for them. Frat guys just give everyone shitty beer. It’s a party. But then I remember her being pushed out of the frat house. She told me to finish her drink. I’d sipped the low-grade beer before plopping down the half-empty cup. Shit. “Yes,” I say. “I drank out of Mandy’s cup.”
“And do you recall if you finished her beverage or if you set it down with beer remaining in it?” he asks.
Another odd question. “I set it down when it was about half full.”
This seems like the wrong answer. He gets up and steps back and forth. He stops, arms crossed, right under the window, and looks at the floor for so long that I squirm and shift in my seat.
“So.” I break the silence. “Does this mean it’s contagious or something? Could I have given this to other people?”
Should I tell Rashid? Should I tell Luke? Will their eyes bloom with violet too? Is it just a matter of time? I bite my thumbnail.
Peachy scratches his chin. Or he tries to, but the mask is in the way. “We can’t know that yet. But I would like to know about anyone who might have exchanged fluids with you in the last month.”
“Sure,” I say, though I don’t love the idea of sharing the information. “I’ll also tell them that...well, what should I tell them?” I look up at him. I can hardly see his face because the light from the window behind him is so bright.
“Please don’t tell them anything. We don’t want to cause a panic. If I were to ask you to alert people now, word would spread, and then panic would spread, doing much more harm than whatever this is.”
Peachy may just be on top of this. He continues, “Sometimes panic can’t be avoided, but we must wait ’til we know more. Right now, all of the cases can be tied to one cup. Could that cup have been drugged? Could that cup not have anything to do with this?”
“How are the cases connected to one cup?” I ask. Danny didn’t share a drink with Mandy and me. Zachary wasn’t even at the party.
Peachy’s eyes shift. Instead of answering me, he sits back down and picks up his pen. “Can you please give me the names and contact information for the people who may have shared your fluids?”
“It sounds so romantic when you put it that way,” I say, bending my neck and smiling. He tilts his head and his eyes widen. I shoo my smile away and look at the table.
“Young lady,” Peachy says, “I hope you will treat this matter seriously.”
He waits, pen ready. I want to say that of course he can be all Mr. Serious about it. He isn’t the one with purple eyes.
Fortunately, I only have two men on my list. Or, maybe, given the short time period, that’s a lot? Whatever. Rashid and I just fooled around, but plenty of saliva was definitely, well, swapped. I run my fingers through my loose hair, allowing locks to brush my cheeks. “Okay, I’ve kissed Rashid Khan, he’s a grad student at Poe.” Peachy scribbles out the information. “But he doesn’t have purple eyes.”
“Well, perhaps not yet,” Peachy says, as though there is a tiny part of him that hopes this thing will explode. It would be quite the career-making case. “Anyone else?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Luke Peterson. He’s a...well, he lives in Allan,” I say. Peachy’s eyebrows tilt up above the mask, but he tames them quickly. “And he doesn’t have purple eyes, either.”
Peachy continues questioning me for another twenty minutes about any hikes I’ve been on and prescription drugs and products I might have recently started using. Anything at all that has been weird or unusual in the last few weeks. But aside from switching detergents and trying a new lip gloss, I’ve got nothing.