Free The Animal Girl by John Fulton Page A

The air was a complex mix of smells: tennis shoes, coffee, and microwave popcorn. “The last time I saw you, you were this high.” He put his hand out at waist level and laughed. Leah remembered him, too: the picnics years ago at his yellow house and his then-young wife.
    He started by explaining that his work involved animal experimentation. “I want to be frank with you,” Max began. “We’ve had a lot of people quit this job after a few days. It’s not for everyone.”
    â€œOh,” Leah said. She hadn’t expected to be discouraged, to be warned away.
    â€œI wish I could tell you that you’d be doing a lot of science. But I’m afraid you won’t be. Of course, I’ll be happy to tell you all about what we’re up to here. But your job would be taking care of and feeding the animals.”
    He had big, fleshy lips and heavy eyelids that made him look both morose and jolly. Leah liked his thick sideburns and unruly hair. She had immediately sensed something in Max, something both depressive and good-natured, that she wanted to be around, and that suddenly made this job more appealing. “That’s all right,” she said. “I enjoy animals. Working with animals will be great.”
    Max smiled sadly. “The animals will die,” he said. “So if you enjoy them …”
    â€œThey’re dying for science, right? I won’t give them names or anything.” Leah had just noticed two anatomical diagrams, one of a human and the other of what seemed to be a small cow, hanging on Max’s wall; and looking over them, she was struck by the crammed complexity of innards—vessels, organs, layers of muscle, fat, and skin—and felt a visceral unease at knowing that she too was made of this mess. On the wall opposite his desk, Leah saw something she hadn’t expected in a scientist’s office: a poster of Clifford Brown, eyes closed, blasting his trumpet as curls of cigarette smoke rose between the valve casings. “I’m into jazz, too,” she said. “It wasn’t fair he had to die so young. If he’d lived, we wouldn’t have to settle for that terrible amplified funk Miles started playing at the end of his life. He would have been too embarrassed to play music like that with Clifford around to hear it. Clifford would have kept him honest.”
    Max grinned and put a hand thoughtfully to his fleshy cheek. Leah was trying to figure out what she liked about this bearish man who couldn’t have been much younger than her father and who wore an old yellow T-shirt, untucked, beneath his lab coat and a pair of frayed Adidas with brand-new, superwhite laces that clashed with the dirty off-white of the old leather. “Maybe so,” he said.
    â€œIs that a baby cow?” Leah asked, pointing to the anatomical poster.
    He shook his head. “That’s a sheep. We work with sheep and dogs. The sheep seem to bother people less than the dogs, for obvious reasons. Our animals don’t stay with us longer than a week. You won’t be involved with the elimination and disposal. We have somebody else to do that. You’ll be responsible for feeding them, cleaning out their cages, and doing pre-op.” Leah didn’t know what pre-op was, and she wasn’t going to ask. “You won’t have to be in the lab during any procedures, if you’d rather not see them.” He paused then, seeming to give Leah time to think. “You’re sure the job won’t bother you?”
    â€œWill the animals just die sometimes?” she asked, trying to sound as clinical as he and failing. “When the bigger experiments are performed, I mean.”
    â€œI’m afraid they always die. That happens to be the nature of our work.”
    Leah took in a deep breath before she said, “It won’t bother me.”
    The morning Leah was to start her new job, Noelle and her father ambushed her with