She Made it Look Easy, Alina Macneal

SHE MADE IT LOOK EASY

Alina Macneal

She made it look easy. Easy to get up at dawn, in the car at six thirty, at work before I’d even gotten up for school.

Before I’d even gotten up for school, she was in the elevator, riding up to the 9th floor in the far back corner.

In the far back corner, where the research labs were, their windows facing light wells and air slots.

Light wells and air slots, where the hospital buildings connected through labyrinths of hallways.

Labyrinths of hallways that I walked during summer vacation, when I was fifteen and sixteen, coming to meet her for lunch.

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Sixteen, coming to meet her for lunch, down passageways lined by refrigerators and centrifuges and incubators, and old discarded fume hoods, like somewhere in a dream.

In a dream, years later, I push open a heavy metal door and see her, on a tall stool, in her white lab coat, pipetting from one rack of test tubes to another.

In her white lab coat, pipetting from one rack of test tubes to another, she removes the end of the pipette from her mouth, turns toward me, and smiles. “Did you get lost again?”

Again, I open the door in my dream. Again, she turns toward me and smiles. “No.” I say, “I just woke up, like, an hour ago.” Again, she laughs.

27 Quaranzine

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