Victor groans and chuckles. “Enough with the puns. That one stunk up the room.”
I laugh along with him, all the while contemplating how this kind of casual, silly, hanging-out fun is what normal families do. But it’s not something that comes naturally to Rachel and me. She’s loving and concerned and protective, but there’s always a barrier. We just never seem to get real with each other. Clearly, Victor’s just being Victor and I’m just being Erin and we’re just here hanging out together, running DNA and making up bad puns. But this feels completely real.
He puts a few drops of dishwashing detergent into one of the test tubes and then plunges the swab up and down, scraping and scrubbing it along the sides of the test tube.
“You’re getting kind of aggressive there.”
“This isn’t a gentle process. In the lab I’d put it in a blender,” he says.
After he’s soaped, scraped, and ravaged all four swabs, he sprinkles a few grains of meat tenderizer into each tube. I pick up the bottle so I can add it to my notes. I can’t resist giving him a strange look. “Meat tenderizer?”
Victor grins. “What is meat?”
I shrug. “Food?”
“It’s protein. In order to run it, we need to free the strands of DNA from the protein. Meat tenderizer destroys protein.” Victor makes an explosive gesture with his hands. “Boom. The DNA is left behind.”
“Wow. You should have been rapping on this stuff in biology today. People might have paid attention.”
“I have analyzed my performance in the classroom at least a hundred times. If I were to do it again I would approach the whole thing differently.” He puts out a hand. “Alcohol, please.”
I retrieve the alcohol from the freezer and set it on the table.
“You’re going to do this part,” he says. “Use the straw and float a small amount of alcohol on top of each of these tubes. By floating, I mean very slowly drizzle the alcohol down the side, so that it doesn’t sink, but floats on top of the buffer.”
I push the bottle of alcohol back to him. “You better do it. I might screw it up.”
“You got this. Just go slow,” he insists.
I wonder where his confidence in me is coming from. Nonetheless, I take a deep breath and add the alcohol to the first tube. It’s nerve-wracking, but I do it. By the last tube, I’m handling it like a total pro.
Victor’s final purchase from the superstore is a package of long, thin wooden skewers. He uses the skewers to show me how the DNA floats up in the tube right to the point where the buffering solution and the alcohol meet. With a skewer, he pulls up a small ball of milky white goo that almost looks like snot.
“And there you go,” he says. “You just successfully extracted DNA.”
Blink. Blink. I’m amazed, yes. And a little grossed out, too. Because the essence of life looks like it came out of someone’s nose.
37
Fingerprints and eyewitness testimony will connect a suspect to a crime scene, but if you want to really make it stick, find their DNA.
—VICTOR FLEMMING
The gel is set. The DNA extracted. The chamber’s wired up, loaded, and ready to go. I should be on-the-edge-of-my-seat excited about this—and I am. But I’m also obsessing about Journey. It’s weird not to be able to text him or send him a Snapchat and get an answer back.
This isn’t normal. I’m extracting DNA and still can’t stop thinking about him.
“You seem quiet,” Victor says. “Are you okay with all of this?”
“Yes. All of this is amazing. I was just thinking about Journey, that’s all.”
“He seems like a pretty nice guy.” Victor rummages in his briefcase, retrieving his notebook. “What is it that you like about him?”
My face turns pink. I didn’t expect that question. This boyfriend stuff is still pretty new to me. “Um, I guess I like that he’s not afraid of me.”
Victor does a slight tick with his head. “Why would anyone be afraid of you?”
“You know, afraid of who I am … my history. Everything I’ve been through. People ask about you, about your family. But when you tell them what I tell them, they get weird. That didn’t happen with him.” I think for a minute. “It also didn’t happen with you.”
“I’m glad,” he says, giving me a heartfelt look. “Because you are a delightful and brilliant young lady. My only regret is that I took so long to meet you.” He rubs his hands together, viewing the setup on the table. “Okay. We’re all set. You ready?”
“No. I’m not ready at all,” I joke.
“Let ’er rip.” He motions for me to hook the alligator clips to the batteries. Within seconds, bubbles form in the buffering solution. “See those bubbles?” Victor asks. “That tells us it’s working.”
Now we wait.