Chapter 5

Carter stepped into a lab in the Engineering building. He spotted Valerie and headed toward her. “So this is where you’ve been spending all your spare time,” he remarked.

“Yes — we’ve made good progress on my synesthesia virtual reality project.” She led him to a raven-haired young woman working at a computer. “This is Ceci Long. Her field is digital signal processing and she’s been working on the transforms and filters that let us map sounds onto images.”

Ceci turned toward him. “Carter Drake,” he said, “pleased to meet you.”

“Same here,” she replied and returned to her work.

“I’ve been spending my time listening to sounds as they come through the filters and mapping them to what I see — colors, shapes, brightness ... It’s a lot more work than I anticipated but it’s also a lot more fun.”

“It does look like good progress to me,” he replied.

“We’ll have a lot more work to do to be finished by the end of the term. I have to get back to my sound mapping.”

“When can we get together again?” he asked.

Valerie rolled her eyes in thought. “This week is bad.”

“Friday?”

She smiled. “Friday ... Friday for sure. One day this week I must go through my monthly trek to the pharmacy to refill my prescription. I’ll make sure to make time for us on Friday.”

He embraced and kissed her. “I can’t wait.” They kissed again. “Now, I must be off to lab.”

Valerie sat at a computer terminal and put on a pair of headphones. She began manipulating the mouse and keyboard. Carter turned and headed across campus to the Science Center.

Carter approached the Whalen lobby. He stepped inside and saw Valerie pacing. She held her fist to her lips. “Val...” He regarded her. “What’s wrong? You look distressed.”

“Oh, God, Carter, something terrible has happened. My dad lost his job.”

“Oh, my God.” Carter sat on a bench and gestured for her to sit near him. “Does this mean you’ll need to drop out?”

Valerie shook her head. “No — I’m financing my way through with loans and work-study. Carter — I couldn’t refill my prescription. The insurance was declined.”

“No insurance?”

“It was canceled when Dad got laid off. He was offered a COBRA policy, but they won’t cover my prescription. Mom says there’s no way we can afford it out-of-pocket, now.”

“Why won’t insurance cover it?” he asked.

“It’s because it’s not approved for ... my condition.”

“Then how can your doctor prescribe it for you?”

“A licensed doctor can prescribe any drug for any condition,” she replied. “But if the diagnostic codes don’t match, the insurance company balks at paying for it. Dad’s old policy was liberal and covered it — I only needed to pay a twenty-dollar co-pay.”

“I’ve got some money. How much would it be out-of-pocket?”

“Five hundred,” she said.

“Five? Hundred? Dollars?”

“That’s right.”

“Holy ... That’s more than I can scrounge up. Are you telling me those pills cost most of twenty bucks each?”

“I’m afraid so. It’s a fairly new drug and the pharma company wants to recoup their development costs. It’s in trials for what I have, but that doesn’t help me right now. When I first started on it, a refill was under a hundred bucks. It seems to go up every year.”

“That seems to be the way the pharma industry works,” he remarked.

She looked into his eyes. “Carter — I am so scared. I don’t want to start having symptoms again.”

“Let’s get dinner and we can talk about this some more.”

“I don’t have an appetite — I’m too upset.”

“You need to eat.”

They walked across campus toward the quad cafeteria. Carter sat across from her and watched her dawdle with a slice of meatloaf and some mashed potatoes. “Did you talk to your doctor?” he asked.

Valerie nodded. “Yeah...”

“And?”

“Dad’s COBRA will cover my regular consultations with her. She’s looking at meds that might help and that the insurance will cover. She did call in a prescription for some anti-depressants. Doctor Corliss said the last thing she wants is for me to go into a depression.”

“This is pretty depressing,” Carter remarked.

“A clinical depression. That was the worst part of the episode that sent me to the hospital — everything was doom and gloom and I lost the will to live.”

“You told me about your breakdown.”

“I also had paranoid delusions ... I lost a lot of weight because I was convinced I was being poisoned.”

“And, the voices?”

“And, the voices ... oh, God the voices...” She pressed her hand to her eyes. “Carter — I don’t know where this is headed. If you want to split, go ahead. I’ll understand.”

“I do not want to split,” he replied. “Splitting up is the last thing I want to do. Val — I’m with you in this. If you ever need me, call or text — I’ll come as soon as I can.”

“I remember you said when you broke up with Margeaux that she demanded more of your time than you could commit. I’m afraid her demands will look like a drop in a bucket. I don’t want to be the one dragging you down.” She sniffled. “I don’t want to be the one responsible for you losing your scholarship.”

“I am committed to you. Valerie — I love you and I will stand by you. You are more important to me than anything else. You’re more important than my degree or that scholarship.”

She brushed a tear from her cheek. “Thank you. I’m so sorry...”

“It’s out of your hands,” he replied. “I know this isn’t how you want to be. Did your doctor offer any other help?”

“She said I shouldn’t worry until I have something to worry about — that I should carry on with my studies and project.”

“That’s what you should do. Do you know the name John Nash?” She shook her head. “He was a Nobel Prize winning mathematician ... who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. He was able to do important work while coping with his condition.”

“Now I remember — A Beautiful Mind,” she replied. “Can you send me that rotating mask video?”

He pulled out his phone and brought up the video. “This?”

“Yes, that. It still looks solid to me. When it turns hollow — I’ll know I’m ready to be committed.”

“Don’t talk like that. I will send you the link. Can we get together again next Friday?”

She nodded. “We’ll see what kind of shape I’m in by then.”

“Try not to worry.”

Carter stepped into the engineering lab where Valerie was working on her project. He spotted her and approached her. “Hi.”

“Hi,” she replied.

“How are you feeling?”

She nodded. “Good. Pretty good.”

“Are you taking that new prescription?”

“Yeah...”

“How’s that working out?”

“I feel okay. The first couple of days it made me feel kinda loopy. Doctor Corliss said I could expect that, but I’d get acclimated to it fairly quickly.”

“Ready to go to dinner?”

“Let me show you this, first.” She gestured to a computer screen. “Put these on,” she said and handed him a pair of headphones.

Carter watched the screen as bursts of colored shapes danced across the screen in time to the music he heard in the headphones. “That is something,” he said, smiling. “Is this really what you experience?”

“It’s pretty close. We still have work to do — we want to turn it into an augmented reality program. We’ll use a virtual-reality headset with cameras so you can see normally and have the visuals overlaid.”

Carter slipped off the headphones. “This is really good work, Val. I’m proud of you.”

“Thanks,” she said shyly. Holding hands they headed across campus to the quad cafeteria. Carter picked up a tray, handed it to her and picked up one for himself. “Meatloaf again,” he remarked as they worked their way through the line. “Why don’t you find a table? I’ll bring drinks.”

“Okay ... The usual.”

Carter set his tray on the table and handed her a tumbler of soda. Valerie stared at it. “Why are the glasses red? Didn’t they used to be clear?”

“They’ve been red all term.”

“I thought they used to be clear.” She set the glass on the table.

“Nope, they’ve been red all along. Always red plastic glasses for soda. Don’t you remember?”

“I guess I never noticed ‘til now.”

“Is it a problem?”

“I ... The red obscures the color of the soda.”

“The color? Of the soda?”

“ ... if something was wrong with it ... someone put something in it — it would change the color of the soda ... But I can’t see through the red ... I can’t drink this, Carter.”

“You think someone has ... adulterated the soda?” he asked.

“I don’t know ... I worry ... maybe they have...”

“They? Who are they?” Carter picked up the glass and began to sip from it.

“Carter! No!”

He set it down. “I’ve never been a big fan of it, but it tastes like a normal Dr Pepper to me.”

Valerie picked up the glass. Hesitantly she brought it to her lips and sipped from it. “It tastes normal ... I guess it’s okay...” She looked at him, slack-jawed. “Carter — I don’t know what’s happening to me. I know from an intellectual level this is stupid ... but I just can’t shake the fear.”

“I’ll be your food-taster if that helps,” he said. “Is there any other part of your dinner you think might be off?”

“No ... no, everything else is fine. It was the red glass ... the red triggered the fear.” She picked up her fork.

“When we’re done here, let’s go back to your room,” he said. “I have some music I want you to hear.”

“I’m almost done ... I don’t have much of an appetite.”

Valerie opened the door to her suite and he followed her into her bedroom. “Speaker dock or ear buds?” she asked.

“We can use ear buds. No sense aggravating Margeaux.”

“I’m not even sure she’s home...” Valerie adjusted the gadgets in her ears and Carter started the playback. “Oooh ... It’s nice ... pretty ... sparkly.” She closed her eyes as the song played. “I liked it. What instrument made the sparkly sounds?”

“A celesta, if I recall.”

“Who’s the artist?”

“The Velvet Underground,” he replied. “It’s from their premier album. The song is called, ‘Sunday Morning’.”

“I’ve never heard of them.”

“Their album was released in 1967,” he added.

“Where DO you find your music?”

“Last term I was reading an article on that band that was published on the fiftieth anniversary of their album. It sounded like something I’d like to know about so I bought a copy. Listen to it again, only this time pay attention to the lyrics. The song is about paranoia.”

Valerie re-inserted her earbuds and Carter started the playback. She nodded as she listened. “Yup, that about sums it up ... it’s nothing at all ... the world is watching.”

“Don’t you think paranoia is the ultimate delusion?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean ... the delusion that you’re so important the whole world is out to get you?”

“When you put it that way. Carter — the problem is, it isn’t rational. It’s something more ... visceral.”

“I understand that mental illness isn’t the sort of thing you can just ... will away. I know these ... fears and irrational thoughts are as real as anything and just as impossible to ignore. I’m trying to give you an intellectual underpinning that might help you cope.”

“You are sweet,” she replied.