Note: In psychology research, the term "confederate" refers to a member of the research team who, for experimental purposes, leads participants (i.e., test subjects) to believe that he or she is a fellow participant.
*
Poised with pen and coding sheet behind the one-way mirror, Robin watched Cassidy work her charms on the current participant. She didn't know the origin of the phrase "green with envy," but it felt appropriate. She imagined the feeling as a sickly green gas steaming and seething from her pores, clouding her thoughts and poisoning the atmosphere in the small observation room.
The young man sitting across from Cassidy was the fifth and final participant they'd run that evening and Robin's clinical detachment frayed at the edges a little more each time. She gritted her teeth as she dutifully logged the participant's behavior.
Raised eyebrows. Parted lips. Prolonged eye contact (7 sec). Rubbing hand along jaw. Leaning back in chair, feet wide apart.
Classic signs of attraction, and all Cassidy -- the attractive confederate -- had to do was smile.
Cassidy with sunshine smile and creamy skin and cornsilk hair and baby blue eyes. Rounded breasts and slender waist and curvy hips and thighs that didn't rub together when she walked. The golden child of their doctoral cohort, who already had her name on more publications than some of their professors. As first author, no less.
Cassidy got the best of everything. Every research opportunity, every plum assignment in the lab, every guy Robin took an interest in.
Now Colton entered the testing room and delivered the script Robin had written with Professor Wilson's guidance. Robin had done most of the planning, yet everyone in the lab referred to it as "Cassidy's attraction and risk-taking study," merely because Cassidy played the role of the attractive confederate.
The memory of that first meeting still stung. "We'll need an attractive confederate," Robin had said, and every set of eyes at the table had swiveled immediately in Cassidy's direction. Even Colton, the handsome new post-doc who ate lunch with Robin every day, had looked at Cassidy. And in that moment, the vain and ludicrous hope blooming in Robin's chest -- her
flat
chest -- had shriveled.
Robin gathered her things. Her job tonight was over and she couldn't look at Cassidy anymore, couldn't look at Colton's long, lean form bending over the table while he explained the Balloon Analogue Risk Task. She left the observation room, sliding the door shut quietly behind her, and went down the hall to the data room to file her coding sheets.
The lab was deserted this late on a Friday. All the normal young people were out somewhere having fun. All except the undergraduates scrambling to earn their research participation credits for intro psych classes before the end of the semester, Cassidy and Robin the overachieving doctoral students, and Colton for no reason Robin could guess other than to spend as much time with Cassidy as possible.
A teardrop landed on Robin's last coding sheet as she clipped it into the binder. Robin hardly ever cried, but tonight she gave in. She replaced the binder on the shelf and collapsed to the floor, back against the wall, knees drawn to chest, wailing and sobbing into her hands, releasing the frustrated rage and shame that boiled over from inside. Maybe that green envy poison would pour out with the hot tears sliding down her cheeks, evaporate into the air, float away and leave her in peace.
Lost in emotion as she was, Robin didn't notice Colton's presence until he sank down beside her. She wanted to melt into the warm press of his side against hers, lean into his arm around her shoulders, but instead she stiffened. She didn't need his pity.
