The Program (36 page)

His pledge seemed to intimidate her. "You can't grow without suffering."

"Maybe not. But that doesn't mean that all suffering leads to growth."

"But this does. It puts me in control."

"Nothing can put you in control. You have to put yourself in control."

"Oh, sure. Like you want to do that. TD warned us about people like you. You probably want to turn me Catholic again, like my mom."

"I don't care what you think, as long as you think for yourself."

Moonlight cut her face down the center, leaving it half in shadow. "And how will you know I'm doing that?"

"When other ideas no longer threaten you."

One of her hands curled in the other, a nesting fist. "I wasn't supposed to see my parents that time. I took a huge risk in going. When Janie found out I went, I got put on Victim Row for a week straight, every day." She sank back against the wall. "And for what? To get yelled at by Will and my mom? Slapped? Told how worthless and stupid I am? If I did have any doubts about moving up here...well, they pretty much vanished that night."

"Sounds shitty."

"Shitty, but nothing new. They've never cared about me. Will made me skip my junior prom just so he could pull me up onstage with him when he won Producer of the Year, then he left the stupid Beverly Hills Hotel after in his limo and forgot me. They make me go to Uncle Mike's every Thanksgiving, and I end up getting a rash because I'm allergic to cats."

As she continued reciting the injustices she'd suffered over the years, Tim recalled his own upbringing with dark amusement. When he was ten, his father had shaved his head and taken photos of him to submit with doctored medical reports to children's charities.

"Could be worse," he said when Leah paused between bullet points. "No matter how you've been made to feel about it, getting left behind at the Beverly Hills Hotel hardly constitutes abuse. Not by my standards or The Program's."

"So if I complain, then I'm under mind control, and if I say I'm fulfilled, then I'm under mind control. Neat little trick you came up with."

She hopped off the bed, flung his sheet back at him, and retreated to her mattress.

Tim heard her teeth chattering. "You want my sheet?"

"No." More shivering. Then she added, "Thank you." Rain tapped gently on the window; if the room weren't so frigid, it might have been soothing. Just as Tim recaptured drowsiness, Leah asked in a tiny voice, "What was Jenny like?" Then, a moment later, "I've answered your questions. You said you'd answer mine."

The crisp air made the back of his throat tingle. "Her name wasn't Jenny."

Leah made a gentle noise in her throat -- his risk noted. "What was your daughter like?"

"She was the kind of kid you loved so much that you didn't want her to change. But you wanted her to grow up, too, because you couldn't wait to see who she'd become."

"Your answer's all about you. Jesus, do all parents think the world revolves around them? What was she like?"

"Remembering's not easy, Leah." His mouth cottoned, and he ran his tongue across his dry lips. "Her death made me afraid to go to sleep because I couldn't stand remembering when I woke up. Those first few seconds in the morning, when you think everything's like it should be..." He watched a raindrop streak down the black sheet of the pane. "Sometimes I still forget."

"You can't answer the question, can you? You can't answer without talking about you and your suffering. I mean, your little girl died...."

Leah's breathing became barely audible. She was crying as silently as she could. He wondered whether the tears were for herself, whether she knew the difference.

Ginny Rackley, Our Lady of Projection.

"Maybe you're right," Tim said. "In which case you might want to recast your tragic interactions with Uncle Mike's cats."

"First honest thing you've said tonight." Her voice was bitter. "I guess we're both victims."

More rain, more quiet.

"What happened to her? Your daughter."

"What I said at the colloquium."

She shifted in bed; he could sense her eyes trying to penetrate the darkness. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

Tim lay for a while, listening for her breathing to steady. Then he crossed the cold floor and draped his sheet over her thin frame.

Chapter
thirty

Along with the light-headedness, his exhaustion helped lower Tim's inhibitions. Last night he and Leah had been awakened every hour by a different Pro clanking around outside their window in a professed effort to repair a faulty water pipe. The early-morning battery of workshops made the colloquium seem like a week at Club Med. Weirdly, even though he knew his success depended on his participation in Program activities, an instinctive resistance -- his Old Programming? -- was hard to shake.

As Tim played possum among the cadaverous Pros, TD's speaker-enhanced voice began its narcotic susurration -- Guy-Med, round one.

The Pros bent over their knees, foreheads pressed to the cool floorboards, yoga on Quaaludes. He peeked at Leah; she hadn't gone under yet.

Skate walked the aisles like a whip-wielding boss man. Tim waited for his footsteps to recede, then reached over and dug his thumb into Leah's Achilles tendon. She yelped and jerked. Skate pivoted, but Tim had withdrawn his hand. Skate walked back toward them, his footsteps vibrating the floor beneath Tim's forehead. Tim watched Skate's frozen shadow, the hump of Leah's body. He could see her eyes blink, confusion giving way to anger. He'd stopped breathing.

She rustled but stayed in position. Finally Skate moved on. Leah waited until it was safe, then shot Tim a glare. He winked at her, seeking to infuriate her further. Flustered, she turned her face back to the floor, but he could tell he'd successfully distracted her from the Guy-Med.

TD's voice stayed mellifluous and soothing even as the words began to take on menace. "You're afraid of the person next to you. To them, you don't exist. Think of the person on your other side. They terrify you. If you were bleeding to death, you'd be too afraid to call out. And even if you did, they wouldn't stop to spit on you." His breath whistled across the mike. "Everyone around you hates you. Everyone in this room scares you. You are completely alone. You are completely isolated." He intoned the words like a bedtime story.

From the back of the room rose a plaintive keening. Almost inaudible, but others picked it up. Some Pros writhed; others froze on their sides, hands clasped over their ears. Shrieks echoed around the bare auditorium, thrown back from the corners.

"There is no one here with you." TD was almost consoling. "There is no one in the entire world that you aren't afraid of. You are completely alone in the world."

Leah's downturned, sentient face had gone a sickly hue.

I've realized that you were always an awful brother to me." Shanna sat spotlit onstage, clutching to her ear the cordless phone Randall had presented in the Growth Hall like a parchment bearing a royal decree. Somewhere hidden away was the base unit. The Pros sat in perfect silence, attending Shanna's every word. "I no longer have any use for you."

Tim sat with the other initiates in the row of folding chairs. At his feet lay the shoe box filled with his confiscated belongings. At TD's behest he'd donned the Cartier. TD looked on encouragingly from the shadows.

"I never want to see you again." Shanna's voice warbled slightly. "Good-bye."

When she hung up, there was a moment of breath-held silence, during which her tortured swallow was audible to the first few rows. Then TD edged into the light beside her and raised his hands, striking them together once, the lights eased up over the audience, and thunderous applause burst forth.

A smile twitched on Shanna's face. She rose and gave a joking curtsy.

TD strode before the others. The clapping ceased immediately at his voice. "You're unfulfilled because you're mired in the past. Innovators look forward. They break free of convention. Drop your baggage -- whatever's weighing you down."

The lights faded until only a new glowing circle remained, this time encasing Jason.

He peered down at the shoe box before him. The crowd seethed with mute anticipation. He reached in hesitantly and withdrew his wallet, the jangle of his shifting keys amplified in the silence. He pulled out a wad of twenties, ripped them up, and threw the pieces. They dispersed in a green cloud.

The audience, hidden in darkness, went nuts.

He pulled a family picture from the wallet and held it up. "This is my wife, Courtney, and my two kids, Sage and Dana. I love them very much." No reaction from the crowd. "But guess what? Sometimes I get claustrophobic. Soccer practice and nannies and the baby's got another sore throat -- sometimes I lose sight of myself in all of it. Sometimes I wonder how the hell I wound up here, where, between work and home, I don't have a single minute in my day that's my own." He shook his head, lips rolled over his teeth, lank ponytail swaying. "Well, at this retreat I'm here for me." He ripped the photo in half, and the room erupted. School photos of Sage and Dana followed, scraps flung from the stage glittering in the beam of light.

Lights up. Cue applause. Thunderous affirmation. People were jumping and screaming euphorically. Jason continued to shout avowals, a widemouthed exorcism.

The rapture was cut short with a stern flash of TD's hand. "Good progress, Jason." He prowled the stage now, dispensing hard-won wisdom. "A partial commitment to The Program gets you nowhere. You're either with The Program or you're Off Program. There is no in-between. That's being halfway cured of cancer or climbing halfway up Mount Everest. The Program requires dedication. Dedication is absolute. The Program is paramount above everything in your life. Paramount above children, parents, spouses, work, money, fame, ego. And why shouldn't it be? It's your life. It's your future. What's anything else worth when you don't have control of that?"

The faces remained unlined and inscrutable, a sea of catatonia.

TD moved toward Tim, and the spotlight came up on them. Tim could feel the heat coming off TD, mingling with the burn of the stage lights. A hand dropped onto his shoulder, gave it a little squeeze. "Tom, are you committed to The Program?"

At once nothing existed but the beam of light, lowered over him like a cage. Even the pressure of TD's hand had vanished. Tim squinted and sweated. Dust drifted like white sand swirled underwater; a moth made jagged upward progress toward the lighting grid. "Yes."

"I'd think a businessman like you would be tied to material possessions. To stuff. You're not gonna try to drag a yacht through the eye of the needle, are you, Tom?"

Tom Altman emitted a sharp little laugh. "No."

"Are you sure? A guy like you has got some options. Why search for strength when you can go buy a Humvee? A Humvee could make you feel like a real man. Don't you think?" TD drifted back into view, his eyes blazing into Tim's. "In fact, why face your problems at all when you can pay someone else to deal with them for you?"

The silence was overpowering. Tim could see only darkness beyond the tight scope of his spotlight. "I have everything I could want," he said. "But it doesn't mean much to me. Numbers in an account, that's all. The Fed raises interest rates, your assets drop. The Fed lowers rates, your assets rise. I've gotten so far away from what I set out to do. From what I thought I wanted." Tim felt himself getting surprisingly worked up over the burdens of imaginary affluence. He took a rattling breath, which reverberated around the Growth Hall. For all he knew, the Pros had cleared out, leaving him sitting on a stage in an empty auditorium. "I've been arrogant. I've assumed power I shouldn't have had. I've made some mistakes I wasn't entitled to make. And, even worse, I've gotten away with them. Living my life tied to that...it's no way to be."

TD stepped into the shaft of light, joining Tim. "Why don't you do something to liberate yourself from it? Break away."

"I'm ready to."

TD continued staring, lips tensed, waiting to dispense approval.

"What?" Tim's voice cracked with genuine emotion. "What can I do?"

"Only you can answer that. It has to be what's right for you." TD's eyes flicked to the eighteen-karat watch on Tim's wrist, resplendent in the glare.

Tim removed the thirty-thousand-dollar timepiece and let it dangle from a finger. TD held his hand out, and Tim leaned forward, dropped the watch into TD's cupped hand.

The lights came up, and Tom Altman was back in the world, his spirit one Cartier wristwatch lighter.

Exhausted and drained, the Pros milled around the Growth Hall, group leaders directing them to various workstations. No mention was made of breakfast.

The calling out of assignments impressed upon Tim the daunting scope of the organization. Nathan -- Literature, DevRoom C. Spectacular job on the glossy four-color trifold. Shelly, Andrea, Dahlia -- Accounting, LabSpace 1. Let's finish those second-quarter estimates! Ted -- Expansion, DevRoom B. The Maui proposal is lagging, and the Houston projections slipped 3 percent.

And on it went, a never-ending situating of spokes in wheels. The manpower-to-cost ratio was staggering -- sixty-eight affluent, educated people working themselves to exhaustion for a dollar a year.