The next day she was allowed a brief visit to the nursery. Taylor put an extra diaper in her purse. She had four dimes, all the money she had in the world, and a toothbrush. Fortunately, Edwards arrived, right on time.
Taylor explained to her Scientology escort that Edwards was her sister-in-law who had come to take Vanessa to the doctor.
“Is this approved?” he asked.
“Oh, absolutely!” Taylor opened Edwards’s door and handed her the baby. Edwards stared in bewilderment as Taylor loudly told her to call as soon as she found out what the doctor said. Then, under her breath, she added, “Kate, when I shut this door, please drive away as quickly as you can.” Edwards nodded, then Taylor jumped in. Edwards hit the gas.
“Spanky, no!” the escort cried.
Taylor hadn’t planned any further than this.
She was still dressed in a man’s black boiler suit, with the sleeves and legs rolled up. Edwards fetched some clothes from her mother that would fit Taylor’s emaciated frame and picked up some diapers for Vanessa, then checked them in to the Tropicana Hotel on Santa Monica Boulevard. Taylor finally called her husband in the Guardian’s Office. Another executive picked up the line. “Spanky! They’re looking for you everywhere! Where are you?” he demanded.
“I want to talk to Norm,” she said.
“You need to come back!”
Taylor said she would call back at eleven that night. This time, her husband answered.
“Are they there?” Taylor asked him.
“Yes.”
She hung up. After an hour or two, she called again. He said he was alone. She told him she was out of the church and not going back. The baby was safe, she said. Norm wanted to meet, and Spanky finally told him where she was. She realized their marriage was probably over, but she felt she owed him that. Norm came over to the Tropicana and they spoke for several hours.
The next morning at nine there was a knock on the door of Taylor’s hotel room. Three Sea Org executives were there to haul her back to RPF.
Taylor still believed in the revelations of her religion. She worried that her salvation was at stake. But she was also gripped with fear that her baby and her unborn child were in mortal danger.
At first, she was firm in telling the men that she wasn’t coming back. “If you lay a hand on me or my child, I’m filing charges!” she cried. They assured her they just wanted to talk. They told her that they hated to see her be declared a Suppressive Person. She would be cut off from any other Scientologist—nearly everyone she knew. There was a proper way to “route out,” they reminded her. Eventually, Taylor agreed to return to the office to file the paperwork that would allow her to leave the Sea Org on good terms and still be a Scientologist.
As part of the routing process, Taylor was given a confession to sign detailing all the “crimes” she had committed. She glanced at the document. Some of the actions cited were drawn from her preclear folders, things she had confessed to her auditors that were supposed to remain confidential. She knew how it worked; she says she had once been assigned to go through members’ folders and circle any “evil intentions” toward Scientology. Sexual indiscretions or illegal acts were always highlighted. These would be forwarded to the Guardian’s Office to be used against anyone who threatened to subvert the church. If the crimes weren’t sufficiently damning, Taylor came to learn, scandalous material would simply be manufactured. She signed her confession without really reading it. Later, she was given her bill.
The theory of the “freeloader’s tab” is that people who join the Sea Org don’t have to pay for the cost of auditing and the coursework to move up the Bridge. The truth is that there is never much time to take advantage of such instruction. Taylor had been in the Sea Org for seven years, however, and the bill for the services she might have taken amounted to more than $100,000.
Just before she left the office, the executive handling her case was called away for a moment. Taylor took her confession off his desk and stuffed it in her purse. When she finally left the building, she tore it to pieces.
WHEN HUBBARD FOUND OUT Yvonne Gillham was dying, he sent her a telex asking if she wanted to keep her body or move on to the next cycle. She decided it would be quicker just to let go, but she still wanted the auditing. Hubbard agreed to let her travel to Clearwater, to do an “end of cycle on her hats”—meaning that she would brief her successor at the Celebrity Centre before she died.