—
Beautiful Ava wasn’t quite right that first day, but she can be forgiven for not seeing what she was certainly not meant to see.
There are cameras. One in the building in the center of the park, though no one ever watches that feed unless they absolutely have to. One on each of the towers, but starting tomorrow the fence will be on and the towers will be manned, so the cameras are redundant. There’s another one trained on the camp site, grainy green night vision capturing the argument. Linda was correct in assuming she shouldn’t go back today. They’ll realize soon enough what’s happening. Maybe some of them already feel it, but they’re still clinging to the hope that they don’t know something is wrong.
And then there’s the point where no amount of pretending can hide them from the truth. It’s an ugly, desperate, messy time, and she prefers to watch from a distance from here on out.
She puckers her thin, deeply lined lips as she reapplies her lipstick to get ready for the meeting. Only a few more days. She lowers the volume on the screen, lets their arguments become white noise. She can be grateful for them, spend this time as witness in honor of what they are doing, without having to actually listen. This is the only camera feed she ever looks at. She’s the one who brought in the contestants—she still thinks of them as contestants, because it’s an easier word to say and swallow and digest—and so she will watch as they disappear. But there’s no reason to be gruesome about it. The other cameras are not for her.
Her face is as good as it’s going to get. She’s old, and she hates that they have these meetings at night. But she understands it, too. Night is calmer. Night is safe. The tension during the day—knowing what’s out there, what’s happening—makes the meetings too fraught.
She climbs into her car and steers it like a boat through the river of darkness to the spa. She’s the first to arrive. Of course she is. She unlocks the door, marching straight to the conference room, right past Tommy Callas’s smug portrait and the empty safe it hides.
She takes her seat next to the head of the table, glaring at the empty chairs. Her family made the gate. Her mother created the Amazement Park. And Linda figured out how to keep things working after it closed. How to run this stupid game. But by all means, save those spots for the Callas heirs.
As though summoned by her resentment, Ray and his cousin Gary amble in. Ray sets a carafe of coffee in the center of the table, the scent dark and bitter. Linda wrinkles her nose. Who drinks coffee at this time of night? The least they could have done is bring something nice. But the least they could do is more than they ever actually do.
Ray and Gary take their seats at the head of the table. “Chuck’s coming,” Ray grunts.
Linda musters up some sort of smile to flash in response. “Good,” she says, biting off the word. By all means. Another Callas. She glances at the chair next to herself, the one reserved for another Nicely representative. It’ll stay empty. Her daughter hasn’t returned her calls in months.
The others fill in. Weepy Karen Stratton, the only family volunteer for spa duty, sets up several iPads in front of empty chairs for the Frye, Pulsipher, and Young representatives. Linda catches herself grinding her teeth, remembers what the dentist said about wearing away what little enamel she has left on her remaining teeth. Puts on a smile instead.
“Shall we begin?” she says, as Chuck usurps the Nicely seat next to her, a vision of things to come.
“Why do they get to call in?” Chuck nods toward the iPads.
“Couldn’t make it,” Leon Frye says from his screen, smiling broadly. “But my team tells me the app is working exactly as it should.”
“Great, yeah, you have a team to make an app and a genealogy database. Meanwhile, the rest of us have to stay here and do everything ourselves,” Chuck mutters darkly. He’s in his forties, his firm jaw already softened with age, his hairline abandoning his forehead just like his hopes for a bigger life outside of Asterion abandoned him when he was inducted into the inner circle.
“And be the heir to an international diner chain fortune,” Linda chirps brightly. She always calls it a diner, not a restaurant, no matter how many times Ray and Gary correct her. “Besides, Asterion is your home. Our home.”
“Yeah.” Chuck leans back, folding his arms. She can’t believe they think he can take over her role. He’s hardly been groomed for leadership. He spends every summer on a yacht, every winter in Aspen, anything to pretend like he’s not forever tied here, anything to avoid his responsibilities. “I’m just saying, it feels like some of the families do a lot more of the work.”
Linda’s hands twitch into strangling claws, so she moves them onto her lap where they can’t be seen. Chuck drove a bus. One bus! Meanwhile, she found the contestants, coordinated the invitations, handled all the logistics, even risked going into the park during the season!
Rulon Pulsipher stares over his glasses, his own webcam at an awkward angle so even though he’s on an iPad on the table, it feels like he’s looking down at them. “Do you really want to itemize contributions?” His voice is heavy with malice and meaning. They all know he has the freedom he does because of his (frankly repulsive) actions to create assurances for Asterion’s future pool of potential contestants.
“I have a question,” Karen says, raising her hand. It fills Linda with disgust. They’re not in a kindergarten class. Karen needs to grow up. She’s never done anything, though. She keeps her garden and redecorates her house every few years, living off the rest of their hard work after her one task was accomplished twenty years ago. “Why did you tell the contestants to look for a book?”
Linda feels the question like an icy blast, freezing her in place. “What do you mean?” she asks, stalling, panic filling her brain with the black-and-white snow from the end of a programming day.
“On the first morning, you told them to look for a book as a bonus. What was that about?”
Linda laughs, hoping it sounds tired and dismissive, not forced. “I can’t believe you actually watch the feed.” But Karen doesn’t say anything, so Linda continues. “I always try to throw in something extra, to keep them scrambling. To keep them focused on the game. It makes things more exciting for them. Draws out their hope longer. Last time I told them three golden ‘immunity’ coins were hidden around the park.” She crosses her gnarled fingers that Karen wasn’t watching the live feed seven years ago to know that Linda did no such thing. She told them to look for a book then, too.