Debbie avoids eye contact, says to the vat of red liquid, “Oh, it’s not. I’m a horrible cook. Not for a lack of trying.”
“I’m sure it’s fantastic.” I hand her my plate. “You work with Kit, right?”
She stiffens. “How do you know her?”
“Any idea where I can find her?”
Debbie clutches my dinner plate. I bet she looks fried even after ten hours of sleep. “What did you say your name was?”
I hesitate. “Natalie Collins.”
Debbie does a double take, then busies herself with filling my plate. I peer beyond her into the kitchen, hunting for my sister. Debbie hands the loaded plate back to me. “I don’t know where she is, but you won’t find her here. She’s too important for kitchen work.”
She twists her wrists, then strikes up a conversation with the next person in line, dismissing me.
I turn to the dining room, reeling. What the hell does “too important for kitchen work” mean? My plate shakes when I picture my sister as one of a dozen concubines, all belonging to this Teacher guy. If I can find him, I bet I’ll find her.
I scan the tables again and am relieved to spot Chloe sitting with a couple of young women.
“Mind if I join you?” I ask.
Chloe pats the chair next to her, much warmer now than she was on the boat. She introduces me to the two girls she’s sitting with, April and Georgina. They appear to be around Kit’s age (late twenties) and are well-dressed, clearly have money.
Chloe speaks again. “April and Georgina go home tomorrow.”
April (short, plump, cheerful, dressed like a store mannequin at Lululemon) nods and tosses her brown bob. “This place has been life changing, but I’m ready to go home.”
Georgina, lithe in a silk dress, with giant sunglasses perched on her head (a ridiculous getup in this weather), says with a laugh, “I know this makes me sound terrible, but I think I’m almost as excited to get my phone back as I am to see my family.”
Finally, normal people.
“Why did you sign up?” I ask them.
They work in different industries but have similar stories. Georgina is an investment banker working eighty-hour weeks. April is an IP attorney doing the same. They both had panic attacks in the weeks leading to their applications.
Georgina fingers a thin silver hoop in her cartilage. “This is the first vacation I’ve taken since I joined the company six years ago. I resisted the time off at first; I knew it would fuck up my annual target. When my boss wouldn’t let it go, I pushed for one of those weeklong retreats, somewhere in Greece or Monaco, ideally with a gin and tonic in hand. She stared me dead in the eye and said, ‘George, you’ve been having panic attacks for six years. You think one week on a European beach is gonna fix this problem?’ She suggested Wisewood.” She lifts her arms. “Here I am.”
“I, on the other hand,” April says, “am a self-improvement junkie. I’ve read most of the self-help books and tried pretty much every variety of retreat. Silent, yoga, female empowerment, a couple of the luxury ones Georgina’s talking about. Even in the glamorous places, I’d get heartburn every time I reached for my phone. As long as I was tied to my everyday life, I kept getting stuck. I was kicking the anxiety can down the road but couldn’t reset.”
“Are you glad you came?”
They both nod enthusiastically.
“I haven’t had a panic attack since I got here. That alone was worth the money,” Georgina says. “Plus, I learned how to quit worrying about them.”
“To stop equating achievement with self-worth,” April says.
“And I made an okay friend.” Georgina winks at April.
“This was the most intense six months of my life.” April beams. “But a good intense. You’re trying to work through your own issues every day and help other people with theirs, but then you’re also doing all of this crazy stuff, like tree swinging and fire limbo.” Chloe’s eyes bulge. “Sounds nuts, I know. Every single one of my classmates said no to at least one challenge, yet every single one of us did them all. You don’t realize how much fear rules your decisions until you come here. The longer I’ve stayed, the more sure I’ve been that I can do anything.”
“But.” Georgina holds up a finger. “Some people take the program too far. They think fearlessness can fix everything. Sounds great in theory, but when you see them put it into practice, they seem crazy.” April nods.
An edgy silence settles over the table.
“Where would I find the guy who runs Wisewood?” I ask.
April and Georgina exchange a glance.
“Her name is Rebecca,” April says.
I startle. Don’t men typically lead this type of place, these strange communes full of people who believe they’re too morally superior to partake in regular society? Relief courses through me.
Georgina snorts. “And good luck.”
I turn to her, questioning.
“We haven’t seen her in weeks,” April says. “When we first started here, we saw her all the time.”
Georgina butts in. “Now she’s too important for us, working on some big new thing. Supposedly running the show behind the scenes. Sounds like some Wizard of Oz bullshit to me.”
Georgina has a Jordan Belfort vibe to her, à la The Wolf of Wall Street, an assessment she’d probably respond to with a smirking “fuck you very much.”
“Georgina,” April protests.
“She said Wisewood was her number one priority.”
“What’s your point?” April asks. She’s clearly more loyal to the cause than her friend. I’m sure if I shared one or two more meals with April, she would proclaim Lean In has changed her life and profess her love of all things pumpkin-flavored.
“My point is, people are paying good money to come to this island and work with her, not Ruth. Anyway,” Georgina says, “you have to be a huge kiss-ass to get time with her now.”
April sighs. “Like this one poor girl we used to be friends with.”
Georgina brightens. “Supercool chick. Our age, lived in Brooklyn before coming here. Has these insane life stories but you can tell they’re true. Like she dropped out of college to join her boyfriend’s band on tour. Who does that?”
My stomach drops.
“I remember being jealous. Her life was so spontaneous compared to mine. The three of us became close fast. There aren’t a lot of women our age here,” April says. “But after a few weeks . . .”
“Suddenly, all she cared about was Rebecca. She would do anything to impress her.” Georgina grimaces, and I feel nauseous. “Kind of pathetic to watch her become this drudge. Don’t get me wrong; we all appreciate what Rebecca has set up here. But she’s not a god.
“Some people guzzle the Kool-Aid when they should take sips.”
12
IN THE GLORIFIED closet that was my dressing room, I gripped the arms of the chair and willed my heart to decelerate. I’d performed in front of crowds hundreds of times, spent an entire year in venues bigger than this one.
I wasn’t the headliner then.
A knock sounded at the door. I wiped my hands on my pants. “Come in.”
In the doorway stood Evelyn Luminescence, dressed in an indigo muumuu and flower crown. She beamed.