“It sounds like a cult,” Steven from the art department murmured.
Jake shrugged. “Some people see it as a vacation, I guess. I know, I don’t get it, either.”
“And you have to pay for this?” Steven asked.
Jake nodded. “You pay for the land you live on. I think it’s thirty thousand dollars a year. And they provide training so that you won’t die out there.”
“Thirty thousand dollars?” Jessica whispered.
“And some people stay for more than a year,” Jake said. “They see it as an escape. Freedom.”
Everyone was silent. “Maybe in this day and age, with the economy tanking, terrorists blowing up hotels, and the housing market crashing, this is what people want,” Becky, a fellow editor, suggested.
Charles looked at the photo again. The couple did look happy. But he figured it was a kooky kind of happiness reserved for the same kinds of people who meditated and spoke to plants.
“They want us to do a magazine feature about their community,” Jake explained, “to drum up business. I know it’s a little unusual and not the normal kind of account we typically accept, but we’re hurting for money. And maybe this will be an opportunity for all of you to stretch your skills a little.”
Charles shifted. Stretching their skills was a euphemism for putting aside all judgments about this kind of endeavor and making the best possible product he could. Then again, it wasn’t that different from the slightly contradictory messages he was encouraged to ignore about Fischer’s other clients. Like the car manufacturer that asked him to write an article about their brand-new SUV and just “tone down” the fact that the car got terrible highway and city gas mileage. Or the credit card company that suggested Charles write a story encouraging shoestring-budget families to charge thousands of dollars more on their Visa, so that they would accrue enough rewards points to buy a handheld shoulder massager or an iPod docking system.
Perhaps Jake had selected Charles and the rest of his colleagues for this particular project because they were all the least likely to say no. Steven was unabashedly Christian; spiritual songs were always floating out from his office, and at last year’s Christmas party, he’d earnestly asked one of the junior designers to check out his church. He never refused anything that was given to him, as if it wouldn’t be Jesus-like to do so. Jessica was at risk for being fired—she had been egregiously late with shots for another magazine, and another photo editor had to step in and bail her out. Becky always did whatever anyone asked of her, without complaint. Charles was somewhat the same—he never voiced a moral objection to anything they wrote about or stood behind. Whenever he felt tempted to whine, he saw himself at eight years old, running frantically behind his brother into the ocean. When a wave took him down and tossed him back to shore, his father stood over him on the beach. What’s the matter with you? You’re alive. You’re fine. Your brother can do it, and he’s two years younger. Stop crying.
Charles had been fresh out of journalism school when he was hired by Jake three years ago. His dad had gotten Charles the interview without asking him if he wanted it—Finn, a colleague at the investment firm, had a wife who was high up at Fischer, and if Charles wanted a job as an editor, he could have one. At first Charles blurted out that it didn’t sound like the type of job he was looking for; it seemed an awful lot like advertising. His dad’s face had clouded. “Finn didn’t have to talk to his wife, you know,” he said. “Not every job can be the New York Times.”
Realizing his mistake, Charles had backpedaled and thanked his dad for thinking of him. The night before the interview he had dinner with his parents and his father asked him when the interview was and spoke about how it was a decent company, how Charles would probably get further working for a company like Fischer than slaving as a beat reporter at a fledgling local newspaper. “You and your dad could meet up for lunch!” his mother added wistfully, because Charles’s office would only be four blocks from his father’s. Charles had nodded along, simply trying to keep the peace. Scott had sat at the table, too, snickering. No one asked him what was funny. All their father did was glance benignly at Scott, a hopeful smile on his face, desperate to amend whatever he’d done wrong. Eventually, Scott laid down his fork and scraped back his chair and left the table, as if he’d suddenly realized they all thought he was willingly participating in a family event.