“Let’s make a deal,” she said. “I’ll give you twenty thousand dollars. You were a Baptist member. You paid your dues and you paid for that horrid Baptist food. With interest, and considering pain and suffering, I’d say I owe you twenty thousand.”
I wanted to laugh, thinking she was kidding, but the serious look she was giving me said otherwise. “Twenty thousand dollars is a lot of money to you, but it’s nothing to me,” she said.
“What do I have to do?”
“I’d like for you to think seriously about the surgery. You can’t undo it later.”
“I’ve already thought about it seriously.”
“What I mean is that I want you to think about it in a different way.”
I needed a psychological evaluation before the surgery, which was a requirement of the doctor and insurance company. Verena was still a licensed therapist, despite not practicing, and suggested she could evaluate me. “We could meet several times over the next few weeks,” she said. “I’ll give you a series of tasks to help you be sure you’re making the right choice.”
“What kind of tasks?”
“Nothing too difficult. If at the end you decide to go ahead with the surgery, I’ll sign the form and give you the money. If you decide you don’t want the surgery, I’ll give you the money. Either way, you win.”
“Wouldn’t it be against the rules for a therapist to pay her patient?”
“Rules don’t interest me. Don’t think of me as a therapist anyway—think of me as Eulayla Baptist’s daughter. When you took the Baptist Oath all those years ago, you became a part of the Baptist family, remember?”
I remembered. I would have grown excited about the thought of $20,000—it was more money than I could have ever imagined anyone giving me—but it didn’t seem real. Only a few weeks before, the idea of sitting under the shadow of Eulayla Baptist’s fat jeans and talking to her infamous daughter would have been unimaginable. It was Leeta who had led me here. She had followed me around the neighborhood, but now it was as if she was leading me somewhere.
“I feel protective of former Baptists,” Verena said. “It’s a guilt thing.”
“There are masses of us out there.”
“I know, but you’re right in front of me. I’m not asking you to sign a contract in blood. You can change your mind at any time.”
I thought about the things I could do with the extra money. It would be like winning the lottery. I knew she was going to do everything possible to change my mind about the surgery, but I’d play along. “Okay, why not?”
Verena beamed. “We’ll call this the New Baptist Plan,” she said. “The original Baptist Plan failed you, but this time things will be different. The New Baptist Plan will completely transform you, I guarantee it.”
? ? ?
Sunset
Every day on page three of the Daily Sun there was a full-page color photo of a topless young woman. The British newspaper, which interviewed prime ministers and helped decide elections, had been printing photos of topless young women on page three for decades. These “Page Three Girls,” as they were affectionately known, sometimes went on to achieve great things in modeling or reality TV. A couple of them ended up strangled by ex-boyfriends or jealous lovers, but that could happen to any girl. Over the years, there had been halfhearted campaigns to ban the photographs in the newspaper, but they were never successful.
The newly installed CEO of Empire Media, who oversaw the newspaper division, was only forty years old and a woman. She represented a new generation in the company, but like her male predecessors, she carried on the page-three tradition in the Daily Sun and ignored any complaints she received. Empire Media owned newspapers and television stations in the United Kingdom, the United States, Hong Kong, and Australia. “The sun never sets on Empire Media,” their founder liked to say. The CEO was aware of what had happened in Los Angeles to Simmons and Green—Empire Media’s many publications and news channels had chronicled it all. “Who is Jennifer?” the front page of the Daily Sun had asked. In her own way, the CEO was fond of Jennifer, whatever she was. The mystery was good for business. The CEO was fond of her until, one day, she wasn’t.
One morning she received news that her twin brother and his young son had been kidnapped on a trip to Scotland. It was several days before the kidnappers made contact and until then the CEO and her family didn’t know what they wanted. When their request finally came, it was laughable. The CEO laughed. The kidnappers didn’t want money. What they wanted was for the CEO to end the topless models on page three. “No more naked girls,” said the note, signed with the name Jennifer. “Show us some cock.”
Amateurs, she thought. They didn’t know who they were messing with. Her twin brother’s wife, unhinged by panic and rage, demanded that the CEO give the kidnappers what they wanted. The CEO thought her sister-in-law was a spoiled woman, prone to irrational behavior. “We have to negotiate,” the CEO told her. “We don’t give in to terrorists.”