Chapter 7
GEETA’S IDEA TO TRACK DOWN OUR OLD PLACE HAD BEEN CUTE. THE practical reality of being back here, though, was a bit too much for me to take, with or without the Changemaker photo shoot.
I was a few blocks away from the apartment when my phone vibrated. A call was coming in from Gabe’s number. Up until this moment, he and I had stuck to texts.
“Gabe? Everything okay?” I said.
“Just checking in,” he told me. I could hear the din of children in the background. “I know you were anxious about today, and I guess I was just thinking of you. How’s the reunion?” He was just thinking of me? I tried to pretend this was totally normal.
“Oh cool, thanks. You still at school?” I asked.
“I’m at the playground, for a birthday party,” he told me. “You know, ’tis the season that all the summer babies celebrate at once. Next Friday there are two parties at the same time and as far across town from each other as can be.”
“That’s what you get for having a popular daughter.”
“Hard to keep up with her.” I could tell by Gabe’s tone that he was smiling. “Anyway, you good?”
“I think so?”
“How’d the muffins come out?”
“Just great,” I said, wondering how pathetic I must have seemed at our last post-a-cappella pub session to warrant this sympathy call. “A perfect batch.” The children in the background were screaming. “Sounds busy. You want me to call you back later maybe?”
“No, the kids are watching some magician pull a gerbil out of a suitcase. Hold on, I’m going to move to a quieter spot.” I heard Gabe tell somebody that he’d be right back, then what sounded like a gate opening and closing. When Gabe spoke again, it was in a quieter voice. “This party is not for me.”
“I’ve always found magicians kind of creepy,” I told him.
“You should see his gerbil. Not a hair on its sorry body. And then...”
“And then...?”
“I’m the only dad here, which, to be honest, can be... a challenge.”
“I thought you were a ‘fearless feminist father.’ You have the Aurora Foundation T-shirt to prove it!”
He laughed. “I don’t have any problem with being the only dad. But let’s just say that single moms can be a little, uh, intense.”
“Gotcha.” I’d never stopped to think about this aspect of parenting for Gabe. He might have been a bit on the awkward side, but he also had more hair on his head than that poor gerbil, which must have made him a rare commodity among the moms of north Pittsburgh. The realization that I was serving, essentially, as my a cappella friend’s beard—a long-distance talisman to ward off horny moms—made me smile.
“I’m just going to sit on this bench for a minute if you don’t mind. Catch me up, will you?” His voice sounded serious. “Real talk. Is it as bad as you thought?”
“Well, I’ve barely been here an hour and I’m already taking a walk to clear my head if that is any indication,” I told him. I was strolling along the south side of town, alongside the rows of fixer-uppers where the undergraduates and young professors lived. The light was dimming and the air smelled ripe and sweet.
“Why? Did something happen?” he asked.
“When I showed up, my friends were already in the apartment. You’ll never guess what they were doing!”
“Sending weird texts about somebody not getting the Memo?”
“Very funny. No. They were doing a photoshoot. With hairstylists, fashion wranglers, and Geeta’s husband doing his best Richard Avedon impression. Nobody even really noticed me—or my awesome muffins—except for a makeup artist, who grabbed a handful and took them to go.”
“Your muffins deserve better.”
“I don’t want to point fingers. The timing was bad when I walked in. I must have been a little early. Or late, I don’t know. But I just couldn’t stand there in what used to be my own home watching them throwing their heads back and forth like tipsy giraffes. And then when it was over, I got weird and asked them about the Memo and...”
“Lemme guess, they all got weird too?” he asked softly.
“Bingo. I was hoping it would be different, and that I’d been silly not to want to come. But the second I said ‘the Memo,’ they got quiet and then denied knowing anything about the texts. Anyway, the big kick-off dinner is soon. And if this is how I react when I see my actual friends... I’m not sure I can handle a cocktail hour with my entire class.”
“One foot in front of the other,” Gabe said. “You’ll have a better time when you start running into the random people you forgot about. Trust me, there will be at least one surprise encounter that makes it all worth it.”
I could feel my anxiety dissipating. “How can you be so sure?”
“That’s what reunions are for. I’ve been to even more of them than you have.”
“I haven’t been to any. I hope you’re right,” I said, remembering how my mother also said that maybe I would meet someone there.
“And you can call me anytime you need to. Oh shit.” Gabe’s voice tensed. “It’s cake time.”
“Tell the MILFs I send my regards.”
I hung up and continued to walk down the streets of Sequoia Falls, moving farther and farther away from my old apartment. Soon enough, I came to the town center. The main drag was much as I’d remembered, trapped in time: The same pizza joint, the same mom-and-pop drugstore, the same aura of benign neglect. The hippie clothing boutique where I used to buy hemp hoodies had yet to acknowledge the existence of contemporary fashion. Its sidewalk racks heaved with flowy garments that still looked perfect for the sixty-something flute-teacher set. There was a lone woman browsing the goods, but she looked more like a Fortune 500 executive than a Sequoia Falls music teacher. She was wearing a crisp pantsuit in a deep eggplant, a leather satchel slung over her shoulder.
When she turned around, I froze. It had been an adult lifetime since I’d laid eyes on her, but the woman was unquestionably Desiree LeBlanc, the independent career counselor I had met shortly before I graduated. Gabe had just assured me that a surprise encounter was right around the corner, but I doubted this run-in around the literal corner was what he had in mind. My hands felt tingly.
Desiree tilted her head and gave a fishy smile. “I’ve been waiting for you, Jenny.”
“Who, me?” The words came out like a croak.
“Are you ready for your Memo?”
“That’s... you?” I asked, my heart speeding as my mind connected the dots. It was all clicking into place. The strange text messages traced back to Desiree. But how?
I hadn’t seen Desiree LeBlanc since that one meeting my senior year, although I had a distinct memory of our interaction. She’d advised me to drop out of school, which had seemed unorthodox for a career counselor. But I should have expected the unexpected. The whole point of Desiree was that she was different.
I’d gone to visit her office at the urging of Leigh, who used to talk about Desiree as if she were the messiah. This was all before the whole life-coach boom. Desiree was a trailblazer, the only New York–based employee of Consortium Associates, an enterprise dedicated to “unlocking hidden potential,” according to her business card.
What this meant in practice was that she told confused college students what to do, in no uncertain terms. Her methods were alarmingly specific. She had advised Leigh to drop her landscape theory classes and to also drop Emily, her first girlfriend.
Geeta had also made abrupt changes after she started seeing Desiree. She chopped her long hair into a bob and started wearing monochromatic outfits in earth tones. When I asked her what precipitated the makeover, she told me that Desiree said it was important to adopt a signature look.
Desiree had her own signature look, exuding competence with her perfectly tailored silk suits and pristine leather accessories. She still wore her red hair in a neat, shiny bob as well as the same potent perfume, a scent that reminded me of a forest at dawn.
“Desiree?” I was speaking in a near whisper. “You’re the one? Those texts are coming from you?”
“I’m just the medium.” She beamed. “The universe is the message. Come on.” She stepped away from the rack and motioned for me to follow her. I swallowed hard and did as told.
“The past has a way of catching up with you, Jenny,” Desiree said, taking slow, deliberate strides. “If you had listened to me the first time, you wouldn’t be in this predicament. Your life is a terrible mess because you didn’t follow my advice.”
How did she know about my messy life? And how was she so sure she had the answers? “If I’d followed your advice, I technically wouldn’t even be part of the class of 2007,” I said, referring to Desiree’s bizarre edict that I needed to ditch college right before finals week and go to the Maldives. She’d even offered to buy me the plane ticket. “I wouldn’t be here.”
“Exactly.” Desiree proceeded to stare at me as if she were looking right through me. “I tried to steer you onto your best course. You wouldn’t listen. But guess what? You’re in luck, thanks to new developments in the study of the soul.”
“The study of the soul? You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I could not be more serious. We are offering you the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reconsider before it’s too late.”
“We?” I said apprehensively. “Who is ‘we’?”
Her green eyes were blazing. “Time is not on your side,” she said, ducking my question. “Geeta and Leigh stuck with their programs, and look at how well they are doing.”
I felt nauseous. Could this be why my friends had behaved so weirdly when I’d mentioned the mysterious texts about not getting the Memo? Had they gotten literal Memos and failed to mention them to me?
“It’s not too late,” Desiree said. We were now at the village square, in front of the college bookstore. Desiree took a seat on an empty bench, removed a notebook from her satchel and scribbled something in the pages. “I guess you could say that you’re the one who got away, Jenny Green. And we want to help you. We’re going to bring you back into the fold.”
“Why do you keep saying ‘we’?” I pressed. “Are you in cahoots with my friends?”
“The ‘we’ of which I speak is the Consortium.”
“Oh right.” I gave a light laugh. “That ‘we.’”
“It’s not funny. We could have helped you a long time ago, had you followed our advice. It’s been hard for us to see how much you’ve struggled. We’ve been watching you.”
“That’s... kind of creepy,” I said. But Desiree just nodded, as if this observation made her proud. I was suddenly overcome by an impulse to get away from her. “Listen, I appreciate your interest and concern. But there are people in this world who are really struggling. Go help them.”
“We are helping all types of people, but none of them have been blessed with your untapped potential. And when you factor everything in, technically you are our biggest failure yet! We use a complicated formula to uncover your DMs.”
“You’re hacking into my direct messages?”
“Please. I am talking about the Disparity Metrics. This is scientific, quantum-quantifiable proof. We review an array of things like your social skills, likability, and your upbringing as well as natural advantages such as body type and BMI. We also look at your economic class and your attendant privileges, and we evaluate your cognitive abilities and self-awareness. And then by exploring your life’s various branch points—your mistakes, your regrets, your paths not taken, and so on and so forth—we can determine the size of the gap, or in your case, the gulf between your potential and your actual achievement in the game of life. Your failure is of majestic proportions!”
It’s not as if this last fact hadn’t occurred to me before, but I was still surprised to hear it articulated by a near-stranger. Desiree reached into the inside pocket of her blazer and pulled out a black device that looked like a cross between a remote control and a digital thermometer. Without asking, she aimed it at my head and tapped a green button.
I glanced around to see if anyone was watching us. The only person on the commons was an older man feeding pigeons. He was totally uninterested in us.
“Are you taking my temperature or something?”
“In a sense,” Desiree said. “Hold still.”
The contraption started smoking and throwing off sparks. One singed my forehead.
“Ouch!” I cried.
“You broke it!” Desiree cried out. “You broke the Disparity Meter! You broke the technology!”
“I’m sorry!” I said, reflexively, although she was the one who should have been apologizing.
“Sorry? It’s phenomenal! The rift between your potential and your reality is off the charts! This is the proof!”
“Of what?”
“That you really are the world’s biggest failure!” she said triumphantly.
“So you’ve mentioned,” I said. “If you’re going to be a failure, you might as well fail big.”
“This is your problem, Jenny,” Desiree replied. “You make a joke about everything. There is nothing funny about your situation.”
I felt as if I was about to faint.
“What do I get?” I said at last. “A medal?”
Desiree grabbed my hand and squeezed it as she spoke. “I am here to help you out of this muck. Don’t be too disheartened. You haven’t made the worst decisions. I’d say you’ve hardly made any decisions at all. You’ve bounced around in your life like a ping-pong ball in a wind tunnel, allowing forces around you to dictate your movements. You have to take ownership of your future. But you need a trustworthy guide. You can’t be expected to find the path on your own. It’s too damn confusing! That’s why you must follow the Memo.”
My mind reeled back to that time before graduation, a moment I hadn’t thought about in years, when I told Geeta that Desiree’s methods didn’t resonate with me. She told me that I didn’t need this type of thing, that she was 100 percent certain that my career would fall into place with or without outside intervention. Plus, Geeta found the specifics of Desiree’s advice to me highly objectionable. She didn’t want me to drop out of school and leave our shared house on Spruce Street. Graduation was right around the corner. We still had too much to do together.
“If you have a bad feeling about Desiree’s advice, listen to your gut,” Geeta had said. “Her methodology is not for everyone.”
So I listened—to my gut, and to Geeta. Not that it was a difficult decision. I didn’t need some all-knowing life coach–guru telling me she knew what was best for me. Drop out of school and go to the Maldives by myself because some weird lady in a suit told me to? Sorry, no.
I looked at the device smoking on the bench and thought back to that former version of myself: free and self-assured. Where had she gone? Maybe bumping into Desiree was the wake-up call I needed. But I could handle the rest on my own.
“It was great running into you, Desiree, but I think I’m okay,” I said, rising to my feet.
She looked at me, her eyes glowing like green lanterns, and cackled as I took off.