I'll Be You(68)

I hesitated, then I closed my eyes, and let the words pour out of me. “Go away, pain! I choose not to be a victim! Fuck you!” My heart pounded out of my chest. I was a little shocked at myself. It was thrilling.

Dr. Cindy smiled, gripped my hand. “Good girl. That’s how we start.” She turned to face the room, a stillness emanating from her that made the air electric, brought goosebumps to all of our arms. “Women are taught to be nice,” she said. “We are supposed to be kind and gentle and nurturing. We’re supposed to gracefully accept the ways that the world has shafted us, put us in positions of vulnerability, while instead giving all the opportunities in life to the loudest, largest voices in the room. Usually that’s men, but sometimes it’s women, too.

“My patented Method empowers women to reclaim the ability to steer their own destinies, letting go of the restrictions that society has mandated on what is right and wrong for us to do,” she continued. “I want to revolutionize the world by teaching women their self-worth, helping them remove all the toxic obstructions from their lives, so that they can take what’s rightly theirs. I want you”—her finger scanned the room, landing on each of our faces—“to achieve the success you’re all seeking.” Two dozen shining eyes lifted hopefully to hers. “I can teach you.”

I stepped off the tiny stage, shaking, feeling like that hollow-shell place inside me had been filled up with a hot light. She was going to help me get—no, take—what I wanted most. I didn’t know how, but I wanted in. Of course I did.

After the Confrontation the women in the room made a point of coming over to introduce themselves to me. They carried Kate Spade bags, wore cute floral sundresses, and their hair was blown out and shiny. They all seemed so happy and beautiful and put together. They spontaneously hugged me as if I were a long-lost sister and not a stranger who had just wandered in the door. I felt dizzy and disoriented, but pleasantly so, as if I’d come back to a home that I didn’t realize was there.

Before I walked out the door that night, I signed up for a five-day workshop with Dr. Cindy the following week. Limited time offer, a reduced price of only three thousand dollars that night only.

I would achieve Level One by the end of the month.



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By the end of the year, five months and fifty thousand dollars later, I’d made it to Level Four. A lot of money, yes, but money well spent, I told myself; I was part of a revolutionary sisterhood, changing women’s lives for the better (and my own, in the process). Anyway, I had well over a million dollars collecting dust in the bank account that my parents opened for me back when Sam and I cashed our first To the Maxx paychecks. There was no child to spend it on, and I wasn’t paying for any more of Sam’s rehab, so I figured I might as well use it to make myself happier.

Dr. Cindy said the money would come back to me manifold once I’d conquered the Method and achieved Level Ten.

So I went to meeting after meeting, workshop after workshop, letting GenFem hone my pain into a sharp point of rage, with which I felt I could stab the world, poke it wide open, leave a hole through which to climb to the bright, clear air on the other side. A more hopeful place, where I could leave all my disappointments behind.



* * *



—

Women came and went from GenFem over the early months that I was there. Some—like the Pilates friend who brought me in the first place—were just dipping their toes, with no intention of jumping in fully. I quickly learned to recognize these women by the way their eyes never quite met mine, how they shifted back on their heels when they talked, as if preparing to run out the door. The other women, the ones who stuck with the Method, were Neos, working their way through the levels. Once you reached Level Ten, you could apply to become a Mentor, a full-time GenFem career. Mentors were identifiable by the pink scarves at their necks and the look of serene confidence in their faces. There were three Mentors at the center in Santa Barbara—a Black woman named Roni, who sold real estate; an artist named Shella, known for her enormous statues of women assembled from unconventional materials; and a formidable lesbian ex-lawyer named Iona, who was my assigned Mentor.

Dr. Cindy would come and go, jetting across the country to visit the other centers, giving lectures at foreign universities, and visiting with world leaders. (A photo of her shaking Malala’s hand was hung by the doorway.) Word was she owned a stunning Spanish estate in the hills of Montecito, but no one had ever seen it.

When she was in town, I could book special one-on-one sessions with her; they cost extra, but they were always worth it. Dr. Cindy gave off a sizzle of authority, as if she saw and understood everything in the world with just a glance. She seemed so sure, where I was not. When I was with her in that velvet Reenactment room it felt like I was so close to seeing things clearly, the entirety of my past and my future, the meaning of life itself. All I needed to do was squint just a little harder (or buy a Reenactment ten-pack series) and I’d get it, just like Dr. Cindy did. Maybe then, I’d know what to do to be happy, how to steer my ship toward achievable goals.

The higher-level Neos vanished on occasion. They’d be there one day, their faces flush with some secret that they wouldn’t divulge, their eyes damp and wild, then the following week, they’d be gone. A Mentor would inform us that they’d gone to recruit for a center in Toronto or New Jersey, but those of us in the lower levels sometimes speculated that they’d checked into the retreat. The retreat was invitation-only, held at the secret GenFem compound in Ojai, and you couldn’t tell who had been because they weren’t allowed to tell you that they’d gone. But we could always guess because of the haircuts. When they rematerialized, luminous with suppressed secrets, their heads were almost always shaved, like warrior queens.