Perfect Little World(46)
Ellen touched her forehead, as if she was looking into the future and unhappy with what she saw. Finally, she looked up at Dr. Grind and said, “You know what you’re doing, right? This will all work out?”
“It will, Ellen,” he replied.
“I think I believe you,” she finally said, and then she walked out of the kitchen, leaving Dr. Grind alone in the room.
Knowing that sleep was not a possible outcome, not even the skittering, patchy sleep to which he was accustomed, Dr. Grind changed into his workout clothes and walked the length of the complex, the courtyard illuminated by solar lights. It was bracingly cold, the sky vast and clear above him. He could see some of the families already in their homes, watching TV or typing on their laptops, and then instantly felt creepy to be watching them, as if he wasn’t enough of a constant presence in their lives. He swiped his key card and entered Main 2, heading to the exercise room, where he planned to get on the treadmill and run himself into a kind of uneasy exhaustion. He had Julie Howser’s novel on audiobook and he was halfway through it, a dense, complicated book about several generations of rabble-rousers in the American South. The language was so artful, the sentences unwinding in such complex rhythms, that he found he occasionally lost the thread of the narrative and had to skip back on his MP3 player.
When he got to the gym, Jeffrey was already there, moving quickly through a series of exercises, curling dumbbells before tossing them down and doing a set of jumping jacks, then lunges, his face a perfect mask of unhappiness. When he noticed Dr. Grind, he stopped his routine and nodded.
“I thought you might come here,” Jeffrey said. “How did it go with Ellen?”
“I’m not sure,” Dr. Grind admitted. “We acknowledged the issue and I think we agreed to try to deal with it in the future.”
“So, no need for a collective intervention?” Jeffrey asked.
“No, thank god,” Dr. Grind said, and then walked over to one of the treadmills and turned it on. Before he could start running, he noticed that Jeffrey was standing in front of the machine. “What?” Dr. Grind asked, wanting to burn off his anxiety, his legs already warming up to the idea of motion.
“This is going to keep happening,” Jeffrey said. “It’s natural that the parents are going to gravitate toward their own kids.”
“I know that,” Dr. Grind said. “We anticipated that. That’s why we have structures in place to help mitigate those circumstances.”
“No matter what we do, especially in the beginning, we’re going to see this problem. It’s just a fact.”
“What do you want me to say, Jeffrey? Do you think I’m being heartless? I’m not preventing anyone from loving their child. I’m just asking them to expand their emotions to include other people.”
“It sounds good when you say it out loud. I’m just saying that, in practice, it will be more difficult.”
“Well, I agree with you there. We’ve moved from theory to practice, and we’ll adjust as necessary.”
“You know that I was really skeptical about this project at the beginning. I didn’t see how it would work out, but I wanted to give it a shot. It was a good opportunity for me. And now, I’ve been here a year, and I truly think something amazing is happening. Whenever you compare the results to the anticipated outcomes, we’re surpassing them. The kids are healthy and happy and cared for in ways that wouldn’t be possible otherwise.”
“But?” Dr. Grind said, feeling his heart rate increase, as if he was already running.
“It’s the parents we have to worry about,” Jeffrey finally said. “The kids are going to be great; the parents are the unstable element. You’ve got to watch them.”
“We don’t want to turn into Big Brother, Jeffrey. We have to give them some freedoms within the project. I can’t watch them twenty-four hours a day. I don’t want to.”
“I don’t either. My focus is on the kids. And maybe this all starts to work itself out when the parents head off to their jobs and school and all that. Once their life outside the complex expands, maybe then they’ll be more comfortable within the family. I hope. I’m just voicing a concern.”
“I hear you,” Dr. Grind said.
“That’s all I wanted to say.” Jeffrey grabbed a towel that he had hung on one of the exercise machines and wiped the sweat from his face. “I’m going to bed,” he said. “I’ve got the first shift in the morning with the kids.”
“Have a good night,” Dr. Grind said.
Once he was alone, Dr. Grind turned on the treadmill and began to walk; it seemed like every time he put his foot down on the treadmill, it was like stepping in tar. His muscles were twitching. He turned up the speed until he was jogging at a fair pace, but even that didn’t get rid of the nerves that were causing his muscles to harden and atrophy. He turned the machine up even faster, and then a few more clicks, until he was running as hard as he could. He knew that if he slipped up or stopped, the force of the treadmill would send him crashing through the wall behind him, so he kept running, feeling his lungs contract, his legs burn. He named every single child in the family, and then named every parent, as if the sequence was a code that would unlock something in his brain. “Marnie, Eli, Cap, Eliza, Ally, Lulu, Gilberto, Jackie, Irene, and Maxwell,” a song without music. “Izzy, Harris, Ellen, Julie, Link, Asean, Nikisha, Kenny, Carmen, David, Susan, Paul, Mary, Benjamin, Alyssa, Carlos, Nina, Jeremy, and Callie.” Even then it did not end. “Kalina, Jill, Jeffrey.” He ran and ran. “Marla . . . Jody.” How was it possible to hold all of these people in his heart? What were they even doing there? Over the course of a year, he had brought all of these people together and now he felt the pressure that, if he did not hold on to them tightly enough, they would slip away, spread out across the map and never return. He finally slapped at the console of the treadmill and the speed began to decline in increments, until Dr. Grind finally remembered that his legs were a part of his body, until he was once again simply putting one foot in front of the other, his footsteps not making a sound.