Cult Classic(60)

I’d never pissed in the Golconda before but I was not surprised to see the bathroom was impeccably designed with tiles artfully splashed on the floor in pomegranate bursts. The wallpaper had zebras floating across it, and a communal sink, a trough framed by vases filled with birds of paradise. Chantal placed her phone on the ledge beneath the mirror. So many followers and invitations, so much fabulous ease, were just a password away. As we washed our hands, I felt the need to scrub harder and longer than her, to lather my forearms with soap, thereby subliminally transmitting an air of superiority.

As we left, I suggested a shortcut back and told her to follow me. She tittered with delight. We rounded the hall behind the elevator and scuttled past it. I could still see through the glass, but the brass wheels, frozen in place, impeded my vision. I hoped the same was true for Errol, who I could just make out, pacing in the atrium, waiting for us to return. I took Chantal’s hand, crouched down, and rushed past him.

Finally, I thought.

No one seemed to have a problem explaining to me, in unsolicited detail, how the technical portion of the program worked, how the Golconda were delving into my life, moving people around like chess pieces. It was the meditative portion—what the members were actually doing when they came here—that remained a haze. Did all these people really just come here to sit and think about me because Clive had convinced them to? It was time to find out.

But behind the garden was just a curved wall, covered in white wallpaper with a silver bar pattern, like a minimalist interpretation of the Magritte painting. There was no sign of a door. And yet both Chantal and I had heard the sound of a door. This was confounding to me but completely logical to Chantal.

“Ha!” she exclaimed, as if the wallpaper had told her a joke. “Clive really does think of everything.”

She pressed on one of the silver bars, which, as it turned out, was the door handle, and pulled the door open.

“We have the same thing in our guest bathroom. It drives the housekeeper insane.”

I let Chantal go first while I kept a lookout. She leaned her head in at the same pace Rocket liked to employ while stalking a toy mouse. I could tell it was bright behind the door, because Chantal squinted. I strained to hear oms, but all I caught was the hum of an air-conditioning unit. I did, however, see the edge of a piece of furniture in the corner, what looked like a white duvet cover on the corner of a bed.

That’s all I got before Clive pushed the door into our faces and slammed it.

“Babe!” Chantal scolded. “You nearly took my skin off.”

Clive and I both flinched at the specificity of the image. Standing beside him was a scowling Vadis. His heavy.

Clive apologized for disappearing. He was uncharacteristically unkempt. His bright eyes were bloodshot, half-moons of overworked skin beneath them, his five o’clock shadow looking as if it’d been there since 4 a.m. He clearly thought that he would be at Chantal’s side, but something had kept him preoccupied. His expression was familiar. I’d seen it when I caught him on the phone in the atrium the other night and the morning, years ago, when he explained that he could no longer keep the magazine on life support. It would die no matter what he did.

“That’s okay,” Chantal said, adding, coyly, “So what’s behind Door Number One?”

Clive offered a half-coherent explanation about logistics that were causing him grief. Something about how you should never put your fate in other people’s hands when they have their wallet in yours. I could tell he was lying about something. But Chantal dropped it. Just like that, she turned a dewy cheek. I could see what it was he saw in her. She knew when to tease him, when to compliment him, how to parse out her own upset so that he listened when a crisis arose but never felt the burden of girlfriend maintenance. I had no faucet like that, not with Clive, not with Boots, not with anyone. It was a point of pride. It had also never gotten me what I wanted, not once.

As we walked back toward the entrance, Vadis feigning interest as Chantal explained how she lost followers every time she appeared to be “taken,” Clive hung back with me and whispered.

“Who’d you see?”

“Knox.”

“The guy who decked you?”

“That’s Phillip.”

“I always liked Phillip.”

“You would. Knox is the librettist with mommy issues.”

“Oh, right. We won an ASME for that issue.”

“Clive.”

“Anyway, we have a teensy problem. But maybe it’s a good problem. And maybe not so teensy. Entirely up to you.”

“You say ‘free will’ and I swear to God, I will slap you in a synagogue.”

“I’m getting some pushback from a couple of key investors.”

“What’s their problem? Aside from a stunning lack of moral instinct.”

“I—we—may have bitten off a tad more funding than we’re prepared to chew on the projected timeline, so we need to press pause before we can explore another round of packages.”

“What do you need rounds of funding for?”

He arched his back like he wanted to crack it.

“They just want to see more proof that this is working. Money people have no vision, you know this. You thought the magazine biz was bad? Try the real world.”

“I never thought it was a ‘biz.’”