Beyond Belief (15 page)

Being in the Sea Org, as I had long suspected, didn’t mean simply doing deck work and clearing words forever, there was a better future that awaited me; all I had to do was pay my dues and graduate from the Ranch. Mom’s life in Clearwater had given me a glimpse of what my own life could look like, and it didn’t involve planting trees or hauling rocks. I believed that through dedication and hard work this life was possible for me, too.

In the end, I had an amazing time during the week I was in Florida. I spent most of my time with Sharni, whom I loved to be around and I also got to see my Grandma Loretta, who gave me a karaoke machine as a gift. Given how much I detested the routine on the Ranch, almost any break would have been welcome, but all the amenities—from the great food, to the downtime by the pool, to my beautiful bedroom at the Hacienda—made it glorious. Best of all was no decks. I fell into the life of leisure without a second thought, and never wanted the week to end.

A
RRIVING BACK AT THE
R
ANCH WAS DIFFICULT.
T
HERE WAS NO
easing back into things; the first night, I went straight back to sixteen girls to a bathroom. The next day was worse when I woke up to uniforms, dorm inspections, decks, and the rest of the routine. Thankfully, after just a few weeks, news came that I’d be going on another trip: My entire family was going to go to Pennsylvania to celebrate my great-grandparents’ sixtieth wedding anniversary. Dad and I flew in from L.A., and Justin was in Florida with Mom, so they came together. Everyone was there: Grandpa Ron and his wife, Becky; Uncle Dave and Aunt Shelly; and Dad’s two sisters, Lori and Denise; and their families.

After the party, Mom, Dad, Justin, and I took our first-ever family vacation. The first part of our trip was in Pennsylvania, and our first stop was Knoebels Amusement Resort in central Pennsylvania, where I ate a pierogi for the first time. Though being around so many Wogs always made me a bit wary, on rare occasions we’d taken field trips from the Ranch that had at least exposed me to settings like this. Whether it was Disneyland or the ballet, those extremely sporadic trips were always carefully regimented to make sure that our interaction with the Wog world was limited as much as possible. Because I was with my family, Knoebels was a bit different, and I was able to enjoy the amusement park with more freedom.

Farther east, we enjoyed meatball heroes at a restaurant named after the Philadelphia Phillies’ outfielder Lenny Dykstra. From Pennsylvania, we headed across New York and northeast through Vermont to New Hampshire, where we stayed with Aunt Lori and her family, and my dad’s mother, Grandma Loretta, at the old house my parents had left behind when they rejoined the Sea Org.

Looking around the house, I found myself imagining what my life would have been like here, if my parents had decided to stay put. The relatives were all public Scientologists, and I would have grown up just like them. This would have been my home. Seeing my cousin Chrissie’s room, I thought that it likely would have been my room and my bed, that her closet filled with princess dresses in every color would have been mine. That her life was what might have been.

For all the big differences between my life and theirs, I also came face-to-face with little things, too; in some ways the little things were the most striking. While we were in New Hampshire, we also stayed with Aunt Denise. Her house was amazing. Taylor and Whitney, Denise’s oldest daughters, had an unbelievable bedroom with big windows and skylights, and lots of pretty dolls and even a television in their room. It felt like paradise, but seeing all that they had didn’t make me envious; I always remembered my place in the Church. I was being raised to be a Sea Org member, and I had a mission to fulfill that was far more important than owning toys. Although it would have been nice to have a few, it was my duty to serve humankind like my parents did, and the thought of having so many toys seemed almost selfish, or at least that is what I told myself.

During our visit, Chrissie and I went berry picking in her backyard just for fun, a concept that felt a bit strange, since any kind of work we did at the Ranch was always a chore. One day, there was a spirited argument between my cousins in the car about who got to sit next to me, and while I was flattered, I was also surprised because we never acted so childishly at the Ranch. My cousins’ behavior seemed a bit ridiculous. The Ranch had no tolerance for such behavior, so I’d never encountered it. I didn’t know that most kids bickered like this. I didn’t know what normal looked like.

C
HAPTER
T
EN

KEY TO LIFE

R
ETURNING TO THE
R
ANCH AFTER SO MUCH TRAVEL WOULD HAVE
been incredibly difficult, but as it turned out, I wasn’t going to be back there for long. Mom must have missed me as she was already arranging for me to come back to Flag, this time to do LRH’s Key to Life course.

The course focused on the deeper comprehension of the small common words in the English language, as well as English grammar. Only four or five of the older kids at the Ranch had done it, but I was going to be the first to take it in Clearwater. I didn’t know anything about the course, because the few kids who had completed it had to keep its content absolutely secret. Mr. Parker seemed doubtful that I could handle it. She thought I was too young, and that it would be too steep a gradient for me. Her lack of confidence didn’t worry me, though; more than anything, I was just excited about returning to Clearwater.

When I arrived, I was back at Mom’s and in my own room again. Everything looked just as I’d left it: the floral quilt was spread across my big bed without a wrinkle, the bathroom was stocked with my special floral shampoo; and the snack baskets were brimming with goodies, all thanks to Sharni.

For the Key to Life class, Mom had found a twin for me, and for weeks, she had been telling me about her in our phone calls. Her name was Diane and my mother said that the few times that she’d met her, she’d been
so
great and
so
nice. She insisted on calling her “Diana,” even though her name was Diane. Hearing my mother beam like this about another girl my age made me a bit jealous.

My unease also came from intimidation. Diane held the prestigious post of Commanding Officer of Cadets at Flag. With a post like that, my concern was that she was probably more ethical than I, but I tried to remember where I was from. Being from the Int Ranch had its own status. The Cadets at my ranch were always touted as being from the best Cadet Org on the planet. My brother had even done special missions for the PAC Cadet Org in Los Angeles to make those Cadets more ethical. Supposedly, the PAC Cadets had been watching television and not doing their decks, so Justin and a few other bigger kids from the Ranch went down there for a few weeks to change things.

The course would take place at the Coachman Building, two blocks from Mom’s office, and she had arranged for her secretary Alison to take me there the first day. The Key to Life course room was on the third floor and more refined than those at the Ranch. It had upholstered chairs, tables with wood inlays, and carpets with interesting designs. Like at the Ranch, though, the walls were covered with pictures of LRH, some of his more famous quotes, and some nice Scientology-themed artwork.

Most of the twenty or so students signed up for the course wore civvies, not uniforms. This was because many of them were public Scientologists, who paid for their courses, while others were non–Sea Org staff and had come from Scientology churches all over the world, from Italy, Australia, and Zimbabwe, to name a few. The Key to Life course cost about $4,000, and while Sea Org members didn’t have to pay for courses, if we were ever to leave the organization, we would be billed for any services we had taken if we intended to continue in Scientology.

The supervisor for the course was a blond woman in her twenties named Nikki. “You must be Jenna!” she said as she approached. “Welcome!” With that, Alison left, saying she would come get me at lunchtime.

I was looking around for a seat when a girl a year or two older than me with long brown hair and bright blue eyes walked up to me and introduced herself as Diane. From her clear articulation and the look in her eyes, I knew my twin had a correct Scientology stare and voice. She struck me as being smart and a goody two-shoes; when we filled out our check sheets, I noticed she had perfect handwriting.

Nikki handed out a book that used pictures instead of words to illustrate concepts. There were two main characters, Joe and Bill. One character would get frustrated and the other would help him, and vice versa. Their objective was to illustrate twinning. The book had illustrations, but no words.

“Why aren’t there any words?” I whispered to Diane.

“Without words, we can’t get misunderstood words,” she told me. Apparently LRH had designed the course this way to help people conceptualize a meaning without getting stuck on a definition.

When we were finished with that book, Nikki gave us a second one that showed how to do clay representations of Scientology concepts. It had only a few words, and the book defined every one of them for us. For this exercise, Diane and I sat across from each other at a table with a bucket of clay and some molding tools between us. Diane’s side of the table had a stack of legal paper and a pen. She was going to be the auditor, and Nikki instructed her to ask me questions and record my answers. Nikki watched as Diane began by writing both of our names on the top of the sheet.

“Are you hungry?” Diane asked.

“No,” I replied.

“Good,” Diane said as she marked my answer on her worksheet. “Are you tired?” she asked next.

“No,” I replied.

“Good.” She marked this on her worksheet as well. These were the questions that always started off every auditing session. “Is there any reason not to start this session?” she asked.

“We’re doing a session?” I asked, a little surprised.

“Yeah, the one we just read about in the book.”

“Oh, okay.”

Diane repeated the question. “Is there any reason not to start the session?”

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“This is the session!” she said in an unusually loud voice and with a particularly intense stare. The loud tone was exactly what she was supposed to do and how every Scientology session commenced. She next wrote the time down on the worksheet.

Nikki told us we would next be using the clay that was between us.

“Make a clay representation of Force/Counter Force,” she instructed.

Following the instructions in the second book that Nikki had given us, I did my best to demonstrate this concept by making little men in clay and putting labels on them. When I finished a representation, Diane raised her hand, so that Nikki could make sure it was correct. When she had okayed it, we moved on to the next one, Intention/Counter Intention.

After each representation, Diane asked me if I had had any wins. Usually, my wins were “I feel better,” or “My problems don’t seem as big anymore,” or “I don’t have as many problems as I thought I did.” I quickly learned that wins had an upside—they were the quickest way out of a session. Once you shared a big win, the session was over. We always had to end a Clay Table Representation on a win.

Alison came to get me at lunchtime as promised, and we drove over to Mom’s office. The enthusiasm I got from her co-workers that I had started my Clay Table auditing was very fulfilling, as I wasn’t used to people being this energized about anything I was doing. After lunch, I went back to the course room, where I stayed until dinnertime, at which point I went back to the WB and dined with Mom and Tom. Then, Mom had Tom take me home. As usual, she wouldn’t get home until one or two in the morning.

Sharni was waiting for me at the apartment when Tom dropped me off. As the course progressed, I spent so much time with her that she quickly became more like an older sister than a babysitter. We would go swimming in the pool at night or, sometimes, we’d watch the current music programming on VH1 or MTV. Since the staff wasn’t technically allowed to have televisions, this was a chance for both of us to enjoy it without getting into trouble. If anyone found out, Sharni could get off the hook by saying that she was just obliging me.

Watching me was not Sharni’s only Sea Org duty. Along with several other girls, she was responsible for doing the laundry for my mother, Alison, and a few other senior executives. They were also charged with cleaning the apartments and offices of their bosses, making sure their meals were delivered, and providing them with snacks throughout the day. Usually, Sharni was able to get her work done before I got home, but sometimes I would help her if she still had things left to do.

Observing Sharni go about her work felt like I was seeing little pieces of what it meant to be in the Sea Org. I found myself imagining the day when these were my responsibilities. Even helping Sharni, I felt like I was role-playing a true staffer. Taking good care of the executives was certainly a prestigious post for Sharni, and she took it very seriously. On Saturdays, I didn’t have class, so I would hang out with Sharni. Often, we’d visit my grandmother Loretta, who had recently moved from New Hampshire to Clearwater. I’d never spent a whole lot of time with Grandma Loretta, but I quickly came to enjoy doing so now. One weekend, Loretta’s parents, my great-grandparents Dorothy and Ralph, came to town. I liked my great-grandma but my great-grandpa Ralph was crotchety, grumpy, and tended to yell out comments, which scared me. He was not rude per se, but to a little kid, he could be intimidating because he was so brash and abrasive. Looking back, he was probably trying to be nice and to make conversation, but wasn’t aware of how loud he was speaking.

One thing I knew about my great-grandparents was that they were Catholic. When we sat down to eat, they would pray before the meal, which freaked me out a little. I wasn’t sure what the procedure for this was, so I just sat in my place awkwardly waiting for it to be over. Dad had only told me not to say “Jesus Christ!” or “God damn it!” However, he had never told me anything about saying grace.