Trust Me (4 page)

CHAPTER 6

⍫

He found it buried in the third page of the Metro section of the
LA Times
:

SUICIDE IN WESTWOOD

Twenty-eight-year-old Marilyn Fenner, a research assistant at UCLA, was found dead Monday morning, apparently after jumping from her twelfth-floor balcony.

Joe Greiner put the paper on his desk and wondered who made the decisions about whose death made which page and how much of a story it would get. Didn’t this girl have a life, a family, a history? He sipped at his coffee. It was sweet, loaded with sugar and powdered creamer. Like a liquid candy bar, he thought.

The phone rang. “Homicide, Greiner.” He didn’t really feel like talking.

“Joe? Ron Pool. I catch you in the middle of something?”

Pool, from the
Times
. Decent guy. Wrote the piece on the girl. “Always, Ron. In the middle of a sea of shit. What’s up?”

“I got curious about the girl, is all. You call it a suicide, we print it’s a suicide. But it bugged me so I did a little checking.”

“Yeah?” Pool was a thorough guy, a professional. “What kind of checking?”

“Well, I haven’t come up with much. Except that the suicide rate for women in her age group on the Westside took a big jump in the last couple of years.”

“Yeah, so it’s a fuckin’ epidemic. What of it?” Pool usually came up with better.

“I don’t know,” Ron said, “but it’s got me like an itch. I pulled files on a few others but don’t really have much. Fax me what you’ve got and I’ll keep you up to date if anything shows up.”

“Hey, maybe it’s a suicide conspiracy.” Joe wasn’t big on hunches. You show up, look around, ask questions, weed out the bullshit; what starts out as a puzzle always gets dumb and simple. Except here there wasn’t any puzzle. “Hey, what the hell, I’ll pull suicide files, last two years, Westside, female, twenty to thirty.”

“Thanks. I’ll get back to you.” Pool hung up.

Joe started to put the phone down, then changed his mind and punched a number instead. He was relieved to hear his ex-wife’s answering machine pick up.

“Janey, I’m at the office. Be here ’til four. I’ll come by to pick up Robbie at six. See ya.” It was so much simpler leaving a message.

He had two hours worth of paperwork to do. A few calls, then gathering the files for Pool, would take him right up to four. Then, he thought with relish, he would get some time at the gym. His hand went automatically to his gut; he grabbed it and hated the way it filled his hand, pushed over his belt. He had powerful arms and legs but couldn’t get rid of the flab in his middle.

A few hours later, Joe finished the paperwork and accessed the database. He entered the password “RAIDERS” and then the keyword “suicide.” A few more parameters narrowed the range to what Pool had asked for. The cursor blinked and then a message came up: “Search indicates 8 records.” He punched in the print command and walked over to the printer. Eight very lonely young women, eight desperate acts. He took the list down the hall to where the files were and started pulling the folders, getting more depressed as the stack grew.

CHAPTER 7

⍫

Holly blasted up Roxbury drive.
It was only a short hop to the Beverly Hills Playhouse; the evening was warm, she had the top down, the music turned up, and everything seemed just right: mysterious and full of promise.

She had gone to bed the night before with a bag of ice clutched to her eye, angry with herself, hating Tony, and even angrier at Art, as if he had been responsible for what had happened. And that awful meeting—what in the world did they have to offer?

In the morning, she had awakened thinking about the meeting again, only this time it seemed as though something had happened there that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. It was vague, tenuous, and she couldn’t find it in any particular thing that she had seen or heard. It was just a sense she had of a promise of relief.

The ticket to the lecture was in her purse on the passenger seat. She had found it on the floor in the living room—Tony had dropped it when he grabbed her hair. After he left, Arnie had come in and comforted her, telling her that Tony was a wanna-be, a has-been that never was, and that even though he was sexy he was too much of a loser for someone like her. Arnie had smoothed out her hair, talked to her in the bathroom as she undressed, and patted her blanket when she was in bed, turning out the light and whispering good night.

She turned up Canon Drive and found herself in a long line of cars all waiting to get into the same parking lot. She drove around them, noticed the line at the Playhouse, and circled the block. A parking spot materialized for her on the next street over; she locked the BMW and walked back to Canon Drive, glancing at the expensive displays in the storefronts as she passed.

The line on the sidewalk was long and she didn’t see a soul that she knew. Taking a place at the end, she picked fragments of conversation out of the general buzz:

“. . . absolutely haven’t had a shouting match since we read her book”;

“. . . It became clear as daylight I was in the wrong marriage”; and “. . . wonder what her own personal life is like.”

Yes, she wondered, what can life be like when your ship comes in, your book is selling, people line up to see you at $45 each, and you have all this knowledge that helps others? Is it quiet at the center?

“Holly!” She turned and saw Art, dressed in a dark blue suit this time, looking even tanner than before as he smiled at her. He took her by the hand and led her toward the theater door, saying, “I’m delighted you came. Let’s get you to a decent seat before I have to go running off to play stage manager again.” He whisked her past the line of waiting people, professional people, she noticed, well dressed and attractive, interesting looking. Many were hugging each other. Over and over, people nodded and smiled as they passed. Some seemed to clamor for Art’s attention. He walked her past the ticket taker, through the crowded lobby, and, once in the theater itself, down the aisle to the front row. The front section was generally full, except for two seats by the center aisle. Next to these were several people Holly recognized—they were from the meeting the other night and the restaurant after.

“Holly, how great you made it!” It was Ted, the man from the meeting. “Have a seat. This is definitely going to change your life.”

She sat, still holding Art’s hand, as though he were a parent who had just safely guided her across a busy street. “I’m off,” he said, “to orchestrate madness into order. A special talent.” He kissed her hand before letting it go.

“A very great man,” said Ted from behind her as she turned to see where Art was headed. The theater was filling rapidly. “He was my group’s facilitator at a weekend workshop.” Ted seemed to be proud of this fact.

“What happens at a workshop?”

“We go through Bobbi’s program step by step. It’s a truly amazing experience. Everything I thought I knew and all the opinions I had ever formed had to be reevaluated and for the most part thrown out. When my turn came, I got so in touch with my feelings that I was in tears within five minutes. I had so much energy invested in protecting myself from those feelings that it was a tremendous relief to just surrender and let myself be entirely vulnerable.”

“Where did this all happen?” she inquired, not at all sure that what Ted was describing sounded attractive to her.

“Oh, up at Serra Retreat in Malibu. A perfect setting. I’m going again in October, if I can afford it.”

“Why, is it expensive?” She couldn’t imagine spending money to break down and cry in front of a group of total strangers.

“Oh, well, of course there’s some expense involved. But considering what happens to you in here—” he gestured to his heart “—and in here—” he tapped his head “—there’s really no way to put a dollar value on it. I mean, it doesn’t even equate.”

She sensed that there was something defensive about Ted’s response. “Well, if I wanted to go, how much will I need to spend?”

“The food is excellent and the view is amazing. It’s like a great vacation, except you’re getting all this critical work done. The whole thing runs fifteen hundred dollars.” He stared at her as if this were a challenge: Dare to say it’s too much.

The lights dimmed and the room became quiet. She felt annoyed at the possibility of being pitched on a fifteen-hundred-dollar workshop that she would absolutely never join.

A woman walked up to the podium and adjusted the microphone. She was of medium height, slightly stocky, and dressed in a rather drab business suit. With her short-cropped hair and black-rimmed glasses, she looked like a no-nonsense executive secretary in an investment banking firm. Holly had expected something quite different, a more commanding, glamorous presence.

“My name is Bobbi Bradley and I’m here to save my life.”

“Hi, Bobbi,” came back in unison. Holly was surprised to realize she had said it too.

“There’s a reason we do the things we do,” Bobbi began. “It traces back to when we were very small, when every time we were frustrated in our legitimate expectations for safety, love, and physical affection, for the attention and reliability of the adults around us, we made an adjustment. We protected ourselves. We built a suit of armor. Eventually we confused the growing of armor with growing up. We never realized that the growing of armor is the development and solidification of deformities in our psychic make-up. So we think that we have grown up, we look like adults, we may or may not have the responsibilities associated with adulthood, but we have this pain, and we don’t know where it comes from and we don’t know what to do with it. So we overeat, we drink, we feed the flames with drugs, we immerse ourselves in obsessive relationships; anything
to dull the pain, to live with our condition. You see, the fact is, our armor is our prison.”

Something about the woman’s voice had picked up and carried Holly’s attention from the moment the lecture began. It must be the same for the others, she thought, as the room was imbued with a quality of rapt attention. For the next hour she found herself laughing with the audience at Bobbi’s perfectly wrought ironies, nodding her head at connections she had never made before, and tearful as Bobbi related the childhood experiences of a convicted serial rapist.

“The point,” Bobbi was saying, “is that we need to consciously become as children again, because underneath the armor that’s what we have been. And it’s only from that place that we can then build in order to become adults in the best sense of the word, able to live responsibly and have real relationships. So, we need a method for becoming children again, and a setting. And, crucial to the process, the setting must be safe, and the method true.

“The SOL movement, born out of my first book,
Saving Our Lives
, offers the method and setting required. We use a synthesis of psychoanalytic principles, metaphysical concepts, twelve-step work, and groundbreaking new technology to effect powerful long-term change in anyone who is committed to the process. The intensive workshops provide the framework for the initial catalyzing effect and later ongoing development. Many of you have already been to an intensive. We now have meetings all over the city and in many other states, in which we continue our work and commence to show, by example, how much for the better our lives can change. Thank you.”

There was a silence for several seconds, followed by an explosion of applause. People around Holly stood, still clapping, until she was the only one in her row sitting. It made her feel conspicuous so she, too, stood.

Bobbi Bradley remained at the podium with her hands slightly outstretched, palms up, as though encouraging the audience. With a simple twist of her wrists, her palms faced outward and the room fell silent. Holly, like the rest, settled back in her seat.

“All right, now it’s your turn. Who’s got something to say?”

At this point Art appeared in the aisle with a microphone. Several hands shot up, and Art handed the mic to a woman a few rows behind Holly.

“My name is Denise and I’m here to save my life,” the woman said.

“Hi, Denise,” the audience echoed. Denise was in her late thirties, well dressed and self-assured, Holly thought.

“I just wanted to share with you that I first came to hear you two years ago because my friend thought it would be good for me. I was in complete denial at the time and perfectly convinced my life was okay.”

“And was it really okay?” Bobbi asked.

“Somewhere in your pitch, when you spoke of having to undo the armor, I found that I was feeling scared and angry. I actually left the room. The next day I realized that what I was afraid of was being unprotected, and that you had told me a truth about myself.”

“So what did you do?” Bobbi encouraged from the podium.

“I called the SOL hotline and they signed me up for the intensive. My life has totally been rocketed into a new dimension since that experience. It’s not something you can describe; it’s something you’ve just got to do.” The woman sat down and more hands went up.

Holly listened to more glowing testimonials of the SOL intensive workshop experience. She had the feeling she was being set up for a pitch and was not surprised when two women began passing out flyers. Sure enough, there it was—fifteen hundred dollars for three days at the Malibu retreat.

Bobbi chose a man in the back. He was attractive, maybe fifty but trim looking, and when he took the mic he said only, “My name is Ron.” There was a moment where Holly expected to hear the rest of the SOL statement, but it never came and the group remained silent.

“Bobbi,” Ron continued, “I paid forty-five dollars to be here tonight. Your workshops cost fifteen hundred dollars. A set of your tapes runs ninety-five bucks. Don’t you think there is something fundamentally inconsistent in offering work of this depth at such great profit to yourself?” Holly wondered the same thing but hadn’t wanted to draw attention to herself.

Bobbi seemed unruffled. “The most useful thing for you to bear in mind is that the results of the work stand independent of the cost. In fact, putting up the money will intensify your commitment to the work. And that in turn will result in a greater sense of being a part of our fellowship, an increased sense of well-being, of wholeness that will launch you into so much higher a state of creativity and productiveness that the few dollars you pay here will be the best investment, the wisest placement of that energy we call money, that you ever made. Furthermore, I invite you, once you’ve got it, to give it away.”

It was a smooth response, Holly thought, to Ron’s challenge. A higher state of creativity, wholeness, well-being, rocketing into a new dimension—it all sounded so very attractive.

Bobbi thanked the audience to new cheers and applause and then left the stage. Art walked up to the podium and took the mic.

“Okay, does anyone not have an application for the next intensive?” He held up a copy. “Look around and you will see someone in your section standing and holding up one of these. Take your application to them and they will walk you through the enrollment procedure. Don’t go home and think about it. The time to save your life is now.”

The house lights went on and the theater burst into commotion. Holly turned to see Ted: he had a look of triumph on his face. “Really something, wasn’t she?”

Holly wasn’t yet sure what she thought—she was baffled by the juxtaposition of serious issues, tantalizing promises, and blatant hucksterism she had just seen. She was saved from having to answer by the appearance of Art.

“Holly, deck the halls. Why look so dour?” He really was very charming, she thought. “You’re worried about the price of a miracle. Put it out of your head—we’ll have a talk about it later.”