I doubted his behavior had improved. One look at the chandeliers, those constellations of overpriced incandescence, and it was clear that, if anything, it had gotten worse. I was accustomed to this cycle of Clive-pleasing abuse, having built up a tolerance over the years, escaping only when forced. When the magazine died, the life drained out of Clive’s clutches. But Errol was new to the fanaticism. You could see it in his eyes. I had to hand it to Clive: He no longer needed a vehicle for his cult of personality, he was the cult.
Errol embraced me with his free arm, holding me to his chest in one fluid motion. He was wearing navy pajamas with white piping. They had a sheen to them.
“Do you sleep here?” I asked, concerned.
“Do I sleep here? Do I sleep here? Such a comedian!”
He escorted me inside, where there were now two baristas and still no customers. The new barista was a doe-eyed girl with a messy bun. Blond hairs fell down the nape of her neck. She looked like she belonged in a field, reaching for a farmhouse. She, too, was wearing pajamas as she arranged straws in a jar while the first barista, the boy, offered her smitten words of encouragement.
“Stay here,” Errol instructed me.
“Woof.”
“Oh my God, ha.”
He disappeared behind a seamless door in the wall. In my periphery, I saw movement overhead. Several people passed above me, their long shadows extending across the marble floor. Behold, the conductors of my fate, milling about. It was good to see the place more populated, to hear voices. I stood on the tips of my toes. They looked at me, almost as if by accident, and then quickly looked away. From Clive’s description, I’d been expecting a mix of monks and celebrities. Phrases like “pyramid scheme” and “suppressive person” had been scuttling around my brain for days. But these people looked like a cross-section of any subway car. Except, perhaps, for the monochromatic pajamas. And the bowing.
There was a Black woman with a face full of freckles telling a story to a younger redheaded man, both of them sipping on coffee. They were laughing quietly. They split to allow a desultory woman with a crown of frizz to pass. She looked like she taught kindergarten. They all bowed to one another. I coughed, trying to get their attention. This achieved nothing. The baristas spoke in hushed tones and then the doe-eyed girl offered me an espresso.
“She doesn’t want any,” the boy whispered sharply.
“Like Jonestown with lattes!” I shouted at them.
The girl started giggling. An anemic woman in a turban was tending to the birds of paradise in the corner. Was it ego to assume these people would take an interest in me? How could they be so incurious about the subject of their own experiment? Perhaps for the same reason no one likes to befriend their food before they cook it.
Vadis materialized from the hallway, an iPad in the crook of her arm.
“Hey,” I said, moving my head back in surprise, “I didn’t know you were here.”
“I had work to do,” she said. “We’re launching a line of sleep masks.”
“Huh?”
“For my job job.”
“Ah, I almost forgot you had one of those. Is that why everyone is wearing pajamas? Market research?”
“Yeah, those are ours. They’re mulberry silk.”
I smiled, relieved. When I looked around again, the woman in the turban had vanished along with the other members.
“Where did they go?”
“Where did who go?”
“Please don’t make me feel crazier than I already feel.”
“They probably went to the meditation room.”
“May I see the meditation room?”
“You came back,” she said, moving on to the obvious.
“Why can’t I just see it?”
“Because it’s not for you, Nosey Pants.”
“I thought this whole shebang was for me.”
“It is. Trust us.”
“Oh, no, thank you.”
“Man,” she said, jumping to another train of thought while the first one was still moving, “you’re so lucky that Clive selected you. Lola, you’ve been chosen.”
“One could argue…” I said, motioning to the ceiling, to the sky beyond it.
“It’s like a romantic Minority Report,” Vadis decided. “You know, a SWAT team of cops and robot spiders that show up before you get into a bad relationship.”
“Am I in a bad relationship, according to you?”
“That’s not up to me.”
“But you guys are the cops.”