I decided to throw in a few questions of my own, just to make Errol squirm. Like, say, what the fuck was the point of a full coffee bar before the “soft opening”？ And was it not wasteful to hire not one but two baristas? Errol deftly pinned this on Clive’s attention to detail. Chantal put her hand on her heart as if compulsion and consideration were the same thing.
“And what’s the room behind the garden?” she asked, pointing.
“Huh?”
“I heard a door slam behind the garden.”
“Supply closet,” Errol spat out.
“I have to pee,” I said, raising my hand. “May I be excused to pee?”
“No, you may not.”
“I have to go too,” Chantal said, pressing my arm to her side. “Harold, can we have the hall pass?”
“Oh, can we, Harold? Please?”
She pouted. Then I pouted.
Errol begrudgingly gestured down the hall opposite the meditation room. But he couldn’t very well follow us into the stalls. Instead, he watched for as long as he could, like a parent waiting to give his children over to a yellow bus. I heard him dart back into the interrogation room when our backs were turned, presumably to find Vadis. Or hide any open files on my exes. It was sloppy for Clive to have brought Chantal here, having lied to her about what this place was, and then leave her unattended.
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.