“Oh yeah, I’m living in the lap of fucking luxury here. I’m sitting in a hotel room saving up a list of petty tasks for when the room service guy comes. Fredo. He had to help me off the bed so I could go to the bathroom this morning.”
She flipped through the channels on the flat screen TV and settled on BBC.
I opened the minibar cabinet that was under the TV, lifted the can of Pringles, and chucked it at her.
She ducked reflexively. The can hit the headboard and bounced onto the bed beside her. “What the fuck?” she shouted.
“My thoughts exactly.”
Recognition crossed her face. “Gus doesn’t waste any time.” She cracked a gloating smile.
I stared at her, wide-eyed. “You are unbelievable.”
She opened the can of Pringles and ate one. “Hurts, doesn’t it?”
“You killed Phil Collins.”
She leaned forward incredulously. “You ruined my life!”
“You killed Phil Collins!” I screamed. I took a step toward her and she recoiled. “How could you do that, Celeste? You sick fuck!”
That it had been Celeste and not some villain made Phil Collins’s death seem more tragic than before. More avoidable. Who was this person? I’d known her practically all my life, and I’d never imagined she could do anything so terrible.
Celeste snorted a cynical laugh. “That’s exactly how I felt. For months. Every day, sitting alone in a fucking cubicle, a Level 1, while you toured Europe, had affairs with married men, learned French, and moved up the ladder, all because you cheated me out of my big chance. It should have been me over here. And you fucked me over. Anything I’ve done to you pales in comparison to what you did to me.”
I wasn’t so sure about that. Stabbing a goldfish and hunting down my phone records to try to get me fired seemed a lot worse than the rash call I’d made to the transportation company in San Francisco. But that wasn’t the point. The point was, this was Celeste we were talking about, and she wasn’t capable of hurting me this way. She wasn’t like this.
But, apparently, she was. We all were. All of us who dreamed of more, and were willing to sacrifice pieces of ourselves to get it.
We hadn’t started out this way. I hadn’t, and surely she hadn’t either. Our darkness had been a journey. Each new crime became easier than the last. Easier to rationalize. Easier to justify. It was easier to sacrifice new parts of ourselves because of the parts we’d already sacrificed, the sunk cost. Our tolerance for it built up, like adjusting to a new drug, until we no longer recognized ourselves.
“You know what the real icing on the cake is?” she said. “You don’t even appreciate what you have here. You keep saying you’re ‘sorry’ and ‘it’s been so hard’ and it should have been me here instead of you . . . So, not only did you steal my big chance, you wasted it.”
I raised my arms in resignation and walked toward the door. “Well, you got me back, I guess,” I said. “I hope you’re happy now.”
She sighed and stared at the bed for a few seconds. “Not really. I dreamed for months about what your face would look like when you got what was coming to you. But it doesn’t feel as good as I thought it would feel.”
“It never does,” I replied, and left.
The morning sky was the color of dirty snow. I had some time before my meeting with Gus, so I took a walk. I passed the Gare du Neuilly-Porte Maillot and the row of motorcycles in front like a picket line. Mist turned into rain and back to mist again. Shuttered storefronts and endless clouds of cigarette smoke mirrored my own alienation back to me. Paris was both beautiful and brash, and had none of the aura I’d expected it to have, the aura I’d always believed I would somehow absorb into my character by simply being here. It was just another place. A place like any other place, made of the sum of its parts, simultaneously indifferent and gross and lovely. The sidewalks were polluted with trash and I nearly stepped in a pile of dog shit. There were tourists everywhere. I walked by a shop selling dusty phonographs, and a bookstore with a sleeping cat in the window. The smell of dead fish wafted over from the market across the street, mixing with the smell of baking pastries. Wrought iron balconies swirled overhead.
When I eventually entered the restaurant, Gus was already parked at a table by the window. I bypassed the maître d’ and sat down. A waiter brought me a menu. “Un verre de vin blanc, s’il vous plait,” I told him.
I bent over, reached into my bag, pulled Gus’s “lost” cell phone out and handed it to him.
“You found it!” he said.
“Lost and found,” I muttered, glancing up at the returning waiter, who set an empty glass in front of me and poured into it a stream of cold white wine from a green bottle. I took a big slug and braced myself for whatever was about to happen.
“Let’s talk about Halley Faust,” Gus said, extracting a stack of papers from The Backpack and handing it to me. I was a little bit startled to hear myself referred to in the third person like that; this must be serious. I looked at the document I’d been given. At the top in big block letters it said “TANTALUS REPORT: HALLEY M. FAUST.” Below that was an executive summary, followed by a section titled “CONSUMPTION SCORES.”
Gus watched me for several long seconds as waiters passed back and forth and cars zoomed by outside the window.
“What is this?” I said.
“I know we’ve been rather opaque about the mechanics of the Tantalus, so I thought I’d tell you a little bit about it today.”
He adjusted in his seat and sipped his wine as I continued scanning the document nervously.
“The Tantalus is a large-scale data collection tool,” Gus began. “It analyzes everything from browser histories and emails, to spending habits and public records, then uses complex algorithms and predictive analytics to assign a series of consumer scores that will very accurately predict your preferences, your future purchases, and your likelihood to act in a variety of ways.”
“Revolutionizing consumerism,” I said, repeating one of our talking points.
“Right. Businesses can use these scores to create products that suit the needs of consumers, and better market the products they have already created to precisely the people who want them. That means no more junk mail. No more spam emails. Every communication you receive every day will be exactly what you want. There are plenty of companies collecting ‘big data,’ but none of them have algorithms as sophisticated as ours, and none of them have a collection mechanism on par with the Tantalus.”
There was a twinkle in his eye now, so I knew this next part must be the kicker. “If our projections are correct and our supply chain partnerships hold up, a Tantalus device will be imbedded in every cell phone in the United States by the year 2020. More people today have cell phones than toilets—that’s a fact—so the prospect for this product is huge.”
I sat back in my chair and thought about this. They put this thing in cell phones? Oh. Oh no.
“Now, this device has implications beyond just consumer goods,” Gus continued. “We can also use it to monitor and motivate employee behavior as well. And that’s precisely what we’ve been doing. Everyone on the launch team, except me, of course, had a Tantalus inserted into their cell phones. I’ve been analyzing the data in order to tailor my management style to best suit your needs.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “You’ve been spying on me?”
Gus cleared his throat. “Not exactly spying, no. Data collection.”
I raked a hand through my hair. “But you knew everything I was doing. Who I was talking to. . .” I trailed off. And then it dawned on me. “You didn’t even need that email from Celeste, you already knew about Rousseau.”
“Yes, I already knew about Rousseau,” he said.
“What else do you know?”
“It’s not as bad as you think. I know what I need to know. For example, I know you sabotaged Celeste in
San Francisco last year. That was why I hired you for this position. I needed someone on this team who would do whatever it took to succeed, at any cost. Someone relentless, a bulldog. This launch was going to be tough, and I needed to know you could take the heat, that you wouldn’t buckle under pressure.”
“Do you know about Molly?”
“You mean about the booth graphics?”
“Jesus, Gus! You knew about that too? I was a nervous wreck about that! And you let me think I was getting fired.”
“Would you have performed as well if I’d just said, ‘oh don’t worry, it’s fine’? The data says no.”
I looked at the document again. There I was, the essence of me mapped out on a piece of paper.
Subject is part of most highly desirable consumer group: “Insatiables.” Insatiables are idealists, dreamers. They prefer imagined lives over real lives. They love the chase. As soon as they get something they want, they get tired of it and want something else, so they must be rewarded slowly and sparingly. Many insatiables feel an acute sense of inferiority among their peers, and they use advancement to give themselves a false sense of superiority. They often derive validation from work, and so work becomes the center of their life . . .
I stopped reading. Was that really me?
Gus interrupted my thoughts. “I’m creating the new position I told you about last year. The Level 3. Halley, I want you to take it.”
The waiter delivered a tray of raw oysters that Gus must have ordered before I arrived. Gus squeezed a lemon wedge over one of them and drank it dry, setting the pearly, calcified shell back in its place on the bed of ice.
“There are great things in store for you, Halley. In fact, you remind me a little of myself when I was your age.”
I looked back down at the report again.
“Now,” Gus said, “you can relocate to Europe permanently and work from here, if you want. It’ll be a field-based position. Since you’ll be traveling so much, you can live anywhere. Your pay and benefits will stay the same . . .”
I interrupted. “Give it to Celeste,” I said.
Gus stared at me, another oyster poised in hand.
“The job. Give it to Celeste,” I repeated.
“I heard you the first time. I just think you’re confused. You need some time to think.”
I shook my head.
His expression was serene. “Look,” he said, “maybe I haven’t explained this clearly enough. Everything I’m saying—these are all good things. You have succeeded here. This is your moment, it’s what you’ve been dreaming about.”
What I’d been dreaming about. What I’d been dreaming about . . . But what if that was the problem? It was dreaming that had gotten me into this mess. Gus had practically spelled it out for me just now, the way he’d been using my dreams to control me. My dreams had become commodities, opportunities to be leveraged. It was dreams—of the person I might become, the things I might do, the way I might feel—that pushed me to consume, to perform. And fulfilling them was never as good as it was supposed to be. For any of us. We got the things we thought we wanted, but then we got sick, or somebody was mean to us, or our rental car wouldn’t go in reverse. Our guests complained—because nothing lived up to their expectations either. Our families were dysfunctional, despite all of our efforts to shape them into the people we wanted them to be. The joyous moments were too short and too far apart.
As if he could read my thoughts, Gus said, “Our society depends on dreamers, Halley. On ambition. Business is the bedrock of civilization as we know it. Everything we have, cars and airplanes, the clothes you’re wearing and the phone in your pocket, is because of someone with a dream willing to give 100 percent to see it realized. Innovation. People willing to increase efficiency, to grow.”
Gus took another oyster and offered me one. I watched the way he squeezed the lemon, the way the shell barely touched his lips as he tossed the oyster and the juice down his throat. I took one from the tray. He wiped his mouth with the edge of his hand.
“You don’t have to decide now,” he said. “Just think about it. This is an incredible opportunity for you. Truth be told, I’m envious. I wish I could go back to where you are, do it all over again. You’ve got it all ahead of you. And if you don’t do this, what are you going to do? The data says it all: you’ll be bored out of your skull without a new challenge. You are the right person for this job. I believe in you. I am giving you everything you want. You’re in the big leagues now. Step up to the plate.”
“I’ll think about it,” I said, although I knew what I was going to do. Still, the potential, the big, wide-open road waiting there in front of me, filled the hollows of my heart. For right now, in this moment, it was within my grasp. I squeezed a lemon wedge over the oyster and raised it to my mouth, feeling the gritty, stony shell touch my bottom lip. When I tilted it back, the cold brackish liquid ran over my tongue, then the meat, which tasted fresh and coppery, and for a moment I was happy. Happy perched there between two worlds, luxuriating in a future ripe with possibilities.
EPILOGUE
My father hoists himself into the driver’s seat and turns the key in the ignition. He looks over at me.
“Scribbling away again,” he says. He puts the truck in gear and heads toward the hay field.
I take my tanned feet off the dashboard. “I told you. If I don’t get it all on paper now I’m going to forget it.”
He chuckles. “You used to say you wanted to forget.”
“Not anymore.”
It’s been five years now. Five years since I left Findlay, five years since I gave Celeste my job. Five years since I crossed the clean and brightly lit terminal of the Cincinnati airport, past the same Starbucks and McDonald’s and atrium full of flags I’d seen so many times, and discovered how much I’d truly missed Ohio. Magazines and newspapers and CNN on the terminal televisions were all in English. The illumination of mindless comprehension made me feel like a genius: I was wealthy with words. The exquisite freshness of the place, the familiarity and the smiles and the ability to buy anything I needed without incident . . . I was finally safe again. I knew all the rules. It was all so easy and bright, and I saw how much I’d always taken that part of it for granted.
When I saw my parents waiting for me outside the security checkpoint that day, my body relaxed and my eyes watered as if I’d just returned from war. My mother pulled me into a hug, and the smell of her perfume conjured thousands of unconscious memories, school plays and green bean casserole and trips to the pumpkin patch. For a few minutes I wanted never to leave Ohio or her arms again.
Of course, it still isn’t perfect between us. We haven’t miraculously stopped seeing the distance between what our relationship is and what we’ve always wished it was. But over time I’ve come to accept that theirs is a door that my key will never quite fit. And, paradoxically, the more I accept that, the better we are.
After I got back I lost touch with everyone on the launch team, and with Rousseau. Celeste sends me updates from time to time, although I don’t talk to her very often either. Too much was damaged between us, and that kind of damage can never be completely undone. Still, she keeps me updated, which is nice. After Darren anonymously sent a copy of the Railer document to Findlay’s competitors, the company got hit with several lawsuits, on the basis of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. The lawsuits were all eventually dropped because of some legal loopholes, but Anthony decided that the bad press was damaging enough to Findlay’s brand that the Tantalus should be taken off the market. Shortly after that, he fired Gus. The official reason was because Gus violated security protocol by revealing trade secrets via the Railer document. But the real reason, according to Celeste, was that Anthony finally found out about Gus’s affair with Annabella. Sometimes I still think about Gus, clinging to his cappuccino machine as he fades to obscurity, and I wonder, if he’d known how it was a
ll going to end, would he have done anything differently?
As for the others, Lauren became Findlay’s North American Sales Manager. But since she hates Dayton and refuses to buy a house here, she has to fly in from LA every Monday and back every Friday, which amounts to a pretty harried life.
Max took Gus’s place as Vice President, much to everyone’s dissatisfaction. With him at the helm, Findlay has begun to decline. As a new leader, Max’s first inclination was to make his mark by doing the opposite of everything Gus had done. He decided that the division had gotten too loose with money and, although he, himself, had enjoyed the lifestyle that that money afforded—in fact, it had been one of his biggest reasons for coming to Findlay in the first place—he embarked upon a massive division-wide belt-tightening.
He and Lauren designed a series of systems that would make things more efficient and create more oversight where there previously was none, consisting of a bunch of re-orgs, shared databases, and elaborate approvals processes. The effect of these changes was, in essence, to create a little fiefdom where management had absolute power and control, and to effectively pull the ladder up behind them. Their biggest mistake was they failed to realize the necessity of the dream. Without the dream, that mad relentless do-anything sprint toward achievement that Gus inspired in people began to die. One by one, the achievers dropped out and were replaced with people who merely show up, do the minimum required to get their paychecks, and go home. As much as the dreams corrupt us, as disappointed as we ultimately are when they don’t deliver, without them we are nothing. And now, as the organization descends into mediocrity, our year in France has become a heyday of sorts in Findlay’s history.
But these days I’m living a different sort of heyday. You could call it a “hay-day,” as a matter of fact. I am helping my dad revive the hay farm. It’s not what I want to do for the rest of my life, but it beats the rat race. At least, that’s what I tell myself. I don’t know. Those sweltering late-summer days when I’m out baling, sweaty and exhausted, the memories of summertime in Cannes seem as far off as a fairy tale. Which is why I need to remember now. Every day, Findlay’s conniving plots, the sleepless nights, the insufferable grasping and incompetence and sabotage all grow smaller in my memory. And soon my insatiable fool’s mind will only recall with wild joy how goddamned marvelous it all was and wish to be back there again.
The Insatiables Page 25