W: The Planner, The Chosen

by Alexandra Swann

  “Thanks for doing that,” she picked them up and glanced at them to make sure that he had actually written down the VIN numbers along with the makes and models of the cars. Jim nodded, but he didn’t say anything. “There is one more thing that I need to talk to you about, Dad, and it is very important.” Jim continued to water the roses without responding, but she stood waiting without saying anything else until he acknowledged her.

  “What is it?” he finally looked at her.

  “W does not allow any firearms on the property. It is part of the lease contract, plus they have signs posted. You don’t need a gun for protection because the community is so secure—nobody could break in there if they wanted to. But you cannot take your guns. I know how you are about your gun collection, and I don’t want to put it into the inventory list, but I am telling you that you need to get rid of it before you move. Maybe you could give it to Keith…?”

  Kris paused and waited for a response. Jim had collected those guns over a forty year period—some were very expensive. He was proud of his collection and committed to his weapons—he never left the house unarmed. For this reason alone, she had to get a commitment out of him to get rid of the guns before he moved into W.

  He did not answer her. “Dad? Did you hear what I just said?” she continued to look at him.

  “Yes, I heard you. I understand. I will get rid of the guns before I move. Is there anything else I have that you want to take away from me?”

  “I know that this is difficult. But I do think that you will be happy after you get there….”

  “I am going because we don’t have any choice. You don’t need to sell me. Is there anything else?”

  “No, that’s all. Call me if you need any help or if you have any questions,” Kris walked back into the house. When she opened the door, she could see that her mother had been crying. “I am going to go now,” Kris told her. “I can come back and finish the inventory later this week.”

  “You don’t need to,” Janine told her. “I will make a list of the furniture and email it to you.”

  “Thank you. Look, if you need anything, call me. I will turn in this paperwork, and I will have your unit ready for you at the end of the week. When you’re ready, I’ll come out and pick you up and take you out to W.”

  Kris was glad to get back into her car and head home. She had known that this day was going to be difficult, but it had been even worse than she had feared. She was used to her father’s taciturn behavior—he was very unhappy, and he was letting her know it. She expected that, even though there was not one thing that she could do to fix any of this. As usual, though, it was her conversation with her mother that really stayed with her and bothered her. Since the day she had moved in with Ben, Janine had been harping on the subject of them living together. Now they were no longer together, but her mother still refused to let it go.

  What was so wrong with two people who cared about each other living together? Once, after having this argument with her mother, Kris had asked Pastor Goolsby whether she was wrong to live with Ben. She had always remembered his answer, “The Bible teaches that man judges by outward appearance, but God looks on the heart. When someone judges you for living together unmarried, that person is really judging you for not having a wedding ring. They are passing judgment on you based on your jewelry. But God looks at your heart, and He knows that you may be kinder to each other and happier together than a lot of people who stood up in church and took a vow to love and honor each other. I believe that in His sight, a loving unmarried couple who treat each other with respect and dignity honors God more than a married couple who fight all the time. They may have a piece of paper, but they don’t have God’s love in their hearts, and that’s what He cares about.”

  That answer had pleased her so much that she had written it down afterward, and she would read it back and think about it after arguing with Janine. Once she had even started to repeat it to Janine, but when Kris got to the part about the jewelry, her mother just rolled her eyes and said, “Oh, please. The Bible doesn’t say anywhere that you have to wear a wedding ring, but it says very clearly that fornication is a sin.” After that, Kris didn’t try to convince her anymore; she just changed the subject.

  Still, Kris had thought when she first met Ben that they would get married eventually. At the beginning there was so little money—they were starting her real estate company and his mortgage business and pinching every penny. They did not have the funds for the beautiful wedding or the great honeymoon Kris had always dreamed of, so they had decided to wait until they were more financially stable. Several years passed, and one day Kris and Ben did have the money for a beautiful wedding and a great honeymoon, but by then Kris had discovered that Ben was shallow and selfish and controlling. He loved to gamble—so much so that she never felt comfortable having joint bank accounts with him. His gambling was recreational—he never lost a lot of money, but the fact that it was constant bothered Kris. And he had to have the final word about everything—even when they bought their house he insisted on having the note just in his name, even though she was on the deed. In the end that had worked greatly to Kris’ advantage since the foreclosure did not show up on her credit, but at the time it bothered her that somehow he did not think she could qualify for a mortgage loan, even though she had a mid-six figure income and stellar credit.

  As Kris reached her mid-thirties, she had also realized that she was working a lot harder than Ben. For convenience, she and Ben leased space on the same floor of a well-located commercial office building so that she could easily walk her real estate clients over to his offices for loan applications. Increasingly though, after running her own agency all day and showing houses to clients during the evenings and weekends, she found herself spending what little time was left going across the hall to Ben’s mortgage company and processing loan applications for him. Moreover, she observed that he hired a string of buxom young processors with whom he appeared to spend an excessive amount of time chatting. Whatever skill sets these young women possessed, they did not appear to include processing and closing mortgage loans. She and Ben still took fun trips—weekends to Las Vegas where they stayed in one of the luxurious hotels on the strip and ate at the buffets. Still, Kris knew that the true purpose of these excursions was to allow Ben to get his gambling fix. The more restful vacations they used to enjoy—the week spent in Vermont or in the wine country in California—had been crowded out by the demands of running two businesses and trying to keep up with all of their expenses. Ben was more and more distant, and finally Kris surmised that as she neared forty he was increasingly bored with her and with their life together. Even if the market had not crashed, he would have eventually left her for someone younger—Ben was the perpetual kid refusing to grow up, and he wanted to be with someone whose calendar age matched his emotional age. When he did leave, Kris was glad that they had never been married—she would have had the expense and hassle of getting a divorce on top of all of her other problems.

  As Kris pulled up to her unit, she told herself that she needed to relax and forget about her parents, but she couldn’t. As she lay on her sofa bed trying to fall asleep that night, she repeated the Believer’s Victory Chant to herself over and over until she finally drifted off with the words still on her lips: “This is my Bible. I am who it says I am. I have what it says I have. I can do what it says I can do. I am a child of God, and He loves me just the way I am. I will not let other people’s negative thoughts, words, attitudes, and actions infect my thoughts, words, attitudes, and actions. I have chosen to use all of my abilities to reach my fullest potential as a child of God. I will trust in God and in the abilities, gifts and talents He has given me, and I will choose today and everyday to live a life with no boundaries.”

  The next day at work Kris got an email from her mother with a full description of all the furniture in the house. Janine might be old-fashioned, but she was extremely organized and detail-conscious, and those were traits which Kris r
eally appreciated right at that moment. Kris added the items on the list to the template. She now had all of the preliminary paperwork in order—she just needed to schedule the palm scan, and they could move in. At the end of her desk were five other such files. Not bad for a few days’ work.

  Just as she was finishing setting up her parents’ file, Kris received a call from Cindy, the executive assistant to the Level I Planners on that floor, on the intercom. “Pat Kilmer wants to see you in her office in ten minutes.”

  “Sure,” Kris answered. This was actually good; she could show Pat the number of pending applications and the five life-lease applications complete with home inventories and auto descriptions. This had been a lot of work, and Kris was sure that Pat would be pleased.

  “Close the door,” Pat barely acknowledged her when Kris entered the office. Kris was very surprised by her tone. “Sit down. Are you having any issues with your new job? Are there any aspects of your employment here that you are unclear about?”

  Kris was stunned. “No, I don’t think so. I have five completed life-lease applications with inventory lists; we are getting ready to do the deed transfers, and we have twenty more applications pending….”

  “I didn’t call you in to talk about any of that. What part of your work here do you not understand?” Pat’s tone was sharp and unfriendly.

  “I…I don’t understand where you are going with this, Pat.”

  “We explained to you that as part of this program you had to live in the FE housing and model the lifestyle that we are selling to seniors, did we not?”

  “Of course you did. I moved in over a month ago. You know that.” Kris responded a little defensively.

  “Then why do you still have your car? Part of the sustainable lifestyle is committing to walkable communities and the use of public transportation, but that Cadillac of yours is taking up the whole street. Why?”

  “Now wait a minute. I have to have my car to work—there is no way that I can make all of these meetings and go to people’s houses and sign them up and inventory all of their belongings using public transportation. On weekends I do walk in the community, and I have taken the shuttle and the commuter train a couple of times. But I can’t do my job without my car.”

  Pat looked squarely at her with the hard, unbending look that Kris was learning to expect. “This is a sustainable community—employees do not have cars. If you read your employment contract, you will see that Planners are not allowed to own personal automobiles. How do you expect to convince anyone that we have built a mass transit system that can meet all of their needs if you don’t trust it to get you from Point A to Point B?”

  Kris stared at her in amazement mingled with horror. “Pat, I can’t do my job without my car. Period.”

  “Then you can’t do this job. Period. It’s one or the other. You either turn in the car and the keys to the car title office downstairs before 5:00 P.M. today or hand in your resignation. It’s up to you.”

  Kris continued to sit frozen in front of her. “That’s all; you can go.”

  “Get rid of my car? I can’t get rid of my car. What am I going to do?” Kris’ mind raced as she looked at her watch. It was 3:00 P.M. She went back to her office and sat with her head in her hands. How could she do her job without her car? She had always relied on a car; she had protected her car.

  On the other hand, if she refused to get rid of her car, she would not have a job to worry about. She had just gotten moved, just gotten acclimated. She had just gotten all of her parents’ preliminary paperwork signed—was she going to go back to them and say, “I am glad you have chosen to live in W. By the way, I just got fired because I wouldn’t get rid of my car, even though I convinced you to sign over both of yours. Good luck.” And if she did get fired, where would she go?

  She did not have a choice. Deliberately she picked up her keys and walked out to the parking lot. She opened her trunk to make sure that she did not have any personal items in it. Carefully, she removed each CD from her CD player. She wrote down the model, model year and VIN number. And then she walked down to the federal auto title office to turn in the car.

  That evening, for the first time, when Kris left work she walked downstairs and out of the parking lot. It was a two mile walk to the commuter train terminal—her feet hurt so badly in her heels that she finally took her shoes off and carried them. She had not felt so much sadness and emptiness since the day she had left the keys in the mailbox and moved out of her house. Suddenly, just for that one moment, she knew exactly how her parents had felt the last time she had seen them.

  Chapter 9

  The next month passed quickly as Jim and Janine settled into their new unit, and Kris settled into her new job. The loss of her car was a huge adjustment for Kris. She often thought that it was extremely ironic that her last fight with Nick was over that pair of high heels. She had worn those shoes only about a dozen times before she had to turn in the car—after she turned it in she never wore them again. She was now forced to begin each day with a half mile brisk walk just to get to the main gates of FE, so high-heeled, sexy shoes were out of the question. Within three days she had purchased a pair of rubber-soled flat shoes that were more suitable to her new life.

  The loss of the car also restricted her weekend movements. She now had to depend on the commuter train for transport everywhere, and that made leaving the community difficult. For the past ten years Kris had been a client of the Opulent Salon and Spa in Phoenix, but now that she was at the mercy of long, inflexible job hours and unforgiving train schedules, she found herself a client of “Hair and Nails by Rosemarie”, the two-person salon which had contracted to serve the members of the FE community. She never actually saw the “Nails” part of the team, although the signage assured all visitors that a manicurist was available. However, she learned the first week that all salon services had to meet new EPA standards for environmental friendliness and that the dark brown hair dye which she had relied on for the last five years to hide her grays did not meet those standards. The best product that Rosemarie could offer her was brown Henna which did not cover gray at all and left Kris’ shoulder length hair heavy and weighted. That, coupled with a lack of hairspray—also an environmentally-unfriendly product—meant that Kris could no longer style her hair. After three weeks, she had Rosemarie cut her hair in a short, cropped style that lay close to her face. It was certainly not her best look, but it was better than long, lank salt and pepper hair. Each morning when she looked in the mirror she reminded herself that the short cut was more practical and suitable to her new life of walking in the elements.

  With no evidence of the actual existence of “Nails” and plenty of evidence that Rosemarie’s skills left a great deal to be desired, she stopped getting manicures completely. She kept her nails clean and pared and trimmed the cuticles about once a month. That was practical, too, and it made typing her reports much easier. She sometimes noted sadly, that pared nails made her hands look even older than they would have otherwise, but then she would remind herself that without a job she would not have been able to afford manicures in the first place, and without the FMPD she would not have a job. Her old life was gone; she was going to have to learn to adjust to her new life—even if it killed her.

  On Wednesday evenings she volunteered at the community garden. Although she had initially planned to decline any volunteerism, she had quickly learned that the residents and workers of FE practiced an aggressive form of peer pressure which included posting in the dining hall the names of residents who did not volunteer and forwarding that list on to Leonard Scott and Pat Kilmer, who noted repeat offenders in their personnel files. In her old days, Wednesday evenings had been left open to attend church if an interesting program were taking place; now the train schedules did not line up well with the services at Scottsdale New Life. By volunteering one hour on Wednesday evenings she had an excuse to leave work by 6:00, and she could avoid an official reprimand which could be grounds for denying her advanc
ement. And, actually, working in the garden did prove to be very therapeutic—there was something about being outdoors, smelling the soil and the plants that helped her connect with reality. She came to look forward to Wednesday evening more than any other evening of week.

  Most other nights she did not get home until close to 8:00. After handling her town hall sessions, her reports, her one-on-one meetings with seniors, and her inventory trips, she barely had enough hours in even a long day to finish her work. By the time she got back to FE, she headed straight to the dining hall for dinner and then back to her unit. Although the units were solar powered, the giant solar batteries stored the energy for only one hour past sunset. Between 8:30 and 9:00 each night the lights began to fade, and by 9:00 the power was out, and she was alone in a tiny, dark and increasingly hot and uncomfortable space until morning. But, she reminded herself, she had to get up early every morning, so the fact that she did not have electricity after 9:00 was not really a hardship.

  She had not been to see her parents since the weekend she had moved them into their unit. She emailed her mother every day; most days Janine emailed back, but W.net was proving to be a very unreliable Internet Service Provider. Some days, the network was down all day; other days the server was so backed up that an email might not be delivered for ten hours. Kris tried sending her mother a couple of text messages, but Janine did not text, so Kris could never tell whether she did not receive these messages, or she just did not know how to respond to them.

  For that reason, Kris had gotten her mother a Smart Phone from Kris’ carrier on Kris’ plan. This way, she could keep in touch with her mother whether W.net was working or not, and if her parents needed something, they could get in touch with her.

  Kris’ second hour of community service—every resident was required to perform a minimum of two—was Saturday morning starting at 7:00. Her unit was too small and hot and depressing for her to want to sleep in, and by getting up and going to the garden early, she could do her work before the day got too hot. On this particular Saturday morning, she got up at 6:30 and dressed in sweats to go “volunteer”. Once she was finished, she would come back and change into her jeans and board the 8:30 train to take her to W.