by Dan Morse
Another student jumped up and flipped the lights on. “Did you hear that?!”
Jayna and the student next to her started to laugh. Soon the whole room was cracking up.
Jayna studied in Madrid for two years, then enrolled in a Semester at Sea program, studying with hundreds of other students aboard a converted cruise ship that made stops all over the world. One night she went to a salsa dance class taught by a fellow student, Rudy Colberg, a native of Puerto Rico who’d taken seven years of Latin dance lessons while growing up. As the class got under way and Rudy walked among the students, he saw Jayna’s dance skills and asked if she wanted to help him teach. She agreed. Afterward, she and Rudy ended up dancing by themselves for two hours and trading moves they knew. Rudy was stunned. This blue-eyed blonde was by far the best salsa partner he’d ever had. The two became close friends.
Rudy was with Jayna on the deck of the ship when it reached Vietnam. As they sailed up the Mekong River toward Ho Chi Minh City, the big cruise ship towering over groves and swamps, Jayna thought about her father—how he’d been here three decades earlier, how many friends he’d lost, how he’d struggled with harrowing memories. She started to cry. “My dad was here during the war,” she told Rudy. The students spent six days in Vietnam. “I wish he could come back one day and see the country.” After the Semester at Sea program, Jayna came home and talked to her dad about going back to Vietnam. He was skeptical, but slowly started to make plans to do so.
Jayna finished up her bachelor’s degree at George Washington University, in Washington, D.C. Just before her senior year there, she walked into her dorm room to find a new roommate, Marisa Connaughton, sitting on the floor and crying. Marisa said she and her boyfriend had just broken up. Her phone beeped. “Oh my God, it’s him,” she told Jayna. “What should I do?”
“You’ve got to answer it! Tell him you’re out having a great time!”
As Marisa answered, Jayna immediately started whooping and laughing, and got a friend she was with to do the same thing. The guy on the other end of the line could hear them. “Where are you?” he asked.
“I’m out with my friends,” Marisa said, and quickly hung up. She tried to cry but found herself laughing instead. Jayna tended to have that effect on people.
Despite her exuberant attitude, Jayna was resolute about some things, like loyalty and limits and values. “Jayna’s gray zone,” Rudy would later say, “was very well-defined and very narrow.” But with anything outside the zone, Jayna generally tried to laugh her way through. One of her favorite things to do was teach five-year-olds how to dance. “They don’t care about how they look,” she’d say.
* * *
By 2006, Jayna had graduated from George Washington with a degree in international business and marketing, and was back in Houston, Texas, working in marketing at Halliburton, the energy and engineering giant.
She became good friends with her office neighbor, Chasity Wilson, despite their outward differences: Jayna, a twenty-five-year-old white girl with an undergraduate degree in international business and marketing, who put her career plans ahead of any intentions to marry or have children, and Chasity, a thirty-one-year-old African American mother of two going through a divorce, who had joined Halliburton as an administrative assistant and worked her way up. Jayna invited Chasity to her desk for early morning sessions of “cube therapy” with two other female colleagues, where they spent ten minutes discussing various personal issues or cutting up before getting to work. Jayna would sit atop her desk or a filing cabinet. Back in their seats one morning, Jayna used instant messaging to tell Chasity she could hear the music quietly coming out of her computer.
“I love that song,” Jayna typed. “Give me one of your speakers.”
The two looped one of Chasity’s speakers into Jayna’s cubicle, and went on to spend their days listening to Chasity’s iPod collection of top 40 and hip-hop. “Play that one again,” Jayna would type.
The two began traveling together overseas for the company. And outside of work, the two hit bars, laughed loudly, and danced. But things weren’t all roses. About eighteen months earlier, Jayna’s condo had been destroyed by a fire, and she’d lost everything inside: photographs, traveling mementos, letters, a twenty-one-year-old cat named Sally. Jayna needed more than a year of counseling to recover, but did so with a renewed appreciation of the value of all her relationships with family and friends. Chasity was having a hard time dealing with splitting up with her husband of thirteen years. She and her husband were rotating in and out of the house, so that the kids could stay put. Jayna let Chasity stay with her. They’d sit on the floor, drink wine, and talk themselves to sleep, with Chasity often in tears. Jayna never wavered in her message: Chasity and her husband were doing right by their kids. “You’re doing everything right,” Jayna told her. “The kids don’t have to go anywhere.”
Chasity had never met anyone like Jayna, who could impart such insightful advice, despite being six years younger and having no personal experience with marriage or kids. Jayna got her friend to take college classes again, something she’d halted. “You can’t stop,” Jayna told her. “You have to keep going.”
* * *
Jayna’s professional interests lay outside the oil industry and more with companies that lived and breathed marketing and branding—the Coca-Colas, the Nikes. She applied to MBA programs, was accepted to Johns Hopkins University, and ended up back in the Washington, D.C. area. A short time later, she noticed a bag her friend Marisa was using to carry her lunch. It was red and white and had writings all over it.
“What’s this bag?”
“That’s lululemon,” Marisa said, “where I buy my stuff to work out in.”
Jayna read the writing on it. “‘Friends are more important than money . . . A daily hit of athletic-induced endorphins gives you the power to make better decisions, helps you be at peace with yourself, and offsets stress . . . Jealousy works the opposite way you want it to.’”
She’d never heard of the store and asked her friend about it, shocked to hear that running shorts there cost $54. “I know,” Marisa said. “But the clothes fit and make me feel good when I go to the gym and it makes me go more often.”
That the company could develop such loyalty intrigued Jayna. It related to both degrees she was pursuing: a master’s in business administration with an emphasis on marketing and a master’s in communication that looked at the confluence of companies, brands, and the media. Teachers asked students to study specific companies, and Jayna found herself delving more and more into lululemon athletica, her analyses honing in on how the company used grassroots marketing to help customers feel good about themselves, even as they dropped $98 for a pair of yoga pants. “Lululemon athletica helps you develop the look and lifestyle that you self-inspire,” Jayna wrote when asked to define a company’s core message.
Jayna’s interest in the company led to a job at the Bethesda store. She needed spending money, but she also wanted to see its creative marketing in action. In time, she found the Bethesda staff offered something else: a social circle she’d been lacking since returning to Washington. The women who worked there talked about their goals and ambitions. They trusted each other enough to pile all their bags and wallets on the same two chairs in the back stockroom. They went out together for drinks, and covered one another’s shifts on short notice. And, as an inside joke, they all called each other some variant of the same name: Jim, Jimbo, Jimmy, James. It was a tight bunch.
But Jayna wouldn’t be there forever. By late 2010, she and her longtime boyfriend, Fraser, had committed to having Jayna move to the Seattle area. About this time, a coworker who Jayna supervised, Eila Rab, asked Jayna to write her a recommendation for a position Eila had just learned about—in the marketing department of lululemon’s headquarters in Vancouver, Canada, near Seattle. Jayna was immediately intrigued by the job as well. But she didn’t want to apply behind Eila’s back. The two were close friends, and Eila had found out abou
t the job first. That mattered to Jayna. She brought Eila into the store’s small office and shut the door. “If you don’t want me to apply, I won’t,” Jayna said. “It’s not worth it to me.” Eila told Jayna that she should apply as well.
* * *
In the wake of American corporate scandals at Enron, WorldCom, and Lehman Brothers, business schools like Johns Hopkins pushed ethics discussions in their classes. Jayna was asked to write about her broad, moral values. She reflected on her travels around the world, both with Semester at Sea and with Halliburton, when she tried to take extra days to seek out the most interesting, if not the safest, places in countries like India, Nigeria, and Brazil—the orphanages, the slums, the tiny villages. For years, she had been thinking about people living among violence and strife. In the essay, she described herself as a pacifist, asserting how it ultimately would make the world safer. “Is it possible that growing up with a family full of military veterans, with three family members having served in wars, that I might have this moral judgment? Yes, it is true,” she wrote.
By January 2011, Jayna’s brother Hugh, a U.S. Army captain, was preparing to deploy to Iraq. Her views on war hadn’t dimmed her admiration for what he was about to do—try to help the government there prosecute terrorists. Jayna climbed into her Pontiac and drove to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to see him off. Her parents and Hugh’s wife, Kate, were also there. As Jayna hugged him good-bye, she let her emotions fly, and when Hugh boarded a bus to take him to the plane, a buddy next to him tried to lighten the mood by joking,”Jayna was more upset to see you leave than Kate.”
Jayna’s dad, David, who by then was working for Halliburton, took the occasion to spend more time with her. He drove back with her to Washington—just the two of them, talking in her car while driving north. Subjects swung from politics to pacifism to David’s questions about the principles of marketing as they applied to specific business projects. “Why do you say it that way?” he’d ask. David could sense Jayna’s fears for her brother Hugh. They were well-placed: Iraq was chaotic, even if it was no longer at war. And her brother would be moving around, the most dangerous thing to do there. David, of course, knew all about combat. “Hugh is going to be fine,” David told his daughter.
Time was ticking on their visit. As they got into Washington, David drove Jayna by a friend’s house so she could pick up a bridesmaid dress. The two planned to get a few hours of sleep before their flights the next morning—David back home to Houston and Jayna to Minnesota, for the wedding. But when it was clear Jayna needed more time to finish packing that morning, David said he didn’t need a ride to the airport. He hugged his daughter good-bye. “I love you,” they said to each other.
David walked out of the condo and two blocks to a subway stop. It was January 20, 2011, and the last time he’d see his daughter.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Coming Together
The first morning of February 2011, Brittany Norwood woke by 6:00 A.M. It was her first day at the new store. She wanted to get in a workout before her shift began, at 11:00 A.M., and had agreed to meet three friends for a 7:00 A.M. “Boot Camp” training class at a health club. Later, after her shift, she was scheduled to meet another friend for a high-octane “spinning” class atop exercise bikes.
Top physical fitness was key to Brittany’s goals. She exercised with personal trainers, lifted weights, took boxing lessons, and unwound with yoga. She read books on nutrition, and fought food cravings by eating fruit and small meals throughout the day.
“Are you a ripped up superwoman yet?” the Secret Service agent asked in early February.
“I wish I was already ripped! But that’s my goal,” Brittany wrote back.
She studied human anatomy, exercise physiology, kinesiology, and other disciplines for the personal-trainer exam given by the National Academy of Sports Medicine. If all went well, she’d have her certification by March. Having a clear goal helped Brittany try to fit in with her accomplished colleagues at the new store, which included a recent MBA graduate and a part-timer who worked as an immigration attorney. In addition to Jayna Murray, two months shy of her business and communication master’s degrees, other staff members held degrees in mathematics from DePaul, Spanish from Tulane, and biology from the University of Maryland.
Their ambitious, smart personalities also helped fuel sales. That was another reason everyone worked as a team: commissions were doled out for a shift’s total sales, not individual ones.
As a saleswoman in the Bethesda lululemon, Brittany picked up where she’d left off in the Georgetown store. She jokingly engaged in a push-up competition with a customer, jumping down and ripping off more than twenty. “That woman is a hoss,” colleague Courtney Kelly stood there thinking.
Courtney and others found Brittany easy to get along with. After Brittany learned Courtney ordered the same sandwich she did from the place across the street—plain bagel, tuna salad, lettuce, cucumbers—Brittany sought her out. “Do you want one of our sandwiches?”
Courtney said yes and handed Brittany her bank card to pay for her sandwich.
Brittany returned ten minutes later with the sandwiches. “Hey asshole, you gave me an expired card,” she said—not in a mean way, but in a funny, we’re-in-this-together way.
“Oh my God, I’m sorry,” Courtney said.
“Don’t worry about it,” Brittany told her. “You can get me next time.”
Like previous times in her life, though, others who got close to Brittany saw glimpses into darkness. Months earlier, when Brittany had agreed to rent the basement apartment from her sister, she’d also sought a roommate by posting an online classified advertisement. A religious woman named Lisa* in the education field responded, met Brittany, found her cheerful and likable, so she moved in. A short time later, however, she arrived home to find her dishes taken out of a kitchen cabinet and stacked on the counter—a signal that “common” areas weren’t actually communal. Likewise, Brittany would have friends over at midnight and rattle around in the kitchen to fix them food, with no consideration that she was waking her roommate.
As for the utility bills, they were all in Brittany’s name. She told Lisa how much to give her. “Every month, it’s going up,” Lisa told Brittany. “I want to see if we’re doing something wrong. Can you put my name on the bills so I can open them?” Brittany did, only for the roommate to discover that Brittany hadn’t paid the gas or electric bills in months. Even more concerning was that Lisa began noticing things going missing: perfume and toiletries missing from her room; a box of checks she was expecting from her bank never appearing, and then a forged one ending up at a bank twenty miles away in Laurel, Maryland, cashed for $1,600. The two women quit talking, and the roommate started making plans to move out.
Debt collectors hounded Brittany. So did her bank, about an overdrawn account. And she faced an outstanding judgment of $19,953 in unpaid student loans from the State of New York. The night of February 18, 2011, Brittany reviewed a series of Craigslist postings offering quick money, including those from men holding themselves out as “Sugar Daddies,” a term often applied to men who had sex with women whom they gave money and gifts.
“Sugar daddy looking to help,” offered one man. “Seeking a sweet sugar baby,” read another. Over the next few days, she visited dozens of similar posts: “Seeking a cute girl/student. Friendship and financial help you need . . . Biz traveler in town next week. Need spending money? . . . Rape Fantasy? . . . Are You A ‘Princess Girl’ In Distress In These Tougher Times?”
The morning of February 24, Brittany texted one of the men. “It’s ‘Your Princess’ from CL,” she wrote.
“Does my precious princess have a name?”
“Brittany.”
“I’m Bobby.”
After a few more exchanges, Brittany cut to the chase. “So tell me what you’re looking for, expect, etc.”
“Something like a relationship. Weekends together,” Bobby responded, “and all that goes with bein
g a man and a woman.”
“So it’d only be weekends?” Brittany asked. “And explain to me the weekly allowance. Do you live in D.C.?”
“Well I would want you as much as possible,” Bobby said. “It’s just hard because of work. And do you have an amount weekly in mind?”
“Ummm no amount in mind,” Brittany said. “I guess we can discuss later.”
The two continued exchanging messages. Brittany’s sales skills came to the fore. “Excited to see you,” she wrote him late one night.
It was a life kept secret from her successful and caring friends, a group of whom met the next night to drink wine at a bar in Washington’s trendy Dupont Circle area. As Brittany was on her way to meet them, one delivered the good news: “Waiting for you with new bottle!!!!!”
* * *
Brittany worked occasional shifts with Jayna Murray, whom she learned was planning to move to the Pacific Northwest to be near her boyfriend. “You know, I’m from Seattle,” Brittany told her, starting a conversation about their backgrounds.
Jayna had been at the store for two years by that time and had served as a mentor to several younger coworkers, including Courtney Kelly, who spoke to Jayna about how she felt their store manager wasn’t complimenting her enough. Jayna gave Courtney the simplest of advice: the fact you’re not being criticized means you’re doing your job, and your need for affirmation probably speaks more about your attitude than the store manager’s. “Let it go. She’s not thinking about you as much as you think she is. Be confident.”
As Jayna built her résumé for lulu’s corporate office, she knew there was one ticket she still needed to punch. The company firmly believed in the self-improvement seminars taught around the country by a firm called Landmark Education, and offered to foot the bill for employees who’d worked for them for a certain amount of time. “You’ll either love it or you’ll hate it,” a coworker said, referring to the way the seminar forced participants to break into small groups and share personal details about their lives. Jayna began her Landmark seminar the last weekend of February. One of the group discussions delved into how choices made years prior shape your thought processes today. They were told to record their thoughts at night, and Jayna found herself writing a letter to her parents, thanking them for steering her in certain directions. She called them in Houston and read it to them, crying as she did. David and Phyllis Murray started to cry, too. “Jayna, you’ve always honored us,” her dad told her.