J. Gonzalez - The Corporation

On track with what program ? She nodded. “Okay.”

“Just act like nothing happened. Behave the way you have been behaving. Pretend you’re interested in what’s being presented. That’s what you’ve been doing anyway, right?”

Alan hit the nail on the head. It was true; she had been acting like she was interested in the meeting when she really wasn’t . She nodded. “Yeah,” she said.

“You’ve fooled the best so far,” Alan said. “That’s part of how you got in. And you have to keep that act up until tonight when we meet. I’ll tell you everything then.”

“You said something about Jay not being one of them,” Michelle asked quickly. “What did you mean by that?”

“He’s for real, like you. He revealed himself to me Monday evening at the Lone Star when he went on that tangent in front of Barb.”

Michelle was still trying to grasp what Alan was saying. “I still don’t understand,” she said. “So Jay spoke his mind. Big deal. A lot of people speak their minds, especially in places and circumstances they shouldn’t.”

Alan’s features were direct and to the point. “He’s human, Michelle. That’s it in a nutshell, plain and simple. He’s human and so are you. And that’s all I care about now.”

“And Sam and Dennis Harrington and everybody else?”

“The board members of Corporate Financial… in fact, all of Corporate Financial except for you and I? And most of their clients, especially those in middle and upper management and the executive level? All the firms they’re influencing? They’re not. They’ve been turned into something else.”

He’s crazy , a part of her whispered. He’s got to be. Dennis Harrington may be weird, but he’s not some… some … thing!

What about the story Jay told Donald? This is dovetailing perfectly! How can you deny that ?

What the hell is going on here ?

“You still don’t believe me,” Alan said. He was watching her calmly.

“I didn’t say that.”

“I can tell. It’s written all over your face. That’s a good sign.”

“What’s a good sign?”

“That I can read emotion in you. Doubt, fear, anger. It further convinces me that you’re for real.”

“So what if you don’t believe me?” Michelle asked. “I admit I am having a hard time believing this.”

“Here’s something that may convince you,” Alan said. He took a step closer to her, his voice low. “Your parents are Michael and Connie Dowling from Jersey City, New Jersey. They’re long time employees of All Nation Insurance. You were born on June 2, 1968. You weren’t wanted, your parents were young and struggling to climb the corporate ladder at the time and abortion was not an option at that period. You spent most of your childhood at daycare centers during the day while your parents worked long hours for All Nation’s corporate goals. You were essentially a latch key kid and you never understood why your parents had to work so much.”

“Stop it,” Michelle said, her voice lowered and trembling as a door opened in her mind, releasing a flood of memories.

Alan ignored her and continued. “That’s why you buried yourself in art, because you never had the attention of your parents. Even your relatives were blinded by the fact that there was something wrong with your parents. They made all the right moves, said all the right things to convince their families that everything was normal—they looked normal, dressed normal, behaved normal, had a normal suburban house, had a nice, well-mannered child and held good solid positions with their employer. Typical middle-class caricature, right? So it seemed to everybody but you knew it wasn’t.”

“That’s not true,” Michelle said. She felt a pain in her chest as she remembered nights spent begging her mother to look at her drawings, to play with her. Mother had been too self-absorbed in work, going over documents that were work-related even when she was at home. She remembered her father taking her to the office on Saturday mornings when she was very young… five, six years old, and placing her in front of a keypunch terminal and giving her punch cards to play with while he toddled off to his cubicle nearby to work. Even then Michelle had been only interested in pleasing him, in playing with the machine to make him happy, and it had. Her father had beamed that day, telling his co-workers, “Look at her! We got ourselves a future All Nation employee!”, and his co-workers had smiled and told her what a good girl she was, and that had made her feel proud.

“You were talked into becoming a business major by your parents in high school when you secretly hated it,” Alan continued. “You didn’t know it at the time, but subconsciously you didn’t want to have anything to do with what your parents did for a living because you already associated it with negative feelings. You majored in business anyway to make them happy because you still wanted their approval.”

“Stop,” Michelle said, the memories flooding her.

“You wanted to go to college and pursue a liberal arts degree,” Alan continued. “You wanted a career in the creative arts. Your parents disapproved, and they talked you into getting a job at All Nation right after high school because they convinced you that starting your career early would get you in the door, and you could work your way up the ladder and have a long career with them. You worked at All Nation. Your parents were in high positions by then, and they helped you get in the door. Then when you got pregnant, your mother tried to talk you into having an abortion.”

“ Shut up !” Michelle yelled. She clasped her hands over her ears. Her vision blurred with tears as she remembered those conversations, remembered those emotions of turmoil.

Alan paused. His kind, sensitive features were troubled. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Really, I am. I’m sorry for bringing that up and for… what happened.”

Michelle tried to staunch the flow of tears. She’d never told anybody about the conversations she had with her mother about Alanis, and how her mother suggested to her that she abort her child. The only person she’d ever told was Donald. “How…” she began, sniffing back tears. “Why…?”

Alan put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “I’m on your side, Michelle. The organization I’m really with… we’re on your side.”

Michelle took a deep breath and wiped the tears from her eyes. Everything Alan just told her confirmed everything she’d always felt—that her parents never wanted her because her arrival got in the way of their career plans. “My parents… I haven’t seen them… even thought about them… in so long.”

“Was there ever a time when you thought there was something wrong with your parents?” Alan asked softly.

A wave of memories rushed by and Michelle sorted through them, searching her memory banks. She grabbed a paper towel from the dispenser and dried her face. “When I was a teenager. But then all teenagers think their parents are from another planet when they’re that age.”

“What about later?”

Michelle looked down at the floor, twiddling the paper towel in her fingers. She remembered the conversations she’d had with her mother when she first learned she was pregnant. Her mother’s voice, cold, emotionless, came back to her unbidden. A child will only spoil your career… it’s a mistake… get rid of it now before you ruin your future with the company .

Get rid of it now before you ruin your future with the company.

…your future with the company…

…with the company…