Лиана Мориарти - Nine Perfect Strangers

She smiled and held out her arms as if she were sitting at the head of a conference table.

Heather shuddered with a sudden sense of overwhelming fear. She’s hallucinating.

At that moment Masha’s attention was caught by the cigarette between her fingers. Minutes passed and she continued to stare at the cigarette.

“What’s she doing ?” whispered Carmel.

“It’s the LSD,” said Lars in a low voice. “She can’t believe she’s never noticed the innate beauty of the cigarette.”

Finally, Masha looked up. “Who is presenting first?” she asked again calmly. She flicked the ash from her cigarette onto a windowsill.

“I will,” said Tony.

“Tony! Excellent,” said Masha. “Who are you defending?”

“Carmel,” said Tony. He gestured at Carmel, who made a strange, awkward movement as if she couldn’t decide whether to curtsey or hide behind Lars.

“Go ahead, Tony.”

Tony cleared his throat. He stood with his hands clasped and looked respectfully up at the screen. “I’m representing Carmel Schneider today. Carmel is thirty-nine years old, divorced, with four young daughters. She is their primary caregiver. She is also very close to her older sister, Vanessa, and her parents, Mary and Raymond.”

Masha looked bored. She sniffed.

Tony’s voice trembled. “Carmel’s mother Mary is not in good health and Carmel normally takes her to her doctors’ appointments. Carmel says that she’s just an ordinary person, doing the best she can, but I think anyone bringing up four little girls on her own is pretty special.” He pulled nervously at the collar of his T-shirt as if he were adjusting a tie. “Carmel also volunteers at her local library teaching English to refugees. She does this once a week. She’s been doing this since she was eighteen, which I think is very impressive.” He clasped his hands in front of him. “Thank you.”

Masha yawned theatrically. “Is that it?”

Tony lost his temper. “For Christ’s sake, she’s a young mother! What else do you want to hear? Obviously she doesn’t deserve to die.”

“But where is your USP?” said Masha.

“USP?” asked Tony blankly.

“You’ve forgotten the basics, Tony! What is your unique selling proposition? What makes Carmel unique and special?”

“Well,” said Tony desperately, “she is very special because …”

“I also wonder why you did not begin with a basic analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats? It’s not rocket science, people! And visual aids! I see no visual aids! A simple PowerPoint slideshow would have helped support your arguments.”

Heather made eye contact with Napoleon: What do we do? She saw the confusion and fear on his face and that made her panic grow, because if Napoleon had no answers they were in trouble. She thought of those times in hospital emergency waiting rooms with Zach when they realized they were dealing with a numbskull of a triage nurse, how they would exchange looks over Zach’s head, and how they both knew exactly what to do and say to act as advocates for their child. But they had never dealt with this dizzying lack of logic.

“I’m sorry,” said Tony humbly. “Obviously, PowerPoint would have helped support my argument. Yes.”

“Sorry doesn’t cut it!” snarled Masha.

“Could I go next?” A loud voice cut unexpectedly through Masha’s.

Heather saw with a start that it was Carmel, her chin lifted, her eyes unflinching.

“I’ve prepared a strategic analysis on behalf of Zoe Marconi, and what we should be doing, ah, going forward, and I’d really like your buy-in on this, Masha.”

Masha’s face smoothed. She lifted a hand. “Go ahead, Carmel.”

Carmel strode to the center of the room and straightened an imaginary suit jacket, even though she was wearing leggings and a pink singlet top emblazoned with the sequined word HAWAII. “I know you wanted me to really drill down on this, Masha, and think outside the box . ”

It was hard to reconcile this woman of such confidence with the Carmel who had just a few hours earlier begged so pathetically to go home. Now you could practically see her power suit. Was she an actress ? Or was she calling on the memory of a previous profession? Whatever it was, it was impressive.

“Absolutely.” Masha made a brisk chopping motion with the side of her hand. “ This is more like it. We need to push the envelope. This is very impressive, Carmel.”

It could almost be amusing if it wasn’t so terrifying.

“The way I see it, we’ve got a real window of opportunity here to leverage Zoe’s core competencies,” said Carmel, “and achieve, ah … best-practice solutions.”

“Oh well done ,” whispered Frances.

“That’s right.” Masha nodded . “We should always be aiming for best practice.”

It was bizarre to see how well she responded to this meaningless corporate-speak, like a baby responds to the sound of its mother’s voice.

“The question is this,” said Masha shrewdly. “Does it align with our corporate values?”

“Exactly,” said Carmel. “And once we have all our ducks in a row, we need to ask this: Is it scalable?”

“Is it?” said Masha.

“ Exactly ,” said Carmel. “So what we’re looking for is …” She faltered.

“Synergies,” murmured Lars.

“Synergies!” said Carmel with relief.

“Synergies,” repeated Masha dreamily, as if she were saying, “Paris in spring.”

“So to sum up, we need a synergistic solution that dovetails—”

“I’ve heard all I need to hear,” said Masha briskly. “Action that please, Carmel.”

“Will do,” said Carmel.

Masha stubbed out her cigarette on the windowsill behind her. She leaned back against the window. “Welcome to Tranquillum House.”

Oh dear God , thought Heather. We’ve lost her again .

Masha smiled. No one smiled back. Heather saw that every face in the room was slack with exhaustion and despair, like the face of a woman who has innocently prepared a “natural birth plan,” created a playlist, and who, after thirty hours of labor, is told that she must now have an emergency cesarean.

Masha said, “I promise you this: in ten days, you will not be the person you are now.”

“Fuck,” said Jessica. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

“It’s just the drugs,” said Lars. “She doesn’t know what she’s saying.”

“That’s not the problem,” said Ben. “She doesn’t know what she’s doing .”

Masha lowered her head and put her fingertips to the neckline of her dress.

“We will all do push-ups now,” she said. “Push-ups are the perfect functional integrated-resistance exercise. It’s the only exercise that works every single muscle in your body. Twenty push-ups! Now!”

No one moved.

“Why do you ignore me?” Masha jabbed a finger at the screen. “Push-ups! Now! Or I will be forced to take action!”

What action could she possibly take? But they didn’t wait to find out. They dropped to the floor like soldiers.

Heather tried to lift and lower her tired hungry body in a parallel line as Masha counted out loud, “One, two, three! Drop those hips! No Harbor Bridges!”

Was she still in her hallucinogenic state, where she seemingly believed they all worked for her? Did she plan to kill them all? Heather felt a sudden, wild panic. She’d brought her daughter to this place. Zoe’s life could rest in the hands of this mad, drug-affected woman.

She looked around her. Frances did girl push-ups on her knees. Jessica cried as she, too, gave up and went from her toes to her knees. Tony, the former athlete, dripped sweat as he did perfect form push-ups at twice the speed of almost everyone else, in spite of having just popped his shoulder. Heather noted that her own darling husband kept pace.