The Last Days of Video (22 page)

They moved down a hallway. Waring tested several doors.

“Sir!” the woman called after them.

Around them spanned more posters:

REALITY IS NOW

TECHNOLOGY IS A TOOL

PROGRESS IS FREEDOM

“Ugh,” Waring muttered, holding his stomach as if nauseated. “You'd think they'd avoid all this
1984
-type shit.”

Finally they entered a large room divided into cubicles.

“Alaura!” Waring called out.

All at once, twenty heads popped into view, and Jeff found Alaura's face near the center of the room. Her eyes were wide open and bloodshot, and Jeff noticed that all of the people, even Alaura, wore suit coats. The women's hair was all neatly in place. The men were all cleanly shaven. Jeff became immediately aware of the scruff on his own chin, tinged a rebellious red. And he had not visited a barber in over a month—the unattended hairs on the back of his neck seemed to gain weight, pull at his skin. He knew he looked terrible, grungy, unkempt. More like Waring than anyone else here. Had he even showered that morning?

Waring stepped forward and began to navigate the cubicles. Jeff followed, and soon they reached Alaura. She was standing there,
facing them, clutching her purse—as if ready to leave. And for the second time since meeting her, Jeff saw that her heavy eyeliner was dripping down her face. She had been crying.

Then, even more confusing for Jeff, Alaura said to Waring, “Why are you here, you fucking assholes?”

“I'm Thom Trachtenberg,” announced a deep voice. “What are you people doing?”

The voice had emerged from a solid-looking man who had materialized a few feet away from them, in the center of the main walkway between the cubicles. To Jeff, the man looked both ridiculous and frightening; he had a feathered mullet and chiseled jaw, and his arms were spread wide as if he were attempting to perform a miracle.

“We're taking Alaura home,” Waring snarled at the man.

“It is
her
choice to be here,” Thom said.

“It's
my
choice to take her home, you sack of shit.”

Thom crossed his arms, raised his strong chin. “We are helping guide Alaura into the future.”

A moment later, Jeff saw that several young men and women—Alaura's classmates, including a gorgeous redhead with mesmerizingly full lips—were standing behind Thom. And like Thom, they all crossed their arms.

Jeff heard Waring snort.

The snort quickly turned into a chuckle.

The chuckle into cackling laugher.

“Did you hear him, Jeff?” Waring finally managed to say. “He said they're . . . they're—”

“Is this a time for laughter?” Thom's voice boomed.

Waring leaned forward, held his stomach, and whaled—Jeff didn't know exactly why his boss was laughing, yet at the same time, it made total sense.

“Yes, I think it
is
a time for laughter!” Waring said. “I think you guys are fucking hilarious!”

Jeff realized Alaura was standing next to him. Her head was pressed against his shoulder. Like that night last week, on the couch in her apartment. He looked down at her, but her head hung so low that he could not see her face. He placed his hand on her waist, felt her weight give way into him.

“We've heard all about you, sir,” Thom was saying to Waring. “You are most certainly Alaura's drunken, abusive employer. I can smell the alcohol and cigarettes on your person. Why would you try to impede Alaura's progress in improving her life?”

Waring, still laughing, turned again to Jeff. “They're standing there like they're the fucking Boondock Saints!”

Jeff looked at the group of suits standing in front of him—Waring was right, they did look like a nerdy little military—and Jeff found himself beginning to laugh as well.

“Sir,” Thom continued, “isn't it obvious that the modern world will be one of interconnectedness? That those who shut themselves off from the world, those who push away their problems and drown them with means of escape, will be left behind? Look at everyone here. We're all trying to
connect
with others. You
must
know that with your unhealthy influence and your dead-end business, you are holding Alaura back from achieving her full potential.”

Waring's laughter stopped instantly.

He stepped toward Thom.

“Her full potential?” Waring said in a low voice. “Look at her.”

Alaura was now completely curled under Jeff's arm, bent forward, near collapse.

And with a voice harsher, meaner, and sincerer than Jeff had ever heard him use, Waring said slowly:

“Alaura wants her money back. And if you ever mess with her again, if you ever call her, mail her, anything, I promise that I . . . will . . . kill . . . you.”

For a moment, Thom held Waring's intense stare.

“I'm sorry, Thom,” Alaura said softly. Jeff looked down at her; she was still huddled weakly against him.

“Alaura?” Thom said.

“I need to go home.”

“But you've come so far, Alaura. You've been so strong. You're one of us. All we've asked of you, Alaura, is to be yourself. And to make some phone calls.”

Alaura glanced at him. “Thom?”

“Yes?”

“Thanks for everything, but if I hear you repeat my name one more time, I think I might kill you myself.”

The man with the feathered hair scowled, his lips curling inward like a spoiled little boy who'd just overheard his parents insulting his mediocrity.

A moment later, he seemed to recover; donning an obviously fake smile, he turned to the other classmates and raised his hands, cleansing himself of this fiasco.

And without another word, Waring turned to Jeff, nodded, and they walked out of the room with Alaura between them.

Five minutes later, Waring
piloted his Dodge back onto I-40 and headed west toward Ehle County. Jeff sat on the passenger side. Alaura lay in the backseat like a sick child. Waring had no idea what to say to her. He wanted to fix everything. But he knew that if he spoke, anything he said would be wrong. The interstate traffic had picked up—Raleigh rush hour. People driving home in their little air-conditioned bubbles, singing along to their radio or yammering into their cell phones. Waring's car was by far the oldest and rustiest on the road, and it rattled and squealed every time traffic forced him to decelerate. At this rate, it would take them over an hour to get home.

“Alaura?” Waring said finally, unable to stand the silence.

“What?” she murmured.

“I want it to be known—I could have massacred that asshole.”

Alaura: no response.

“I could have,” Waring went on. “I wanted to. He looked like Khan, by the way. I can't believe you paid them.”

“Not now, Waring. Please.”

“Of all your religious excursions, this is by far the stupidest. I can't believe Karla fell for it, too. You'd think that with a body and face like hers she'd be smarter—”

“Please,” Alaura said, sniffling. “Just don't.”

“Leave her alone, Waring,” Jeff said.

Waring glanced at Jeff. “Okay, freshman, just calm down.”

“I am calm.”

“And did you actually do a trust fall?” Waring said to Alaura, as if he hadn't been interrupted at all, looking at her in the canted rearview mirror. “I thought you were over that religious crap.”

“It's not a religion.”

“What's wrong with religion?” Jeff asked.

“It's . . .” but Waring's voice trailed off.

“What?” Jeff persisted.

“It's just wrong, okay, Jeff? It's the twenty-first fucking century. Religion is part of the whole human thing.”

Jeff laughed, and he turned to look calmly out the window at the lumbering traffic. “Man, what are you talking about?”

“The Reality Center isn't a religion,” Alaura muttered.

“Alaura understands,” Waring said. “Or she
should
, after today's fucked-up experience.”

Now Alaura's breathing had gone wet and heavy; she was crying. “Stop it,” she said.

Waring looked at her in the rearview. “Alaura, are you really—”

“Just stop it! Please don't be an asshole, Waring. Please!”

“Fine,” he said.

“I know it was fucked up, okay?” she said. “I put a lot of money on my credit card. I bought this stupid outfit. I bought a damn iPhone. Why? What am I going to do with an iPhone? How am I going pay off my credit card? I'm such a fucking idiot.”

“No, you're not, Alaura,” Waring said quickly. He felt his face stinging, like he might start crying himself. “Stop it, sweetie. Everything's going to be fine.”

“And I almost called . . . a few . . . of our customers.” Alaura heaved for breath. “I looked up their numbers. I was going to call them. But then . . . then . . . then you guys showed up. But I was going to call. I really was.” She blew her nose into a napkin she'd found on the floorboard. “I'm pathetic. So pathetic. I don't have any friends. I don't have
any
friends.”

Long silence.

“Alaura?” Waring said.

“What?”

“You have friends.”

Jeff turned in the passenger seat and smiled at Alaura.

Over the next few moments, her crying gradually stopped.

She sighed. “Thanks for coming to get me.” She swiped at some makeup running down her cheek. “Waring?”

“Eh?”

“What's going on at the shop? Jeff told me that things were sort of, well, falling apart.”

“You just rest for a bit. I'll catch you up when we get back to my house.”

“Your house?”

“Yeah. I need some help with things there. There've been a few developments. I've made some big decisions since your desertion of everything that really matters in this topsy-turvy world.”

Alaura flipped Waring the bird.

Beat.

All three of them: pressure-relieving chuckles.