Riah paid the toll and guided her car toward the sixty-story mirrored-glass skyscraper that was rivaled only by the Comcast building for prominence in the Philadelphia skyline. Tonight she had a question to ask Cyrus, a proposal, as it were.
A way she had thought up over the last few weeks to find out more about the limits and depths of true love.
Serenity
I’m anxious to get to the center, and it’s not far, only ten minutes or so.
As we pass through Pine Lake, I realize it’s exactly like I remember it: the Cascade Mountains rising majestically from the horizon with Mt. Hood dominating the range, creating a picturesque backdrop to the town that the demise of logging in the region had turned into a virtual ghost town.
I haven’t been here in over fifteen years, but when I was a boy, I used to gaze at Mt. Hood every day on my way to school to see if it had snow on it. Usually there were a few days a year when the snow on the very top would disappear. One year, though, when I was in sixth grade, the snow stayed up there all summer.
Tapping the brakes, I slow down and guide the car off the highway and onto the winding mountain road that leads toward the Lawson Research Center’s entrance.
I can still hear my dad talking about how the year-round snow cover was going to help the tourists stay longer. Good for the economy, the town. Good for the ski shop he ran.
That was two months before my mom left us and moved to Seattle, where I only saw her twice before she remarried and left for France with her new husband.
As a kid I thought that no matter how much the snow might’ve helped the local economy, it didn’t help us, and in my childhood naïveté, I blamed the snow for what happened to my family, as if it were some sort of convoluted cause and effect. It’s funny what you associate together when you’re young, things that aren’t related at all but that seem to be somehow interconnected.
I’d dabbled in magic before that, but that was the year I started taking it seriously. In the hope of somehow making my mother reappear.
“Jevin?” Charlene’s voice draws me back to the moment. “Are you okay?”
“Sorry, I was… Yeah, I’m fine.”
“I was saying, we’re almost there. The turnoff is in a quarter mile.”
“Right.” A stillness passes between us. For some reason I feel the need to explain myself. “I was just remembering the last time I was here. As a kid.”
“Good memories or bad ones?”
“A little of both.”
I make the turn.
The newly paved access road winds through the towering pines of the old-growth forest. A large sign sits at the entrance, painted with both the name of the center and a symbol of a rather rotund woman in the lotus position with lines that make me think of electric sparks emanating from her head. I can’t decide if it looks more like she’s morphing into a porcupine or getting electrocuted while meditating.
We park and grab our bags from the back of the car.
Charlene closes the trunk. “I’ve been thinking a lot about this study, Jevin, wondering if it might be legit. I mean, this isn’t the first research in mind-to-mind communication.”
We haven’t been on the same page with this project since I first proposed that we debunk the research. “True. But that’s over the last seventy years, and with every year that passes, you have a more discernible decline effect: with more stringent testing procedures, the results are less and less conclus—”
“Conclusive, yes, I know, but this one was replicated nearly four dozen times with hundreds of subjects. I just don’t see how they might have faked it.”
“Nonrandom timing on the video-image generation, selective reporting, coached participants, confirmation bias, or something to do with the movement or focusing of the camera. It could be something as simple as switching the equipment or using a computer to mimic the sender’s responses and create the atypical results before the external review of the findings. We’ll find out.”
Silence.
We head toward the main building. She looks at me. “Your dad still in the area?”
“My dad?”
“Yes… Is he still in the area?”
“He is.”
“I was wondering …?”
“He’s still here.”
“Okay.”
“Yes.”
“I was wondering if you might want to see him.”
“You were wondering …”
“Go over to his place and—”
“Probably not a good idea. And I have to say, this conversation is starting to sound like a David Mamet script.” As a fellow filmophile, I figured she would know what I was talking about.
“A script? You think? By Mamet?”
“Would you stop already.”
She smiles.
Two elegant Japanese rock gardens with Native American symbols engraved in sandstone sculptures lie to our left. They look like they might’ve been more at home in New Mexico than here in Oregon.
I’ve never explained to Charlene why I ended up living with my grandmother the last four years I was in Pine Lake, and this doesn’t feel like the right time to get into all of that.
“There should be time after the study,” she offers.
A pause. “We’ll see.”
I imagine she must know this is a way of saying no without actually saying it.
“Right. Okay.”
The path leads to a surprisingly modern building with solar panels, a garden to the south, and a fountain that’s gurgling from the top of a three-dimensional sculpted peace sign. Beside the office door is another sign of the overweight, spiky-haired porcupine lady.
I open the door.
Gentle sitar music, along with the fragrant scent of a flowery incense, welcomes us as we enter the building.
The young woman at the counter has blonde dreadlocks dangling across her shoulders, a loose-fitting Indian shirt, an indiscernible number of bead necklaces, and a disarming smile. “Welcome to the Lawson Research Center. I’m Serenity.”
I can’t imagine that it’s her real name, and despite myself, I end up trying to think of a cool New Age nickname for myself to help me fit in.
In lieu of a handshake, Serenity presses her palms together in front of her chest in a posture of prayer and gives me and Charlene a small, reverent bow from behind the check-in counter. I see that she has intricate tattoos on the back of her hands. Symbols from nearly every religion I’m aware of, and some that I am obviously not.
Charlene and I return the gesture.
“Is this your first visit to the LRC?” Serenity’s voice is tiny and melodic. Birdlike.
I nod. “Yes. We’re here for the study with Dr. Tanbyrn.”
“Of course.”
She glances at a sheet of paper taped to her desk, reminding me of a flight attendant referring to note cards on her first attempt at solo-announcing the preflight instructions. An open journal with a half-finished entry lies beside the cheat sheet. Scribbles fill the margin of the journal. “And you are?”
Charlene takes my hand and leans close to me as she tells Serenity the aliases we used when we sent in the video to apply for the study: “Brent Berlin and Jennie Reynolds.”
“We prefer Wolverine and Petunia,” I tell Serenity.
Charlene looks at me questioningly.
I shrug.
Our New Age nicknames.
“I’m Wolverine,” Charlene explains.
“Actually, I—”
“He’s Petunia.”
“That’s nice.” Serenity nods understandingly. “Yes, of course.”