Part Ten - Summer Break (Junior → Senior Year)
The last free summer I was ever going to have. That was my line of thinking going into the summer break between junior and senior year. I wanted to relax. I needed to destress and not focus on what chaos I'd seen just a few short months ago. I wanted to have the season open, as open as I could get it. But the rules still applied. I could only be off campus for a week at a time, before coming back to the campus to check in.
(For what it's worth, yes, for a while I did suspect that we were being treated with chemicals via food, water or oxygen, but I spent a good part of the first month of my last summer break disproving that. We tested the air in our dorm rooms, we installed air purifiers, we avoided the cafeteria food for a month, and we only drank bottled water that we bought ourselves. And we tested our body's chemistry regularly. For anyone who asked, we passed it off as a training regimen that Julia was going through and told everyone that we were doing it with her as an act of solidarity. But we found nothing. That said, my current line of thinking is that whatever chemicals we were exposed to, it was during our freshman year, and had had years to settle into our systems.)
In early July, however, I was sent an email inviting me to go to Dr. Igarashi's office, and I can tell you, I was definitely nervous as all hell. I'd gotten very good at controlling my body's subtle tells and giveaways, but not even the most accomplished of us is perfect, and I knew that if the Doctor suspected that I was aware she'd been involved in the death of Will Bierko, and possibly several others, I would join them in their concrete pillar tombs.
All the girls offered to go with me, but I told them if they all showed up, we were only going to look even more suspicious, so I decided to take just Chelsea with me, since she was easily the best of the three at keeping my emotional side in check. So, on a Monday afternoon, the two of us went to visit the Doctor in her office.
I'd been to Dr. Igarashi's office several times over the years, and each time, it seemed like it got a little bigger, a little more ostentatious, a little more preening, as if her success was being translated into comfort and wealth around her for display. I found it a little telling, but of course I kept that insight to myself. I figured pointing out that the young and hungry Doctor who had recruited me to her college had gotten a touch lax and self-indulgent to her face would've only gotten me in the very trouble I was working to avoid.
The furniture, the views, the artwork - each time I came to see her, it all got a little bit more pretentious, public focused rather than for the simple joys of things. It was less and less of her on display and more and more of the image she wanted to portray. Still, I couldn't tell how much of herself she was losing to the false front she was wearing for the edification of those she brought here.
"Hello, Doctor," I said to her with a smile. "I'm sure you remember my emotional partner, Chelsea."
"Of course I do," Doctor Igarashi said, taking Chelsea's hand and shaking it. "I recruited her myself specifically for you, Josh, so I'm glad to hear you two are working out so well. I heard you and Abigail had a bit of a rocky start, but it sounds like you two are on the same page these days."
"Abi's got quite the head of steam on her about what she wants to do with her life, and sometimes it takes all three of us to bring her back down a bit to earth, to make sure she isn't making plans beyond her reach."
"I thought I taught you nothing was beyond your reaches, Josh," the older woman said to me with a little grin that made the pit want to fall out of my stomach, but I held my ground.
"No, you taught us that
nearly
nothing was beyond our reaches, and how to tell the difference between the impossible and the highly unlikely, Doctor," I said, trying to use my patient smile, as if to imply that I could tell she was testing me, because of course she was.
Everything was a test.
"Very good, Josh," she said approvingly. "You always have been one of the brightest students here. That's particularly why I invited you here today, to discuss an opportunity that's become available to you, well, to
us
, per se,
through
you."
"I'm afraid I don't understand, Doctor."
"I'm sure it's no secret to you that they're filming an adaptation of your novel, 'Last of the Luddites,' right now, yes?"
I remember laughing a little bit, simply because it felt for once in my life that Dr. Igarashi
didn't
know everything about me before I told her. "Well, I was aware they purchased the film rights, and that an adaptation was in the works, but not that it had gotten so far as to already be in the filming stages," I said to her. "When I sold the rights to the book, I figured it would be best if I simply took a maximally hands-off approach, so that I could concentrate on my schoolwork, and, more importantly, so I didn't become disillusioned with what they were doing to my story. I didn't want script review, I didn't want actor approval - in fact, I told my literary agent specifically
not
to tell me anything about it until it was approaching premiere, or, at the absolute earliest, when they had a first cut of the movie, something I could see and offer feedback on. Beyond that, I'm afraid I don't really know anything about it."
"I, by contrast, know quite a
lot
about it, Josh, and that's why I've invited you here. I want to make you a... rather unique offer. A chance for you and your whole pod to spend three or four consecutive weeks off campus, no returning to campus at any time during the middle of it."
"That's... can I ask why?"
"I'd like to deploy you to their film set, Josh," she said with a slight sigh. "One of the producers on the film is an old friend of mine, and he's worried that they've screwed something up, and they aren't sure if it's in the script or in the actor's performances or... they don't want to mess it up, and I don't want them to either. They reached out to me to ask if they could have you come down and stick around for the entirety of what remains of their shooting schedule. They'll rent out a house for you, provide daily transportation to and from the set, all your meals, completely comped."
"Hmmm," I said, even though in my head I was already thinking of how I was going to tell Abi and Julia that we were going to spend a month in Hollywood. "Let me ask one key question, because if it's cast wrong, there isn't a whole lot I can do with it - who're the main actors involved?"
"Tom Skerritt, Matt Damon, Natasha Henstridge, Rene Russo and Angela Bedlam as the reporter investigating the story," Doctor Igarashi said. "And Chow Yun-Fat is playing Bedlam's editor at the paper, which is surprising, since I thought he only did Hong Kong films."
"Who's directing? Don't tell me they got Tony Scott or another of those crazy shaky-cam directors to film it."