Last Writes (5 page)

They returned to the registration desk and took their places in the lines of seekers adding their contact information to the sign-in sheet. When Claudia got to the front of the line she scrawled an illegible signature, declining to include an e-mail address. She scanned the list of names, checking out the handwriting to see what types of people had been attracted to the TBL event: a gamut of personalities from shy and retiring to gregarious to just plain odd.

Smiley seemed to have been watching for them and offered another warm welcome as he ushered them into the ballroom, where rows of chairs had been arranged in front of a curtained stage. Claudia’s glance flicked over the crowd congregated in the vast assembly room. “There has to be at least a couple hundred people in here, maybe more. How in hell are we supposed to find James Miller?”

“Don’t be so damned negative. Look at all the shiny TBLers busy recruiting. Ever see so many white teeth?” Kelly leaned close and spoke in Claudia’s ear. “Yoohoo! Message for spawn of Satan, right over here!”

Claudia ignored her banter. “What did Erin say he looked like? Mid-thirties, red hair, skinny. C’mon, let’s walk around. We might learn something useful.”

Kelly was right about the recruiting. At least a dozen earnest-faced young people wearing name badges were busy working the crowd. Neatly dressed in business suits and dresses like the women at the registration desk, their clothing was inexpensive and conservative. They all looked clean and well groomed, the men’s hair trimmed short.

“I think these guys all have the same barber,” said Claudia, strolling in the direction of the stage. “Erin said James Miller would be working the AV. Hey”—she nodded in the direction of a man in shirtsleeves working at the left of the stage, setting up electronic equipment—“what are the odds that’s him?”

“Red hair. Looks like he could use a good meal,” Kelly remarked. “Maybe we should go over and offer him a spiritual hamburger.”

Claudia sized up the skinny arms; the large hands expertly sorting out wires and plugging them into electronic equipment. “He’s a computer geek. I can picture his handwriting: absentminded professor; probably forgets to eat. I wonder what they’re using the Elmo for.”

“Elmo? Like the Elmo we use in court?” Kelly followed her gaze and agreed that the flat-bottomed projector the man was unfolding onto the AV cart was similar to the digital presenters used in many newer courtrooms. Unlike the older overhead projectors, which required special acetate film, the digital presenter had the capacity to project original documents onto a screen. Claudia sometimes used Elmo projectors when testifying, to demonstrate to a jury the elements of forgery in the case she was presenting.

“Should we go talk to him now?” Kelly asked.

“Let’s wait until he finishes setting up. It might bug him if we interrupt while he’s busy.”

Kelly was about to make a retort when a teenage girl approached them with the TBL greeting, a toothy smile, full of sincerity. “Hi, there, sisters! Welcome to the meeting, I’m so glad you came tonight. How did you happen to hear about the Temple of Brighter Light? Was it from one of our flyers?”

“Hi, there, cutie,” Kelly said. “What’s your name? Or should I just keep calling you ‘cutie’?”

The girl pointed to the white plastic badge pinned to the linen jacket she wore over her dress. Her name was engraved in blue lettering. “I’m Magdalena.”

“Of course you are,” Kelly said.

“Not Mary Magdalene?” Claudia added.

Magdalena smiled again, her lively eyes dancing between Kelly and Claudia, probably assessing their reason for attending the rally. She said, “No, it’s just Magdalena, but you can call me Magda for short if you like.”

Kelly linked arms with the girl. “Okay, Magda. So, tell me, do you live at the Ark?”

Magda looked startled, making Claudia wonder if they should have taken a less direct approach. “Uh, yes,” the girl said, “I do. How did you—?”

“I’ve heard it’s quite the place. How do you like it there?”

“I love it,” she said. Her body language sent a different message.

“Why do you shake your head ‘no’ when you’re saying you love it?” Claudia asked with a smile. “That’s called cognitive dissonance.”

“What does
that
mean?”

“It’s a fancy expression psychologists use that means you’re trying to believe in two opposite ideas at the same time. You said,
I love it
, which is a positive statement. If you meant what you were saying, your head would be nodding. But while you were speaking, you shook your head from side to side—negative. So, which is it?”

“I—well—”

“It’s okay. I’m teasing,” Claudia said, not wanting the girl to feel she was being judged.

“Hey, Magda,” Kelly said. “See that man over there, the one who’s hooking up the projector . . . ?”

Magda swung around in the direction of Kelly’s pointing finger. “Brother Miller? What about him?”

“I was thinking he’s kinda cute in an older-guy sort of way—you know, like
our
age, not yours.”

Magdalena glanced back at James Miller, and made a face that said she seriously doubted Kelly’s taste in men. She gave a little shrug. “If you say so. He’s not married or anything, but you’d have to be TBL if you wanted him to ask you out.”

“What if I asked
him
out?”

That drew a scandalized look. “That’s not the way it works. He’s a man, and that means he would have to ask you out if he was interested. Anyway, I don’t think he cares about anything but his computers. He’s always working on them.”

“Doesn’t he have any friends?”

“Of course. We’re all friends at the Ark.”

“But what about someone special?”

Another shrug. “I wouldn’t know about that.”

“Maybe you could introduce us to him.”

“I don’t know . . .” Magdalena suddenly seemed to remember that she was at the rally for a purpose, and that the purpose was not to hook up other TBL members with visitors. “Maybe afterward,” she said, moving them back on track in a manner so practiced for one so young that she must have been trained to handle all sorts of situations.

“Have you ever heard Brother Stedman lecture?” she asked. “No? You’re gonna love him, he’s such an awesome speaker. Oh, look, Brother Dunn is going over to the podium. That means the program’s about to start. We’d better sit down.” She led them directly to three empty seats in the middle of the second row from the front. She tried to sit between them, but Kelly maneuvered so that Magdalena had to sit on her left.

To Kelly’s right, Claudia dropped into her seat with more than a little exasperation. Their original plan had been to buttonhole James Miller early on and leave before the program began. But to decline Magdalena’s invitation at this point would look odd. Considering the surreptitious nature of their business at the rally, it wouldn’t do to make themselves conspicuous. Seated where they were now, sneaking a chat with James Miller before the program began was out of the question. They were stuck for the duration.

The man Magdalena had referred to as Brother Dunn called the meeting to order. Short and stocky in a drab brown suit, a Friar Tuck fringe of hair ringed his bald pate. Leaning heavily on the podium he cleared his throat and tapped his finger against the microphone a couple of times. The hollow echo indicated that it was turned on.

Claudia twisted in her seat to scan the rows and rows of people behind them. Standing room only. “I’ve never seen so many happy-looking people,” she said to Kelly, nodding toward the ushers lining the walls.

“Stepfordized. Mass hypnosis. If we start to get sleepy, we make a break for it!”

“You might not be so far off. If we didn’t have such a good reason for being here, I’d be all for making that break right now.”

At that moment, Brother Dunn’s gaze swung around and he looked directly at them. For an uncomfortable moment Claudia considered whether there might be some way he could have heard them.

He opened his arms wide. “Welcome, welcome, everyone, welcome. Please turn off all cell phones and pagers before we begin. After all, God speaks to us directly. He doesn’t use cell phones.”

“But he’s one hell of a Twitterer,” Kelly whispered.

Claudia suppressed a grin. The lights dimmed to half brightness and the volume of a hundred conversations lowered to a hum as people hustled to find a seat. As close to the stage as Magdalena had placed them, they had a clear view of the beneficent smile Brother Dunn beamed at the audience.

“We’ll open our meeting with a nondenominational prayer,” he said, bowing his head. He began to intone, “Father-Mother God, we are thankful for the time you have given us to come together this evening to share our concerns about the future and to learn what you have in store for us. We ask your blessing on this assembled throng who so desperately need your help and guidance. Please open their minds and hearts and allow them to comprehend your mercy and your grace. Amen.”

Someone in the crowd shouted out Amen. Others echoed. Skeptical though she was about the Temple of Brighter Light and its motives, Claudia had so far not heard anything to which she objected. Brother Dunn said a few words of welcome, then introduced Harold Stedman and stepped aside.

The thunderous applause that followed indicated to Claudia that she and Kelly were in the minority in the ballroom. Unlike them, most of the attendees seemed familiar with Harold Stedman and had returned for more of his message. She sat up straighter, curious to see the man Erin held in such great esteem; the one who had drawn this crowd.

She felt a little let down by the man who approached the podium. Not at all the handsome guru she had been half hoping for. Harold Stedman could have been anyone’s grandfather. Mid- to late seventies, his egg-shaped head was smooth and bald, the blue eyes hooded, prominent nose hooked. Dark eyebrows made a startling contrast to the white beard. The charcoal gray suit with an immaculate white shirt and patterned tie gave him the look of a banker or attorney.

But as soon as Stedman started to speak, Claudia began to change her mind. His quiet voice grew in power as he warmed to his sermon.

“. . . Earth has borne the brunt of man’s unkindness and now is time for Earth to rebel. The Holy Bible warns that God will bring to ruin those ruining the earth. Ruination will be visited upon those who refuse to listen, but God has given to
us
the key to survival.” Harold Stedman ceased speaking and gazed out over the rapt audience. When the silence had grown long, he repeated his warning: “God will bring to ruin those ruining the earth. God has given to
us
the key to survival.”

Claudia hadn’t counted on being mesmerized by Harold Stedman. Despite his ordinary appearance, he exuded a subtle confidence that made one want to listen. She reminded herself that looks often deceive and resolved to pay close attention to his sermon, determined to smoke out any messages hidden in the subtext. Ten minutes in, all she had detected was the sincerity of a true believer.

Stedman gave a nod to one of the ushers, who flicked a switch. The lights dimmed further, draping the room in shadow. Behind Stedman, a theater-sized projection screen rolled down from the ceiling.

He began to speak of recent natural disasters that had occurred around the world: the 2004 massive tsunami and earthquake that killed seventy-three thousand, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the European heat wave and North American blizzard in 2006, cyclones in Bangladesh, droughts in the American Southeast in 2007, record snowstorms in North America in 2010.

Images from one large-scale disaster after another were projected on the screen: close-ups zoomed in on the toll the devastation had taken on buildings and roadways: twisted steel girders rising from mountains of rubble; raging rivers of muck and debris rushing through downtown streets. And always, human faces distorted by unthinkable suffering and despair.

“This earth is going to be destroyed,” Harold Stedman said in the powerful voice that carried throughout the silent ballroom. He paused for several seconds, waiting for his words to sink in.

“It’s a pretty bold statement, isn’t it?” He paused once again, letting his eyes rove the audience, resting here and there to gaze intently at a listener long enough to make them uncomfortable.

“For many people who consider themselves intelligent thinkers, all this
end-of-the-world
talk sounds like the stuff of science fiction. But the truth is, everything on earth has its cycle. There is a beginning and an ending to everything. Man has tried through science to change that, to extend life through cryogenics and whatever other means he can find. Man doesn’t want to recognize that all life on this planet has its time, and that there is an end to that time.”

The prophetic tone of his message chilled Claudia as deeply as if he had the personal power to cause the act he predicted. She envisioned him wearing a long robe and carrying a staff, and decided it would suit him. If Stedman had called himself Moses, she would not have been surprised.

He continued. “Even the Garden of Eden had its cycles, its seasons. That’s the way God set things up. There’s a seed, the seed grows and matures into an adult, the life cycle wanes, and what was once that seed shrivels up and
dies.
Death is not a bad thing; it’s an integral part of the life cycle, the natural order of things. Earth has come to the end of its life cycle, helped there too soon by the carelessness of Man.”

Claudia glanced over at Kelly and was surprised to find her friend leaning forward in her seat, eyes riveted on the man at the podium. She appeared to be completely absorbed in what he was saying.

In the lifetime they had known each other, she could not remember Kelly ever having expressed any particular concern about the earth’s future, or even her own. It had always been her contention that life was a party and she intended to enjoy it for as long as it lasted. When it was over, she would close her eyes for the last time and move on to the next plane of existence, wherever and whatever it might be. But Harold Stedman radiated credibility and Claudia suddenly understood how a less skeptical person than she could believe he had the direct line to the Almighty that he claimed.