The Method Read online

  “You know he’s just filling a quota . . .”

  “You didn’t have to challenge him. You take the ticket and fight it in court.”

  “You saw there was no one there but him.” He turned, his lower lip quivering. She could tell he was only gripping the wheel so tightly to keep his hands from shaking. “You know he was waiting for someone like us to drive by just so he could harass us!”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “It’s what they do, Linda. They get off on it.”

  The cruiser crawled by. The sheriff tapped a finger to his temple and pointed it in their direction.

  “Yeah, yeah, fuck you, dude.”

  “The police aren’t your enemy, Frank. It’s their job to protect us.”

  “You would think that. You didn’t grow up with a cop for a dad.”

  “This isn’t about your father, Frank. You screwed up. You could have gotten us arrested. Why can’t you admit that?”

  Frank sneered. “Maybe I should just turn the car around.”

  “The down payment is nonrefundable.”

  “It’s a thousand bucks. I’ll eat the cost.”

  “You wanted to do this, Frank. This was your idea.”

  “Because I thought you wanted it, okay?”

  Oh finally, the penny drops, she thought.

  “If I’d known how you really feel about me—”

  “This weekend isn’t about you, Frank. It’s about us. Us. This fucking marriage.” She jabbed a finger at her wedding ring.

  “You’re making it about me. Right now. Okay, so maybe I fucked up, but you didn’t have to bite my head off. That asshole cop stuck me with something . . .” He rubbed his hip. “It still hurts. You yelling at me, implying it’s all my fault, isn’t fucking helping!”

  Linda stewed, desperate to defend herself, aware that if she said anymore, it would further cement his opinion. So much for meeting him halfway. It couldn’t hurt to placate him, to let go of a little control.

  But I’m not fucking apologizing, she thought. If that’s what he expects, he’s in for a rude awakening . . .

  “Forget it,” she said. “Let’s just . . . let’s just go.”

  Frank sat a moment, catching his breath. “Forward or back?”

  “Forward. To the retreat. We paid for it, we’re gonna do it.”

  Frank put the car into drive and pulled out from the soft shoulder. “Whether it kills us or not,” he muttered with a derisive chuckle.

  4 — True/False

  Frank stepped up to the slab of live edge wood that served as the concierge desk and dinged the service bell. He peered around the large cathedral-ceiling lobby with its second-floor loft, everything glossy wood and clean stone. The lobby smelled like Pine Sol and hot chocolate, reminding him of Christmas at Grandma Moffat’s.

  “I guess nobody’s home.” He turned to Linda, who stood in near silhouette against bay windows two stories tall, baggage in both hands.

  “Patience is a virtue.”

  “So is free Wi-Fi.” He looked at his cell phone. “I can’t even get a tower signal. Why don’t you put the bags down?”

  “When we get upstairs.”

  “Well, at least let me carry one.”

  “I’ve got them.”

  Frank sighed and rang the bell again.

  “I’ll be right there!” a man called from the open doorway beyond the desk.

  Frank took a red striped mint from the dish beside the bell, twisted it open, and popped it in his mouth. A moment later, a muscular Asian man emerged from the back in a black t-shirt two sizes too small, showing off the tattoos on his biceps.

  “You must be the Moffats.” He smiled. “I’m Alex Xiang, the concierge. I’ll take you to your rooms.”

  “Rooms?” Linda asked, emphasizing the plural.

  “That’s right.” Alex stepped around the desk and met them with a bright smile. “Here at Lone Loon Lake, all of our guests have private accommodations.”

  “It’s part of The Method,” Frank said. “Right?”

  “We just like to make sure our guests are comfortable.” The concierge held a hand out to Linda. “May I take your bags?”

  She handed the one not containing her toiletries and underwear, Frank noted. Even still, she hadn’t hesitated for a moment.

  Do you blame her? he thought. Look at the guy. He looks like the cover of a romance novel. You should just be glad she didn’t swoon into his rippling chest muscles.

  Alex lifted her heavy luggage to hip level with a pleasant smile. “Follow me, please.”

  Right, so my wife can get a good view of your rock-solid buns. Nice try, pal.

  Frank picked up his bags and hurried to slip in between them. Linda gave him a quizzical look to which he grinned.

  At the stairs, Alex turned back to see that they were following and smiled again. “Dinner is at six. Breakfast from eight to ten. Lunch is served from noon to two. All meals are provided as a part of your treatment package.” He began up the stairs. Frank and Linda followed.

  Yup. Rock solid.

  “You’ll find fresh towels in the bathrooms as well as an array of complementary toiletries.”

  “Ooh,” Frank said with a sarcastic edge.

  Linda bumped his leg with her remaining suitcase. He turned back with a grin.

  “You’ll also find a bottle of Dr. Kaspar’s homemade wine from his very own vineyard in the south of France. It’s a wonderful, fragrant Bordeaux I’m sure you’ll both fall in love with.”

  “That sounds to die for,” Linda said.

  Frank had never heard Linda utter the phrase “to die for” in his life and bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing.

  “On your way in, you may have seen the lake.” Alex reached the second-floor loft. “The water is . . . well, it’s brisk this time of year, but we do encourage you to take a dip. We also have canoes and kayaks, should you want to take them out. I’d suggest heading out right before dusk. Once the loons start calling and the sun sets over the trees, it really is an experience.”

  “It sounds lovely,” Linda said.

  “There’s no elevator? No chair lift?” Frank asked.

  “Elevator?”

  “Frank’s an accessibility advisor.”

  “Oh, that’s interesting. The woods aren’t exactly the best place for a wheelchair, are they?”

  “You make a good point, Alex. In a perfect world, everything would be accessible to everyone. That’s how I feel.”

  “That’s a nice sentiment, Mr. Moffat.” Alex stopped in front of a door and set Linda’s bag down. “Here’s your room, Mrs. Moffat.” He grabbed the keyring on his belt, selected one, and unlocked the door. He stepped aside with a smile to usher her in.

  “Call me Linda, please.” Stepping across the threshold, she set down her remaining suitcase and began patting her pockets dramatically. Frank knew this game. She played it just as effectively while passing homeless people in the street. “I don’t, uh . . .”

  Alex held up a hand. “Don’t trouble yourself, Linda, please. Lone Loon Lodge isn’t a conventional hotel. It’s a retreat. Any gratuities are included in the initial fee. Even if I was allowed, I wouldn’t accept a tip.”

  “Thank you again,” she said.

  Frank recognized the smile she gave Alex as her “eager to be left alone” smile.

  “You’re quite welcome.” Before she could close the door, Alex placed his left red Converse shoe in its path. “One last thing: I’ll need to take your cell phone.”

  “What?” Frank asked.

  The concierge gave him an ingratiating smile. “It’s our policy. If you read through the contracts we sent you . . .”

  “I don’t remember anything about cell phones.”

  “It’s the first article on page six: ‘Cell phones are to be relinquished to the Examiners upon arrival.’“

  “But why?” Linda asked sullenly, always quick to challenge the rules when they applied to her.

 
“Cell phones distract us from people. And from ourselves.” Alex gave them a sympathetic look. “Trust me, after a few hours here, you’ll forget you ever had one.”

  Frank doubted it. Linda had her phone surgically attached to her hand, constantly checking it for anything work related. She’d only left it behind during their climbing expedition due to Trevor’s badgering, and as soon as they’d returned to the car, she’d had to respond to two emails and a phone call.

  The entire long weekend without her phone would be absolute torture for her.

  Frank, on the other hand, would gladly give up his phone. The only thing he would even consider using it for out here would be for directions, maybe snapping a few photos. Without a tower signal, he didn’t expect the GPS would function, and the camera wasn’t all that great.

  Linda handed over her phone grudgingly. Alex slipped it into the back pocket of his black jeans. Frank gave her a sympathetic shrug she didn’t appear to trust.

  “Mr. Moffat?” Alex had already moved on. “Come with me, please.”

  “See you later,” Frank said with a small wave.

  “Yup.”

  Alex turned a corner, and Frank followed deeper into the hotel.

  “This place is pretty big, huh?”

  “You should see Dr. Kaspar’s chateau,” Alex said. “Sixteen rooms, eight baths . . . it’s hard to believe when his parents fled from Austria they had nothing but the clothes on their backs.”

  “They were . . . ?”

  “Not in the internment camps, no. They left before all that started. His father was a psychoanalyst. Dr. Kaspar said his father saw the change coming like storm clouds descending over the Alps.”

  “Will we be seeing Dr. Kaspar today?”

  “He’ll be out of pocket until this evening. He’s expected to arrive for dinner though.”

  “Arrive?”

  “Dr. Kaspar’s been conducting an experiment at Yale.” Alex stopped in front of a door. “And here’s your room.”

  Frank set his bags down as Alex unlocked the door. “That was a big deal for my wife. For Linda. Giving up her phone like that.” He reached into his pocket and handed over his own. “I barely use mine.”

  “Someday these things will do everything but wipe,” Alex said. He took the phone and tucked it into the second back pocket.

  “Ha. Yeah, probably.” Frank picked up his bags and carried them into the room. “So what’s the deal with this place? Man to man.”

  “Man to man?” Alex looked off down the hall as if he were afraid someone might be listening in. “When I first came here, I was on the verge of divorce.”

  “And now?”

  “I’m a widower.”

  Frank let out a surprised laugh. “Sorry,” he said hastily. “I didn’t mean . . .”

  “It was a long time ago.” Alex put a hand on Frank’s shoulder as if he were the bereaved one. “Another life.”

  “Hmm.”

  “We think we can only take so much pain.” Alex let his hand fall to his side. “That’s what we think. But the well always runs deeper.”

  “That’s . . . that’s pretty deep.” Frank noticed he’d just repeated Alex’s sentiment and chuckled awkwardly.

  “Want some free advice, Mr. Moffat? This weekend will make you or break you. Fight for what you love. If it’s worth it, you’ll know.”

  Already slightly on edge without her phone, Linda stood looking out the large window at an open field leading into the woods when a knock startled her. She turned to see a sheet of paper slip under her door.

  Linda crossed to it, opened the door, and peered out into the hall as a small woman in a white uniform turned into the next corridor. Peering over the landing, she got a decent peek at their host’s muscular glutes down in the lobby as he bent to access a lockbox, but she was much more interested in the cell phone he placed inside. He closed it and locked it with a number code.

  The big front doors swung open, and a well-dressed couple strode through the front doors.

  “We have luggage,” the tall, lithe woman with jet-black hair and pale, freckled skin said as she slipped out of her fur coat. The man, equally tall and dark-skinned with a buzz cut, puffed on a cigar.

  “I’m sorry, sir, you can’t smoke that in here,” Alex told him.

  The woman looked toward the loft and caught Linda’s eye. Both men followed her gaze, and Linda retreated to her room and slammed the door. She fell back against it with her heart racing, as if she’d been caught spying on someone having sex.

  Her gaze fell on the slip of paper. It had her name at the top.

  “‘Individual assessment,’“ she read as she picked it up off the floor. “‘For evaluation purposes use only. Will not be shared with other participants of Dr. Kaspar’s Method.’“

  Linda had an affinity for quizzes and questionnaires, and enjoyed speaking about herself and showing off her knowledge. Pride wasn’t something to be ashamed of in her family. Frank’s false modesty, learned behavior from his father, had begun to grate on her nerves recently.

  She smiled to herself and read the first question aloud. “‘I often feel anxiety in stressful situations, true or false.' False,” she said, and looked around the room.

  A queen-size bed with a plain white duvet and large pillows with smooth black cases stood beneath the window. A plush, violet Persian rug with a golden fringe lay under the bed. Beside the en suite was a modern vanity and rectangular mirror, a sharpened pencil and stationary pad laid out on its gleaming surface.

  No telephone—this wasn’t a conventional hotel, Alex had said. No minibar, which she supposed would at least prevent Frank from getting drunk. No room safe either.

  She picked up the pen and stationary stamped with the Lone Loon Lodge name and logo, two loons floating together on cartoon ripples. The mattress felt firm and springy as she sat on its edge to begin her assessment.

  “‘I feel anxiety in enclosed spaces,’“ she read aloud, and checked False.

  —How often does your partner insult you or talk down to you? Sometimes.

  —How often does your partner physically harm you? Never.

  —I have issues with giving up control/letting go. True.

  —Have you ever been seriously ill/injured? Yes.

  —I would characterize my relationship with my in-laws as . . . Strained.

  —I prefer hands-on solutions to my problems. True.

  —I love my spouse.

  Of course I do, she thought. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t still love him.

  She checked the box marked True.

  —I have had or thought about having an affair. True/False

  She scowled at the question. “That’s not fair.” Thinking about sleeping with someone and actually doing it were far from comparable, so she couldn’t give it an honest answer without implicating herself. Although she supposed the thought of sleeping with someone else once, even more than once, wasn’t necessarily the same as actually contemplating an affair.

  “No,” she said, checking the appropriate box.

  The final line was an essay question: “What Brought You Here?”

  Linda hesitated, pencil poised over the empty box, still unable to think back to the Year From Hell without choking back tears. Her diagnosis had exploded in their home like a grenade; it had nearly destroyed them, and once they’d finally managed to pick out the shrapnel, all she’d wanted was escape.

  She’d thrown herself into work, pushing Frank away every chance she got. He had suffered the sting of her actions and words for months before he’d even begun to fight back, the two of them digging painfully into each other’s wounds but careful to shy away from the rot at their core.

  She’d survived her yearlong battle with cancer, and now it was their marriage on life support.

  Linda swallowed her feelings and began to fill in the box.

  Frank unpacked tightly folded socks and underwear into drawers, removing his cologne and toiletries and placing them side by s
ide on the dresser in front of the mirror. He sniffed the cologne and each of his armpits before glancing at his reflection in the mirror.

  He’d put on a bit of weight since Lin got the all clear from her oncologist. During the Year From Hell, he hadn’t been eating much or exercising at all and had lost a fair bit of muscle mass. They used to work out regularly. They’d run marathons and had even attempted an endurance event/obstacle course similar to the Tough Mudder, although the “Electroshock Therapy” obstacle had knocked both of them out of the race short of the end. Last week’s climbing trip would have been a walk in the park for them three years ago.

  Get out there in the kayak, he thought, squeezing his fleshy arms. Tread water, do some laps. Maybe get a bit of color.

  A light knock on the door disturbed him as he slipped a clean shirt over his head. He tugged it on, unlocked the door, and peered out.

  A small, dark-haired woman stood in the doorway, her olive skin a contrast to the white of her housekeeper’s uniform. She smiled deferentially with her gaze on the floor and held a sheet of paper out to him.

  “Is this a pop quiz?”

  She looked confused. “No English.”

  Frank took it from her. “Gracias,” he said, guessing she spoke Spanish, based on her accent.

  She smiled again with a small nod, still not meeting his gaze, and walked empty-handed toward the lobby.

  Smiling at her bizarre behavior, he brought the assessment to the desk by a window overlooking the sun-dappled lake. He felt a bit unprepared, like those nightmares he still had where someone would hand him a quiz for a class he’d only just joined. It made him slightly queasy.

  Linda’s probably loving it though, he thought.

  In the top drawer, he found a pencil and pad with the retreat’s logo, two loons floating side by side. He thought the name and image might have been a metaphor, but it seemed like a misstep.

  “‘I have an inherent problem with authority figures,’“ Frank said, reading the first question aloud. “They must have been reading my mind.” He scribbled in the box marked True.

  —I am prone to jealousy. False.

  —I sometimes have thoughts that could be considered prejudiced. False.