Finding Forever (29 page)

“What do you mean?” Taylor asked.

Peter sighed. “I've been told your father died from skin cancer. Is that correct?”

“Yes, unfortunately, he did.”

“Number four,” Peter said, pointing at the list on the table in front of her.

Taylor gulped. “So this isn't a rehab. This is an anti-aging center?”

“Oh, Kensington is far more than that. Kensington is about tapping into and expanding human potential by following a very simple set of rules. Anti-aging is an utterly simplistic description of our mission. Before you complete your stay here you will learn all this. In due time.”

Peter cleared his throat. “By the way, I spoke to your mother on the phone yesterday. I can see where you get your logical side from. She had a lot of questions, but she understood everything.”

“Is she coming to get me?”

“She expressed some guilt for not being more in touch with you in the last couple years, for not being there for you. She just wants you to get well, which is why she's okay with you being under our care and conservatorship. It seems that she had no idea about your addiction struggle.”

“Apparently neither did I,” Taylor said.

Peter laughed. “The mind is a mysterious organ, far more than any other. And it can convince itself of just about anything. As such, if you are convinced that the Program will
save you from the self-destructive part of your brain, then it will. Forever.”

“That sounds like a long time. I have to say, I'm more of an in-the-moment kind of girl.” Taylor yawned.

“The Program consists of the Work. And the Work demands a strict schedule. The body craves regularity. Your body secretes hormones when it is tired or stressed, when it is shocked by irregularity. It's close to bedtime. Why don't we let you rest and get back to Work tomorrow?”

“Okay. But for the record, you still didn't answer my original question.”

“I'm sorry, what was it?”

“Your age? It's not a big deal. You can tell me. Age is just a number.”

“I'm old enough to know that age is not just a number. I'm old enough to know that age
does
matter, numbers matter. Everything is numbered in our lives. The moment we are born we are given a birth date. Then a social security number is assigned to us so that we can be identified by the government. This numerical identity is inputted into a system of computers programmed with nothing more than a series of zeroes and ones coded together. From the time we can speak, we are asked, ‘How old are you?' Then we go through life, each stage marked by reaching a certain age. Bar mitzvahs at thirteen. Voting at eighteen. Purchasing alcohol at twenty-one.”

“I know that it matters. I was just saying it's not necessarily a bad thing, getting old.”

“Go ahead and tell that to all the child stars who, the moment they hit puberty, are discarded into the show business trash bin! Tell that to the middle-aged actresses who can't get work because they are no longer the sexy ingénues they once were!”

Peter pounded his fist on the table as spit sprayed from his mouth. “Age is everything, you young dolt! You are sixteen.
They call it ‘sweet sixteen.' But in my eyes, you are one year older than the perfect age—socially, sexually, intellectually. Ah, fifteen. If you could be forever fifteen, you would realize every fantasy of every religion in the world. You could live forever.”

Taylor didn't know whether to admire him for his idealism or run from his creepy obsession.

“So, to answer your question,” Peter said, turning calmer. “I am forty-five.”

He tugged down at the sleeves of his linen sport coat and wiped a drop of spittle from his lip. “Age matters only when we give it the power to define us, kill us. The Program takes that power away. And you, Taylor, are the one who has been chosen to spread the gospel. You can save people.”

“Why me?”

“Have you ever seen the play
Peter Pan
?” Peter asked.

“I've seen the movie.”

“Then you might remember what Peter told Wendy.”

Taylor hunched her shoulders as he walked behind her, placed a hand on the top of her head, and whispered, “One girl is worth more use than twenty boys.”

A beater. That's what Tamara called her 2005 Toyota Corolla with 125,000 miles that chugged down the freeway, grayish exhaust spewing from the tail pipe.

Tamara's car had gotten Brooklyn all the way to the edge of the San Fernando Valley when Simone texted her.

                      
How close r u?