Page 6 of Lumi
“Why would people who want to know about braids be interested in Gardaí work?” Damian shook his head. “Maybe stick to make-up if that’s what yer audience wants to learn about.”
“It’s the contrast that’s fun. Me, a girly-girl, going outside my comfort zone and playing around with big weapons and men in uniform.”
“I would watch that show.” Kit said from the end of the table. “You had me at playing with men in uniform.”
“See?” River almost jumped in her seat. “It would be so much fun.”
Damian groaned. “Weapons are not to be played around with, and I couldn’t bring ye even if I wanted to.” He reached for a piece of bread and ignored River’s pout. “So, Jolene, tell us about yer research. Atlas said ye’re moving away from cults.”
“No, it’s more like sidestepping. We already have a pretty good grasp on why people join cults and how cults work to isolate and control their members. Now we’re moving on to researching how to help people overcome the trauma they’ve experienced while they were in the cult. We’re not looking at traditional psychotherapy but rather short, effective interventions.”
“Interestin’,” Damian said and looked up when Nathan, Charles, and Atlas joined and took their seats.
“What’s interesting?” Nathan asked.
“We’re talking about our new research project,” Jolene explained. “We’re setting people up to conquer their fears.”
“How’d ye get volunteers for somethin’ like that?” Kit asked and passed the salad around.
“We pay them.” Atlas’ tone was matter-of-fact.
“How much?” Damian was about to take a cob of corn but stiffened.
“It depends on the length and the intensity of the project. Each case is different. We had a man who was terrified of going outside his house. The leader of the cult had cursed him, and he truly believed that he would die if he stepped outside his door.”
“How did you cure that fear?” Charles asked and passed around the plate with steaks.
Jolene answered, “Our colleague Diane and I went to his house and concentrated on his fear of death. The man was fifty-seven and had been part of a cult since he was in his late twenties. We didn’t challenge his belief that he would die if he left his house. Instead, we agreed that death was inevitable for all of us, and so over hours of talking, the question became not how to avoid dying, but how do we live to the fullest. On our second visit, he’d done a lot of thinking and decided that he wanted to have his affairs in order so that he could die in peace. The irony is that he’d become so determined to have his will made that he went with us to meet a lawyer. Once he’d been outside once, he agreed that the curse wasn’t as powerful as he initially thought. We challenged him to an experiment where he’d make one hundred dollars every time he challenged his fear of death.”
“Challenge it how?” Damian asked.
“He made us videos of how he crossed a street, stood under a scaffolding, walked past a building site, rode in a bus, and stuff like that. It was all part of a list he had created with ways he had imagined that he would die. I consider it a great triumph that he’s now applying for jobs and has made a friend in the local coffee shop.”
“Wow, Jolene, that’s wonderful.” River smiled at her.
“That’s not all,” Atlas said with pride. “Jolene also worked with a woman who was longing for love but felt that she was betraying her former cult leader by dating other men. We paid her a thousand dollars to go on four dates.”
Kit whistled. “That’s a lot of money. Will ye pay me a thousand dollars to go on four dates?”
Atlas continued, “The best part was that the last two dates were with the same man, and they still see each other.”
“If you pay people to face their fears, how do you know they’re not faking it?” I asked.
“I interview and screen the test subjects, of course,” Jolene assured us. “We’re not looking for cute fears that are in the category of unpleasant. We want phobic fears.”
“I fear poverty,” River admitted.
“Right, so in your case, we would challenge you to live without money for a while and see how you’d cope.”
“You could go and live with Maximum for a while. He seems drawn to poverty.” Kit shook her head. “I don’t know why he needs to spend all his time abroad when there’re poor people for him to help right here in Ireland.”
River shivered. “I wouldn’t cope. I would panic.”
Jolene leaned her head to one side. “You’d be surprised how healthy it is to move past your fears.”
“My biggest fear is to be alone,” Charles said in a soft voice. It made us all turn and look at him.
Liv leaned in and touched him. “You will never be alone with us in your life.”
