“Ms. Durant,” the man says, putting a hand out to her. “Happy to meet you, happy to meet you.”
“Mr. Kirtenour.” She stands from her chair and takes his hand. “Thank you for seeing me on such short notice.”
“Call me Dennis, please. And of course I’d see you. I’m honored to be considered for your piece.”
I think my eyes mightplinkagain. Piece?
I look toward Adam. Brow furrowed low, jaw tight. He has no idea what this is about, either.
And more than that, he’s not happy about it.
He adjusts something on the recording equipment, leans back in his seat, and loosely clasps his hands in his lap.
Salem responds to Dennis with a light, airy laugh. “The honor is mine. Or ours, I should say! These are my colleagues; they’ll be helping with note-taking and recording matters.”
She gestures to us in a sweeping motion, but doesn’t introduce us with names, and Dennis doesn’t bother looking at us again. He takes the seat closest to Salem and leans forward, pressing a button on a sleek black strip set into the table and speaking toward it.
“Ashley, can you bring refreshments for five instead of two? Thank you.”
But Salem doesn’t wait for Ashley or her refreshments.
“So, why don’t we start by talking about your mission for the institute.”
Even though I have absolutely zero idea what’s going on, I can tell it’s a softball, the kind of question this guy has a long, rehearsed answer for. He talks about the limitations of traditional medicine, about healing from “within.” There’s a lot of variations on the wordspositivityandoptimism. Every once in a while there’s a science-y word tossed in, but mostly it reminds me of the stuff my mom used to love hearing about on afternoon talk shows.
If she came here with Lynton and met this guy, she probably got stars in her eyes. I am certain he could’ve conned her.
But surely not the notorious Lynton, right?
Salem is nodding along, asking follow-up questions, laughing at moments that don’t even register to me as funny. Briefly, I wonder if she’s had some kind of break with reality while she’s been gone. The intensity, the sternness, the caginess—it’s all at a different register than it was when I first met her.
We should have taken longer than a minute outside.
We should have taken hours before coming here and doing this thing that three of us have no idea about.
“Dennis,” she says mildly, “let’s shift gears for a moment and talk about your detractors.”
I look toward Tegan instinctively, and can tell she’s thinking the same thing as I am: Is this where Salem gets to it? Where she suggests this “healing institute” is some kind of scam that managed to catch Lynton Baltimore in its snare? Will she pull up a photo of him? Will she point to me and say,Why don’t you have another look at my colleague here, see if she looks familiar?
But Dennis only chuckles at her prompting, as though he’s been through this gear shift a hundred times. He mentions the doctors and scientists who have criticized the institute, speaking of them with a cloying, pitying niceness that suggests he’s sorry they’re not yet so enlightened. Salem presses him on the doctors who’ve left the institute after comparatively short terms of employment; he says that’s always been the plan, so that physicians can take what they’ve learned here elsewhere. She hits him with a question about accusations of the profit motive in healthcare spaces, and he does an impassioned critique of insurance companies that would probably sway even me, if I hadn’t already decided that his institute was selling snake oil to terminally ill people.
There’s a soft knock on the door a second before it opens and a woman who looks about my age enters, wheeling a small cart that’s loaded on top with a polished silver carafe, small white cups, and a teak box that I’m assuming has a tea selection. Beneath, there’s another shelf with fancy boxed water, a basket of fresh fruit, and packages of gourmet trail mix.
“Ah, Ashley,” Dennis says. “I was beginning to think you’d forgotten about us.”
She flushes beneath her tanned skin, but smiles. “Sorry about that, Mr. Kirtenour. I had to rustle up some additional items.”
Salem looks annoyed at the interruption, but Dennis has the same placid expression he’s worn for almost the entire time he’s been in this room. I watch Ashley set a cup in front of Adam. It’s a dollhouse accessory next to his hand.
He is looking at Salem as if he doesn’t know her at all.
Salem clears her throat, redirecting Dennis’s attention back to her while Ashley offers Tegan a trail mix packet that probably costs as much as a car payment. Maybe I’ll try to take the rest on our way out. The kind of souvenir I can get on board with.
“It must be difficult,” Salem says to Dennis, interrupting my straying thoughts. She’s pitched her voice in a different tone now, and even after so long I recognize it from the podcast—this note of tender empathy she often used on Baltimore’s victims.
“To have so many people judging and criticizing as you do this work,” she finishes.
“Ah.” He waves a hand deferentially, humbly. “Throughout history, innovators have always—”
