Team Building by Robin Roseau

Author:Robin Roseau [Roseau, Robin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-08-03T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five

There was assigned seating for lunch. I received some teasing, and I heard more from other directions.

I checked my score, and I’d lost more points.

Then there was another athletic event, and I wasn’t presented with the need to sacrifice myself. For the first time in the weekend, I earned points. After that, we all went back to the spa. I didn’t have anyone assigned to me for any special reasons, although I saw some of the other women were. Instead, I showered and sat in the steam room for a while before an Altered Events employee called my name. I received a very pleasant facial and manicure, and then as I lay there afterwards, I zoned out.

* * * *

We had one more event before dinner, another intellectual challenge. We were again divided into teams, and then one person from each team at a time faced off in a simple word game. We were each given the beginning of a phrase, perhaps a Bible verse, a famous quote, something from The Buddha, or what not. From the beginning, we had to complete the phrase and then try to convince people it was the real phrase.

Some of them were obvious; many of them were, actually. My first began with, “The apple…” and I finished simply with, “… doesn’t fall far from the tree.” They all said it was the real phrase, so I didn’t get any points, but they didn’t lose any. But the next one was a quote from Shakespeare. “There are more things in Heaven and Hell.”

I put on an act, frowning. “Um.” Then I smiled. “It’s from Hamlet. There are more things in Heaven and Hell, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” I smiled and brushed my fingers against my chest. “We did Hamlet my senior year in high school. I played the lead role.”

“Bullshit,” Oleta whispered. She and Jackie accused me of making it up. Mary said I was right. I got three points, one for the right answer and one for each accusation of getting it wrong. I was using misdirection.

“No way did you play Hamlet,” Oleta accused.

“All-girls high school,” I said with a grin. “My mom made me do theater and speech. She said it would be good for me.” That was a bald-faced lie. I wouldn’t have gone near either of them. But I understood the game, and psyching people out was part of it.

For my part, I was running about 60-40, guessing correctly slightly more than not.

For my next turn, I frowned, then sighed. “I hate this guy. It’s Deepak Chopra. The wind is the whisper of god, speaking to our souls. I’m sorry. I don’t have a clue what it’s supposed to mean, but it was on one of those inspirational posters an ex- used to have.”

I got two points for convincing people I was telling the truth. Joy said, “Natasha, you voted for lying. Why?”

“It’s from a John Denver song,” she said. “Okay, maybe Deepak Chopra said something like that, but the line is ‘The wind is the whisper of our mother, the Earth’.

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