Scene 24 — Lindsey

Lindsey had been miserable since she had returned to the lodge. She already had been feeling badly about how things had gone but hadn’t been able to pass up taking one last nasty shot at Cal before leaving. She had showered and then heard everyone returning, but Cal hadn’t stopped by and nobody else had checked in either. She wondered if everybody hated her now. Probably, she deserved it. It sounded like everybody was working together, probably united in disdain for her. She realized that she was letting her mind run wild and create unhealthy, improbable narratives.

When Cal entered the room a few hours later he found her sitting on the bed with her head in her hands. She was relieved someone had finally remembered her but she wasn’t going to show that. She gave Cal an annoyed look. He winced, it was obvious to Lindsey he had been nervous about this encounter and she felt even worse. Why could she not let up?

“Uh, Gloria made us a video, I think we should watch it,” he said tentatively.

“Who the hell is Gloria?” she snapped at him.

“The third judge from earlier, I thought you guys talked for a bit?” Cal answered.

“Oh, ok, fine let’s watch it,” Lindsey said. She was embarrassed to be called out for not even knowing the woman’s name.

Cal sat next to her on the lower bunk so they could both see and pressed play on the tablet he was holding. There were six people seated on a large sectional in the video, with Gloria and another man in the center.

“Hello Cal and Lindsey, my name is Gloria D’Alessandro since we did not have the opportunity for proper introductions. This is my husband Grayson and these are our partners - Annemike and Jerrold - as well as Bhavin and Sierra. We’re the group staying at the guest lodge this week and we’ve taken a particular interest in you two because we see a remarkable number of parallels between the week you two have had, and our first week here. We’d like to tell you our story in the hopes it benefits you tomorrow.

“The six of us first came here more than 15 years ago now. We were all young attorneys employed at a large corporate law firm in New York City. Each of us was between one and three years out of law school. This was very much a high-powered corporate environment; the unambitious need not apply. We were all up front about our desire to move up the corporate ladder and make high salaries - it was encouraged at the firm and a big part of how the partners motivated the younger lawyers to bust their tails.

“Anyways, we mostly knew each other casually but this was a firm with thousands of employees - we occupied four floors of a tower in Lower Manhattan - so none of us were friends or anything. Then we all got assigned to this big case one of the partners was taking on. Big, messy case, at its core it was a patent dispute but the outcome would have major anti-trust implications. Lot of money on the line for a very large client, and they hired our firm. So the partner held a kickoff meeting with us and within 10 minutes it was obvious we were not a very good team, too many people trying to show they were the smartest and most hard working. By that Friday we were all on a plane to Tennessee to spend a weekend here at the camp and work on our teamwork.

“The partner’s real genius, and I don’t use that word lightly - her name is on the side of the building now and she’s probably a billionaire several times over these days - was that she didn’t tell us the purpose of sending us down here. So being the young, hungry corporate sharks we were, we all thought we had to show off how we would do whatever it takes to win.

“We got off to a hot start, not quite like you guys, but still very good. We won the game on Friday, and the first one on Saturday morning. Not to brag, but there’s a reason we were at one of the more prestigious law firms in NYC, there were a lot of big brains on that team - and in this room I suppose - we used strategy to win. But then things began to unravel a bit for us. We only finished second in the third game because we started to be more concerned with who was providing the winning solution than finding the best one. It got worse in the afternoon - people would not listen to others because they wanted to be the one that captained the team to victory. We only took two points from the afternoon games.

“We got a call that night, this was before video chat was commonly available, so we were all huddled around one of those old conference room phones downstairs and the partner calmly asked how we were doing. We verbally tripped over each other making excuses and finger pointing. Then she revealed the true reason she had sent us here: to learn to work as a team. She told us that if we couldn’t learn how to do that we could not work for her. Well that sure set us straight. The next day our teamwork was impeccable and we won the triathlon with a record time for a six person team. Record still stands today actually, I believe.