The Project - Courtney Summers Page 0,37
establishing a concentrated presence in Morel, Bellwood and Chapman, cities and towns along the Hudson Valley that are just small enough to quantify the difference The Project can make and big enough that such differences won’t go unnoticed. There is a point when their message will propagate itself, but for now we’re building an army. If they don’t have the numbers, they will never be a movement and if they do not become a movement, they will never be able to show people the path.
Lev sends Bea, with Casey and a handful of other members—Jenny, Aaron and Dan—to the May Day Protests in New York City. They spend the night at the Garrett Farm in Bellwood, then take the Hudson Line from Tarrytown to Grand Central. They’re armed with literature about The Project. Casey reminds them to be careful, thoughtful in their approach. Look for people who are open. Be real. No one wants to feel like they’re being sold something—not even salvation. She tells them to remember they’re guests to this demonstration and to emphasize the overlap in The Unity Project’s values.
We’re offering what’s left of the Occupy Movement a way to continue their mission. We join their rallying cry against inequity, against the 1 percent, against keeping institutional power unchecked, against those who would burn the world to preserve their wealth.
Bea suspects her presence is a direct result of her Attestation. Lev saw them off and she doesn’t think she imagined that he held her a little longer than everyone else, doesn’t think she imagined the way he squeezed her shoulder and how deeply he looked into her eyes before she got into the car. If she comes back to him empty-handed, she will have failed.
On the train to the city, Bea’s mind flows through the script Casey gave them. What The Unity Project offers people, in its simplest terms, is food if you’re hungry, water if you’re thirsty, clothes and shelter if you need it, and family if you lack it. All it asks in return is being part of, and upholding the tenets of, a revolution that pays it forward.
It’s raining when they get to Grand Central. Casey acts as guide; she knows the city well. Some of her childhood was spent here, in her father’s brownstone, and her familiarity shows in the indifferent way she navigates them through the everyday commotion of the city. Bea can’t imagine feeling indifferent to it. She hasn’t been to New York City enough to not be overwhelmed by all this life. She loves to be where the action is, and here there’s so much, so many different bodies moving in so many different directions, so many people breathing and so many hearts beating at the exact same moment in time. It’s magical.
With a sudden twinge, she thinks of Lo. Lo’s been to NYC twice. Once, when she was too young to remember and again when she was twelve, the year before Mom and Dad died. They’d gone to Rockefeller Center to see the Christmas tree and the sisters’ individual responses ended up disappointing their parents. Bea, at eighteen, felt small and touristy and hated it because that was the year she wanted to be cool. Lo had found the tree’s awesome display much less interesting than all the people who had come to see it. She stared openly at everyone.
Look at all the stories, she’d said. That was how she saw them. Stories. Bea wonders if Lo still thinks of people that way. If she still wants to write.
Are you all right? Casey asks her, and it shouldn’t surprise Bea, but it always does, how attuned Casey is to her moods. Bea nods and tells her she’s nervous because this is true. Casey grips her hand and doesn’t let it go and Bea feels stronger for it. She senses the others nearby and feels stronger for their presence too.
Together, they make their way to Bryant Park, which is beautiful and green and wet. Bea doesn’t mind the rain because the energy feels so good. She’s in the heart of a gorgeous cacophony of music and chants.
Mind the cameras, Casey tells them, nodding to various camera crews. Bea eyes them warily, imagining tonight’s news reducing these protests to millennial burnouts looking for a day off work rather than presenting it as it really is. The media loves to distort the truth, but like Lev says, The world is falling around them—and they will fall with it.
Bea takes in the protest