W: The Planner, The Chosen

by Alexandra Swann

  The sun seemed bright as they stepped outside again. Now they were headed back toward the housing. On the left was another large building with a sign that read “Health and Wellness Center”. “We are going to stop in here so that you can see the community recreation area. This is another feature that we take great pride in.”

  Double doors opened onto a huge gym/rec center. As they toured the multi-storied facility, they discovered on the first floor a fully outfitted health club equipped with treadmills, elliptical machines, stair climbers, free standing weights and weight machines. The health club area was bigger than the private club that Kris had joined years before in Phoenix and better equipped. Also on the first floor was an Olympic-sized heated swimming pool. Behind that area were lockers and rest rooms. “Keeping fit and active is vital to successful aging. We wanted to make the best use of our space here, and we understand that we are going to have residents in varying degrees of health and with varying degrees of physical ability. We put the health club and the pool on the first floor because there are items on this floor that virtually everyone should be able to use. Also, the primary care physician at the clinic can prescribe physical fitness activities, such as swimming, to residents who need more activity. So this area has the greatest ease of access.”

  The class now climbed the stairs to the second level of the building. “In this area are the activities that require a little more physical strength. You will find indoor tennis courts, racquet ball courts, yoga classes, Pilates classes…basically all types of fun activities for residents who are more active. These can also be general purpose rooms if we need to open them up for something else.”

  The class exited the Health and Wellness Center. Just past that building was a smaller building with a sign that read, “The Shops at W.” As they entered the double doors, Janice began the tour, “We will be contracting with vendors for this building. Right now we have an all-purpose general merchandise store for cosmetics, toiletries—basic items. We also have a hair salon/barber shop/manicurist that will be opening in a week. These are contract workers—they have won bids with the government to provide services in this facility. Other shops we want to add will include a second-hand clothing store so that residents can buy and sell vintage clothing. Personally, I would like to see a store that sold local crafts. We have room here for up to fifty small shops, and FMPD is actively taking bids for services from small businesses who want to open here. Ultimately, the services that will be provided will depend on who and what bids for them, but we are excited.”

  “So how do people shop here? How does this work?” asked one of the class members.

  “Each resident who comes into the community signs a life-lease for the unit. Then each resident is assigned an equal number of credits per month. Those credits are deposited into the credit bank. To shop, or go to the dining hall, or use the health club, residents simply provide a palm scan, and the credits for the service being purchased are deducted from the credit bank. For instance, if the residents each get fifteen hundred credits per month, and the dining hall costs ten credits per meal, then they need to subtract thirty credits per day. That’s just an example, of course; I think the dining hall is actually less than that. Residents can track their credits on-line to see what they have left.

  “Any unused credits cannot be saved; the system resets to zero at the beginning of each month, so the system does not encourage hoarding. And the units don’t cost any credits. There is a nominal monthly credit cost for water and electricity. Aside from those expenses, basically, everybody gets fifteen hundred credits of fun money, and how they spend that is up to them.”

  “What about the clinic?” the class participant with the grandma who cooked asked.

  “What about it?”

  “Do visits to the clinic cost credits?”

  “Regular exams do not. Prescription medications do. Routine treatments do not. But basically residents are here for life, and they cannot be refused healthcare—that is one of the guiding factors of this community. So a person who is short of credits is not going to be denied access to care.”

  “We have one final building to tour, and then you can see the units.” Janice walked them down to one more huge building on the right. This building was as big as the dining hall, but it did not have windows, although it did appear to have skylights, and it certainly was fitted with solar panels. “This is our all-purpose community center.” As they walked inside they could see that the building had been outfitted with stadium seating in the form of cushioned seats. The chairs were arranged around a large stage.

  “What is it for?”

  “Whatever the residents of the community want. Community meetings if the Division Director needs to meet with the residents. Movies—this building is fully equipped with sound and lighting and a retractable screen to rival the best movie theatre you have ever seen. Stage performances—who knows, we might end up with an aging Barrymore in here, and maybe he or she will want to start a theatre company. Religious services—community members who want to can attend worship services right here. We have a clergy member who will be here on Sunday mornings to provide religious instruction to anyone who wants to attend. The best thing about this building is that it can comfortably house every single person living in W at one time, plus every anticipated worker and staff person. You could put the entire population in this building. That really encourages community.”

  “Excuse me,” Kris raised her hand, “you have a member of the clergy to provide services? How do you plan to accommodate differing faiths and religious traditions?”

  “Remember,” Janice reminded her, “the community is designed to gather people of similar belief systems and religions. Based on the makeup of this community, we are rotating one member of the Protestant clergy and one Catholic priest. If we have enough requests, we can see about adding some additional alternatives. But based on our data, what we have provided should be sufficient.”

  The class exited the final building and found themselves across the street from the first cluster of housing. Janice led them to the first building and opened the doors for them. Kris noted that the main entry area was almost identical to her building at FE. The sand-colored walls were bare except for a large poster that read, “Volunteerism is the heart of W.”

  She immediately looked for the elevator; it was on the left almost behind the stairs just as at FE.

  “I have a question,” she immediately asked, “I just moved into the federal employees housing, and our elevator is locked and requires a keycard for access. I suppose I understand that on some level for us—maybe if you aren’t healthy enough to take the stairs you shouldn’t be working for the federal government. But for seniors it’s different. Surely we are not forcing people in their sixties, seventies and eighties to walk up numerous flights of stairs?”

  “Smart Seniors encourages physical activity. Many younger seniors are healthy enough for stairs, but if they have access to the elevators, they won’t use them. The presiding physician will determine if someone is unable to use the stairs, and he will issue elevator passes for those people. But we want to encourage our residents to push themselves to a greater level of physical activity than they have in the past, and taking the stairs is one easy way to do that.”

  Janice unlocked a ground floor unit, and the class squeezed in. Kris noted that the unit was almost exactly like hers, but it was a little more than twice as large. There was no kitchen and no microwave in the seniors’ units, but the stainless steel sink sat in the recycled glass counter top, and there was more cabinetry and an actual closet in this unit. The sofa bed looked as if it would make out to a double or a queen. The same two chairs and the reclaimed wood table flanked the sofa bed. The primary difference between Kris’ unit and this one, other than the size, appeared to be that these units were decorated in the same shades of sand and baby blue as the dining hall.

  Janice was reviewing all of the features of the unit. While she talked, Kris picked up a w
elcome brochure sitting on the table.

  “Welcome to Section W. As part of the Retire America Act, the Smart Seniors Communities encourage a holistic approach to retirement.

  The Smart Seniors Communities promote vibrant senior living through a combination of healthy, active lifestyles, close and fulfilling interpersonal relationships and community involvement.

  Remember to respect all of the guidelines and rules laid out in your lease. If you have questions about your community or the rules here, be sure to ask the Planner assigned as a liaison for your community.

  Volunteer in your community. We all win when everyone gives.”

  Under the notice were the phone numbers for the Planning Division, maintenance, and the dining hall. As Kris was about to return the brochure, she noticed two small boxes lying where it had been. Janice observed her looking at them and called the classes’ attention to the table.

  “Every unit is equipped with Wi-Fi. We are using W.net—a dedicated government-contracted Internet Service Provider for the exclusive use of W communities. What you see there are two electronic tablet notebooks. We want each resident to embrace the on-line, low paper consumption lifestyle of W, so we have provided one tablet for each resident. These are preloaded with over one hundred magazines and over two hundred free eBooks. We recognize that just as our residents will have varying degrees of physical ability, they will also have varying experience and ability with technology. These electronic tablets will help the residents acquaint themselves with the eBook and emagazine experience.”

  Janice led the class back out to the street and through the double white gates. As Kris stood on the platform waiting the twenty minutes for the commuter train, she looked back at the community behind her. It was not a bad place; it was certainly different from any of the other housing she had represented during her career, but it was not bad. Monday she would begin persuading seniors that W was the right place for them to spend their golden years. After all that she had seen, she did not think that the community would be a difficult sell. W actually had a lot to offer.

  Chapter 6

  The Crystal Red Cadillac hummed quietly as Kris headed down the interstate to Chandler. A light jazz CD played in the CD player. Kris liked light jazz—especially when she felt nervous. This was her, “I need to calm myself down before I go talk to this difficult client and try to salvage this deal,” CD. Kris had learned the importance of staying calm in a successful negotiation, and she now was exercising every bit of calm she had to go talk to the first two people she needed to approach about W.

  Normally, these meetings were to be held in a group setting. The Smart Seniors’ orientations were by invitation only—selected seniors received a letter inviting them to attend a meeting at a designated location—usually a community center. But the moment that Kris had seen her parents’ names on the initial list she had known that she had to make this call privately, by herself.

  Jim and Janine Mitchell lived in a five thousand square foot Mediterranean-styled home on two acres in Chandler. Jim’s father had moved to Arizona in the 1950’s—just as the nation was discovering air conditioning, and Arizona was beginning to boom. He successfully built mobile home communities for snowbirds who wanted to experience the pleasures of going south for the winter but did not have the resources to pay for a site-built second home. As luck would have it, George Mitchell became very successful at marketing the warmth and sunshine of Arizona all over the U.S.—Mitchell communities had housed thousands of Americans who made their primary residence in snow country but preferred to winter in the Phoenix area.

  George Mitchell was a much better businessman than he was a human being. He was rude, heavy-handed and cold with his five children and cold with his wife—so cold that after forty years of marriage she decided that she would prefer to finish her golden years alone than to spend them with her irritable, demanding husband.

  George had three daughters and two sons. Jim was the baby of the family. His older brother David was actually the heir apparent to Mitchell’s estate, but that ended after a ninety mile an hour drunken joy ride in the wee hours of a Saturday morning left David’s convertible wrapped around a tree and his neck broken. He lived three days in a coma before he died. That just left the girls, none of whom had any interest in the mobile home communities, and Jim, who had a strained relationship with his prickly father and no ambitions of his own.

  Jim had gone to work for his dad, but he hated the mobile home community almost as much as he hated working for his father. He was a good artist, however, and he had his own great ideas for housing. In his mid-twenties, he enrolled in classes at night to study architecture, and after several years of hard work he became an architect. One evening on campus he met Janine Morris, a shy, quiet, but beautiful freshman who was paying her own way through school by working at the night registrar’s office. Five years older than she, Jim was smitten, and he asked her out every time he saw her for the next month. Eventually, she agreed to go, and three months later they were married. They set up housekeeping, and for the first five years of their marriage they lived in the management mobile home of the largest Mitchell mobile home community. Believing that Jim had more earning potential than she, Janine quit school and took on most of the management responsibilities so that Jim could pursue his studies and finish his degree. When Kris was born, Janine continued to work full time while taking Kris with her to the office—Kris could still remember toddling around playing with her toys and old magazines while her mother signed up tenants.

  After graduation, Jim left the mobile home community and set up his own custom home construction company. The independence came at a price—mainly in the form of a shouting match between him and George who pronounced Jim ungrateful and told him that he was a loser who was destined to fail at life. Jim had never gotten over his father’s harshness or the hateful, condescending attitude that he exuded—particularly towards his family. Unfortunately, George had taught Jim the only parenting style that either of them would ever know, and Jim imitated many of his father’s traits toward his own children. In fact, as Jim aged, he behaved so much like George that even his own sisters commented that he had turned into his father. By then, however, Jim no longer cared—he had convinced himself that George was tough and respected and that his own hardness would also earn him a place of respect.

  Janine, on the other hand, had stored away enough warmth and love to fill up several cities. As a young bride she was not merely in love with her husband—she idolized him. When she left school, she had never questioned whether it was the right decision; what was best for Jim was best for the family—period. Now, after her own forty-five years of marriage to her own difficult, demanding husband, Janine knew that Jim was certainly fallible, but she still loved him. If she had doubts about her life, she did not express them very often. Instead she did her best to buffer the often embattled relationship between Jim and their three children—Kris, the oldest, Keith, their only son, and Karyn.

  Kris had never known her mother when she was not hard at work—in the businesses or at home taking care of the family, cooking, and caring for the house. After Jim set up his construction company, Janine began to pursue her interest in interior design. Although she had no formal training in design, she had a great eye, and she kept up with each season’s trends. She staged all of the model homes, and she did design work for the buyers in Jim’s subdivisions. She also did interior design work for friends, and she donated her considerable talents to the church when they decided to update their building. She got up early each morning and worked all day, and even now, at sixty-five, Janine still did her own housework. She said that a maid could not be trusted to do a job that met her standards. She had worked full time for over forty-five years while raising a family, and she had served a home cooked meal every night. Kris wondered sometimes how she had managed to do it and how she had managed to survive forty-five years with Jim with her wits intact.

  Kris admired her mother as much as
she loved her. Janine had always tried hard to make their lives happy—even during the times that were the most difficult. When Kris was a teenager, Jim was in a development deal that went south. Jim was sued, lost the suit and ended up with a huge judgment against him which resulted in the loss of their home to foreclosure. Kris always remembered the sound of her mother’s sobs when they received the notice that the judge had ordered the house sold, but she also remembered how Janine had told the children that a house is nothing more than a place full of things. Janine had told them that it is foolish to grieve over possessions because the world is full of so much that is wonderful that when one item is gone, something else even more wonderful is waiting to replace it. And then she told them that losing the house was just a temporary setback—in a few years they would have a new house so beautiful that they would not even want to remember the one they were leaving. That final prediction actually turned out to be true—five years later Jim had completely recovered financially, and whether to show off for those who knew about the lawsuit and the judgment or to make it up to Janine for the loss of her home and everything else she had tolerated—and as Kris got older she always wondered which of those it really was—Jim had built Janine her dream home. Every room had been designed to be both opulent and functional—from the luxurious yet tasteful master suite with the Italian marble bath featuring heated floors, the jetted tub and the walk-in shower that massaged the user with warm jets of water from every direction, to the great room with twenty-one foot ceilings, to the home theatre with black and white movie posters, every inch of the Mitchell home said, “We’ve survived!”

  Now as Kris approached the house she thought about how much it had meant to her mother. She still remembered clearly the day that her dad had shown it to the family. She remembered the look of pure joy on Janine’s face—Kris had been so happy for her that day. Kris had already left for college, but when she came home for holidays they had a room for her there. She had lived there only once—for three months after graduation when she had moved in while she made the ill-fated decision to work for her dad as a builder’s rep while she was getting her real estate license. Until very recently that had been the unhappiest time of her adult life—she had worked long days, weekends, even the Fourth of July sitting in model houses at the residential development Jim was building. Model house sitting is boring, tedious work, but Kris was a good saleswoman, and when potential buyers did come through, she was quick to show them all the bells and whistles of each home. The houses were aesthetically pleasing—Jim designed them and Janine staged all the models—and they were priced just right for the “move up” couple who was selling their starter home and moving into a roomier home with more amenities. Jim had a good reputation, and he stood behind his work. He was also a tough boss, however, and with Kris he practiced a form of reverse favoritism which led him to criticize her every mistake in front of the other agents while never acknowledging any of her efforts or success. Jim found her natural assertiveness obnoxious and told her that she would never have a man in her life as long as she continued to be overly aggressive—even though that aggressive nature helped her move more houses in three months than any of his other salespeople. As a young salesperson, Kris had her own ideas about how to deal with customers, but Jim was convinced that his methods were best, and the two of them clashed frequently until, after three months, Kris walked into his office, handed him the keys to all the houses she had been showing, and walked out without a word. The next day she applied as an agent with a respected Scottsdale real estate firm and was hired, eventually becoming their top producer before leaving to start her own firm. Her first week on her new job she met a handsome, charismatic young loan originator named Ben Stafford. Kris’ top priority in her new job had been to get her first paycheck and rent her own apartment—as it turned out she did not even have time; within three weeks she and Ben had moved in together, and she had started a new life with Ben that would last for the next seventeen years.