[I hesitate here. I'd write 'sect' or 'cult', though that might be my skepticism doing the phrasing. Maybe the closest word is 'religion' or 'church'. I'll go with 'church'.]
...church. He never told me straight. This is how I found out: Albert came by our desks one day and he commented he'd seen Xavi in the meetings. Xavi was all like, "oh, where you there too?", and Albert explained he was actually the new host. They didn't say much more. Later I questioned Xavi and he admitted he'd been attending those meetings. He didn't call it a religion, though the word 'spiritual' slipped out at some point. Anyway, he didn't want to talk about it, like it was not a secret, but it was intimate, something not meant to share with anyone. So I didn't probe him for the sake of respect. But i was intrigued. I used to think of Xavi as an even less spiritual person than me.
Second happening involved our top-tier boss, J. He too stopped by our desk to chat and tell us some old stories, some involving a mid-manager, M. He sounded like he meant to prove us that M had once been a funny guy, the kind who could generate positive anecdotes. Then he checks the clock, and just as the second hand swings into 09:59, he completely changes the mood by saying to Xavi, "By the way, congratulations, i heard you're doing great at meetings". They go on to speak in riddles for a while, and then J says "I will deny having even been here for the last minute", and just as the clock strikes 10 he changes the subject again.
This is what i made out (or imagined) about the church. It's somewhere between a real religion and a self-improvement therapy group. Devotees go to meetings once or twice a week, where they sing/chant/pray. I don't think i heard anyone mentioning a god or gods, but i do think that believing in some sort of energy/soul/cosmos is required to get in (like in the freemasons).
I felt disappointed to know that J of all people could fulfill that requirement—he whose work consists basically on mocking another reigion. I am an atheist (up to now, i'd have said "a proud atheist", the reassured, no-need-to-brag kind of atheist); but for the first time here i felt like i'd missed something everybody else knew.
Third happening: Paula comes by, she brings up the church topic, Xavi is clearly interested. She says she's not in the church now, but she was for many years. Then they hold some kind of veiled conversation. I act like i don't care, like i'm all over it, as i leaf through a small book spoofing religions that lies around, something Xavi and I used to laugh at together, though now i fail to understand most of the jokes—like a page with a chart listing several core concepts of some new-age cult, one of which is the word 'Roland?!'
When i look up from the book, Xavi and Paula are still talking about the meetings, stating that Albert makes a great host. Xavi's trying to pinpoint somebody who attends the meetings, only he can't name any person nor place because i'm right there, so he draws a sketch. It's a room with a piano and a bar and a sofa and people standing and sitting, and he draws an arrow pointing to the second stool at the bar, and then, as though asking who uses to sit there, he writes the word "Roland?!" in a circle.
Paula says, "you're not much wrong there".
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