A Price on Happiness

"The afternoon before, during her interview - but it wasn't really an interview because the Strikers had already made up their minds, and if she'd refused them they would have kept raising the hourly till she capitulated - the two of them, Gretchen and Cliff, had positioned themselves on either side of her and leaned into the bar over caramel-colored Scotches and a platter of ebi and marguro sushi to explain the situation" (6).

            The Strikers, a power couple willing to put a high price on happiness, are so invested in replicating the past that they are willing to handsomely pay their ex-employee twenty-five an hour plus benefits for four years of her time. While Nisha, a college grad, wishes to escape the small town, she agrees to take the job. The Strikers are so obsessed with re-creating the past that they pay a large sum of money to keep Nisha in town, primarily for their benefit. The Strikers essentially pay for four years of Nisha's life without any regard for her personal hardships at home, her ability to establish a career for herself, or the fact that she is now an adult woman. The Strikers' obsessive concern for Admiral II's well-being keeps them from cultivating emotional ties with their employees and seemingly even with each other. Their vision of perfecting the past is thought to be made possible by their extreme wealth, however that money does not seem to provide the control they seek, therefore their happiness is unattainable.

How else does Boyle demonstrate the Striker's need for control?