Today's Reading
Alone in the room, Cynthia releases a cleansing breath. Blane's father is such a complete and utter 'asshole.' The only reason Hank wanted to come to Parents Weekend in her place was to punish her. Mitch, the lead on her detail, comes into the dorm room. "Everything okay?" he says, examining her. He's a trained observer and little gets by him.
She's learned in this job, among these men—even her subordinates or those she trusts, like Mitch—to never show weakness.
"Just Hank being Hank," she says.
Her phone pings, she scans the screen. It's a text alert from the university. One thing she's noticed in Blane's few months at Santa Clara: The administration overuses its alert system.
Cynthia reads the text aloud. "It says, 'Bronco Alert: An unhoused man is wielding a knife at the Seven-Eleven on Benton Street.'"
Mitch checks his own phone, presumably the tracker on Blane's device. "Beavis is still on campus, he's nowhere near there." They made the mistake of letting Blane choose his own code name. Blane picked "Beavis" from some idiotic cartoon he and his father think is hilarious.
"Unhoused man?" Mitch says, repeating the alert's message as if he's unfamiliar with the term.
"I forgot, you aren't versed in liberal-speak." She allows herself a smile. "Calling them 'homeless' apparently carries a negative connotation that they're criminals. And we wouldn't want anyone to think the unhoused man wielding a knife is a criminal."
Mitch shakes his head.
Cynthia examines the room. For security reasons, Blane's is a single, one of the few in the dormitory. The bed is elevated. Next to it, a miniature fridge, which she decides not to open. On the small desk, there's a box of protein bars, a flyer with Greek letters advertising a "Parents Weekend Blowout." The flyer has a photo of what must be a fraternity house with a giant sign—a sheet hanging from the second-floor window: OUR PARENTS CAN DRINK MORE THAN YOURS.
"Remember the days when you could take a nap whenever you wanted? When you had no responsibilities? When you could bring someone back to your room in the middle of the afternoon... ?" Cynthia puts a hand on the bed, pushes down on the thin mattress, testing it. Mitch holds the hint of a smile. Oh, he remembers.
"Did you see that ridiculous mustache his fraternity's making him grow?"
"It's better than what they had pledges do in my day," the agent says.
Mitch was a frat boy. That tracks.
"Are you the only one manning the hallway?" She holds his gaze.
He checks his phone again, nods.
"Well, if we're going to fuck like coeds, we'd better be fast," she says, turning her back to him, lifting her skirt, and yanking down her panties.
At the dining hall, Blane stabs a plastic fork into his burrito bowl. Mark sits across from him at the long table, a tiny mountain of food on his plate. Mark's a big dude—the pledge master gave him the nickname Tommy Boy from the old movie. It fits, not only because Mark resembles the actor Chris Farley—albeit an Asian Chris Farley—but also because he's a jokester. It's why he and Blane became fast friends. To survive pledging, you need a friend.
Mark takes a big bite of pizza and, with a mouthful, says, "So these dudes, like, have to go everywhere with your mom?"
"Yeah. They've basically lived with us since I was in fifth grade."
"Why? What's the—"
"My mom's high up at the State Department. We dropped a bomb on some official from a hostile government and they put a bounty on her head."
"Holy shit."
"Yeah. She wanted me to have a team here and I said, 'No way.' My dad backed me up."
"It'd be kinda cool, though. Girls would think you're, like, mysterious, dangerous."
"It sucks, bro, trust me. DS rotates agents and you have strangers up in your shit constantly. And my mom is always pressed with what we say or do around them. The agents gossip. They tell my mom all kind of stories about the other assholes they protect."
Mark doesn't seem convinced.
...
