“Jolie?” a familiar voice whispered from the doorway.
I woke up from my half sleep. “Talia?” I opened the door. She walked in. A flyaway piece of blonde hair on the right side of her face stuck out at an odd angle. She perched herself on my bed and wrung her hands, looking quite miserable.
“We’ve got a problem.”
“What’s that?” I questioned, always eager to help.
“There’s a body down stairs.”
“Is it living or dead?” It was a reasonable question.
“Dead.”
“Well, I guess we do have a problem.”
“That’s not all,” she stated.
“No?”
“You’ll never guess who it is.”
Let me give you some background information here. I’m a resident assistant (RA) at the university that I attend. So is Talia. But that’s just our cover story. We really work for U.S. intelligence. Talia and I met through the agency. We joined our junior year of high school, once the department got the scores from our PSATs. I wish I could tell you what sorts of things we do. But I can’t. It’s classified. I can say this much: we weren’t assigned to our university because of generous financial aid or the opportunity to excel in our majors. No, there was an overarching reason for our placement.
“Who is it?”
“Agent Henkle.” The long sought after enemy.
“Did you do it?”
“No. She activated the poison implanted in her body once she realized she was trapped. She would rather die than give up information about The Capsule.”
“Poison implants?” I asked incredulously. I thought that only happened in movies.
“Yeah,” Talia responded. “Let’s just say that her fake breasts weren’t filled with saline.”
I contemplated for a moment. “This is bad. And not just for the plastic surgery industry.”
“Well, duh, Jolie. Nobody else on campus knows Henkle was an agent. Everyone just thinks she was a student. As soon as administration finds her body, they’re going to suspect me.”
“Talia, you really should have kept your cool during New Student Week.”
“Hey, how else should I have handled the incident?”
“Maybe skipped the death threat?” I knew it wasn’t really a good time to lecture her. We had a dead body on our hands.
“So has anyone seen the body?”
“No. It’s past 2 am for goodness sake. Everyone’s passed out in their dorm rooms. I cornered Henkle after the last set of rounds.”
“With your duty partner?” That was strictly against protocol.
“Of course not. Noah and I closed down the staff office, but I forgot my laptop and had to go back. That’s when I found and captured Henkle.”
“Did you leave the body in the lobby?” I asked.
“She’s in the staff office.”
I quickly got dressed and grabbed my keys. This was going to take a while.
I followed Talia into the staff office where I found Henkle’s body slumped in a corner. After a closer examination, I discovered her face had turned an unsightly bluish-green, most likely the result of her self poisoning. I told Talia to wrap up the body in a sheet while I brought my car around.
“A sheet?” she said, like it was a new concept and she didn’t sleep on one every night.
“Yeah, use one left over from the toga party program.”
Three minutes later I slipped my car into the 15 minute parking space out front and popped my trunk. I had to move my disguise box to make room for the passenger. Talia took the head end of the bundle, and I took the feet end, and we crammed Henkle into my trunk. I was instantly reminded of that song “Earl’s Gotta Die” by the Dixie Chicks. Only we didn’t have an abusive husband in our trunk, we had an enemy of U.S. intelligence/ poser college student.
“Where are we taking it?” Talia asked.
“To the river.” I turned on the radio to lift my spirits, because death always makes me a bit morose, even if I never liked the person. Justin Timberlake’s “Sexy Back” was playing. After the song ended, I threw Talia my phone.
“Call Director Keller. Tell him he’s going to need to take care of enrollment, because Ashley Henkle is about to take a permanent vacation.” She made the call. Director Keller is one of our inside men. Actually, he’s the top inside man.
After listening to Rihanna’s “Umbrella,” “Party Like a Rockstar,” and “Big Girls Don’t Cry” by Fergie, we arrived at the riverfront.
“We’re not dumping her, are way?” Talia questioned.
“Of course not. You can’t really get rid of a body by putting it in a river. We’re meeting Agents Reed and Sicily here. They’re going to do the transport.” We waited. And waited. And waited some more. I started getting both nervous and annoyed. I’d called the men when I went to retrieve my car. If I had known they were going to take so long, I would have brought some homework to do.
Talia’s cell phone rang. “Hello?” she said. “Uh uh.” I half thought it was Reed and Sicily calling to tell us our location had been compromised. “Okay. I’ll get someone to let you in.” It was a resident who had locked himself out. Genius.
Talia called Noah, who was back on campus, where RAs are required to be on their duty night. “Hey, Noah, sorry to wake you, but we have a lock out on the fourth floor. I can’t really take care of it because I’m….ah…handling another situation right now.” Pause. “No, no. You don’t need to come up to my floor. It’s nothing I can’t handle.”
Finally, a ghetto brown Volkswagen van slowly creeped up next to us. Normally, a sketchy van pulling up next to you at 3:42 in the morning while at a deserted riverfront would be very eerie, but considering I was the one with a corpse in the trunk, I didn’t get too freaked out.
Reed and Sicily removed the cargo, we exchanged information, and then they took off. Talia and I needed a little bit of a breather after the excitement, so we took as stroll along the riverfront.
Talia soon began to stare into the murky water. “I can’t do this anymore,” she said in a shaky voice.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I mean I want out. I can’t be an RA, I can’t be an agent. I didn’t ask for any of this. I just want to teach kindergarten, like back before Keller found out my PSAT scores.”
I nodded sympathetically. Here’s a secret about me: I rarely ever say what I am really feeling. I guess it’s a defense mechanism or something. But whatever, the point is that I was sort of feeling the same way. I mean, here I was, putting on holiday craft night for my residents one night and flying to Morocco the next. Not to mention homework. My residents hardly saw me, and I knew they deserved better. I deserved better. Before the government recruited me, I had plans too.
Talia and I chatted a bit more. We reminisced about our sophomore year of high school, the last year we had before we lost our naivety about the world.
“Man, wouldn’t it be great,” Talia began “to be one of those college students we see, getting coffee with friends or going to parties on the weekends…going to Cabo for spring break.”
“Or having the biggest thing on your mind be your midterm exam or the fight you just had with your boyfriend,” I finished.
“I want that,” Talia mused.
“A fight with your boyfriend?” I joked.
“No, Jolie. To be a regular college student. With a regular part-time job. Living in a regular apartment with friends.”
“You want all that?”
“Yes,”
I took a deep breath in. “Me too.” Here’s another thing about me: I often act on impulse. “I’ll make the call,” I said.
Director Keller tried to talk me out of it. He attempted to convince me of the value of my help to the U.S., told me the college cover was only for two more years, max. I couldn’t be persuaded to change my mind. Mostly it was Talia’s tear stained face. After a long conversation with Keller about logistics and protocol and blah blah blah, I received some information that was actually worthwhile. I hung up and faced Talia.
“We’re going to go meet a woman named Anne.”
“Huh?”
“In two days. Keller said we need to find a third roommate and then meet Anne at this address.” I showed her some chicken scratch I had written on a napkin. “Of course, we need to finish out our RA duties till the end of the year, but it’s no more agency for us.”
Finding a roommate in less than two days isn’t easy, but it had to be done. Talia and I convinced a fellow RA, Elise, to live with us. Elise is the kind of person people fight over to be roommates with. She’s lots of fun, clean, has group enthusiasm, and owns an excellent DVD collection. She also didn’t ask a lot of questions.
The three of us piled into the car and went to the address Keller had given me.
“So how did you know about this place?” Elise asked.
“Friend of a friend.” She accepted the explanation.
We took a few rights, hung a few lefts, went through a four way stop, and eventually ended at our destination. A black Ford Explorer was waiting for us in the driveway. It seemed a bit ominous, but only for a second. Because just then, a bubbly woman wearing a pink flower-printed skirt popped out of the driver’s side and waved at us. We waved back and got out of the car.
“Hi! I’m Anne.” We exchanged some pleasantries and explained that three of us were RAs looking for a place to live for the next school year. Anne showed us the house. It had three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen with a dishwasher, living room, garage, and guest room (okay, it was more of a large storage closet). We fell in love with the place. While going through the paperwork, Anne pulled me aside.
“Now, I know what your situation is,” she lowered her voice, “and I want to assure you that your safety is guaranteed. We have an operative stationed three houses down who keeps a watch on the neighborhood. And not that we try to invade your privacy, but we do have hidden cameras stationed on the outside of the house that are monitored for suspicious activity.” Anne smiled brightly. “Any questions?”
“Uh, er, no. I don’t think so. Do I contact you if a problem arises?” I guess I hadn’t really thought that anyone would be after me. I figured agent to college life would be an easy transition.
“Well, you contact me for a household problem. You know, the dishwasher breaks, etc. I’m your landlord. For a problem you call the operative. Here is his number.” She handed me a card.
“Thanks.”
“No problem.”
Three weeks later Elise, Talia, and I were unpacking boxes and moving in furniture. The term had ended, we said goodbye to our residents, and were ready to start a fresh life.
“Where should we put this couch?” two of our guy friends who volunteered to help asked. Elise and Talia directed their efforts. It felt good to have more than dorm furniture.
I hauled a bag of clothes up to my room and looked out the window. Here we were. In our own house. No RA responsibilities, no agency responsibilities, not even any homework. I was finally going to enjoy life as a regular college student. We were going to have normal lives…or were we?
