The Association

SIX: Samuel Beckett

THOMAS BURST into the room, slamming the doors so hard that I was afraid the glass panes would shatter. He was obviously furious, with his hair swept up into a bush and his eyes glowering. 

He strode in, his thin white t-shirt sweeping out and his black Converse scuffing the impeccably white marble floor. He stopped in front of his mother, his breath fuming, while she sat calmly sipping her tea.

"What the hell did you talk to Sato about? What are you asking her to do?"

Dr. Hawthorne put down her teacup with a small clink, before looking up coolly to stare at her son. 

"I'm asking her to act as your companion. Don't act surprised; you're not stupid. You know I was talking about this before. Why do you think your father even let you return to this country? I was only able to persuade him to let you come back if you'd agree to a companion and to behave for this semester."

Thomas didn't reply; he only glared. Dr. Hawthorne stared back for a few seconds, before turning to me.

"I'm sorry, Janet. Thomas can be a bit...inconsiderate."

I gave a polite smile in response. 

This was, for the lack of a better word, awkward.

She stood, her hand grasping Thomas's shoulder. 

"I believe you two have met, but I don't think you've been introduced properly. This is Thomas, my son. He is your age and in your grade. That is, unless he's somehow failed his courses and needs to repeat his junior year."

Thomas shot her a glare, which his mother ignored. 

I attempted a smile. "Nice to meet you. I'm Janet."

The boy stayed silent before his mother dug one of her nails into his skin. He winced and moved out of her grip, then eked out a grimacing smile. "Nice to meet you too."

Dr. Hawthorne smiled warmly at us. "Well, isn't this nice. I'm sure the two of you will get along."

Thomas and I both looked at each other before giving her an incredulous stare.

  ○ ○ ○  

When I stepped out of the shower that night, the steam pooling behind me, I felt a brief draft in the air. Did I leave a window open?

Shaking my head for curls, I reached for a brush.

"Um."

I shrieked and dropped my brush. Thomas stood behind me, his hands in his pockets and his hair still an unruly mess across his head. Seriously, for a rich guy, he had pretty poor grooming.

"What...how...THIS IS A PRIVATE ROOM."

Thomas blanched, shifting uncomfortably. "I needed to get something from here and you weren't in, so I just...I'm sorry. I assumed you were out." 

I spluttered. "The lights were on - how did you assume I was out?"

He grimaced. "Right. I knew something was off." 

We stared at each other for a second, and then he plopped down in my desk chair. He looked around a little before spotting something, and he reached up to grab a book.

"Samuel Beckett's collection of shorter plays? Brilliant. You have great taste."

He grinned at me before flipping through the book. I just stood there like an idiot, my mouth open and my hair dripping. I wasn't even dressed properly, for crying out loud. My old SAVE THE WHALES t-shirt and ratty sweatpants weren't exactly clothes I wanted to be seen in.

I gave myself a mental shake. It didn't matter. I was his "companion" now, and he had to deal with me whether or not he liked what he saw.

After introducing the two of us, Dr. Hawthorne had formally asked me to play companion, and I had agreed, despite all of my misgivings.

I suppose it had lifted the weight, somewhat, that Thomas now knew. I wasn't some weird spy anymore, but just a girl trying to be friends with a boy who somehow wrecked havoc wherever he went. 

The envelope she had been holding had held nothing more than my scholarship money. In some ways, that was what made me feel more comfortable about saying yes. I wouldn't be paid some obscene amount of money to do something that still felt a little shifty. I was just a person volunteering to help an inordinate amount of people who were terrified of something I wasn't very aware of. 

I cleared my throat and gave Thomas a shifty eyed glance. The boy was still engrossed in the book. Strange, I didn't take him to be the reading type.

Thomas looked up as I coughed again. 

"Oh...sorry. Beckett's one of my favorite playwrights."

He closed the book with a snap and placed it on the desk. He looked at me for a moment before sighing and tousling his head. It made the bush even more messy.

"Look, can I ask you to be honest?"

I stared at him. "Sure?"

"Did you know my mother was going to do this?"

"No. I didn't know."

That, in of itself, was not a lie. Until the conversation in the parlor, I had no idea what she was going to ask. 

Thomas stared at me, his eyes as blue as ever. I felt like I was going under some intense examination by a lie detector. "I heard what my mother said to you."

I swallowed nervously. Had he heard about Sato? For some reason, I didn't want him to know that the Association had been involved in this strange deal as well - it was weird enough that he knew his mother had asked me to do this.

"I just wanted to say...I'm not a horrible person. Things have happened and I can understand why people are on their guard. But I'm not a bad guy."

I blinked. Well, that was unexpected. 

"Look, I--"

Thomas stood up, cutting me off mid-sentence. He placed the book back onto the shelf carefully.

"You really do have a great taste in books. There's not a lot of people I know who own both detective novels and James Joyce."

He gave me a quiet smile before opening the door and disappearing into the night.

I stared after him. 

He...reminded me.

Of him.

He was nothing like him, and yet they were both so similar. In the quiet way that he'd addressed me, in the way he'd held the collection of plays. 

And his eyes.

James had blue eyes.

Maybe this was why there was so much trouble around Thomas and girls. Not because he was a Casanova, but because...there was just something irrevocably beautiful about the way he spoke to you.

I shook myself firmly. No, that wasn't it. I wasn't going to fool myself into thinking like that.

And with that kind of firm thinking, I went to bed.

It was a long time before I drifted off to sleep.