I nodded at Dave and told Rob, “I guess maybe we do need a little privacy—away from little fellas with big ears. It’s...complicated, I’d guess you say.” The breeze moving through the room had freshened things up but it still kind of stunk, then I realized the smell was coming from me. I tossed my clothes on the floor and grabbed a towel off the hook on the back of my door. “I’m going to grab a shower and then you and I can go grab some dinner, Rob. I’ll fill you in about tomorrow while we’re eating.” I walked out of the room and wondered what Rob and Dave would talk about while I was gone.
When I got to the showers I tossed the old towel into a rolling laundry hamper and threw a fresh one on the bench. Spence was in there and I cut on the showerhead next to him. I asked him, “If you don’t have any plans for dinner could you come with me and Rob to grab something to eat, maybe have a few beers?”
Spence frowned. “Who’s Rob, what’s his pledge name?”
“He’s not a bro, he’s with the Secret Service.”
Spence wiped some shampoo out of his eyes. “I was going to order a pizza but going out to dinner with you and some guy from the Secret Service sounds more interesting. I’m in, I’ll meet you in your room in about five, okay?”
When I got back to the room Dave had left, and I was a little surprised to see Levi in a heated debate with Rob. Levi watched me walk in and asked, “Did you know this Secret Service guy was clueless about Megan’s press conference tomorrow?”
I shrugged and hung the towel back on the hook. “I guess ‘was clueless’ means you’ve filled him in.” I ducked my head into the closet and looked around for something to wear. I grabbed some thawed jeans and pulled them on. I grabbed another beer and looked longingly at the bong but I figured I couldn’t get away with that considering the two guys on the couch. “So, I guess you’ll be joining us for dinner, Levi?” I looked at Rob and pulled another pair of jeans out of the closet. “Here you go, Rob.” I tossed them to him. “And pick out a shirt from in here to wear, lose that hat, and pull that damn chain off.” I walked back over to the door and grabbed the towel then walked over to Rob. I started rubbing the smudged henna tattoo off his chest. “Really, Rob? You thought all this shit would help you blend in here?”
Spence walked in as I was buttoning my shirt, he had a beer in one hand and a joint burning in the other. He saw Levi and just kind of tilted his head in acknowledgement, then he pointed over my shoulder. “That guy behind you, that’s your Secret Service dude or agent or whoever?” I was grateful when he handed me the joint.
“Hey, Foster!” Rob said, “I forgot, man!” I turned around to face him and he was standing there in a pair of navy-blue boxer briefs with red and white trim. “Look, I’m wearing your underwear!”
Spence raised an eyebrow. “Those are yours, Foster? I thought the red, white and blue underwear was like a secret agent thing or whatever. Or maybe they just match his Spiderman sheets.”
Levi looked up from his tablet and stared at us. I explained, “Fellas, Rob means it’s underwear from one of the ads I did!”
Rob grinned and said, “When my wife found out I was assigned to Foster during the convention she bought these—I think she wants me to get these autographed by you, Foster.” He turned a little red. “I mean, not right now, not when I’m wearing ‘em.” He pulled on the jeans and started buttoning his shirt.
I stared at him. “Right, because me signing your underwear right now would be...odd, or whatever.”
The four of us headed down the hall to the stairway. When we walked past Dave’s room he was standing in the doorway watching us. I nodded and he shut the door and followed us outside.
The sun was just starting to set and it felt great outside, so we decided to walk down the street to the bars and restaurants. Rob kept tripping over his feet trying to take in all the girls around us. “I think I’ve died and gone to heaven, fellas.” He was practically drooling and I kept having to push him along. “It hasn’t been all that long, but I just don’t remember college girls being this hot when I was in school.”
Levi looked around and nodded. “Hawthorne’s kind of known for its wealthy, beautiful and surprisingly-slutty women, thank God.”
Dave said, “Yep, the scenery’s usually pretty good around here.” I saw him staring at a group of guys I recognized from the rugby team and popped him on the back of the head.
I avoided the busier, trendier places and led the group into a quiet local place where I figured we could talk about shit without any interruptions. We sat down at a table and I updated Spence and Dave on what I knew about Megan’s announcement. Spence pointed at Rob and said, “It seems like it would be really hard for Foster’s father to screw around with the President’s daughter without any of the Secret Service or press or campaign people noticing.”
Rob waited for the waitress to set down the pitchers and mugs and then said, “We don’t exactly spy into bedrooms, I mean there’s a certainly level of privacy everybody deserves.” He tipped his mug at me. “Now, Foster isn’t exactly a private kind of guy. He and Megan were like bunnies on ecstasy in Hawaii—the beach, hammocks by the pool at night, a tour bus, the—”
“Wait a minute!” Dave stared at Rob and then me. “I thought tomorrow was going to be about Foster’s father and Megan. You mean Megan was banging you both?” I couldn’t think of anything to say so I just kind of nodded and turned a little red.
Rob nodded and grinned. “Well, I didn’t know about his dad and her. Maybe she was just trying to throw us off the trail.” He looked at me and said, “No offense, Foster. She seemed to have an awful lot of fun with you. I mean, I gotta say, me and the other agents were pretty impressed. I didn’t even know they made condoms that could fit on something like that. She must have—”
“Okay, enough about that—about her and me! Levi, what else have you found out about tomorrow?”
He started to tell us then the waitress came back to take the food orders and bring more beer. We all stared at him and waited until she walked away. He said, “I got a little more out of Ashley when I drove her to the airport. And when she gets back I need to remind her that she owes me for the armrest she ripped off the passenger door of my Prius. She says this actually may be the best kept secret in DC, the only reason she found out about it was because her source has a daughter who’s good friends with Megan. This girl got a text Megan meant to send to Foster’s dad. Evidently Megan has invited about ten members of the press—people from Fox News, CNN, Vanity Fair, People, The Wall Street Journal, whoever—and all she’s told them is that she has an announcement about her future. They probably think she’s starting her own line of clothes or shampoo or something. It’ll be second-string reporters and interns but by the end of her speech it’ll go live on all the major news channels and networks, and then the rest will be history.”
After we’d finished eating Rob started acting restless. “So, where to next, Foster? I don’t get out of the house much, despite what the press says Secret Service agents don’t spend all of their down time with hookers and cocaine. Let’s go to a bar and keep things rolling! I think I can go off duty until tomorrow morning.”
Spence looked at his phone on the table and frowned. “Dude, it’s only eight o’clock! It’ll be hours before the bars open.”
Dave nodded. “And I’m not sure bar hopping would be the best thing for Foster. With what’s going to happen tomorrow he should probably keep things pretty low key.”
Rob looked disappointed but Levi slapped his hand on the table. “Hold on a minute, this might be exactly what Foster should do! You know, if Foster’s not seen closing down the bars on a Tuesday night people may get suspicious that something’s up!”
I nodded at Levi. “I guess we can all go get wasted—but only because Levi thinks it’s the right thing to do.”
Spence looked wary. “But where are we going to go? PreBar would be open, I guess.”
Levi looked excited. “I’ve heard of that place but I’ve never
been able to find it, let’s go!”
We wandered past a few crowded restaurants and then I led everybody down an alley. The sun had set and the narrow path between the two old brick buildings was dimly lit. A door opened to my right and two girls stumbled out of it. They smiled as they edged past us and headed toward the street. I held the door open for the rest of the group and we walked into PreBar. It was basically part of some old warehouse that had been converted into a bar by two guys who graduated from Hawthorne and then realized they had nowhere else to go.
Almost the entire place was made out of brick—the bar itself was a brick wall with a walnut top, the barstools were brick columns with walnut seats, the floor was paved in bricks, even the dividers between the booths were brick. The surfaces that were covered in wood always seemed to be sticky from some kind of wax or polish mixed with spilled beer, and the whole place smelled like it would be an excellent place to grow mushrooms. Little gas lanterns on the walls provided the only light, and a few people swore they had seen Jack the Ripper hanging out in the dimly lit corners. There were two guys in a booth counting stacks of cash and I hoped they didn’t see us as any kind of a threat.
Rob looked around and said, “It’s...impressive. Right?” We all nodded and grabbed a booth at the back of the room. Dave and Levi walked up to the bar and returned with a plastic bucket filled with bottles of beer and a tray covered in shot glasses with some kind of amber liquid in them. We started drinking and Rob asked, “Is this place always so quiet? We’re just about the only people in here.”
I nodded. “It’s always quiet at night, PreBar is more of an afternoon hangout. For the serious alcoholics and the people avoiding their drug dealers or bookies or Intro to English.”
We hung out for about an hour, not really talking about anything, especially not about Megan’s big news tomorrow. Levi pulled his phone out of his pocket and frowned. “My phone got so quiet that I thought the battery died, but I just don’t have any signal—all this brickwork is blocking it, I guess. It feels weird, like I’m cut off from civilization or something.”
Spence pointed at me and said, “Once Foster figured that out you couldn’t get him to leave here.”
I got up and headed to the men’s room. Rob followed me in and looked around. “Where are you supposed to piss, Foster?”
I pointed at the tile-lined brick gutter running along the back wall and unzipped. “Right here. But are you going to follow me every time I take a leak?”
He shrugged and stood next to me. “I’ve already had about six beers and two shots, I was about to bust. But I’m thinking you should get used to having me around, at least for the next few days. I got a text before we walked into this cave. My boss told me to plan on staying here until I hear otherwise—I think the news about your Dad and Megan is starting to leak out. Ha! ‘Leak out’—get it, that’s funny because we’re both taking a leak!”
I zipped up my fly and shook my head. “Yeah, Rob. It’s hysterical.”
The next several hours were really nothing but an attempt to keep my Secret Service agent and my PR guy from getting their asses kicked or getting charged with attempted sexual assault. We kept getting asked to leave different clubs, and I never knew it was possible to do something so obnoxious that a bar in Hawthorne would even consider throwing somebody out. In between paying for Levi and Rob’s drinks the rest of us spent most of our time apologizing for shit they did—a misplaced hand on a sorority girl’s ass, an ill-advised threat to a football player, dozens of spilled beers, and random attempts to dance on people’s tables or the bar itself.
We finally ran out of bars where we were welcome and headed back to the house. Dave was behind Levi and had him by the elbows keeping him upright. They moved down the sidewalk in fits and spurts like they were walking into heavy surf. I had my arm around Rob and kept him moving, although occasionally he would slip away from me and attempt to hit on random girls walking back to campus. When we got to the house I realized that Rob and Levi had followed us inside.
“Uh, fellas, do we need to call a cab for you? You know, to get Levi back to campus and,” I studied the blank look on Rob’s face, “get you back to your hotel? Which hotel do they need to take you to?”
Levi pointed at a couch in the living room. “I’m gonna crash there, I’d never find my dorm.” He stumbled over and fell face down onto the cushions.
Rob grinned and weaved like a pine tree in a hurricane. “No hotel. Thought this was a day trip.” He made a gurgling noise and then swallowed hard. “Mainly, maybe, I think I need to find somewhere that I can puke for an hour or so.” We hauled him up the steps and left him in a stall in the bathroom. I propped my door open in case he recovered, kicked my shoes off, and curled up on the bed.
When I woke up I immediately panicked. I was in absolute darkness, and I reached out in the black void until my hand rested on a hairy chest. My panic went into overdrive. I groaned and sat up in the bed. “Oh, my God,” I whispered. “I’ve gone fuckin’ blind.”
Whoever was stretched out beside me started stirring. “You’re not blind, Foster.”
“Rob?”
I felt the bed shift as he stood up and I heard him kick a few beer cans out of his way as he walked across the floor. All of the sudden the room exploded in light and I pulled a pillow over my head. “Make it go away, Rob! It’s killin’ me!”
“It’s the sun, Foster. It happens almost every day. I guess I closed those curtains before I crashed. It’s almost eight, what time do you usually get up?”
“A little earlier than this, but I never close those curtains like that. I like my sunrise to be a little gentler, a little more kind.” I stood up and stretched. I still had on my clothes from last night but Rob was standing in front of the window in those ridiculous briefs. “What time is the press conference?”
“At eleven, that’s what Levi said last night.”
I looked at him and was a little surprised that he seemed to be recovering. “You remember things from last night?” He nodded and sat down on the couch. “Do you remember what an enormous douche you were last night?”
“Sure I do! It was the best time I’ve had in years. I don’t know why I got so sick when we got back—it must have been the burgers or something.”
“Right. You don’t think it might be that you drank enough last night to get an entire continent buzzed?”
“Maybe. Whatever, we’ve got some time before the shit hits the fan. You feel like going for a run or something?”
I pulled some shorts out of a drawer and threw him a pair. When we got downstairs the house was quiet and there was no sign of Levi. We jogged through the gate to campus and I led Rob around pointing out some of the buildings. There were only a few people walking to class or breakfast or whatever and it was so quiet I could hear Rob’s breathing and our feet hitting the sidewalk. Rob insisted we make a few laps around the girls’ dorms but he was disappointed when all he saw were guys stumbling out of them. We headed back to the house and Levi was waiting for us at the front door.
“Good morning, how are you feeling today, Foster?” He was wearing a suit and carrying a gigantic briefcase but he still looked like he was about twelve. I couldn’t see any signs of damage from the night before. “I need to get things set up inside, is there somewhere we can watch this thing without too many interruptions?”
I nodded. “The study room, go through the living room and you’ll see it—there’s a pool table, dart boards, foosball tables, and about three huge TV’s.”
“Okay.” He paused and looked around. “I think you guys should wear suits or sport coats, something like that. I may want to take a few pics to leak to the press, I want everybody looking sharp.”
He headed toward the study and Rob and I went upstairs. I offered him one of the toothbrushes lying on top of my dresser and picked up a bucket with all my shower shit in it. He held the toothbrush up and frowned. “Where did this come from? Maybe I should go out and buy some stuff.”
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“That thing is a lot more sanitary than the bathroom floor you spent half the night on.”
He shrugged and followed me down the hall. When we walked into the showers Dave was there and looked a little surprised to see Rob. “It’s alive,” he said in a creepy dramatic voice. He turned to me and asked, “Do you want some company while you watch this disaster unfold?”
“Yep, we’re gonna watch it down in the study. The more the merrier, I guess. The dress code is business casual.”
Spence walked in and joined us. “I still have your phone, Foster. I’ve got it charging and I cleared out a ton of voicemails. A few from people wanting to know who the idiots were that were hanging out with us last night.” He scowled at Rob and then turned back to me. “And there were a ton from your father and his people. They started with his senate office, then from the campaign staff, then from his corporate attorneys, then from his personal cell. And there were a few others, I think Megan spilled her guts to somebody this morning.”
I walked over and picked up a towel. “Was there a message from her?”
“All it said was ‘Can’t wait to see you again’. And there was one from the White House switchboard, they left a number for you to call back.”
I wrapped my towel around my waist and told him, “I hope you deleted both of those.”
He nodded and Rob followed me out the door.
When we got back to the room Rob threw on the jeans he wore last night and headed for the door with his car keys. “I’m going down to get my suit and my...other stuff out of the car.”
“By ‘stuff’ I guess you mean your gun and a badge, or maybe one of those little earpiece things you guys wear.”
He nodded and said, “I need my sunglasses, too.”
I reached into my dresser. “Go ahead and get your gun. I’ve got mine right here.” I showed him the Beretta. “And if TMZ or ET shows up I’m not afraid to use it.”
Foster's Fall (Foster's Life) Page 4