Whistleblower, page 10
This adrenaline crash felt a lot like that hangover. Why had I told him? What if he told Vaughn? What if Vaughn told Sterling, and Sterling shut down the paper?
By the time Nick finally clicked on the references slide, signaling the end of the lecture, I was shaking. My notes for the day were pathetically underwhelming. I’d only written down my name, the date, and Unit Three: STIs and STDs. A quick glance at Bodie’s desk told me he hadn’t even gotten that far. There was just a small collection of rudimentary sunflowers scattered across the bottom of an otherwise blank page of his notebook.
He let out a heavy sigh and scrubbed a hand over his eyes.
But Nick wasn’t quite finished with us.
“Okay, guys, we’ve got about five minutes left here, so I want to talk about the final project.”
All around the auditorium, students paused, then resumed packing up their things, but more slowly—like that somehow made it less rude.
“As I mentioned when we went over the syllabus, the final will consist of a fifteen-page research paper and a thirty-minute in-class presentation. I know some of you have friends in the class you’d like to work with, since this is a project you’ll be doing in groups of four—”
I saw it coming a mile away.
Don’t do this, Nick, I thought. Not today.
“So I’m going to go ahead and partner you guys up with the people sitting next to you. Our lovely grad students will come up the rows to take down your names, just so we can make sure everyone’s accounted for!”
It felt like a joke. It had to be a joke.
Beside me, Bodie scrambled to shove his notebook into his backpack and fold his swivel desk back between our seats.
He wasn’t quick enough.
“Hey, Bodie, right?”
It was the boy two seats to my right. The short one with the perfectly fluffed black hair, like he’d just come from an audition to be in the next inevitable rip-off of One Direction.
He’d leaned forward so he could see around the girl between us, who was aggressively typing out a very long text I was glad not to be on the receiving end of.
“You’re the, uh—” Boy Band pantomimed throwing a football.
“That’s me,” Bodie confirmed with a smile.
He tried, once more, to turn and slip out of his seat.
“I’m Ryan! Nice to meet you, bro. I’m a really big fan. This is my friend—” He glanced at the girl between us, who sent off her monologue of a message and then slapped her phone facedown on her desk.
“Hi! Hi, sorry,” she said in a flurry. “Olivia.”
She reached out to shake my hand.
“Laurel.”
Olivia was wearing a long-sleeved bohemian dress and brown ankle boots—something you’d wear to Coachella if it was chilly out. I could tell she was still heated from whatever argument she’d been having on her phone, but she played it off well.
“Great to meet you, Laurel,” she said, then reached across me to shake Bodie’s hand too. “Sorry, I don’t watch football.
Which one are you?”
I held back a snort. Just barely, though.
“Quarterback,” Bodie replied, perching on the edge of his seat.
“Should we add each other on Insta?” Ryan interjected.
“So we can keep in touch and work out when to meet about the project?”
Bodie pursed his lips, like he was trying to think of a good excuse that wouldn’t pulverize Ryan’s enthusiasm.
“Yeah,” he finally ground out. “For sure.”
And so we exchanged names and Instagram handles. I knew it was just a formality. Bodie would inevitably go to Nick and demanded to be moved into another group—one without me in it—and some random kid who’d skipped lecture today would take his place. But Ryan didn’t know this. He kept asking Bodie questions about their upcoming game that weekend at the University of Washington. Was Quinton’s ankle recovered? Did they think he’d be able to play? How was the defensive line looking without Greene and McNeil?
I tapped open Instagram to accept two follow requests from Olivia Novak (@onovakphotography) and Ryan Lansangan (@ryanlasagna).
When people finally started to filter out of the lecture hall, Ryan smiled sheepishly and wished the anxious quarterback beside me good luck at the game. Bodie, who couldn’t seem to get away from me fast enough, shot Ryan and Olivia one last smile before he stood, slung his backpack over his shoulder, and stepped into the aisle. Instead of joining the flow of students headed for the doors, Bodie started for the front of the room.
Knew it. I jolted out of my seat and tore after him.
“St. James.”
He tossed me a reluctant glance over his shoulder and stopped to let me catch up.
“If you don’t want to work with me, I get it,” I said. “But that guy’s really excited to be grouped up with you, so just—just tell Nick to move me around or something.”
Bodie stared down at me, a muscle in his jaw working, and then nodded. I spun on my heel to find Andre standing in the aisle with his arms folded over his chest and worry etched into his face.
“You good?” he asked, giving me a quick once-over.
He’d worn a sweater I hated—this big, bulky one with vertical stripes of gaudy colors like teal and magenta and orange. He looked like the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. I could’ve roasted him. I had so much frustration I needed to channel, I’d probably get some kind of sick relief out of it. But Andre didn’t deserve the verbal hellfire I could rain.
“Can we just get out of here?” I mumbled instead, marching past him.
“You want to grab some Pepito’s?” he asked as he trailed behind me.
I said yes, because I didn’t want Andre to worry too much, but the truth was that I’d lost my appetite.
Chapter 10
The Garland Country Club was a splotch of green in an endless sea of drought-kissed hills. It boasted two Olympic regulation–sized swimming pools, one water slide, three hot tubs, and a series of tennis, badminton, and basketball courts.
In the middle of it all stood the clubhouse, a Mission-style monstrosity of faux stone and white adobe under a terra-cotta tile roof.
It was an oasis playground for the athletically and socially inclined. More importantly, it was a ten-minute drive from campus—just far away enough that I could pretend I didn’t have a Writing 301 paper due on Wednesday, and that Ryan and Olivia weren’t blowing up my Instagram notifications about finding time to discuss our group project, and that the entire football team didn’t hate me.
It was my paradise—and my own personal purgatory.
“Move your fucking feet, Tori!”
The Real Housewives of Garland all had one thing in common: they were stupid rich. The twins had a collective eight million Instagram followers and a swimsuit line. Diana’s family owned thousands of acres of farmland in the Central Valley and a majority stake in a line of organic grocery products.
Jessica was the specific type of rich that snapped at waiters to get their attention and had been a victim of wine forgery on two separate occasions. Despite their different backgrounds and business ventures, they all liked to set their weekends aside for some physical activity to channel their built-up aggressions in a healthy and productive way. And I respected that. I did. But it was Saturday, and Garland’s away game against the University of Washington had kicked off at eleven o’clock in the morning.
It was almost two in the afternoon now, and I was still stuck dodging and chasing stray tennis balls.
But I’d miss the whole damn game if it meant they’d give me a sit-down interview.
“Break point!”
Tori grunted as she tossed a ball up and whomped it right into the net. Across the court, Jessica and Diana howled with laughter and high-fived in celebration.
“Don’t even start with me, Cheryl!” Tori screeched.
Cheryl and Tori Lasseter were sisters—something I’d guessed the second I met them, but had further been confirmed when I saw the way they seamlessly transitioned from screaming to laughing and back again.
“All right, Laurel,” Diana called. “I think we’re ready for a little break.”
What a lucky coincidence. I was also ready for a break.
While the Real Housewives collected their color-coordinated gym bags and Hydro Flasks, I corralled the last of the loose tennis balls and wheeled them away. We reconvened on the shaded patio outside the clubhouse, where I sat them at their favorite table and asked what they wanted to drink—because they were the kind of rich that liked to day drink.
The twins ordered spiked seltzers. Diana asked for an IPA.
Jessica wanted a glass of her favorite pinot grigio garnished with a single frozen grape.
I ducked inside. The country club’s annual charity function—a golf tournament—was still several weeks out, but the event called for an enormous amount of planning and staging and nitpicking. There were boxes of fake candles and massive floral arrangements sitting in the main lobby, and people in club uniforms jogged up and down the hallways and spoke quickly into walkie-talkies. From the depths of the ballroom, I could hear my boss, Rebecca, shouting at someone to tear off all the tablecloths, iron out every crease visible to the human eye, and then burn them in the dumpster outside because they had clearly been selected by someone who wouldn’t know refined semiformal elegance if they caught it sleeping with their wife.
I darted past the ballroom doors and slipped into the real heart of the clubhouse—the bar. It was empty save for a trio of older men in khaki pants and assorted sweaters who’d each ordered an old-fashioned. They were watching college basketball on one of the TVs mounted over shelves of bottles of liquor that probably cost more than I made in a week of work.
Behind the bar stood a tiny redhead—my favorite co-worker.
PJ (short for Parker Jane, a name only her mother was allowed to call her) was a few years older than me. She was a former pageant queen, which meant she was good at applying false eyelashes and even better at smiling cordially while people asked her idiotic questions.
“How are the Real Housewives?” she asked me.
“Cheryl broke up with her boyfriend. The Silicon Valley one. She’s taking it out on her sister. They all want their usuals.”
PJ saluted me and went to work.
I returned to the table with a full tray of alcohol.
“All right,” Diana said after a long pull of her beer. “Ask away.”
I scanned the court-facing side of the clubhouse for any sign of my boss before I whipped out my phone. “I’ll be recording our conversation,” I told the Housewives, flashing them the app. “Can you tell me when and where you saw Truman Vaughn?”
“He was at the Alvarado Resort,” Tori said.
“And you said he looked intoxicated?”
“He was hammered,” Cheryl chimed in. “I’m a hundred percent sure of it.”
“And he invited you onto his boat?”
“His yacht,” Tori corrected. “Yeah. He was inviting every woman in the place.”
“Did you see anyone leave with him?”
“No,” Cheryl said. “But he was giving out his number to women left and right. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone actually went.”
“Did you see him hitting on any young women? Like, my age?”
“Are you calling us viejo?” Diana teased.
I laughed. “Claro que no.”
“How are we doing over here?” a voice sounded from behind me.
I turned over my shoulder just in time to see my boss approaching from the far side of the outdoor patio. Rebecca was only in her early thirties but she’d been working at the country club for almost a decade, and had the sculpted calves and intense tan lines to prove it. She ran a tight ship. PJ and I liked to vent to each other about how demanding and condescending she could be, but a part of me was empathetic.
Rebecca had spent years working in a male-dominated space.
That had to wear a woman down.
Still, the sight of her approaching always made my fight-or-flight instincts kick in. Even when I was on my best behavior Rebecca used a tone of voice with me that made me feel like a kid who’d been called into the principal’s office for skipping class or vandalizing lockers. And today I’d actually broken some of her rules: I had my phone out (strike one) while I was hovering to chat with guests (strike two) in Spanish (strike three).
The fight or flight kicked in. I chose flight.
“Thanks so much, Diana. I’ll be right back with those napkins you wanted.”
I skittered away before Rebecca could catch me; interview abandoned.
—
Inside the clubhouse bar, I climbed onto one of the stools and propped my elbows on the dark wood counter. PJ slid a crystal glass of Sprite across the counter and popped one of the miniature technically a stir-stick straws I liked into it.
“Rebecca heard me speaking Spanish again,” I grumbled.
“I’m an idiot.”
“How are you an idiot?” PJ countered. “You speak two languages.”
“Remember the email she sent out last year about speaking English during work hours?”
For the first two weeks after I started working at the club my freshman year, Rebecca had been soft toward me. She’d smile patiently when I came into her office to ask the same questions four times a day, and she’d let me leave early on Sundays so I’d have plenty of time to get my homework done.
I could pinpoint the moment our relationship had shifted. It’d been the afternoon she heard me speaking Spanish to a pair of maintenance men. She’d asked me, later that day, how many years of Spanish class I’d taken. I told her I’d picked all of it up from my Mexican mom. Rebecca had frowned and told me she’d thought I was white. I’d laughed and said I was.
I hadn’t thought too much of that comment at the time, because a lot of people struggle with the difference between race and culture and nationality.
My dad always maintained that he’d wanted to name me after my maternal grandmother, Maria Fernanda. He loved her name. But my mom had protested. She’d wanted Laurel, a name that could be pronounced two ways. Since she’d been eight months pregnant, she’d won that argument, and as a compromise, Maria was tucked between Laurel and Cates, two names that were entirely palatable to the English-speaking crowd.
It was only later, after Rebecca started berating me for every slipup and sent a staff-wide email reminding us that we were to speak English during operating hours, that I realized Mom knew something Dad didn’t.
PJ huffed and wrung out a wet hand towel. “You know, I may only have my GED,” she said, “but even I know it’s illegal to tell your employees they can’t speak a second language.”
I sighed and sipped my Sprite.
“On the bright side, at least you got to miss that shit show of a game,” PJ joked, then promptly went wide-eyed with mortification. “Shoot. Were you going to watch it? Shoot. I’m so sorry, it’s been such a long day with all the setup for tonight and—”
I waved her off.
“Hanna would’ve spoiled it for me anyway,” I said. Then I stooped down awkwardly to sip from the tiny straw in my Sprite and asked, “Why was it a shit show?”
Everyone who knew anything about collegiate football knew that Garland would win against Washington. We were simply the better team. Our defense was top five in the country and our offense was the athletic equivalent of a Justin Bieber song—denounced as overrated and annoying by many but celebrated by those of us who could appreciate true genius.
Plus, Washington’s quarterback was a freshman with weak ankles and poor depth perception. We had Bodie freaking St. James.
But even the best teams had their off days, and given how upset some of our players probably were about the whole Vaughn mess, it wouldn’t have come as too much of a shock to hear that we’d struggled. But surely we’d won. A loss would’ve been the upset of the year.
Which is why I nearly choked on my Sprite when PJ said,
“Oh, honey, we got crushed.”
I pressed a fist to my mouth and coughed, eyes watering and carbonation in places where it had no business being.
“Rebecca’s not taking the L too great,” PJ stage-whispered behind one hand.
Rebecca had graduated from Garland University a decade ago and made a point of reminding everyone that she’d been good friends with at least four guys on the football team who’d gone on to play in the NFL (like this somehow meant that she had more of a right to root for the school than I, a currently enrolled student, did). PJ hadn’t gone to college at all thanks to an abandoned attempt at an acting career after she’d come in fifth place at Miss Iowa Teen, but she’d adopted Garland as her honorary team despite not knowing much about football.
“How did we lose?” I asked, still in disbelief. “Did someone get injured?”
I had the sudden thought that my anger-fueled daydreams about Bodie St. James taking a cleat to the crotch might’ve become realized, which was simultaneously a thrilling and guilt-inducing prospect.
“No, thank god,” PJ said, extinguishing my hopes. “No one was hurt. We just sucked. I mean, I figured we might have trouble when I heard Vaughn wasn’t in the stadium, but shit. It was a hot mess to watch. I really wish I followed the news more. Do you know what all this talk is about some student activist group trying to take him down for an alcohol problem? I thought that was over with, like, a decade ago.”
For the second time in under a minute, I came uncomfortably close to inhaling a mouthful of soda.
“Here!” PJ said, fumbling for the remote to one of the TVs mounted behind the bar. “Let me check if—there we go!
ESPN’s doing postgame stuff. Looks like the highlight reel.
Maybe they’ll say something about Vaughn?”
She turned up the volume. It was less of a highlight reel and more of a montage of misfortune. Each clip was worse than the last. Twice, two members of our offensive line managed to crash into each other because they were so lost. Kyle Fogarty had to dive to make a catch that he should’ve been able to run with.
