Foster's Fall (Foster's Life) Read online

  Foster’s Fall

  Jake Williams

  Copyright © 2014 by Jake Williams. All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means without the express written permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover photography and design by the author.

  Foster’s Fall

  This novel is dedicated to Demi

  Contents

  Intro

  Tuesday, 9am

  Breakfast

  The Dean of Chaos

  The Week According to Levi

  Staff Meeting

  Tutor

  The Secret Agent Man

  We interrupt your regular programming

  Megan Speaks

  Doomsday Pool Party

  Slumber Party

  Intro to Political Science

  The Drone Wars

  The Clear Blue Sky

  The Dinner Date

  Ladies and Gentlemen of the Press

  Party

  Diagnosis

  A Gator Tale Excerpt:

  Intro

  I was in a dream about climbing the steps of the frat house, but the steps were made out of ice and there were no rails that I could hold on to for a little balance. There was someone, something, at the top of the steps who scared me and was throwing beer cans at me, trying to make me slide off the edge of the steps. Occasionally I would reach up, catch a can, drink the beer, and then toss the empty back at the figure waiting for me. That would produce squeals of delight from the thing up there—a shadow more than a person, a fuzzy figure who danced and laughed and never quite formed edges or an identity.

  Tuesday, 9am

  As I woke up I had this odd feeling of sliding off my bed, like it was made out of glass or ice or something. My phone was ringing and when I tried to pick it up it slipped out of my hand and I heard it thud onto the floor. It would ring four times, pause, repeat the rings, pause, and it finally annoyed me enough to reach down and pick it up to silence it. The phone had tons of notifications on it from social sites, texts, voicemails, and news alerts. I tossed it aside and sat up on the edge of the bed and tried to remember if I had any classes this morning and drew a blank.

  As if by magic there was a knock on my door and Spence, my best friend in the frat and the most organized person I’d ever met, walked into the room. “Rise and shine, Foster! It’s another beautiful day in the neighborhood!” We were both about the same size, over six-feet tall and athletic. But other than that we were pretty different—he sounded like he had just escaped the Kennedy compound and I had a thick southern accent, I was the blond-hair blue-eyed stereotypical guy-next-door, he was black Irish and looked like he’d be comfortable herding sheep or racing yachts.

  “Bite me.” I stood up and stretched, and Spence promptly slapped my bare ass and then flopped down on my bed. I dug through a pile of clothes on the floor for some jeans or something else to put on and I wondered when somebody was going to come in here to do my laundry. “What am I supposed to be doing this morning, Spence? What’s it like outside and what should I be wearing?”

  He checked his phone. “It’s about sixty degrees outside, high today of sixty five. Your first class is at one o’clock, according to the calendar I set up for you. It is...Intro to rowing—wait, they teach a whole class in what to do with an oar?”

  “For a crew team or whatever, Spence. You know the sport, not paddling down a creek on an inner tube.”

  “I hope you don’t have to take a whole different course on that. But just wear whatever. The only thing we’re doing right now is heading to campus for some breakfast.”

  I pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a t shirt. “Why do we have to go there, why not just eat here at the house?”

  “It’s only nine o’clock. Breakfast downstairs doesn’t start for another hour and I’m hungry. And we’re meeting Dave and Brent there, they’re already on campus.”

  We walked down to the parking lot and I pointed at my car. “Let’s take mine, it’ll be faster.” The car was a lease that my stepfather Paul had set up for me. It was gun-metal gray, Italian, and looked like the road version of a stealth bomber.

  Spence got ready to climb into the passenger side and pointed at my gym bag on the seat. “Where do you want me to put that?”

  “Try to shove it behind your seat or just put it out on the sidewalk. I have no idea where any kind of storage space is in this thing—I can’t even find a cup holder.”

  I pulled out of the parking lot and was just about to shift into second gear when we got to the security gate at the entrance to campus. I pulled into the parking lot closest to the dining hall and had to circle around for a parking space. “This is kind of crazy, I mean look at all these reserved spaces. FedEx has a row, UPS has a row, and there are a couple of handicap spots over there. Plus, I need to find a space I can pull through, I still haven’t figured out how to shift into reverse.”

  Breakfast

  We found Dave and Brent at a table on the patio overlooking the duck pond and took our seats. Dave looked a little rumpled and rough, he was wearing sunglasses and just semi-nodded at us as we sat down. Brent was typing away on a laptop but shut it when he noticed us.

  I asked Dave, “Long night, little fella?”

  “You don’t even want to know, Foster.” He pulled his sunglasses off and rubbed his eyes. He was a nice-looking guy, short curly brown hair and dark brown eyes, and even though he was a little short he had this whole Greek statue look that made him stand out in a crowd.

  I smirked at him. “Well, who was the lucky guy?” He was the only gay guy, or the only one open about it, in the frat and we all liked giving him a little hell about it.

  “When I said you didn’t want to know, I meant you really wouldn’t be interested, I guess. I was at the library all night studying.”

  I beamed with pride. “That’s what I did last night. I hid in my room and studied.”

  Dave stared at me and said, “For you, Foster, that means bong hits and ESPN. That or wearing compression shorts and running around on a field chasing some ball like a golden retriever. You’re getting a degree in Recreation Management.”

  Spence checked his phone. “Dave, Foster is taking Intro to 1970’s American History and Intro to Political Science this semester.” I couldn’t tell if he was defending me or mocking me. “You Dave, you’re getting a history degree—that’s basically a degree in Google.”

  Spence put his hand out and I passed him my phone. He had a knack for sorting texts and summarizing social media that amazed me. He zipped through it then handed it back. He told me, “You have about twenty missed calls from Ashley. You’re supposed to go to her office this morning, she says it’s not optional. You also have a voicemail from your father, I put a reminder on there to call him. There’s nothing life altering on Instagram or Facebook.”

  “Good morning, gentlemen.” I looked up and saw the waiter standing over us. He was tall and Italian and looked an awful lot like somebody I may have hooked up with last spring after some party. He looked at me and we both turned a little red. “Today’s special is a free-range quail egg omelet, with venison sausage and fresh fruit on the side.

  “Right...” I squinted at his name tag, “Phillip, sounds great. But I’ll have a stack of pancakes, a cheese omelet—with regular chicken eggs, pork sausage, bacon, orange juice, coffee, and a Red Bull.” Everybody was staring at me. “What? I have rowing class today. I need ene
rgy.”

  Spence set the menu down and said, “I’ll have that, too.” We stared at him and he shrugged. “I just have an econ class and Intro to Investing in China, but I’m hungry.”

  Dave and Brent both got the special and Dave asked me, “So, why have you been summoned to the Media Relations office? What’s that all about? I mean, it’s been over a year since you modeled for those ads, you had the thing that happened on fall break last year that you won’t talk about—”

  “Nothing, I haven’t done anything! I mean, not anything shady, anyway. I’ve been warned by my father’s campaign staff to just be a simple college jock, just a boy-next-door kinda guy. At least until after the election.” I was starting to get restless and I wished the food would get here, and I wondered if there was some casual way I could get Phillip’s number. I studied the duck pond and tried to ignore the phone vibrating in my pocket. All of the sudden a bunch of ducks exploded out of the water and then settled down on the lawn a good distance from the pond. I looked at the ripples in the water and noticed a long shadow underneath them. “Did anybody else see that? Something just scared the hell out of those ducks, they flew all the way over there.”

  Brent shook his head. “They couldn’t have done that—ducks are like penguins, they can’t fly.” Phillip came back and set our plates down, and Brent waited until he left to continue. “Eat your breakfast, Foster. I think you need some carbs or something, you’re seeing things.” One of the ducks took off and splashed down on the far end of the pond. He watched it and raised an eyebrow. “Well, I’ll be damned. I guess you were right. But they weren’t chased out of there, they’re probably just drying their feet or something.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a little metal box. He pulled a tablet out of it and handed it to me. “Take one of these, I learned about them in pharmacy class.” Brent was pre-med and our resident expert on all things chemical. “It’s European, and evidently they get a lot more stressed than we do—you’ll only see happy ducks for the rest of the day.” Brent glanced back at the duck pond and studied its surface with a hint of worry on his face.

  We were just about done eating when Spence looked down on his plate and pulled out a little slip of paper that had been tucked into the fruit garnish on his plate. He looked at it and then handed it to me. “I think that Phillip guy got our plates mixed up, I have this odd feeling he meant to give this to you.” I looked at the phone number on the paper and tucked it into my pocket.

  The Dean of Chaos

  I walked over to the admin building and headed up the stairs to Ashley Turner’s office. Ashley was the Media Relations Director for Hawthorne and she no doubt had the hardest job of them all around here. A good third of the students had famous family members or were famous themselves and the students kept her hopping. The ones who got married to a celebrity, competed in the Olympics, won an Oscar, or something like that were the gems she held up for the national news as shining examples of the Hawthorne image. But most of the time she was dealing with trips to rehab, drunk-driving arrests, stalkers, heroin OD’s, and grainy sex videos on the internet. She was in front of TV cameras so often and had so many connections she was rumored to be the next anchor for ET.

  She was standing beside her desk with a cell phone in each hand and she was pacing in circles. She nodded for me to take a seat and kept juggling phones and conversations. She was dressed in a dark gray suit, her black hair was pulled back in a bun and she had a naughty-librarian vibe going on that was kind of cool. It also made me a little uneasy, she usually only looked so somber when some kind of enormous clusterfuck was about to hit the press. I tried to remember if there was anything I had done recently that would warrant this meeting and I was stumped. She finally ended the calls and collapsed into the chair behind her desk. The phones continued to vibrate with incoming calls and texts and were migrating to the edge of the desk like they were attempting some kind of cell-phone suicide.

  “Hello, Jake.” She was studying me like a painting she was thinking about bidding on, she had this look that seemed hopeful but guarded at the same time. “I appreciate you coming in on short notice, but that’s the way things usually happen around here. How’s your semester going for you? You’re not doing anything...interesting in your spare time, are you?”

  I knew what she was trying to ask. “No, Ashley. No modeling, if that’s what you’re talking about.” I had done some work for a designer who specialized in underwear the summer after my freshman year. The campaign had been bigger than anyone thought it would be, and I kept seeing myself in magazines and on billboards in nothing but boxer briefs or whatever. “I know you weren’t thrilled about that, but I think most people have already forgotten about it. And that’s it, I haven’t done anything else like that.” I avoided eye contact with her and added, “Well, there was the thing in Parker’s Bluff last year, but I—”

  “We don’t talk about that, Jake. Remember, we all agreed.”

  Ashley was gripping a stapler with both hands and smiling at me. I couldn’t help but notice her white knuckles and the odd metallic protests coming from the stapler. She exhaled and set it back down. “So,” she raised one eyebrow and asked, “no drug busts your father’s lawyers made go away, no other felonies, no celebrity sex tapes floating around on the internet?”

  “Not with me as the celebrity.” I winked at her. “And you know you can call me Foster, nobody around here calls me Jake.”

  “I don’t think as a press liaison for the college I’m going to call you a nickname you got from your frat brothers comparing your...uh, anatomy to a beer can.” She picked up a little green stress ball and flattened it with her palm. I could tell that it would never go back to its intended shape.

  I grinned at her. “I got that name in high school.”

  “Oh, like that makes a difference.” She picked the stapler up and studied me again. “Nothing else about you, your summer, your family, nothing else that may come out that might interrupt the alleged peace and tranquility around here?”

  I looked down at my sweatpants and examined a syrup blob on them from breakfast. I was hoping when she asked about anything “coming out” that she didn’t mean me. If the press outed me this close to the election there would be hell to pay. “I really think, Ashley, that the only thing that’s newsworthy about me is just my father’s name on the Republican ticket. Other than showing up in magazines and whatnot in nothing but my underwear it was a quiet summer. Except for the trip to the convention, and we all knew a little of that coverage would include me.”

  “And I want to say up front that the way you handled the convention last month was awesome, you were a definite boost to Hawthorne’s brand image. I only wish you had stood up on stage with your father more, and used more of the talking points about the college I gave you. But the pictures of you hanging out with the President and his family are pure gold—we plan on using at least two of them in our next recruiting presentation.”

  I gave her my best aww-shucks grin and leaned back in my chair, evidently she just wanted to keep in touch between now and the election in November. “Thanks Ashley, that means a lot coming from you! Did you see the interview with me and my father on 60 Minutes? I thought that would be good for the college’s image, you know, a little gravitas.”

  Ashley nodded and said, “Well, sure—but not really. You didn’t really say much, actually if I remember correctly you didn’t say a word. You just kind of smiled and nodded through the whole thing. And just a tip for future reference, go easy on the amount of pot you smoke before appearing on national TV, the cameras really picked up the red in your eyes. It hurts your all-American image.”

  I nodded. “I can always count on you for good advice, Ashley.” I didn’t tell her I was so stoned that I had been temporarily blinded by Anderson Cooper’s paleness. “So, am I here for tips between now and the election? I’ve already told my father’s people that I’ll do about one or two more appearances with him but that’s it. I told them that I’m
too busy hitting the books here to hit the campaign trail, too. I mean, he’s only running for VP, the press should understand my education here is my number one priority. I just really don’t want to miss anything here—we have two or three frat parties that I’m organizing, and other stuff I can’t miss. It’s kind of selfish for the campaign strategists or whatever to think his life is more important than my own.”

  “That’s a...uh, valid argument, Jake. His people have already filled me in on that, and I think they’re thrilled you’re going to keep a low profile. Although, I think if the press got hold of your class schedule they would question your definition of a college education. I mean Intro to Rowing, Intro to Polo—wait, is that water or the one with the ponies?”

  “Water polo this semester, horses come next semester.”

  “Okay, right. But the rest of this stuff—fencing, weight training, 70’s history? I’d like to give the press something to back up the study excuse, like physics or philosophy or something that normal colleges teach. But after tomorrow it probably won’t really matter anyway. And that’s really why we’re here.” She tugged on the lapel of that ominous black suit and I knew her hopes for peace and tranquility had already been blown out of the water.

  “Okay, go ahead. What’s the big deal about tomorrow?”

  She pulled out a legal pad and reviewed some notes. “How well, exactly, do you know the President’s daughter?”

  I thought I knew where this was going but couldn’t see why it was a big deal. “Megan? We hung out...spent some time together, whatever, you know—over the summer. The strategy meeting-vacation thing the families had in Hawaii, the convention, a weekend up in the Hamptons or somewhere like that.” I tried to think of a worst-case scenario that would involve Megan and me. “Is she saying something about me? Is she making any allegations? Because I can tell you there may have been some alcohol, maybe some pot or something involved but it was consensual—she didn’t do anything she didn’t want to. And what she did do showed an advanced skill level. That wasn’t her first time at the rodeo, I can tell you that.” Megan and I had a few hookups but I didn’t really want to tell her that I had to picture some of the Secret Service guys to even do anything with her.