2. Louise
F irst day back on the job without Lowry, and already I can feel the difference. It’s outright palpable if I’m being honest, and I don’t fucking like it.
I knew that I’d have to get used to seeing Walt Compton behind her desk, in her office—that the timbre and the vibe of the discussion would be intrinsically different without Lowry at the helm. I just didn’t realize how different it would be, and how quickly I would feel the effects.
Already I’m getting more lip before lunch than I’ve gotten in the nearly five years I’ve worked for the BSU. Maybe it’s just a particularly shitty Monday, but the fact that McBride, Gertz, and Tennant have all been thorns in my side at the same time makes me feel like it’s not coincidence.
I have only just finished settling at my desk after making the rounds for report collection from the grouchy BSU boys—unsub evals and profiling course curriculum notes littering my workstation, when Walt Compton pokes his silver head from the narrow opening of his new office door.
“Penny!” he calls me, allowing me this show of respect in front of the others.
“Yes, sir.” I pop up from my desk like a meerkat—surveying my path to his office as I await his inevitable beckoning, assuring I don’t need anything from my desk before I take off—my heels make dull thudding noises on the ancient low pile carpet as I hustle toward Compton.
“Do you have the Karston reports?” he barks, his half-moon glasses almost dangling off the tip of his nose as he eyes me from his doorframe.
“Yes sir,” I chirp back, collecting a thick folio of documents from the wire rack on my desk.
“Bring those and the damn Tamerlin summary and get yourself a cup of coffee, Penny—I need to bend your ear on a couple of other things, too. I’ve got you for the next three hours, easy,” Compton adds before slamming his door closed.
I give my co-workers a withering look as McBride, Gertz, and Tennant all smirk at me from their desk chairs.
“Lowry’s not here to be your meat shield anymore, sweetie,” Gertz snickers, kicking his feet up on the edge of his desk, his fingers knit over his ample belly as he leers at me. “Compton’s going to be able to decide for himself whether or not you’re best girl anymore.”
“Oh? What are you getting at Bob?” I play dumb, gathering the plastic summary binder and stacking it into my arms along with the Karston folio, my thick leather agenda and my work issue laptop—using the stack to knock Bob Gertz’s loafers off the corner of his desk, so I don’t risk the dirty rubber soles brushing against my navy Givenchy suit.
“Are you gunning for my spot?” I scoff at him as he’s unexpectedly launched forward, his wheeled office chair tipping forward out of its reclined position with the shifting of his own body weight.
“What if I am?” Gertz grouses, barely catching himself from being dumped unceremoniously to the floor.
“Who says you’d be first choice?” Tennant sneers—flicking an elastic band at Gertz, striking him directly in the beer gut. “You’re a has-been, Gertz,” Scott Tennant scoffs, pushing his frameless glasses up the narrow bridge of his nose.
Gertz makes a blustering noise as if he’s going to respond, but Dennis cuts him off.
“C’mon Scotty, Bob isn’t a has-been,” he begins, soothing Gertz’s bruised ego—spreading his hands in a benevolent gesture as I prepare to pass his desk—the closest to Compton’s closed door.
“Oh, yeah?” Tennant crosses his arms—sinking into his desk chair with an air of challenge on his gaunt, rodent-like face.
“He’s a never-was.” Dennis snorts a cruel laugh before turning those ocean eyes on me, a smirk curling his full, coral lips. “Go get ‘em, killer.” He reaches out and gently punches my shoulder, and I feel the rare swell of affection for the idiot.
I give Dennis a wink and a single finger gun gesture before slipping inside Compton’s office.
“The paperwork you wanted, sir,” I offer dutifully, placing the stack of documentation on the richly stained mahogany desk that used to be Lowry’s.
There’s still a trace of her here, technically; in an old picture from an awards presentation nearly a decade ago that I can just barely make out as Compton shuffles documents and folders in his weathered hands.
Compton looks a much younger man in the photo even though it isn’t that long ago, Lowry, Jim Roach and Ned Bloom–the former section chief of the Department of Reproduction and AG accordingly; the three big wigs bracketed by a very young and impressionable looking Dennis Mcbride, and two handsome men I don’t recognize in their matching blue suits with square jaws and well coiffed hair looking like they’ve come straight from the Hoover administration.
All give tight smiles from behind the pressed glass of the picture frame.
In the present day, Walt Compton’s owly brows knit together in a stern expression—his gut grown soft enough to hang slightly over his polished brass belt buckle.
He’s got more gray than chestnut brown in his hair, and even though he thinks it’s subtle—I notice his hand move self consciously to adjust the hair at the back of his head that covers his expanding bald spot, the gold of his wedding band winking under the lights as he brings his hand back down, all the while fixing me with his steely blue gaze.
“Penny, I don’t want to waste your time—so I’m going to get right to the point,” he cuts in gruffly, pulling his half moon bifocals off his nose, allowing the silver wire frames to dangle from his clasped hands as he rests his cleft chin atop the bridge of his knuckles.
“Very good, sir.” I stand up straight, settling into parade rest—since Compton hasn’t invited me to take a seat.
“Lowry always said you were her top dog—that you were her natural choice of successor,” he explains flatly.
I say nothing, just retain eye contact with Compton as he continues his monologue.
“I’ve watched you closely since you joined the BSU, so I’m inclined to agree with her,” he puffs imperiously, carefully folding his glasses closed before placing them beneath his desk lamp.
“That being said.” He winds up pushing back from his desk, slowly rising to standing on his middle-aged knees. “There’s the matter of your mando-repro leave.” He makes a little lasso motion with his right index finger.
“Sir, if I may—” I interject, but Compton silences me with an open palm, raising his hand in a wordless command of silence as he continues his spiel.
“I already heard from Lowry. You just broke up with the LDR boyfriend and you’re hoping to push it out for a year.
” He glares at me like a disappointed father.
“There’s no way I’m going to be able to keep you on a track to the top if you keep on dragging ass on getting knocked up—even if you aren’t going to get packed up. ”
“Sir!” I protest, the word slipping past my lips as I ball my hands into fists.
“Don’t give me that face Penny, you know that Lowry had to deal with this kind of shit and then some to get to the top.
Back in her day, she was the only bitch on the whole block—now there’s at least twenty of you here in the basement with us,” he warns, and I feel my rage surge.
I don’t need a fucking history lesson on women in the bureau from fucking Walt Compton, but I hold my tongue.
“My superiors want you married or bonded with a fruitful repro leave under your belt before this time next year if you expect to be taken seriously as far as your career path goes.” Compton’s voice softens slightly, and he has the decency to look stricken by the details of the directive for which he has been charged to play messenger.
I feel a little dizzy and off balance as I do the mental gymnastics to process Compton’s news.
He wants to help me climb the ladder straight to the top.
He agrees with Lowry that I’m the best choice to helm the BSU for the long term—but to get there?
He wants me to have a fucking baby in my arms by this time next year, when I don’t even have a casual hookup lined up after my still incredibly fresh breakup.
What the actual fuck?
“Sir, with all due respect,” I begin, grasping the edge of his desk to steady myself. “I’m not entirely sure I can guarantee that—I don’t know if it’s possible.” I shake my head, staring at Compton in disbelief.
“You can—you have to if you want this job, Penny.” He crosses his arms definitively in front of his chest, his cleft chin jutting out as he looks down at me—his alpha scent; cordite and white pine reaching my nose across the short distance between us.
“Let’s say that I agree to this premise,” I start, cautiously testing the ground as I go.
“It takes more than one person to make this work, Compton—I can only guarantee my own complicity, and I doubt the bureau is going to be cool with me being a single mother?” I bare my teeth, my sigma nature threatening to get the better of me when I should be more submissive and turn the other cheek.
“I’ve already got a solution for that.” Compton waves his hand dismissively, turning away from me to pull an acrylic clipboard loaded with paperwork from the top of a file cabinet.
“A solution for what?” I snap back with more attitude than I should, Compton halting mid-pass to dangle the rectangle of plastic and paper between us.
“Drop the attitude, Penny, or I’ll be suggesting administrative leave instead of a short pack-placement retreat.”
The room seems to spin slightly as I process his words.
I’m so taken off guard by this bold overstep that my expression must change, because all the heat of anger leaves Compton’s features and he completes the motion of passing me the clipboard.
“Listen Penny, I don’t like this any more than you do.
You’re my most competent resource. I’ve got McBride, but he’s still soundly second place.
” Walter heaves an exhausted sigh as my eyes scan the pages—schedules and services for the most prestigious partner placement center for omegas and sigmas in the country detailed alongside signup sheets and registration requests stapled just behind.
“I know reproductive leave is a fucking racket, but my hands are tied. If you don’t do this, I can’t make a path forward for you.” He crumbles into his desk chair, looking defeated, but prepared to act on my response—whichever way it goes.
“So… I go to this glorified matchmaking spa, get myself paired off with some eligible alpha and/or his pack, I put dates in the calendar to pop a baby out—and I’ve paid my dues?” I grit through my teeth, my knuckles bloodless white as they clutch the clipboard.
“As soon as you’ve met your minimum repro requirements, yes. I get to tell the rest of the bureau to fuck off. Just like Lowry and Joshy—nothing but smooth sailing until my dinosaur ass retires and you inherit this fucking mess.”
I look down at Compton—his hands extended, gesturing to the open seat across from him at his desk—a glistening fountain pen laid out for me.
For a fraction of a second I contemplate breaking the clipboard over my knee—telling Compton off and storming down the hall—my entire career and everything I’ve worked for be damned.
Then I think of my mother and father, proud and smiling in the front row of my graduation from Yale—how excited they were when I decided to start my masters at Harvard—Uncle Martin introducing me to his superiors with pride at Lowry’s retirement gala; Lowry herself, my champion and professional mentor—handing me the keys to her hard won empire if only I would take them and the heavy responsibility that comes with such power.
Almost as an afterthought, I think of myself—of my own romantic life or lack thereof.
I’ve never felt that deep, abiding affection for anyone—only the biological imperative of heats.
There’s no romanticism, no one that got away to mourn—only my surprising indifference to romantic and emotional attraction beyond my need to…
well, meet my needs every few weeks. Even then, I’ve managed through plenty of heats with lackluster partners or heat helpers not to mention that one time…
well I’d rather not think about it—but that was once and out of necessity due to being in the field.
“Penny! Earth to Penny! Are you still with us, Louise?” Compton grumbles, thumping his hands on the table, bringing me back to myself.
“Yes, sir,” I grumble, doing my best to play at something more resembling demure than defeated as I take a seat before him and lift the pen from the table.
“It says here…” I follow my fingertip to the first line of the crowded itinerary.
“I start the program at the end of the week!?” I hiccup, incredulous, as I actually read the words aloud.
“Good to see that you can still read, Penny. I was worried your wires had gotten crossed or something. It looked like smoke was coming out of your ears,” Compton snorts, sitting back in his chair—eyes on the pen in my hands.
With a deep breath, I swallow my pride and sign my name on the dotted line.