"I'm a very busy man, Mr. Rackley."
"You and me both, Will."
"Yet you insist on a personal phone call."
"This isn't a budget meeting. I'm protecting your confidentiality. And your daughter's. That's how this goes."
"Fine." The line went dead.
Tim's phone sounded a third time. "Hi, Tim, this is Will Henning. I'd like to see you."
Without the sarcastic tone, it might have been funny. "Where are you?"
"I work from home now." He added defensively, "I get more done here."
"I'll get to you sometime this afternoon."
"When?"
"When I get there."
Tim followed the signage to the registrar's counter only to find himself in line behind ten or so students. He waited with them so he could watch the proceedings. Dropping a class proved to be a protracted negotiation involving substantial paperwork. It took a good half hour for the line to dissipate, during which Tim noted nothing to indicate a recruitment ploy like the one Reggie had described.
The registrar, an octogenarian with a kindly demeanor and prodigious eyeglasses, informed Tim that she'd run the office for the past thirty-five years and assured him that no funny business had gone down under her tenure. For confidentiality purposes, she didn't permit student workers in the office, and the two women she oversaw had been there for years. A brief talk with both of them was enough for Tim to put the flimsy lead to bed.
He zagged back across campus in the car, following the blue signs. The Student Counseling Center proved to be a beige and brown modular home sandwiched between a parking lot and a scrubby hill. It seemed more like a school nurse's station in a welfare mountain-state town than the therapy center for a high-tuition Malibu university.
The potted plants lining the ramp brushed Tim's jeans on his way up. With its blue carpet and paneled walls, the interior typified modular decor. Seemingly out of place was the well-dressed woman behind the petite reception desk, whose cheery, first-name-basis nameplate announced her solely as ROBBIE.
Her pert face tightened a bit when he introduced himself. "Confidentiality is absolute here, Mr. Rackley."
"Please, call me Tim."
"We adhere to the guidelines of the American Psychological Association."
"Are all the therapists psychologists?"
"No, Mr. Rackley. Most are licensed social workers, but the same confidentiality guidelines apply to them."
"Do students need to be referred here?"
"They can come directly if they're an undergraduate or a student at the law school, GSBM -"
"GSBM?"
"Graziado School of Business Management."
"Would you be allowed to disclose when a particular student first came in?"
"Absolutely not."
A girl emerged from a back room, the floor creaking with her steps. She shuffled to get around Tim, but there wasn't much room. "I'm sorry to interrupt."
"That's okay," Robbie said. "We were just wrapping up. Maybe you could show the gentleman out." She busied herself clearing her desk.
When it was clear Robbie wasn't going to acknowledge him again, Tim followed the girl out. She held the door for him but stumbled over a potted plant when she turned. Tim caught her arm to steady her, and she let out an embarrassed giggle. "Sorry. I'm such a klutz. I get nervous, you know, when people see me here. I always think they're wondering what's wrong with me -" She blushed. "God, shut up, Shanna."
"You should see me waiting at the clinic for my results to come back."
Shanna stared at him, eyebrows raised, and then her face broke into a smile and she hit him lightly on the arm.
They walked down the ramp together. Two girls sat talking in a Range Rover parked in the first row of the lot beside Tim's Acura, not ten yards from the trailer's entrance. The therapy rooms emptied out directly into a major campus parking lot.
So much for absolute confidentiality.
"I just transferred in from Brigham Young this semester. It's kind of…not been the easiest transition, you know? Are you a student here? You seem old. I mean, not that way, but…" Shanna's face colored again, her hand over her mouth. Substantial diamond studs gleamed in her ears. "Just don't pay attention to me, okay?"
The front doors of the Range Rover opened simultaneously. The two girls climbed out and headed toward them, the long-limbed driver smoothing a paisley cotton skirt over her underlying bell-bottom jeans. Tim figured them for friends of Shanna's – they'd clearly been waiting, keeping an eye on the Student Counseling Center.
The shorter girl wore a red T-shirt under a pair of overalls, her hair thrown back in a ponytail. "Hey, there. How you guys doing today?"
"Good," Shanna said uncertainly.
"I'm Julie, and this is Lorraine. We're having a group gathering tomorrow night at our apartment, and we wanted to invite you guys."
They showed off perfect smiles.
"Oh," Shanna said. "That's nice."
Lorraine reached out and touched Tim gently, her well-manicured nails tapping his forearm. "We're gonna have a great talk and drinks and everything."
Tim's mind moved instinctively to intolerance, hardwired from years of dealing with pyramid schemers, religious zealots, time-share hucksters. He was about to open his mouth to issue his customary rebuff when realization struck.
Julie, voice lowered with compassion, patted Shanna on the side. "You seem a little down."
Tim turned with Lorraine, who was beaming brightly and strolling to his side, facing him flirtatiously across the ball of her shoulder. Her auburn hair was pulled back severely in a clip so it conformed tightly to the shape of her head. He strained to hear Shanna's response to Julie, but Lorraine, still circling, said, "You're a bit mature to be a student here, aren't you?"
He feigned bashfulness. Putting his hands behind him, he worked off his wedding band and dropped it in the back pocket of his jeans. "Well, I hooked up with a great counselor when I went to GSBM. She still sees me on the side now and then when I hit a bump in the road."
Lorraine's eyes fluttered wide. "GSBM? I love business. A lot of us do. We're going to talk about things tomorrow night that could really help your career."
Shanna was now out of sight behind his back; Julie and Lorraine had skillfully maneuvered them apart so they were facing opposite directions.
Isolating the prey.
Lorraine nodded at the Student Counseling Center. "Sorry to hear that things are kind of shitty right now." She stroked his forearm again, lightly. Smelling of a fruity, pricey skin cream, she stood to his side, lipstick glimmering moistly, torso swaying slightly so her firm breasts moved beneath the sweetheart neckline of her blouse. Since the girls had approached in a team of two, Lorraine's come-on felt not threatening, but friendly and flattering. A confused college kid wouldn't stand a chance.
Campuses teem with predators – rapists, muggers, stalkers. But this particular brand, so appealingly packaged, was all the more insidious for its harmless demeanor.
Behind him he heard Julie say, "Your haircut's the bomb."
And Shanna's nervous giggle. "Thanks. I just got it done at Frederic Fekkai."
A whispered joke. The girls laughed together. Tim wanted to turn to look, but Lorraine was drilling him with eye contact. Though the two recruiters acted almost identically, Lorraine was less soft than Julie, the strings of her manipulation more visible.
Julie was the lure, Lorraine the closer.
"Anything you want to talk about?" Lorraine asked.
Tim chewed his lip, as if debating whether he should open up. "It's still hard for me to say, but I got, uh, divorced a few months ago -"