Page 85 of Two is a Pattern

“Yes, you are. Child welfare is something you already deal with in your career, so why not become familiar with California laws?”

“I’m not saying your class isn’t important,” Annie said. “Just that we seem to be bad at not having sex.”

“You were standing in my kitchen in your bra!”

“It was the laundry room.”

Helen snorted and covered her mouth with her hand.

“Well, if you think I should go to your class, then we should actually go,” Annie said.

“May as well go together.” Helen met Annie’s eyes.

But Annie reached out and brushed her fingers along Helen’s freckled arm. Helen looked up and smiled, her eyes crinkling up at the corners, making Annie’s heart flutter.

* * *

Annie’s desk at the FBI building was in an open bullpen populated by midlevel agents—people in their late twenties and thirties who had put a good chunk of time into the organization but who were years away from moving into any sort of management. They all hated Annie. Resented her presence and resented the fact that she wasn’t even a real agent.

She absolutely wasn’t. She wasn’t super familiar with the FBI’s training methods or their caseloads. She’d never trained at Quantico, and she didn’t know the culture. She knew how to be a government employee, but even that was different, depending on where one landed. The CIA was different from the NSA, which was different from the FBI, and probably the FBI offices in DC were different from the ones out here on the West Coast. She might have been able to fake it in DC, but this?

So she stayed quiet and played dumb. She asked where the break room was with big eyes and fluttering lashes. She smiled at the dumb jokes and ignored the sexist ones. She did the menial labor the assistant director tossed her way because he was stuck with her and he couldn’t just leave her with nothing to do. She translated audiotapes. She watched videotaped interviews. She read backlogged and cold cases. If she had nothing else to do, she did her homework. She worked Monday through Wednesday, so they also resented her for not putting in forty-hour weeks.

On her second day, she was in the far stall of the bathroom when she heard one of the female agents say, “I heard she defected from Russia.”

Annie raised her legs and held them straight out in front of her.

“Come on,” said a different voice. “She doesn’t even have an accent!”

“You don’t call that an accent?” The first woman snorted.

“Not a Russian one,” the second voice said.

“Well, she wouldn’t. They train their spies deep. She’s probably been selling our secrets for years right on our own soil, and now they have her sitting two desks away from me. It’s disgusting.”

“I heard she was up in San Francisco when they caught her sleeping with an assistant director, so they shipped her down here to get rid of her.”

“Oh yeah? Who told you that?”

“I heard it from Agent Katz. He said she was up there on that drug bust.”

Annie shook her head in disbelief. How did they even know about that? And furthermore, Agent Katz hadn’t been there.

“Oh, well, if that alcoholic told you, it must be true.”

They both laughed.

Annie put her feet down and flushed the toilet. Suddenly, the two women got very quiet. She walked out of the stall and glared at them both, then turned to the sink and washed her hands, watching them in the mirror. The shorter woman, stout and blonde, looked horrified, but the tall dark-haired woman stared back at Annie.

“Those Clintons have been in the White House not two seconds and they’re already hiring commie ex-spies. Can you believe it?” Annie asked.

“Let’s go,” said the taller lady. Annie dried her hands as they walked out.

Whatever. She’d never been particularly popular in the workplace. No one ever liked the smartest person in the room.

* * *

Helen’s class was interesting. Annie found her teaching style engaging—when she could make herself focus on the lecture and not on the way Helen sat on the corner of her desk with her shapely legs crossed. The first week, they’d gone straight frombed to the classroom, and it was jarring. Annie sat in the back, unable to look directly at her.

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