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Erica was pretty sure that there was no real point to her being in Pennsylvania on this trip. This whole thing was just for Cyrus’s benefit, so that he could watch Erica consider attending his alma mater. It would have been for Alexander’s benefit too, but Alexander had cheated his way through nearly everything at college, so his thoughts didn’t matter here. But Cyrus wanted Erica to see the college, so Erica was there to do just that.
She’d come with her parents and her grandfather, but they’d split up at the hotel. Catherine and Erica had one room together, and Cyrus and Alexander were in another. Erica hadn’t expected her parents to split up like that, but Catherine and Alexander hadn’t talked much on the way here, so Erica guessed something was going on there. Not a huge surprise, really, given the tumultuous history of their relationship, even though things had been good between them lately.
Catherine was sitting at the desk in their room looking at the University of Pennsylvania’s website, scrolling through a page of statistics. Erica was sitting on the end of the bed, looking over her mother’s shoulder, though more to see what Catherine was doing than to actually read the text she was scrolling through.
“You know that Grandpa’s probably going to tell you all that again tomorrow,” Erica said.
“I doubt he really cares about these kinds of numbers,” Catherine said, skimming over a paragraph of admissions statistics. “He’ll just go on about how it was in his day. Probably complain about how it’s changed. And he’ll probably try to tell you all the great parts about his time there, so he can ensure you’ll follow in his footsteps.”
Erica nodded.
Catherine scrolled back up to the top of the page. “Well,” she said, “is there anything on the website you want to look at?”
“Not really,” Erica said. “I mean, none of it’s really going to matter. Grandpa wants me to go. He went there. His dad went there.”
“And so you’re not even going to consider going anywhere else,” Catherine said. “Is that what you’re thinking?”
Erica shrugged. “Do you want me to go to Oxford or something?”
“I just want you to be happy,” Catherine said. “And I think you need to explore your options a little more. Now, if you want to go visit Oxford, I would love to show you around. But I won’t be disappointed if you go somewhere else. Even if it’s here.”
“I’ll go visit Oxford too,” Erica said.
“If you want to,” Catherine said. “I don’t mean to pressure to you.”
Erica raised an eyebrow.
“Ok,” Catherine said. “I would very much like it if you wound up at Oxford. But where you go to uni is not my choice to make. It just shouldn’t be your grandfather’s either. This is your life, not ours.”
“Sure,” Erica said.
Catherine closed her laptop and swiveled in the hotel desk chair so that she was fully facing Erica. “I really do mean that. You don’t have to do things just because I did them or because your grandfather did them. You don’t need to be us. You shouldn’t. We’ve both certainly screwed up enough things that I hope you can learn from instead of just repeating.”
“Like what?” Erica asked. “Besides marrying an idiot, I mean. I know not to do that.”
“Your father is not an idiot,” Catherine said. “He would have been perfectly suited to be successful at some other venture.”
“But he decided to keep being a spy,” Erica said.
“I’m aware,” Catherine said. “And I wouldn’t quite classify marrying him as a mistake.”
“Why are you avoiding him right now?” Erica challenged.
“I’m not. We’ve just been seeing a little too much of each other lately, and we need to give each other some space.”
“How is that different from avoiding him?”
Catherine sighed. “Because I’m not upset with him, and he is not upset with me. We just need to have some space sometimes, and that’s really not something you should be worried about right now. We can handle our own problems.”
“You just said that I should be learning from your mistakes,” Erica said. “How am I supposed to do that if you won’t elaborate on them.”
“Alright,” Catherine said, fiddling with her wedding band, which she had recently started wearing again. “What would you like me to elaborate on?”
“How many people did you go out with before Dad?”
“A few,” Catherine said.
“And what made Dad better than the rest of them?”
“It’s hard to say,” Catherine said. “Timing, probably. It’s harder to be serious about a relationship when you’re younger and have it work out well. It’s wonderful to be young and falling in love. And there are so many opportunities for that while you’re at uni.”
“I’m not going to fall in love with someone at college,” Erica said. “That sounds like a terrible idea. I’d have to lie to them about everything.”
“Sometimes it’s worth it to lie,” Catherine said.
“Not when it’s very easy to just avoid getting close to anyone you’d have to lie to.”
“Erica, I thought you’d gotten over that. This will be a wonderful time of your life to meet all sorts of friends. There’s hardly a point to going if you aren’t getting to know anyone.”
“What am I even supposed to tell anyone who wants to be friends with me? They’ll get to know Sasha or some cover like that, not me.”
Catherine nodded thoughtfully. “I remember that feeling,” she said. “But you don’t have to change your whole personality. You needn’t act dumber or weaker than you are. I think you’ll be surprised by just how talented your peers will be. And they’ll have plenty that they won’t want to talk about as well.”
“Yeah, but national security isn’t at risk for them.”
“Your classmates won’t be trying to torture you.”
“Evil people go to college too,” Erica pointed out.
Catherine hesitated. “Yes. But I was never tortured by a fellow student while I was at Oxford.”
“But there were still probably some evil people there,” Erica said.
“A few, I’m sure.”
“But that’s ok. It’ll just make things more exciting to have to search the evil people out myself.”
Catherine sighed, then looked over at the door a moment before someone knocked. “Those footsteps sounded like Alexander,” she said, getting up to go answer the door.
“Hi,” Alexander said. “May I come in?”
“Of course,” Catherine said, stepping aside so that he could walk past her through the narrow entryway of their hotel room.
“I thought you guys needed some space from each other,” Erica said.
“Well, I need some space from your grandfather more,” Alexander said.
“What’s going on with him?” Catherine asked.
“Just the usual,” Alexander said, sitting down in the desk chair Catherine had sat in earlier. “I won’t stay here too long. I’’m sure he’ll be asleep soon. I’ll probably be able to hear his snoring from here.”
Catherine nodded knowingly and sat down next to Erica at the end of the bed across from Alexander.
“I’m certain that he’s going to be insufferable tomorrow,” Alexander said. “He thinks he knows everything about the place.”
“He did go there,” Erica said.
“Fifty years ago,” Alexander said. “I don’t think he’s stepped foot on campus once since dropping me off my freshman year.”
“Didn’t he go to your graduation?” Catherine asked.
“No,’ Alexander said bitterly. “He told me that there was no point and that he was sure that the only reason they let me graduate was to get rid of me. Mind you, I graduated with a 3.97. Nearly perfect! But no, that wasn’t good enough for him.”
“Didn’t you cheat a lot?” Erica asked.
“Only at spy school,” Alexander said. “I think I performed better at college because I didn’t have the stress of anyone trying to kill me. I find that fear greatly negatively impacts my performance of tasks.”
“No kidding,” Erica muttered.
Catherine gave Erica a sharp look, then said to Alexander, “we were just having a little discussion about university and how Erica will be able to make new friends there.”
“It’s a great time to do it,” Alexander said.
“I already have friends,” Erica said.
“Yes, but being able to make friends is a very valuable skill,” Catherine said.
“You only say that because people like you.”
“People would like you if you would just let them,” Catherine said.
“They just have crushes on me,” Erica said.
“You could go try to get to know some of the boys that have crushes on you,” Catherine pointed out. “See if they’re willing to just be friends.”
Erica just looked at her mother and shook her head.
“Your mother’s right,” Alexander told Erica. “If you want to make friends, it shouldn’t be a struggle at all. Just like if you wanted to try dating someone.”
“Just don’t do anything you might regret,” Catherine said.
“I might regret talking to anyone I meet,” Erica said.
“That’s not what I mean,” Catherine said. “Please just don’t drink or have sex or-“
“Mother!” Erica said.
“I need to tell you these things,” Catherine said. “Because you think that-“
“Please stop talking,” Erica said. “I’m not going to do anything like that. You don’t have to tell me these things.”
“I’d feel like a bad mother if I didn’t.”
“I’m not going to go and have sex.”
“Ok,” Catherine said. “I just wanted to tell you that. Not that I would be mad-“
Erica elbowed Catherine in the ribs just hard enough to get her to shut up.
“Erica, I’m sure that you’ll have a wonderful time at college,” Alexander said. “And maybe in the next year before you get there, you’ll see more of the value of a wide network of friends. I mean, it’s wonderful to be a part of a close group but having a large network has so many benefits in this business.”
“Because it gives you more people to screw over?” Erica asked.
“Er, pretty much,” Alexander said. “But you’ll meet plenty of unpleasant people that you won’t mind using.”
“What an advertisement,” Erica said sarcastically.
“We’re letting your grandfather give you the big one,” Catherine said. “We have to save some material for him.”
“Yeah,” Erica said, then sat silently for a moment. “It would be less weird if the others weren’t all younger. Then they wouldn’t be doing all their training with you without me.”
“I know,” Catherine said.
“You could let them skip a couple grades,” Erica said. “You know, since it’s not like we have a normal curriculum anyway. And there would still be a whole year to get them ready. Then I’d still have friends without all the work of making new ones.”
“The point is mostly for you to learn how to make new ones,” Catherine said.
There was another knock at the door.
“Sounds like Grandpa,” Erica said.
Alexander sighed and got up. “I’ll go see what he wants.”
Catherine looked down at her watch. “We should get to sleep soon,” she told Erica. “Because knowing him, Cyrus’s campus tour is likely to start before the crack of dawn.”
“Yeah,” Erica said, then looked at her mother very seriously. “Can you promise not to say anything embarrassing tomorrow?”
“I suppose I can try.”
“Please,” Erica said.
“I promise,” Catherine said.
“Really?”
“Yes,” Catherine said. “I’m pretty sure your grandfather will have saying embarrassing things covered for me.”