Reesa Ch. 03

They managed to avoid the special dinner parties with the swingers crowd and preferred the more intimate dinners with a few of Stephen's good friends, particularly Bridgette. She hated Ryan and his wife Marcie, such typical wannabes. Reesa saw how much Marcie manipulated him and was the driving force behind his career. She also enjoyed some of the smaller dinners with different Ambassadors, opening up the world to her. Many of them were slimeballs, trying to hit on her and whose sole interests seemed to be their own careers, but quite a few were people with class and integrity, who were deeply committed to their countries and a cause. She was an apt listener and learned much about the drug trade and FARC rebels in Columbia, to the struggles of being European for the Muslims of Bosnia, to the impact of the global economy and outsourcing in India. She knew she was learning more in these conversations than she could studying for years at the university, but also knew that having the degree mattered tremendously.

At the university she had taken on a bit of celebrity status, given the media coverage of her relationship with Stephen. It bothered her that people kept their distance rather staring and pointing at her as she walked by, whispering to one another something or the other. Despite that, she excelled in her classes, staying focused on her studies. She became enthralled with academia and after discussing the issue with Stephen, decided she wanted to do a Ph.D. rather than just a master's degree. She applied and was accepted with a full fellowship to both SAIS as well as Georgetown and decided on the later. Grams was thrilled beyond belief and immediately went around informing her friends how Reesa was going to be a Ph.D., a Doctor of Philosophy. Unimaginable.

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As Christmas neared, Stephen began to become increasingly nervous, almost agitated. Reesa knew it was associated with the pending visit of his sister, but didn't know what in their past was haunting Stephen so much. Stephen was not one to openly share, he still kept so much bottled up inside of himself. Over the months they had been together she learned, slowly, more about his childhood and his abusive father as well as about the years following his death. She knew all about his relationship with Michelle and the Robinsons, his first forays into sex, his college years. But, except for the general story, he knew nothing about his mother's sickness and those few months when he took leave from his position to be with her and Meagan. She knew that in those five months something happened that Stephen had yet to deal with, to process.