Random Acts of Hope by Julia Kent Page B

of it. ”
    I shut my door quietly. “She’s young. She still thinks people just need to be educated so they can make the right decisions.”
    We burst into laughter so hysterical we had to wipe tears from our jaw lines .
    “When did we get so jaded?” I asked.
    “After I got gang raped and you got dumped on the phone while pregnant?” Maggie shot back lickety-split.
    I sighed. “Yeah. That about explains it.”
    “Seeing him…that’s going to take you and rattle you like an extra in a Transformers movie that gets picked up by the bad robots and thrown halfway across Los Angeles,” Maggie said.
    “You have such a way with analogies.”
    My phone rang. The landline. Maggie looked at it like it was a tarantula that had come to life. I jumped in my seat, my heart zooming.
    “Fuck,” I whispered, because a Resident Director’s landline rings for only two reasons: a call from a boss, or a call from a parent.
    Neither is good.
    “Charlotte Greyson, Resident Director. How can I help you?” I answered, poi nt ing for Maggie to stay put.
    “Oh, hello. This is Risa Lennon. Derek Lennon’s mother.” Derek Lennon. My mind raced. Sophomore, new to the guy’s wing across the quad . Glasses, dark hair. One of the math geeks.
    “Yes, Mrs. Lennon!” I answered, feigning a chipperness I’ve never possessed in my life. “How are you?”
    “I’m fine. Actually, I’m not. I’m calling about Derek. He’s changed recently.”
    I pulled out my log where I documented calls and incidents. Maggie frowned in a curious way.
    “Yes?” I’d learned last year to say as little as possible but to be open. The parents would pour it all out.
    “Derek is insisting that we do not have access to his grades.”
    I covered the mouthpiece and mouthed the word “grades” to Maggie, who groaned and rolled her eyes. We all got calls like these every semester.
    Out came my script.
    “Mrs. Lennon, I’m sorry, but federal law prohibits me from providing any information about a student’s grades to parents. Once they’re adults, they can choose whether to share that information or not.”
    “But Derek isn’t like this! He doesn’t keep secrets from us!”
    “Ma’am, the semester is only a few weeks old. Which grades are you worried about seeing?” I switched from my bureaucratic voice to my soothing voice.
    “All of them! Last year he let us talk to his professors!”
    Poor professors.
    “But then someone in student services”— s he said student services like the words dog shit —“explained that he didn’t have to share, and now he’s going on and on about his ‘rights.’”
    In my most profe s sional tone possible, I replied with: “He does have rights as an adult now, and I know it’s hard to make that kind of transition. But there’s nothing I can do to help, Mrs. Len—”
    Click.
    “She hung up on me!” I shouted, staring at the black plastic hand piece. “ Nice !”
    “Good for Derek,” Maggie said. “Makes me want to find him and give him a high-five.”
    “Jan said she used to get a call like this maybe once a year,” I said. Jan Murphy was the Director of Residence Life, thirty years our senior and quite seasoned in Res Life. “Now we get them once a week.”
    “More than that. Freshman mid-term grade time is a horror show. I had twenty-three calls last year!” Maggie added.
    I looked at my calendar. Four more weeks. I put an asterisk on it and wrote “Let calls go to voicemail.” Maggie looked over my shoulder and laughed.
    “Puke in the washing machine, hover mothers, asshole ex ordering sex dolls from you. Just another week in paradise for us, huh?”
    A song blasted suddenly from an open window a few floors above. “I Wasted My Only Answered Prayer” from Liam’s band began. Random Acts of Crazy had a huge following here, mostly consisting of freshman women who would love to hand their cherries over to Liam and Trevor, if the lounge talk I’d overheard these past few weeks were true.