Shadow Ops: a normal day for Roletti

      She fell asleep in her clothes from the night before. She got in very late, it was around 5 AM or close to that, she was totally out of it, tired as all hell, in her half-asleep stupor she could hear the distant calling.
      “YO!!! Wake up!” She stirred a bit, moaning she finally recognized the voice and was not happy about it. She cracked a stinging eye open, it was half past nine in the morning, she threw her face into the pillow, which wasn’t a good idea because she felt a burst of pain. She placed a hand to her swollen eye, she had forgot about the fight she had a day ago that resulted in the black eye. Getting up slowly she stretched out she felt her back crack her mouth was dry as a desert. Slowly getting to her feet she slogged to the kitchen, and found her dear friend Patrick sitting at her kitchen table eating a donut, his third to be exact. Priscilla opened the box of donuts, and took one.
    “ Well you look great this morning.” Pat said with a mouth full of donut handing her a large coffee. She gave him a look, as she took it taking a sip. Pat her kids Godfather, and a father figure to her in many ways, watched her kids while she was away. He also had keys to her home, which right about now she regretted giving him in the first place. She sat down, a little hunched over. Pat looked at her.
    “ Nice shiner, I’d love to see how your gonna explain that to the kids.” He said, she shrugged her shoulders.
    “ I’ll think of something by the time I get them.”
    “ Yeah, and to the teachers also.” She crocked her eye brow not knowing what he meant, but then she smacked her forehead.
      “ Damn, tonight’s back to school night isn’t?” Pat nodded.
      “ Christ, the last thing I need, of all the days.”
      “ You want me to go?” She shook her head.
      “ No, No...I’ll go I am their mother.” and also for the fact that Pat does enough for her and the kids too, she said to herself.  If it wasn’t for him stepping up to the plate as there father figure, then who knows how they would have turned out by just her raising them. Even though the coffee was piping hot she gulped it down, in the hope it would hasten her alertness, as she bit in her donut, she caught Pat glancing at her.
    “ What?” she said defensively.
    “ That’s some shiner boy, you gonna tell me how you got it?” She took a deep breath and sat back with her coffee.
  “ Oh this guy sucker punched me, didn’t even see it coming, is it that bad?” She asked gently feeling it, it was sore as hell.  He nodded, laughing a bit.
    “ Shut up.” She said trying to suppress a smile.
    “ So what was this assignment about?” She shrugged her shoulders.
    “ Oh you know the typical bull shit, I don’t even wanna talk about it now.” She said sounding a little disgusted.
Pat chuckled, he loved hearing her stories, as a matter of fact Priscilla averted a nuclear attack right in NYC sometime ago, and on the front page of the NYPOST with the headline.
“ Terrorist attack thwarted!”  He had her sign it and he framed it, Pat was a big time military collector and historian, he loved this cloak and dagger stuff.
    “ So what are you up to? Where’s D?”
    “ She’s home, I told her I was coming here to check in on you, after I dropped all the kids off at school. She asked me to tell you if you wanted to go out for lunch, Gran was asking about you too.” Pat’s wife and mother were awesome people, his mother cracked her up with the stuff she’d say she’d curse every other word.
    “ Did you ever tell them what I really do? I mean D doesn't ask?” She waited a moment for him to respond as he stuffed the last of his fourth donut in his mouth.
    “ No, I never told her, but I think she has a idea, I think she thinks your with the FBI or something, she asked me along time ago, but I brushed her off, and she never asked again.” He said with his mouth stuffed with the last remaining donut as he swallowed. Priscilla was glad, the less people knew the better. She remembered  how comfortable she felt telling Pat in the first place. She guessed the fact that he was so trustworthy and easy to talk didn’t hurt either.
    “ Can we make it a late lunch? I wanna hit the gym for a bit, work out the kinks, I haven’t been there is a while anyway, I think I need a good work out.”
    “ Ok, no problem, I’ll get cold cuts and we can have sandwiches at the house.”
    “ Fair enough, let me treat this time.” Pat got up from the chair getting ready to leave, putting out his hand stopping her from going to her room.
    “ No… no get outta here.”
    “ Come on tub, your always treating my kids, you never take my money.” She said as she walked in her room and came back with a fifty. He didn’t take it, so she shoved it in his pocket, he threw his hands up with a smile knowing  the argument was closed, she kissed him on the cheek, good bye. Picking up her pace she jumped in the shower, the steaming hot water felt so damn good, she tried to wash out her eye as best she could, finally done. She took a look at herself in the mirror, it wasn’t the worst thing that had happened to her in her career as a Shadow Ops agent, but it sure as hell was bad. It was swollen and black and blue, she could just as well use cover up but she didn’t want to irritate it anymore than it was, she’d deal with the questions she was bound to be asked by everyone she’d run into. She threw on her form fitting sweats and sports bra, she stuffed a bag with a extra set of clothes, to change into after the gym.

  Hitting the gym hard was something she loved doing, it relieved a lot of stress, pumping iron, she was there longer than she thought she was gonna be. She was going on two hours, she needed this work out, between her job and taking care of her kids it was sometimes hard to hit the gym at all and being in this line of work she needed to be in the best shape she could be in. Priscilla at a quick glance didn’t look like anything but a woman that took care of herself, but she was rock solid. She was bench-pressing now, and on her last set, on that last rep, she strained to get the bar up onto the rungs, but managed, the more the strain the more the muscle worked. She sat up, wiping sweat off her brow when Vinny suddenly sat on bench just next to her, smiling at her. She rolled her eyes at him, he was the last person she wanted to see today. Vinny was one of those gym rats that came to the gym to bull shit instead of working out, but she did have to admit he did have a well sculpted body and he flaunted it, wearing the muscle shirt and flexing in the mirror at every chance he could get. All  the while trying to pick up his next conquest. When Priscilla went to the gym it was only to work out, and she didn’t want to be bothered she’d been coming to the same gym for years, she knew a few familiar faces but they pretty much all got a nod and a smile, nothing more. But this guy Vinny failed time and time again to get the hint, she was always nice because she didn’t want to stir trouble up, this place was close to her house it was convenient. But today was not a good day, and she knew already he was gonna push her buttons.
    “ Hey Priscilla, what’s happening? I haven’t seen you in a long time, I missed you.” She took a deep breath.
    “ You know Vinny I feel so much better knowing that, in fact, its completed my day no wait my entire month ok? Now if you’ll excuse me.” She got up, and walked to the free weights picking up two dumbbells, as she was banging out her reps, he came over and stood right next to her, watching her with eyes of lust, he was trying to stare down her cleavage.
    “ You know something Blondie, your stronger than you look, I watch you when you work out, I wouldn’t mind giving you some private training though.”
    “ Don’t call me Blondie.” she said in a very cold tone giving him a piecing look which didn’t hit home. But of course he finally noticed the black eye.
    “ Oh man, what happened to your eye? ” Picking up another set of  heavier weights she started a new set of reps saying between breaths.
    “ None of your fucking business.”  She was surprised at the look he gave her, he was slightly taken aback by that, she never showed him her nasty side, she’s been very patent with his nonsense.  Nevertheless he continued his assault.
      “ Ouch is that anyway to talk? Maybe that’s why you have no one in the first place because you’ve never been shown how to respect people, yeah that’s gotta be it, you walk around here with a chip on your shoulder you might be one of them broads that are abused at home and you think you can take it out of other people, I’ll bet that’s it isn’t it? ” She didn’t even finish her set, she let go of her weight not caring if she almost crushed one of his feet with it, if he had not moved out of the way in time, he had just pushed her to far now.
    “ Listen, Vinny, if you don’t get the fuck outta my face now, I swear to god, I’ll hit you in the head with one of these weights, and if you don’t think I will, open that fat mouth again.” She said raising her voice with every word, now anyone within ear shot heard the threat and watched to see what was going to transpire. Vinny turned beat red, glancing to his sides, he didn’t know what to say at this point.  Priscilla hoped he was smart enough that he’d finally get the hint she didn’t want to be bothered least of all by him. He put his hands up stepping away, he didn’t turn his back on her till he was a good ten feet away, then turned on his heel and pretty quickly made his exit, a man and woman working out next to Priscilla had stopped because of the scene, the woman was smiling.
    “ Man, I never seen him turn tail and run like that, you probably scared the living daylights outta him. I even thought for a second that you were serious, you even scared me.”  Priscilla turned to her, raising a eye brow.
    “ What makes you think I wasn’t. ” And with that she walked away leaving the woman at a loss for words. Priscilla left not long after that, she never even bothered to change while she was at the gym she ran home. Instead of a late lunch they ate a early dinner pasta and sauce.
    When the kids finally saw their mother, the reaction that ensued was to be expected it wasn’t the first time they saw her battered or bruised and it was getting hard to come up with new reasons of why she looked like she went 10 rounds in the ring, most of the time she said car accident. But even at their age it was getting thin. Priscilla tried her best to conceal her face, but her daughter had the eyes of a hawk. She spotted the black eye immediately almost breaking into tears as she ran to her asking repeatedly “ What happened mommy?” Priscilla told her, she was hit in the face by mistake by a patent at the hospital she was working in, her son being so young he’d believe anything you told him. They all ate like a family which was great, even with the various noises coming from Pat as he took in shovel full’s of food, while Priscilla talked to Dorothy and Gran, while every now and then they needed to tell the kids to cut the crap and eat.

    Later that evening....  She arrived at back to school night. It started at seven and was supposed to run till ten or so, just like their children the parents, had to endure nine periods. Which were only about fifteen minutes each, during that time, the parents were lectured as to what there children were learning, Priscilla knew all about this already. She kept a close eye on Patricia studies, any parents that had questions about there children, were told to hold all there questions till after class. Once again Priscilla didn’t need to know how her kid was doing, she made sure she knew, there was not a trick that went by that she didn’t know about it, with her daughter she tried to not only be her mother, but her confident and friend a very hard line to walk but she felt she was doing a pretty good job at it. Surprisingly the rest of the night went quick she was sitting in a cramped desk of her last “class” ready to bolt outta there as soon as the bell rang. And not soon enough as she got up and started for the door, she heard her name being called.
      “ Ms. Roletti?” Priscilla turned around, the fairly young science teacher smiled at her, trying not to look annoyed by this she walked over throwing her hand out.
      “ Hi how are you?” The young teacher shook her hand smiling.
      “ I’m so glad to have finally met you, your daughter is one of my best students, you should be proud of her.” Priscilla smiled, she sure was.
      “ Thank you Mrs. Mason. ” They made there way to the door.
      “ Um, Ms. Roletti if I may ask you...what happened to your eye? It looks like you were punched? Is everything ok at home?” Priscilla felt her face flush, why is it, that if a woman has a black eye everyone as to assume she’s abused. She gritted her teeth before she answered the concerned teacher she didn’t want to be nasty after all, her ulterior motive for asking this was the safety of the children.
      “ No , no Mrs. Mason, it’s not like that at all, I’m not married…”
        “ Then your boyfriend?” She quickly added, Priscilla shook her head.
      “ No,  Mrs. Mason, I don’t date at all, my full attention is on my children between them and work trust me, my plate is full.” She should only know Priscilla thought.
      “What do you do for work? If you don’t me asking.” Priscilla stared at the  inquisitive teacher, trying to figure out where this was going.
    “ Mrs. Mason, do you always, interrogate your students parents?” She laughed that off.
    “ No,  no I’m sorry, forgive me, it’s just that, aside from teaching, I also volunteer, I council battered woman, it pains me to see them when they feel they have no place to go or no one to speak to, you must understand its a very embarrassing thing to talk about, you just happen to show signs of that, your fielding my questions, denial, and hostility to those that can see the truth and want to help.  I just, get the feeling your hiding more.” From the look on Priscilla face, the teacher quickly back peddled.
    “ Well  I  mean, maybe I’m wrong but in any event I  just felt I  needed to make sure everything is ok at home that’s all.” Priscilla was really touched by this, but at the same time a little offended,  that this teacher had the balls to come at her like that, that almost left her speechless. In a way she wished people were like her growing up, when Priscilla was being abused, anyone that knew turned the other way not wanting to get involved.  Mrs. Mason should only know the truth, Priscilla for a second, thought to tell the nosy teacher, what she “really” did, she’d love to see the look on her face when she told her in detail of all the things she’d done and the plots she foiled, and that she’d killed more people than she’d come in contact with in a month.
    “ Mrs. Mason once again thank you, really but it is getting late and I  have to pick up my kids it was a real pleasure meeting you.” The young woman nodded grabbing her hand tightly.
    “ No, Mrs. Roletti the pleasure was mine, your doing a great job, but if you ever need someone to talk, here’s my card.” She handed it to Priscilla who glanced it quick.
      “ Ah right thanks.” And she left very quickly, taking a calming deep breath as she walked down the hall. By the time she got to Patrick’s house her son was fast asleep and Patricia wasn’t far behind him, Pat carried him to the mini-van while Patricia walked in a half asleep stupor.
She was finally home after a long trying, tiring and weird day. With days like this, she’d rather be out there facing off against the dregs of society at least she knew her place, with the kids finally in bed, Priscilla washed up got un dressed putting on sweats and a T-shirt, she couldn’t wait to say hello to her pillow. It didn’t take her long to fall asleep.