Thom asks Bret to keep an eye on Susan

Thom asks Bret to keep an eye on Susan Reynolds during his week away, a request that changes the meaning of their friendship and marks the last time Bret sees Thom happy. Presented as a favor during their drive to the airport, the appeal begins as casual caretaking and hardens into a demand shadowed by jealousy, secrets, and Bret’s dawning disappointment. Its ambiguity matters: Thom denies wanting Bret to spy, yet keeps asking him to watch Susan, while Bret senses that the request belongs to a story Thom does not fully understand.

The Request on the Drive

The conversation follows Thom’s account of his mother Laurie Wright’s unhappiness. He describes her as someone who has long made herself miserable, and Bret recognizes that there is nothing he can offer to fix so vast a problem. As they travel along Wilshire toward the 405, Thom lowers the radio during a Human League song and asks Bret for a favor. The intimacy of the quiet car gives the question a tentative weight: Thom crosses his legs and shifts in his seat before asking Bret to look after Susan while he is gone.

Thom initially gives the request a benign shape. He asks Bret to make a concentrated effort to spend more time with Susan, suggesting that they go to the movies or simply hang out. But the phrase “keep an eye on her” changes what the favor sounds like. Bret feels himself go cold and asks what it means; the wording suggests surveillance, as though Thom wants a secret agent to make sure his girlfriend behaves. Bret finds the request childish and weak, a jarring contrast with the image of Thom he had carried until then. The day is not ruined in a dramatic outburst, but quietly; Bret realizes he has started looking at his friend from a different angle.

Suspicion, Denial, and the Unsaid

Bret names the implication directly: Thom wants him to spy on Susan. Thom laughs and denies that this is what he means. When Bret asks whether he is worried about something, Thom insists that he is not, though he sounds unconvinced. He then returns to the same request, telling Bret to do what he usually does and keep an eye on her. The repetition does not resolve the ambiguity; it makes the gap between Thom’s denial and his insistence more conspicuous.

For Bret, the request pulls several concealed possibilities into the car at once. He feels that Thom is drawing him into something marked by betrayal, suspicion, and bad faith: whispered secrets, the possibility that Susan desires someone else, and her growing numbness and wish to break away. He also thinks of Robert Mallory’s treatment with Thorazine and six months in a Jacksonville institution, whose underlying reasons remain part of what Bret does not know. When Thom begins to ask another question and then abandons it, Bret grips the steering wheel until his knuckles turn white and tells him to ask. The exchange leaves more unsaid than spoken, but makes Bret acutely aware of the secrets gathering around the group.

The Airport Farewell

As they reach the airport, the conversation turns to whether Robert might be gay. Bret rejects that assumption, which he sees as a profound misreading of Robert and of the people around him. At the American Airlines terminal, he parks the Mercedes at the curb and helps Thom lift his tightly packed Samsonite from the trunk. Thom says he will be back in a week and thanks Bret for the ride.

Bret asks if Thom is all right. Thom smiles and says he is great, appearing entirely unfazed by their conversation, then asks once more whether Bret will keep an eye on Susan. Bret nods. Thom passes through the sliding glass doors into the terminal; Bret identifies this as the last time he ever saw him happy. The contrast between Thom’s bright goodbye and Bret’s shaking return to the car gives the request its immediate consequence: the parting looks ordinary from the outside, but Bret leaves it with his understanding of Thom rearranged.

A Changed View of Thom

After driving back toward the city, Bret reflects on the morning in October and on how the request altered his picture of Thom. He had thought he wanted to do anything Thom asked, but now recognizes that this favor is different. Thom’s assumption that Robert is the principal romantic threat seems wrong to Bret, who understands Robert’s interest in Susan differently. At the same time, Bret does not settle on a single explanation for Thom’s concern. Perhaps Thom suspects something about Susan and the possibilities around her; perhaps he simply cares about her and fears leaving her alone for a week. The uncertainty is not incidental: Bret cannot tell how much Thom knows, or whether the request means what it sounds like.

The narration makes the request a hinge rather than a resolution. Thom, Bret concludes, has begun attending to another narrative, one that will become his downfall and lead into a painful first heartbreak. He and Susan will both attend UCLA and try to avoid each other on Westwood’s paths, quads, and streets during a year of sadness. In retrospect, the airport scene joins Thom’s jealousy and misreading to the longer unraveling of his relationship with Susan; in the moment, all Bret can do is nod and watch him leave.