Thom asks Bret to look after Susan is a pivotal conversation during a drive toward Los Angeles International Airport. Thom frames his request as a favor between friends, but Bret hears an invitation to monitor Susan and a test of what he thinks about Robert. As Thom explains that Robert believes he is being stalked, the exchange turns from casual concern into a collision between friendship, secrecy, and suspicion. Bret does not disclose what he fears Robert may have done, and his view of Thom changes in the silence between them.

Background and Stakes

Thom and Susan had been together since their sophomore year and were among the most popular students at Buckley. They had moved through school and social life as a couple, and Bret had long been close to both: Susan was his closest female friend, while his feelings for Thom were complicated by an unspoken attraction. Their apparent ease as a couple concealed a relationship that would begin to fracture in the fall of 1981.

That history makes Thom’s request more charged than its practical wording suggests. He asks Bret to spend time with Susan while he is away, but Bret hears a wish that he keep watch on Thom’s girlfriend. The request pulls Bret into the couple’s private strain and confronts him with the possibility that the friendship he valued is also shaped by distrust.

The Request and Bret’s Response

In the Mercedes, as they travel past Westwood toward the freeway, Thom asks Bret to keep an eye on Susan and encourages him to make a concentrated effort to spend time with her: go to the movies, hang out, and generally be around her more. Bret initially manages a casual response, but internally he feels himself go cold. He interprets the favor as an instruction to act like a secret agent and make sure Susan is behaving, an interpretation that makes the request seem weak and distrustful rather than friendly.

Bret says directly that Thom means for him to spy on Susan. Thom denies that this is what he wants, then repeats that Bret should simply do what he usually does. Bret questions that assumption. The request now seems to carry the weight of unspoken knowledge: Susan may want someone else, may feel numb, or may be trying to leave the relationship. Bret is also aware that there are matters around Robert that Thom does not know, or that Bret cannot bring himself to explain.

Robert and the Question of Trust

Thom hesitates before asking what Bret thinks of Robert now, after Robert has spent a couple of months at Buckley. He wants to know whether Bret likes him. Bret experiences the question as a test. He considers speaking openly about his suspicion that Robert is connected to Matt’s death and to the circumstances surrounding Matt’s final days, but keeps those fears to himself.

Instead, Bret gives a guarded answer: he says he does not really know Robert, acknowledges that Robert has issues and has received treatment, and calls the breakdown at Susan’s party disturbing. He then asks why Thom wants to know. The exchange exposes the distance between Bret’s private suspicions and the version of himself he presents to his longtime friend. His silence is not simply lack of information; it is an active concealment of what he believes may connect Robert to Matt.

Robert’s Report of Being Followed

Thom explains that Robert had told him on the beach that he was grateful to have friends, then spoke of a person who had followed him since he first began coming to Los Angeles. Robert had described someone watching him and sending him things, without knowing who it was. Thom does not know whether to believe the story. Robert might be making it up, Thom suggests, or imagining it; his earlier institutional treatment makes Thom uncertain how to interpret the claim.

Bret recognizes that Robert’s alleged pursuer is not himself, despite his own preoccupation with Robert. Thom’s account therefore introduces a separate uncertainty: Robert may be experiencing genuine surveillance, or his report may reflect his unstable state. Thom has no clear answer, and Bret cannot offer the reassurance Thom seems to want. The conversation leaves the possibility of a real watcher unresolved rather than resolving it as either fact or delusion.

Turning Point and Narrative Significance

The scene changes Bret’s understanding of Thom. Earlier, Bret had regarded him as easygoing, agreeable, and largely unaware of the tensions around him. Now Thom’s request seems to Bret childish and marked by suspicion; Bret is surprised and disappointed to find himself looking at his friend from a different angle. The shift is quiet, but decisive: the person Bret had wanted to please is no longer beyond criticism.

The request also binds together the story’s competing secrets. Thom is concerned about Susan and uncertain about Robert; Bret is asked to watch Susan while concealing his suspicions about Robert and Matt. His divided responses—to perform the dependable friend and to resist being drawn into surveillance—make the car conversation a small but consequential test of loyalty. The appeal to keep an eye on Susan does not settle what is happening between her and Thom, or whether Robert is being followed. Instead, it makes the characters’ uncertainty and guardedness newly visible.