Covert Assignment Read online

  “Things could be better-” Tina looked around at the other tables that were filling up, “- you know, in bed.”

  “He’s a thumper, not a thruster.” Marni was a talented re-phraser. She pointed at the paper when Elle hesitated. “Making improvements doesn’t count. No partial credit here.”

  Even Elle had to laugh. Marni’s mind-reading abilities were astounding. Elle couldn’t stop the thought: she bet Preston was a thruster. Dammit, dammit, dammit, was she even going to be able to work around him? Her attention was brought back to the table when Marni took the pen out of her hands and wrote “THUMPER” under cheating.

  “I guess what this comes down to,” Tina said as Marni underlined her writing and added exclamation points, “is whether or not you’re willing to forgive him.”

  That right there was the key variable, the one with the most weight. Elle was pissed, but could she get over being pissed? Did she want to? Yes, she had her future with Adam planned out, but that was with the assumption that Adam was a loyal and trustworthy guy. That assumption had been violated. They weren’t married yet and didn’t have kids, so they could walk away from this with no real complications. Elle had vowed she would never end up like her parents, divorced and remarried with a child from a mistaken marriage. She knew that wasn’t fair to the kid because the whole “two happy families” line family therapists spouted was utter bullshit.

  “Give yourself some time,” Tina said. “Think about it.”

  “Yeah,” Marni chimed in. “Think about all the hot guys we’ll meet in law school.” That was where Marni planned to find her future husband.

  “I need more data,” Elle decided. There was only one way to get that. She texted Adam back.

  Drinks @ BB? 8 pm?

  Bubba’s Bar was a popular weekend hangout but tended to be quiet during the week. Adam’s reply came back almost instantly.

  C u there.

  Elle looked at Marni and Tina. “I don’t have a damn clue what he could say to make this okay, but I guess I won’t know unless I hear him out.”

  Chapter 6

  Bubba’s Bar was right off campus, which meant it was the hangout of choice for college students. Faculty and staff came there for happy hour and lunch during the week but avoided it like the plague on Friday and Saturday nights after about 8 pm or so. The staff at Bubba’s Bar was known to pretty much turn a blind eye to IDs on those evenings. The School of Information faculty and graduate students went there on Thursday afternoons after the weekly department seminar. It was interesting drinking with professors. That was the one event, more than any other, which reminded Elle she was actually a grad student even though most of her friends were undergrads.

  Elle entered the bar and searched through the dimness. She had to let her eyes adjust. In under a minute she made out Adam waving her over to a table in the back. They’d have some privacy, at least.

  “I’m glad you came,” Adam said as soon as Elle walked up.

  She wondered if meeting with him was the right thing to do but figured turning on her heel and running wasn’t a good option, so she sat down as she nodded at him. Elle had spent so much time wondering what he could possibly say to make things right that she hadn’t even thought about what she would say to him. She was saved by the server’s arrival.

  “Do you know what you’d like?” she asked. Elle ordered a beer.

  “How about some nachos?” Adam asked. He knew she was practically addicted to the nachos there. Someone like Bella probably wouldn’t eat nachos: too many calories. Elle squashed the thought and nodded. “Sounds good.”

  The server wrote the order down, took the menus, and left, leaving them to stare at each other.

  Adam gave Elle a tentative smile. After staring at him for a moment, she realized she should return it and tried to smile back, but her mouth wasn’t terribly cooperative. Instead, her eyes were starting to sting. Dammit, she would not cry. She reached for her water and drank some, focusing on the heavily scarred wooden table top.

  “I’m sorry,” Adam said.

  Elle’s eyes stopped burning. When she spoke, she was relieved her voice was only a little husky. “Okay.” She didn’t really know what else to say. It wasn’t okay, and she sure as hell wasn’t ready to accept his apology. He would just have to be glad she didn’t kick him in his shins under the table.

  Adam looked like he didn’t know what to say or do himself. The server came and put Elle’s drink down. Adam already had his beer. “Your nachos will be right up,” she said and left before they even had a chance to acknowledge her.

  “So, um, how were the holidays?” Adam asked.

  Oh, yeah, now there was a question to make things better. He knew all about her family. Elle shot him a look that had him wincing. “Typical,” she said before drinking some beer.

  Adam looked like he was about to say something but drank some beer instead.

  After a long, awkward pause, Elle finally figured she was going to have to be the one to bring it up. “So why did you do it?” The question had barely left Elle’s mouth before more bubbled up in her head. Were Bella’s large breasts just too much to refuse? Had he enjoyed being with Bella more than her? It certainly looked like he had enjoyed himself. Had this been building up all last semester? She refused to let those questions escape.

  Adam stared at her for a moment before looking away. Elle watched him as he looked everywhere but at her. He swallowed hard several times.

  “I’m sitting here,” Elle finally said, waving her fingers at him. He was going to have to look her in the eye and lie if he was busy thinking one up.

  Adam looked directly at her. “I was drunk,” he said.

  “So?” That wasn’t going to cut it. “We’ve been drunk plenty of times. You’ve never…” Elle thought of the picture of him screwing her from behind and tried to get the visual out of her head. “… you’ve never done that.”

  Adam swallowed more beer. “We’ve had sex,” he said.

  Was he going to make her say it? “Not like that,” Elle insisted.

  Adam looked like he was about to jump out of his seat or fidget his way out of it. “It wasn’t anything serious! She doesn’t mean anything to me. We have plans, a future. I still want that.”

  They did have a plan. A good plan. Elle knew, however, that just like a mathematical model, plans were not infallible. Adam was no stranger to mathematical models, so she decided to approach things from that angle.

  “Think of a mathematical model,” Elle said. Adam’s eyebrows raised, but he didn’t say anything, so she continued. “All models rest on certain assumptions, right?”

  Adam nodded and swallowed more beer. He looked wary about where this conversation was headed.

  “And when you find out the assumptions you based your model on are violated, then the whole model comes into question, right?”

  Adam was beginning to look rather queasy as he nodded.

  “And then there are the variables in the model.” Elle heard her voice become stronger, steadier. She was on terra firma now. “If you don’t have the right variables or you don’t have them weighted correctly, then the results are inaccurate. The model is flawed.”

  Adam was still nodding as Elle looked at him expectantly. After some silence, he asked, “So where are you going with this?”

  Elle wanted to reach across the table and slap him for being dense if nothing else. “I’m saying,” she began, pausing to drink some beer, “maybe our model… is flawed in some way.”

  “No.” Adam shook his head with vigor for emphasis. “Our model is not flawed. This incident is just an outlier.”

  “I had certain… assumptions,” Elle replied.

  “Those assumptions are valid,” Adam insisted.

  Elle raised an eyebrow. Oh, really? She continued, “Those assumptions were violated.”

  “No! They… This was…an incongruity,” Adam insisted.

  “How can I know that?” Elle asked. She was proud of herself for s
taying calm and level-headed because there was something deeply unsettling about saying it out loud.

  Adam blinked, as if the words unsettled him, too. “We’ve known each other for three and a half years. We’ve been dating for over two years.”

  The server brought back their nachos. Neither one spared her, or the food, even a glance.

  Elle drank some beer, steeling herself for whatever he was going to say next. “Alcohol loosens inhibitions,” she began in a reasoned tone. “It doesn’t… create things.”

  Adam ran his fingers through his hair, rumpling it. “Look, before I knew what was happening, she was topless and… and straddling my lap…”

  Elle actually felt nauseated as the pictures flashed in her mind.

  “… I couldn’t get her off me!” Adam insisted.

  Then Elle just saw red. “Give me a fucking break!” she hissed. “What, she over powered you? Forced you to start sucking her nipple? Forced you to-”

  “Stop!” Adam cut her off, glancing around, even though no one was sitting nearby. “Just stop it. This isn’t helping anything.”

  Isn’t helping anything? For the first time in her life, Elle fought to keep herself seated in her chair to avoid strangling another human being. It was like those damn porno pictures were burned in her retinas. “What isn’t helping anything,” Elle snapped, lowering her voice as she leaned closer across the table, “is you fucking that bitch to begin with!”

  Adam’s head snapped back as if her words had punched him.

  Elle felt as if she was exhaling flames, but she kept her voice low. “Everything you’ve said has been bullshit. You were drunk? So the hell what? She forced you to fuck her against her will? How, exactly, does that work? I have to say, you didn’t look like you were doing anything against your will when you were humping her like a dog!”

  Adam’s mouth literally hung open in shock. They had fights, sure, but she had never lit into him like this before. Then again, he had never betrayed her trust before. She took a few deep breaths. It would be melodramatic to dump the plate of nachos on his head, not to mention childish. And why waste the nachos?

  “At the very least, be honest with me. Why did you do it?” she asked, her voice level.

  Adam’s mouth flapped open and shut like a fish. “Dammit, Elle, I- I don’t know. I was being stupid. What I do know is you’re the one I want to be with.”

  Elle didn’t know what she wanted to hear from Adam, not really, but his words didn’t do it for her. “How am I supposed to believe that? We’ve been drunk plenty of times. Are you telling me if I’m not around and you get drunk then you’re going to screw another woman?” A sudden thought occurred to her. “Has this happened before?”

  “No!” Adam practically leapt out of his chair. He glanced around at a few people who looked over and lowered his voice. “It has never happened before, and it never will again.”

  “How do you know? You’re still working with Bella.” The class was two semesters, so they had to see each other regularly. “You’re still partners.”

  Adam’s hair was practically standing on end after he ran his fingers through it yet again. “You know I can’t change partners, but it won’t happen again. I won’t let it.” He sounded earnest and looked her right in the eye as he spoke.

  Elle wanted to scream or snarl or… something. What the hell was she supposed to do with that?

  Adam gestured to the nachos. “Come on, let’s eat.” He took one of the two side dishes, heaped plenty of nachos on it, and gave it to her before making one for himself.

  Elle took a bite. These nachos were her favorite in the city, and she loved to eat them while drinking beer. She appreciated the crunch of the chips, the cheesiness, and the richness of the refried beans, but it wasn’t the same that night. It was like chewing on a gooey lump. After a few minutes of chewing she swallowed, grateful they didn’t stick in her throat.

  Adam didn’t look like he was enjoying the nachos any more than she was.

  “Maybe we should take a break,” Elle finally said.

  Adam blinked hard a few times. “I don’t want to take a break.”

  “I don’t want a boyfriend who cheats on me,” Elle countered. “And I have no reason to believe it won’t happen again.”

  Adam put his beer bottle down on the table with enough force to cause it to slosh up inside the bottle. “I’m telling you it won’t happen again,” he insisted.

  “But your word doesn’t mean anything!” Elle couldn’t keep herself from snapping at him. She found herself blinking as her vision went blurry for a moment. She still refused to cry. Not here. They went to a university with some 30,000 students: who knew how many of them had seen pictures of her boyfriend screwing another chick. She would not compound that by crying in public like a sad sack.

  “I have to earn your trust back; I get that.” Adam said. He reached out for her balled up fist on the table, but Elle snatched her hand back without thinking. After a pause, Adam went on. “I don’t want to be with Bella. I want to be with you. I don’t need a break to tell me that.”

  “Then why did you let it happen in the first place?” Elle couldn’t hide a slight tremor in her voice, but she was able to keep her vision clear as she looked at him.

  Adam slumped back in his chair. “I don’t know. If I’d been sober, this never would’ve happened.”

  “Being drunk doesn’t make you just screw any random chick,” Elle persisted.

  “It does when they’re half naked and crawl into your lap, pushing their tits in your face!” Adam took a swig of beer. “I’m a guy, Elle.”

  “You’re a guy.” Elle took a deep swallow of beer herself, focusing on the burn as it went down. If she were tipsy, she would be less likely to physically attack him, at any rate. She fixed him with a glare. “Give me a fucking break. You wouldn’t accept it if I fucked some guy just because he flashed his dick in my face.”

  Adam looked astonished. Elle couldn’t blame him; she didn’t typically talk like this at all. She was practically channeling Marni. When it became clear he wasn’t going to speak, Elle spoke again. “You’re attracted to her.”

  “Come on, Elle: Bella has more tits than brains,” Adam said.

  It wasn’t quite the resounding “no” he’d been offering earlier. When Elle swallowed the last of her beer, the buzz was painful in her throat and chest. “Maybe that doesn’t matter to you as much as you say it does,” she said.

  “Of course it matters-” Adam began, but Elle interrupted.

  “Alcohol loosens inhibitions. When your inhibition was loosened, you slept with her.” She looked him right in the eye. “Because you wanted to.”

  Adam shook his head as Elle stood up. She pushed her chair a little further back than anticipated and teetered for a moment. She wasn’t the best at holding her liquor. Adam stood up and reached out to steady her, but she backed away. “I’m good.”

  “Elle, sit down- we still have nachos left.” Adam gestured to the plate where, indeed, half the nachos were still there. Normally she wouldn’t leave a chip on the plate, but the thought of eating more made her feel queasy.

  “I’m done,” she said.

  Adam took a step towards her without touching her. “Elle, please- don’t leave. You’re still pissed, I can tell.”

  In more ways than one, Elle thought to herself. “There’s nothing left to say.”

  Adam reached for his wallet. “I’ll walk you home,” he said.

  “No- I’m okay. Stay and finish the nachos,” Elle said. She didn’t need him walking her home. She wasn’t that drunk.

  Adam looked like he wanted to argue but thought better of it. “Is this it?” he asked.

  Elle wished to hell she knew the answer to that question. “I don’t know.” She picked up her backpack and left, trying to keep her walk steady on her way out the bar.

  Chapter 7

  When Elle got back to the apartment, it was to find Marni and Tina gorging on coney island hot dogs.
Tina was all about healthy living: she only ate a little red meat, low carbs, and did yoga daily (but only dragged Elle to yoga practice twice a week), but her one vice was coney island hot dogs. Marni had many vices and was happy to encourage this one for Tina.

  “So how did the ‘data collection’ go?” Tina asked after she swallowed a mouthful.

  It was at moments like this that Elle wished she lived alone. She needed time to digest her encounter with Adam at Bubba’s. But she knew her friends wouldn’t let it rest. “He doesn’t know,” she said.

  “Doesn’t know what?” Tina asked as Marni rolled her eyes.

  “Why he decided to ride that bitch like his new prized pony,” Marni supplied.

  Tina looked to Elle for confirmation, and she nodded. Her throat was starting to feel a little thick, so she grabbed a full water bottle out of the kitchen before plopping down on the bean bag chair across from the futon where Marni and Tina were indulging. She was as ready as she would be for the inquisition.

  “That’s all that happened?” Tina asked.

  Elle took a deep swig of water before answering. “He’s sorry. This was an outlier-”

  “Outlier?” Tina echoed

  Marni snorted again. “So his little head hasn’t completed fogged his big head.”

  “- he has no desire to touch those gigantic tits again, and he doesn’t know why he did it once except he was shit-faced drunk,” Elle finished. She focused on her water bottle, hating to see the look of sympathy on Tina’s face. Sympathy felt too much like pity, and she despised being pitied. It took her back to all of her teachers’ and friends’ parents’ faces when neither of her parents showed up at some school event or other. She may be an adult now, but it wasn’t any better.

  “So what do you make of this new… data?” Tina loved to poke fun at her informatics ways, but Elle knew it was just in good fun. She made plenty of fun of her new age ways, too. It got a smile out of her.