“Another beer, Todd?” the waitress asked.
“A close analysis of the data says, yes, Roslyn,” he responded, holding up his empty beer mug with one hand and a stack of papers with the other.
Roslyn smiled, because she was a good waitress and because she genuinely liked Todd and found him that rare combination of friendly and harmless.
“Not driving, are you?” she asked.
“Nope. Sarah and Mark are coming by later. They just don’t know it yet. One of ‘em will get me home alive,” Todd said.
“You think they’re just sitting around waiting for your call all the time? That Mark seems like the type to have a family or at least a life,” Roslyn pointed out.
“Funny. They’ll come when I tell them what I’ve found,” Todd said, pointing to the papers covering the table in front of him. Roslyn looked down, but could make nothing of what she saw, except for perhaps a paper airplane, if he asked. He did not.
“I’ll get your beer,” she said and left him to his grounded papers.
Todd grabbed a handful of peanuts from a bowl that never seemed to empty no matter how many handfuls he grabbed. Again, Roslyn was a good waitress. He pushed the pile of paper around until he had one sheet centered in front of him. It was an Excel spreadsheet and something was not right with the numbers it contained. He smiled and took a sip of the beer that had magically appeared while he’d been arranging papers. He stared closely at the page he’d pulled out for a minute just to make sure he wasn’t seeing things or that he’d had more beers than he thought.
No, this was it. He pulled his phone from his pocket, checked recent calls, and tapped on Mark’s name. It rang five times before Mark picked up. Todd looked at the time and swore to himself.
“Mark, hey. I’m sorry. I guess it’s probably bedtime for the kids,” he apologized.
“It’s alright,” Mark replied. “I was on the third reading of Scrambled Eggs Super and I think they’ve got the ending pretty much figured out by now. What’s up?”
“I’m sitting at Molly’s—”
“Of course you are,” Mark interrupted.
“Funny. But anyway, I’m sitting here going over model data for Carl. I went back all the way to formation and I’ve got some strange numbers that are literally not adding up. Can you come over?”
“Now?”
“Yeah. I think it’s important,” Todd said.
“Are you calling Sarah?”
“As soon as I hang up with you. I thought you might need a little more time to get away with the kids and all.”
“You’re very thoughtful. I have a wife too, you know, and she enjoys my company.”
“Is that what she tells you?”
“I’ll be there in fifteen. Good luck with Sarah. She had a date, you know.” Mark hung up.
“Shit.”
Well this is important, too.
He found her number and typed it in. After seven rings it went to voicemail. He didn’t leave a message. Before he could put the phone away, though, it rang.
“Todd, what do you want?” The annoyance in Sarah’s voice came through the phone very clearly.
“Oh, hey. How’s the date?” he asked.
“Did you seriously call me to ask how my date was going, dad?” she asked sarcastically.
Todd decided to skip the apologies and go straight to wise old man. “I’m going to guess it’s going well or else your attitude wouldn’t be dialed up to eleven.”
She sighed through the phone. “It is going very well. Why are you calling?”
“Got something in the data,” he teased.
“Seriously?” she asked. Todd actually felt sorry for whoever the woman was with Sarah, because she was about to have her girlfriend stolen away by a sixty-year old fat guy with a table full of spreadsheets. Oh well.
“Sure am. I don’t know what it means yet, but there is definitely something wrong,” he said. “Can you come over to Molly’s?”
“Now?”
“Yeah.”
“Hang on a minute.”
He heard low voices followed by louder voices. Sarah was back a minute later.
“I’ll be right over.”
“Sorry to ruin your date,” Todd said.
“Not ruined. Delayed.”
Fifteen minutes later Mark and Sarah walked into the bar together and came directly over to Todd’s booth and slid into the seats across from him.
“This place is kind of a pit, you know. Why do you always come here?” Mark asked.
“Nice to see you, too. I always come here, because I always come here. Roslyn brings me beers whenever I ask and there’s a magic bowl of peanuts that never get empty,” Todd said.
“You know that’s what every bar is like, don’t you?” Sarah pointed out. “It’s actually pretty much the definition of a bar. That’s why they ask you for money at the end of the night.”
“Are you through insulting my social life?” Todd asked.
“I guess. Depends on whether your bad data was worth dragging us over here.”
Todd smiled. He called out to Roslyn to bring his friends a round of drinks and picked up one of the pieces of paper and said, “What do you guys know about buoys?”
***
Tripp sat alone in the conference room staring at his phone on the table in
front of him. Gale was late. This call had not been on her schedule until late
last night when an urgent request had come from the Act of Todd threesome in Florida. Tripp had moved everything he
could to clear Gale’s schedule, but she’d had a meeting with the President’s
Chief of Staff that was unmovable, especially since Jack Franklin was still
pretty annoyed Gale stole Tripp from him. Gale assured him that Jack would get
over it eventually, but if his failed efforts to even get a return phone call
when he tried to move her meeting this morning were any indication,
“eventually” was not now. And Tripp worried it might be never. If Gale got
fired or decided to just give up this job she clearly didn’t need, Tripp was
screwed. That was clear even though he really had no choice in the matter back
when Gale kidnapped him to serve as her personal assistant and, as he’d come to
realize, approximately seven other jobs, including driver, scheduler,
researcher, and “person who gets in the way so she can leave through a back
door.”
The screen sprang to life at the end of the room.
“Good morning,” said Tripp. “I’m sorry, but the Administrator is running a little late. She’s meeting with the Chief of Staff.”
“Damn, it would have been nice to have caught her before she had that meeting,” said Mark.
Tripp was about to respond when he realized Mark had been talking to his two colleagues.
“Do you know how long she’ll be? Should we reschedule?” asked Todd.
“No, she said to wait for her. She promised to get out of there as fast as she could,” Tripp responded, perhaps more honestly than was strictly prudent. Gale was rubbing off on him and not always in a good way.
“So, what’s your name and what do you do?” asked Sarah in a not unkind tone of voice.
Tripp was not offended. It was usually the first question anyone in Washington, DC asked upon meeting a stranger. DC was a place where what one does is equated with what one is, so getting that established up front can save a lot of time in pointless conversation with people who can’t help you do your job or get you a better one.
“I’m the Administrator’s personal aide, chief of staff, driver, scheduler, a few other things. She fired a lot of people when she took over. The org chart is a little confusing. My name’s Tripp.”
“Cool.” Sarah grinned. “Though I could have sworn the Administrator called you by another name when you were down here.”
“That’s possible. It’s a point of contention,” Tripp admitted.
“So, should we start without her?” Todd asked.
“No,” Tripp said more harshly than he intended. Good God, did these people think he had power, was someone that could just step in for the Administrator, or even more terrifying, for Gale Richards specifically, a woman with her own plane. Then it hit him. He did have power. Not a lot, but not none. And that was an interesting development in the evolution of Tripp from desperate volunteer to guy who people asked if they should “start.”
“‘No,’ what?” asked Gale, sweeping through the door from the hallway.
“We were just waiting for you,” Tripp said quickly, and Gale eyed him with a look that told him she knew. She smiled slightly, then cleared her throat. Tripp jumped out of the chair at the head of the table and took his familiar position to the side.
“Good morning,” said Gale. “Sorry I’m late. Why the urgent call?”
“Mind you we still have work to do, but we think we can cross off one of the unlikely scenarios,” Todd said excitedly.
“Which one?” Gale asked.
“The sci-fi one. We don’t think anyone’s come up with alien technology or something so crazy it may as well be alien technology. It’s a data error,” Todd said.
“I thought you told me all the data was solid,” Gale pointed out.
“Yeah, well that’s the thing. It is. The models worked perfectly. Well, as good as the models ever work. My point is they churned out reasonable predictions, up until they didn’t,” Todd said cryptically.
“Will this call start to make sense anytime soon?” Gale asked.
“What do you know about buoys?” Todd asked.
Gale looked to the side at Tripp, who shook his head. “Not a goddamn thing,” she said.
“Well, you’re about to,” started Todd.
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