The Brunch Job

“Parker, are you busy Sunday morning?” Sophie asked as she strolled through the main part of the office, planner open in her hand. She thought it charmingly old-fashioned white knowing it was difficult to hack pen and ink.

“Don’t think so. What’s up?”

“I thought we’d take Eliot’s new girlfriend to brunch,” Sophie smiled. “If you’d like to go meet her.”

Eliot had been waiting for this bomb to drop for days, and he felt like he aged roughly 10 years every hour it didn’t happen. Somehow, the conversation he’d been anticipating since Saturday night did not sound better while he was in the room.

Parker brightened like a Christmas light while Eliot started to sympathize with the Grinch.

“I don’t need you to check her out for me, Soph,” he said, knowing that wouldn’t help. “Hardison’s file looks like a damn phone book–”

“You’ve finished reading it?” Sophie asked. Her tone implied she didn’t think that was likely.

“She’s a history professor,” he ignored the implication because he had not, in fact, finished reading it. “I just don’t think there’s anything to worry about. So if you’re doing this on my account—“. He gave up; she wasn’t listening.

“Can we go to the place with the thing?” Parker asked hopefully. Sophie puzzled over the question for a moment before realizing that it would be much simpler to let Parker make the reservation, otherwise she could stand here all day naming wrong things.

“You make the reservations for three people,” she advised. “At 11, I think.”

“Shouldn’t you call to ask her first?” Eliot suggested. Sophie gave a light-hearted laugh; it was the kind she gave marks usually right before he assaulted them from their blind side.

There was no way he could even warn her, he thought. Not that he’d know what on earth to tell her.

Ophelia had been delighted to receive a call from Sophie, asking her to join herself and another friend for brunch next weekend. She was kind enough to name the restaurant, which gave Ophelia plenty of time to look it up on Instagram to see how the Sunday brunch crowd dressed. Eliot might not notice or care whether she dressed appropriately; Sophie Deveraux would. Although it was a bit early to be meeting his friends, she knew it absolutely would not hurt to make a good impression on them.

She held up two floral print dresses.

“Which one, Devil? The too blue? Or the too green?” He cocked his head to look at her for a moment, while she hoped he had developed the ability to speak. For the eighth time today, he had not. She turned back to the mirror and wondered if a better idea would be to just go buy something new. Not that either of these had seen a lot of wear. “You’re right,” she said. “The too green at least matches the hat. Is it too much? It’s too much, isn’t it?”

Devil just smiled, hopeful that she’d remember there was chicken in the kitchen and they could split it if she’d just be done dithering. Although he didn’t really mind if she dithered; they had some of their best chats when she was indecisive.

Eliot and Hardison sat across the street from the restaurant in the van, listening.

“Does Parker know you bugged her hat?” Eliot asked again. “Did you know before today she owned a hat?”

“I think it’s one of Sophie’s, and I’m never really sure what she knows. Guess we’ll find out.” He waited a minute to ask his next question. “Are you sure this was a good idea?”

“It wasn’t my idea at all,” Eliot sighed.

Sophie had arranged that she and Parker would get to the restaurant first.

“You can tell a lot about someone by whether or not they’re prompt,” she told Parker. “And how they treat the staff when they’re asking about a party that’s been seated.”

“What does it mean if she’s exactly on time,” Parker asked.

“It means she’s nervous as hell.”

The nervous as hell girl arrived three and a half minutes early, hoping she didn’t look desperate. The hostess, who got paid to be friendly, smiled to the extent she was able at this point on a Sunday.

“I’m here with the Deveraux party,” the girl said quietly. “I’m not sure if they’re here. I’m early. I didn’t see them when I came in, but it was supposed to be a party of three.  I mean, right now there are just two of them and I’m the third..” And she was babbling. The hostess had been paid well by the Deveraux party, both for a good table near the window and to seat them upon arrival even though the restaurant was crazy busy and they did not have their entire party together when they arrived.

Sophie didn’t even bother glancing at her watch as she observed the hostess bringing Ophelia to the table.

“Remember, Parker,” she said quietly, “Ophelia is not a mark and this is not an interrogation. It’s brunch to meet Eliot’s new girlfriend.”

“Sophie,” she huffed, annoyed. “I know how to eat brunch.”

“No stabbing, and no tasering.” Sophie said as she rose. A small reminder couldn’t possibly hurt. In the van, Eliot facepalmed so hard that Hardison was afraid he’d leave a mark.

“Ophelia!” Sophie exclaimed. The girl was prepared for the hug this time.

“I hope you haven’t been waiting long,” she apologized. “Parking here is insane.”

“We’ve been here hardly any time at all. Please allow me to introduce my friend Parker? This is Ophelia Mason.” Internally, Sophie braced herself to be corrected and told she was actually Doctor Mason; letting out her first sigh of relief when Ophelia didn’t correct her.

“Doctor,” Eliot said in the car. “She’s Dr. Mason.”

“It’s lovely to meet you, Parker,” Ophelia said, extending a gloved hand.

“I’m a spy,” Parker announced gleefully. “I can’t talk about it.”

The groan could be heard for three cars on either side of the van.

Ophelia blinked in surprise, but was determined not to let it show so early; they didn’t even have menus yet.

“That must be fascinating work. I’m sorry I won’t be able to hear about it,” Ophelia offered.

“What do you do?” Parker went on. “Are you a spy? Or a model? Or a model pretending to be a spy?!”

If Sophie noticed Ophelia had frozen halfway through pulling off a glove, she didn’t mention it.

“A pitcher of mimosas for the table?” she interjected quietly.

“Yes, please,” Ophelia responded.

“I knew you’d like champagne!” Parker enthused. Sophie, who was of course impeccably dressed in a fashionably slim dress, examined Parker’s hat speculatively.

“Excuse me, Parker. You seem to have picked up a bug.” Sophie plucked some small object from Parker’s hat, dropped it into a water glass, which she then deposited on the tray of a passing waiter. Across the street, a van roared out of the parking lot.

“I do like champagne,” Ophelia said, attempting to answer Parker’s questions. “But I’m not anything as exciting as a model or a spy. I’m a history professor, and I’m also working on a novel.”

“A spy novel?”

“It is, in fact,” the professor nodded. “But not about spies now. It’s about spies in World War II.”

“How marvelous,” Sophie said. “Is it fact? Or fiction?”

“Definitely fiction, but with real people in it. Like Ian Fleming. I’m writing him as a prototype James Bond.”

“Eliot said you have a typewriter,” Parker went on. “Why?”

“I like it,” Ophelia said, almost apologetically. “The typewriter belonged to my grandmother. She was a journalist during World War II, covering the war for the Savannah Morning News. I like using it, so I updated it a little.”

“How little?” Sophie asked casually. Now that she had context for Eliot’s question, it still didn’t make any sense.

“Well, a lot, actually. I replaced the roller with a keypad and installed a USB port and a hard drive. But it still sounds like a typewriter. I audited a bunch of classes at the school to learn how to do all that. Plus I still needed help from a couple of the graduate students.” This was for Parker’s benefit, because she looked so curious.

“You, like, went through their paperwork to make sure they weren’t embezzling?” Her tone conveyed to Ophelia that she thought this was very strange and to Sophie that she was deeply suspicious.

Sophie sat back with her drink to see how the new girl would respond. Parker was a genius, just not the type of genius an academic might recognize. She observed that Ophelia’s expressions flitted through confused and distressed before settling into realization. How interesting, she thought, that contempt or unkindness never appeared.

“I’m sorry, I should have known you wouldn’t use “audited” the same way. I meant audited as in I sat through the class but didn’t get graded on it. I didn’t have to take the tests. I traded the professor some research on Marconi for a book he’d like to write.”

Benefit of the doubt, Sophie noted. She approved.

“I didn’t know audited meant that too,” Parker mumbled.

“I’m not sure why on earth you would unless you’re a desperate student,” Ophelia apologized. “I should have said it differently. I forget that everyone doesn’t live around college students all the time.”

“Have you been here?” Sophie asked before Parker could pursue that topic any further. “I hear the omelets are divine.”

The rest of their brunch passed without incident, for which everyone was pretty openly relieved. Except Ophelia, who could only hope she’d made a good impression but really wouldn’t know until she saw Eliot again. Unless, of course, she never saw him again.

Sophie found Eliot, who was definitely not hiding from her in the Leverage gym, the next day. He hadn’t realized she had access to it, but the possibility existed she had acquired access as recently as 10 minutes ago.

“The bug was very obvious,” she said.

“It was Hardison’s idea,” he grumbled. He was in no hurry to hear Sophie’s assessment that he hadn’t asked for and didn’t care about anyway. Sophie was surprised his tongue wasn’t hanging out, because she clearly saw that he needed Sophie to at least not hate Ophelia.

“And there were at least six better places to hide it on her hat alone if you hadn’t wanted me to see it.”

“Tech is his thing,” Eliot answered, punching the bag again.

“You can relax,” she offered. “I’m not here to say anything bad about your shiny new girlfriend. She’s really quite sweet.”

“Not what you expected? I got that,” he said. She noticed that he seemed relieved, though, even if he claimed he didn’t care. Which, now that she thought about it, he hadn’t said at all.

“She wasn’t, really. But I liked her a great deal, and Parker adores her. Although she might ask you a lot of questions about Parker later, so good luck with that.”

He gave a grunt of the non-committal type.

She waited to see what he’d say next, if anything. Clearly, he had something on his mind, and if he was going to confide in anyone it would be her.

“Are we going to be seeing more of—“

“I’m going to marry her, Soph,” he interjected, sounding angry about it.

“You’ve been out with her twice!” she protested. “What do you mean you’re going to marry her?”

He stopped the swinging bag with one hand before turning to glare at her.

“You got a problem with that?”

“You have been out with her twice,” Sophie enunciated. “And you won’t even tell me what you did on your last date. Is this her idea?” She’d seemed so…not a likely candidate to want to jump into marriage with someone she barely knew, although it had been obvious she really liked the Eliot Spencer she knew. Sophie did not speculate on how closely Ophelia’s version of Eliot Spencer resembled the version Sophie knew.

“No. It’s all mine.”

“Have you told her?” He couldn’t have. He couldn’t possibly, and Sophie knew it. Ophelia had been keen to make a good impression on his friends, but Sophie doubted very much she’d be able to hide if Eliot had asked her to marry him. She’d been happy, but not radiantly, overly so. Not like a woman who was harboring this secret. She had, however, seemed exactly like a nervous girlfriend on an audition with his friends.

“Can’t,” he shrugged. “It’s too soon and she’ll think I’m insane.”

Reluctantly, and with more than a little distaste, she took a seat on the battered sofa and patted the empty seat next to her. Eliot slowly pulled off his gloves before accepting her invitation. He seemed both wary and resigned and loaded for a bear of an argument.

“Do you want to tell me about this second date now?” She shifted to face him, crossing her feet at the ankles.

“She, uh…she invited me to a thing at her job,” he started. “And told me it wasn’t going to be any fun. Which, she was right. It wasn’t. But then we went and grabbed a bite to eat—“

“Where?” Sophie asked.

“This place she knew about,” he said vaguely, his attention on unwrapping the tape from his hands. “They sell chili dogs. Then we went to Powell’s.”

She waited. And waited. He seemed stuck.

“The bookstore?” she prompted.

“Yeah,” he nodded. “The big one. That was her idea too.”

While it didn’t surprise Sophie at all that Ophelia would like Powell’s, she was surprised indeed that Eliot had gone for it. As far as she knew, he hadn’t stepped foot in it the entire time they’d been here. For that matter, she would have bet he’d never spent much recreational time in any bookstore anywhere in the world.

“What did you—“

“I don’t wanna talk about it yet, Soph,” he said quietly. “Maybe later, but not now.”

She could wait him out.

“Come on,” she coaxed, poking him gently in the ribs. “You have to give me something. Did you like it? Hate it? What?”

“I’ve never had a date like that before,” he said. “I don’t think I ever will again. I mean, if I mess this up and let her get away. I can’t let that happen. So I’m gonna marry her.”

“You’re serious,” she realized. “This isn’t a game?”

“I’m dead serious,” he said, finally looking her in the eye.

She frowned in concentration.

“What on earth did she do to you?” she asked, knowing that the answer could be, at best, unsettling.

“She read to me.” He sounded like he didn’t understand it himself. “One of her favorite books.”

In a million years, Sophie couldn’t begin to guess what a history professor’s favorite book would be, and Eliot didn’t seem to be very forthcoming with a title either. She blamed herself for not following up on their last job, but she honestly thought “I’m reading” had been a metaphor on his part.

“And I think for a while, maybe we were actually flying over the Sahara.  You ever hear somebody describe something so well that you feel it? Like, you know exactly what it sounded like, and how the inside of the plane smelled like gas and how it’s hard to tell up from down when you’re flying at night? That’s what she made it sound like, and all she used was a book.”

“Oh. My.”

“You still got a problem?” he asked, but with more trepidation this time. “Because if you think this is a stupid idea, she probably will too.”

Sophie knew she needed to proceed cautiously. A hitter who’d fallen tail over teakettle was unpredictable at best.

“Of course I don’t think it’s stupid, but I think you need to give this some time,” she counseled. “Really get to know her first. Cook her a meal, find out what kind of movies she likes. Let her find out what it’s like being in a relationship with a man who travels frequently. I will help you however I can, but promise me you won’t do anything rash, okay?”

“I gotta think for a while,” he growled as he tossed the wadded up tape into a garbage can. “I’ll be back later.”

“Do I need to know where you’re going?” She wasn’t keeping tabs on him, but it would be useful to know which jurisdictions he might drive through.

“The challenger’s got a full tank of gas. I’m gonna drive til it runs out. Maybe Canada. Maybe Montana. I don’t know.”

“Have a meal or something,” she advised. “At least text me if you’re going to be over night. Anything else I should know?”

“I might fight a moose,” he answered. She stared at the closed door, wondering how one would even warn a moose he was coming.