Deep End: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (2 page)

I nod.

“
All right
,” says Dave, shaking himself a lit
tle, trying to sober up
. “Let’s do it. Let’s fucking
do
it!”

“You’re the best reporter we’ve ever had, Allison,” says Professor
Beaumont
. “Not to mentio
n the most competent editor-in-
chief ever. In all my years, I’ve never seen anyone else like you. Your articles are already more sophisticated
than
the vast majorit
y of the stuff that comes out of
the regular mains
tream press. Plus,
almost ten of
your articles have been picked up by the larger newspapers
. That’s almost unheard of for a student writer.”

I smile, trying to look modest, but
Beaumont
knows me too well.

“Now I know you’re
hoping to go work for The Journal
when you’re done here.”

“I think
The Journal
would be good. I really want to be an investigative reporter. You know, being out there in the field and everything. I want to be in the thick of it. I really want to be exposing corruption… You know, serious stuff. There’s not much of a chance to do it here on the
campus
paper.”

“Well, you’ve done a great job. I mean
,
you exposed the use of old food products in the
cafeteria
. The
administration
is still upset about all that.”

I laugh. “They should be,” I say.

Professor Beaumont is probably my best
friend here on
campus. I’ve always been so focused on my
studies and my journalism work for the campus paper that I’ve never had much time for friends. Most of the other girls are just worried about hooking up with the jocks, and about looking pretty, or being liked by their
sorority
sisters. I guess you could say I’ve been sort of a loner. But it’s just that I’ve always been mature for my age, and hanging around adults seems more natural. Beaumont and I see eye to eye on a lot of issues, and even though he’s the advisor to the student paper, he feels more like my peer sometimes.

“The thing about it, Allison
..
. Well, let me start again. Look, I know you’re going to be asking me for a recommendation.”

I nod my head. He’s my advisor after all. Who else would I ask a recommendation from?

“And like I said
you’ve
been doing an
excellent
job. Better than any other student ever. But I never lie on my
recommendations
, not even just a little bit,
and that’s why my letter will carry
more weight than from any other
journalism
professor, practically in the whole country. An
d in truth, I don’t think you’ve
yet reached
your
full potential. And i
f you want to work for The Journal
, you
need
to come in ready to go, already developed
into a full-fledged
journalist.”

“I’m not fully formed yet?” I say, my mouth hanging open a little in shock. “I thought you said I
w
as doing a
great job. What in the world am
I doing wrong?”

“It’s not that you’re doing much wrong,” says
Beaumont
, leaning back in
his
desk chair, and putting his
corduroy
-jacketed arms behind his head, as if he’s getting ready to give me some sage advice. I didn’t think Beaumont was like this. I
didn’t
think he was like the other professors, who are always trying to act like they’re
giving sage advice.

“Then what the hell do you want me to do?” I say, my tone of voice growing angry, despite my best efforts to
contain
it.

“
Look, Allison, I’m just trying to get you to be the best reporter you can be. You’re
graduating
in six months, and it’s
time
to take the next step. Being a
journalist
means you sometimes have to investigate
things
that aren’t your…personal interests,
things
that you don’t necessarily ha
ve a personal interest in. For instance
, our college is running on swimming, as you know. Many colleges get their money through football, soccer,
those
kinds of sports. We’ve never been that kind of college. But we’ve won nationals in swimming four years running, which is completely unheard of.”

“What’s your point?” I say, my gaze narrowing, my tone sounding harsh, even though I’m trying to keep in
neutral
. I don’t like the way
Beaumont
is lecturing me like this. We’ve always been more like friends. Sure, he was a big deal back in the day. He worked as an
investigative
reporter for ten
years
, exposing some of the biggest political corruption stories of the decade, before retiring to become a professor. But that doesn’t mean he knows everything. I’m the one who’s running the student paper after all, not him. I’d like to think that a
fter two years being editor–
in-
chief
, I know what I’m doing. I know where the stories are.

“You run the student paper for the college, and the college
essentially
runs on swimming and swimming money. You
haven’t
done a single story on swimming, or the industry behind it.”

“You want me to do a sports
story
? I thought you were always telling me to do
serious
stories. You’ve even made fun of the sports readers.” My face was growing hot and probably red.

Beaumont
gives me a piercing look, as well as a sneaky smile. “You’ve always been a good listener,
Allison
. But I don’t think you’re seeing what I’m saying, the message behind the words. Remember, in
journalism
there’s always a story behind the story.”

Suddenly, it’s like a light bulb clicks in my head. I smile too, a
big smile. I realize what
Beaumont’s
saying.

“I want you to go out of this school with a bang, Allison. There’
s a big story here, and it’s not the typical press releases that the school makes you publish about the upcoming swimming meets. I know you
hate
doing those, and don’t
even bother rewriting
them
. You just print what the administration
gives
you.”

“I never could get into sports,” I say, my smile growing, because I realize what
Beaumont’s
about to tell me.

“
Me neither,” says Beaumont. “But you know what I’m about to say, judging by
the smile on your face. I want
you to do some real investigative reporting. Get close to the swim team, and find out their dirty secrets. Publish those secrets with the ruthless writing style you’ve been cultivating all these years. The college will never be the same, and you’ll graduate with fire works. If you do this story right, every big paper in the US will be clamoring to hire you.”

“Won’t I get in trouble? What if I find out something really bad? I don’t think the college is going to look t
o
o kindly on me if I expose something really nasty about their prize Division
I sports team. Will I even be
able
to
graduate?”

“Since I’m not only the
advisor
to the paper, but your regular
senior
advisor, I’m the one with the
authority
to sign off on everything, including your graduation. You’re not going to have any problems graduating, not with me on
your
side. Anyway, your GPA is what…”

“3.9,” I say. “Would have been 4.0, except for that general gym class all the freshmen have to take.”

A
3.9 doesn’t
surprise Beaumont in the slightest.
He doesn’t
bat an eyelid.
He
knows
me too well.

“Won’t you be in danger of
losing your job, Professor Beau
mont,” I say
. “I mean, knowing me, I’m going
to get the dirtiest story I can find…I’m sure th
ere’s something there. I just h
ave a feeling that the
swim team
doesn’t play clean.”

“I’m tenured,” says Beaumont, leaning further back in his chair. “Now go get them, Allison. Use everything we’ve gone over in our journalism classes.”

“Thanks, Professor Beaumont,” I say, getting up to leave, grabbing my library bag that’s stuffed full of books.

“Oh, Allison, one more thing,” says Beaumont, as I’m walking out the door. “If I were you, I’d focus on
one swimmer in
particular
. He’s the one they’re always talking about
, and he’s the main reason the swim team’s won nationals the last for years.”

“What’s his name?”

“I forget his real
name, but they call him Anchor.
”

“Anchor?” I say with some
disgust
. “Sounds like a typical idiot jock nickname.”

Beaumont
just smiles know
in
gly
as I leave his office, practically tilting all the way over to one side, from the weight of all my books.

As I walk
through the campus, I think over all the work I have coming up. The school work won’t be too much of a problem, but I do need to devote some time to it, which is going to be tricky, since this new swimmer project is going to require not only a lot of planning, but a lot of ‘on scene,’ time.

I know myself, and I know that if I’m going to do it, I’m going to have to do it right. That’s just the way I am.
I’ll be spending a lot of time at swim meets, and probably hanging around the swimmers, to get a feel for who they really are. Professor
Beaumont
is almost certainly right—there’s no way there isn’t a juicer and dirtier story here than the image that the college wants to promote, which is squeaky clean and painfully boring.

The adrenaline is already
racing
through me. It’s the thrill of the hunt. As much as I hate sports guys, and sports in general, this is going to be my first chance to
do a real piece of investigative
journalism. Not only will this ensure my place at one of the top papers in the country, after graduation,
but
it will help prepare me for what’s to come.

Ever since I was a little girl, I
’ve
imagined myself working abroad in far away lands, filled with people speaking strange languages, wearing strange clothes. I knew I’d be there to do something
good,
to help people by exposing the corruption that as a kid I already knew
existed
around the world.

This swimming expose
is going to be a chance to get out some of my frustrations at jocks and sports guys, and also the whole college sports institution.
I think
of my interaction with those swimming “bros,” yesterday night, as I was walking back to the library. They looked so
incredibly
stupid, so moronic, yet so caught up with themselves and how cool and tough they were. I think they ended up fighting each other as I was leaving, probably trying to impress me.

I’m aware of the fact that one of them was hot. Quite hot actually, but what I’m acutely aware of is that I’m not letting myself
really
be aware of that fact. It’s like I have something blocking my desires. I know on an intellectual level that he’s hot, and that I’m perhaps just a little bit attracted to him, but I’m not letting myself feel his hotness, or feel my desire. At least I’m aware that I’m caught up in my intellectualizations of everything, rather than my emotions. Anyway, I’ll have time to sort that all out once I get out of college and get my first rea
l job, hopefully for The Journal
, if this expose piece on the
swimmers goes well. I’m imagining
something really big, really dirty, exposing these college jocks for what they really are. I mean, do they really think they have any kind of future after college?

“Holy shit,” I say. I can’t believe it. I really can’t believe
it
. “Are you serious?”

“Very much so, Mr.
Belver. “We’d love to have you on the training team starting this coming summer, right when you graduate. We’re just going to send out another scout at the next meet to make sure you’re
still
swimming as excellently as when we last saw you… And just so you know, the deal isn’t completely sealed. The scout is going to need to see that yo
u’ve made some improvements on
the finer points of your form, like what we talked about last time.”