Unfaithful - Natalie Barelli Page 0,65
about perfect numbers and how together they form a club, to which weird numbers do not belong. I show them some amicable numbers, not to be confused with friendly numbers or, their relations, sociable numbers. I introduce cousin primes and good and happy primes and close this chapter with betrothed numbers, also known as quasi-amicable numbers.
“Whoever said mathematics wasn’t sexy clearly never studied number theory.”
They laugh. As an introduction, it was good. I can tell. People are quiet, they’re taking notes, the ones I can see when I shield the light with one hand are smiling. Then I spot Geoff and Mila in the front row whispering to each other and it throws me. I wish I hadn’t seen them. I take a sip of water and click the mouse. The next slide introduces the meat of my lecture and is titled, What is the Pentti-Stone Conjecture?
When my phone buzzes on the lectern in front of me I glance at it without thinking. It’s a text with a thumbnail. I’m about to look away when I see the word. WHORE. I feel a sudden tightening of my chest as I swipe my thumb over it.
The room is silent. They’re all waiting for me, but I can’t move. I can’t take my eyes off the picture which now fills the screen of my phone. I didn’t recognize it at first. I didn’t recognize me. But it is me, lying back on a dark grey carpet, my arm flung loosely over my eyes. I’m naked, although you can only see down to my waist, but my breasts are exposed, large, indecently filling up the screen. There’s a murmur through the audience and I look up finally, and for a moment I forget why I’m standing here. Then my phone buzzes again.
Enjoy your next slide. I know I will!
I slap down the laptop screen and turn around, looking up. It’s still the previous slide. What is the Pentti-Stone Conjecture? but I panic, lift my laptop and yank out the lead.
The screen above me is blue, with an error message in the center.
No signal.
There’s a rustle of activity offstage and the technician comes forward.
“What’s going on?” he whispers. But I can barely breathe as I scan the faces looking for Ryan, except everything looks distorted, like I’m looking through thick, swirly glass. I hear murmuring.
“Let me help,” the technician whispers. He picks up the lead and starts to plug the laptop back in.
“No!” I snatch it from him. “Just leave it,” I hiss. It’s like I’m in a nightmare; I’m in a scene from a horror movie. I’m almost surprised not to have pig’s blood drop on top of my head.
In the front row the dean looks like he’s having an apoplexy. The technician looks around, confused.
“I can fix it,” he says quietly.
“I don’t want you to,” I reply, just as quietly. He looks up at the screen. By now I’m hyperventilating. “I’ll keep going, leave it. Please go. Please.”
He retreats offstage. Someone backstage asks him something and he opens his hands in a nothing-I-can-do gesture. I turn back to the audience. My gaze lands on Mila: she’s waiting, like everyone else, a small smile on her lips.
“When Alex first pointed out the connection between…” I stop abruptly. Did I just say Alex’s name? It’s the photo, it’s thrown me. I can’t concentrate. The word pulses in my brain. Whore. The dean looks puzzled. They all do.
I close my eyes, picture my children. Pretend they’re here, in the audience.
“You know what?” Miraculously, it works. “I don’t need slides. I don’t need prompts either. Because this solution doesn’t need a lecture. This solution, it’s a revelation. It’s a story. And I’m going to tell it to you.”
I take a breath. I’ve got them again, my audience. I can tell. I feel like I’ve been walking a tightrope and I lost my balance but I didn’t fall. Now I am pumping with adrenaline and the other side is so close, I can almost touch it.
“I also want to begin this, um, second part of my talk by dedicating it to Alex Brooks. Alex was a talented student at Locke Weidman and he was an inspiration to many, myself included.” I start to pace the length of the stage. “I’d like to say the solution came to me in an Archimedes-like moment, but unfortunately my flash of revelation was not so much a moment as an eternity. You could say it snuck up on me over a