“I’m not very hungry,” I say. “Don’t go to any trouble…”
Harbi ignores my comment and leads me to the largest room of the Dig House, which functions as a work space as well as a dining hall. “Please make yourself at home.” Leaving me behind, he shuffles toward the tiny kitchen, his rubber sandals scratching along the tile floor. Under the dome of mud brick is the same table where we ate all our meals, the wood still scarred and spotted. But it’s what’s different that takes my breath away. Gone are the rolled sheaves of Mylar and ragged stacks of manila folders and papers. Instead, a jigsaw puzzle of desks on the other side of the room is covered with computers—cables snaking like sea monsters and twined around each other, rigged into surge protectors that balance precariously, straining to reach a wall outlet. There are tablets charging and two impressive digital cameras. On the far wall is a giant printed rendering of the complete epigraphic copy of the colossus-hauling scene from Djehutyhotep’s tomb—the one that I had worked on with Wyatt that entire last season. I recognize the careful drawings I made with my own hand on Mylar, reproduced now in ink, with Wyatt’s translation in the margin. If I needed proof that I was once here, that I had done something worthy—it is literally right in front of me.
I step through the French doors onto the patio just as Harbi returns, balancing a stack of plates. “Please, sit,” he urges, and I slip into my old spot at the table.
He has brought a bowl of salad—chopped tomatoes, cilantro, and cucumbers—soft cheese, and aish shamsi, bread that is leavened in the sun before baking. I don’t realize I am starving until I start to eat and cannot stop. Harbi watches me, smiling. “Not hungry,” he says.
“A little,” I admit. Then I grin. “A lot.”
For dessert, he brings bas bousa—a mixture of coconut and honey and partially milled semolina. Finally, I sit back in my chair. “I think I may not eat for the next three days.”
“So then you are staying,” Harbi replies.
I can’t. I have a life halfway across the world, a family that is worried about me. But there is something so unreal about being back here, as if I’ve been able to simply rewind the clock, that makes this feel like I am just pretending. It is like when you are having a wonderful dream, and you know you are dreaming, but you tell yourself not to wake up.
It is a few moments after Harbi returns to the kitchen that I realize he didn’t ask a question, but stated an assumption. That he’d already made this choice for me.
And that I didn’t correct him.
* * *
—
MY MOTHER USED to say that blue eyes were bad luck, because you could see everything that a blue-eyed person was thinking, but I didn’t heed the warning the first time I met Wyatt Armstrong. I was a newly arrived transfer to Yale in 2001, a grad student with fifty dollars in my savings account and a shared apartment. I had been in town for three days, and as far as I could tell, the only weather in New Haven was a cold, driving rain. The night before the semester began, I was on my way home from Sterling Library when it started to pour. Desperate to protect the haul of books in my arms—including several hefty volumes of Adriaan de Buck’s Coffin Text transcriptions—I ducked into the first open doorway I could find.
Toad’s Place was—well—hopping, even for a Wednesday night. The bar was a mix of Yalies and Quinnipiac girls, who got bused in and tottered up and down York Street in heels and miniskirts that barely covered their asses. Inside, undergrads jockeyed at the bar, brandishing fake IDs like FBI badges. A metal band thrashed somewhere in the back, drowning out the fizz of a group of girls cheering on two guys engaged in a drinking contest.
The floor was sticky beneath my sneakers and the room smelled like Budweiser and weed. I glanced outside at the sheet of rain, weighing the lesser of two evils, and made my way to the end of the bar. I climbed onto a seat and set my stack of books on the bar, trying for invisibility.
Of course, I noticed him. His shirtsleeves were rolled up to the elbows and his hair, gold, spilled over his eyes as he reached for the shot, tossed it back, and then slammed the empty glass upside down on the scarred bar. The entourage around him erupted, cheering: Mark! Mark! Mark! But he didn’t smile or raise his arms in victory or console the loser. He just shrugged as if he knew that this would be the outcome, and accepted it as his due.
Asshole.
There were legacies at U Chicago, but at Yale, they seemed to be the norm instead of the exception. I hadn’t been here very long, but the few students I’d met seemed to be ripped from the pages of Town & Country. My roommate, whom I’d found through a flyer on a bulletin board, came from the Hudson Valley and was obsessed with dressage. I assumed that had something to do with fashion, until I saw her in her horseback riding gear.
Suddenly the guy looked up, his blue eyes catching mine. They made me think of the heart of a glacier, of how, when you touch dry ice with your bare skin, you cannot let go even if you try.
He opened his mouth, and let out a long, low burp.
Disgusted, I turned away as the bartender put a napkin down in front of me. “What can I get you?” she asked.
On my budget, I couldn’t afford a drink, but I also couldn’t wait out the rain without ordering something. “Soda water?”
“She’ll have Hendrick’s, straight up. Twist of lime.” The guy had moved to take the seat beside me, so seamlessly and silently I hadn’t noticed.
The first thing that surprised me was his accent—British. The second was his utter arrogance. “No thanks.”
“It’s on me,” he said. “And I’m usually quite good at guessing someone’s signature drink.” He nodded at a girl in a sequined bustier who was dancing by herself. “Skinny margarita or, God forbid, a rosé spritzer.” Then he gestured to two men in matching motorcycle leather making out. “Fireball whisky.” He pointed to me. “Martini. Did I get it wrong?”
I did prefer gin, but I would have rather died than admit that to him.
“My mistake: three blue cheese olives,” he called to the bartender, and then he turned to me again. “You’re a savory sort of woman, aren’t you.” A grin ghosted over his lips. “Or perhaps you’re unsavory.”
That was enough. Even if the rain and wind had reached hurricane force, it had to be less painful than sitting next to this conceited moron. I reached for my stack of books, but he plucked one from the top and opened it, skimming the hieroglyphs.
“Egyptology. I didn’t see that coming.” He handed me back the book. “Are you an ancient artifact of cultural significance?” he murmured, leaning a fraction closer. “Because I dig you.”
I blinked. “Does that line actually ever work?”