“Paper! For fuck’s sake, don’t any of you have any paper?”
I blew through the house like a tornado. I was ten pages short and hadn’t realized. There was no time to go to the store, no time to stop at a computer lab. I was cutting it close already but wasn’t going to arrive at a meeting that could decide my fate empty-handed.
“Here,” Ravi shouted, flying from her room in silk pajamas. “The correct response is, ‘Thank you!’” she said behind me as I ripped the paper out of her hands and raced back to my printer. I waited for the insidiously slow inkjets to print out the rest of my work and inserted the full-page images in their appropriate places. I could barely breathe.
“Are you well?” Quintus stood in the doorway; his brow deeply furrowed.
“I will be when this goddamned thing prints out!” I shouted in English, leaving him at a loss.
“You can’t go in there like that,” Dean said, coming to stand behind Quintus. I’d whipped myself into a frenzy, and it was contagious. I would have settled down if I could.
“Do you want a Zoloft? I have a few spares,” Dean offered.
“No! I don’t take that shit anymore,” I spat.
“Stand aside—” Felix came out of his room at last, an oversized paper bag in each hand. From the tops poked several pre-stretched canvasses. “Here,” he said, laying them at my feet. The bottoms of the bags were heavy with paint tubes in more than a dozen shades. “Only an artist can cure another artist. This is what you needed, verdad?”
I finally remembered to breathe. I did it a few times—drawing long, deep draughts into my lungs.
“Sí,” I said calmly, allowing the passing seconds to crawl over me.
“I saw you unraveling for a few days. I just didn’t have the time to stop there. Lo siento.”
“Thank you, Felix.”
“De nada, princesa.”
“And thank you, Ravi. You’re a life-saver. I’m sorry. All of you. I’m sorry.” I stood awkwardly, feeling bad about terrorizing everyone like a bat out of hell.
“Don’t waste your time apologizing to us,” Ravi said, her voice taking on a stern timber. “Go and kick his ass. Make us proud.”
I nodded. The house dispersed, and I dashed to the door. In my haste, my outfit had undone itself. I smoothed my skirt and my wild hair and tucked my shirt back under my waist. Before crossing the threshold, Quintus caught hold of my arm from behind.
“Good luck. Be careful, Asenath.”
I looked at all I had to protect, all I had to lose if I let my nerves get the better of me. It steeled my will. I gave him a confident glare and pressed my lips to his. His eyes shone at me as he shut the door.
Out of control nerves over accusations of stealing a bog body were the perfect cover for nerves about harboring said body come to life. There was no choice but to go with it. When I arrived in the chair’s office in Hayes Hall, Alex was already there. So were the Graduate Director for Archaeology and the Vice Principal of Humanities. I’d been in plenty of rooms like this before, paneled in wood, save for loft windows, and made stiflingly warm with dense carpets, plush upholstery, and gilded, antique frames, packed with stiffening white men. But with all eyes on me as I took the empty seat beside Alex, I felt hideously out of place.
I resisted the urge to look to Alex for some sign of the room’s mood and stared ahead at Magnusson. I sat straight as a rod.
“So far,” Magnusson started, “the police haven’t found any real leads on your body. Given that it’s been almost a month, I doubt they ever will. And of course, in matters such as these, the university conducts its own investigation as well.”
I dug my canine into the inside of my lip to stop myself from screaming or passing out. Both were equally possible.
“Miss Hayes?” he started.
“Yes?” I squeaked.
“You told the police officer on the scene you closed the lab at eight o’clock?”
“Yes, sir,” I answered in my normal voice, pushing my fingernails into my palm.
“You locked up?”
I hadn’t remembered until he asked—who had time to worry about such things when you’re driving home the Mummy?
“N-no, I didn’t,” I stammered. “I didn’t have the key.”
Magnusson started in his chair, his eyes stabbing into Alex as he spoke to me. “You were there alone?”
Alex looked at me with eyes of steel.
“Just for a few minutes, professor.”
“That’s not what you told the police, Carew.”
“I had a family emergency,” he grumbled. “What difference does it make?”
“Students are not permitted in the labs without a faculty member present,” Magnusson said sternly. “You left the lab unlocked and unguarded. That changes the entire aspect of the investigation.”
A storm brewed behind Alex’s eyes, but he said nothing. Vice Principal Booth cleared his throat from behind Magnusson’s chair.
“I wouldn’t classify the Whateleys’ dinner party as a family emergency,” he said simply. When you’re up for tenure,” he cleared his throat again, with menacing emphasis, “the least you could do is keep your lies straight.”
The room was deathly still. I didn’t know where to look and settled for the corner of a Napoleonic painting to the left of the window behind Magnusson. My gaze rested on the lower right corner of the frame, where the flourishes carved deep into the wood had accumulated a considerable amount of dust. Magnusson addressed me, snapping my eyes back into focus on his unyielding face.
“Is there anything else you’d like to tell us, Miss Hayes?”
I couldn’t think, for having too much I didn’t want to say. “I have a question,” I ventured.
“Yes?”
“Um, what’s going to happen to me?”
He leaned back into the pink, puckered upholstery in his chair, and folded his hands neatly in his lap.
“What do you think should happen to you?”
Tension erupted from my gut like a volcano. “Why would I steal him? He’s my research—I can’t learn anything without the lab, and now that he’s gone, my whole future at this university is in jeopardy.” My cheeks flushed hot.
I couldn’t read Magnusson’s face—the wrinkles around his brow and at the corner of his eyes and lips puckered into an unsettling cross between amusement and pride. The contortion gave way to mirth.
“Is that why you’re wound as tight as a German cuckoo clock? We never thought you were to blame, Miss Hayes. As you said, you are the one with the most to lose, and nothing to gain.”
I saw my opportunity.
“I’ve been working off the things we still have, along with the images of Anglesey Man that I took.” I handed Magnusson the result of my labors. “Here’s a revised prospectus for my thesis, based on preliminary analysis.”
Magnusson was surprised by its weight. “You did all this since you came back?”
I nodded.
“You certainly don’t waste any time, Miss Hayes,” he said, clearly impressed.
“This is the first I’m hearing of this,” Alex cried. “You didn’t think it was necessary to show your advisor?”
“I sent you a copy on Friday. Check your email.”
And I had, but I knew Alex only deigned to check his email on Wednesdays. Today was Monday.
Magnusson flipped immediately to the images of Anglesey Man and sighed, then began perusing the text. So far, I’d managed to emphasize the importance of the physical objects and believed mystical properties, and an assertion of Anglesey Man’s identity as Roman. Without looking up, Magnusson spoke.
“And what are your conclusions, Carew?”
“Conclusions?” he asked, caught foolishly off-guard.
“Conclusions,” Magnusson repeated impatiently. “Your thoughts on Anglesey Man.”
Exasperated, Alex balked at the question, finding it absurd. “What observations could I possibly make if the evidence has been stolen?”
“Quite a few, it seems,” Magnusson answered, finally putting his fingers on the top page of my prospectus. “Thank you, Miss Hayes. I appreciate your determination to see this through. We’re not giving up just yet,” he said, standing as a sign of dismissal. “The find was spectacular, and to lose our body is devastating, but remember—he wasn’t the only one.”
I shuddered.
“In the meantime,” he continued, “keep working.”
Alex jumped out of his seat, annoyed that Magnusson had wasted his time.
“We’re not through, Carew—I have another meeting now, but I want you back in here by four.”
“You’re not going to pin this on me, are you?”
“Save it. I’ve had all the excuses I can stomach from you this week.” Again, my gaze wandered, gravitating to a floral curve in the ruby-tasseled rug.
Alex nearly bowled me over in the doorway as he made his exit.
“Alex…” I whispered under my breath, frozen in place as I watched his back thunder down the hallway. Magnusson stepped into the doorway behind me as I rubbed my shoulder.
“Asenath,” he started, “do you mind if I call you that?”
“Of course not,” I replied. My oldest memory of him was at my parents’ holiday parties. People usually brought wine or champagne. He’d always brought me a gift. He’d never done anything to shake my kind impression of him. Even today.
“Do you think you could get a first draft ready before the Thanksgiving break?”
“A draft of the whole project?” I gaped.
“I know it’s not a lot of time, and I certainly don’t want to rush genius, but…could you do it, Asenath?”
Not sensing there was much of a choice, I told him that I could.
“There is a method to my madness, I promise. Also…” He coughed, less sure of himself now. “This thing is taking up more of my time than expected. Do you have room in your schedule for another class? Just Intro to Egyptology.”
I hesitated. A complete draft and another class? It was lunacy, but it would help take the edge off of the missing rent—one less thing I’d have to sell. And I’d taught the class before.
“Sure, why not?” I answered.
“Thank you, Asenath. I don’t trust anyone else with it. The rest of these stuffed shirts couldn’t tell Horus from Hatshepsut.” He laughed breathlessly at his own joke. I turned my head back down the now-empty hallway, staring at where Alex had been.
“Steer clear of him, Asenath,” Magnusson said with an undertone of an occluded purpose. “Send your work directly to me.”
I looked at him, puzzled. What he requested amounted to dropping my advisor.
“Dr. Magnusson?”
“His tenure is not secure.” He spoke low, his hushed tones soaking into the wooden panels of the hallway, as if this were gossip. I knew full well he was in his tenure-year. But the process by which professors secured their positions was mostly ritual and formality.
“He knows,” Magnusson continued when I simply stared in silent confusion, “that we only have the budget for one more Egyptologist. Whose idea was it that you go to Britain?”
I was crushed beneath the weight of what Magnusson said. Now that I was no longer seeing Alex with doe eyes, the chair’s suggestion rang all too true. He’d steered me away from the Valley and made me think what he offered me was all I ever needed. He’d nearly taken everything from me, as if it were nothing. As if I were nothing. I’d never felt real hate burn inside of me before now.
I made my way numbly home, brought back to life by the scent of roasted cardamom and yogurt as I walked through the door. I found Ravi in the kitchen, supervising Quintus as he dug a spoon into a bowl of brightly colored chicken marinade. Hands occupied, they greeted me with smiles.
“What happened?” Ravi asked, sliding the knife in her hand down the length of a skinny but powerful red chili.
I shrugged, leaning over the pale marble counter to inhale the intoxicating perfume of the meal taking shape. “I have to haul ass on my doctorate, and Magnusson gave me another class.”
“Oh, thank God!” she said, putting down her knife and squeezing me, keeping the deadly poison on her fingers crimped inside her palm. I simply stood, not having the mind to hug her back. I should have been happy, but my relief had been overshadowed by what had been spoken after. Whatever vestige of my old life I’d been holding on to, Alex knocked out of me with a shove. I felt an overwhelming sense of loneliness. Quintus furrowed his brow as I peered listlessly at him over Ravi’s shoulder. Alex’s treachery had only threatened my future. He had not destroyed it yet and Quintus would not be here without it. My rage left me, and the rims of my eyes burned with guilt. I fell deeper into confusion, my only truth in that moment the comfort of Quintus’s nearness.
Ravi returned to her chili. I inched closer to Quintus, searching for my center. I put my arm around his muscular waist. When I traced my fingers to the invisible lines of his taut abdomen beneath his shirt, they trembled, sensing the narrowing leanness of his perfectly sculpted hips just beyond reach. He flinched, whether from being aroused or tickled, I couldn’t tell.
“Quintus came food shopping with me today,” Ravi told me, the bangles on her wrists jingling as she introduced the chili and chopped garlic to the oil she’d heated in a wide pan. She spoke over the sizzle. “He almost went into shock. Where exactly is he from?”
“A place without supermarkets,” I answered blandly. “I’m not smelling something, and I want to smell it,” I said.
“I haven’t started the rice yet. Calm yourself,” Ravi replied, wiping her hands on the plain cotton apron she wore over her blue silk tunic. Even the sleeves of her plain clothes were embroidered with rose petals on the hem and shone with gemstones set in the center of the blossoming buds. Her contradictions made me laugh. She was a genius in architecture and homemade cooking, and full of laughter. Being her friend was the easiest thing in the world, but on any day of the week, the first word that came to my mind when I thought of Ravi was “flashy.”
I drummed my fingers on the counter, impatient for the fragrance of jasmine to permeate the air, the grain of the cupboards, and the fibers of my clothes. I reached for the open pinot noir on the counter.
“Are you using this?”
“All finished,” Ravi said, stretching up to furnish me with a glass from the cupboard.
“Azi?”
Dean’s voice came from so close behind me, I spun around with a start.
“Can I talk to you a minute?” he asked.
I swallowed hard. Pretending everything was normal hadn’t worked, it seemed. He was intent on making this harder on both of us, wrenching the truth from me rather than taking a gentle hint.
“Sure,” I answered. I watched him climb the stairs, and I knew I had to follow.
“What is the matter with that boy?” Ravi rasped quickly, leaning to me. “He’s been moping about since he got here.”
“I know,” I said, choosing my words carefully. Our conversation may have been unintelligible to Quintus, but the curious look on his face suggested that he understood enough.
“What do you know?” Ravi pushed. “Did something happen?”
I flashed a hopeless smile, ignoring Ravi’s gasp and the glass on the counter, downing a hearty draught straight from the bottle to steel me for the task ahead. I dared not look at Quintus as I headed upstairs.
The first door to the left was open a crack. I pushed it in farther to reveal Dean, sitting on his bed trying to remain cool, which did nothing but make his nervousness more pronounced. I wondered if that’s what I had looked like only a few hours before, a frightened rabbit that couldn’t play dead, because it was trembling too hard. When he spoke, I imagined I heard the sound of his teeth jittering.
“I know you said it was a one-time thing, but I’ve missed you, Azi.” He paused. When I did not respond in kind, he went further. “I was hoping that maybe you’d changed your mind.”
I breathed deeply as I sat next to him, careful not to let our thighs touch. “I’m sorry, Dean.”
“We had a good time together,” he protested. “At least, I thought we did.”
I bit my lip, remembering with a pang of regret that even at the height of Dean’s excitement, I’d been thinking about something else. Someone else. I shook my head. The thought repulsed me. Everything I’d given Alex, I’d given freely, hoping against the odds that things would have worked out the way I wanted them to. The way he had promised they would. I cursed myself for being so colossally stupid.
“It isn’t that, Dean,” I said, determined to stay in the moment. He deserved that much from me. “I’m sorry. I love you to death. I never wanted to hurt you. I just—” I looked at him, for the first time since he had come. Really looked at him, seeing all the gold and copper flecks in his gray-blue eyes. “I just didn’t trust anybody else.”
He smiled gently at me, sad, but graceful. He held my hands. “I’m glad you did,” he whispered. “I’m sorry too, I guess. For wanting more. That wasn’t part of our bargain.”
“You don’t have to be sorry about that. I wish I could give you what you want.”
“But your heart doesn’t belong to you anymore, does it?”
Guilt rushed to my cheeks.
Dean flinched. “Yeah, I guessed that. I see how you are together.”
I hung my head, unable to console my friend, to deny what he said.
“Azi. You don’t owe me anything. You’re my friend, above everything. I just needed to know.”
“So, we’re cool?” I asked, humbled by how well he was taking it. We were together one night, and he cared more about me than Alex had in almost two years.
“We’re cool, Azi,” he said, nudging me reassuringly. We had always been close, and not having to avoid Dean brought me more relief than the green light Magnusson had given me to move forward. Whatever “forward” meant.
I was drawn downstairs by the sound of searing chicken, but I stopped in front of Quintus’s door. It was closed, but I could hear him inside, talking into the computer’s microphone as he held a conversation with a digital shopkeeper. I knocked.
He stood in the doorway as he opened it, seeming to deliberate on whether to let me in. His expression was inscrutable as he acquiesced, and I got the distinct impression that he understood more of what had happened between Dean and me than he cared to.
We sat in an awkward silence. He waited patiently for me to express my purpose in disturbing him, and I was unsure of how to begin. I concluded that trying to impart the values of female sexual liberation would be a lost cause. Frazzled by the day, my baser instincts won out, and I hit the speaker button on the computer to translate.
“I suppose you’ve never had any lonely nights, soldier?” He instantly colored, and I bit my tongue. “Quintus, I—”
“No. You’re right.”
I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. Seeing me squirm, his steely jaw slackened. He held his hand out to me, pulling me onto his lap. I leaned forward, and he reclined on the bed, carrying me with him. I curled into his warm embrace, finding complete solace in the crook of his shoulder. He clasped my hand on top of his chest and sighed deeply.
“Never at the same time,” I added, hoping to dull his agitation. He raised a curious eyebrow. I clucked my tongue. “I mean—”
“I know,” he said, smiling wryly. “I have never been with someone who loved me,” Quintus added quietly.
“Me neither. Being with a man can be casual. As casual as shaking hands.”
Quintus played with my fingers as I clasped his chest. His left arm caressed my back underneath my shirt. His warm hands felt so comfortable, like they belonged there.
“I don’t want to shake your hand.” The sapphire brilliance of his eyes captivated me, and I let my whole body feel the affection of his embrace.
“Me neither,” I whispered.
We settled into each other, my eyelids lulled to dreaminess, when he spoke softly into my hair.
“What troubles you?”
“Alex,” I said bitterly, his name a curse on my lips. “He made me feel small today.”
“You should not be surprised by that.”
I groaned in acknowledgment. He held me tighter, and I tucked my feet between his legs.
“That does not make it right. You are a remarkable woman, deserving of great honor. I would see this insult answered.”
“That may be possible. He and I…” I struggled, my Latin migraine returning. He stroked my hair patiently as I searched for words that would carry the proper weight.
“We fight for the same position and I have the advantage.”
“Good.”
Something else gnawed at me.
“Quintus. There were others.”
“Hmm?” he grunted.
“Other bodies. With you.”
His entangled fingers froze in my hair.
“Were they asleep also?” he asked.
“I do not know.”
“Were they Roman?”
“I do not think so. Locals, more likely.”
I felt a shiver run through him. Quintus was quiet, shaken by what I had said. I saw it weighed heavily on his mind, but he remained taciturn, nestling deeper beside me, seeking the same comfort I found enveloped by his strong, reassuring chest. I looked up at him, wrapping my arms tighter around him and reaching up to tousle his wild hair. He lurched forward, hovering over me, and I swooned at his intense gaze. His warm, sweet breath fell on my neck, and he closed his mouth over mine. I fell feverishly deep into his kisses and minded not a jot when he slipped a hand under my shirt. His confident fingers were closing in on me just as Ravi shouted up the stairs that dinner was ready.
My mouth hung open, and I inhaled sharply as his hand stood poised over my bare breast. He kissed me fiercely, tugging on my lower lip with his teeth, then withdrew. I wailed in disbelief, my goose-pimpled skin shuddering as his hand left me. He stood up and extended his hand to me, smiling wickedly.
“I’ll remember that,” I said, curt but playful.
“Now we are even.” He smirked.
“Not even close,” I answered, letting my whole body brush against his as I walked past him. My breath caught in my throat when I felt his arm wrap around me and pull me back into the room. I cried out when my back slammed into the wall inside the door. His hot kisses on my neck sent a shudder through me, and I had to pull on his hair to stop myself from moaning louder. He lifted me in his arms, and almost by instinct, I wrapped my legs around his waist as he pressed his body ever closer.
“Maybe just a quick hello,” I whispered breathlessly.
He laughed in a deep voice, as if he’d understood me.
“You up there! If you’re going to make me your personal chef, you could at least eat it hot!”
I groaned, disappointed, and put my hands on Quintus’s shoulders, my feet looking for the ground. But he held me there, his eyes wild. His whole frame shook.
“When are you going to let me love you the way you deserve?” he pleaded. My breath caught in my throat.
When I know I won’t lose you, I thought.
He lowered me to the floor, still holding on tight. I bit into the left corner of my lip, having nothing to tell him.