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“So what is Dr. Who like?” Stacy asked.
We stood at the stairs of the museum, shivering and waiting for Dr. Dean Dillon to arrive. Trevor had gone to pick him up from the Detroit Airport and was now parking. In a few seconds, I would finally meet my new mentor. Dean was scheduled to speak at our museum the afternoon of his arrival in Ann Arbor. Tomorrow, we planned to drive to Chicago for two days of speaking engagements together.
“Typical British guy, I guess,” I replied.
“James Bond British? Or Hugh Grant British?” Stacy asked with a wistful gaze at the dark clouds above. “God, I’m sick of this cold. I can’t wait for spring.”
“I’ve heard Hugh Grant is a piece of work in real life and James Bond is a misogynistic ass. So neither, I hope.”
“Well, you found your one true love, Mr. Kickass Kyle, so there’s hope for the rest of us gals.”
“I’m shocked, Stace. No more friends with benefits?” My mind went straightway to Trevor and her as a couple. Jeez, lately I had become such a Mrs. Bennet.
“Never say never.” Stacy shot me a secretive smile.
Just then, the two men came into view around the corner of the museum and walked to the foot of the stairs. I waved. “There they are.”
Stacy giggled and clutched my forearm. “You didn’t tell me Dr. Dillon was so hot.”
“He has four books out and is a brilliant historian, ace archeologist and curator, so that topic didn’t turn up.”
“Too bad he lives over the pond.”
“Stace, he’s a bit timeworn for you. You are still in college. He’s thirty-five.”
“Ugh. Dammit he looks so young. Why does he dress more like a rock star than a professor?” She shook with laughter and her blond bob swung merrily past her chin. “It’s like Ziggy Stardust and Slash had a baby.”
I choked with laughter and dove an elbow in her arm. “Alright, kook. Behave.”
Grinning, Dean Dillon scrambled up the stairs with his arms wide open. “Juniper. Juniper. Hullo. Hullo.”
“Welcome to our little museum,” Stacy and I said in impromptu unison.
Dean hugged me and kissed my forehead. “What a pleasure to meet you in person.”
Stacy was right. His old-rocker style of a signature scarf, leather jacket, and jeans crushed the professor stereotype tropes of tweed coats, bow ties and glasses. A tweed Irish cap perched on his longish brown hair did nothing to diminish his style. Dean was thin from walking around London and lanky from his aversion to athletic bodybuilding.
I pulled away from his embrace. “So happy to host you here, Dean.”
“It is odd—I feel like I’ve met you a hundred times before,” Dean remarked.
Stacy snickered.
I gave her a sharp look. “Well, we do talk nearly every day.”
“Juniper, I left his luggage at Vista Inn already,” Trevor said.
“Thank you.” I gave him a wide smile.
“Yeah.” Trevor brushed past us to the doors.
I stared after him in surprise. He had been so pensive and distant lately. I wondered what was going on with him, hoping it did not have anything to do with his colossal crush on Stacy.
After the introductions between Dean and Stacy, we walked to the lecture hall.
“Your talk begins in an hour. Then the museum staff is taking you to dinner,” I said to Dean.
“Juniper, will there be time for coffee in between? I need to talk with you.”
“For sure. Now let’s get you set up. We expect two hundred people today.”
“What a brilliant turnout,” he said.
“I had Stacy and Trevor bug a thousand university kids to attend. Odds are twenty percent will turn up.”
Over three hundred students and art and history lovers turned up. We had a house overflow. Walrus was happy and Dean ecstatic. I had the honor of introducing Dean before giving him the stage. Not surprising, Dean Dillon was as good a speaker as he was a writer. A master of his subject, his funny comments and self-effacing jokes had us rollicking in our seats. I watched him with a big smile pasted on my face.
Three hours later, when his book signing was done I drove Dean to Stella’s Diner.
We settled down in a vinyl booth with a green-and-white checkered tablecloth covered in plastic. I ordered apple pie and coffee and he got pecan pie and Bailey’s Irish coffee.
Dean leaned back in his seat and threw his hat off. He combed his sandy waves back with long fingers. “Ah. Green leather seats, yeah. What animal has shiny green skin?”
“We Americans do have a few secrets.”
He grinned and I noted his slightly crooked teeth, keeping with the British stereotype. “This place is literally Americana in a box.”
“You’ve visited the States before, right?”
“Yes. Always fly and dash though. Once with old Scotty to Harvard.”
I smiled and dug back in my seat. It was bizarre to see Dean in person when he was usually a digital imprint on my laptop. Up close, I saw things I had missed. The sprinkling of golden brown stubble, the slide of his kinked nose, the sparse and spiky eyebrows, and how his copper irises shone with humor and kindness. He was handsome, but in a nonthreatening way—unlike Kyle, whose unleashed male prowess drove me to insanity.
I felt a strange connection to Dean that went beyond our shared vocations. He seemed to be a person who would never harbor ill intentions toward another human being. I trusted him instinctively.
For a while, we talked about the man who brought us together, Professor Ian Scott, whose death had come as a shock and whom we both fondly remembered.
When our orders arrived, he folded his arms on the table. “So, Miss Mills, I have a proposition for you.”
“Yes?”
“London History Museum has a resident scholar program in conjunction with Oxford University. It is an exciting opportunity that offers unparalleled connections in advanced research for qualified candidates, yeah. Each year, museum department heads submit candidates for this prestigious position. Scholars in the program end up working at the top museums and universities of the world.”
“How nice.”
Cradling his Irish coffee cup, he licked off some cream. “This year, I am proud to offer this position to you, in view of your enfant terrible and iconoclastic contributions to the disciple of Celtic historical archiving.”
My heart pounded with hope. “What! Really?”
“Yes. If you should choose to accept it, you will be a resident museum Celtic scholar at London History Museum and do research with Oxford University. I shall be your mentor. At the end of your tenure, your completed book will be published by Oxford University Press. Details will be emailed to you. What do you say, yeah?”
My hands flew to my mouth. “Oh my God. That is amazing.”
This was the kind of opportunity I had longed for all my life but never actively sought. I’d never free to live my dreams or even apply to them. And now here they were, torn bits of lost dreams lying in reach. But my reality snatched them up before I could.
I sighed. “How will that work? I have a job at the museum. I’m afraid it will not be possible.”
“Oh ye of little faith, do you always say no to everything?” He shot me a charming smile.
I smiled. “No.”
“They offer a generous stipend. It is a six-month position, April to September. You could take a sabbatical. Many museums carry on giving salaries, for the research benefits them. As you Americans say, it’s a win-win.”
Lose-lose if I lost Kyle and my salary. Go away for six months? My heart ached at the idea of not being with Kyle. Just when I had found him.
And Cypress and my mom? Granted, Cypress had Sofia in his life now, but could I leave them all? What about finances? I was their sole breadwinner. My gut knotted with familiar uncertainty.
“Can you give me a few days?”
“Indeed, but on our drive to Chicago tomorrow, I will try to sway you with the irrefutable glory of the superb, brilliant, remarkable, life-altering benefits of the position. Juniper, you are at the signpost of a new world. People say history is dead. There are a few of us left on the outposts shouting dead is alive. I like your Celtic research. I know it’s just the beginning for you. And I have a great eye for spotting talent and ability.”
Tearing my eyes away from his inquisitive gaze, I looked down and took a big bite of my apple pie. Curious. I had never ordered apple pie before. It made me sad. I guess I subconsciously craved apple pie simply because Kyle did.
“It’s gratifying to hear that. It has always been a dream of mine to work in England and Ireland.”
“And was it not an American poet who said, ‘Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly.’ I want you to fly, Juniper. I know you well enough by now to claim the liberty to say that.”
Dean smiled timidly, reached across the table and covered my hand with his. I drew my hand back.
“And was it not an Irishman who said: ‘All the world’s a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed?’ You’re very kind, Dean. I just have to consider a few things before I say yes.”
“What is it, Juniper? Or should I say who? Someone special?”
Nervous, I picked at a rip in the plastic table cover. “Yes.”
He exhaled sharply. “Cheers. Why did I not know?”
“It is fairly new.”
“Well, well. A travesty but not a surprise. The good ones are always taken.” I looked up at his strange comment but his face was composed. “I will wait for your decision. Make the right one.”
I drove Dean Dillon from Ann Arbor to Chicago the next day. We took Kyle’s gas guzzling SUV for he had insisted I not take Tomato out in the snow. I was having transmission issues with Tomato, so I agreed without a fuss. Dean and I were scheduled to speak at a few universities on Thursday and Friday, after which I would drop Dean off at O’Hare Airport for his flight to London. This timed perfectly with Kyle’s arrival in Chicago from San Francisco.
We had a lovely weekend planned. On Saturday, I was to accompany Kyle to the Proto-Smash event he was headlining. Half excited, half petrified, I knew this was a big step in our relationship. Before the event was a red carpet studded with the world’s technology media. After three scorching months together, Kyle and I would be outed as a couple. On Monday, I would have to explain to the museum staff what was going on between the museum board president and me.
I was not looking forward to Walrus’s reaction. In the grand scheme of things, I supposed Walrus was no longer a crick in my neck—not when I had a future with Kyle.
Thursday passed without a scholarly snag. Dean and I spoke at DePaul University in the afternoon and the University of Chicago in the evening. My fear was unfounded. I was nervous during the first panel, but if I stuttered or paused, Dean covered for me smoothly. By the second talk, I relaxed and was rewarded with loud applause and clever follow-up questions.
That night, I took Dean to eat the best deep-dish pizza in Chicago. Afterwards, we walked to a pub nearby. As a designated driver, I did not have more than one beer, but the very Irish Dean had several Guinness beers and half a bottle of Uisce Beatha, a whiskey whose name in Gaelic means “water of life.” Watching him down so much liquor, I asked him how he was still sober and lucid.
He refilled his glass and lifted it. “We have a famous saying in Ireland: ‘I once read about the evils of drink, so I gave up reading.’”
“Witty drunks.” I traced the rim of my empty beer bottle.
“Pop quiz. Cha deoch-slàint, i gun a tràghadh. Translate please,” Dean ordered.
“Um. Gealic proverb. It’s no health if the glass is not emptied?”
“Yes. Or Joy.”
Dean asked me about my hesitation to accept the position he offered, so I finally told him about Kyle. Curious about my love life, he subjected me to an inquisition, and so I hinted at how much Kyle meant to me.
Reflexively mirroring me, he circled the rim of his whiskey glass with an idle finger. “You and a capitalist. That shocks me.”
“I am not with Kyle for anything other than his personality.”
“Righto.” He shot me a skeptic smile.
“I am more shallow than that, Dean. It wasn’t his money. It was his hot body and gorgeous face.”
Surprised, he chuckled hard. “Well, he is one lucky guy. Is it serious?”
“Yes. Very.”
Dean raised an eyebrow, leaned back in the black ripped leather booth and stared thoughtfully at me. Feigning nonchalance, I looked at my phone. During the course of the day, I had noted Dean staring at me and it was unnerving.
“How long has this been going on?”
“We’ve been going strong for two months. But I met him five months ago. Last October.”
He looked perplexed and leaned closer to me across the greasy oak table. “Well, isn’t that a bit early to determine how serious you are? I mean, you’re so young and all.”
My eyes grew somber and met his dark gold gaze. I was not thrilled to be grilled about Kyle. Getting no response from me, Dean picked up his whiskey glass and drained it.
“Ah, well. I suppose the macho men of the USA move faster than we slow, brooding, commitment-phobe Brit lads do.”
“Not really.” I was now amused at Dean’s train of thought. “American men are just as skittish. Truth be told, so was Kyle. So was I, actually. But then, we got together, and it was...amazing. I guess—cheesy as it sounds—he is The One. The love of my life. I can’t imagine my life without him.”
Dean looked displeased and yawned. “I’m getting tired. I think we should go back now.” He shot up in his chair and held out a hand to me. “Shall we?”
Surprised at his sudden change in mood, I got up and led him back to the car. When we got back to the hotel, Dean had warmed up again and suggested a nightcap in the hotel bar, but I declined and went to my room to hit my lecture notes.
I was possibly the dorkiest human in the entire Western Hemisphere.
