From her bar stool perch, Alex scanned the tiny airport pocket bar, watching the steady stream of passengers en route to their gates. A drink seemed like the perfect remedy to help her unwind and contemplate her current situation. The small watering hole had one bartender. His attention was singularly focused on the only other customers, a large group of boisterous German tourists who had taken residence at the opposite end of the bar. Judging by their flushed, ruddy faces and frequent outbursts of laughter, they were accumulating quite a tab.
Even without a drink, it was good to get off her feet for a few minutes. A wave of exhaustion rolled through her body. Between the summons from Thorne and the disturbing news from Bernadette, the past few hours had been taxing to say the least.
She tried to get the barkeep’s attention. Maybe she should head to her gate and forget the drink altogether.
It wasn’t that Alex had anything grand to celebrate, far from it. But a champagne bar was the last thing she expected to see at O’Hare airport. The neon sign glowed with the promise of the bar’s name, Bubbles. The clusters of champagne bottles displayed in neat little cubes behind the bar served as a sign of divine providence that drew her off course to the small lounge.
Champagne always had a magical quality for her. It was as if her worries floated up and away, bound to the bubbles by some sort of alchemy. If ever there were a time when she needed her concerns to disappear, it was now.
A burst of laughter erupted from little Bavaria. Alex caught the bartender’s fleeting glance while he turned away from the chorus of laughter.
“Veuve Clicquot.” The tall, thin glass of golden liquid therapy appeared in front of her almost immediately, as if her words reached out into the universe and called it forth from the void.
A wish of sorts before drinking champagne was a superstition she’d managed to pick up somewhere along the way. If Alex didn’t make one, it was like inviting bad fortune to walk into her life. It could be grand or modest in concept, silly or serious in sentiment, or somewhere happily in between. The only requirement in choosing the toast was that it needed to suit the moment.
Alex held her glass and watched the tiny bubbles dance their way up as she tried to think of what to toast to. Safe journey? A grand adventure? She wasn’t sure what would perfectly fit this singularly unique situation. The delicate edges of a wish-idea started to knit together.
A low voice close by startled Alex.
“What are we celebrating?”
He had materialized out of nowhere and sat on the bar stool next to Alex. He wore an old-school, well-tailored, shiny burgundy silk suit that was in direct conflict with his twentysomething appearance. He exuded confidence like waves of heat cascading across desert sands. Alex sensed the energy in her personal space change from contemplative to complicated as he sat next to her. She wasn’t in the mood for company, no matter how quirkily attractive—if only she’d had the time to bring her drink-wish into reality, maybe it would’ve cast a spell of protection around her and barred his arrival.
Despite herself, Alex played along. “I’m sorry, what?”
“No need to be sorry. I just came over to thank you.” He tipped his champagne glass toward her. “For the Veuve.”
“What?” She choked on her champagne, the bubbles creating a mean fizz in her throat. “I didn’t buy that for you. I didn’t know you existed until twenty seconds ago, let alone having any insight into your current state of hydration.”
She took a sip of the cool, crisp champagne. Peering up from the edge of her glass, she caught a passing glance of his deep blue eyes. Something was drawing her toward him, and it was more than her usual weak spot for nonconformist oddballs. There was something fiercely unique about him. “I don’t know who your secret admirer is. Maybe it is one of them.” She nodded toward the boisterous group of men at the other end of the bar who were now singing what seemed like a European soccer club fight song with great gusto.
“That would be just my luck.” He had the hurt look of someone who was told his birthday party was canceled due to lack of interest. “So, it really wasn’t you?”
“Really.”
He paused and turned his head toward the other patrons, as if pondering the notion. “I don’t quite feel up to courting a group of drunken German bears tonight. How about I stay here and you and I start over.” He smiled an embarrassed and somewhat neighborly smile and reached across the space between them with an outstretched hand. “I am Niles Greene, importer-exporter extraordinaire and part-time life coach.”
She gingerly took his hand in hers. An odd sensation like a warm, dull shock emanated from his flesh. His name flitted around her head like a moth beating against a porch light, over and over, as she tried in vain to locate the long-forgotten memory attached to it. Niles Greene. It sounded so familiar, but how? Alex was certain she would remember him if she had ever met him before.
“So what do you do when you aren’t picking up strange men in bars?” He beamed a bright smile in Alex’s direction.
She rolled her eyes.
“Too soon?”
“Too soon.” The muscles in her face rebelled against her as she mirrored his playful smile. “So, what exactly does a life coach do? It always struck me as the perfect occupation for con artists.”
“Since I do it part time, that would make me mostly honest.”
“Mostly? Is that your final answer?”
“In all honesty, I don’t think you can expect any more than mostly from anyone. Especially from those who consider themselves high-minded and pious.”
“So you are a con man and a realist.”
He smiled and shifted his gaze to the bar napkin he’d been doodling on. “Sometimes, when we think we are being completely honest, we are lying to ourselves,” he said in a soft, almost inaudible voice.
“I sense the life coach awakening within you like a ushabti being called forth by an ancient work spell.” Alex instantly realized how odd that must have sounded.
“Whoa, ushabti? Interesting word choice for casual conversation in an airport bar.”
“Sorry. I don’t get out much. I’ve been spending too much of my time cloistered with other academics and forget myself when I am around civilians. I work at the Oriental Institute, as a research archaeologist. My specialty is in ancient Egypt.”
“Civilian?” he gasped in a mocking air of high drama. “What do you take me for? Some sort of ancient-Egypt neophyte? If you weren’t such pleasant company, I would be completely offended.” He shook his head and raised his almost-empty glass. “You can make it up to me by getting me another.”
Alex gave him a searing look.
He chuckled softly. “What I meant was you could erase the stain on my reputation by purchasing, for the very first time ever, a glass of champagne for yours truly.”
The Germans roared with laughter as if punctuating Niles’s overplayed dramatics.
She matched his charade of hurt feelings with a hint of sarcasm. “As much as I would love the honor . . . I don’t think I have the time to try and get the bartender’s attention.” The barkeep stood like a conductor, waving his hands dramatically as if to keep his symphony of European laughter in time. “It appears the maestro might be in the middle of his greatest verbal symphony yet.”
Their gaze lingered. Feeling exposed, Alex looked away. “So, if you are not an ancient-Egypt neophyte, where exactly do you land on the scale?”
“Depends on how you measure it. Knowledge is a relative and movable beast.”
“Very philosophical. Okay, where do you land between, oh, let’s say . . . occasional watcher of Discovery Channel documentaries and truly rabid enthusiast?”
“Neither. My import business is based in Cairo. I am just returning from a fairly intense purchasing junket.” He glanced at his large and expensive watch. “Oh crap, I hadn’t noticed the time.” He reached into his jacket and retrieved a card holder. It was embossed with a turquoise rendering of an ibis bird with its heron-shaped head and long bill. The silver case flashed bright as he opened it.
“I find myself in Chicago often. Maybe we could have dinner sometime and discuss the Amarna Period or something.” He smiled and handed a business card to Alex. “Oh wait!” He grabbed it from her and quickly jotted something down. “Give me a call if you ever have a sudden ancient-Egyptian emergency and need another geek to chat with outside of your usual academic circles.” He winked at Alex as he placed the card on the napkin in front of her and then touched her forearm.
His touch was comforting as the strange energy thrummed from his fingertips.
She gazed deeply into his eyes. Alex sensed a connection of spirit between them that felt oddly at home. He let go of her hand, and without another word, he walked away and was lost in the steady stream of humanity that coursed around the island-shaped bar.
Alex picked up the small business card. Beside it, on the white-marble bar top, was his midnight-blue Montblanc pen with a mother-of-pearl inlay. Did he conveniently leave the pen in the hope that she would be compelled to return it? She laughed as she read his scrawled note on the back of the card, written in phonetic hieroglyphs above his cell number. In case of emergency. Alex marveled at his fluid ability to communicate in the archaic language. There was definitely more to Niles than met the eye. She picked up the pen and glanced at the napkin that he’d doodled on. The symbol he drew was both foreign and familiar, much like the mysterious Mr. Greene. The fluttering moth awoke in her mind once more.
Alex slipped the items he left into the scribe’s bag her father made for her all those years ago and glanced at her watch. With a start, she leapt off her barstool and ran toward her gate, hoping against hope that she could somehow bend time and make it before they closed the jetway.