I laughed. “Maybe you should’ve gone to the Statue of Liberty.”
“No, too much Frenchness in one frame. Unless there’s an American building in Paris? Oh. That would be good. We could make a poster. Wait, I need to Google this.”
“Wait, wait, no—Do it later. I need to talk to you about Mike.”
“What, about your undying love for him and how you want to have his babies?”
I pulled a pillow over my head.
“Oh my God. You’re fucking kidding me. What?”
“Should I even say anything? He’s going back to New York in two weeks. And, yes, I’ll go back to New York for the conference, but I don’t think we’re going to find anything here, so I’ll probably end up staying in Ireland with Jeremy, because it’s way easier to look at other sites here than from home. And I finished my classes, so there’s no real reason to be over there.”
“Um. Me. Besides, you’re obviously just making excuses. If you love him, you tell him.”
I tossed the pillow off and flopped over on my belly. “How? What’d you say to Rob?”
“Ugh, Rob.” She paused. “I guess we sort of trickled it in. Like, we’d sign emails. And then once he said ‘Love you’ when we were hanging up the phone.”
“Well, that’s not going to work. He’s here in person.” I brightened. “Unless I wait until he leaves.”
“You’re such a coward. Haven’t you ever told a guy you loved him?”
I paused. “Kevin Diaz said he loved me.”
“The high school boyfriend you slept with on prom night? The one you said surrounded you with candles and rose petals and took your face in his hands—”
“Hey, he was trying to be romantic! We were nervous!” I paused. “Do you think you can buy rose petals or did he have to pluck each one himself?”
She snapped her fingers in front of the camera. “Nat. Focus.”
“Right. I’m screwed.” I rolled over on the bed. “I can’t believe people are getting married and I can’t even tell my boyfriend how I feel.”
“Hello. I’m single. Oh, God, did you see that Tori from undergrad just posted two albums of her wedding? Go look at them.”
After dissecting the wedding of someone we never spoke to, I think we both felt better and like despicable human beings. “God, I miss you.”
“I miss you too. I wish you were here and we could make mudslides and hate watch reality TV and I could give you excellent tips on love confessions.”
I tugged the blanket up and rolled around a bit until I was securely snuggled beneath it. I eyed my book on the bed stand. “Maybe I should quote Yeats.”
“Is he romantic?”
“I’m not really sure. The intro said he was obsessed with some woman?”
“Like Heathcliff obsessed, or...”
I flipped the book open. “He proposed to her six times. At least he was poetic about the obsession.” I paused. “Wouldn’t it be nice if every time you got catcalled, it came out as a line of poetry? We should patent that.”
“No. Because that’s called magic, not science.”
“Right.” I took a deep breath. “Maybe I just won’t say anything.”
“For God’s sake. Just tell him after you have sex.”
I nodded slowly. “Okay. Okay, I can do that.”
“Wait, actually, if Yeats was a creeper that would be totally appropriate because you’re a creeper!”
“I’m hanging up now.”
Grace and Duncan, who had been displeased but not scared off the excavation when only articles appeared, soured as reporters badgered them with questions. When I joined them and Jeremy at breakfast the next morning, they were whispering furiously at each other across the table.
They looked up, disgruntled, as I sat, and Grace shook her head at me. I almost smiled brightly, but I was tired of fake smiles and talking just to fill silences. “Any new ideas of how we’re dealing with them?”
“I think we should just ignore it,” Duncan said.
Grace shook her head. “Maybe if we made it clear Ms. Sullivan wasn’t actually associated with the excavation.”
It took a moment for that to sink in. “You want—you want me to pretend I’m not a part of this? No!” I looked to Jeremy for help. “I was the one who picked this location out of all the possibilities, because my research said this was the most likely spot for a city. I found the money. I got the permission. I’m not going anywhere!”
“Natalie,” Jeremy said quietly.
I ignored him. “Why should I disassociate? Because it’d be easier for all of you? To just put all the blame on the supermodel’s flaky daughter.”
“Natalie.”
“I don’t want my reputation being dragged down on this,” Grace said coolly.
I looked at Jeremy. He wouldn’t return my gaze.
Because right now my rep could lower him, while Grace’s and Duncan’s could bring him higher up. “Jeremy, please. Let me talk to the press. I’ll give a little statement about how we’re still early in the dig and have no substantive conclusions right now, and I’ll add something boring about my mother and Mike to get them off my back.”
“They don’t want something boring.”
I started, and twisted around to see Mike, standing in his sweats and rumpled hair, watching us all with bright eyes.
“Oh?” Grace said. “Why do you say that?”
“I’m sure your feud is great and all. Very made-for-TV. But those aren’t your academic journalists out there. They want a splashy story for the tabloids or the cover of the sports section.”
“Tabloids,” Duncan groaned.
Jeremy leaned back in his chair. “You think they’re more interested in you than me and Ceile?”
Mike’s brows shot up and he smiled his you-poor-disbelieving-bastard smile. “I think it can’t hurt if Natalie and I give a little interview with some of the journalists I know.”
I waited until they’d all agreed, and then I went after Mike. “Why’d you offer that? I thought you were anti saving Jeremy’s rep.”
He brushed my hair back. “I don’t care about Jeremy. But I don’t want you sacrificing yourself and giving up the dig to save his reputation.”
I frowned. “Do you really think I would do that?”
“I don’t know. Would you? You’ve put people above finding Ivernis before. You put me above Kilkarten.”
I studied the planes of his face. How was it possible a person could be so familiar to me, that I could conjure his face down to the smallest detail even when he wasn’t nearby, and that when he was before me I never tired of looking? “You’re different.”
He slid his hands around my waist, under the hem of my shirt. They radiated heat. Mike radiated heat, like fire made human. “Am I?”
I brought my lips to his and tried to tell him in every way except verbally that I loved him.
None of the reporters followed us onto the fields, since Kilkarten was private property. Still, a hesitant unease hung over the crew as we shifted shovels of unremarkable earth. I called lunch early, and my unit trooped over to the others by the parking lot. We settled in the dirt with our bags and a round of Purelle. Some of the workers, like Anka Wójcik, lay down with their hats over their faces and catnapped during our forty-five minute break. These were usually the ones who worked here as their second job, or who came from farms farther away and had to wake earlier than the rest of us.
They probably weren’t worried about the lack of discovery, but more about having this income next summer.
“Who’s that?” Tim O’Brian, with the farm ten miles west, nodded his head toward the parking lot. “Never seen her before.”