by Ruby Ryan
"Right? I'm looking forward to taking a trip. No idea where, though. The Cardinal line is probably my favorite route, since it goes through the mountains of West Virginia before curving up toward New York. I bet that route would be gorgeous this time of year, especially with..."
I let him talk and nodded along. Being back with friends was something I'd needed. It was comforting, and normal, and reminded me of a simpler time. Back when my life hadn't changed so drastically.
They knew the real me. The me from before.
We drank, and made fun of one-another, and when they asked what I was doing these days I deflected the question by play-boxing the tall plant in the living room. For the next five days, I would be myself again without any fear of what people would think. It would be relaxing, a true vacation that I hadn't allowed myself in years, and I would go home recharged and fresh.
I had no idea how wrong that assumption was.
7
HARRIET
"You've got to give us more than that!"
Jon and Jason sat across the table from me in our favorite little Cambridge cafe. They were sharing a bowl of fruit chunks and a chocolate crepe, picking tiny pieces one at a time like they were ladies in an 18th century dinner party. I, on the other hand, had a full breakfast spread across three plates. Well, the remains of a full breakfast. The bacon and sausage links were gone, as well as the giant Belgian waffle. I was finishing up the scrambled eggs now, and then would tackle the two slices of buttered toast.
I didn't drink often. So forgive me if I chowed down like an animal.
"We made out in the Uber ride back to his place," I said around a mouthful of eggs.
Jon raised his eyebrows at me. "Honey, that is not the part of the night we want details on."
I shrugged. Even just the thought of gossiping about a night with a random bar hookup made me blush. Or maybe it was the memory of his lips on my skin, kissing down my belly while his fingers...
"We did... stuff," I said with a cheerful smile.
Jason and Jon reacted like I'd told them RuPaul's Drag Race was canceled: Jason tossed his napkin down with disgust, while Jon groaned and looked away.
"I'm sorry. I'm just not the type of girl to gossip about that." Hell, I wasn't the type of girl to do that with a random bar guy. It still didn't feel real, even now, just a few hours later.
"At least tell us how big it was."
"No!"
Jason held up two flat palms an inch apart. "I'll make it easy for you. Tell me when to stop." He slowly moved his palms apart, until the gap was four inches, then five. "Really?" he said when they were seven inches apart. "This? Or this?"
"Stop it!" I said. Then I paused and said, "He was on the high end of that spectrum."
Even that tiny detail, vague and nonspecific, was enough to make me giggle. Not waiting to see if their curiosity was satisfied, I said, "He's out of town, though. Had to catch a flight this morning."
"That's convenient," Jason shook his head.
"No really!" I said. "I thought so too, but he texted me from the airport. We had a nice conversation."
I slid my phone across the table so they could huddle over it and over-analyze the entire thing.
"I'm just saying," Jason began again, but Jon slapped him on the hand.
"Stop it. Don't ruin Harriet's fun night out with your negativity."
I gave him an appreciative look and finished my food.
After I'd kissed them on the cheeks and said my goodbyes, I thought about Roland on the walk back to my campus apartment. It was actually freeing that he was gone for a week--or at least I assumed he'd be gone a week, since I didn't really know. Normally I'd stare at my phone and wonder when it would be okay to text him. Debating with myself over the right amount of time to wait in order to appear interested, but not too desperate. That same stupid game men and women had been playing for centuries.
But with him gone, I had no choice but to wait. It was freeing! It allowed me to relax and savor last night for what it was: a fun interaction with a hot guy. It might become more, but for now it was an event in isolation.
Yet even with that comforting knowledge, I struggled to think of anything else. I kept replaying the night in my head, starting with him approaching me at the bar, and ending in his tiny bedroom. I blushed to myself and hoped the other pedestrians in Boston thought it was because of the cold.
I let myself savor it for the walk, and then forcefully pushed it from my mind. With him gone for a week, I had a big block of time to worry about more important things. It was time to focus on my growing to-do list. I wanted to get my thesis outlined today--I was the type of person who needed to have a paper outlined to death before I ever wrote a single word, and that fact was true whether it was a one-page cover letter, a five page paper on Jane Goodall, or a 100 page thesis.
Once the outline was done, then I could start breaking it up into manageable chunks. Then put those chunks on my calendar, with expected completion dates and pacing guidelines to make sure I didn't fall behind.
I nodded to myself. There was nothing as satisfying as having a plan.
My apartment was four blocks west of the MIT campus, a cozy little building nestled between a park and the Star Market. I stopped to check my mail, even though I didn't want to, and sure enough it was what I expected: half a dozen bills, and the rest junk mail or clothing catalogs. I tossed the latter in the recycling bin and put the former under my elbow; I'd worry about them later. It was time to focus, and I couldn't do that while worrying about my finances, and whether I would need to find a part time job in the coming months, and how I would be able to juggle my time while working on my thesis and...
No! Stop it, Harriet! It's time to focus on your thesis.
My apartment was a studio, clean and nice but only 500 square feet. Plenty of room for little old me, though. I dropped the bills off on the corner of the countertop and sat down at my tiny work desk.
I checked my email, because that's what you did these days--you checked your email first and foremost, and then moved on to more important tasks. A chain email from my study group discussing next week's exam. An email detailing the many campus bookstore deals this weekend.
An email from the MIT Conservation Department Head.
I blinked, then quickly opened the email. My heart sank as I read: it was a request for an in-person meeting at her office next Sunday. She wanted to discuss my thesis topic.
It was only four sentences, with no detail whatsoever, but I read the email four times. Discuss your thesis topic. My thesis topic.
Thesis topic.
The words echoed in my head. Students chose their thesis topics and submitted them online for approval, but they were almost always just rubber-stamped without discussion. Mine certainly was, almost four months ago! Why was there an issue now?
If there were a question, or suggestion from the Department Head, she could have just asked in an email. Requesting an in-person meeting was a bad sign. It had to be. Especially a meeting on Sunday, when professors rarely worked.
There was only one possibility I could think of: she was going to request I change it. Either it was a subject already covered by a previous student, or too similar to one presently. What else could it be?
Heartbeat racing, I accepted her meeting request and shot back a response asking her what it was about. Then I stood and paced the 15 feet of open space in my apartment. I got a glass of water, even though I wasn't thirsty. I pulled up the original thesis submission portal and made sure it actually did say approved and that I wasn't remembering wrong.
It took two hours--two terrible, awful hours--before she responded with a single line: It'll make sense when I speak to you in person. No reassurance. No details.
Oh my God. This was bad, wasn't it?
I started thinking of what else I could do my thesis on, but that was a line of thinking I'd already exhausted months ago. I couldn't reignite that now, out of the blue. My brain didn't work that way.<
br />
I was screwed. This was the worst thing that could have happened to me. No, really: if a giant meteor crashed toward Boston, I would look up at it and say, "This sucks, but at least it's not as bad as having to completely redo my thesis topic."
Despaired at these new circumstances, any excitement I'd had about Roland vanished into the cold Boston air.
8
ROLAND
The excitement I felt for Harriet dimmed, but lingered during my time in Belize. She was always there, her golden red curls bouncing in my mind.
The music of the dance club in Belize City pumped so loud I could hardly hear myself think. It was a brand of salsa music, and although us Irishmen weren't great dancers by nature, after a few shots of whiskey I was on the floor shaking my booty like a college girl.
"This is fun!" I shouted over the music at Orlando. He had his hands on a dark-skinned woman's hips as they writhed in perfect synchronicity.
"Too bad the others didn't come!"
I shrugged, because part of me was glad they didn't. Andy ran a bunch of nightclubs, so this would be his scene, but Ethan and Sam were too laid back. They probably would have sat at the bar and watched everyone and counted down the minutes until we went back to the villa.
The music changed to a song I didn't recognize, but the women in the club all shouted with excitement. They paired up with the nearest men they could find and wrapped their arms around them as they danced.
The woman who chose me was a gorgeous Latina with hips that curved like an apple and a tight dress that left nothing to the imagination. She grabbed my arse cheeks with both hands and guided my legs side-to-side, and her grin was sexy and mischievous.
"Hi there," she said with a rolling accent.
Sweet Christ, she was beautiful. All the women down here were. Any other time I'd've spent an hour grinding with her on the dance floor, then tried to take her somewhere private for a quick fuck.
But my hands moved on their own, grabbing her arms and removing them from my arse. "Sorry, love. I'm not that kind of girl."
Surprise flashed on her face, and she shrugged and danced with me less provocatively for a few seconds, then sauntered off to find someone else.
"Dude."
I turned to see Orlando gaping at me. "What?"
"Are you feeling okay?"
I followed his gaze to the curvaceous woman, who was now sliding her hand over another guy's back while pressing her huge chest against his.
"Not looking for a hookup tonight."
Orlando and his dancing partner twisted around until he faced the other way, requiring him to turn his head back toward me. "You finally settle down with a girlfriend or something?"
Harriet's face flashed in my mind immediately. Harriet. I loved saying her name, the way it tasted on my tongue, the soft "tuh" sound it made at the end. I'd never known a Harriet before. Just Harriet the Spy, but that was only a book. This Harriet was real.
"No," I said to Orlando. "Just here to enjoy myself."
I waited for him to make a joke about how enjoying myself was exactly what he'd expected me to do with that woman, but he returned his attention to his dance partner.
We danced, and drank, and Orlando shared a long goodbye kiss with his dancing partner and then walked out into the cold night.
I don't remember anything after that. Presumably we made it home, since I woke up in our villa.
In the villa bathroom, to be more specific.
I groaned and peeled my cheek off the cold tile. My eyes felt glued shut, and it hurt to finally open them and look around.
It was the bathroom that joined my room to Orlando's, and I could see him sitting up in bed with his phone in his hand. As I struggled to get to my feet--fuck, my head hurt--he turned to look at me.
"Good morning, sunshine."
"As much as I like a hard sleeping surface," I croaked, "it would have been gentlemanly of you to escort me to my bed."
Half a smile tugged at his dark lips. "Oh, believe me I tried. You threatened to fight me whenever I tried touching you." He slid sideways out of bed. "Now that you're up, get out so I can take a shower."
I tried to think of something biting to say, failed, and trudged into my room.
Like a zombie, I wasn't sure what to do with myself. I laid down on my bed, but I was that special kind of hangover where nothing is comfortable. A shower would have been good, whenever Orlando was done.
The smell of coffee and breakfast guided me into the kitchen.
"There he is!" Andy said cheerfully while flipping pancakes. Sam stirred eggs in a frying pan next to him. They looked like they'd been up for hours. Morning people were the worst.
"Fuck you too, mate," I said, giving Sam a friendly pan on the shoulder as I slid past them toward the coffee pot. A joke about leprechauns and pots of coffee instead of gold tried to form in my mind, then faded away like mist, so instead I said, "If I don't get some coffee in my belly I'm gunna keel over, just see if I don't."
Andy put down his spatula and poured me a mug. "Always the charmer," he said, handing it to me. I held it up to my face and savored the rich smell.
"Right. Back to bed, then."
"Don't you dare!" Andy spun, threatening to shank me with his spatula. "Caves. We leave in an hour."
Ahh, fuck. The caves. Andy and Orlando had been going on about them all week, these magical fucking caves that were some of the most exciting in the world. I had zero interest in that, and would have been happy to sleep away my hangover on the beach all day, in the sunshine instead of the darkness of a cave, but Orlando was too excited. He'd planned this part of our vacation, and had talked it up all week, and I didn't want to disappoint him by bailing.
"If I'm alive in an hour," I said as I returned to my bedroom.
The shower improved my condition from "Weekend at Bernie's corpse" to merely, "barely alive," but that was enough for me to put some real clothes on and brush the foul taste out of my mouth. Everything was still too bright for comfort, so I put on my sunglasses to dim the world to a wonderful dark tint.
The food helped a lot. I shot Andy and Sam a thumbs-up while I cleaned my plate of eggs and bacon and pancakes smothered with butter.
Somehow Ethan was in a worse place than I, which gave me a mote of satisfaction. I wasn't the hold-up this morning, in spite of my best efforts.
The sun was like a sledgehammer to my eyes, even with my dark sunglasses on. Orlando spoke with what looked like a guide, next to an open-top jeep.
"We're all set for the tour," Orlando told us.
I pointed at the jeep. "How're we all gunna fit in that?" Sam nodded as if he were wondering the same thing.
"Someone's gotta ride in the very back, but we're not going far. It'll be fun!"
"Like wee sardines in a tin," I said in an exaggerated Irish accent. I looked up at the cloudless sky, then winced at the bright sun above the horizon. Maybe climbing in a dark cave was a good idea after all.
Ethan was alive, but our bouncy keep ride through the jungle almost did him in. Hell, I even wondered if I'd spew my breakfast everywhere, but I closed my eyes and pictured Harriet's toothy smile and it relaxed me for the trip.
We'd parked at the beginning of a dirt trail, which sloped down toward a wide rock formation. There was a hole barely visible in its surface, and after a long moment I realized this was it.
"I got out of bed for this?"
I didn't mean to sound so negative, but Andy whirled on me. "Hey. Don't judge a book by its cover. It's bigger on the inside, right Orlando?"
Sam said, "That is how caves work."
My joints ached just getting out of the jeep and then standing there. Sleeping on the bathroom floor had done a number on my back, and no matter how many times I twisted back and forth I couldn't make the tightness disappear. I had to piss like nobody's business. Now that my stomach was full, all I wanted to do was curl up in my bed and sleep for a few more hours. I didn't want to do this.
But Orlando had a
big smile on his face, and I didn't want to be a dick.
"Ready, hombre?" he said to me.
I jerked my head in a nod as we moved toward the cave.
*
My head bounced in a nod as the jeep drove away from the caves.
The object I'd found felt heavy in my pocket. I kept a hand on my thigh, resting against it through the fabric of my shorts.
It had just... been there. One moment I was pissing away a night's worth of whiskey against the wall of the cave, and the next moment there was a glowing red light on the ground near my feet. It was just laying there, out in the open, like it'd fallen out of someone's pocket.
The glowing came from a teardrop ruby set in a stone carving. It was a gryphon, easily recognized since it was the same beast that adorned my favorite pub back in Belfast, with the body of a lion and the head of a bird. It was small enough to fit in my hand, but felt heavy with power when I picked it up.
The ruby stopped glowing the moment I held it to my face. Like a firefly winking out.
I felt a lot of things as I examined the carving, running my fingernail along the etched feathers on its back. Surprise, and curiosity. But mostly I felt a stabbing sensation of greed. I'd found this. It was mine. It belonged to me, had always belonged to me even though I'd never held it until now.
And so I'd shoved it in my pocket, and then we were all looking for Ethan, and Sam got sick and we left the caves as quickly as we'd entered.
As we drove down the bumpy jungle trail, it made me angry to think of sharing this with my friends. Rationalizations formed in my head. I hadn't seen these guys since college, except for one meet-up with Orlando three years ago when I was in Chicago. They were my best friends... were my best friends, past tense. Now? They were the remnants of boys I used to know, with older bodies and hobbies and careers layered overtop. Hell, I hardly knew them.
And they didn't know me. Not the real me, the one I never showed anyone anymore. Because people treated me differently when they knew.
