“Grin and bear it?” Lilah offered.
“Oh, please. What do you take me for? A leader of a Girl Scout troop? My kind of pep talk is…” She proceeded to string together several swearwords in a highly creative and visually interesting fashion.
Crude, but effective, Lilah couldn’t help thinking. “So you really think I should go, then?” she asked.
“Yes, of course I think you should go. Not only do you deserve all the praise in the world for what you’re doing, you’ll have those old coots eating out of your hand. They’ll see this brilliant, cute young woman, and they’ll immediately feel the need to help. The next thing you know, they’ll be writing monster-size checks to support your work. You might even think about upping your own salary from near poverty line to something where you could afford to go to a decent hair salon.”
“Hair salons? They still have them?” Lilah asked facetiously. Reflexively she fingered her bangs, slowly growing out from her last feeble attempt at giving herself a cut.
The light shower had turned into a thick curtain of rain, and the sound of drops hitting against the thatched roof formed a steady rumble. The red dirt on the floor was already transforming into a rusty-colored slime, the same mud that coated the soles of her hiking boots.
From her position in the doorway of the hut she could see Esther, along with two other women from the village, cooking rice, beans, bananas and more manioc. Through the haze of smoke she noticed two large cauldrons cooking meat—probably chicken and goat. Today had to be special if meat was on the menu.
These women who had suffered so much were unfailingly generous. Who was she to balk at attending some awkward ceremony and meeting a few strangers at Reunions if it meant helping them out?
Lilah rubbed her sticky palm down her sundress. The outfit was a concession to the festivities, but she’d paired it with her usual hiking boots because there were too many poisonous snakes for her to consider wearing sandals. Not a great look but always practical.
She exhaled through her mouth with resignation. “All right. I hear the wisdom of your words. Just tell me whom to contact about setting up my triumphal return to our beloved alma mater. And in the name of a good cause—and good people—I promise to show the proper humility and speak about the urgency of the problem.” She paused, her mind working on overdrive. “But I have one condition.”
“Hey, I gave you prime time network exposure. Don’t expect me to open my meager checkbook, as well,” Mimi protested.
“I wouldn’t think of it. I know the prices at the salon you frequent. No, my request—no, my ultimatum is this. I’ll go provided you come, too. If I’m going to give a convincing performance for a day—”
“We’re talking days, bubby,” Mimi interrupted.
Lilah groaned. Oh, yeah. Grantham University never did anything by half measures. Their Reunions lasted three days and were scheduled immediately before commencement ceremonies, thus cementing a lifelong hold on graduating students.
Lilah cleared her throat. “Okay, but if I am going through with this charade, I think it’s only right and proper that I have moral support. And nothing says moral support like a forceful female friend close at hand.”
The metaphorical clock ticked away in silence until Lilah heard a sigh. “All right,” Mimi agreed. “Only for you will I set foot on Grantham, New Jersey, soil. I suppose that also means I won’t be able to avoid putting in an appearance at the family manse, will I?”
“I’ll make it up to you. I promise. Besides, once my parents get wind of the award, I’m sure at least one of them will insist on making an appearance, and then you’ll have a parental buffer.”
“If you mean that having a critical mass of people will in any way be enough to preserve my sani—”
Mimi’s voice was drowned out by a decisive rat-tat-tat. It had to be the sound of gunfire.
“Mimi? Mimi? Are you all right?” Lilah asked.
“Never better. This is what I live for, right?” Her words were upbeat, but they couldn’t camouflage the underlying edge. “Listen. Gotta go. I’ll text you the contact numbers at Grantham. Promise.” The call ended abruptly.
Lilah held the phone away from her ear. Her concern didn’t stop just because the conversation was cut short. She shifted her gaze toward the encroaching jungle. Danger from natural predators and roaming militias was never far away here, either. For now, at least, there didn’t appear to be any imminent threats to be fearful of.
But sometimes the bigger fears came from within oneself.
CHAPTER TWO
June
JUSTIN BIGELOW STOOD in the international arrivals area of Newark Liberty Airport with a sign dangling from one hand and wondered if he was making a big mistake. A seriously big mistake.
It wouldn’t be the first one, as his father, a professor of classics at Grantham University, would no doubt have reminded him. Growing up, this pronouncement traditionally came during dinner, where conversational topics were limited to his father’s research on the ancient Greek Punic Wars, with possible digressions into stories from the day’s headlines in the New York Times that were of particular interest to him.
This arrangement, with Stanfield Bigelow as the central star around which all family members orbited, had seemed to please his mother and sister. Naturally. His mother happily trekked over the remains of archaeological sites in Sicily and North Africa while painting watercolors of the landscapes—very well, as it happened. Her book, A Companion’s Guide to Sicilian Wildflowers, was a classic among aficionados.
Justin’s older sister, Penelope—named for Odysseus’s devoted wife—was equally sympathetic to their father’s passion for ancient Roman history and Latin historical authors. She had dutifully followed in his footsteps, graduating first from Grantham University before going to graduate school at Oxford on a Marshall Scholarship, then winning a Prix de Rome, and now an appointment as an assistant professor at the University of Chicago—not quite the Ivy League, but somehow more so.
On the other hand, Justin—short for the Byzantine emperor Justinian, a fact that no one, and Justin made sure ab-so-lutely no one, knew about—had been left completely out of the conversation. Sports, his passion growing up and something he excelled at, held no interest for his father. And the only show on National Public Radio that Justin listened to—“Car Talk,” the humorous call-in car repair broadcast—didn’t count as highbrow fare. A real shame, since Justin had been more than handy when it came to keeping his father’s ancient Volvo station wagon up and running. In recognition of which his father would nod silently, turn back to his books and then add while he flipped a page, “Make sure you wash your hands before you touch anything in the house.”
It used to be that statements like that hurt Justin’s feelings, and he would lash out. Now he didn’t bother. What good would it do anyway? People didn’t change. They were who they were, for better or for worse.
Justin smiled at the thought of someone better, lots better. And with that smile still on his face, he stared up at the arrivals screen.
Her plane had just landed.
