Part 5
Evelyn reappears refreshed and radiant, barefoot with her hair loose in the back. I recognize her dress as the one the Arabian shopkeep women had dressed her up in in Egypt; I guess that's the Evelyn version of 'slipping into something more comfortable.'
"Care for something to drink?" she asks.
"Yeah, sure," I say. "What've you got?"
"Some Darjeeling from that market in Egypt, and good old English stuff."
I'd never heard of a drink called a darjeeling. "What's that?"
"Tea, darling," she says, as if everyone considers tea a nightcap. She lights the little hotel-sized burner and fills the kettle with fresh water.
"Uh, whatever you're having," I say.
While she's waiting for the water to boil, I come up behind her and wrap my arms around her waist. The slinky Arabian fabric tickles my arms. Evie leans against my chest and reaches up to cup my chin. I lean down and kiss the juncture of her neck and shoulder, eliciting the expected murmur of appreciation.
She turns around in my arms and kisses me. Passion flares; the kiss grabs us. My lips follow a path down her throat while her fingers rake my hair.
The kettle screams.
Evie comes to her senses and turns away.
I sigh in frustration. She ignores me and serenely pours the tea. I notice that flush in her cheeks, though. If she's so hot and bothered, why does she keep pushing me away? She wasn't so distant that night in the desert. Jonathan slept on one side of the camels and us on the other, and no one had any problem with that. I'd like to argue about this, but one thing I've figured out is that trying to convince Evelyn to do anything, in any context, is likely to produce the opposite effect.
"Would you like to sit on the balcony?" Evelyn asks.
"Sure," I say.
"It's a lovely night," she says. "Though I do miss a clear sky."
"Yeah, I don't think I've seen the sun since we got here."
Evelyn curls up next to me on the loveseat. Which kind of bugs me. She doesn't want to neck, but she'll drive me crazy, all warm against the entire left side of my body? I wonder if she even knows what teasing is.
"What're you doing tomorrow?" I ask.
"I'm afraid I have a pile of translations sitting on my desk waiting for me."
"On Saturday?" This is the second weekend in a row she's worked. She spends most nights in the museum, too, while I rattle around the hotel. I've never been to London, so I was looking forward to a guided tour from a pretty native.
"I really need to get to work if I want to make my presentation next week," she says apologetically.
"Oh. Yeah, I understand."
Evie smiles. "But on Sunday, we could go to the Easter service at Saint Paul's. I used to see it every year when I was a girl, but I haven't been there in years." Her eyes are shining with childhood memory. I imagine a tiny Evie in a frilly little-girl dress, awed by a gigantic, ancient cathedral.
"You want to take a date to church?" I ask, just teasing. Mostly. She does say odd stuff sometimes.
Evelyn flushes three shades of red and pulls away from me. "I – I just thought. . . . Well, I'm sorry, Mr. O'Connell; I suppose your usual fare spend their Sundays in backroom dice games." She's angry because she's embarrassed, that much I can figure out. Why, I couldn't guess.
"Sorry. I just don't do church," I explain.
She's still bristling. I put my arm around her to encourage her to lean back against me. I kiss her temple, hoping to soothe whatever chagrin she's feeling.
"We'll do something else on Sunday, then," she says. "I'm afraid I'm going to be dreadfully busy next week." She perks up. "Do you remember that dig I told you about, in Wales? The Oxford Celtic Society claims they know of a Druid mound that's rife with artifacts from before the Romans landed."
"I thought you were their Egypt girl."
"Well, yes, I admit the subject matter could be more interesting. But a few weeks mucking about in the dirt, and I'll come home with field experience that will show the Bembridge Scholars that I'm a valuable mind, no matter what they send me to study. If this presentation next week goes well, I think Mr. Cooke will ask me to head this dig with him. Wouldn't that be lovely?" She's all smiles and sparkling eyes.
"Yeah. Great." She's taking off for Wales now. I've never been to Wales, not even really sure which part of the island it's on. Hey, I can take a hint. I've got things waiting for me in Cairo. There's a tab to settle at that casbah, for instance.
"I have a team to assemble, and a dreadful amount of reading to do!" she continues. "Digging looks simple enough, but I need to know what to look for. All this on top of my Hamunaptra presentation."
"I guess a lot of academic types will be going on this, huh?" I say. "Guys with degrees. Guys with jobs," I mutter.
"I should say so, yes. Mr. Cooke has recently published his four-year study on monoliths in southern Britain, proposing that Stonehenge may actually be a full two thousand years older than it was thought to be!"
"Huh," I say. I didn't follow after 'monolith.'
She studies me curiously. "Are you upset about something?"
"No, of course not. Why should I be angry?" I say sarcastically. "Sounds like you've got lots to do. Don't mind the guy who took you out to Hamunaptra, saved your life, and hauled all those boxes of treasure to the museum. Hey, there's always more of that gold back in Egypt."
Evelyn stands up; snuggle time is over. "I don't believe you! No, strike that, of course I do."
"Huh?"
"You men are all the same! You can't stand to see a woman on her own two feet! If you think for a minute that I'm going to give up my career to – to follow you around the world from one fetid drinking establishment to the other –"
"I don't remember asking you to follow me anywhere. And, by the way, 'drinking establishment'?"
"Then what are you so jealous about?" she asks.
"I'm not jealous."
"Ooh, no, don't give me that. " She points a finger at me. "You're something. Every time I bring up my work, you get into a snit. Just like every other man who likes his women dumb and hanging on his arm. This is why I stay away from the lot of you."
"I'm not jealous!" I snap. "Look – you go to work. I stay home. You don't think there's something weird about that?"
"I'm terribly sorry that my life plans make you uncomfortable!"
"That's not what I meant!" I check my tone before continuing. "All right, I admit, you're right – a little!" I say before she can get wound up again. "This is a weird situation. But I could get over it, I really could. I could call this a vacation, 'cause I sure as hell could use one. Except I don't want to make this a vacation."
"For heaven's sake, why not?"
"I just--" It takes me a minute to figure out what I want, exactly. She waits, looking hurt. "I thought we'd be in this together."
"We are."
"Uh-uh. The museum guys are all over you, I'm just the combination pack animal and tour guide. Sometimes I wish we hadn't left Hamunaptra."
She looks at me like I just told her I have the ability to shoot Haley's Comet out my ass.
"You wish . . .?"
"I don't mean it like that." She's making my head get all muddled. "Well, yeah, I did. I miss you and me, together, working towards a common goal."
"Having our lives threatened."
"Beside the point."
Evelyn's eyebrows are still pinched together in confusion. Suddenly the clouds clear and her face lights up. "So what you're saying is, you wish we could . . . work together?"
"Well . . ." It sounds dumb when she says it like that.
"And you want to go on this dig with me?" she asks.
"Do you want me to?"
"Yes, of course I do!" she says.
"Then yeah, I want to go."
"Oh!" She attacks me with a hug that knocks us back onto the loveseat. "Ugh," I say as she lands on me. I hang onto her and she settles into my lap.
"You'll love it," she says. "A dig is just like camping -- except much less fun and rather a lot more dirty."
"As long as it isn't a hundred and fifteen in the shade at noon, I can take anything."
"More like freezing wind chills at night."
"Oh. Well, that'll be something new." I'm already thinking up lines that will convince her that two people in a sleeping bag are better than one.
"Indeed." She kisses me. "You'll fit right in. Lots of married couples go together."
What? "What?"
She slides off my lap onto the seat next to me. "Oh, there goes that look again," she says, annoyed.
"Evelyn –"
"Don't start," she says. "I only meant that a lot of couples go together."
"Oh. Good," I say.
"There it is then," she says.
"What is?" Is she talking Egyptian? I swear to God, it isn't my fault I can't follow this conversation.
She looks over the balcony, out into the dark city. She's chewing on her lower lip like she's trying not to cry. What'd I say?
Finally, quietly, she says, "What do you expect of me?"
"Huh? Nothin'," I say.
"Women in general, then. The women you date. What do . . ." she trails off.
And then, like a brick to the head, it hits me. I know exactly what's been upsetting her. It isn't the marriage thing.
"Honey, can I ask you something personal?" I say quietly, like she's a deer in the woods I'm trying not to startle.
"Yes, of course," she says distantly and politely, still looking beyond me into the night.
I touch her arm to get her to look at me; I need to see those wide, worried green eyes.
Carefully, I say, "Have you, um, been with," I emphasize the phrase to make it the biblical sense, "any guy, ever?"
She swallows, blinks, looks away briefly. Evie's an awful liar; I know her well enough that I can see she's gearing up to tell one now.
But then she gives up the act and, with the candid composure I've seen her wield so rarely, says, "No."
Treading lightly, I continue, "And it, um, bugs you, right? That I have. Been with. Um, women." This is so weird. Page one of the male code says to never, ever be honest in a conversation like this. I should feel like I'm two steps from the doghouse or something, but I don't. I don't want to just placate her, I want to get rid of whatever worries she's got stewing.
Evie shrugs and kind of nods.
"Honey, I'm not going to try to explain my past," I say kindly.
"Please don't," she says.
"Then neither should you."
She looks at me sharply.
"I mean," I say, "it's not a contest or a prerequisite or something."
She chuckles at that.
"Look, you're hardly the only girl in the world who feels this way. It's more S.O.P. than you probably think."
"S.O.P?"
"Standard operating procedure. I mean, it's not like I score with –" Oops.
"Oh, what a charming turn of phrase!" She isn't really angry anymore, just embarrassed.
"I didn't mean it that way," I growl in frustration. "I like you. I like you so much I don't care about--" she tips an eyebrow at me. "Well, okay, we both know that's a lie, but you know what I mean."
"No, I don't." She fixes me with a hard look. "What does that mean?"
"It means . . ." What's the polite, nice guy way to put this? "You don't have to worry about me."
"That's . . . good to hear." Her cheeks are flushed, but she's smiling.
"What's the point of doing it if you're not having fun?" I say reasonably.
She blushes harder but looks pleased. "Thank you, Rick. That's a very . . . considerate attitude."
I shrug. "I try."
"I'm sorry for hollering."
"You're cute when you holler."
"Was that a compliment?"
I kiss her. Her lips are soft and caressing; they're wonderful. She's wonderful. I hear myself say against her lips, "I love you."
Evie pulls away and looks me hard on in the face. "You love me?" She looks mad. Not the reaction I was going for. Not that I know what kind of reaction I was going for. I wasn't 'going for' any reaction – the words just fell out of my head.
"Um," I say. Gotta say something! Gotta make it good!
"You just told me you love me," Evelyn says.
"Yeah, I did that, didn't I?"
"You say that, what does it mean?"
"What do you mean? What else could it mean?" I have no idea what it means.
"You've barely known me for a month. Love means commitment, Mr. O'Connell."
"Yeah, I guess." Oh, God, it does, doesn't it? If she'd hush up a minute, I could think. It isn't so much that I said it. I meant it. I think I meant it. I think I may have thought it once or twice before.
"You guess?" she says.
"I don't know!" I say under her scrutiny. Geeze, the Egyptian police weren't so persistent. "I didn't consult the plans for the rest of my life before I said it."
She turns away, huffy. "I never know when you're serious. I never know what really matters to you."
"Sounds like you don't trust me."
"I don't know you. Honestly, I don't know what I was thinking. Fall for the first man who saves my life. Brilliant; just capital. How long before you're tired of the – the mousy librarian and move on to greener pastures?"
Criminy, how much does a guy have to do --! "Evelyn, I got myself pummeled by the undead for you. I took a bunch of guys back out to that desert – the last place I ever wanted to see again -- knowing some of them may not make it back, to rescue you. And, last but not least, I'm still having this conversation with you!"
She turns around and look at me, still angry but curious.
"Look, I don't do – this." I wave my hand in the air between us. "This serious conversation thing we're doing right now? Anyone else, I'd have bailed an hour ago. So believe me when I tell you that me, sitting here, talking to you with you crying and yelling at me, means something. It means I'm serious. I love you." I do. I don't regret having said it, even though it's like jumping off a bridge. That's what loving Evelyn is like – jumping off a big, scary bridge. Good thing I'm a thrill-seeker.
"Really?" she sniffles.
"Yeah."
"Ohh you," she sighs.
She leans in and kisses me. I pull her close, linger over her lips, let my hands do a little roaming. She doesn't push me away this time; I feel her little hands on my chest, doing a little exploration of their own. I wrap my arms around her waist and pull her onto my lap. . . .
*
Continued in part 6.