“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.
Justin glanced at his watch, an inexpensive Timex with large numbers. Given the water and sand he came into contact with daily on his job, there was no point in spending more—not that he was into status-y stuff anyway. It was an international flight, so he figured it would be another twenty minutes or so before she’d appear. Enough time to check his messages.
He tucked the sign under his arm and pulled out his smart phone, juggling it with the bouquet of flowers in his hand. He had left work early to drive to the airport, and he wanted to make sure that everyone got home. Then he set about methodically answering anything that required an immediate response. As he did so, he wandered a few steps to a large rectangular pillar, tucked the flowers and sign under his arm.
“Lilah? Lilah Evans?” a female voice called out from behind a few minutes later.
Justin held up a hand and quickly finished replying to a message. “I’m sorry. I just needed to send that.”
“Is that sign for Lilah Evans?”
A woman pointed to the words on his sign. A cascade of sun-streaked brown hair fell across her face, blocking her features.
“Can I help you?” he asked, bending over to address her eye to eye.
She stood up. The hair fell away. She indicated the sign again. “Did you mean Lilah Evans?”
His mouth opened. She looked very familiar, even though he didn’t recognize her immediately.
The Lilah Evans he remembered had that kind of fresh-faced milkmaid appeal—all rosy cheeks and rosy attitude to life—an apple dumpling with a heart of gold, to mix metaphors in a really, really awful way. She’d been rounded, maybe even a little pudgy, not that Justin ever complained about a few extra pounds. If anything, they only served to enhance her womanly appeal. Anyway, she’d always seemed supremely unaware of her own attractiveness. It hadn’t mattered if she had on a sweatshirt and had her hair pulled up and anchored by a pencil, or was wearing some slinky dress and high heels, the woman had invariably produced a catch in his throat even though she’d only thought of him as a friend. Was there anything worse?
Back in college, Lilah was his roommate’s girlfriend. That made her strictly off-limits.
And now? Now that same woman—who was not the same at all—was staring at him with a critical frown. She looked older. There were lines in her forehead and around her mouth, too, and she’d tucked a pair of reading glasses into the neckband of her drab olive T-shirt. Gone were the pillowy-soft curves, replaced by a delicate frame with sinewy muscles and minimal body fat. And instead of that wide-eyed, can-do outlook, she conveyed a weary, been-there-done-that air.
He cleared his throat. “Lilah? Is that really you?” He pointed between her name on the sign and herself in person.
“Well, yes, I’m Lilah Evans, spelled L-I-L-A-H, not L-I-L-L-A.” She hooked a thumb under the strap on her backpack. “You are waiting for the L-I-L-A-H version, right?”
He shrugged off a laugh.