Desert Dark (5 page)

“I was sorry to hear about her,” Nadia said. “It must have been devastating.”

“Thanks. Honestly, we weren't that close.” Libby never was sure how to respond to the sympathy, as she was uncomfortable exaggerating her own importance. “I feel so bad for her parents.”

“What happened?”

“The details are a little sketchy. You know how rumors go. One teacher said it was a ten-car pileup, another thought she fell asleep at the wheel. I don't know.” She shook her head.
I can't think about it anymore
. “Anyway, I'll introduce you to our teammates at dinner. Alan Cohen,” Libby wrinkled her nose. “He's a bit fussy but super smart, and Damon Moore, who's absolutely gorgeous.” She cringed as the word left her mouth—
goh-juss
. “He's a doll; everyone loves him.”

“I love your accent.”

“That's sweet of you to say.”

Nadia lingered near the door. “I didn't realize security would search my bags.”

“I know, it's embarrassing. Just the thought of someone rifling through my underthings.” Libby shuddered. “But it's like that here: your rights and privileges no longer apply.” She smiled to soften the statement.

Nadia nodded. “I just left Dr. Cameron's. He mentioned—I had no idea I would be so far behind.”

“I'll help you get caught up,” Libby reassured her.

“Thanks. Hopefully I won't take up too much of your time.”

“Oh, honey, don't give it another thought. I hate living alone.”

Nadia shifted her weight from one foot to the next. She glanced at her watch.

“Where are my manners? Please, come on in.” Libby stepped back toward the wall. “Make yourself at home.”

Nadia moved toward her bare bed. “Your room is spotless.”

“You mean
our
room,” Libby said.
And how good of you to notice
. She found visual clutter exhausting. She'd lined the books on her shelf according to color and height, placed everything on her desk at a right angle, and corralled the items on her dresser into pretty wooden boxes. The clothes in her closet hung precisely, sorted by type and color. Shoes lined the bottom, toes facing out, also arranged by color. “I tend to be a little obsessive when it comes to cleaning. I'll try to keep it under control. I've already decorated but if it's not to your liking we can change whatever you want.”

“No, it looks great.”

“I bought an extra duvet set if you'd like to use it. The throw pillows are very comfortable. I pile them up and do my reading in bed,” Libby said. Her roommate remained quiet. “But you don't have to,” she added quickly.
Honestly, Libby. You're gonna scare this poor girl off. Who cares if the beds don't match? You'll learn to live with it
. “It's no big deal, the bedding. Have I—is something wrong?”

Nadia turned toward Libby and shook her head. “Not at all. The whole campus is stunning—it looks like a resort. I'm just a little overwhelmed.” She tucked a loose curl behind her ear.

“The grounds are beautiful, no doubt about it. Hard to believe we're in the desert.”

“And the curriculum looks interesting.”

Libby nodded. “It certainly holds my attention.”

Nadia lowered her voice. “Are we—am I allowed to talk about it? With you, I mean?”

Oh, that's what's distracting her!
Libby exhaled with relief.
Poor thing. I bet Dr. Cameron dumped everything on her at once
. “Absolutely. You can ask me anything.”

Nadia grinned. “Okay. The Black-Ops Division of the CIA? Seriously? Is that as cool as it sounds?”

Libby returned her roommate's smile and answered, “You have no idea.”

A few minutes later Nadia's bags arrived.

“What did you think of Dr. Cameron?” Libby asked. “He's positively perfect. Except for making me cut my hair.” She frowned as she examined the ends of her silky blond hair. “He has no idea how difficult it is to get it straight. I had to take two more inches off just to even it out.”

As her stomach rumbled, Nadia realized she hadn't eaten since breakfast. “Am I keeping you from dinner? I can unpack later.”

“Oh, heavens no,” Libby answered. “Dinner runs for an hour; we won't miss it. And I'm sure we'll both feel more settled if you unpack now. You know, just get it out of the way. It won't take but a minute.”

Nadia turned into her closet to hide her smile.
I agree one of us will feel more settled, but it's not me
. She pictured her bedroom back home: clothes strewn across the floor, stacks of magazines precariously balanced on her desk.
Keeping my room clean will be harder than catching up in class
. Compulsiveness notwithstanding, Nadia liked Libby immediately. Her refined Southern accent was nothing like the sharp country twang she heard in Virginia.

Nadia unpacked under Libby's steady gaze. She had the feeling she was being evaluated, despite the light-hearted chatter.
She tried to look inconspicuous as she glanced back at Libby's closet for pointers on how to group her clothes.

I've been recruited as a spy and my main concern is organizing my closet
.

Twenty minutes later, the smell of basil and freshly baked bread filled the air as Nadia followed Libby through the buffet. In the dining room, small tables dressed in dark linens hosted hushed conversations. Libby led Nadia to the back corner. As they approached, one of the guys at the table stood up. He smiled at them, a flash of white against dark brown skin. He was at least ten inches taller than Nadia. Broad and muscular, with a shaved head, he reminded her of a fireman, or maybe a soldier.

“That's Damon,” Libby whispered. “I told you he was hot.”

“No kidding,” Nadia whispered back.

At the table Libby said, “Nadia Riley, meet Damon Moore and Alan Cohen.”

Damon shook her hand. “Nadia, it's so great to meet you. Don't worry about starting late.” He held on to her longer than necessary, flirting a little. His voice lowered slightly as he said, “I'm available for whatever personal assistance you may need. We take care of our own. Right, Alan?”

Nadia bit her lip to keep from grinning.

“It seems we have no choice,” Alan said. He looked up from his pasta and brushed a thick lock of hair away from his eyes. He stared at Nadia's face, then glanced down to her shoes and back up again. “We are only as strong as our weakest link.”

“I guess that makes me the weak link,” Nadia said, trying to make a joke.

Alan returned to his dinner and, without a flicker of emotion, responded, “Indeed it does.”

Alan Cohen did not like change. He did not want a new teammate, he did not care to reconfigure the entire group dynamic, and he did not like Nadia Riley.

“She's cute, right?” Damon asked as they cut across the lawn toward the library after dinner.

“I guess,” Alan said. Admittedly, Nadia had appealing eyes and a pleasing symmetry to her features, but looks were not everything. “Still, I do not like her.”

“Why not? You just met her ten minutes ago.”

“She does not seem particularly bright.”

“And how did you assess that so quickly?”

“She talked Libby out of our evening study session. It is bad enough we have to teach her everything she has missed, but now Libby will be a day behind as well. Do you know how long it will take to show Nadia what we have learned in jujutsu? Or catch her up on a summer's worth of work? It will dominate our entire month. Perhaps longer. Mark my words.”

“Why you gotta be like that?” Damon shook his head. “You're so negative. I don't even want to be around you when you're like this. I'm skipping study group, too.” He turned away.

“Then technically, it is no longer study group. It is me alone at the library.”

“That's right,” Damon said over his shoulder. “You alone.”

Alan shook his head.
Damon only cares about what she looks like. What if she turns out to be an idiot? She will drag down the entire team
. He pushed through the library doors. Cold air surrounded him, instantly drying the sticky spot between his scapulae.
Libby is no genius, but at least she can hold her own
. He found a table against the wall and opened his diplomacy text to chapter two. He sat quietly, focusing his eyes on the upper left quadrant of the page.

Alan was accustomed to a rigorous academic program, having previously attended an elite private school in Manhattan. Education had always been the top priority in his home, which meant the workload here was not unduly challenging. But even he could scarcely afford to skip an evening's study. And he did not need additional time with Nadia to know that he would continue to surpass his teammates intellectually. In fact, he likely eclipsed the entire junior class.

Alan moved his attention to the lower left quadrant.
A flowchart
, he scoffed.
Child's play
. On to the upper right section of the textbook.

No one assimilated languages faster than Alan. When he was a very young child, his family had lived with his grandparents in Jerusalem for a few years, so he was already fluent in Arabic. His father had taught him Hebrew. The Chinese and Spanish he was learning rolled easily off his tongue. He also spoke French (his mother's maiden name was
Badeau
) and enough German to get by. A few more weeks in the dojo with Hashimoto Sensei and he would probably know a good bit of Japanese as well.

Alan studied the final quadrant and turned the page. The information entered his consciousness like a photograph, and then somehow managed to file itself away in an organized system of folders. He would be able to retrieve the knowledge at a later date by searching his mind for the proper file. To say he had a photographic memory was inaccurate. A stack of photographs did not aggregate data. His mind, however, did.

This was not to say he excelled at all tasks. Martial arts, for example, continued to pose a challenge. Kick here, block there: his brain rejected kinesthetic learning. He needed time to process physical activities. Also, he was a bit skinny. Even having just met Nadia, he knew he would remain the least athletic of his foursome.

Alan looked up from his book. The tables around him were cluttered with foursomes. He was the only one studying alone. A girl at the next table glanced up, and Alan smiled. She looked away. He returned to his text.

He did not understand the fluid, constantly changing dynamic between men and women. Nor did he have the slightest idea of the qualities girls found appealing. He considered himself attractive. Not like Damon, but his eyes were a handsome light hazel, flecked with brown, and his mother said they matched his hair perfectly. He had neat, nicely arched eyebrows and clear skin. For the last several thousand years, those were the qualities that attracted a mate. It made evolutionary sense: before man knew medicine, hair and skin were the best indicators of good health. But so far, they had not helped him.

Secretly, he felt jealous of his roommate. Damon was intelligent—not as smart as Alan, but everything came easily for him. He obviously related well to girls, a skill Alan had yet to master. Everyone liked Damon. He had an easy way of being in the world. He made others feel comfortable and important. Besides his excessive flirting—which Alan believed he engaged in solely to mask his intellectual shortcomings—Alan had no real complaints. Unlike his complaints with Nadia.

Oh well. We were a person shy of our four-man team. At least she is not hideous
.

Of course, if anyone learned the truth about him, none of it would matter anyway.

At five forty-five the next morning, Nadia's new roommate gently shook her awake.

“I'm so sorry,” Libby whispered. “Do you want to skip? It's your first day so you probably won't get in too much trouble. I'll tell Sensei I let you sleep.”

“No, it's good, I'm up,” Nadia answered, half-asleep. “He's the martial arts guy, right?”

Libby nodded. “Maikeru Hashimoto Sensei. And he is
old
-school.”

“Let me brush my teeth.”

Libby showed Nadia how to put on her
Gi
and tie the belt. Nadia pulled her hair into a ponytail and smiled in the mirror.
I look like a ninja
.

“C'mon, honey. We're late.” The girls rushed next door. “Being late to the dojo is not good. Open the
shoji
.” Libby pointed to the sliding bamboo and rice-paper doors. She slipped off her shoes and added them to the long row neatly lining the wall. Nadia did the same.

The bamboo floor gleamed as they hurried down the hall to the large room at the end of the building. Thick blue mats covered the floor. They found spaces in the back, side by side, and Nadia felt reasonably sure their teacher didn't notice as they snuck in.

Hashimoto Sensei instructed as the students performed jumping
jacks, push-ups, sit-ups and snap kicks. He barked his orders—half the time in Japanese—while circling the mat. Nadia's legs, weak from kicking, threatened to give out as Libby reminded her they still had to run several miles around campus.

“Let me introduce you to Sensei,” she said.

Libby bowed as she reached their teacher. “Hashimoto Sensei, may I present my new roommate, Nadia Riley.”

Sensei studied Nadia with dark eyes. Salt-and-pepper hair, cut short against his head, matched his neatly trimmed goatee. His movements mirrored his stature: compact, precise; nothing frivolous. He bowed and, out of courtesy, she did the same. He spoke tersely, each syllable sharp and crisp. “Nadia-san, welcome.” Sensei straightened and faced Libby. “Libby-san, in the future please introduce a new student
before
instruction begins. I do not like interruptions to my lesson or surprises on my mat.”