The Dig (18 page)

Because she didn‘t grow up with us? Because she arrives from somewhere else?‖

I bring my hand to my necklace. Zeus, you saved me again.

But before I can celebrate being accepted by the twelve, Hera clears her throat, and I cringe. ―
If
her intentions were pure, as you say they are,‖ Hera says, ―then she would not hide the source of her powers. She would not hide where she comes from. The girl that you wish to accept as one of us is nothing but a hoarder of secrets.‖

―She is…private,‖ Zeus says, but even I can tell that he‘s lost the argument.

―There is no privacy amongst us,‖ Hera crows.

Hermes starts to speak, but I can barely hear her. I shift aside some more marble and crawl another ten feet through the tunnel. I make a slim opening in the marble wall and, peering through it, I can see the twelve of them standing by the small natural pool with the Petros.

Suddenly, my phone buzzes. Are you serious, universe? I‘m really gonna get reception here, in a marble tunnel on top of Mount Olympus?

But when I pull out my phone, it‘s still switched off. My pocket continues to vibrate.

Tentatively, I reach in. Could it be a bug? Did something nasty crawl in there?

I pull out the obolus. It‘s vibrating and straining itself toward the crack, as if it‘s magnetized. I stare at it in confusion, as the faint blue light from the obolus casts cool shadows around the small tunnel.

What could be drawing it? Is it the gods? But the obolus never reacted to them before. And the only other thing out there is the pool, and it hasn‘t reacted like that to water either.

And then I understand. It‘s attracted to the Petros in the center of the pool. Only it‘s not just attracted to it—it‘s the same material.

The obolus is made from the Petros.

I really am just like them, one of the gods.

Suddenly, they all start to move away from the pool. They‘re chatting and murmuring amongst themselves. The meeting is over.

Oh no. I have to get back to the room before they find me missing.

It‘s hard to turn around while crouched in the tunnel. I‘m awkward on my hands and knees and I‘m huffing and puffing. Surely one of them is headed directly to my room. Hopefully it will be Zeus and he can tell me all about the meeting and I can pretend I didn‘t hear any of it and he can say all those nice things about me in person and we can run away together and live happily ever after. But if it‘s not Zeus?

I scramble down the tunnel. If I don‘t get there first, they‘ll know that I snuck out, and I hear someone approaching from the hallway outside. There is a click as a hand turns the lock and, in sheer panic, I fling myself out of the tunnel and onto the floor, and as the door swings open, I command the tunnel to seal shut
fast fast now
!

Hera stands in the doorway, like some sort of human punishment. She looks down at me, crumpled on the floor, sweating and out of breath, and lifts her perfect little nose into the air.

―Sweetie, you look even worse than you did before.‖

―Hello, Hera,‖ I say, forcing myself to be civil. ―How was the meeting?‖

―Oh, never mind that. We‘re all just so excited you‘re here. We‘re going to talk more in the morning.‖

I nod.

She tilts her head to one side and smiles a big cheerleader smile. ―You know, Zoe, I think we got off on the wrong foot.‖ Oh my
goddess
, she‘s really gonna try this?

―No, no we didn‘t,‖ I said.

―Oh yes we did,‖ she says, entering the room and standing across from me. ―It‘s my fault.

I‘m sorry. Let‘s start over. What do you say?‖ It‘s a fascinating thing about being an outsider.

Sometimes, even when you know the insiders have said terrible things about you behind your back, you can‘t help but feel good when they‘re nice to you in person. To be fair, there‘s a big part of me that wants to believe that Hera really is good at heart. Hey, I can be mean when I‘m jealous too.

―It‘s my fault too,‖ I say. ―I should have, um, tried to hang out with everyone.‖

She links her arm through mine and her voice becomes as soft as a kindergarten teacher‘s.

―Now, if I know Z, he probably talked your ear off and didn‘t so much as offer you a sip to drink?‖

―Well, I guess I haven‘t had anything in a while.‖

―Oh, you must come with me, then, you dear parched girl. Z could drive someone nuts with his talking. Talk, talk, talk. He‘s unreal sometimes.‖

―I guess so.‖

―Zoe,‖ she says. ―It‘s why all the little human girls turn to mush when he so much as smiles at them. Zeus is afflicted with this terrible, terrible universal pity for all earthly women that he repeatedly mistakes for love.‖ She squeezes my forearm and pats my hand. I don‘t say anything.

Hera‘s room isn‘t so much a room as a stage, a performance space.

There are no posters on the walls, no books, no gum wrappers on the floor and there‘s something beautiful but decidedly un-adolescent about it all. How do you live in here? I mean, what happens if you drip hot fudge on the floor?

Hera passes me a goblet and when I bring it to my nose and breathe in, I feel better already.

I take a sip, looking around the room in awe. The place is bigger than the common room at Greeley, bigger than the senior suites I might never see. It‘s an apartment, really, and I don‘t know anyone my age who has her own apartment. So I‘m standing there gaping at the sheer sprawl of it.

There are chaise lounges and drapes everywhere and everything is a perfect shade of white. I believe they call it ecru in online catalogs. I believe they call it the color that flatters Hera‘s honey-hewed skin. I believe they call it woefully unjust that she gets to live like this and my awe and envy are written all over my face.

―Amazing, right?‖ she asks.

―Uh huh.‖

It feels like she‘s laughing at me but I‘m probably just feeling insecure and out of place, so I tell myself to play it cool. I sip from my goblet, savoring the taste of the sweet tea. A cool breeze flits across my face. God, but the cross ventilation in the room is the stuff of dreams. I‘ve never been anywhere more beautiful or breathable in my entire life.

―Anywhere you want to sit, dear. Just try to keep your feet off the settee.‖

I nod agreeably. I have no intention of propping my feet up and putting my modern-looking boots on display.

Of course, my attempts to keep my boots hidden only backfire, as Hera instantly notices the way I tuck my feet out of sight behind the settee—though luckily she misinterprets the reason behind my reluctance. ―Oh don‘t be embarrassed,‖ she tells me. ―Anyone‘s boots would be filthy after what you‘ve been through.‖

She gives me a patronizing smile. It‘s a smile that could sell beauty products; it says,
You’ll
never be elegant like me, but if you spend forty dollars
on face cream, at least you’ll feel a little
better
. Don‘t let her get to you, Zoe.

It‘s ridiculous of Hera to be so bold about her authority. She‘s my age.

But then again, she‘s been my age for a lot longer than I have. I shiver as the nastiness I just overheard jumps back into my head, the way she wanted me gone, her disgust at my presence here, and it‘s as if she can read minds, because she appears now like some fawn in a Disney movie:

―Zoe, are you mad at me?‖

―I‘m just…upset.‖

―You‘re mad at me,‖ she says with a wounded air. ―It‘s not fair.‖

―Not fair? You were pretty hostile, Hera.‖

―Holding a grudge is pretty juvenile. If I can get over it, don‘t you think you should be able to also?‖

Ah, the old passing the baton of nastiness. So she‘s not a jerk for being mean to be, but rather I‘m a jerk for being hurt. This is why I spend so much time in the library. My heart is beating too fast and I‘m not good at debating stuff like this. I‘d rather be discussing archeological ethics.

―Hera, I heard what you said at the meeting.‖

―Did you now? And how did that little accident happen?‖

―Well, I went… I mean, I was…‖

―I think the word you‘re looking for is
eavesdropping
.‖ She flips her perfectly straight dark hair over her shoulder. ―So you heard what I said and, what? It upset you?‖

I swallow. ―A lot.‖

―That makes perfect sense, dear.‖

Again that annoying ―dear.‖

―The reason it makes sense is that we loathe in others what we loathe most in ourselves,‖

she says and walks away, as if she‘s won the battle.

Feeling dizzy, I take another sip from the goblet. Then I sit down on the nearest plush lounge chair to try to relax. I must look funny the way I‘m sitting, upright, my legs crossed at the ankles, my arms crossed and the tea perched awkwardly on my left elbow. So I can‘t blame her for laughing.

―There is nothing to be nervous about,‖ she moons, elegantly sliding onto another lounge chair. She props herself up on her elbow like a girl in one of those misleading TV ads for the casinos in Connecticut, where they are trying to convince you that everyone there is rich, beautiful and incapable of losing.

―I‘m not nervous.‖

―Zoe, we‘re both guilty of trying to protect the ones we love.‖

―Who am I trying to protect?‖

―That‘s just the question I was hoping you‘d answer.‖

―Well…how can I open up to you after you‘ve just made it pretty clear that you don‘t want anything to do with me.‖

―Oh, Zoe. It‘s adorable to think that you would have that kind of an impact on me.‖ Ouch.

―That you would matter so much so instantaneously.‖ Double ouch. ―But it‘s not you I‘m upset about. You‘re just an issue that my friends and I have to deal with.‖

―I‘m an
issue
?‖ Damn, she‘s good. She would rule Greeley if she transferred midyear as a senior.

―Now listen. What you heard in there was our business. It wasn‘t meant for your ears so it probably sounded terrible to you.‖

―It didn‘t sound good. I can tell you that.‖

―But you seem like a very wise little girl.‖ Little girl? Ugh. ―So I know that you‘re wise enough to realize that if a stranger were to appear in
your
home, you, in turn, would gather with your own friends and try to protect one another.‖

―Maybe I‘d just ask her where she‘s from first.‖

―Okay. Where are you from, Zoe?‖

I redden. Somehow I never saw that question coming. I need to take over this conversation now. I look around at the ridiculous opulence of the room and trill, ―Your place is
gorgeous
.‖

―I know.‖

I fight back an eye roll. There are a couple of girls at school that do that too. When you pay them a compliment, they don‘t say ―thank you‖; they say, ―Yes, it is,‖ as if your very existence and opinions are superfluous. But maybe I‘m oversensitive. I take a sip from the goblet. As I move to rest it on the arm of the chair, I ‗accidentally‘ spill half the tea on my legs.

―Oh no! I‘m so sorry,‖ I say. ―I spilled tea everywhere.‖

―Don‘t worry. You‘re not the only clumsy girl in the world,‖ she simpers, tossing me a linen napkin. ―And besides, I have more
ambrosia
.‖ I‘ve been corrected and I feel stupid and I lift my glass and she refills it from the impossibly cool and unique little kettle. I‘d love to be one of those girls with an eye for stuff like that. I wonder if she found it at a flea market in town, and then I remember that it‘s not an antique, because we‘re in ancient Greece and it‘s 1000 BC. Why can‘t I seem to find my footing? I feel like I‘m walking along a foggy precipice, about to lose my step at any point.

―You must be so run-down from your travels.‖

―Do I look that bad?‖

She just tilts her head.

―Well,‖ I laugh. ―It‘s been a rough few days, to say the least.‖ I sip some more of the ambrosia. The tiles on the floor look Mexican and it occurs to me that I might be sitting in the origin of fashion and design. Did all styles of the world come from this one place, this one lofty apartment in the clouds? I never get like this, all indulgently philosophical, like one of those hippies who says that you can hear all colors of the rainbow euphonically represented in Led Zeppelin‘s
II
if you listen to it while standing on your head with your eyes closed. Maybe it‘s the combination of ambrosia, butter soft pillows, and heaven-scented air, all helping me to unwind.

―You are an interesting girl,‖ Hera says. And she‘s got me now, because in this state of mind, I‘d love to talk about me. I want to know how I come off. I want a genie or a mean girl to analyze me and tell me what I am, why I‘m here.

―What‘s so interesting about me?‖

―You look to the walls and to the floor with this searching, lost gaze when here I sit and yet you don‘t want to look at me and ask me for answers.

It‘s puzzling, Zoe.‖

―I‘m sorry.‖

―You are afraid and insecure. There is nothing to be sorry about.‖

―I‘m not afraid.‖ Wait, why didn‘t I say I‘m not insecure?

―Then tell me what is wrong.‖

I take another sip and look out the large bay window. Trees I can‘t name dance in the breeze. The branches rise and fall and I can‘t help but feel like they‘re telling me to lighten up, to open up. Maybe Hera is right. What‘s the harm in talking a little?

―Zoe, you are amongst the gods. We are worshipped as the masters of your world. Have you any idea what others would give to sit where you are now? It is silly of you to waste this opportunity for enlightenment just because you‘re upset over a boy who could never be yours anyhow.‖

―Oh, no. This is not about Zeus.‖

―I saw the way you were with him. I‘ve seen it a thousand times, you know.‖

―You have?‖

―Look at him. He‘s the most beautiful man in the world. And do you know why that is?‖

I shake my head.

―Because he‘s not a man. He‘s a god. And so often young girls like you mistake his politeness and his charity for something else.‖

―He saw me naked, you know,‖ I snap. Love is annoying like that. It takes away your sense of humor and self-preservation.

Hera doesn‘t react. Did I actually say that out loud? Oh God.

―I was swimming. In a lake. And when I came out, he was watching me. Then he helped me get my things and he asked me out on a date.‖