Page 2 of A Discovery: Love and Other Things
We both fell into fits of laughter.
Mom and I had a close relationship. It had always been just the two of us when I was growing up, so we had forged a bond that was more than just mother and daughter—we were best friends.
As a single mom working in Silicon Valley, Mom had often been burning the candle on both ends. She had started her career at a time when tech was solely abros’ club, so her managers had been less than understanding every time she had to rush home early when my school would call to say that I had a fever. But somehow, she had made it work, and for that, she was my role model.
Mom pulled out her phone and started playing on it as she spoke.Candy Crush, no doubt. “So, who is this professor that you’ll be interning with?”
“Dr. Campbell. He’s some famous Egyptologist from Oxford.” I had heard his name often during my three years of undergrad and had even read some of his research papers for classes. His write-up on statistical models for establishing morphometric taxonomic identifications was breathtaking, if you could even use the term to describe a thirty-two-page paper complete with scatter-plot graphs and citations. In short, he was a genius in the field.
“Have you Googled him yet?” Mom asked.
“What? No. Why would I look him up?” He was probably just like every other legendary archaeologist: in his sixties and still a fan of tweed.
“Ummm, maybe to know who you’re dealing with?! What if this guy is a hard-ass? Wouldn’t you want to at least do your research before you meet him—to give you the upper hand?” That was Mom, always prepared for some bullshit to go down.
But I was the opposite. I was a child of my intuition and based major decisions on gut feelings. A scientist who listened to her heart over her brain—nothing sounded crazier. But it had worked for me ever since I’d begged Mom not to send me to Camp Culkin when I was eight. Apparently, the entire operation had had to be cancelled only three days in due to a widespread outbreak of Hepatitis A. Now, the real reason I hadn’t wanted to go was so that I could spend the summer riding my new Barbie roadster bike, but I liked to think that my intuition had played a role in sparing my liver that summer.
“You know I don’t believe in researching people before I meet them.” I liked to give strangers the benefit of the doubt before meeting them so that we started off on a blank slate. Appearances were known to bias a person’s impression before first words were ever spoken. Research would only lead to preconceived notions and false judgments about my preceptor or internship fellows, and I wanted to go into this experience with an open heart and an open mind. It could also be stressful knowing too much beforehand, and I didn’t want that to ruin my excitement over the opportunity.
“Well, I do!” Mom tapped away at her phone. Her eyebrows nearly jumped off her forehead as she brought the screen almost flush with her face. “Holy shit!”
“What?” What could possibly be so surprising about Dr. Campbell? Archaeology was a male-dominated field, and most of the men looked similar across varying ethnicities: nonathletic build, middle-aged, and thinning hair.
I moved in closer to get a look at what Mom was ogling, curiosity getting the best of me. She pulled the phone away to her chest before I could peek. “I thought you didn’t want to see?” She jutted her chin out at me, using my words against me. “What happened to giving people the benefit of the doubt?” Her lips rose into a smirk.
Straightening my spine, I pulled on the hem of my T-shirt, wishing it were my pride I were straightening out instead. “Fine. I don’t want to see whatever it is you’re looking at anyway.” I was failing miserably to salvage my ego—I sounded like a bratty four-year-old swearing I’d hold my breath forever unless someone put a chilled juice box in my hand.
Mom snorted and shook her head like the image of me packing my suitcase for a long trip was too much for her to bear. “God, Kitty. I’m going to miss you so much.”
The nagging anxiety that had been bubbling just under my overt excitement spilled over. I had never left Mom for longer than a week. What was I going to do without my best friend for two whole months?
Hot tears filled my eyes. “I’m going to miss you, too, Mom.”
Chapter 2
“Please fasten your seatbelts. Cabin crew, please take your seats for landing.”
The perky voice of the flight attendant enunciated through the intercom in perfect Arabic, drawing my attention away from the book on my tablet. I had gotten in some great reading time over the flight, with only about twenty percent of my romance novel left. The site that I watched my Turkish dramas on had been way too buggy on the plane’s WiFi and I kept getting pop-ups with some woman with large boobs asking me if I wanted to play with her. Reading was the obvious second option to pass the time, and if you asked me, losing myself in a world where hope thrived and love conquered was the best distraction.
It reminded me of how I felt whenever I read about digs. Hope was what drove an archaeologist’s work. Oftentimes, digs turned up nothing more than some broken pottery and animal bones, but the hope that something more would be discovered burned inside the chest of every scientist.
Dark waters stared back at me through the airplane window. Different hues of green mixed with tan completed the canvas—the canvas of my origins. A thrill of electricity buzzed through me, and my legs jittered restlessly, just itching to get me out of this plane so I could introduce myself to my motherland.
An elbow nudged at my arm on the rest between the seats.
“Good morning, sunshine!” I hummed to my neighbor.
Angela grunted her response as she wiped sleep from the corners of her eyes. Her noise-canceling headphones hung around her neck, so I knew she could hear me. The change in cabin pressure had probably disturbed her highness’s beauty rest. I had started to worry she’d slipped into a coma or something since she had been passed out for the past nine hours. It had been a long flight after our layover in New York, but sleeping for that long uninterrupted on an airplane with numerous blaring announcements from the flight crew had to have been a world record for anyone.
With her golden-blonde hair trapped in a messy bun on top of her head, Angela chugged water clumsily from a plastic bottle like she was a boxer who’d just endured eight rounds before a knockout.
Her current disheveled state was in no way a true indicator of the Angela Bowman who graced the halls of Stanford. In fact, when she wasn’t traveling, she looked like a living, breathing Barbie doll. It was certainly not the stereotypical persona of an archaeologist, but she was smart as fuck and deserved her spot in this internship.
Where I had small boobs and unruly hair, Angela had been blessed with ample curves and the smoothest hair I had ever seen. She turned heads wherever she went and was well aware of it, wearing only designer labels and accessories that were perfectly coordinated. That was why I had found it so amusing to see her show up to the airport before our flight in a velour tracksuit with a faded “Juicy” stamped on her ass. I hadn’t even known people still owned such hideous athleisure wear. Was Juicy Couture even in business anymore?
My own college sweatshirt and jeans were comfortable yet unassuming enough for me.
Angela was a true Southern belle. Born and raised in Georgia, she hailed from a well-to-do family. Just going to get gas in her Porsche convertible qualified as a social event in her eyes; she wouldn’t be caught dead in a tracksuit even at the local Chevron.
