Page 5 of A Discovery: Love and Other Things
“What? No room service?” Angela huffed out in disbelief.
“Thank you.” I smiled earnestly, anxious to shove Angela in our room so she’d quit embarrassing herself.
“We have to take the stairs?” Angela had her hands on her hips, looking at me as if I’d had something to do with the decision not to install an elevator.
“Oh, come on, diva! Your ass should be so tight from all those kickboxing classes,” I teased, careful to keep my voice low enough so the receptionist wouldn’t overhear my use of the wordass. I wasn’t sure how conservative he was, though he had probably seen a lot running a hostel.
I grabbed two of Angela’s bags and rolled them toward the stairs. Luckily, there weren’t too many steps, but the stairway was narrow, so I had to stand at the top of each step and pull the bigger suitcase up like my life depended on it.
Winded and muscles shaking, we made it to the top.
“Room five,” I read off the door. “This is it.” I slipped the key into the lock of the wobbly knob and the door pushed open.
Angela tipped her chin up to the sky and scrunched her eyes shut. “Oh, sweet Jesus. Why is this happening to me?”
“Leave Jesus alone. He’s busy staving off famine. It’s not that bad! Look, we have air-conditioning.” My eyes bounced around the quaint room, from the large AC unit overhead to the two twin-sized beds with white sheets and flannel blankets on top. Plain white walls encased the room and the only access to the outside was a small window between the beds. Sure, the décor was lacking, but archaeologist lodgings weren’t extravagant. Grants awarded for digs were usually slim and researchers didn’t want to waste all of the funds granted on five-star hotels and gourmet meals. The digs were for such a short amount of time, and we were expected to tough it out.
Angela plopped onto the bed, the springs creaking under her back. “I can’t believe that I could have been on a yacht in the Caribbean right now with a cocktail in my hand.”
I lay down next to her, ignoring the stiffness of the mattress under me. “But then you’d be missing out on ‘the adventure of a lifetime,’” I sang, quoting an excerpt from the description section of the internship listing.
She turned her head to me. “How the fuck are you so insanely optimistic, yet we’re such good friends?” For a girl who called on Jesus as much as she did, she sure had the mouth of a sailor. A goodChristiansailor.
I shrugged. “Because I’m just so loveable. Now, give me some of your clothes so I can go take a shower and wash off the airplane stink.”
I was dead tired after the day we’d had and I needed enough rest to survive the first day of our internship tomorrow. We had to be up at 4 a.m., and I just hoped our mentor was the high point of this experience, because Lord knew that Angela’s patience would be non-existent when she had to wake up that early.
Chapter 4
The common area was bustling with the chatter of interns, a stark contrast to when we had arrived at check-in yesterday. The hostel was also open to other travelers, but if there were any, none seemed to be awake at this hour of the morning.
Our internship team was only five bodies large, but the excitement of the day ahead rippled through each of us—all, except Angela.
“Mornin’, sunshine,” I chirped as I took a sip of the strong coffee set before me.
It was a little after four in the morning and we had to leave on the shuttle in about fifteen minutes.
Angela and I had been dead tired after unpacking and getting cleaned up, so we had both decided to skip dinner and sleep off the jet lag instead. I had set the alarm on my phone to wake up on time, but we’d had an unexpected wakeup call echoing through the streets instead. I was aware that the call to prayer sounded five times per day in Arab countries, but I hadn’t realized it would start as early as three in the morning. Imagine our surprise when a male voice had rang through the silence of the early morning hours. I had nearly fallen out of my bed startled, but Sleeping Beauty over here had rolled over and covered her head with a pillow and gone back to sleep.
Angela grunted her greeting before collapsing into the chair across from me. She might be a crank, but she looked ready to tackle her first day on a dig, appropriate in her Stanford burnout T-shirt and khaki pants.
“By the way, thanks for these awesome clothes.” I motioned to the outfit she had laid out for me to borrow the night before.
She gulped her coffee unceremoniously. “What are you griping about? You look great. You could use more clothes to show off your curves.”
“My wardrobe is just fine, thank you very much. We were told to dress conservatively, not like we’re heading out to the club in the early 2000s!”
“Hey, I resent that. I just bought that outfit three weeks ago. The sales lady said bodycon is making a comeback. Get with it or get out.” She stuffed her mouth with the breakfast in front of her: salted fava beans with hardboiled eggs and pita.
The internship coordinator had sent us an email with customs to be mindful of when we traveled to Egypt. It explained specifically that conservative wear was required. We were instructed to be sure that our knees and shoulders were covered in public and that our clothes were not to fit too tightly against our bodies. I was certain that the short-sleeve, neon-pink bodycon top, which I suspected Angela had intended as a dress, and skinny jeans clearly violated the “tightness” rule. Luckily, my tits were smaller than Angela’s, which afforded me some extra room in the top. But I could barely pull the jeans over my hips, let alone zip them. Thank God for the hair-tie hack I’d learned on TikTok to keep them buttoned! I was also lucky that Angela had packed some neck scarves to double as head scarves, which the coordinator had recommended we bring in case we wanted to visit any mosques during our stay. I was using the white scarf she’d loaned me as a shawl to cover most of my top from view.
I reminded myself to call the airlines later to see if they had located my bag. Something told me I wouldn’t survive the embarrassment of Angela’s wardrobe for much longer.
Suddenly, a devastatingly handsome guy sat down next to Angela. “Hey, I’m Felipe. Are you two ladies the Stanford participants?” His thick Spanish accent was warm and inviting. His boyish smile coupled with the dark hair on top of his head and stubble on his square jaw made him look like one of those cute professional soccer players.
The tiredness in Angela’s eyes instantly vanished as the setting on her make-believe battery pack switched to “flirt mode.” She jutted her boobs out in Felipe’s direction, the school logo on her shirt standing at full attention. “Were we that obvious?” The playful grin on her lips was like sugar mixed with honey—way tooextra.
Not as obvious as you undressing poor Felipe with your eyes.
