“He’s been brushing up on his Greek!” a booming voice says from behind him. “I knew I liked him.”
Her dad pulls him into a bear hug and then repeats the action with Bianca before leading them to a table further back, where her mom, sister, and brother-in-law are standing to greet them with little Alec, shrieking happily at his aunt’s arrival.
They’re barely in their seats when the table is loaded down with plates of taramasalata, pita bread hot from the oven, grape leaves stuffed with rice and herbs – which Bianca tells him are called dolmathakia after he ate about six – orzo pasta in a garlic-infused red sauce, and spanakopita, little fried triangles of filo dough filled with feta cheese and spinach. Bottles of wine are uncorked, glasses filled and refilled.
They haven’t even ordered dinner yet when her dad turns to them and asks, “So what’s the plan for after you two tie the knot?”
“We haven’t even set a date yet, Dad,” Bianca says, looking up from where she’d been breaking some pita into bite-sized pieces for Alec.
“But you must have a plan?” her mom chimes in. “I don’t remember a time that you didn’t have a plan, Bianca Bean.”
He feels her tense beside him, her hand falling to her lap to grip the napkin there. He fights the urge to reach out and take it, to squeeze it gently and then twine their fingers together. “No plan right now. Xavier has to go to Greece at the end of July forhis fellowship, and hopefully I’ll be starting my job around the same time.”
“So you’re just going to . . . be apart?”
“For now.”
Her dad sighs. “In my day, that wouldn’t have made any sense, but you’ve both worked so hard to get where you are. It’s just terrible that there aren’t jobs where you could do this closer to home, closer to each other.”
Xavier starts to answer, but Bianca jumps in. “Xavier deserves this opportunity. He’s going to do amazing things in Greece.”
Okay, if she thinks talking about him will divert the conversation, then that’s what he’ll do. “I was lucky, really,” he insists. “My mentor from undergrad is heading up the project.”
“Paolo, right?” Bianca asks and he smiles that she remembers the name of the man who took him under his wing fifteen years ago and stepped in for his own dad in so many ways.
“Yeah, Paolo. So when the job came up, he reached out.”
“You’re also the best,” Bianca scoffs, taking his hand and squeezing it lightly, like he’d just wanted to do. “Your research focus and experience make you uniquely qualified for it and he would have been stupid not to hire you.”
“What exactly do you do again?” her mom asks.
“I work in repatriation, trying to return artifacts to their homeland.”
“Most of them were stolen in the first place,” Bianca fills in. “Imperialism strikes again.”
“I never thought about it like that,” Lexi says. “I just . . . assumed, I guess, that they were on loan? The way paintings get loaned to museums sometimes.”
“So what’s the endgame?” asks her husband, Chris, who’s barely said anything since their quick hello.
“Shutting down the British Museum?” Bianca asks, taking a sip from her glass before leaning her elbow on the table’s edge and resting her hand on her cheek to look at him, her eyes glittering with humor, so he can answer Chris’s question.
“My nemesis, my mortal enemy. One day, maybe not today, but one day.”
“A museum is your nemesis?” Lexi asks.
“The world’s largest warehouse of stolen goods and it’s not close.”
“You two are so similar.”
Bianca’s brow furrows at her sister, the question clear.
Lexi grins. “You’re both believers. You want to change the world. You’ll both fight to the death to right the wrongs you see. I mean, I don’t know how either of you do it, all that righteous anger firing through you all the time – I’d be exhausted. But that you found each other is . . . unsurprising.”
“Wow, Lex.”
Xavier clears his throat. “Yeah, that’s . . . pretty spot on.”
“What? You’re not the only smart one in this family, Bianca Bean, and don’t you forget it.”
