Chapter Four West #3
But when our eyes lock, and I see the challenge behind those icy blues, I can’t physically keep my mouth shut.
“They were nice and peaceful, actually,” I say calmly, not dropping Cammie’s stare. “Then she arrived, and I wouldn’t know peace again for sixteen years.”
While the adults laugh again—two of them as fake as a sitcom laugh track, the other enjoying herself too much to do the math behind my words—the only sign that Cammie even heard me is in the slight narrowing of her gaze.
Somewhere in the distance, I hear the conversation move on, Ilaria asking Dad and Dr. Alex about the transformation of Villa Russo into researcher housing.
But Cammie and I are locked in a silent stare-off, neither willing to blink first. It’s juvenile, and pointless, and damn if I couldn’t do this the rest of the night.
Until the soft clearing of a throat, followed by an even softer voice, puts an end to our deadlock.
“Um, I don’t want to interrupt, but…” my forgotten seat neighbor Lila begins, her doe eyes darting a wary look between Cammie and me.
“Oh, you’re not at all,” I say, probably overselling it with the aggressive head shake. “What’s up?”
She still sounds a little hesitant as she continues, gesturing to the guy around our age I hadn’t noticed until now, who occupies the seat beside Cammie. “We were just wondering if you two are also here for field school.”
“Oh, uh, actually no,” I hedge, reaching up to scratch the back of my neck.
I don’t know why the explanation of our presence here suddenly feels so complicated, like I can’t explain it without starting at the day of my blessedly boring birth and continuing through all the relevant moments in my life story.
Is this the Cammie effect? Her proximity making absolutely everything seem more confusing and tangled and messy? Or do I just need to shut up, eat my now-cold mountain of carbs, and get a full night of sleep, then everything will be easy-breezy in the morning?
Cammie picks up the conversational baton instead of letting the awkward silence I’ve left drag on for eternity.
“We’re here with our parents. Well, my mom and his dad. We’re not siblings. Or even step-siblings. Our parents aren’t a couple—never have been! Because he’s gay, but it’s not like that’s the only reason they aren’t together. She’s also…emotionally unavailable?”
On second thought, the silence wasn’t so awkward. And I thought my social skills were rusty.
Cammie pauses to lift her full water glass to her lips and drain it, then slams it back down with a gasping breath.
This is quickly followed by a few seconds where her face pinches up in discomfort and she presses a hand to her chest, squeaking out the words “that was carbonated” by way of explanation.
Lila, Anonymous Guy, and I all seem incapable of anything but gaping at the one-woman show. When her face finally relaxes and her hand falls to her lap, Cammie finishes with: “Anyway, our parents are archaeologists.”
Lila is polite enough to ask a follow-up question. “So, your parents are leading the field school?”
I decide to take this one, bolstered by the fact that I can’t make things much weirder.
“No, they’re here for the twentieth anniversary celebration and the documentary about Villa di Bronzo.
Her mom was the first to discover it, and she and my dad co-led the first excavations.
” Belatedly, I add, “Cammie was also born at the dig site, and it was a big news story and everything, so she’ll be part of filming, too. ”
Just when I thought we’d lost these potential summer friends, Lila’s face brightens and she lets out a gasp. “Wait, oh my god, what?” Her excitement is entirely directed toward Cammie. “I’ve heard that story! That was you?”
Cammie nods, and her new biggest fan fires questions at her about her brush with worldwide celebrity, which she spent as a barely sentient baby blob.
Cammie’s a seasoned pro at this routine, and while the two are occupied with each other, I’m able to eat a few bites of food and almost convince myself it tastes better cold than it would have fresh.
“So, West,” Lila says after a few minutes, snapping my attention back to her. “You won’t get to be part of the documentary? What are you going to do with all your free time?”
The questions come with a cute faux pout, like she’s sympathetic to the plight of the unfamous. But her eyes are smiling and her lashes flutter, and for the first time, I wonder—is this unreasonably pretty girl…flirting with me?
I feel my cheeks heat as my ability to form complete sentences crumbles. “I…I brought some stuff I’m hoping to work on. Programs, like, coding. On my computer.”
Cammie’s laugh is like a singular thunderclap, brief but foreboding.
I turn my head to find her looking at Lila with a knowing smile, her tone breezy as she says, “You’ve gotta watch out if this one starts getting bored.
” She leans in and lowers her voice, but not so low I can’t hear her confide, “He might try to make you his friend with benefits.”
I’m vaguely aware of Lila letting out an uncomfortable semi-laugh, and Whatever His Name Is might be choking on a piece of cannoli. Our parents continue to joke and chat and drink, oblivious to the psychological warfare being waged so casually at the same table.
But I’m too consumed by a shock-horror-mortification cocktail to do anything but sit there, perfectly still and laser-focused on this stranger who looks a lot like my old friend.
My insides tremble with something like adrenaline.
Maybe it’s my fight-or-flight instincts battling it out with the lesser known third option: cry.
I don’t know if it’s to her credit or not, but Cammie doesn’t walk the words back.
Nor does she drop my gaze as she leans back in her chair and carelessly twirls one braid around her fingers.
I finally manage to swallow even though my mouth has gone dry.
Several slow, deep breaths later, the emotional five-alarm fire that filled my brain has burned down to something more manageable, and I can start to form actual thoughts.
So I know exactly what I’m doing when I tap into the most spiteful side of myself, crafting the first reply I can think of with a chance of wounding her back in kind.
“Nah, I have too many interests to get truly bored. I guess that’s a perk of starting life in an ordinary way to ordinary parents—it forces you to develop a personality.”
She flinches, the rest of her body going rigid while her jaw goes slack.
I know I’ve struck true. But it sure doesn’t feel like a victory.