Chapter Twenty West
Chapter Twenty
West
The day of the party begins with a beautiful girl kissing me.
The same beautiful girl who fell asleep next to me last night in my cramped twin bed during a screening of The Mummy.
With all that’s changed over our years apart, I was comforted to find that she’s still the worst person to watch any archaeology-related movie with.
She pointed out every place the fictional characters went wrong, according to real-life, twenty-first-century archaeology standards and ethics and best practices, while I reminded her that a film about a reawakened mummy with supernatural powers wasn’t exactly aiming for realism.
It’s been a week since our meeting with Luca Goedhart ended before it could really begin, and Cammie and I have settled into a comfortable routine, one that doesn’t involve running around the Naples metropolitan area on a hunt for Cam’s glorified sperm donor, as she’s decided she should rebrand the mystery man.
Who’s much less of a mystery in my mind, since I laid eyes on Cammie’s Dutch Doppelg?nger (Twenty-Years-Older Man Version).
But if she noticed their physical similarities, she hasn’t addressed them, so I’ve kept my opinion to myself.
Instead of the Dad Quest, our days have been filled with a refreshing return to our individual interests—for me, catching back up with my friends in our race to solve as many Project Euclid problems as we can.
For Cammie, spending more time down in Villa di Bronzo with Dr. Alex and the field school students, now that the documentary has largely moved into post-production mode and her mom couldn’t resist getting her hands back in this familiar dirt.
Cam has finally put her trowel to use, after all the time it spent neglected in her backpack.
It seems like she’s gradually allowing herself to love what she loves again.
It’s the best feeling, seeing her come back up to Villa Russo every time with more freckles and a smile she can’t wipe off her face.
We spend nearly all the rest of our time together, either just the two of us or with our parents, who exchange smug smiles when they think we’re not looking, clearly confident in the success of their scheme.
But they’ve yet to stage a joint family meeting on our relationship, for which I couldn’t be more grateful.
Cam and I wander the gardens of Villa Russo hand in hand, taking a picnic basket and a quilt out to the sunny hillside on milder afternoons. We talk about everything and nothing we’ve missed in each other’s lives, and what the future could look like once we return to school.
The only topic I find myself avoiding is the Germany program.
Cam steers clear, too, and I’m not sure if she assumes I’ve already declined it, based on what I last told her on our day in Capri.
But I’m reluctant to ask and instead keep talking about us both being on our stateside campuses like it’s inevitable.
It’s only a couple hours’ drive between Nolan U outside Chicago and Elora in Wisconsin, making weekend visits easy.
Even if those weekend visits might not be able to start until next year, when I’ve returned from a whole different continent.
The fact that it’s even a conversation I get to have—how we’ll fit into each other’s everyday lives—is still surreal.
It’s all I can do to daydream out loud with her, imagining how amazing it’ll be to have her around back home, meeting my school friends, building our routine there.
We both acknowledge that a long-distance relationship could be more difficult in reality than in our musings.
Neither of us acknowledges that the distance could be a lot longer than we’re counting on.
We can handle it, if we have to—we’ve gotten past much bigger obstacles before. And I’m too stoked about the chance to be together to dwell on the hypothetical hurdles. Very un-West of me, all things considered.
Whatever else the future holds, I hope it comes with many mornings just like this one—a disgustingly blissful hour of sleepy cuddling and kissing and whispering sweet nothings that feel like everything.
Cammie reluctantly leaves my room to get ready for the day and do whatever pre-party primping Dr. Alex has planned for the two of them.
And leaves me to think about how the hell I got this lucky.
Thoughts that are interrupted by the text I get from Max.
He says that he met a guy in the Germany program’s chat server who is looking for a roommate.
If I don’t think I’m going, he adds, he understands—he just has a backup roommate lined up, waiting on my decision before they submit the necessary form.
Sinking into my desk chair, I reread his text a couple times. Then open my computer and pull up the roommate interest form.
I don’t know why this message, of all things, finally lights a fire under me—sparks a feeling of decisiveness that I’d yet to find until now.
I want to room with Max. Something about the glimpse of the alternative—the world in which I withdraw my commitment, go back to campus as normal, and follow along through social media while Max has what I expect will be the time of his life in Berlin, studying things that excite me and living with some other guy—it feels all wrong.
This summer, being with Cammie, has shown me not only that can I do things that scare me, more than I’d come to think was possible.
But also that it doesn’t have to be a breeze, that I’m allowed an adjustment period, to feel uncomfortable and anxious at times—and still make it through.
I have the tools to navigate the fear, and people who will listen when I need to vent or hold my hand to share their strength.
I’ve seen how much more I’m capable of if I allow myself to try. If I give myself a chance, I can live a much bigger life than the one I’ve built while in survival-then-recovery-mode these past few years. I think I’m ready for more adventures.
So before I can change my mind, I open Max’s text. And finally, I say yes.
To prepare myself for a night of mandatory socializing, I spend much of the day hiding in my library cave.
I put Germany and the future and all the people I’ll need to update on both of those subjects out of my mind, telling myself I have time to deal with that later.
Cammie and my parents—the only ones who really need to know—will be excited for me, I think.
I hope. For now, I enter a sort of hyperfocus zone only brought on by the right combination of caffeine—in this case, three espressos—and competitive shit-talking in the group chat.
Over the course of the afternoon, I complete a new personal record number of Project Euclid problems in one day.
I feel the achievement in the aching of my wrists and fingers, which crackle like bubble wrap as I roll and stretch them this way and that, having pushed the limits of my ergonomic keyboard’s capabilities.
I’ve made my pre-arthritic bed and I must lie in it.
I’m surprised and a little ashamed to find it’s nearly sunset when I emerge, my laptop tucked under one arm and my phone in my opposite hand, which I use to scroll through all the notifications I missed while in a coding fugue state.
The only ones I really care about are the text updates from Cammie, photos that only partially display each step of the all-day glam process she’s been through.
One focuses on the painted fingernails of her left hand, a glossy shade of pink that reminds me of the flush of her cheeks when she’s embarrassed or excited.
The next is of a lone, curling tendril of red hair against the lightly freckled skin of her neck, a view that shouldn’t make me have to remind myself to breathe, but does nonetheless.
Most recently, I got a close-up of gauzy, pale green fabric, presumably some part of the dress or skirt she’ll have on tonight.
I’m looking forward to seeing the rest, even though I was already gone for her when she showed up to the last fancy gathering in cutoff overalls and half-undone braids.
I’ve never felt like I’m literally buzzing with anticipation of seeing another person the way I do as I return to my room and begin a much less involved getting-ready ritual.
I feel like a scrub, putting in so little effort compared to her, but I think the results will fairly represent the difference.
After I’ve pulled on my one pair of dress pants in a medium-gray shade and a similarly unexciting white button-down, I knot my blue-and-green-striped tie around my neck.
Convenient that one of the two I packed can even attempt to match Cam’s outfit.
I work a dab of the one hair product I use—and only sparingly—into the dark brown mess on my head, attempting to make it appear halfway tamed for once.
Then I slide my feet into a pair of leather loafers and check the clock on my phone.
Ten minutes well enough spent, I guess. Time to hit the terrazzo.
Heading downstairs, I consider not for the first time how glad I am that Cam isn’t expecting any of the potential dads to show at this gathering.
We—well, she, using my email account—did write to Luca once after the meet-awkward, letting him know about the party, the same spiel about surprising her mom with old friends, but with a little extra emphasis on how much she hoped he could make it.
A part of me was tempted to secretly follow that up with my own addendum, giving him a piece of my mind about this deadbeat dad act I’m almost certain he’s pulling on an amazing girl he’d be lucky to know…
but I am, at the end of the day, pathologically nonconfrontational, and therefore refrained. Unsurprisingly, he never responded.