The Music of the Deep: A Novel

by Elizabeth Hall

  That was the life she was living when, at twenty-eight years old, Alex went to the University Christmas party, an event, just like junior high school lunch, that she loathed. She never knew what to wear or how to do her hair, and usually ended up in a broom skirt and sweater, hair loose and messy, eating holiday goodies and looking at whatever reading material was to be found in the current venue. She despised the parties but understood that universities are highly political animals, and that if she wished to remain in her position, she had to at least make an appearance.

  By that time, her social circle had broadened to include not just her mother but also a handful of friends from college and colleagues at the University, where being smart was acceptable. She had even had a boyfriend or two, a few nights of totally forgettable sex. None of that had prepared her for Daniel Frazier.

  Of course she had noticed him. Who wouldn’t? At six foot one, with his dark wavy hair and brown eyes and three days’ growth of beard stubble, he was quite striking. He worked as a geologist for an oil company, and had started teaching one class at the University just that fall. His two most attractive traits were that he was single and still new enough that no one had started to complain about him yet.

  At the Christmas party, he was caught in the middle of a web of female spiders, most of them older, many of them professors or the wives of professors. Alex had watched them all for a moment, like a scientist observing the behavior of a group of rhesus monkeys, and then plopped down on a couch, reaching for one of the books arrayed on the table before her, firmly entrenched in the judgments that she had already made about Daniel Frazier.

  She looked up again when he sat down in a chair nearby.

  “Hey.”

  Alex glanced behind her, as if there was something she was missing, as if he couldn’t possibly be speaking to her. She turned back to him. “Have you run out of beautiful females to talk to?”

  He laughed. “Not yet.” His eyes locked on her.

  Alex felt a blush coming from somewhere, and she pushed her glasses up on her nose and tilted her head back.

  He glanced at the book in her hand. “I just had to find out what you were reading that was so fascinating. Forsaking the wonders of the Christmas party for a book?”

  “I’m in library science. It’s an occupational hazard.”

  He laughed again, displaying a formidable set of brilliantly white teeth. “Daniel Frazier. Geology. Always interested in scratching the surface.” He held out his hand.

  Alex stared at it for a moment, slightly befuddled, before lowering her book and extending her own hand. “Alexandra Turner. Always interested in digging deeper.”

  “So what are you reading? Romance?” He ran a thumb down the side of his mustache, trying to hide a flicker of amusement.

  Alex made a face. “Oh, God no. Life’s too short for that garbage.”

  He laughed. “You don’t believe in romance?”

  She paused for a moment and pushed her glasses up on her nose. “In the abstract, maybe. For other people. Cinderella. Snow White. Haven’t observed much of it in real life.”

  He sat back in his chair, looking at her as if he were appraising the value of a rare antique.

  For someone who prided herself on her ability to read emotional conditions, Alex completely missed in this situation. She didn’t realize it at the time, but what she had just said was exactly the type of challenge that a man like Daniel Frazier could not resist, something like the thrill mountain climbers find in attaining the top of Mount Everest. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t a great beauty. It didn’t matter that she didn’t dress to draw attention. The fact that she wasn’t interested in him was more enticing than any perfume or low-cut gown or fluttering fake lashes could ever be.

  “I thought that’s what all women wanted. Romance.”

  “Not this one,” she quipped. She had to force herself not to look away, as if those brown eyes directed at her so intently were stirring up the mud in the depths of her being. Male attention had been a very rare commodity in her life, especially since her father had moved away. She had forgotten what it felt like. He was looking directly at her, speaking to her, paying attention to her, laughing at her humor. All her judgments about this man began to shift and slide and tumble into a heap of broken rubble.

  “So what are you interested in, Alexandra Turner?”

  “History. Botany. Architecture. Archaeology. Anything but romance.”

  “Even geology? We’re the redheaded stepchildren of the sciences, you know. Not nearly as exciting as black holes and supernovas. Not nearly as lovable as butterflies and baby polar bears, or pine trees and flowers. Physicists, biologists, ornithologists—now those are the ones who get all the glory.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Baby polar bears are pretty cute, that’s true. But there’s nothing like an earthquake or a volcano to really shake things up, make you think about the wonders of geologic construction.”

  He laughed, a full-on genuine laugh, and a few people turned to look at the two of them, a small tremor of attention reverberating in their direction, something akin to a low-level tectonic event. “Some people see us as the Antichrist, you know. Out looking for suitable places to drill oil wells.”

  “I don’t have a photographic memory, but I don’t recall a mention of oil wells anywhere in the Bible.” She could not believe the things she was saying to him, but something in her rose to the challenge of being smart and funny and maybe even a tad more approving of the drilling of oil wells than she would have been under other circumstances. The bright glare of his attention made her sit a little straighter.

  “Daniel Frazier, there you are!”

  They both looked up to see Dr. Dixon, the head of the geology department, standing nearby.

  “Come and meet my wife.”

  Daniel stood and took one step, so that he was standing next to the couch where Alex sat. He put a hand on her shoulder. “Nice to meet you, Alex.”

  She nodded. “Yeah. Same here.”

  He squeezed her shoulder, one gentle touch, and moved away.

  He had barely disappeared before Rachel Medina plopped down next to Alex, a smile playing at the corners of her normally cool exterior. Rachel was the assistant librarian, and she and Alex worked together. “I think he likes you,” she whispered.

  “Oh, please.” Alex reached for her wine.

  “No, really. I was watching. He couldn’t take his eyes off you.”

  “Then I must have spinach dip stuck in my teeth.” She turned to her colleague and curled her lips away from her teeth, for inspection.

  Rachel gave her an exasperated look. “I know you like to hide behind those glasses and those oversized sweaters, but really. You’re quite the catch, you know.”

  “Only if someone is trying to land a whale.”

  “Alex, stop it. You are not nearly as unattractive as you seem to believe you are. And besides, anyone of substance isn’t going to care about looks. You’re the smartest person I know, and that’s saying something. We work at a university, for Pete’s sake.”

  Alex pushed her glasses up on her nose and took another sip of her wine. “You’re only saying that because you hired me.”

  Rachel looked out at the crowd of professors and their wives, scattered around the room like small clusters of crystals. “Around here, brains usually go hand in hand with ego. I mean, really. What kind of person will get up in front of a packed hall every day and pontificate for hours? They love to hear themselves utter. Like failed actors, they need sole control of the stage and a captive audience. Totally full of themselves.”

  Alex laughed. “Harsh, but maybe true about a few of these people.” She ran her finger around the rim of her glass. “So, is that a polite way of saying I’m fat? Kind of like that ‘she’s got such good skin’ thing?”

  Rachel turned slightly and gave Alex a sharp look. “If he wants tall and thin and blonde, then he can go to California. If he wants a woman who knows how to listen,
who can offer an intelligent opinion without getting pushy or arrogant, then he doesn’t need to look any further. You are one of the best employees I’ve ever had. Loyal, hardworking, easy to get along with. So quit with all the fat comments, would you?”

  Apparently, those were exactly the qualities that Daniel appreciated.

  Alex was sitting at her desk in the museum office on Monday morning when she heard a flutter of activity outside her door. The instant-messaging bar on her computer flashed on her screen: Geologist and assistant professor just entered the building. The message was from Rachel, whose office sat on the mezzanine, with a view of all the comings and goings on the library floor below her.

  One of the student aides came to the door and said, “Alex? There’s someone here to see you.” Her eyebrows went up in a provocative question mark.

  Alex had just taken a bite of her morning scone when Daniel stepped into the room. He held a bouquet of flowers in his hand.

  “These are for that very attractive and intelligent archivist I met the other evening.”

  Alex swallowed her bite of scone and brushed crumbs from her lap. “Huh. I wonder who that would be?”

  He laughed. “I believe you are the only archivist I met the other evening.”

  “Oh, right. So that would be me, then.”

  He smiled and nodded, holding the flowers out to her. The bouquet held pine boughs and white baby’s breath, interspersed with red roses and tiny loops of glass beads. “I hope you like roses.”

  Alex stared at the flowers a moment, as if they were some strange species of lizard that she had never seen before. She did not take them from his hand, but leaned back in her chair and moved her glasses down her nose a fraction, looking at him over the tops. “Okay. I get it. You need a list of research materials dating from”—she shook her head back and forth—“oh, the nineteen fifties or so, on some obscure paleo-geology topic, and you need it in thirty minutes. Right?”

  “Do people really do that to you?”

  Alex nodded. “At least once a week. And very few of them actually bother to send flowers. The exact number would be . . . let me think . . . zero?”

  He smiled at her, continuing to hold his hand out in front of him. “No research required. I just wanted to bring you something you’re interested in, and I believe you mentioned botany. I picked up a few botanical specimens.”

  Their eyes met.

  “Are you going to take these? Or are you waiting for my arm to fall off?”

  Alex swallowed and reached out to take the flowers. She put her nose into the bouquet. “Thank you.” A blush crawled up her arms and neck and face, and for a moment she felt slightly light-headed.

  He leaned his backside against the desk and looked at her. “Any chance I could talk you into having dinner with me?”

  Alex leaned slightly to the side, examining the clock on the wall in the main part of the library, clearly ticking off the time of twenty minutes after ten. “It’s a little early for dinner, isn’t it? Not exactly the fashionable hour.”

  He laughed again, and Alex felt just a twinkle of confidence. That made what? Two or three times now that he had laughed at something she said?

  “Actually, I’m on my way to Deming for a few days. But I was hoping that when I got back on Friday, you would agree to have dinner.” He looked at her. “I know you didn’t mention food, specifically, as one of your interests. But I do know of a restaurant in a historic building. You did mention history, right? And architecture?”

  Alex shook her head, as if trying to dislodge a marble. “You were listening?”

  He nodded.

  Outside the window to her museum office, she could see two of the student interns watching them intently. Alex turned back to look at Daniel.

  “I’ll pick you up at six,” he said. It wasn’t really a question. “Care to give me a phone number? So I know how to find you?”

  Stunned by the events of the last few minutes, Alex was slow to respond. “Sure. I guess.”

  Rachel, of course, had jumped immediately into the stew of possibilities. She insisted that they go shopping. Spending time at the mall was never Alex’s idea of a good time, and shopping for clothes, with all the trying on and looking in mirrors and confrontation with the reality of the way she looked, was in the farthest galaxy away from what Alex found pleasant. “Absolutely not,” Alex responded. “Dressing rooms are nothing but torture chambers. That would completely kill any excitement for Friday.”

  “Then let’s go get your hair done. A new cut and style?” Rachel fingered the unruly curls around Alex’s face. “I know a great hairdresser. Just down the block.”

  She let herself be led to the beauty parlor, and watched as the young man in a black shirt and black pants turned her hair into something quite attractive, wispy waves that she was certain she would never be able to duplicate on her own. When she put her glasses back on at the end of the ’do, she stared at the person in the mirror. “Huh.”

  “You look fabulous.” Rachel beamed.

  “Do they pay you to do the cheerleading around here?”

  And though Alex steadfastly refused to go to a mall two weeks before Christmas, Rachel was able to maneuver her into a small boutique, two blocks away from the library. Rachel wandered the racks, choosing two or three tops for Alex to try on, and Alex ended up leaving with a silk blouse in a deep forest green, slightly more fitted and with a lower neckline than she might have picked if left to her own devices.

  “This is ridiculous,” she murmured as they walked back to the office. “I can’t possibly be comfortable like this.” But despite her refusal to be openly excited, some kind of underground seismic shift was taking place in her psyche.

  Friday evening finally arrived, and there he was, standing on her doorstep, with those dark eyes and that flash of smile. He stood still for a moment, taking in the new hair, the silk blouse. “Wow. You look great.”

  “It’s the low light,” Alex stammered. “December evenings are kind to everyone.”

  He laughed and whisked her away to an enchanted fairy tale of an evening. They went to Old Town, the collection of shops and restaurants and buildings that had been part of the original Albuquerque settlement. At that time of year, every tree and building and walkway was lit with Christmas lights and farolitos, the traditional Mexican lanterns. They strolled through the plaza and some of the side streets, and then ended up at the Hotel Albuquerque. “I made reservations at the Tablao Flamenco,” he told her. “Have you been?”

  Alex shook her head. “I’ve heard of it.”

  Daniel held the door for her, and they stepped into a small bar area with a stage at one end. “They serve tapas and cocktails and sangria, and the music and dancing are some of the finest flamenco ever. Some people say even better than what you would find in Spain.”

  Two guitarists sat on the stage, and immediately Alex fell under the spell of the classical Spanish guitar. They were served an array of appetizers as they watched the dancing and stomping feet and swirling dresses. The dancers who were not involved in a dancing capacity for any particular number added their clapping syncopation to those who were. Each time the waiter appeared with another dish, Daniel slid his chair just slightly closer to Alex. By the end of the first round of dances, he had his arm around the back of her chair. By the end of the second round, and another round of sangria, he had placed one hand lightly on her thigh.

  If there had ever been something resembling “normal” in Alex’s dating life, this certainly wasn’t it. She had had a few dates in college, mostly with boys who were just as awkward and clumsy as she was herself. There had been an assistant professor of zoology a little over a year ago, but their connection had never approached anything even vaguely romantic. He was much too interested in his own research to pay any attention to Alex, and they had stopped dating about two dates after their first sexual encounter. She shuddered to remember it.

  The flamenco bar was not the type of place conducive t
o conversation. It was not the kind of place that encouraged staring into one another’s eyes. But the music and the dancing were hypnotic. And the sangria and the candlelight certainly didn’t hurt.

  When they left the venue, around ten thirty, walking out into the fairy-tale lights of Old Town at Christmas, Daniel wrapped his arm around her. By the time he stopped, beneath one spectacularly lit oak tree, and turned her face up for a long, slow kiss, she was completely enchanted. Every kiss she had ever experienced, until that night, was an awkward and bumbling attempt to avoid knocking teeth. Not so with Daniel Frazier. When he pulled back and suggested a nightcap at his apartment, she nodded. And an hour later, when he slipped that new silk blouse off her shoulders and leaned in to kiss her and tell her how beautiful she was, Alex was hooked. The drug of his attention was potent; her addiction to it was assured.

  The first date was two weeks before Christmas, and it never really ended. She spent the night at his apartment; the next day he took her to Santa Fe. For the four-week period that the University was closed for winter break, unless he was out in the field on a job, they spent every moment together.

  On New Year’s Eve, he rolled onto his side, next to her in bed, and ran his hand down her collarbone. “Maybe we should get married,” he whispered into the dark.

  Alex’s diaphragm contracted sharply. Had she heard him correctly? “But . . . we’ve only known each other what? Not quite a month?”

  He continued to run his finger gently over her neck and shoulders and breasts. “Alex, I’m thirty-seven years old. Old enough to know what I want when I find it.”

  Her body was responding to the touch of his hand, and her eyes fluttered. She took a breath and looked at him. “So what was the question?”