Like Falling

by Jaden Wilkes

  She pushed a glass door open and walked through the large hallway on the way to the lecture theatre. Her first class, Archaeology 101, was an introductory course focusing on physical anthropology, and taught by a professor she had been reading about for years. He was an expert in the field of human evolution and she could not wait to see him in person. She almost wished she had brought one of his books for an autograph, she was that excited.

  She found the lecture theatre with no problem and walked down the stairs to settle down near the front. She noticed most of her classmates were clustered at the back, at the top near the exit, she worried that she had taken a seat in a reserved section. Do they even have a reserved section in a classroom? She thought, glancing around. This wasn’t church after all, she could probably sit where she wanted. I hope.

  She set up her laptop, turned and scanned the room, trying her best to look nonchalant. Everybody looked so young and fashionable, would she ever fit in with these people? She noticed one guy in the back at the top staring at her. No, he isn’t staring at me, is he? She smoothed her hair and tried to look at him out of the corner of her eye. He really is gorgeous, she thought and felt small thrill course through her body as she tried her best not to stare back. She could tell he was tall, his long legs stretched into the aisle and he has his thick, muscular arms crossed in front of him. He was the picture of easy confidence, her total opposite. He had tanned skin, darker than she was used to, with black hair that he had carefully worked to look messy and spiked. The most amazing thing about him though were his tattoos. She could see black tribal designs twisting and curling from his wrists and continued up his arms to under his t shirt. She wondered where they ended and thought about how broad and muscular his chest must be, was it patterned with dark images as well? Sarah had been obsessed with tattoos ever since a rebellious boy from a good family had run away and come back covered in them. She never found that boy good looking until he was tattooed, but they had added an air of mysterious bad boy to him. She never did find out if he was a bad boy, but she briefly thought about exploring that with this guy.

  Sarah felt a red heat creeping up her face when she realized she had been staring just a few moments too long. The hot guy leaned forward and gestured, waving at her and smiling. She couldn’t believe it, was he really waving at her? This is crazy! She was already dying to tell Naomi all about it. She was looking at him directly now and waved back, a timid swipe of her hand. She saw his expression turn to confusion. He shook his head and pointed behind her. She turned around the other way and saw a gorgeous blonde girl laughing, the one he was waving at.

  Sarah felt her heart stop and her stomach drop, leaden and cold in her middle. She faced forward and hunched over, absolutely crushed and humiliated. Why on earth would I think he was waving at me? She felt like such an idiot and didn’t know how she would get through the rest of the day. She felt a sharp pang of homesickness and for the first time questioned her decision to branch out away from her family. The gorgeous blonde girl ran past her, giggling and squealing along the way, Sarah saw her jump into his lap. Somebody kill me now, she thought, why did I have to choose the front of the classroom? It would be impossible to sneak out at this point.

  The door swung open with a clatter and the professor entered, he paused for dramatic effect at the stop of the stairs, scanned the crowd and strode down to the front. He was tall with a lean muscular body, greying dark hair and piercing blue eyes. I never imagined he’d be so young...and good looking! She leaned forward to watch him pass. He was carrying an armload of books and bones, and deposited them all on the table at the front with the thump.

  “Good morning my enthusiastic young learners, my name is Dr. Adam Summers, but you all can call me Adam. I’m impressed you all chose a class at nine in the morning. Either you really are eager to learn, or you want to get your day over with so you can hit the pub by noon,” he grinned and her classmates tittered. He had an British accent that made Sarah’s toes curl with excitement. Compared to the home grown Albertan farm boys she knew, he seemed positively exotic.

  Sarah looked down when he made eye contact with her, he said “I’m glad to see some of you do seem genuinely enthusiastic. Did you know that studies have proven over eighty percent of the A level students in any given course sit front and centre?” A nervous hush went through her classmates. “You had better show up early next class, young lady,” he said directly to Sarah, flashing a killer smile, “I think you’ll find you have a small crowd vying for your spot.” He winked, Sarah was sure she was as bright red as an Atlantic lobster by now. After what felt like hours, he turned, walked to the front of the class and pulled down a large white screen. She thought she heard the gorgeous blonde laugh as he set up the projector. She didn’t think she could slide any lower into her seat, but she tried.

  The lecture was progressing smoothly, Sarah was captivated by Dr. Summers, Adam he said to call him Adam, but still horrified by the embarrassing mistake she made with the waving. She hated being singled out, even among her siblings back home, but in front of a class of 50 strangers? She didn’t know how she was going to survive. Luckily Adam was an excellent speaker, and time went by faster than she could have hoped. When it was over, she took her time packing up, letting the rest of the class leave before her so she didn’t have to face Mr Hot and the gorgeous blonde...or any of the others who might have laughed at her expense.

  “Excuse me, Miss, could you come over here?” She looked up, surprised that Adam was speaking directly to her. He was holding the projector and his briefcase, all the books and bones were still on the table.

  “You mean me?” she asked, not wanting to make that same mistake twice.

  “Yes, please, what’s your name?”

  “Sa, Sa, Sarah, Sir.”

  “SaSaSarah, remember, call me Adam.” He flashed that amazing smile again, and Sarah wanted to climb under a seat and hide. “Could you help me with these things? I can’t possibly carry everything back to my office, and my TA seems to have forgotten where he’s meant to be.” His accent really was dreamy and his eyes were mesmerising.

  “Sure, I guess,” she mumbled and picked up her backpack.

  “If I’m being a terrible inconvenience to you, I could always call for assistance,” he said, frowning slightly and looking at his watch.

  “Oh, no, not at all. I’m sorry. I’m just nervous, it’s my first day.”

  “Well SaSaSarah, you don’t need to be nervous around me...I don’t bite,” he said with that incredible smile and Sarah allowed herself to look for a half a second, it was like looking into the sun. She managed to return a small smile in return before she glanced away.

  He loaded her arms with books and bones that turned out to be casts of early hominid fossil species. Sarah felt honoured to be entrusted with such a task, her parents would be angry to know she was delving in human evolution, but she couldn’t help herself. They believed she would be focusing on Biblical archaeology, and thought she could work somewhere in Jordan helping to prove their belief that God created the entire world a few thousand years ago. Sarah always felt dirty, lying to them, but her curiosity to learn overrode any guilt they might impose.

  She trailed behind him through the Department of Archaeology, waiting patiently while he stopped to chat up the secretary and check his mail. The secretary smiled at Sarah and introduced herself as Maya, this small gesture made Sarah’s presence seem real somehow, as though she was meant to be there, she was meant to study archeology. She felt much more relaxed by the time they got to Adam’s office, it was isolated at the end of the hall past a series of labs. He excused the long trek, and explained that he had no tenure, so he ended up with the farthest spot from the main office.

  Once inside, he asked her to stack the bones and books up on a high shelf, and she had the distinct feeling that he was watching her as she stretched. This unsettled her and she fumbled, almost dropping one of the precious fossil casts. Adam was there immediately, catching it an
d pressing himself against her inadvertently. She felt his hard body touching hers, she blushed again and pulled away. Adam laid the cast on a shelf and asked her to sit, as though nothing had happened, as though he hadn’t just been in total contact with her body moments before. You’re being foolish, she thought to herself, he’s a professional, he deals with prettier girls than you every day, of course he’s not hitting on you. I doubt your floor length Laura Ingalls skirt is giving him a hard on.

  “Would you like some tea, SaSa...ok, I know, that’s getting old,” he laughed. “Sarah, would you care for a cup of tea? I have this amazing Nepalese blend I picked up in Kathmandu this summer. You have to try it.” He started packing loose tea leaves in a strainer, set it in his small clay teapot and turned the kettle on.

  She glanced at her watch, over an hour until her next class, “I would like that, if you want.” She was surprised her voice had come out so smoothly. Here she was sitting across the desk from one of her academic idols like it happened every day.

  He leaned back in his chair, stretched his arms and settled his hands behind his head and said “Of course I do, I like to make time for all my students, especially first years. I feel it is important for them to feel a connection to the faculty. I still remember how I felt, my first year. It was a terrifying experience." He noticed Sarah’s skeptical look and laughed. “Oh come on, I’m not that old, I can still remember that far back.”

  Oh my god, I’ve offended him. “That’s not what I meant,” Sarah replied, horrified. “I mean it’s hard to imagine somebody like you being scared of anything.” The kettle came to a boil and clicked off, Sarah jumped and hoped he hadn’t noticed. Why am I afraid of my own shadow? Suck it up Sarah, as Naomi always tells me. Adam poured steaming water over the strainer, filling the little pot. He pulled two small tea cups from a drawer in his desk and continued talking.

  “Oh believe me, I’ve been scared Sarah. Fieldwork is not all fun and games. I remember when I was conducting research for my PhD in Kenya, our camp was raided by bandits. We were already annoying the locals, always hanging around asking questions about bones and such. None of them would help us. We ended up walking back to the nearest town, it took three days. You haven’t known fear until you’ve spent a night or two camping on the open savannah with nothing to protect you. Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!”

  Sarah gasped, her brain couldn’t even place herself in such a situation, it would have been so terrifying.

  “Oh don’t look so frightened, Sarah, you know how the story ends, spoiler alert...I made it out alive,” he chuckled and reached for the tea pot. He filled each cup with the amber liquid and handed Sarah hers. She wrapped her hands around it and put it to her lips, not drinking, but breathing in the steam that curled around the top. It smelled earthy, like a freshly ploughed field after a spring rain. She said so just then, and Adam laughed, throwing his head back, his smile wide and beautiful. She felt extremely naive and unschooled, completely out of her element. Is he laughing at me?

  “Sarah, you are a treat. You know I see hundreds of students, hundreds of young girls come parading through my classes year after year. They all look the same, think the same. I have to say, you are a refreshing change. Do you mind me asking where you’re from? What’s your background? I detect the smallest of accents if I’m not mistaken.”

  She shifted in the chair and looked away. Sarah had worked for years to erase any hint of an accent from her speech and she was appalled that he had picked up on it. “I’m from Alberta, a little Mennonite community in the south,” she said, “and I know, my clothes are weird and I talk funny, I’ve heard it my whole life.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that Sarah, I’m sorry if I offended you,” he leaned across his desk, holding his hands out. “Forgive me if I’ve upset you.”

  “No, it’s my fault, I’m too sensitive." She felt like a fool, making a mountain out of a molehill. "I really should go,” Sarah said and got up too quickly, almost spilling her tea when she set it down on the desk. He called after her, but she fled, too embarrassed to stay and see his worried expression. God, I’m such a freak, what is wrong with me, her inner critic scolded. She walked past the office, barely managing to return the kind secretary’s greeting as she kept her head down. She just wanted to race back down the mountain and hide out in her bed for the rest of the day. She couldn’t though, History 121, Ancient Rome, was next, and English 101 after that. Her day was full, and she couldn’t duck out of anything. She paused in an alcove and regained her composure. I’ve got this, I can do this, Sarah told herself until she began to believe it again.

  *****

  Sarah opened the apartment door and hung her jacket up on the hook in the hallway. She was tired, it was only three in the afternoon on her first day and she already had course work to do. The rest of her day had gone well, but she was still grateful to be home. She and Naomi found a good deal on a two bedroom apartment just at the base of the mountain, a short bus ride to the university. The building was old, built in the sixties, and slightly dilapidated, but it was perfect for the two girls. Sarah had given Naomi the larger room near the entrance, and she had taken the smaller room to the front, with the large sunny window and a little more privacy. They had gone out last week to buy a few scattered furnishings from the Army and Navy thrift store, her room had an old dresser, a comfy faux velvet chair and a double mattress on the floor. They had decided to wait until their student loans came in to buy new clothes, but after today, she wished they had gotten the clothing first.

  She dropped her backpack on the bed, flopped onto the mattress and ran the day’s events through her mind.

  Two things were at the forefront, Mr. Hot and Adam, each of them represented a point of humiliation and attraction for Sarah. Mr. Hot was like nobody she had ever seen, with his chiseled jaw, muscled body, and those crazy beautiful tattoos snaking along his dark skin. What would happen if I brought him home for family dinner? she grimaced imaging her parent’s reactions to such an exotic man. Adam was charming, but he was off limits as her professor and idol. Still, she couldn’t help herself from picturing his brilliant smile and the familiar way he spoke to her in his office. He made her feel so welcome in archaeology, she needed that after her embarrassing mix up with Mr. Hot. It had been an interesting first day, and meeting not one, but two attractive men was completely unexpected. If you can just loosen up and stop being such an insecure freak, this might be a good year after all.

  She rolled over and pulled out her laptop. Her first assignment was for her Roman class, a short essay on the Roman emperor of her choice. She had some research to do. First off though, a quick survey of the faculty website, she needed to read Adam’s bio again now that she had met him. His photo was stunning, he was standing in the middle of an excavation pit, his smile wide and charming. Why did I not notice how cute he was before today? She must have had her Mennonite blinders on. In the photo he had a shovel in one hand, and a screening tripod was set up just behind him. She wondered where the excavation had taken place, the photo was recent, possibly from the summer. Hadn’t he mentioned Tibet in the summer? She wondered what kind of amazing life he lived, travel, excavations, and exotic people. She sighed and dared to imagine herself with him for a moment, by his side on his adventures. She already felt like a wild thing escaping her strict community, but daring to dream of other countries made her palms sweaty. She didn’t even have it in her to imagine what they would be like on her own, she needed the safety of being with Adam, somebody who had already done it, was already skilled and confident.

  She heard Naomi come in, jumped up and yelled “Hey” as she went to see her. Naomi tossed her backpack and jacket on the floor, Sarah bent down to hang them on the hooks near the front entrance.

  “Oh Sarah, you don’t have to pick up after me, your mom’s not around to bitch you out over every little mess,” Naomi said.

  “I know! It’s just a force of habit. I’ll get dirty soon enough, don’t worry,” S
arah replied, wishing she was carefree enough to not be bothered by little messes stacking up here and there. It did bother her though, maybe not just because of her mother’s influence, but mainly because if she could keep her surroundings neat then Sarah felt like she was in some semblance of control. She watched her friend grab a bottle of water from the fridge and take a long drink, then leave the half full bottle on the counter. Sarah fought her urge to pick it up and put it back in. Naomi noticed and said “Just let go Sarah, lose control, be a wild thing and leave that damn bottle of water on the counter…you can do it!”

  Sarah laughed and said “Ok, I promise I won’t touch it,” although her fingers practically twitched, betraying her urge to put things in their place. Sarah envied Naomi’s confidence, she didn’t seem to be bothered by much, if anything. Naomi already fit in with the normal world, her style was taken from her favorite decade, the eighties, but she had a contemporary flair that made it work. She was tall, had red hair, green eyes and a lithe body with a cat like confidence. People always said she was the kind of girl you could drape a horse blanket on and it would look couture. Funny, I don’t even know exactly what couture means. I’ll have to Google it later so I can drop it in conversation. Today Naomi had chosen skinny jeans, high heeled granny boots and an oversized sweatshirt, off the shoulder with her bra strap showing. Sarah stared at the bright pink strap and wondered if she would ever be comfortable showing off a bra strap, let alone a pink one. Naomi caught her looking, rolled her eyes and said “Sarah, for real, we have to get you some new clothes. Let’s go celebrate student loan money and go shopping. Lougheed Mall is a few minutes away, you can tell me all about your first day as a wide eyed Mennonite girl alone in the big bad world.”