“I’ve wanted to. I thought you’d worry for Dillon’s sake.”
“Probably. But I’d also be happy for yours. If it’s what you really want.”
He shrugs. “I’m still trying to figure that out. Before I say anything to Dillon.”
I nod, but then I’m startled into a gasp as a new thought fills my mind. It’s as if I’ve just rubbed dirt off a flat rock and found a coin instead.
“This helps explain it,” I say. “Why Dillon has been acting…funny.”
“Funny how?”
“I told him about the internship and he wasn’t happy,” I say. “I knew he wouldn’t like the idea of me leaving, but then he got…angry.” One hand curves around my stomach and it takes me a second to realize I’m feeling for the bruised spot on my hip. “But he must have known that something’s going on with you, too.”
Jace sighs. “He doesn’t get it. He’s where he wants to be. The future is all laid out and it’s exactly how he wants it.”
“But it’s not what you want?”
“I want to see the world.”
“You don’t have to go to ASU,” I say. “You could give up the Bergen and get a scholarship just about anywhere.”
“But I’d still be staring at a screen all day or buried in a book. I want to discover things for myself, you know?” He tilts his head and pins me with his deep brown eyes. “Don’t you?”
The papers are in my lap. It’s hard to express just how much I truly want to go. This past year I’ve carefully constructed a full-color picture of a future here, being with Dillon, working at local dig sites, eventually getting a job teaching. And it’s a great future. But now the picture is flickering in and out of focus as if it’s not as solid as I’d imagined. As if there might be another picture forming just beyond it.
A picture I want to see.
“Don’t feel guilty, Emma.”
My gaze lifts, surprised. Jace is always smiling, always so funny. Now his eyes are serious. “This internship is perfect for you. You’ve got to take it.”
“What about Dillon?”
“He’ll accept it. What else is he going to do? Break up with you?” He shakes his head. “Never going to happen.”
“That sounds so selfish.” But the hope is a breathless feeling in my chest. Jace is right. If I get in, Dillon will have to handle the separation. “It’s not a guarantee,” I say, reminding myself along with Jace. “I still have to complete a project.”
“What project?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “It’s in the packet.”
“That packet?” His eyes widen. “Well, what are you waiting for?”
I laugh. “Someone kind of interrupted me.”
“What kind of idiot would do that?” He gestures to the papers in my hand. “Come on. Let’s see.”
“Don’t you have work to do?”
“Yeah,” he says. “Researching pulleys for a physics project. This sounds way more interesting.”
As I flip the page, my phone vibrates beside me. Glancing down at the screen, I see another text from Dillon.
Have a surprise. Meet me at your house
Quickly, I type.
Later. Still working. Love you.
Then I flutter the papers and smile at Jace. “You ready?”
It’s on the final page of the packet. A single sheet labeled INTERNSHIP ASSIGNMENT. I tilt the paper so Jace can read it with me.
Today’s museum patron is looking for a richer experience. More than verifiable facts, they want to understand artifacts within the context of culture and civilization. At Bernadetta Musea, we provide visitors with a uniquely satisfying experience by creating stories that bring our collection to life.
In that spirit, you will choose one of the two items pictured below and create a narrative history. You will combine historical fact with a fictionalized account of who might have used the item and how.
In addition, provide a traditional catalog entry for both items, including all relevant facts. Final submission should include the following:
1. Traditional catalog entry for each item.
2. An essay on one item of no more than 2,000 words.
My heart races as I read it over again. “He wants me to make up a story?” I glance at Jace. “How freaking cool is that?”
“Look at the items,” Jace says.
One is a coin, pictured both front and back, though it’s difficult to see much detail because the coin has been worn down. The second is a ring, and I gasp when I see the design: a serpent’s head. “They found bracelets at Pompeii decorated with serpents.”
Jace grabs the paper. “You think this was from Pompeii?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “Probably not, but that doesn’t matter.” I blink, trying to focus my thoughts. “If it’s from the same time period, I could make it work.”
“What do you mean?”
“I could write my essay about the last hours of Pompeii. About this ring and the person who owned it.”
“What person?” he asks. “You’d make up someone?”
I think back to the fresco, to Anna, to the face of the slave girl. I may not find her diary, but I can bring her back to life after all. “I know somebody,” I say. “Somebody who lived in Pompeii.”
He stares at me as if he’s wondering whether I’m on heavy medication. “I have no idea what that means,” he says. “But it’s weird and I like it.”
I grin. “I like it, too.”
My phone vibrates. Irritated, I look at the screen.
I’m at your house
“Crap,” I say.
“Dillon?”
I collect the pages and slide them back into the envelope. “I’ve got to go.”
“You know, I might be able to help you with the coin.”
“Yeah? How?”
“I’ve got some coin catalogs at home. I can check this against it.”
“Coin catalogs? From ancient civilizations?”
He lets his mouth drop open. “You mean not everyone has a set?” Then he shrugs. “I went through a pirate phase when I was younger. Pretending I had one eye wasn’t all that fun, but treasure chests filled with gold coins captured my imagination. One thing led to another.” He gestures to the copy machine. “Mind if I make a copy?”
“You kidding? Go for it.”
I sling my pack over my shoulder and hand him the papers. As the machine hums and whirs, I can’t help bouncing on my toes I’m so excited. Jace’s smile turns to an indulgent grin as he hands me the originals. “Get out of here,” he says. “Try not to float into any walls on your way out.”
I laugh, pressing the envelope to my heart as I let the amazing truth sink in.
I’m really doing this.
Dillon is parked in front of my house when I pull into the garage. His black Ford pickup gleams in the late-afternoon sun. He waxes it himself twice a month, which, it turns out, is a very sexy thing to watch. I leave my pack in the car and head down the drive. He’s leaning against the passenger door looking extremely yummy in a baby-blue tee and fitted black jeans.
“I was at the library,” I say.
“I know, I’m sorry.” He pulls an envelope from his back pocket. “But I have something for us. Something you’ll like.”
I smile and reach for the envelope. He lifts it out of my reach and instead grabs me for a quick, soft kiss. He pulls back, his hand still around my waist as he rocks me in the vee of his legs. “Your hair smells like Doritos.”
“Library couch.”
“Must have been the one by the printers.”
“Only one open.”
He hands me the envelope. It’s unsealed, and inside are two tickets.
LOVE THROUGH THE AGES is printed in curly script on the front. “You got our prom tickets!”
He smiles. “Will you be my love through the ages?”
“Me and my Dorito hair would be honored.” I study the tickets, rubbing them between my fingers. We’ve talked about prom before, about going,
so it’s not as if it’s a surprise. But still. I’m a little embarrassed about how excited I am. “I’d given up on the idea of ever going to a prom.”
“Why?” he asks.
“I didn’t go my junior year and then I moved here.” I smile up at him. “I figured everyone would already be paired up and I’d be the lonely new girl watching Nicholas Sparks movies on prom night.”
“But you’d met me by then.”
“Yeah, and I couldn’t tell if you were flirting with me or just being nice.”
He grins and tugs me until I lose my balance and fall against his chest. “All part of my master plan.”
“Quit,” I giggle. “My dad is inside.” I push against his chest and right myself, but I curl one finger through a belt loop. “I never told you this, but I used to get jealous when you guys talked about prom. And I still don’t know the real story about last year.”
“What do you mean?” he asks.
By this time last March, I was spending every weekend at my dad’s and Saturday mornings at Cupz pretending not to like Dillon as much I did. Jace was usually there, sometimes Spence and sometimes Hannah. I’d heard them talk about prom and Dillon made a point to tell me they were all going as a group, but I’d always wondered.
“Was it really a group thing?” I ask, trying to read the expression in his eyes. “Nobody paired off? Nobody wanted to pair off?”
“It wasn’t like that,” he says. “We were all friends.”
Hannah showed me a picture once and I couldn’t get over the guys—Dillon, Jace, and Spence—all in suits and bow ties. But mostly I studied the girls. Hannah, of course, and Lydia, who I’d met once at Cupz before she moved to Ohio with her family. The third girl was Alayna Diaz. I don’t know her very well—she’s a year younger than us—but Mr. Diaz, the baseball coach, is her father, so she’s at most of the games. I always assumed Dillon had asked her to go, maybe because of that connection.
I tug at his belt loop. “So you didn’t buy someone a corsage? Arrange to pick them up? Like maybe Alayna?” I tug again so he knows I’m not giving up.
“Not Alayna,” he finally says. He doesn’t blush easily, but I swear his cheeks darken as he admits, “Hannah.”
“Hannah?” My voice rises at least an octave.
“It was a group thing, like I said.”
“But Hannah? I wouldn’t have thought…” My words trail off. With all the things she’s dropped hints about, she’s never once mentioned prom. What does that mean? Is she carrying a torch for Dillon? I feel like I just drank milk way past its expiration date. I wind another finger through his belt loop, tightening my hold. “Should I be jealous?”
“No!” He says it flatly with a sense of finality that makes me feel good.
“What about Spence?”
“Spence went with Alayna. It was before him and Hannah.” Dillon rolls his eyes. “It sounds like a made-for-TV movie. It was just something to do. This year, with you, it’s going to be special.”
“That kind of talk is going to get you a kiss.” I fit my mouth over his bottom lip and nip at him with my teeth.
“Mmmm,” he murmurs. “What’s it going to take to get a kiss in other places?”
“You mean places other than the sidewalk outside my house?”
He laughs. “I love you, Dorito Girl.” He brushes his lips over mine and then kisses the ticklish spot near my temple. I swat him with the tickets and he takes the envelope, sliding it into his back pocket. “The others are going to want to do a group thing again, but I want to do prom just the two of us. Something special.”
“We can always meet the others for pictures beforehand,” I suggest. “Hannah and I are going to shop for dresses this weekend. I’ll bring it up with her then.”
“Perfect. You’re perfect.” He plants a kiss on the tip of my nose. “So what were you doing at the library?”
I run my tongue over suddenly dry lips. “I was going over the application from Mrs. Lyght.”
His eyes darken. “The application?”
I rub his forearms, wanting to soothe him with my touch if I can’t with my words. “I asked her all of your questions and a few of my own.”
“Let me guess, she had all the answers.”
“Maybe because there are answers,” I say carefully. My sandals wobble on the curve of the gutter as I step back.
“Maybe,” he says. But his tight jaw says he doesn’t believe it.
“You’ll feel better about it when I tell you more. This guy, Dr. Abella, he sounds really cool. I’ll show you the assignment. It’s so interesting! I get to—”
“You’re doing an assignment?” he interrupts.
I look at the gray pavement and then up to a sky that’s deepening to an even darker gray. “Yeah, I told you. I have to apply.”
“And you’ll have your dad to help you. How convenient.”
“I’m not going to ask my dad for help.” I frown, not wanting to fight about this again but his words rub at my pride. “You don’t think I’m good enough?”
“Of course I think you’re good enough,” he says impatiently. “Don’t you see the connection?”
“What connection?”
“Mrs. Lyght offers you this thing. Mrs. Lyght is a friend of your dad’s. Your dad has always wanted you to go away for college.”
“He wanted me to go to U of A so I’d be close to Lauren.”
“Or so you’d be farther away from me?”
“No. Dillon. You’re reading way too much into this. That’s crazy.”
His shoulders go back. “You think I’m crazy?”
“No.” I swallow a hot breath. “Can we stop arguing about this?”
“Sure,” he snaps. “Whatever you want.” The anger in his eyes makes me take another step back. What’s going on? This isn’t like Dillon. I don’t know how to talk to him when he’s like this.
Forcing my voice lower, softer, I say, “I have two weeks to finish the assignment and then another week or two to hear if I’m even in the running. Can we wait until then to fight?” I’m trying to be funny but he doesn’t even crack a smile.
“Perfect,” he says. “Right around prom. It can ruin that, too.”
With a sharp movement that startles me, his elbow rockets back and slams into the truck. The metal hisses and vibrates, denting under the force.
“Emma?”
I spin around. Dad is standing in the drive. He’s still in his work clothes, but his button-down is hanging loose over his trousers and he’s barefoot.
I swallow my heart and force a smile. “Hi, Dad.”
“Everything okay out here?”
“Yeah.” I can hardly hear myself over the scream of my blood. “Fine.”
“You want to stay for dinner, Dillon?”
Dillon’s smile is icy. A chill runs up my spine. His voice is low and controlled as he says, “That’s nice of you, Mr. Lorde. Very nice. But I’d better get home.”
He turns back to me and his eyes are flat and distant. “I’ll see you later.”
I stand back as he climbs into his truck and slams the door. A second later, the truck roars to life. I watch him drive off and feel myself shake in reaction. It all happened so fast. And it’s dusk—it’s not easy to see clearly; the dent might have been a trick of my eyes.
I press my arms to my sides, my hands to my chest. If I can get my heart to stop thundering, maybe I can convince myself it didn’t happen at all.
AUGUST 24, AD 79
TWELFTH HOUR, 6:00 P.M.
It is raining gray.
It began a few hours ago. The black smoke and fumes rose high enough to kiss the feet of the gods and then the gray pebbles began to fall.
The sky is falling!
Even now Anna hears the screams that tear through the dark day. There are those in Pompeii who still remember the mountain erupting seventeen years earlier. They are rushing toward roads and the seaport, taking as much as they can carry.
Anna longs to run with t
hem.
“The pebbles are nothing to fear,” Marcus tells her. “They cannot hurt us here.”
Marcus has brought her to his family home. His parents are visiting relatives in Misenum and the home is vacant but for the household slaves, and many of them have fled. She and Marcus are standing in the atrium as the world showers down around them. “We must go,” Anna says.
Marcus stares up at the sky, worry creasing his forehead. “My father,” he says. “He left me the responsibility. I cannot leave the house unprotected from looters. Besides,” he tells her, “the villa is strongly built. We will be safe waiting out the storm here.”
So Anna silences the uneasy voice in her head, concentrating on Marcus’s words.
At first he is right. The pebbles are light in color and weight.
But they continue to fall.
Beyond the walls of Marcus’s home, the pebbles are now an ocean three feet deep that flows down the streets. Families fight the current toward the city gates while even now the atrium is flooded with stone, the rectangular pool bubbling strangely. When the great statue of Jupiter crashes from its pedestal, it is Marcus who cries out.
“The jewels,” he says. “The family crest. I must carry them with us.”
“No,” Anna cries. “There is no time!” But Marcus has already disappeared into the villa’s corridor. Panic pushes her toward the door. She should go. She must go! But indecision and fear hold her like iron shackles. She will wait five more minutes. Just five more.
Eight minutes later, Marcus returns with a wooden chest tucked under one arm.
“Thank the gods!” she cries. There is time—if they hurry.
From outside, a great roar fills the air as if the sun and the moon have crashed to the earth.
An instant later, the ceiling above them buckles.
The Web page calls it “a decorative motif.”
I call it beyond creepy and the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.
The Capuchin Crypt is in Rome—where else—and doesn’t just hold the remains of friars. It’s decorated with them. The walls are layered with decayed bones. The chandeliers are shriveled skeleton heads dangling from bleached femurs and fibulas.
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