“Don’t say I never take you anywhere nice,” Nevada said to Candice, going through her pockets to set all the contents out on the dresser. She’d be transferring them all into her clean clothes.
Candice looked out the window. The view of the plains had been replaced by the field of tukuls, now lit from the inside as dusk fell and the occupants started fires. With no chimneys, the smoke seeped up through the thatching, making the huts look disturbingly like they were burning to the ground.
“Four-star accommodations in the middle of a warzone. I don’t know whether to be impressed or…” Candice trailed off.
“Be impressed,” Nevada said. “Liberal guilt is so two thousand and late.”
“Honestly, so long as there’s shampoo, spoil me rotten. Any more of this humidity and my hair is going to become a member of Mötley Crüe.” Candice started for the bathroom, only for Nevada to hurriedly slide into a blockade, leaning against the doorframe.
“Hey,” Nevada said, toying with the hem of her tank top, pulling it up over a row of subtly delineated abdominal muscles, which Candice had to raise an eyebrow at. “Here’s a thought. Maybe it’s just that that was a choice glam rock reference, but what if we showered together? Save some water… It is the dry season, after all.”
Candice took hold of Nevada’s shoulder and shoved her to one side of the doorway as she stepped past. “And with lines like that, it’s no wonder. Does this combination of arrogance, obnoxiousness, and sexual aggression normally charm women into paroxysms of lust?”
“I wouldn’t say paroxysms,” Nevada demurred. “Probably because I don’t know what that means. But we do have some unfinished business.” Nevada ran her thumb over her lower lip. “Now that we’ve got the kids in daycare, maybe we should follow up on that kiss. Before the shower, I mean, while we’re already all sweaty and gross.”
“Oh my God,” Candice moaned, walking out of the bathroom.
Nevada followed her, jumping onto the bed with some Baywatch-quality jiggle, if she did say so herself. “I know, I know, ladies don’t sweat, they glisten. Whatever. Honestly, a little musk is a bit of a turn-on.”
“This is not an invitation,” Candice said firmly, throwing open a drawer on the empire dresser. The attached mirror showed her curdling expression. “I realized it’s probably best to have my clothes ready in the bathroom if I don’t want you undressing me with your eyes.”
Nevada turned onto her belly, sashaying her ass from side to side. “You don’t want that,” she agreed. “I work much better with my hands.”
With a set of underwear, white peasant blouse, and riding skirt folded in her arms, Candice marched back to the bathroom. Nevada reached out as she passed and grabbed her elbow.
“Hey, hey,” she said sincerely, soothingly, as she looked up at Candice. Candice looked back at her out of the corner of her eye. “If you’re that angry with me, you can be on top.”
Candice wrenched her arm away, growling, and proceeded into the bathroom. Nevada rolled out of bed to pursue her, stopping short at the doorway when Candice turned around to block her path.
“I know, I know,” Nevada said, laying a palm flat on the stack of clothes to push it down out of the way of their eye contact. “You’re thinking, ‘That was a really good kiss, but it was with another woman. Does that make me gay?’ No, absolutely not, just bisexual. Everyone’s a bit bisexual. Not me. I’d rather drown in quicksand than use a dick as a handhold…”
“Let me be clear,” Candice replied, drawing herself up to her full height, which almost touched the lintel. “It doesn’t matter to me what your orientation is, or your race, or your gender.”
“You’re very undemanding,” Nevada said. “I like that in a woman.”
“I find you repellant entirely based on your personality. You are the most greedy, narcissistic, destructive, and obnoxious individual I have ever met. If we were the two last women on Earth, I would choose a life of chastity over sex with you.”
Nevada paused for a moment. “You wouldn’t even masturbate?”
Candice swept the door shut with her foot; Nevada had to jump back before it smacked her in the face. A moment later, she heard the shower running. A moment after that, she was knocking on the door.
“Candice,” she whined, “can I at least use the toilet?”
That night, the lights of the lodge and the tukuls were scant defense against the darkness. It was liquid—Candice felt like she could swim in it—but warm somehow. A fire pit had been lit near the center of the compound. The elephant meat roasted on it, the refugees gathered around. It all reminded Candice of some orgiastic Viking party, but inverted. Solemn and dignified, with portions of meat and vegetables being handed out in silence. Candice took hers: a battered metal plate sectioned into portions, with a fork missing some tines and a spoon made of wood.
Before the fire, several Ubangi performed a dance accompanied only by the sounds of their feet chopping at the ground and their hands slapping their bodies. One of them wore a surgical mask and a white lab coat over his nearly naked body as he went around the onlookers, pretending to examine them.
Up close, the hot coals seemed to throw off a great deal of light, but it dwindled quickly in the face of the infinitely stretching landscape. The ground seemed as flat and monotonous as a sheet of paper—its featurelessness only defeated by the curvature of the earth, which itself was only a faint suggestion in the moonlight.
Candice turned around to look at the hunting lodge, as if for reassurance it was still there in the lunar sterility of the darkly lacquered world, and saw Nevada emerging. She’d picked out a white chiffon dress that evidently did little against the cold; she scooted up right next to the fire before crouching down beside Candice. She didn’t seem to have any idea of how to sit down in it either.
“Was there a pumice stone when you showered?” Nevada asked, wringing a last bit of moisture out of her hair. “Because I couldn’t find one. I’m not accusing you of anything, but I went in right after you did.”
“I remember,” Candice said. “You didn’t even wait until I was gone to start undressing.”
“What? I’m not ashamed of my body.”
“I’ve seen some of your tattoos; you probably should be.”
“You wouldn’t say that if you could read Korean.”
“I can read Korean. And now I know how to operate a Samsung dishwasher. By the way, when someone flushes the toilet while you’re taking a shower, it tends to result in cold water.”
“It’s called a courtesy flush,” Nevada announced, “and in my country, it’s considered polite.”
“Did you have to flush the bog roll too?”
“I didn’t, just the toilet paper.” Nevada was handed her own plate, contents steaming hot from the spit-roast. “Oh. Thanks! Don’t mind if I do—”
Candice reached over to grab her wrist. “Don’t.”
“What, does it have MSG in it? Do you know what MSG is? ”
Candice rolled her eyes. “It’s Dinka tradition—when you eat an elephant, everyone takes their first bite at the same time.”
“So, what, is there a countdown or does someone blow a whistle—”
Nevada broke off. She must’ve noticed, as Candice had, that everyone was watching Pike, forks in hand, their first bites ready to be taken. And as magnanimous as the host of any feast, Pike looked the guests over, speared a morsel on his fork, and bit down. Everyone else took a bite in unison, including Candice and Nevada. Not having had time to cut her meat, Nevada ripped it right off the bone. As she chewed, she took out her dive knife and savagely cut the meat into portions.
“Tell me you cleaned that knife,” Candice said.
“I took a shower, didn’t I?”
Pike was on the other side of the fire pit, its sparks dancing across their view of him. Seated on a log, one of the rescued children on his knee, he could’ve been a Boy Scout troop leader making s’mores before bedtime. It was the dark, Candice thought. He looked at
home in it. Maybe at peace.
“So, ladies!” he bellowed across the fire, handing the child his plate. “What do you think of my ‘vacation home’ here?”
Candice nodded agreeably. “It’s really something.”
“I would’ve gone with aluminum siding myself,” Nevada said, “but yeah, place is a beaut.”
Pike nodded, the light from the fire playing over his features and reflecting in his eyes. “Yeah. Anyone can look at something, but not everyone can see. Me, I can see. I see this place because I saw it before there was so much as a footprint on this ground. Just a boarded-up house. I came here thinking it would make a good picture for my scrapbook. God, though, God thinks bigger than that. He told me this would be where I honored Him. And I heard Him tell me to build here, but I think what He really wanted me to do was believe. Because this place, it’s really all God’s work. Look at it. No way does this happen without God.”
“Well,” Candice said, in a sort of British exhalation.
“Well?” Nevada asked, halfway prompting and halfway warning.
“Well—” Candice drew out the last vowel into a hum. “I’ve read about what you do, how you carry out operations—protecting people, rescuing people, fighting people you see as your enemies.”
“My enemies?” Pike asked.
Candice coughed. “I…” She prodded at her meat with her fork. “I just hear about this war and the things each side does, and it’s hard for me to believe God is on anyone’s side.”
Pike smiled disarmingly. “God is on the children’s side.”
Nevada patted Candice on the shoulder. “I think what Candice means to say—”
“Means to say,” Pike interrupted. “I hear that a lot. People mean to say a lot of things. Mostly how complicated this place is. It’s like ‘hey, even how I’m talking about it is complicated.’ But I think to God, it must be simple. There are people who are doing something about this place and those who aren’t. What do you think God means to say to them?”
“I’m sure I wouldn’t know,” Candice replied.
“I would.” Pike sounded completely sure of himself. The kind of certainty people in love used when they talked about being together forever. He fixed Nevada with his fire-lit stare. “Do you believe in God?”
“Still flipping the coin. Ask me in a year.”
“Oh, we won’t be keeping you that long. I’m told your plane will be here in the morning. Hope you enjoy a good night’s sleep before you’re on your way.”
“I sleep like a baby.”
“Clean conscience?”
Nevada inclined her head slightly. “Clean sheets.”
A boy came up to her holding sand in his hand, and he pretended to sneeze as he blew it over Nevada’s plate. “Why’d you stop eating?” he cried. “Why aren’t you eating?”
Pike rose to his feet. “Ezekiel!” he bellowed. “That was very rude!”
Ezekiel ran off, laughing to himself. After a gesture from Pike, one of the men brought her a new plate.
“Kids,” Nevada grunted as she took it. “Like it’s not bad enough we have to use childproof caps.”
The fire went out, and refugees dispersed to the smoking tukuls and darkened dormitories. The night was more profound for Candice in their shared bedroom, looking out at the darkness. She could see lights moving in the fields behind the lodge, pinprick fires that could’ve been as distant as the stars. Her mother had told her about that. The Dinka would dig a hole before a termite mound and burn a bundle of dried grass to draw them out with the light. When the termites came out, a flow of them like water from a sprung leak, they would be swept into the hole with a broom and burnt to death. Then they could be eaten. A traditional dish that Candice had never tasted. She was torn between revulsion and curiosity, not only not knowing what to feel, but not knowing which she should feel.
She crossed her arms and watched the fires illuminate termite mounds as tall as a man.
“So like, that was weird, right?” Nevada asked, her mouth full of toothpaste. The bathroom door was open. Candice turned to face her and sat on the windowsill. “The whole ‘oh, hey, black guys, just look at me, the white boy, I’ll tell you when to eat’ thang . I mean, I’m not really all that PC…”
“I hadn’t noticed,” Candice said.
“Sarcasm is right down there with puns and Saturday Night Live recurring characters as a source of humor,” Nevada informed.
“I had no idea,” Candice replied sarcastically.
Nevada spat out her toothpaste. “I don’t know, it felt real… Professor Challenger and his native bearers.” She poured herself a shot of mouthwash.
“It’s an ego trip,” Candice said. “It’s not acceptable to be the Great White Hunter anymore, so people see how socially conscious they can be. The most charitable, the most good, the most—” Nevada gargled. “—African.”
Nevada spat. “Well, he’s saved more kids than I have. Can’t complain about that.”
“I’m not. Everyone indulges their ego in some form. As long as it’s done in moderation. But he’s acting like some kind of chieftain. It’s a warning sign…”
Nevada leaned down to rinse her mouth in the tap water, spat, took another mouthful, swallowed, then came up cracking her neck. “And I thought I was the cynical one.”
“How cynical can you be? You’re white.”
“What? Who told you?” Nevada came to the open doorway and hooked her fingers on the lintel, showing off her arms as she hung down. “Look how big my arms are. Candice, look how strong I am. I’m so strong…”
Candice chuckled. “You know, I think if you grew a social conscience, you might be very much like Mr. Pike. Doing the right thing for… God knows what reason.”
“Oh, I’d love to,” Nevada said. “But where’s the money in it?”
Candice shook her head as she crossed to the bed. “You really are incomprehensible. If you’re so greedy, why’d you become an archaeologist in the first place? It’s not exactly a growth industry.”
“To meet women.” Nevada shrugged. “Working so far.”
Candice sat on the foot of the bed. “I suppose that brings us to the sleeping arrangements.”
“Yes, the offer to top me still stands.”
Candice groaned and fell back onto the mattress. “I’m just going to sleep in the bathtub.”
Nevada flopped onto the bed next to her. Candice was hard-pressed to ignore the taut ripple that went through her body, outlined as it was by her dress and distinct lack of bra. It felt sourly medieval to give Easy a pass on her crass flirtations simply because she wasn’t horrible to look at.
“No, no, I won’t hear of it,” Nevada said. “We’re on the same team. And when you’re part of my team, you’re part of me. I’m not going to let you spend a week sleeping in a tank just to put you in a bathtub the moment we reach civilization.”
“So you’re going to sleep in the bathtub?”
Nevada eyed her blankly. “I might’ve oversold the team spirit thing. Look…” She turned onto her belly and crawled up the bed to grab one of the many pillows. She slapped it down in the middle of the mattress. “This is a wall. My side, your side. I swear I will not so much as look at anything happening on your side of the bed.” She turned onto her flank, facing away from the dividing pillow. “See? I’ll pretend you don’t exist until you’ve had your ten hours of sleep. Scout’s honor.”
“You were a Girl Scout?”
Nevada looked over her shoulder at Candice. “No, but I wore the uniform very well.”
“I don’t want to know.”
“What? I was legal.”
“Can’t know, cannot know —”
Nevada sprang up to sit cross-legged on the mattress, showing impressive flexibility—which also made Candice feel bad about finding her shenanigans even somewhat funny. If she weren’t such a pervert, I’d halfway think she was doing it all to get a laugh out of me.
Nevada clapped her hands. “ So . Deal or no
deal?”
Candice sighed and crawled up her side of the bed. “What is it with you Americans and walls?”
“What?” Nevada asked theatrically, rolling onto her side again. “Did someone speak to me? I thought I heard something… Grandmama? Is that you? Have you come back to tell me where the family gold is hidden?”
Candice rolled herself under the covers. “ Goodnight , Nevada.”
“What’s that, nana? You were murdered ?”
Chapter 2
Nevada felt arms looping around
her sleeping body, warm flesh pressed against her from neck to thigh in a way that couldn’t be accidental, could only be someone craving the nearness of her, of being on her, being inside her. A leg, a firm thigh, ran across her lap. Crystal , she thought, turning her head and feeling sweet-smelling hair brush against her face. Tiffany? Amber? Charity? Capri? Yeah, definitely, definitely—I need to meet more college graduates .
She opened her eyes and saw Candice draped across the pillow, which now looked like the Berlin Wall after David Hasselhoff got through with it. Wearing only a blouse and panties, Candice had managed to entangle herself in both the sheets and Nevada, ending up under one arm with her face nestled in Nevada’s neck. She could feel the steady thrum of breathing, swelling out Candice’s chest against her torso and then tickling down her pulse with a syrupy warmth that flittered through her body and pooled right by her groin.
The blouse was ruffled as well, twisted up somewhere around Candice’s sternum, showing a long expanse of bare back all the way to her cotton panties, which contrasted in lots of interesting ways with the skin above and below and through. Candice had the coloration of a thundercloud, one that could bring either rain or lightning—Nevada wanted to run her hand over the straight, supple muscles of her lower back and find out which it would be.
She just needed to think of a good one-liner to make it official—either rearrange this little tableau with far less clothes or at least prove how witty she was—when Candice murmured in her sleep. She would probably be mortified to find that she’d thrown herself at Nevada like this, even unintentionally. And even if she didn’t blame Nevada for the whole thing, it’d probably be one more thing bothering her about this whole situation. She’d brood even more, she’d angst even more—she might even find herself distracted while they were in actual physical danger, and Nevada knew how life-threatening that could be.
Candice Cushing and the Lost Tomb of Cleopatra Page 4