I felt bad about leaving the two guys in the alley, but I’d feel worse about trying to find my way to the hotel in the darkness, so I pulled my bag up, slid my leg over the seat, and clutched the bag with one hand and Seth with the other as the bike moved forward. “What do you mean you didn’t intend on hurting them seriously?”
He said something, but I couldn’t hear it with the noise of the traffic as we merged onto a busy street. At a stop light I asked him again.
“Kyokushin karate,” he said.
“Oh, cool, martial-arts stuff. So, do you live here? In Cairo?”
He shook his head, which made his braid tickle my nose. The light changed just as I was going to ask him what he was doing in town, but I kept my mouth shut instead. Not only did I not want to distract him from driving (Cairo drivers didn’t seem to believe that laws applied to them, and they pretty much drove however they wanted), I was also having problems with my hand. The hand that was holding onto Seth, that is. The other hand had the duffel bag, and that was no problem, but the Seth hand… somehow that had ended up clutching his stomach. Or rather, the T-shirt covering his stomach. I didn’t want to let go of it, because where else was I supposed to hold onto? Down was NOT an option, while up meant his chest, and that was dipping into more OMIGOD territory. I couldn’t hold a guy’s chest. That was just too…too…intimate. And besides, Seth probably wouldn’t like me holding onto his chest.
A few minutes later we stopped at another light.
“If you pull over for a minute, I can get you the address to my hotel,” I yelled in his ear (it was noisier now that we were approaching the downtown part of the city).
He shook his head again and yelled over his shoulder. “I know where the Luxor Hotel is.”
I had to wait eight blocks before he stopped again. “How do you know which hotel I’m staying at? I didn’t mention it.”
“You’re going to work at the dig in the Valley of the Servitors, aren’t you?”
“Yeeees,” I said slowly.
“That means you’re staying at the Luxor. Stop squirming around. It’s not too much farther.”
I stopped trying to scoot myself back on the bike seat (I was smooshed right up against him, my thighs snuggling his, my chest pushed against his back). “Sorry. It’s just that because of the motion of the bike, I’m plastered up against you, and since you’re gay and all, I know you must not like my boobs being smooshed up against—”
He twisted around and gave me a look that should have scorched the hair right off my head. “I’m what?”
“Look, I said was sorry! But there’s not much I can do about it, okay? I’m trying to keep back from you, but the stopping and starting makes me slide forward, and then there I am—”
“I am not gay,” he interrupted me to say slowly, like he was having to chip the words out of granite.
I blinked a couple of times (obviously more oxygen was needed for my brain). “You’re not? Then why did you say you were?”
“I never said I was gay.”
“Yes you did, you said it back at the shop. You said you weren’t interested in girls.”
“I said I wasn’t a dawg! For your information, I like girls. A lot. It’s just that they…now what are you doing?”
I grunted a little tiny grunt as I hauled my bag up on one end so it acted as a barrier between me and Seth. “Arranging it so I won’t be smooshed up against you.”
“What?” A puzzled frown wrinkled his brow.
I lifted my chin and looked down my nose at him the way my mother does whenever someone criticizes her paintings. “It was one thing to be squished up against you when you were gay, but now that you’re not, I couldn’t possibly sit like that with you.”
His pretty brown eyes narrowed for a minute before the car behind us started honking. He turned around and the bike jumped forward, but even with the noise of the traffic I heard him say, “You are the oddest girl I’ve ever met.”
“I’m not odd, but I’m not a tramp, either. If you thought I was slut-city before just because my arms and head aren’t covered, you’d think I was a ho if I rode on a bike with you with my thighs touching yours and my arm around you and my face buried in your neck smelling your hair. Which…uh…I wasn’t doing. But if I was, you’d think me immodest or something.”
He said something, but it was lost in the traffic.
“What?” I yelled.
“I don’t think you’re immodest!” he bellowed back to me, turning his head to do so. The bike wobbled and sent both me and the bag sliding to the right.
I screamed and wrapped both hands around him, hugging the bag between us. I couldn’t hear him, but I could feel his stomach move as he laughed.
Fortunately the hotel wasn’t much farther. Another ten minutes and we rolled up outside the front steps of a big hotel. “Here you are,” he said, both feet on the ground while I peeled myself off him, my legs a little shaky as I dragged both the bag and my body off the bike.
“Thank you, I appreciate the ride.” I set the bag down and looked at him, wondering if I should offer to shake his hand. Mrs. Andrews said people in the Middle East were very big on handshakes, but maybe he expected me to kiss him? He did rescue me and then bring me to the hotel. Maybe I should kiss him? On the cheek or the lips? Would he think I was a tramp if I kissed him? Guys back home wouldn’t—well, most of them wouldn’t—but things were different here. Would he be insulted if I kissed him? Would he be sorry he rescued me if I didn’t? Was a handshake okay if it was the girl who offered it?
“You know, this was a lot easier when you were gay,” I said, holding out my hand. He looked at it for a minute, then started to shake it. I leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “Thank you for saving me. I really appreciate it. It was very nice of you to care.”
His mouth hung open for a second, but before he could say anything I grabbed my bag and ran up the stairs to the hotel lobby, blushing like mad.
January James, international sex goddess. Might look good as a byline!
“I’ll say one thing about this whole Ramadan thing—you may have to fast during the day, but the food is definitely worth the wait!”
The girl to my left, Izumi Shikibu, giggled gracefully as she dipped a piece of 'aish shami (a puffy bread kind of like pita) into a bowl of delicious olive-and-pepper hummus that I’d commandeered. I stifled the urge to sink down into my seat, reminding myself that although Izumi might be pretty, and delicate, and skinny as a rail, and graceful and intelligent and everything else anyone could ever want—not to mention speaking English, French, and German in addition to her native Japanese—I shouldn’t feel like a big old bloated carcass next to her. Comparisons were wrong. This wasn’t a competition.
I was so in last place!
“Izumi, you try some of chicken tagine—wonderful it is being,” Dag said. She reached the empty chair between us like I wasn’t even there, and handed Izumi a small plate of stewed chicken and dates. “I know you will be being the appreciate of its flavors most complex.”
I smiled at Dag and tried not to flinch when her steely grey eyes glared at me for a second. Dagmar Sorensson, Swedish so-called linguist and head of the student volunteers for the Dig Egypt! project, was not happy with me. Yeah, okay, so she might have some grounds for being a bit pissed at me since I had missed the connection with her and the other Dig Egypt! students at the Cairo airport, and thus didn’t get to ride back to the hotel with them, or visit the Cairo Museum with them, and she said she spent hours on the phone trying to find out what happened to me, but I did apologize. Three times. Once I even managed to rustle up a few tears. It didn’t do me any good, however. When I finally staggered into the hotel and asked for my room, the front desk called Dag, and she came down while I was handing over my passport and getting my room key.
An hour later she had finally wrapped up her lecture and warned me in her weird form of English that if I caused her any more problems, she’d send me home.
“Can she
do that?” I had asked Izumi, my roomie, as Dag left, slamming the door behind her.
Izumi shrugged. “I think so. She seemed very angry.”
“That’s an understatement,” I groaned as I collapsed on the bed. Two hours later I had managed to get a nap, take a quick bath in yellowish water that was evidently what they had in Cairo, and changed my clothes into the sage Godet skirt and matching ballet wrap top with teal butterflies that April designed as part of her wearable artwork exhibition. Sometimes hand-me-downs can be good.
By the time I made it downstairs for dinner, all the other high school students had gathered around a big round table in the middle of the room. Dag introduced me quickly, so quickly I didn’t catch too many people’s names, but it was pretty clear that almost everyone there was American. I slid into one of the two empty chairs next to Izumi. To her left was a girl named Kathy who seemed to be the group suck-up. Across the table was an Indian girl named Sunita, a French girl who apparently didn’t speak English, a couple of other girls whom I didn’t get to talk to, and a chatterbox named Chloe who seemed to be addicted to her lip gloss. I swear she put it on every ten minutes.
“Try pastilla,” Dag had said after the intros were done and the food was being passed around. “Is very good for childrens.”
“Sure,” I said, scooping something in pastry onto my plate. I also added grilled chicken, warak einab (which is stuffed grape leaves and chicken livers), and a Turkish dish called börek peynir, which turned out to be cheese in a pastry, flavored with nutmeg of all things. You wouldn’t think nutmeggy cheese would be good, but after going what seemed like half a lifetime without food, I scarfed everything down, even the pastilla (it had cinnamon and sugar on the top, which is a weird thing to put on what was basically a spicy chicken pot pie). By the time I came to the fattoush (salad with the nummiest fried-pita croutons), I was stuffed. Which made me feel guiltier than ever as I sat there looking at all the other Dig Egypt! kids. I was sure that not a single one of them was on a diet.
Everything was peachy until a tall guy with a long black braid strolled over to the empty chair next to me like he owned the place.
I stared at Seth with my mouth hanging open for a second. “What are you doing here?” I finally managed to whisper. No one else was paying any attention to him, although he was so nummy-looking I couldn’t imagine the girls weren’t drooling on him. He had changed his clothes into regular jeans and a dark blue lightweight cotton shirt that was open halfway down his chest. He had a gold necklace with a cartouche hanging on it—one of those long ovals with hieroglyphics of a king’s name in it.
He smiled and didn’t even bother to lower his voice when he said, “Hello. I’m going to have a little kofta if you’ll pass it to me.”
“You’re going to get in trouble,” I said, quickly looking around the table. Dag was lecturing Chloe about something she’d said, Izumi and Kathy were writing down each other’s addresses, and the rest of the people at our table were in the middle of the restaurant learning how to do a belly dance.
“Eating kofta?” Seth tipped his head to the side and brightened his smile. My stomach did a full gainer with a half twist. “I don’t think so. The sun has been down for more than two hours.”
I passed him the plate of minced meat kabobs and frowned. He sure wasn’t acting like himself. Before he was all dark and brooding and frowning and stuff. Now he was smiling. And just what was he doing here? “Look, Seth, I know I kissed you and everything, but that doesn’t mean you can go all stalker on me. Surely even here they have rules about that.”
He stopped stuffing his face with kebab to give me a slow grin. “You kissed me, did you? And you are…uh…”
“Jan,” I hissed, wanting to pinch his arm. Hard. I looked away from him, swearing to myself over my stupidity. How could I have fallen for his “I’m not a dawg” line? He couldn’t even remember my name a couple hours after he had saved me from the gropers! I blushed again thinking about how I had kissed him, wishing now I hadn’t since he obviously didn’t give a flying rat’s patootie about me.
“Jan, that’s right, how could I forget. So, Jan, would you like me to show you around the area after dinner? Maybe we could…talk…more.” As he spoke, his fingers caressed my hand, stroking up toward my arm.
“I don’t think so.” I moved my arm away so he wasn’t touching me anymore.
He smiled and waggled his fingers. Suddenly a watch appeared in his hand, a familiar watch. I looked down at my wrist, but it was bare. “Hey!”
“Little sleight of hand,” he said, handing me back my watch. I put it on, stiffening when I felt his hand on my knee, sliding under the hem of my skirt. “If you think that’s amazing, you should see what I can do with just one hand.”
I clamped my hand down on his to keep it from going beyond midthigh, pretending to be interested in the rest of the Dig Egypt! people as they did a really awful belly dance in the middle of the floor. “Oh, right, like I look like I just fell off the stupid wagon? Think again, buster.”
“Aw, Jan, don’t be that way. I thought you liked me,” he whispered in my ear. I stiffened as his fingers flexed along my bare leg, wondering if anyone would notice if I stabbed my fork into his hand. He must have taken a bath, too, because he didn’t smell like spicy leather any more. Now he smelled like deodorant.
“Do you want to know what I like?” I asked, forcing my lips into a smile as his fingers started to stray.
“Very much,” he breathed.
I grabbed his fingers with both hands, bending his thumb back to the point where I knew it was going to start to hurt if I pressed any harder. His eyes widened when he realized what I was doing, but before he could say anything, I leaned close to him and whispered, “I liked you better when you were gay. Go away and leave me alone. If you come near me again, I’m going to have Dag call the police. Got it? Good. Nighty-night, hope the bedbugs bite.”
I slid out of my chair before he could protest, and headed out of the restaurant, intending on walking off some of the dinner I’d wolfed down.
“Where you are going now?” Dag followed me out to the hotel lobby. Rather than turning toward the stairs, I had crossed the lobby toward the front doors. “It is forbidden you should again wander. You make most big damage to reputation of Dig Egypt! program since earlier. I am not allowing damage repeating!”
“Look, I said that was a mistake, and that I’m sorry. I can’t do any more than that.” I was a bit peeved with everyone. Seth, Dag, even tiny, petite, perfect Izumi were on my list at that moment. “I promise I won’t go far. I promise I won’t get lost. I promise I’ll be ready to go first thing tomorrow morning.”
“It is being unsafe for childrens to leave hotel at night,” Dag said, folding her arms over her chest. She was a fairly small woman, but her voice was big. It was also harsh, with a heavy Swedish accent, and worked wonders on me whenever I wanted to giggle at her awful hair (orange, cut in an ear-length wedge that bobbed when she spoke). “Bad mens outside. Very bad. Childrens are not to be leaving hotel without chaperone.”
I thought about just ignoring her, but my cheek still hurt where the big two-legged rat at the bazaar had hit me. I spun around, frustrated. I had to work off some of that dinner, or I’d look like a beached whale by the end of the month! “Right. okay. No walking around outside. How about the garden? Set…uh…someone said there was a garden. Is that allowed?”
She pursed her lips and shook her head, her orange wedge looking like she’d dipped her head in cheddar cheese and let it harden. “We are to be leaving at six in clock to be at dig in time for dinner. Now is not time for wandering. Now is time for childrens to be in bed sleeping sound sleeps.”
I looked at the tiny clock over the registration table. “That leaves me an hour. I won’t leave the garden, I swear. I just need to work off some of that dinner, okay?”
She eyed me in that way skinny people have. “You are being to eat too much. It is not healthy life.”
; I dug my nails into my palms and remembered that I had to be polite. Even to Dag. “Thanks for the advice. I’ll try to remember it. I’ll be in the garden if you want me.”
“You will not be being anarchy! I am chaperone of childrens!” she yelled after me as I hurried to a side door I assumed opened to the garden. Her voice went up a couple of notches, going off the top of the shrill scale as she added, “You will be doing rules of conduct or you will be going home to Mama and Papa with note of behavior most bad!”
I ducked through the doors, sick to my stomach. How had everything gone so wrong in such a short amount of time? I’d gotten lost, but been rescued by Seth, who turned out to be a total jerk. Now I had Dag on my case threatening to send me home. Why did nothing ever go right for me?
I wandered down the veranda that ran around three sides of the hotel, did a bit of walking up and down the lush green garden, but eventually gave that up because the people sitting out there smoking and drinking wine and laughing and having fun were starting to stare. I ended up settling on a stone bench located at the far side of the veranda, just around the corner from the steps that led down into the garden. I curled up on the bench, screened by a squat, bushy palm plant, and gave in to a little wallow of homesickness, wishing for a few minutes that I were back home in the room that April and I shared, with Mom and Rob and everyone running around, and the dogs getting into trouble, and Mimsy, my cat, kacking up hairballs everywhere, and all the other stuff that was home.
Instead there I was, in a strange country where I’d been hit by one guy, and kissed another who later groped my thigh, gotten yelled at by a woman who wanted to send me home, and had to share a room with a girl who was prettier and a gazillion times more popular than me.
“My life sucks,” I told my feet. They looked like they agreed. I was just about to haul my sorry butt to bed and hope things would look better in the morning (they never did, but I didn’t stop hoping they would), when I heard a familiar voice nearby. A voice whose owner I didn’t want to see. I scrunched down lower behind the palm, and carefully pulled aside a couple of fronds so I could see through it.