The sound filled the room. Everywhere around her, the voice overdubbed so that it formed its own echoing chorus, the same voice ringing in her ears like the aftermath of an explosion.
The song ended. As though someone had dropped a bottle of perfume, a thick fragrance filled the room, a cloying scent that made her head ache. The smell of the festival games, when great armfuls of flowers were strewn upon the graves of all the golden athletes given to her in tribute. The smell of hyacinths.
She could hear her own heart, her breath coming in shallow gasps. Then another sound, so soft she thought at first she’d imagined it. A ticking noise like fingers rapping at a glass.
Angelica whirled, hands clenched at her sides. In the arch of the Palladian window, something beat against the panes. The shadow of its wings ballooned across the floor and up onto the wall behind her, but when she darted to the window she saw that it was actually quite small, no larger than her hand. She flung open the casement but before she could thrust her head outside it flew into the room. The smell of hyacinths grew overpowering, the syrupy odor so strong her tongue felt coated with it, she felt as though she were drowning in petals, stamens showering her with pollen until she could hardly breathe. She staggered back and it flew toward her, its wings slowly rising and falling, sending the faintest of currents through the warm air.
It was a butterfly, purple and yellow, its glittering eyes fixed upon her, its antennae wafting back and forth like sea hair. It hovered mere inches from her face. When she extended one hand it floated down, gentle and hapless as a falling leaf, until it rested upon her palm.
Angelica stared at it, the dusting of gold and violet scales think as ash upon its wings, the tiny hairs upon its legs brushing the ball of her thumb. Its wings fluttered languidly, and the smell of hyacinths flowed into something else. The smell of rain-washed earth, of burning sand and the sea at Karpathos, of coriander and red sandalwood; the smell of autumn leaves and applewood burning in the chimneys at the Orphic Lodge.
“Oliver,” she whispered, as she drew the butterfly to her face; then crushed it between her hands.
CHAPTER 17
Falling
WE WALKED OUTSIDE ON the Mall, pausing to watch a magician who made a boy sharp-eyed and brown as a weasel disappear. The boy crawled beneath a rattan laundry basket scarcely large enough to hide him. The magician, a toothless man younger than I was, uttered some words in Hindi; when he lifted the basket, the boy was gone. Dylan and I inspected the packed earth, the laundry basket, the fringed edges of the silk tent: nothing.
“The Mysterious East,” I said at last. We wandered on. After the airless inferno inside the museum, the Mall felt comfortable, although the temperature was well into the nineties. Dylan removed his tie and slung it around his neck; I took off my linen jacket and was glad that I’d gone bare-legged that day. Our museum IDs still were clipped to our breast pockets; apart from that, we might have been any two tourists goggling at the acrobats and sitar players and contortionists at play in the shadow of the Washington Monument.
“So, Boss,” Dylan finally asked, “what do I do to earn my keep?”
I shrugged. “Not much.” Summer interns weren’t actually paid at all; the exceptional experience of working at the museum was supposed to be worth far more than any one person could possibly earn in the space of six short weeks. “To tell you the truth, interns don’t actually do very much. At least mine never do. Laurie’ll show you around the archives, I’ll show you how the videodisc system works. I’m sure we can find some stuff to keep you busy. There’s a new collection of photos that came in last week that needs to be cataloged; I’ll get you started on that. But mostly just have a good time, take advantage of being here.”
“I’m already doing that.”
I blushed, glanced over to see if he was being smarmy. But no, Dylan had the same earnest open look as before. As a matter of fact, the way he was staring at me was pretty dopey: like a kid longing for a new skateboard or the latest Boink CD.
“So,” I asked hurriedly, ducking into the shade of a great oak tree. “How’s your mom?”
“My mom.” Dylan kicked up a cloud of dust, flicked a strand of hair from his intense blue eyes. “Well, you know my mom.”
“Actually, I don’t. I haven’t seen Angelica since—well, since before you were born. I really only knew her for a couple of months.”
He stared at his feet. “I guess she’s okay.” He flashed me a crooked grin, a look that was so much like Oliver’s I felt a stabbing at my breast. “To tell you the truth, I haven’t seen her much since I’ve been born. My dad and I, we used to do a lot of stuff together. Riding, sailing, flying—my dad had a Cessna 150, he was gonna teach me to fly. But my mother—well, you know she’s always been into all this strange stuff. Like digging up our place on Santorini, looking for tombs and artifacts. She’s a real field archaeologist, at least she was until my father died and she started getting more into her books. I mean, she’s a great mom and all. But I’ve always gone away to school, I liked going away to school; and so I didn’t see her much except at vacations. And summertime she was always off on her digs, and Christmas we’d go see my grandfather…”
He leaned against the oak tree, staring across the long downward slope of green leading to the Tidal Basin, where little paddleboats like fat blue beetles swam through the water. “She’s just one of these driven professional women you read about,” he said at last with a sigh. “Over here, at least. In Italy you don’t read much about them, because there aren’t any. Not as many, at least.” He fell silent again, gazing into the hazy distance.
“So,” I said. So maybe it wasn’t such a great idea to talk about Angelica. “So you like UCLA?”
He shrugged. “It’s okay. It’s a lot of driven professional students. I guess I’m just not as motivated as I should be, I dunno.” He looked at me sideways and smiled. “I actually wanted to take the summer off and go cross-country with these friends of mine to Nantucket, but my mother had other plans. It was her idea to apply for this internship.”
“Well, I’m glad you did,” I said, and grinned. “Really.”
“Me too.”
His voice was sweet, with that hint of an accent and Angelica’s theatrical phrasing. His glittering green-flecked eyes remained fixed on me. I wiped a bead of sweat from my nose.
This is insane, I thought. I’ve known this kid for, what? an hour? ninety minutes? and already I’m totally wiped out by him.
Although he is incredibly fantastic-looking, I told myself, like that was a good excuse.
Although he is exactly half my age, and I am his supervisor, and old enough to be his mother.
Shit, if I’d had my way with Oliver, I would have been his mother. I shook my head, feeling slightly delirious.
“You okay?”
I started. Dylan was just inches from my face, his sea blue eyes wide with concern. “Sweeney? You look a little—I dunno, sunstroked maybe. Maybe we should go inside—”