I stumbled down from the table and started for the door, my legs shaking so that I could hardly walk.
“What’s the matter?” cried Fritz. “Katherine! Are you all right? Here, sit down, you look like you’re going to pass out—”
“I can’t,” I whispered. At the door I turned and stammered, “Thanks, Fritz. I—I’m sorry, I don’t feel well, I have to leave—”
“The Minoans really were a highly sophisticated people!” he called a little desperately, as I fled toward my office. “Caligula’s Romans were much, much worse—”
But I turned the corner before I could hear any more.
The halls were empty, so there was no one to stare after me as I ran down the corridor, first to Dylan’s office cubicle, which was empty, and then to the tiny room off the main library where he had been archiving the Kroeber collection.
He wasn’t there. I stood for a moment, staring down at the digitizer and the neat stacks of photos, each appended with a number in Dylan’s careful, European hand. I drew several shuddering breaths and tried to calm myself—he was probably in my office looking for me, he could have gone downstairs to get a soda, or to the bathroom—
His battered motorcycle jacket was tossed over a chair. It had been there for weeks, after Dylan had worn it against the rain one morning and then forgotten about it. I picked it up, holding it close to my face as I inhaled, the cracked leather rough against my fingers and his smell still clinging to it. After a moment I let it slide from my hand to the floor.
I forced myself to walk back to my office, fixing in my mind’s eye just where he would be standing—there, by the window, his back to me as it was the first time I saw him—and how I would slip up behind him, slide my arms around his waist and pull him to me and whisper that we weren’t going to wait till four o’clock, it was too hot, too scary, it was his birthday, we were going to leave now…
My office was empty, the video screens black and dead as when I had left them a few hours ago. My whole body shook as I approached the desk and saw the note there. A page torn from some anthropological journal, one corner damp from where it had been weighted with a coffee mug, and the ink smeared so that Dylan’s careful hand looked rushed, almost frantic.
Dear Sweeney,
Guess what? My mother finally showed up. She was waiting at the guard’s desk downstairs; they just called, so I’m going down now and I guess I’ll go to her hotel or whatever. I told her you and I had plans for tonight and I had to leave by four so I’ll just meet you back at the house. Keep the champagne cold—
“No!”
I pounded my fist against the desk, ripping the page so that no one else would ever read its final lines.
I love you, Sweeney. Don’t worry! I’ll be RIGHT BACK—
CHAPTER 21
Waking the Moon
THE CAR ANGELICA HAD hired was a Lincoln Town Car, pure white inside and out, with plush velvet seats and chromium fixtures. She could tell that Dylan thought it was tacky; it was tacky, but it was the only car she could find that had air-conditioning.
“Mmm, it’s so nice to see you, sweetheart,” she said, hugging him in front of the guard’s desk in the museum.
“You too, Mom,” said Dylan. She let her head rest upon his shoulder for a moment, then drew back to stare up at him.
“So what’s this, you can’t call your mother more than once a summer?” she teased. “I could have been worried, you know.”
“But you weren’t.” Dylan let her slip her arm around him and together they walked outside. “I’m sorry, Mom—really, I am. I just—I’ve been kind of caught up in things.”
Angelica nodded. She had dressed for the weather, in a sleeveless shift of ivory-colored crumpled silk, belted at the waist with a gold cord, and simple but very expensive Italian gladiator sandals. Her hair was pulled into a chignon, and she wore heavy gold earrings and bracelets of ivory and sandalwood. Around her neck she wore the lunula. The silver crescent should have been jarring with all that gold, but in fact it was hardly noticeable, like the moon seen during daylight.
“You look good, Dylan,” Angelica said as they walked to the car. “I told you you’d like D.C.”
“It’s been great.” He stopped at the curb and stared up at the sky. “Except for the weather,” he added, frowning.
Overhead the liverish sky had grown even darker. Heavy brownish thunderclouds crept above the National Gallery and Regent’s Castle and the Treasury Building. Everything had a strange greenish cast, as though he was seeing the world through a whorled glass. A hurricane sky, he thought.
But the first of August was too early to worry about hurricanes. Besides, he was with his mother.
“Hop in!” Angelica said cheerfully pulling open the back door of the car. Cool air like water flowed into the street. “Your chariot has arrived.”
Dylan looked at the town car and made a face. “Gee, Mom, is someone paying you to ride around in that?”
Angelica laughed. “Not yet. Come on, go easy on me—it’s the only thing Elspeth could find that had air-conditioning.”
Dylan slung his long legs into the car and slid inside. “Is Elspeth here?”
“No. I just implored her to take care of a few things for me—I’ve been so busy, and I didn’t want to have to worry about anything on your birthday.”
“Right.” Dylan nodded, stared back out the window at the museum, its dome faded to grey in the glaucous light. He bit his lip, then said, “I know you came all this way to see me, but I have to be back here by four. I—I made plans for tonight. With a friend.”
Angelica slipped onto the velvet-covered seat beside him, motioning to the driver. Without a sound the car eased onto Constitution Avenue and headed toward the Tidal Basin. “Plans? What kind of plans? Anyone I know?”
Dylan opened his mouth to reply, thought better of it. He shook his head. “Just some friends.”
Angelica turned and stared at him. She plucked a stray tendril of hair from her forehead and pushed it aside. “I see,” she said softly. Her voice was even, her emerald eyes unreadable. “Well, that still leaves us time for lunch, doesn’t it?”
“Sure.”
She leaned forward. “Don’t you have something for me?” she asked playfully.
Dylan frowned. “Oh… yeah. Here—”
He handed her the fragment of the lunula he’d found in the museum. She took it and Dylan held his breath, waiting for her to say something else, but his mother seemed distracted. She looked out the window as the Mall slipped by, her mouth pursed, brow furrowed. He’d spoken to her a few times over the summer, usually calling her from the museum, but he hadn’t told her about Sweeney. He hadn’t told her about anything; he hadn’t actually wanted to speak to her at all. But she was his mother, and this was his birthday. She’d come all the way here from Huitaca, though past experience had made it clear to Dylan that his mother usually visited him when there was some other business she could take care of at the same time—dress fittings in Milan, academic cronies in Princeton. This time it was probably some old friends in Congress and the diplomatic corps.