“Oh, no,” Cara singsongs, looping her arm through Ripley’s and pulling them close to each other. She smells like sunscreen and fruity, girlie perfume. Ripley’s never felt the brush of Cara’s earrings across her cheek before or caught the tiny clacking sounds of the beaded fringe. It’s nice.
“What do you mean, ‘Oh, no’?”
“You like him so much.”
Ripley shakes her head. It’s so simple, so wonderful, so awful, so true. “Yeah. I like him so much.”
“See,” Cara says, patting Ripley’s hand. “You talked about your feelings and didn’t die. A therapist would charge you a hundred bucks an hour for that.”
“It was exhausting. Tell me about Griff while I recover.”
Cara makes a quick, love-smug humming sound. “Griffin says he’s had enough of moving around. He’s already been to Chengjiang and the Gobi Desert and the Burgess Shale, and I’m not in any of those places.” Her normally brash voice has turned soft and reverent, with a sparkle of astonishment.
“I’m really, really happy for you, C.”Joy is so simple,Ripley thinks. You can express it in a single sentence:I cherish my friendship with Cara.And:I hope Geraldine and I keep in touch after I leave this place.
Unhappiness is the messy, complicated thing. It’s the ache under your sternum that wakes you up at night. It’s the desperate fumbling to unpick a tangle of fear and regret and missing something you never had.
And all that mess is going to be sleeping in the same cabin with Ripley, starting tomorrow.
28
July 11:
Forty-Eight Days Until the End of the Summer Excavation Season
This time, Ripley’s the one waiting in the parking lot when the bright orange SUV pulls up.
James is there too, but he’s on a call with an admin at the APS, trying to explain that Yellowtail Ranch doesn’t have a mailing address, only a PO box in Hercules.
Beside Ripley, Jordin’s beaming as she prepares to impress yet another one of her heroes. By the end of the weekend, Jordin will no doubt have sweet-talked her way into an offer to do her graduate work in Dr. Wong’s lab. She will graciously consider it, given that it’s her eleventh very prestigious offer.
Ripley can picture meeting Jordin as a professor. It involves admiring her perfectly tied scarf, receiving a silky compliment, and regaining consciousness afterward with fifty thousand dollars of your grant money tied up in a new joint project. Terrifying.
Ripley would’ve preferred to pick up their guest at the Bozeman airport, but Dr. Wong emailed James, cc’ing Ripley and Cara, that it wouldn’t be necessary.
Hey, Smitty. Can’t wait for our mini–class reunion this weekend. I’ll rent a car and spareyou the trouble of pretending you’re happy to drive to the airport.
Ripley doesn’t like the way she feels about that email—Mindy’s nickname for James; how well she knows him—or the way James brightens and abruptly ends his phone call the second Mindy steps out of the car.
She’s in her late thirties, petite and slim with a Mona Lisa smile. Her hair is short and businesslike, the glossy black silvered in a streak that is one hundred percent plausible as either a fashion statement or her natural color. She’s highly respected for her pioneering scholarship on fungal networks of the Late Cretaceous. She writes professional emails without using a single exclamation mark.
Ripley knows the two of them have slept together the second James says hello, breaking into a wide, white-toothed grin she’s never seen before. They hug, and he murmurs something near her ear. Mindy tips her head back in a laugh; their bodies stay loose and easy in close quarters.
Ripley wants to go stick her head in the rain barrel and scream. With great effort, she prevents herself from putting a hand to her stomach. Until this moment, she didn’t realize jealousy really does stab.
“Ripley? Call me Mindy,” Dr. Wong says, taking her hand with a firm, dry grip. “I’m so excited to see everything James has been raving about, especially since that bird abstract is going to make such a splash at the APS conference. Not that you heard it from me, but it’s in the running for a few exciting things.”
A dull, oceanic roar builds in Ripley’s ears. Mindy means Will’s abstract might be getting an award.
Jordin jumps in. “Dr. Wong? Jordin Johnson. I’d love to showyou to the excavation. If you’ll follow me?” With a helpless look at James, Mindy’s spirited away.
Ripley waits for James to grab a plastic-wrapped tray of sampling tubes from Mindy’s SUV, then falls in beside him as he walks to the canyon.
“I could have helped you move in. You didn’t have to sneak everything over to my cabin while I was at breakfast.” He didn’t have to sucker-punch her with a waft of his scent the second she opened the door.
He keeps his gaze determinedly forward. “I don’t have much baggage.”
Ripley barks out a laugh. “That is untrue on so many levels.”
