Views from the Tower (10 page)

“44...44...Where the heck is 44?! Oh,” she muttered under her breath as she located the out-of-order box. Alex opened the lid and glanced inside at the contents, mineral samples from the museum’s recently closed display. “A and b...Check.” She sorted the box back into the stack, this time in the correct order. She paused for a moment to turn up the volume on her earphones, the driving beat of the music chasing all other thoughts from her mind as she picked her spreadsheet back up and tapped her pen against it in time with the music.

Lost in her task and her music, she didn’t hear her name being called. She was totally oblivious to anyone else in the room until she glanced up and saw denim-clad knees directly in front of her. She looked up, startled, and saw Nicholas looking down at her bemusedly. As she pulled out her earphones, she fumbled to stop the music blaring from them.

“Didn’t mean to sneak up on you like that. You didn’t hear me talking to you,” he said.

“Sorry.” Alex blushed and resisted the urge to smooth down her bangs nervously. “I had my music up too loud. Sorry.”

Nicholas smiled down at her. “No need to be sorry. I know checking the catalog can be really boring.”

Alex nodded. She wasn’t sure if she should try to get up. It didn’t promise to be the most graceful thing she’d ever done as her leg was already starting to fall asleep, but her position sitting on the floor and looking up at him felt awkward. If she looked straight ahead she was speaking to his knee. If she looked up far enough to see his face her neck hurt. She desperately wanted to avoid appearing to be staring at his crotch, but every time she looked up she felt like that’s what she was doing. There was nothing to do but try to stand up and hope she didn’t look too clumsy. As she started to stand, Nicholas offered her his hand. She took it, willing herself not to show any visible reaction, but of course she could feel her cheeks flushing.

Alex dropped his hand as soon as she was upright. Unsure of quite what to do with her hands, she eventually settled for putting them behind her back and lacing her fingers together.

She rushed to fill the awkward silence. “So, was there something you wanted to see me about?”

“I didn’t get a chance to chat with you after the orientation yesterday, I just wanted to touch base, congratulate you on graduating.”

“Oh, thanks. Yeah, glad that’s over. Although it means it’s my last summer interning here,” she said ruefully.

He laughed. “You never know, Alexandra. I’ve been out of high school for awhile and yet, I keep finding my way back here.”

Nicholas made it sound as if there were decades between him and high school graduation. She resisted the urge to point out that he was only seven years older than her. She considered seven years a very surmountable age gap, but she was pretty sure that he considered himself too old, or too worldly, to be interested in a recent high school graduate.

“I just wanted to thank you, again, for writing me the letter of recommendation. I really appreciate it,” she offered instead.

“No problem, I was more than happy to do it. I hadn’t heard if you got into the program at Hastings?”

“Yes, I did.” She smiled shyly up at him.

“That’s great, Alexandra. Well deserved, of course. You’re a brilliant student. I’ve been glad to have you here at GeMMLA.”

Alex cheeks pinked at the compliment. She looked down at her Converse high tops, and allowed the piece of dark blond hair she had tucked behind her ear to fall forward and hide her face. “I wouldn’t say brilliant, but thanks.” She was uncomfortable talking about herself so she quickly changed the subject. “How is your thesis coming?”

Nicholas grimaced. “Could be better honestly. I sometimes feel I’m just repeating things that have already been said and done, not contributing anything new to the field. Haven’t really found a ‘hook’ yet.”

“I’m sure it’s great,” she said encouragingly. “Your research is always impeccable.”

He looked as if he were about to respond, but he was preempted by the sound of someone clearing his throat, loudly, from the open door of the storage room.

“Hey, it’s Mr. Hunt, right?” Luke’s voice came from the doorway. Alex couldn’t tell if the fleeting look of irritation that passed across Nicholas’s face was from being interrupted, or from Luke’s emphasis on “Mister.” She hoped it was the former, that he hadn’t wanted his conversation with her to be cut short.

“Yes it is, but feel free to call me Nicholas,” he replied turning toward the door. Alex continued staring at her shoes, afraid that if she looked over at Luke she would either bite his head off or burst out in nervous laughter.

“The lady in the office, Maureen, I think her name is? She’s looking for you, something about a donor list and mailing labels? She asked me to come get you.”

Nicholas sighed, “Well, I’d better go see what she wants. I’ll talk to you later Alexandra. It’s good to have you back.” He walked out past Luke, and Alex noticed with surprise that Luke was several inches taller than Nicholas, although both towered over her.

Luke watched Nicholas walk past him and out into the hall. “See ya, Lex,” he said loudly, and then looking back at Alex he added in a low tone, “Seriously, ‘your research is impeccable?’ You really need to work on the whole flirting thing.”

Her eyes darted to Nicholas’s retreating back, but he didn’t appear to have heard Luke’s comment. She glared at Luke and made a slashing motion across her throat. He just laughed and waggled his eyebrows at her suggestively, then turned to follow Nicholas down the hallway.

Alex sat shakily back down among the stacks of boxes.
I am going to kill him,
she thought to herself.
Before the summer is out Luke Reed is going to be dead by my hands.

*****

The bus ride home from GeMMLA usually took Alex about forty minutes. Los Angeles was not the most public transportation friendly city. Everyone had at least one car. Those who didn’t were stuck using the Metro, which was, in her opinion, the world’s most inefficient public transportation system.

The city sprawled in every direction, bleeding out into the surrounding cities so that you couldn’t tell where one ended and the others began. In the midst of the urban sprawl there were still small neighborhoods. Hundreds and thousands of them, each with their own distinct culture. Alex always thought of it as a series of living cells, each separate but dependent on the others, being fed a constant stream of vehicles from the major arteries of the freeways. During her bus ride, she passed through at least twenty of these neighborhoods. It was funny that in a city of millions she could almost always guarantee seeing the same people involved in the same events day after day outside the bus windows.

Alex loved her neighborhood. It was a hybrid between urban and suburban, offering the best of both worlds. The tree-lined streets boasted a mix of tract homes and apartment buildings, a few small parks and some really great restaurants. A short walk up her street to the major intersection led once again into the heart of the city.

“Hey, Mom,” Alex said in surprise as she let herself in the front door of the apartment she shared with her mom. “What are you doing home so early?” Usually her mother, Jennifer, who worked as a paralegal for a law firm downtown wasn’t ever home before eight, and sometimes later depending on her caseload.

Jennifer looked up from the couch where she was currently curled up with a romance novel and a large bowl of popcorn. She and Alex looked so much alike that they often were mistaken for sisters. They shared the same dark blond hair and gray eyes, though Alex was more than an inch taller than her mom. This was a source of pride for her, since it wasn’t often that she stood taller than anyone other than children.

“Oh, one of the partners won a big case today, so to celebrate he let everyone off at five. Thank God too, because I have to go in early all next week. Can I just say though, traffic is so much worse at this time of day. Took me twice as long to get home.”

“Yeah, Mom, that’s ‘cause every other person in the greater Los Angeles area is getting off work now.” Alex closed the front door behind her, sliding the extra chain lock into place out of habit before dumping her backpack in the corner and flopping down on the love seat opposite the couch.

“There’s lasagna in the fridge if you want some,” Jennifer said. “I stopped off at Ricci’s on the way home.”

“Oh yum, I’ll have to get some in a minute. I’m too tired to move, even for Ricci’s lasagna.” Alex kicked her shoes off and propped her sock-clad feet up on the coffee table, then leaned back and closed her eyes. After the cramped bus ride and the ten-minute walk from the bus stop to the apartment, it felt good to stretch out.

“How’s it going at the museum? Everything the same as last year?” Jennifer asked.

“Hmm, yeah pretty much,” Alex mumbled, eyes still closed. Suddenly, it occurred to her that her mother’s tone had been just a little too disinterested. “Mom, did you know Luke was going to be interning at the museum this summer?” she asked, sitting up abruptly.

There was a long pause while Jennifer crunched some popcorn and attempted to look innocent, but Alex knew her mom too well to be fooled by her wide, guileless eyes. “Mom?”

“Sherry may have mentioned something about Luke doing something at the museum this summer,” Jennifer admitted.

“Luke’s mom told you he was going to be at GeMMLA and you didn’t think warning me was a good idea?” Alex squeaked in disbelief.

“Warning you? Isn’t that a little dramatic, sweetie? You two used to be the best of friends.”

“Oh my god, Mom, ‘used to be’ being the key phrase here. And ‘used to be’ was five years ago.” Alex got up off the love seat and started pacing.

“Honey, I know that you and Luke had some problems. I’m not sure how he acted toward you at the beginning of high school, because you don’t ever want to talk about it, but I know it hurt you and I know he regrets it. Sherry said—”

“Mom!” Alex interrupted holding up a hand. “I don’t want to know what Sherry said, or what she thinks she knows that Luke thinks. I know you guys are friends but please, please, please could you both stop trying to fix things between me and Luke? It’s not fixable. I don’t want it to be fixable.”

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d raised her voice to her mom, and judging from the look on her face, neither could her mom. “I’m sorry, Alex,” she said. “I didn’t realize it would be that much of a problem.”

Alex leveled a disbelieving stare at her mom. “Then why not tell me about it?”

“You’re right.” Jennifer looked back up at her with a mixture of concern and regret. “I should have warned you that he was going to be in the museum program this summer.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Alex sighed. “Sorry I yelled.” She picked up her backpack and headed down the hall toward her room.

“Aren’t you going to have some lasagna?” her mom called after her.

“Maybe later,” she answered before ducking into her room and closing the door.

Sinking into the oversized bean bag chair wedged between the foot of her bed and the wall, Alex almost instantly regretted getting so emotional with her mom. It would only make her worry. The whole Luke-being-around-for-the-summer thing could have been a lot worse she supposed. Although they’d drifted apart in middle school as he’d gotten more involved in sports, the “incident” as Alex referred to it privately, had happened at the beginning of ninth grade. And ninth grade was far behind them. By the middle of sophomore year they seemed to have reached a disinterested acquaintances phase, and since junior year, Luke had made more of an effort to at least appear more friendly. The inexplicable junior formal invitation aside, they’d managed as much friendly conversation as a popular jock and a quiet nerd who shared a few classes and one group project could ever be expected to have, which meant a grand total of about fourteen sentences spread over two years.

Senior year he had actually gone out of his way to say “hello” to her in the halls, a fact that she was sure didn’t go over well with the revolving door of cheerleaders he had dated. There had been three, or was it four, different cheerleaders senior year. Well, actually, Alex was pretty sure one had been on the drill team, so it was unfair to lump them all together. The conversation she’d shared with Luke at orientation the day before had probably been the longest one since they were thirteen.

Alex opened up her backpack and fished out a spiral-bound notebook, trying to banish from her mind thoughts of Luke and his semi-heroic rescue of her during orientation. Her scholarship to Hastings was based on grade point average as well as extracurricular involvement in subject matter. The university required scholarship students to take an extra class each semester. This seemed a little bit overwhelming for a first-year student, but money for college was money for college. Alex needed to work on the essay she was expected to turn in the first week of school on the absolutely loathsome topic of “what defines me as a student.” The last thing she needed, or wanted, to do was think about Luke’s warm, strong hand, resting on the small of her back as he held onto her belt loop.

~ Chapter Two ~

THE NEXT MORNING at the museum, Alex and Becca cleaned and organized the school tour materials. It was a project they worked on every summer together; they’d spend a few hours getting all of the huge plastic tubs organized and in order, as well as worksheets and handouts filed by grade. Somehow, by the next summer the tubs and files were always back in complete disarray. As one of the smaller museums in the Guild, GeMMLA relied on interns and volunteers to give guided school tours throughout the year. Apparently everyone else on staff considered it below them to reorganize the materials on a regular basis, so the task always fell to the summer interns.