theater list first, thinking it the least absurd possibility, and then the Second Stage. Her heart did pick up a little speed as her eyes passed from I to J to K to L. To M. Her name was not there.
Not exactly a surprise, she said to herself as she walked outside, taking the long way back to her room. She was mildly embarrassed that she’d even looked.
Was she disappointed? She wanted to read her heart honestly.
No. She felt pretty happy. She was wearing the Traveling Pants and they still fit her, and even on an empty path she felt herself among friends.
O Tibbeth,
Wherefore art thou ignoring thy friends?
I sendeth thou a phone card. Please calleth me backeth.
And I encloseth the Pants.
Loveth,
Thy loving and most theatrical wench,
Carmen. Eth.
When Bridget reported for duty the next workday, Peter was not in the grave. She casually waited until around noon to casually ask cabinmate Carolyn why not. “I think he moved over to the house excavation.”
“Oh,” she said casually.
He was not the Tuesday lecturer, and she didn’t see him at dinner the following night.
“A bunch of people went into town for dinner,” Maxine mentioned.
Town was about thirty-five minutes away and Bridget had not yet been there, but suddenly she felt herself growing curious about it.
The next day, Alison announced to the team in mortuary that they’d made a big advance in the house dig, and asked for a couple of volunteers to shift. Bridget’s hand shot up.
“We found a new part of the foundation and a new floor,” Peter explained animatedly to the newly expanded group after lunch.
Was he surprised to see her there? Did it matter?
“We’ve cleared the floor in one small area, and we want to keep going. It’s a tamped-earth floor, made of…well, earth. It can be hard to distinguish from the rest of the earth, if you know what I mean.”
Bridget found herself on her hands and knees with her trowel. They were deep in, the shadows were long. Other members of the crew were carefully lifting off layers of the ground in front of her. Where she knelt there was less than a foot of loose dirt where they’d left off with the coarser tools.
She felt around with her hands, cupping mounds of it into the nearest bin. Peter had told her what to look for, but she sensed she would do better with her hands. She most urgently did not want to dig through and wreck the integrity of the floor.
She kept two palms on the edge of the flat and moved them along, feeling with her hands. It was all earth, yes, but some of it had been constructed and maintained purposefully and the rest had poured haphazardly into the negative space. Even after two and a half millennia, she could begin to feel the difference.
That was the thing with digging, she was starting to understand. You went into it with the instincts of a looter: Dig around, find something valuable and cool, and bring it to a museum. She’d fancied herself a wannabe Indiana Jones. But the real thing was finding the effects of the human will. The planning, the wanting, the attempting of these ancient people was what connected you to them. Their effort was the difference between the random, allover, everywhere-including-your-scalp dirt and this precious floor.
That was what they could learn from the gravesite, Peter had explained to her. You could learn a lot more about a people from how they buried, cared for, and commemorated their dead than from an ancient body randomly struck down by the side of a road.
“We do not like random,” she’d teased Peter after one of his pep talks.
“No, we don’t, do we?” he said, laughing, as he was quick to do.
This floor was not random. She closed her eyes and concentrated all of her self into her palms, almost in a trance as she felt along. She knew she probably looked ridiculous, but she didn’t care. She remembered her grandfather describing how Michelangelo sculpted bodies out of blocks of marble. Her grandpa had been reading a book
Not exactly a surprise, she said to herself as she walked outside, taking the long way back to her room. She was mildly embarrassed that she’d even looked.
Was she disappointed? She wanted to read her heart honestly.
No. She felt pretty happy. She was wearing the Traveling Pants and they still fit her, and even on an empty path she felt herself among friends.
O Tibbeth,
Wherefore art thou ignoring thy friends?
I sendeth thou a phone card. Please calleth me backeth.
And I encloseth the Pants.
Loveth,
Thy loving and most theatrical wench,
Carmen. Eth.
When Bridget reported for duty the next workday, Peter was not in the grave. She casually waited until around noon to casually ask cabinmate Carolyn why not. “I think he moved over to the house excavation.”
“Oh,” she said casually.
He was not the Tuesday lecturer, and she didn’t see him at dinner the following night.
“A bunch of people went into town for dinner,” Maxine mentioned.
Town was about thirty-five minutes away and Bridget had not yet been there, but suddenly she felt herself growing curious about it.
The next day, Alison announced to the team in mortuary that they’d made a big advance in the house dig, and asked for a couple of volunteers to shift. Bridget’s hand shot up.
“We found a new part of the foundation and a new floor,” Peter explained animatedly to the newly expanded group after lunch.
Was he surprised to see her there? Did it matter?
“We’ve cleared the floor in one small area, and we want to keep going. It’s a tamped-earth floor, made of…well, earth. It can be hard to distinguish from the rest of the earth, if you know what I mean.”
Bridget found herself on her hands and knees with her trowel. They were deep in, the shadows were long. Other members of the crew were carefully lifting off layers of the ground in front of her. Where she knelt there was less than a foot of loose dirt where they’d left off with the coarser tools.
She felt around with her hands, cupping mounds of it into the nearest bin. Peter had told her what to look for, but she sensed she would do better with her hands. She most urgently did not want to dig through and wreck the integrity of the floor.
She kept two palms on the edge of the flat and moved them along, feeling with her hands. It was all earth, yes, but some of it had been constructed and maintained purposefully and the rest had poured haphazardly into the negative space. Even after two and a half millennia, she could begin to feel the difference.
That was the thing with digging, she was starting to understand. You went into it with the instincts of a looter: Dig around, find something valuable and cool, and bring it to a museum. She’d fancied herself a wannabe Indiana Jones. But the real thing was finding the effects of the human will. The planning, the wanting, the attempting of these ancient people was what connected you to them. Their effort was the difference between the random, allover, everywhere-including-your-scalp dirt and this precious floor.
That was what they could learn from the gravesite, Peter had explained to her. You could learn a lot more about a people from how they buried, cared for, and commemorated their dead than from an ancient body randomly struck down by the side of a road.
“We do not like random,” she’d teased Peter after one of his pep talks.
“No, we don’t, do we?” he said, laughing, as he was quick to do.
This floor was not random. She closed her eyes and concentrated all of her self into her palms, almost in a trance as she felt along. She knew she probably looked ridiculous, but she didn’t care. She remembered her grandfather describing how Michelangelo sculpted bodies out of blocks of marble. Her grandpa had been reading a book
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