Thea isn’t like other women. Thea wants knowledge, life experience.
“Find something interesting?” I ask, setting down the contracts.
She looks up, startled, like she’d forgotten I was there.
“Just reading.”
“I can see that.” I stand and move closer. “What’s caught your attention?”
She hesitates. Then she holds up one of the books. “This. It’s about the excavations at Pompeii. It’s fascinating—the way they’re using ground-penetrating radar now to find structures that haven’t been uncovered yet.”
Her eyes are bright as she speaks, animated in a way I haven’t seen in days.
She sets the book down. “I used to dream about traveling. You know, seeing the pyramids, the Parthenon, Machu Picchu. Maybe even working on a dig site somewhere. But—” She shrugs. “That was never going to happen.”
“Why not?”
“Because I was too busy trying to survive.” Her tone is matter-of-fact. There’s no self-pity. Just truth. “College costs money. Travel costs money. Not to mention that going to school for a degree in something like anthropology isn’t exactly a wise move when you’d have massive student loans to worry about afterward.” She sighs. “I wanted to go to college. But I couldn’t make it happen. I had to work two jobs just to afford my shitty apartment. Then I blinked and I was twenty-five.”
I move over to a shelf where some of the artifacts from my own travels are sitting. The scarab beetle from Cairo, typically in the living room, is there. I’d brought it in the other night to study while reading up on its history and meaning.
“This is from the Valley of the Kings,” I tell her, holding it up. “A reproduction, unfortunately. But the original is nearly 3,000 years old. It was found in a tomb that had been sealed since the reign of Ramesses II.”
“I was admiring that my first shift here,” she says, her eyes locked onto it. “It’s beautiful—reproduction or not.”
I place the glass container on the table. Then I open it and remove the beetle, holding it out to her.
“Are you serious?” she asks.
“I am. Take a look.”
She looks at the scarab, then back at me, as if I might change my mind at the last moment. Thea handles it delicately.
“Amazing,” she says. “Just beautiful.” She hands it back carefully, and I return it to the container. Wonder is written across her face.
“You’ve been to Egypt?”
“Several times. Cairo, Luxor, Aswan. The history there is…” I pause, searching for the right word. “Overwhelming. In the best possible way.”
“What was it like, standing in front of the pyramids?”
“Humbling.” I take down another piece—a fragment of pottery from Athens. “You realize how temporary we are, how brief our moment is in time. But also how much we’re connected to the people who came before us. Their ambitions, their fears, their need to create something that lasts.”
She’s looking at me differently now—not with wariness or confusion, but with curiosity.
“I still can’t get over that you care about this stuff,” she says softly.
“Why not?”
“Because you’re a mob boss. You decide who lives or dies, you run territories and make underground deals. An appreciation for ancient pottery doesn’t exactly follow.”
I smile slightly. “I am a man of many facets.”
She laughs. Actually laughs. The sound does something to me.
“What would you study?” I ask. “If you could go to college?”
“Oh, anthropology, of course.” She raises a finger. “But with a minor in history and archaeology. I want to understand how cultures develop and how they adapt. And what they leave behind.” She pauses. “But like I said, it’s not practical. There’s no money in it.”