CHAPTER 3
LIYAH pushes open the door to the coffee shop five minutes prior to her meeting, surveying the crowd with a deep frown. She may not value the work she’s here to do, but she does value Jeff’s opinion of her, and she doesn’t want Brett to complain that she’s made him wait her usual seven-to-twelve-minute delay.
Punctuality does not come naturally to Liyah, and her timeliness cost her her morning coffee. Which means her caffeine headache is minutes away, and Brett had to pick the coffee shop with the longest line in the known universe. She’s faced with equally unappealing choices: take the required fifteen minutes to order and receive her drink (and risk upsetting Brett by being late) or figure out which suit-clad guy buried in his phone is hers for the next hour and a half (and risk upsetting Brett by being herself, sans coffee).
After a moment of indecision, she goes with the latter.
It’s damn near impossible. Every guy here looks exactly like his name is Brett. There should be a law against this many MacBook Pros and navy suits in one room.
Liyah makes a sharp turn, bypassing the pastry case, and there: the guy in the back corner has two coffees in front of his MacBook and an empty chair across from him. If it’s him, she’ll have to buy a lottery ticket on her way home. She waves, but his head is down, so she crosses her fingers and makes her approach.
Back Corner is distinctly different from the rest of the navy suit species because his blazer is removed, sleeves rolled to his elbows. At least she can confirm that he’s warm-blooded. He lifts his arm to brush his fingers through his hair, displaying tendrils of black ink peeking out from his rolled shirtsleeve. She freezes.
What are the fucking chances?
Liyah steps back gingerly, as though moving too suddenly will destroy the fabric of whatever alternate universe she’s stumbled into. Even frazzled, she’s sufficiently quiet, but the navy suit at the table to her left knocks over his cup, cursing loudly as he tries desperately to save his MacBook from death by drowning.
That’s when Daniel Rosenberg looks up.
His face travels from blank to surprised to something like smug. Which is when she realizes that from his perspective, she’s just been standing there, staring at him. She sails past frazzled, docking at horrified. “Hey, Liyah,” he says tentatively, as though he’s not sure whether he’s supposed to acknowledge her. Maybe smug is the wrong word, but whatever his expression, she doesn’t like it.
“God, why are you even here?” she asks, not really meaning to say it aloud.
His smile falls away. “I’m meeting someone for work,” he replies, gaze traveling down Liyah’s arm to where she white-knuckles the handles of her tote bag. She forces her fingers to relax, and his eyes snap back to hers.
“I’m meeting someone for work,” Liyah parrots.
Daniel holds her gaze, nodding slowly. “Both can be true. I, um, wanted to—”
“I haven’t had coffee today and I’m about to be late for my meeting,” Liyah interrupts. “I really can’t do this right now.”
He gestures at the untouched mug across from him. “If you want this, it’s yours. My guy hasn’t showed yet.”
Liyah frowns. “Is this your atonement for what you said on the flight?”
He lets out a short laugh through his nose. “I was just trying to be friendly, and you had to go and bite my head off. That was atonement enough.”
She folds her arms across her chest. “That is a gross exaggeration.”
“You sure?” He tilts his chin up, revealing his neck. “There might still be teeth marks.”
“Alright, well. This has been exactly as nice as I would’ve expected it to be. Positively lovely.” She drawls the word, making sure Daniel knows she means anything but, and turns, ready to begin her search for Brett once more.
“You sure you don’t want the coffee?” he says, looking at her expectantly.
Liyah hesitates. She would very much like to stalk off without another word. But now she’s genuinely late, and talking to Brett in this state could very well lead to a complaint in Jeff’s in-box. “Your fellow…” She looks him up and down, grimacing. Even seated, it’s obvious that unlike Liyah, Daniel has a tailor. An expert one. Slacks can’t possibly fit like that off the rack. She hates how they emphasize the long line of his leg, hates even more that she notices. “Foreign acquisitions manager, I’m guessing, won’t mind?”
“Digital marketing strategist.”
Liyah gasps, hand on cheek. “I can’t believe I assumed you had a boring, corporate job. That sounds riveting.”
Daniel brings his right hand to his heart. Liyah looks at the edges of his tattoo, reminded of the photo Neen sent her, chlorinated water-slicked skin glistening in the sun. “You wound me,” he says. His voice is pained, but the look of amusement he wears, while subtle, reaches his eyes. Like he thinks she’s making fun of him, rather than saying fuck off forever, please and thank you. “It’s fine, I promise.”
“Okay, well,” she says, picking up the mug, pleasantly surprised to find it still warm to the touch. “I’m going to go find Brett. There’s gotta be one—or five—in here,” she mumbles.
He laughs, and there’s a pang of familiarity in her gut. It’s a little throatier, sure, but that sound hasn’t changed much in fourteen years. Liyah presses her lips together. “Looks like the coffee was yours all along. I’m guessing the name Jeff means something to you?”
There’s a blinking moment before an intense surge of nausea. Oh. Brett pawned this meeting off on his underling like Jeff did to her, which means …
“Absolutely not.”
Daniel furrows his brow. “You don’t know a Jeff?”
“Oh, I do. One who failed to give me some very important information when I agreed to do this.” Liyah thinks back to her morning commute. Does she remember getting on the L? Is there any chance that she fell to her death on the tracks and this is her personal hell?
Daniel frowns. “Look, I didn’t know it was you, either. I see that you’re unhappy with this development—” Liyah cough-laughs. Daniel’s frown deepens. “But can you sit down and play nice for a little bit? I need this account to go well.”
“You need this to go well? I need to play nice?” Liyah sputters.
“Liyah, come on.” He sighs. “Have some coffee, and we’ll get to work.” And then the left corner of his mouth tugs upward.
God, she could combust on the spot. She could yell, stomp, storm out, tell Jeff she’s sorry, but she cannot do this, her promotion be damned. But that would mean letting Daniel Rosenberg ruin this, too.
So, Liyah inhales deeply, pulls out the chair, takes her seat, and brings the mug to her lips. The first sip of coffee is nothing short of divine on her tongue, but it lands like pure acid in her stomach. “I assume you’ve read Jeff’s email?” He nods. “I’m going to level with you, I don’t really see the use of my being here instead of working on my exhibition. I was hoping I could show up and give Brett a doe-eyed damsel in distress look until he did everything for me, but I’m guessing that won’t work on you.”
Daniel shakes his head. “It would not. I have a sister.”
Liyah nods, making eye contact with her coffee mug. Kayla, if she remembers correctly. A few years older, loud, beautiful. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I wish I were sitting with a Brett right now.” He brings his fist over his mouth as he laughs, like she’s shocked it out of him. “I’m not joking,” she says.
“I know,” he replies. “Still funny.”
Play nice, she tells herself, and takes another sip of coffee. “I know nothing about marketing, but I have basically an encyclopedic knowledge of the Field, so that’s what I’ll contribute.”
“Encyclopedic, huh?” he challenges. Liyah nods. “How big is the building?”
She smirks, folding her arms across her chest. “There’s over 480,000 square feet of exhibition space on the original three floors, with an additional 186,000 added in 2005 on the two underground levels. In case you’re behind on your arithmetic, that adds up to 666,000, which is probably why the team who did the website decided to report it as two separate numbers. Ask me something difficult, Rosenberg.”
The corner of his mouth quirks again, an almost-smile. “Okay, Liyah. You are the Field Museum’s Britannica. Is there anything off the top of your head that might draw in a crowd that doesn’t usually go to museums?”
Liyah taps her bottom lip. “Oh! SUE—our T. rex—is both the physically largest and most complete skeleton of one ever found! Ninety percent of her was recovered. We’ve even got her furcula.”
“Her what?”
“Wishbone.”
Daniel shakes his head, half laughing through his nose again. “This is your idea of something that would attract millennials who don’t care about museums?”
“If it doesn’t, there’s no hope for our future.” He looks at her blankly. “What, Rosenberg? If you have anything better, I’m all ears.” She traces the handle of the mug, willing herself not to say the words forming on her tongue. A losing battle. “I’m shocked you won’t go along with whatever I say, seeing that you’ve always been so fond of stealing my ideas.”
“Are you serious, Liyah? We’re doing this?” He sounds exasperated, maybe even a little angry. It’s satisfying, knowing that she can disturb his calm.
Liyah purses her lips demurely. “I don’t think we’re doing anything.”
“We’re not going to get a single thing done if all you do is swipe at me. You want to talk about color wars?” She watches Daniel clench his jaw, the line of his brow lowering.
The fifth night they snuck out of their cabins, they met in the observatory at midnight. He always had this little camping lantern with him, and they had turned it off so that they could better see the stars. He pointed to Ursa Major. She showed him Cassiopeia, Draco, Hercules, and Capricorn. When they flicked the light back on, he was looking at her just like that. More serious, more resolute than she’d ever seen him. She swore she would memorize that moment, imprint it behind her eyelids for the rest of her life. Two days later, she promised herself she would scrub it from her consciousness completely.
Another beat. Liyah considers letting him stew, but the words tumble out: “It was never just about Maccabiah.”
“THEN WHAT WAS it about, Liyah?” Daniel looks up at her. “The closing ceremony was the last time you spoke to me that summer. And then you didn’t come back.”
She blinks slowly, inhales like she’s trying to hold herself together. “Fine. Yes, let’s talk about it.”
“Great.” He leans back in his chair, absently turning his coffee cup with his left hand. “I’ll start: I’m sorry I didn’t warn you about the closing ceremony. I found out pretty last minute, but it was still shitty. Now, do you think you could tell me what it is I did that made you hate me?”
Liyah scoffs, her head tilting as if physically taken aback. “I’m sorry, what?” Her voice comes out with a slight tremor, and Daniel thinks it might be the sound of her blood boiling. “You want me to tell you what you did?”
“Yes. We knew each other for years, Liyah. That summer, we snuck out of our cabins every night for a week, and we would talk for hours. We”—don’t look at her lips, Daniel—“kissed, and while I know it was awkward since we were children and had no idea what we were doing, it was also the most thrilling moment of my early teenage life. And then you completely disappeared. Over a stupid sports competition. You don’t think that begs an explanation?”
If someone opened the door to the coffee shop right now, that tiny gust of wind would be enough to sway Liyah’s jaw. For a moment, they just look at each other, and Daniel can hear his pulse in his ears.
“Do you even remember what happened that year?” she asks on an exhale.
They were in the oldest cohort of campers who still participated in color wars, on opposing teams—Liyah on Adom, red, and Daniel on Kachol, blue. They were supposed to meet behind the pool house the night after closing ceremonies, but Liyah never showed. “I know there were a lot of … similarities between Kachol’s closing ceremony performance and Adom’s.”
“Similarities?” Liyah balks. “It started with three people decked out in the opposing teams’ colors, who were then tagged by blue flashlights, only to shed their red, green, and white T-shirts and be resurrected as Team Kachol. Which is identical to what I had planned with Adom. You stole our thunder and won the trophy, betraying me in the process,” Liyah says. She clenches her jaw, raises her chin, challenging him to defy her.
“I told you that I wasn’t planning the closing ceremonies—”
“That doesn’t mean you couldn’t have used me for intel.”
Daniel sighs, shoulders relaxing. “You stormed out after that, didn’t you?”
“What does that matter?”
“It matters because if you hadn’t, you would have heard Eli and Gross bragging about running an amateur sting operation to spy on your practices. They told everyone who would listen.”
Liyah’s face softens a fraction. “But why wouldn’t you have just told me that?”
Daniel shakes his head, smiling. “I don’t know. I was an insecure idiot, mostly. A girl stood me up, and my first thought was she thinks I’m ugly and told her whole cabin I’m a bad kisser, not she thinks I masterminded a courtship to better my chances at being first in line for an ice cream party.”
“There were also bragging rights,” she says.
“Right. That’s why I confessed my crippling arachnophobia.” Finally, she smiles. It’s brief but fucking dazzling. He runs his fingers through his hair, resisting the urge to avoid eye contact. “I’m sorry, Liyah. It took a few days for it to occur to me what it looked like to you, but it shouldn’t have. And I should have found you and told you.”
Her eyebrows lift. “About Maccabiah?”
“Yes, about Maccabiah,” he reiterates, holding her gaze, feeling his pulse in his throat.
Liyah sighs. “I probably wouldn’t have let you. I was pretty angry.” He looks at her like ya think? and she wrinkles her nose at him.
“You didn’t—you didn’t stop going to camp because of that, did you?” He’s wondered over the years, even before he ran into her on the flight. It’s not a good feeling, to think that you might be the reason someone lost something they loved. Certainly not when it’s 3 a.m. on a Tuesday and you still haven’t fallen asleep.
“No, I didn’t stop going to camp because of Maccabiah,” she says carefully. Daniel’s body sags with relief. “I did a program at the Burke Museum the next summer.”
Daniel smiles. “Well, it’s good to know that it wasn’t because I was a bad kisser. You’ve really worked wonders on my teenage ego.”
The glint in Liyah’s eye turns devilish. “He deserves it. Putting your hand on someone’s stomach and leaving it totally limp while you kiss is an underrated move.”
His whole face blushes. Neck and chest, probably, too. He busies himself by rotating his laptop to show her his open document. “We should probably do some brainstorming, while we’re here. In case advertising SUE’s enormous furcula isn’t enough.”
“I don’t see why it wouldn’t be,” she grumbles.
“Liyah.”
“Fine, what’ve you got?” She leans forward, gently nudging his laptop so she can see the screen better. Her forearm hovers an inch above his, and he swears he can feel the hairs there stand on end. After a moment of scanning, she says, “This looks like a Pinterest board. Why are there so many pictures of people drinking wine? And sleeping bags?”
“A lot of museums in New York do cute events to appeal to the millennial crowd. Sleep-ins, wine nights, themed parties, that kind of thing.”
“We already do a sleepover for parents and young children.”
“But what about an adults-only version? Real-life Night at the Museum.”
Liyah props her elbow on the table and rests her chin in the palm of her hand, seemingly unaware that she’s pushing the invisible line that bisects their space. “The board wants us to get more young members. How is one night going to do that?”
“We do a raffle for a free membership at the end of the night for anyone who signs up for the newsletter. Then, you hook the rest via email with promises of SUE’s furcula.”
“Men only want one thing.” She shakes her head. “SUE is more than just her furcula, Rosenberg.”
Over time, the coffee in their cups dwindles and the document on his screen grows. Daniel leans back in his seat, readjusting his legs under the table. They’re solidly on her half, but she sits with her legs crossed and close to her chair, her upper body spilling over into his space as she gesticulates or leans over the laptop. His exact opposite.
Miracle of miracles, by the time Liyah packs her things, they have an actionable proposal and a few decent backup ideas.
“Well, I’ve gotta go, but thank you for the coffee,” she says.
“Are we good?” he blurts. “I mean, it seems like we’re going to be working together a lot, and it would be easier if you liked me.” Liyah fiddles with the strap of her bag, looking away. Not the response he needs. “Look,” he says. “Kinley is doing its twentieth-anniversary party at the Field on Friday. How about you stay after work, and I sneak you in for some food? A peace offering.”
Liyah glances to the ceiling then back at him, clucking her tongue. “You’re determined, aren’t you?”
“When I need to be.”
“I’ll consider it. I really have to go, though. Have a … good rest of your week, Rosenberg.”
“You, too, Cohen-Jackson,” he replies. She exits the coffee shop, not looking back. He watches the sway of her hips as she goes, unable to shake a sinking feeling that something has been left unsaid.