London, UK | Present Day
Michael Samaan’s phone buzzed and skittered on his desk, jolting him from his research. He tapped the screen and groaned.
Hellooooo. Hope you’re not too far down your rabbit hole to remember Lunch with Leila.
Damn. He checked the time. Yeah, late again. And he’d hear about it from his obscenely cheery and perpetually punctual little sister who plagued and entertained him in equal measure.
He marked his page and closed the book, Chemical Analysis of Ancient Glass, one of a dozen similar titles spread out on his battered dining room table. He stood and flexed his shoulders, aching from too much time hunched over his laptop or bent over a book. Sal looked up expectantly, momentarily distracted from pulling the stuffing from a plush reindeer’s nose. Michael bent to scratch the dog behind the ears. “Sorry, buddy. You stay here and guard the place.”
Undaunted, the dog clamped the reindeer in his jaws and his short legs churned a path toward the front door, tail wagging as Michael grabbed his wallet, keys, and jacket. “Stay. Be a good boy,” he said with a pointed finger, and then was out the door and headed for the Underground.
Michael had no idea where his sister got her preternaturally positive personality. She was disgustingly upbeat while his own thoughts too often spiraled into dark, desolate chambers, rivaling the most gruesome images from Bosch, van Eyck, or Fra Giovanni. Studying art history as an undergrad, he’d become obsessed with paintings of hell from the Renaissance masters, recognizing a darkness in himself that resonated with the landscapes of torture and torment celebrated artists depicted with brushes and paints. Of course, he’d tried to mask his moods with dark humor and glib witticisms, but somewhere along the way his little sister had learned to read him like a book. She could tell when Michael needed a life buoy to keep him afloat and had decided she would be that buoy. They’d never talked about it, but he’d come to rely on her—and their lunches—and was thankful she thought he was worth the effort.
He emerged back up into the sunlight and wound his way toward Mt. Olympus restaurant, their regular meeting place on a busy street teeming with tourists, and London cabs, and double-decker busses and people hurrying to and fro speaking in every possible accent and dozens of foreign languages. Having grown up in a small town, he now felt like he needed the energy of London injected straight into his veins, to crowd out the darkness that all too often stalked him like a pickpocket, ready to grab at him at a moment’s notice.
As usual, Leila was already there, sipping a glass of water chock full of lemon wedges and perusing the menu. “Want the kebab again?” She asked without looking up. “I already ordered the mezza platter.”
He pulled the menu down to see her face. “And hello to you too, sis.”
She flashed him a bright smile. “Punctual as always.”
“I’m barely ten minutes late.”
“Mum says hi, by the way. Says it’s been weeks since you went to see her.”
“Oh, please. Sal and I were there last Sunday.”
“She’s lonely. Next month’s their anniversary and it’s been five years. We should take her out to dinner.”
Five years. Christ, it seemed like five decades since the accident. On every anniversary, their dad had relished telling the story of the day he’d first laid eyes on the green-eyed, dark-haired Welsh beauty sipping tea and drawing intently in a well-worn sketchbook while sitting alone at a coffee shop near campus. A newly arrived doctoral student from Syria bearing an outrageously thick crown of wavy black hair, a nearly unintelligible accent, and a pocket protector, he’d been mesmerized by the young woman. As he’d stared at her over the rim of his coffee cup, he told his friend, I’m going to marry that one. When she’d looked up and smiled, he’d stood and wound his way through the tables toward her as if she were his true north. They’d married six months later and had been inseparable for twenty-nine years. Until the accident when he’d been killed in a hit and run on the M23. They’d borrowed Michael’s vintage convertible for an anniversary weekend in Brighton and hadn’t even gotten past Gatwick when the car was rammed from behind, pushing it off the road where it flipped and came to rest on the driver’s side. Most likely a drunk driver, but they’d never know for sure because the driver responsible fled the scene and was never found. CCTV caught it all, but the driver was wearing a hat and glasses, and the car’s plates turned out to be stolen.
The accident had knocked Michael completely off-kilter. It had been his first year at City University London teaching a full class load, and he’d had to handle the sale of his father’s company to the board of directors, arrange and manage his mother’s care while she recuperated from her injuries, and support Leila in her first year at Cambridge, all while slogging through his own personal darkness.
He’d never said a word to anyone. Never revealed the full extent of the desolation—and the nagging feeling that he was to blame for the accident—he so often inhabited. It was his cross to bear, he told himself. Punishment for sins he didn’t understand but felt bone-deep he’d committed. Punishment meted out to his father instead of to him, which only added to the weight on his shoulders. He deserved the darkness that ebbed and flowed in his blood. And recently it had returned in spades, calling out to him. Beckoning as if the answers he sought to questions he’d never known to ask were waiting for him. If only he’d let go.
“You pick the place,” he said. “I’ll pick up the tab. And bring that fiancé of yours too. Isn’t he due back this week?”
The server set the mezza platter in the middle of the table. Leila ordered with brusque authority and gave the server a devastating smile. The man walked away with a slightly stunned shake of the head. They were regulars. He should be used to Leila by now.
Michael rolled his eyes. With a diamond stud in her nose, dangling earrings that drew attention to her elegant neck, green eyes set against a flourish of pitch-black lashes, and long, pink-streaked black hair swept up in a tangled nest on the crown of her head, Leila Samaan had the kind of presence that always made heads turn. And she knew it.
“Today, in fact,” she said. “I’m heading out to Heathrow after lunch and”—her face took on a dreamy glow—“well, I anticipate an extremely satisfying evening ahead.”
Michael groaned. “Must you?”
“Actually, I must.” She sighed dreamily. “It’s what a fiancé is for, after all. Speaking of, when are you going to get one of your own?” Michael shut his eyes against the inevitable onslaught. “You know I worry about you,” Leila went on. “When was the last time you went on a date? Or even, you know…had sex?”
He rubbed his temples as if in pain. “Christ, Leila, I’m not talking to you about my sex life.”
“That’s only because you don’t have one.” She waved a piece of pita bread at him. “I don’t like the idea of you being lonely.”
“I know,” he relented on a sigh. “I’m fine. Really.”
“No. You’re not. Let’s be blunt. Many of my friends think you’re magazine-cover material and would give a limb to shag you. Yet every time George and I try to set you up, you take on some new project and go dark like a Medieval cave hermit. Like with this book. I know you’ve found your footing and that this project is special, but still, you need to get out. And by out, I don’t mean hanging around the V&A for hours on end. What is it with you and that museum, anyway?”
“Um, let’s see, it’s got one of the most extensive ancient glass collections in the UK, and I’m writing a book on Syrian glassmaking?”
“Please. You’ve been hanging out there since you were practically in short pants.”
“I never wore short pants.”
“Maybe you should. Show a little leg, brother. Have some fun. What do you do at the V&A all day anyway? I mean, it’s a cool place, but for god’s sake, you’re thirty-two! Don’t you have better things to do with your free time?”
“The collection is…wait. Why do I need to explain to you why an art historian would like to hang out in a museum?” The truth was he didn’t understand his obsession with the V&A himself. Well, he wasn’t obsessed with the museum, but rather with a single glass goblet that had called out to him from the very first moment he’d seen it. Over the years, he’d spent hundreds of hours just staring at it. Feeling it resonate in his soul like a struck gong. Everyone at the museum knew him, and most likely thought him a bit daft. He thought so too. In fact, he was headed over there after lunch. That’s why he’d picked the Mt. Olympus restaurant for their monthly lunches. It was only a couple of Underground stops from home and a nice walk to the V&A. Easy access to his obsession.
She gave him her notorious side eye. “You don’t fool me. And you don’t fool Mum. She’s been busy, by the way. Reading runes. Throwing stones. Tarot. She says something is coming to disrupt your life. A big change. Romance, intrigue, the whole bit. She’s quite beside herself with anticipation.”
“I hope you and George give her grandchildren soon so she can leave off obsessing about my love life.”
“Or lack thereof.”
“Whatever.”
Leila stuffed an olive in her mouth. “She says your aura was pulsating with energy last time she saw you. According to her, it means you’re on the edge of a life-changing event.”
“My life-changing event might well be matricide.”
“Shall I alert Scotland Yard?”
“Or maybe sororicide.” He drained half his glass of water.
“You adore me too much to harm a hair on my head, big brother.”
Michael turned in search of the server. “Where’s our food?”
“Don’t change the subject. You need a date for next Friday.”
He raised an eyebrow. “What for?”
She reached out and slapped his arm. “What for? For my thesis show, that’s what.”
“You’re having a show?”
“Wanker.”
“I’m sorry. Of course, I know it’s your big night.”
“And it’s the twentieth anniversary of my program so the department’s going all out. She speared a cucumber and considered it. “It’ll be quite the sophisticated affair.”
“I’ll bring Mum as my date.”
Leila shook her head. “Can’t. Mum’s bringing her book club.”
“No worries.” He shrugged. “Just for you, I’ll arrange to meet a gorgeous woman and fall deeply in love between now and next Friday.” He pulled out his phone and pretended to enter reminders on his calendar. “Let’s see. It’s still early, so I can get started today. First on the agenda, meet beautiful woman. Tomorrow: Fall in love. Next: Bring home said beautiful woman and have mad sex. Get engaged. And next Friday? Take her to sister’s show.” He looked up. “Satisfied?”
“Brilliant. Can’t wait to meet her.”
