Running Back

  Chapter One

  Three archaeology professors sat before me, frowns on their faces as they decided whether or not to give me the most important grant of my life. Hidden behind my back, my forefinger beat steadily against my hand.

  The woman on the left looked up, eyes sharp behind wire-rimmed glasses. “Why Ireland? I see you’ve done your most recent fieldwork in Latin America. ”

  The male professor beat me to the punch. He leaned closer to his colleague, but not so close that I couldn’t overhear him. “She studied under Jeremy Anderson. ”

  All three professors eyed me with interest, and I struggled to keep my smile in place. Fake smiles usually came easily to me; I’d been doing them ever since my mother first toddled me out to charm her friends. But with the stakes so high, everything about me shook. I tried to minimize the damage as I spoke. “While I did study with Professor Anderson, this proposal is based off my own research about the most likely site for an Iron Age harbor. ”

  She nodded, and then looked at the others.

  If they granted me this money, I would be the best behaved grad student in the world. I wouldn’t write snarky comments in my field diary and I would map units correctly and I would be a better daughter and I would, I don’t know, contribute to charity and recycle more.

  The woman turned back to me. Her smile looked genuine, but she could be the kind of person who thought happy faces softened bad news. “We’ve decided to fund your proposal. ”

  The clenched fingers around my chest unfurled, releasing my heart so it could beat wildly. My lungs flailed with the increased oxygen. I took a startled gasp, and giddiness rushed through me, starting in my heart but quickly pumping through my arms and legs until every extremity tingled with relief and delight. It swirled in my stomach, brushed the back of my neck, and settled behind my eyes, bright and heavy and gleaming. “Thank you. Thank you so much. ”

  This time when I smiled, it was real.

  * * *

  Ireland.

  I danced all the way down Broadway. New York in May was always beautiful, if heavily perfumed by sewers and smoke, but now the warm stone buildings near Columbia University were extra lovely, and my green-tinted vision turned it into the Emerald City. In Ireland, it would be past 10:00 p. m. , so I shot off an email from my phone instead of calling Jeremy.

  My best friend worked in a sports bar one long block away. I skipped past men hosing down the sidewalks and mothers picking up tiny children in navy uniforms. White flowers bloomed heavily on the trees that lined the street, and petals tumbled off in the light breeze. I dodged past the angry Laundromat woman and the same four men who sat on the stoop of 402 and harassed students every afternoon, and then I reached Amsterdam and Cam’s bar.

  A heavy curtain draped over the entrance, keeping the air-conditioning trapped inside. I pushed past it and nodded at Charlie, the middle-aged doorman who nominally checked IDs. He took in my beaming face and grinned. “Take it it went well?”

  I laughed.

  Inside, two-thirds of the patrons turned. Behind the bar, Cam poured a shot of preparatory vodka and placed it beside a foil-wrapped bottle of champagne, apprehension clear on her face.

  I sent a cheek-splitting grin clear across the room. “I’m going to Ireland!”

  “Congratulations!” my friends cried in rapid succession. Hands thumped my back, arms encircled me. Someone slapped my butt and another kissed my cheek. The champagne popped and frothed.

  It took twenty minutes of laughing and gesticulating as I regaled the other grad students with my tale, exaggerating the good bits, minimizing the paralyzing worry. I made my way over to Cam. She shook her head, the light from overhead lanterns sliding across her shiny black hair. Pride suffused her entire face. “Look at you. I knew you could do it. ”

  “Thanks. ” I came around to the swinging entrance and hugged her. “Oh God, Cam, I’m so happy. ”

  “Me too. ” She squeezed me tight. “You deserve it. You’re going to prove them all wrong. You’re going to find Ivernis. ”

  Two hours and a keg of celebratory Guinness later, my phone vibrated. When I saw the caller, I grinned widely and hitched myself up on the bar. “It’s Jeremy!”

  Cam shook her head as she muddled together a mojito. “You are a hot mess. Don’t answer. ”

  I stuck out my tongue. “I have to answer. ”

  “That’s a bad life choice. ”

  Deliberately turning my back, I raised the cell to one ear and covered the other with my free hand. “Hey! Jeremy! How are you?” I maneuvered out of the bar, grinning and waving at my friends as I squeezed past and through the doors. Outside, a breeze cooled the air considerably. “Sorry, what was that? I didn’t catch it. ” Almost bursting with pride, I prepared for more congratulations.

  His steady tenor came clear from three thousand miles away. “I said, Patrick O’Connor is dead. ”

  When I was six years old, my father left on a two-week business trip, and I asked every night when he’d be home. And even though Mom kept giving me the same answer, I kept asking, because it didn’t make sense, and it didn’t stay in my head.

  This didn’t make sense.

  Patrick O’Connor? It had taken me three months to persuade the crotchety old Irish man to grant permission to dig on his land. Three months of pleading and proposals and gradually increasing the amount of money we’d give him. He couldn’t be dead. “How dead?”

  “Natalie. ”

  On the other side of Amsterdam, people spilled out of bars. A young couple laughed. The girl leaned forward and sparked her cigarette off the guy’s lighter. The ember burned dully in the growing dark.

  I should be panicking. Or hyperventilating, or at least feeling icy tendrils closing over my heart. Instead, I just watched the flirtation play out without a hitch. The girl twisted a lock of hair, the boy leaned closer and they both laughed again. “How’d he die?”

  “Heart attack. ”

  “When?”

  “Yesterday. I just got off the phone with his executor. ”

  I felt slow and stupid. “But—he signed the contract. ”

  During the long silence that followed, I was unable to form a single thought. “Natalie,” my old professor finally said, “it doesn’t matter. It’s invalid. ”

  My legs felt floppy, and I frowned at my knees and tried to lock them. Would it be weird to sit on the sidewalk? It was kind of gross, and darkened with gum stains—not to mention smears of dog poop. I leaned against a metal lamppost instead. “But I just got the grant. Everything’s set. We’re digging at Kilkarten. ”

  Jeremy sounded grim. “Not unless we get the new landowner to sign the contract. ”

  I swallowed. Inspected under my nails for the ever-present dirt. “Okay. Yeah. Of course. ” The rights to the farmland hadn’t just disappeared into the nether with O’Connor’s death. His wife would surely agree to the same terms. Or maybe even agree to sell the land. “So I just get in touch with the widow?” I swallowed my groan. I didn’t want to interrupt Mrs. O’Connor’s mourning with business, but the excavation was set to begin in just over a month, and we couldn’t do anything without her signature.

  Jeremy cleared his throat.

  I’d studied with Jeremy long enough to recognize the sound of the other shoe falling. “What? He didn’t leave it to her?” Page 2

  “She got the house and the money. The property went to his late brother’s son. ”

  Great, so now I’d have to track down some long lost heir. I dug into my purse for a pen. After I sandwiched my cell between my ear and shoulder, I positioned the pen above my hand. “What’s the nephew’s name? Does he live in the village—Dun
doran?”

  “It’s Michael O’Connor. ”

  Well, I didn’t need a pen to remember that name. “Like the running back?”

  “Actually—it is the running back. ”

  My fingers loosened and the pen slipped down to clatter across the pavement. I’d fallen into some surreal world where clocks melted and famous football players inherited my lost city. “No. ”

  “Yeah. ” Jeremy let out a hassled breath. “Think you can deal with this before your flight at the end of the month? I’m emailing you the forms that need his signature. ”

  I closed my eyes. Michael O’Connor. Running back for the New York Leopards. His image formed beneath my lids. O’Connor’s strong, Roman nose, his habitual grin and his curly, dark-red hair. His warm, brown eyes that squinted when he smiled. A mish-mash of dozens of screenshots and photos flashed though my mind. Of him in his uniform, the black and red of the Leopards. Of him on the bench, his auburn head in his hands, skin gleaming with sweat. Of him in a group hug after a win. Of that amazing touchdown last year. My throat worked but nothing came out for a good minute. “Okay. I’ll take care of it. ”

  Did this mean I would actually meet Michael O’Connor?

  “Great. Oh, and good job on getting us the funding. We can retroactively use that for the past ninety days, so can you start that paperwork? See you soon. ”

  I lowered my phone. One did not just get in touch with a starting Leopard. Did he have a PR person? Or an agent? How was I supposed to talk to him without fangirling?

  How could a contract I’d worked my ass off for be invalidated in a heartbeat?

  In the lack of a heartbeat.

  Oh, God, I was a terrible person. I’d better order some flowers for the widow.

  I took one more deep breath. And then I started searching for O’Connor’s contacts.

  * * *

  When I entered middle school, I shot up several inches higher than any of my peers. My mother, who had abandoned her own modeling career before I was born, decided my height meant she should introduce me to some of her old fashion contacts. When the magazine spread of me in weird flowy dresses came out, it further cemented my classmates’ opinions of my freakiness.

  Now, I thought those pictures were cute. At the time, they were the instrument of my unpopularity. I refused to ever stand in front of a camera again, and I still twitched uncomfortably when friends corral me into group photos.

  During those middle school years, I found solace in an exquisitely illustrated book of Celtic myths in my dad’s home office. Someone had given it to him as a present, due to our last name being Sullivan, though we weren’t any more Irish than any other eighth generation American.

  I loved that book. I especially loved the pictures of the Tuatha Dé Danann, depicted as tall, beautiful people with streaming hair that reminded me of my own. I fixated on them, and the myths, and by the time I reached high school I related almost every project I worked on back to ancient Ireland. At fourteen, I wrote a detailed analysis of The Tain, a Celtic epic set in the first century of the Common Era. I wanted to prove that one of the central figures, Queen Medb, was an actual ruler. I was obsessed with proving that the mythological Tuatha Dé Danann and Fir Bolg were actually based off real people.

  In the last years of high school, that settled into a more academic interest in the original people of Ireland, who were mentioned in several of the classical Greek sources. The explorer Pytheas of Massalia visited in the fourth century BCE, and Ptolemy wrote a general geography in around 150 CE. Ptolemy called the island as a whole “Ivernia,” and noted that the name was the same as that of a people who lived in the extreme southwest, who may once have been the first inhabitants of the land. He located a city in their territory named Ivernis.

  Which I decided to find.

  It wasn’t that easy, of course. Archaeology didn’t happen as quickly as it looked in two-hour NOVA specials or made-for-TV movies. Archaeologists didn’t just show up on a plot of land armed with shovels and machetes and have at it. Instead, we had to broker deals with landowners and governments and partner universities.

  And by “we,” I really mean grad students.

  It had taken me three months to get Mr. Patrick O’Connor to give permission for me to excavate his property, Kilkarten Farm, which I had identified as the most likely place for Ivernis. A study had tested the earth there seven years ago and found it used to be saline water. Since I knew from old maps that Ivernis had been located on a bay, it seemed probable that the inlet had silted up, thus covering and hopefully preserving the harbor.

  Patrick O’Connor had agreed to the dig after a fair amount of grumbling and haggling over price, but his nephew was being even more elusive. I spent late into the night and most of the next day trying to get in touch with O’Connor through various methods: fan email, the team itself, his agent.

  But I didn’t get any answer until three days later when I was on the commuter rail up to Westchester for my weekly dinner with my parents. I’d refreshed my email on my cell for the millionth time, and I almost didn’t believe it when a response from O’Connor’s agent popped up. I came very close to yelping for joy on public transit, but managed to keep it to grinning wildly and swinging my foot. I’d be meeting with O’Connor tomorrow.

  And thank God for that bit of good news, because I needed to get through dinner with my parents. I didn’t expect them to be happy that I’d received the grant for Ivernis, but I sort of expected them to be proud of me. That’s what parents did, right? Showed pride when their children achieved success.

  I walked the several long blocks from the station to my parents’ house. They’d upgraded after I left for college, and while the new house was undoubtedly nicer, it seemed too large for only two people.

  I cut across the immaculate lawn to the back door instead of using the imposing front entrance. I pushed open the unlocked door. “Hello!”

  Unlike the house I’d grown up in, everything about this one was oversized—big kitchen, high ceilings, large leather couches across from a massive television. Several shots from my mom’s modeling days used to hang in the old house, but now only large, posed family portraits decorated the wall.

  I hugged my parents and we unpacked the take-out Dad has just picked up. Things went downhill almost immediately.

  Mom stirred her fork and took small, mincing bites. “This isn’t very good. ”

  My father stopped cutting into the fillet, his clenched hands stalled at ninety degrees. “We didn’t have to order it. ”

  “You said you wanted Thai. ”

  “We could have gone to Lemon Grass. ”

  “But you’re tired of their menu. ”

  I leaned into their line of vision, swooping the menu off the table. I flashed a smile to the right, then the left, forcing eye contact on both my parents. “Let’s make a note on the menu, and then we’ll know not to order from it next time. ”

  Page 3

  Dad finished cutting off a small corner and popped it in his mouth, then spoke around the mouthful. “I don’t dislike it. ” He leaned backward in his seat.

  As though pulled by a taunt string, Mom leaned forward. “But do you like it?”

  He shrugged.

  I put the menu down. “I have good news! I got my grant for Ireland. Isn’t that exciting?”

  My parents didn’t often agree with each other, but now they looked aghast.

  “I don’t understand why you can’t stay here. ” Mom reached out and ran her fingers through my thick blond hair, which I’d left loose as a concession to her. “You just got back. ”

  I frowned. “I told you. I went to Ecuador for a specific class, but since I want to write my thesis on Ivernis, I need to spend the summer in Ireland. I can probably even spend most of the year there, since I’ve finished off all my coursework. ”

  “Are you sure that’s what you want to do? You’re so pretty, Natalya. ” Mom’s
famous gray eyes mourned. “I thought maybe we could spend some time this summer seeing if there were any photo shoots you were interested in. ”

  I looked from her to my father, and both appeared unhappy. “Oh. ” My voice came out smaller than I’d intended. “You didn’t expect me to get the grant. ”

  “It was very competitive—” Mom said hastily.

  “We didn’t want you to get it,” Dad said bluntly. “How long are you going to do this, Natalie?”

  I slowly straightened. “How long am I going to do what?”

  He waved his fork through the air; Mom tracked it, her gaze pinned to the speck of translucent onion ready to slide off. “It was fine when you were in undergrad, but you can’t seriously expect to spend your life chasing after adventure. You have to settle down. ”

  I had to press down on my frustration, because I didn’t want to get into a fight with Dad. Peace was fragile enough in my parents’ house without me adding to the unbalance. “Dad, I’ve been in my program for the past three years. What did you think I was going to do?”

  He finally put his fork down. “You said you were going to be a professor. ”

  I nodded slowly. “Yes, and I still probably will, but this is my fieldwork. I have to do it to get my doctorate. ”

  He shifted. “But you don’t have to do it with that idiot—”

  My fork clattered against the table. “Professor Anderson’s not an idiot. ”

  “No? He hasn’t found anything in half a dozen years. I read up on him. He’s essentially the laughingstock of the academic community. ”

  “Well, you’re not part of that community, so I don’t see why you—”

  A thunderous expression crossed his face. “We have supported you in whatever you want to do, but enough is enough. What am I supposed to tell people when they ask where you are? Say that you’re off chasing leprechauns? What was wrong with Ecuador, for Christ’s sake? If you have to stay in this ridiculous profession, can’t you at least be realistic? If you align yourself with Jeremy Anderson, no one is ever going to take you seriously. ”

  My nails bit into my palm and my mouth tensed. “Dad, I got a grant from an independent non-profit. And the whole reason I received it was because of all the research I did, which shows there is a very, very good chance that the harbor of Ivernis is buried somewhere on Kilkarten. So, no, I don’t think I’m being ridiculous or following insubstantial rainbows. I’m doing my work, and I expect results. Results that I intend to present to the American Academy of Archaeology in September. ”