Teardrop

16 HECKLER

Like every kid at Evangeline, Eureka had taken a dozen field trips to the Lafayette Science Museum on Jefferson Street downtown. When she was a child, it dazzled her. There was nowhere else she knew of where you could see rocks from prehistoric Louisiana. Even though she’d seen the rocks a hundred times, on Thursday morning she boarded the school bus with her Earth Science class to make it a hundred and one.

“This is supposed to be a cool exhibit,” her friend Luke said as they descended the bus stairs and gathered in the driveway before entering the museum. He pointed at the banner advertising MESSAGES FROM THE DEEP in wobbly white letters that made the words look like they were underwater. “It’s from Turkey.”

“I’m sure the curators here will find some way to ruin it,” Eureka snapped. Her conversation with Brooks the day before had been so frustrating, she couldn’t help taking it out on the entire gender.

Luke had reddish hair and pale, bright skin. They’d played soccer together when they were younger. He was a genuinely nice person who would spend his life in Lafayette, happy as a sand dab. He eyed Eureka for a moment, maybe remembering that she’d been to Turkey with her mother and that her mother was dead now. But he didn’t say anything.

Eureka turned inward, staring at the opalescent button on her school blouse as if it were an artifact from another world. She knew Messages from the Deep was supposed to be a great exhibit. Dad had taken the twins to see it when it opened two weeks earlier. They were still trying to get her to play “shipwreck” with them using couch cushions and broomsticks in the den.

Eureka couldn’t blame William and Claire for their insensitivity. In fact, she appreciated it. There was so much cautious whispering around Eureka that slaps in the face, like a game called “shipwreck,” or even Brooks’s tirade the other night, were refreshing. They were ropes flung out to a drowning girl, the opposite of Rhoda sighing and Googling “teen post-traumatic stress disorder.”

She waited outside the museum with her class, cloaked in humidity, for the bus from the other school to arrive so the docent could start the tour. Her classmates’ bodies pressed around her in a suffocating cluster. She smelled Jenn Indest’s strawberry-scented shampoo and heard Richard Carp’s hay-fever-belabored breathing, and she wished she were eighteen and had a waitressing job in another city.

She would never admit it, but sometimes Eureka thought she was owed a new life somewhere else. Catastrophes were like sick days you should be able to spend any way you wanted. Eureka wanted to raise her hand, announce that she was very, very sick, and disappear forever.

Maya Cayce’s voice popped into her head: There you are, baby.

She wanted to scream. She wanted to run, to bulldoze any classmates between her and the woods of the New Iberia City Park.

The second bus pulled into the lot. Boys from Ascension High wearing navy blazers with gold buttons filed down the steps and stopped short of the Evangeline kids. They did not mingle. Ascension was wealthy and one of the hardest schools in the parish. Every year there was an article in the paper about its students getting into Vanderbilt or Emory or some other fancy place. They had a reputation for being nerdy and reserved. Eureka had never thought much about Evangeline’s reputation—everything about her school seemed so ordinary to her. But as Ascension eyes scampered over her and her classmates, Eureka saw herself being reduced to whatever stereotype the boys had told themselves Evangelinos fit.

She recognized one or two of the Ascension boys from church. A few kids from her class waved at a few kids from theirs. If Cat were here, she’d whisper dirty comments about them under her breath—how “well-endowed” Ascension was.

“Welcome, scholars,” the young museum docent called. She had a light brown bowl cut and wore slouchy tan slacks, one leg of which was rolled up to her ankle. Her bayou twang gave her voice the quality of a clarinet. “I’m Margaret, your guide. Today, you are in for an overwhelming adventure.”

They followed Margaret inside, got their hands stamped with an LSU Tigers stamp to show they’d been paid for, and gathered in the lobby. Masking tape marked rows on the carpet for them to stand along. Eureka fell as far back in the crowd as she could.

Construction-paper art projects faded along cinder-block walls. The visible curve of the planetarium reminded Eureka of the Pink Floyd laser-light show she’d seen with Brooks and Cat on the last day of junior year. She’d brought a sack of Dad’s dark-chocolate popcorn, Cat had snuck a bottle of bad wine from her parents’ stash, and Brooks had brought painted domino masks for them to wear. They’d laughed through the entire show, harder than the stoned college kids behind them. It was such a happy memory that it made Eureka want to die.

“A little background.” The docent turned in the direction opposite the planetarium and waved for the students to follow her. They walked through a dimly lit corridor that smelled like glue and Lean Cuisine, then stopped before closed wooden doors. “The artifacts you are about to see come to us from Bodrum, Turkey. Does anyone know where that is?”

Bodrum was a port city in the southwestern corner of the country. Eureka had never been there; it was one of the stops Diana had made after they’d hugged goodbye in the Istanbul airport and Eureka flew home to start school. The postcards Diana had sent from those trips were tinged with a melancholy that made Eureka feel closer to her mother. They were never as happy apart as they were together.

When no one raised a hand, the docent pulled a laminated map from her tote bag and held it over her head. Bodrum was marked with a large red star.

“Thirty years ago,” Margaret said, “divers discovered the Uluburun shipwreck six miles off the coast of Bodrum. The remains y’all will see today are thought to be nearly four thousand years old.” Margaret looked at the students, hoping someone would be impressed.

She opened the wooden doors. Eureka knew the exhibition room wasn’t much bigger than a classroom, so they were going to have to cram themselves in. As they entered the blue hush of the exhibit, Belle Pogue fell in line behind Eureka.

“God had barely made the earth six thousand years ago,” Belle muttered. She was president of the Holy Rollers, a Christian roller-skating club. Eureka imagined God roller-skating through oblivion, passing shipwrecks on his way to the Garden of Eden.

The walls of the exhibition room had been draped in blue netting to suggest the ocean. Someone had glued plastic starfish to form a border near the floor. A boom box played ocean sounds: water burbling, the occasional caw of a seagull.

In the center of the room, a spotlight shone from the ceiling, illuminating the highlight of the exhibition: a reconstructed ship. It resembled some of the rafts people sailed around Cypremort Point. It was built from cedar planks, and its broad hull curved at the bottom, forming a fin-shaped keel. Near the helm, the low protrusion of a galley was capped by a flat, shingled roof. Metal cables held the ship a foot off the floor, so the deck hovered just above Eureka’s head.

As students banked left or right to walk around the ship, Eureka chose left, passing a display of tall, narrow terra-cotta vases and three huge stone anchors speckled with verdigris.

Margaret waved her laminated map, beckoning the students to the other side of the ship, where they found a cross-section of the helm. The interior was open, like a dollhouse. The museum had furnished it to suggest how the ship might have looked before it sank. There were three levels. The lowest was storage—copper ingots, crates of blue glass bottles, more of the long-necked terra-cotta vases nestled upright in beds of straw. In the middle was a row of sleeping pallets, along with bins of grain and plastic food and double-handled drinking vessels. The top story was an open deck edged with a few feet of cedar railing.

For some reason, the museum had dressed scarecrows in togas and stationed them at the helm with an ancient-looking telescope. They gazed out as if the museumgoers were whales among waves. When some of Eureka’s classmates snickered at the seafaring scarecrows, the docent flicked her laminated map to get their attention.

“Over eighteen thousand artifacts were recovered from the shipwreck, and not all of them are recognizable to the modern eye. Take this one.” Margaret held up a color photocopy of a finely carved ram’s head that looked like it had been broken off at the neck. “I see you wondering, Where’s the rest of this little guy’s body?” She paused to eye the students. “In fact, the hollowed neck is intentional. Can anyone guess what his purpose was?”

“A boxing glove,” a boy’s voice called from the back, eliciting new snickers.

“Quite a pugilistic speculation.” Margaret waved her illustration. “In fact, this is a ceremonial wine chalice. Now, doesn’t that make you wonder—”

“Not really,” the same voice called from the back.

Eureka glanced at her teacher, Ms. Kash, who turned sharply toward the voice, then gave a sniff of relieved indignation when she was sure it hadn’t come from one of her students.

“Imagine a future civilization examining some of the artifacts you or I might leave behind,” Margaret continued. “What would the people think of us? How might our brightest innovations—our iPads, solar panels, or credit cards—appear to distant generations?”

“Solar panels are Stone Age compared to what’s been done before.” The same voice from the back rang out again.

Madame Blavatsky had said something similar, minus the obnoxiousness. Eureka rolled her eyes and shifted her weight and didn’t turn around. AP Earth Science student from Ascension back there was clearly trying to impress a girl.

Margaret cleared her throat and pretended her rhetorical questions hadn’t been heckled. “What will our distant descendants make of our society? Will we appear advanced … or provincial? Some of you might be looking at these artifacts, finding them old or outdated. Even, dare I say, boring.”

Kids nodded. More snickering. Eureka couldn’t help but like the old anchors and terra-cotta vases, but the scarecrows should be drowned.

The docent fumbled her hands into a pair of white gloves, the kind Diana had worn when handling artifacts. Then she reached into a box at her feet and produced an ivory carving. It was an actual-sized duck, very detailed. She tilted the duck toward her audience and used her fingers to part its wings, exposing a cleanly hollowed basin inside. “Ta-da—Bronze Age cosmetics case! Note the craftsmanship. Can anyone deny how finely made he is? This was thousands of years ago!”

“What about these Bronze Age shackles over here?” the same voice jeered from the back of the room. Students jostled to get a look at the persistent heckler. Eureka didn’t waste the energy.

“Looks like your fine craftsmen owned slaves,” he continued.

The docent stood on her toes and squinted at the dark back of the room. “This is a guided tour, young man. There’s an order to things. Does anyone have an actual question back there?”

“Modern tyrants are fine craftsmen, too,” the boy continued, amusing himself.

His voice was starting to sound familiar. Eureka turned around. She saw the top of a blond head facing forward while everyone else was looking back. She crept along the edge of the group to get a clearer look.

“That’s enough,” Ms. Kash scolded, eyeing the Ascension faculty disdainfully, as if amazed none of them had quieted the student.

“Yes, be silent, sir, or leave,” Margaret snapped.

Then Eureka saw him. The tall, pale boy in the corner at the edge of the spotlight’s beam, the tips of his wavy blond hair illuminated. His tone and smirk were casual, but his eyes flashed something darker.

Ander was wearing the same pressed white shirt and dark jeans. Everyone was looking at him. He was looking at Eureka.

“Silence is what causes most of humanity’s problems,” he said.

“It’s time for you to leave,” Margaret said.

“I’m done.” Ander spoke so quietly, Eureka barely heard him.

“Good. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll explain the purpose of this early sea voyage,” Margaret said. “The ancient Egyptians established a trade route, perhaps the first one …”

Eureka didn’t hear the rest. She heard her heart, which thundered. She waited for the other students to give up hope of another outburst, to swivel their heads back to the docent; then she edged around the group toward Ander.

His lips were closed, and it was hard to imagine them uttering the obnoxious comments that had drawn her over here. He gave her a slight smile, the last thing she expected. Standing close to him again gave Eureka the feeling of being by the ocean—independent of the starfish border, the sailor-crows, and the Ocean Breeze CD sloshing from the speakers. The ocean was in Ander, his aura. She’d never thought to use a word like “aura” before. He made uncharacteristic impulses feel as natural to her as breathing.

She stood on his left side, both of them facing the docent, and whispered from the corner of her mouth. “You don’t go to Ascension.”

“The docent thinks I go to Condescension.” She heard the smile in his voice.

“You’re not on the Manor track team, either.”

“Can’t get anything past you.”

Eureka’s voice wanted to rise. His composure made her angry. Where they stood, a few steps back from the group and just past the edge of the spotlight, the light was dim, but anyone who turned around could see them. The teachers and kids would hear if she didn’t keep her whisper steady and low.

It seemed strange that more people weren’t staring at Ander. He was so different. He stood out. But they barely noticed him. Apparently everyone assumed Ander went to the school they didn’t, so his behavior wasn’t interesting. His heckling was a forgotten artifact Margaret was delighted to leave unrecovered.

“I know you don’t go to Evangeline,” Eureka said through her teeth.

“For neither education nor entertainment.”

“So what are you doing here?”

Ander turned and faced her. “I’m looking for you.”

Eureka blinked. “You have a very disruptive way of going about it.”

Ander scratched his forehead. “I get carried away.” He sounded regretful, but she couldn’t be sure. “Can we go somewhere and talk?”

“Not exactly.” She gestured toward the tour group. She and Ander were standing five feet behind the other students. They couldn’t leave.

What did he want from her? First the car wreck, then showing up at her house, then following her to the lawyer’s office, and now this? Every time she’d encountered him, it was an invasion of privacy, a crossing of some boundary.

“Please,” he said. “I need to talk to you.”

“Yeah, well, I needed to talk to you, too, back when my dad got the quote for my car repair. Remember that? Except when I called the number you gallantly gave me, someone who’d never heard of you picked up—”

“Let me explain. You’re going to want to know the things I have to tell you.”

She tugged on her collar, which was too tight around her neck. Margaret was saying something about a drowned princess’s dowry. The mass of students began to shift toward some glass cases on the right side of the room.

Ander reached for her hand. His firm touch and soft skin made her shiver. “I’m serious. Your life is—”

She jerked her hand away. “I say one word to any teacher in here and you’re handcuffed like a stalker.”

“Will they use the bronze handcuffs?” he joked.

She looked daggers at him. Ander sighed.

The rest of the tour moved toward a display case. Eureka had no urge to join them. She both yearned and was afraid to stay with Ander. He put both hands on her shoulders.

“Getting rid of me would be a huge mistake.” He pointed over his head to a glowing exit sign half covered by blue gauze so that it read only IT. He held out his hand. “Let’s go.”