Free Site Unseen by Dana Cameron Page B

worry."
    I chewed my lip. "I wish I could be as sure as you are."
    Pauline laughed. "Relax, Emma. Oscar taught you well."
    I frowned; the posthole's appearance had nothing to do with Grandpa. I decided to change the subject. "Oscar would have loved this, wouldn't he?"
    "He would have indeed," she replied, nodding. Her gaze was still dreamy, though. "Oscar would have been right in his element watching you work and it would have meant more to him than all those professional accolades he accumulated." She turned to me now and cocked her head thoughtfully.
    I had never asked about her precise relationship with Grandpa. Grandma Ida had died only two years before Oscar, and he and Pauline had been friends for more than thirty years. I found myself wondering again if they had been lovers, and immediately reprimanded myself. I hated falling into the prurient trap of automatically assuming such a thing. It didn't matter, anyway.
    "I can see a little of him in you, Emma, about the eyes, the chin."
    "Do you?" was all I asked. I didn't dare hope.
    "Yes, particularly when I see you directing the crew, you move like him." She patted my arm. "Though Oscar was a bit more brusque about it--"
    "Oscar was an ogre to his students and they worshipped him," I broke in, "though not always at the same time!" I sat back down, able to recall many occasions of bellowing and roaring with stuttering replies. "But Bucky's the one who looks like Oscar."
    "Your sister certainly resembles him," she agreed, "but you got his soul, Emma."
    I didn't quite know what to make of that. It was unlike Pauline to dwell on such abstractions--she was so full of life, so devoted to doing rather than wondering, that I was a little concerned. But she didn't seem gloomy at all, just contemplative and content. I pulled myself off the stairs reluctantly, brushed off the seat of my pants, and let out a piercing whistle, the kind you can only make with both pinkies. Down the slope, I could see students looking up from their lunches.
    "Whaddya lying around for?" I belted out. "Meg's only been out here a week and already she's found the fort! The rest of you waiting for an invitation or something?"
    That's one of the things I love about Pauline; when she laughs, she doesn't mess around with ladylike titters. With her, it's belly laughs or nothing.
    Much later that afternoon Pauline did stop by to visit the progress in each of the units. Although no one else had yet found another posthole or uncovered the top of the seventeenth-century layer, excitement and morale were running high with the eagerness to find that next clue. I was just kneeling to show her Meg's posthole when a shadow fell over me. The sudden cool shade from the sun made me shiver, and for an instant I feared that Grahame Tichnor had returned. But then, with a sinking heart, I suddenly recalled what I should have been planning all day.
    "Hey, Emma, Professor Markham's here!" Neal called belatedly.
    I looked up, squinting into the sunlight, and hastily rose, dusting myself off, but all in vain. As hard as I'd tried to keep myself presentable, I was sweaty and covered with a noticeable film of dirt. It didn't help that I had broken into a cold sweat immediately after my encounter with Grahame Tichnor; I was now caked with grime. This was definitely not the image I had in mind for my meeting with my august colleague.
    Tony, on the other hand, was immaculately outfitted in the traditional khakis and blue oxford cloth shirt so beloved by the men of my academic tribe, and seemed to be immune to the heat of the day. His close-cropped beard and hair were meticulously groomed, a little remaining brown overtaken by white. I got the impression that he was the kind of archaeologist who could go into the field wearing white and come out spotless at the end of the day. He didn't come off as prissy or fastidious, though; it just added to his charisma. Me, I'd seen garbage men look less disheveled than I did after work.
    "Hello,