On Common Ground

“Close. Waziristan.”

Lilah cringed. People sometimes questioned her sanity about traveling to Congo, but Waziristan? The northwest region of Pakistan was a known stronghold of terrorists. “Promise me you’re calling to tell me you’re safe,” Lilah implored.

“Not to worry about me. I’m in my element. It’s you I’m calling about—with news.”

“Don’t tell me—actually do tell me—that someone has decided to give Sisters for Sisters millions of dollars after seeing your piece on TV?” she asked.

“No, but there’s the possibility.”

“I’m always open to possibilities, long shots, even highly unlikely probabilities.”

“It’s like this. Seeing as you’re such a hard woman to track down, the alumni office of our illustrious alma mater, Grantham University, contacted me through my television network. They were hoping I could hunt you down directly.”

“Oh, please, there is no way I’m making a contribution to Annual Giving. I barely make enough money to pay the rent on my hovel of an apartment—and I use the term hovel generously,” Lilah decried. After college, she’d landed in Brooklyn, and for some mysterious reason that only the gods of real estate understood, her block had defiantly escaped the rampant gentrification that had swept the rest of the outer borough.

“Actually, it’s the other way around. They want to give you something.”

“You’re kidding me, right?” Lilah ran her hand through her chestnut-brown hair, which despite the practical clip holding it back in a ponytail, was frizzing madly in the rain and humidity.

“I kid you not. Apparently, the feature I did on you actually penetrated the mostly deaf ears of the ivory tower powers-that-be. Now the university wants to honor you with a big alumni award at Reunions this June. Who’d a thunk it, heh?”

Lilah knew that Mimi didn’t harbor any great fondness for Grantham despite her family’s long history of involvement and support for the Ivy League institution. Nor was Lilah particularly the Reunions “type.” What was the point of rehashing your college days? Or seeing people from your past you really could do without? She could think of one person in particular—boy, could she ever. Then there was the more fundamental anxiety. Ten years out—had she measured up to her own expectations? And the more troubling thought, If I accept the award, will they figure out I’m no longer some sterling idealist?

But those doubts were for her ears alone—something she’d have to work out. So Lilah retorted with the slick sarcasm that so often substituted for wit and intelligence among her fellow Grantham alumni.

“So why exactly would I want to wax poetic about my time at that dyed-in-the-wool chauvinist bastion?” she asked, using Mimi’s withering expression for Grantham. “I mean, can’t I just accept the award without showing up to Reunions? ’Cause I’m not totally convinced I can stand there with a straight face, listening to the university president give some rah-rah speech about all my good works somehow being an outgrowth of that special Grantham spirit. And the thought of rubber chicken served under a tent by the boathouse? Please. Is there anything worse? Oh, right—sleeping in a dorm room all over again.”

Truth was, she’d die for a dorm room right now. Tonight Lilah would be sleeping on the dirt floor on a thin straw mat. Not that she was complaining, mind you, when she had so much compared to the villagers around her.

Speaking of which, Lilah angled to the side to let one of Esther’s daughters carry an earthen platter of baton di manioc, boiled palm leaves filled with a paste made from starchy manioc tubers.

“I feel your pain, really I do,” Mimi responded from thousands of miles away. She, too, had mastered the glib speak. “But look at it this way. Does Miss America get her cr-own in absen-tia?” The satellite line had a slight delay, and the transmission sputtered.

“I get your point. I get your point,” Lilah replied. “But aren’t Reunions in June? That’s…that’s not going to work out. Our first major fundraising race in Europe is at the beginning of that month—in Barcelona. I couldn’t possibly miss that.”

“I’m pretty sure they’re at the end of June, but, c’mon. This is Mimi here. Your bosom buddy? You and I both know you’re manufacturing excuses. The real reason you don’t want to go back to Reunions and accept this award is Stephen.”

Lilah hadn’t spoken her ex-fiancé’s name in almost ten years. And she wasn’t about to start now. And why bother to rail against the cruelty of love when her friend flat out didn’t believe in love? Or so she had claimed many a time over. Too many times over, Lilah sometimes thought.

“From your silence, I presume I hit the nail on the head. Well, let me tell you. I have just one thing to say in response.”

“Grin and bear it?” Lilah offered.

“Oh, please. What do you take me for? A leader of a Girl Scout troop? My kind of pep talk is…” She proceeded to string together several swearwords in a highly creative and visually interesting fashion.

Crude, but effective, Lilah couldn’t help thinking. “So you really think I should go, then?” she asked.

“Yes, of course I think you should go. Not only do you deserve all the praise in the world for what you’re doing, you’ll have those old coots eating out of your hand. They’ll see this brilliant, cute young woman, and they’ll immediately feel the need to help. The next thing you know, they’ll be writing monster-size checks to support your work. You might even think about upping your own salary from near poverty line to something where you could afford to go to a decent hair salon.”

“Hair salons? They still have them?” Lilah asked facetiously. Reflexively she fingered her bangs, slowly growing out from her last feeble attempt at giving herself a cut.

The light shower had turned into a thick curtain of rain, and the sound of drops hitting against the thatched roof formed a steady rumble. The red dirt on the floor was already transforming into a rusty-colored slime, the same mud that coated the soles of her hiking boots.

From her position in the doorway of the hut she could see Esther, along with two other women from the village, cooking rice, beans, bananas and more manioc. Through the haze of smoke she noticed two large cauldrons cooking meat—probably chicken and goat. Today had to be special if meat was on the menu.

These women who had suffered so much were unfailingly generous. Who was she to balk at attending some awkward ceremony and meeting a few strangers at Reunions if it meant helping them out?

Lilah rubbed her sticky palm down her sundress. The outfit was a concession to the festivities, but she’d paired it with her usual hiking boots because there were too many poisonous snakes for her to consider wearing sandals. Not a great look but always practical.

She exhaled through her mouth with resignation. “All right. I hear the wisdom of your words. Just tell me whom to contact about setting up my triumphal return to our beloved alma mater. And in the name of a good cause—and good people—I promise to show the proper humility and speak about the urgency of the problem.” She paused, her mind working on overdrive. “But I have one condition.”

“Hey, I gave you prime time network exposure. Don’t expect me to open my meager checkbook, as well,” Mimi protested.

“I wouldn’t think of it. I know the prices at the salon you frequent. No, my request—no, my ultimatum is this. I’ll go provided you come, too. If I’m going to give a convincing performance for a day—”

“We’re talking days, bubby,” Mimi interrupted.

Lilah groaned. Oh, yeah. Grantham University never did anything by half measures. Their Reunions lasted three days and were scheduled immediately before commencement ceremonies, thus cementing a lifelong hold on graduating students.

Lilah cleared her throat. “Okay, but if I am going through with this charade, I think it’s only right and proper that I have moral support. And nothing says moral support like a forceful female friend close at hand.”

The metaphorical clock ticked away in silence until Lilah heard a sigh. “All right,” Mimi agreed. “Only for you will I set foot on Grantham, New Jersey, soil. I suppose that also means I won’t be able to avoid putting in an appearance at the family manse, will I?”

“I’ll make it up to you. I promise. Besides, once my parents get wind of the award, I’m sure at least one of them will insist on making an appearance, and then you’ll have a parental buffer.”

“If you mean that having a critical mass of people will in any way be enough to preserve my sani—”

Mimi’s voice was drowned out by a decisive rat-tat-tat. It had to be the sound of gunfire.

“Mimi? Mimi? Are you all right?” Lilah asked.

“Never better. This is what I live for, right?” Her words were upbeat, but they couldn’t camouflage the underlying edge. “Listen. Gotta go. I’ll text you the contact numbers at Grantham. Promise.” The call ended abruptly.

Lilah held the phone away from her ear. Her concern didn’t stop just because the conversation was cut short. She shifted her gaze toward the encroaching jungle. Danger from natural predators and roaming militias was never far away here, either. For now, at least, there didn’t appear to be any imminent threats to be fearful of.

But sometimes the bigger fears came from within oneself.

CHAPTER TWO

June

JUSTIN BIGELOW STOOD in the international arrivals area of Newark Liberty Airport with a sign dangling from one hand and wondered if he was making a big mistake. A seriously big mistake.

It wouldn’t be the first one, as his father, a professor of classics at Grantham University, would no doubt have reminded him. Growing up, this pronouncement traditionally came during dinner, where conversational topics were limited to his father’s research on the ancient Greek Punic Wars, with possible digressions into stories from the day’s headlines in the New York Times that were of particular interest to him.

This arrangement, with Stanfield Bigelow as the central star around which all family members orbited, had seemed to please his mother and sister. Naturally. His mother happily trekked over the remains of archaeological sites in Sicily and North Africa while painting watercolors of the landscapes—very well, as it happened. Her book, A Companion’s Guide to Sicilian Wildflowers, was a classic among aficionados.

Justin’s older sister, Penelope—named for Odysseus’s devoted wife—was equally sympathetic to their father’s passion for ancient Roman history and Latin historical authors. She had dutifully followed in his footsteps, graduating first from Grantham University before going to graduate school at Oxford on a Marshall Scholarship, then winning a Prix de Rome, and now an appointment as an assistant professor at the University of Chicago—not quite the Ivy League, but somehow more so.