“Your long-lost relative?” Noah chimes in.
I glance at Leo. “Now you know I want to find out.”
Noah shakes a finger at me. “Now is not the time to satisfy your curiosity, Miss Diamond. We need to finish up the task because we’re on track to be the first team to win today, and hopefully to beat everyone else by a long shot.”
“My, my, someone is slightly competitive,” Ginny remarks.
He shoots her an isn’t that obvious look. “I have my reasons.”
“What are they?”
He looks her over. “Everyone loves a winner.”
Ah, there’s more to his competitiveness than I’d thought. Noah is trying to win her heart by . . . winning.
Noah gathers us all in front of the temple, and we take a selfie, pointing to the graffiti. Our photograph is proof that we were here, and hopefully we’re the first to reach our clue.
As we rush back outside to complete the last item in the task—a photo demonstrating teamwork—Leo nudges me. “What do you think that graffiti was all about? I saw on a placard that some European tourists left marks on the temple way back when this was still in Egypt.”
“That’s what I think it was. Graffiti, plain and simple.”
“You don’t think that guy was anyone special?”
“Everyone is someone special. But no, I don’t think it means anything. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”
“And sometimes Leonardo from the early 1800s likes to leave his mark on temples?”
“Evidently.” I smile at him, and he shoots an easy, lopsided one back at me.
Sometimes conversations are simple. Sometimes they’re about what they’re about.
They aren’t about fear or worry or anything else. They aren’t about whether someone is coming home late or drunk or has missed another day of work.
They are what they are.
Once we’re on the front steps again, we toss around ideas for how to show teamwork, and we settle on an easy answer, but one that demonstrates it perfectly.
I take a deep, steadying breath. “Don’t drop me.”
Leo asks a tourist to take our picture.
On the middle step, on the count of three, my teammates lift me over their heads. Leo’s strong hands curve around my hips as he forms the foundation, holding me and lifting me higher, and higher still.
For a split second, I worry that I might fall, but then I talk back to my nervous mind because that’s an ancient worry. I worried all the time with Tripp.
I worried he’d be late for a date. I worried he’d miss an appointment. Worried he’d miss payment on a bill.
My throat tightens as I recall the pain of losing my husband not to someone else but to something else. A potent, powerful siren that had Tripp in its grasp until his last days.
In our case, everything was about that something else. Everything was about addiction, dependency, denial.
Right now, I shove that all away.
This moment is a new moment. A beautiful morning. It’s a day we can make our mark on.
So I leave graffiti on the air.
“Leonardo 1820,” I call out, under a crystal-blue sky on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan. I’m held by one person I know well and two people I’m getting to know. But I have no worries. They won’t let me fall.
Knowing that, feeling it in my bones—I’m ebullient.
The tourist snaps the picture.
After Leo sets me down, Ginny sends in the picture, effectively recording our time to the finish line for this clue. “We don’t have to return to the park for an hour or so.”
Leo looks to me. “We have an hour and twenty-two minutes. What do you want to do, o riddle master?”
The answer comes into focus immediately. “I want to see the traveling Klimt exhibit. His paintings are here on loan from all over the world. Want to go with me?”
“Yes.”
Ginny covers her eyes with her hand, squinting. “I’m hungry. I think I’ll grab a pretzel.”
Noah swivels around, jumping at the chance, it seems. “Pretzels are on me.”
“But it’s not a date.”
“I know. It’s only pretzels. I can buy the only pretzels though.”
