Awash in Talent Read Online Free Page B

Middle Awash of Ethiopia in silence, my neck aching with the effort of not looking in Carlos’s direction.

III.
    I don’t know enough about my family’s first few months back in California to say anything except that they must have been odd. After the field study, I stayed with my friend on the Cape, as planned, and we returned to Brown together in the fall. The big difference my second year was that I kept up an avid correspondence with Beth, largely through texting. We had a couple of tacit rules: I never asked whether she possessed telekinesis and she never tried to start a conversation when I had class with Carlos. In fact, I turned my phone completely off during the one anthropology course I had been able to schedule in which he was the TA. In contrast, in my other classes, I missed almost everything for the sake of reading my sister’s text shorthand about how bored she was in school and how lame our town was.
    I hadn’t done anything to compromise Carlos all semester, aside from sitting as close to him as I could, taking routes across campus that would coincide with his, and utterly ignoring all the other males of the species on the planet. It was the last class before reading period, marking the anniversary of the first time I’d really noticed him, and everyone else had already left the classroom. I was still gathering my books and turning my phone back on, in case Beth had some interesting observation about Christmas preparations in California, where I was finally headed for winter break. Carlos came charging back into the room, but paused when he saw me.
    “Oh, hi, Emily.” His voice made the hairs on my nape stand up. “I think I left my . . .”
    He stopped, spotting the flash drive he sought on the desk where he’d been sitting as he gave us his last instructions for the final exam, just beyond my seat. Without thinking, I placed myself in his path as he reached for the item, so that his arm brushed up against mine through both of our sweaters and his wool coat. I’m embarrassed to think of the instant reactions it caused all over my body.
    It was the most sensual moment of my life.
    I exhaled deeply and the room did a funny twirl as he said, “Have a good winter break.”
    “Mm hmm. You too,” I managed.
    My phone buzzed. It was a text from Beth. Through a fog, I texted her back that I couldn’t carry on these conversations anymore, as reading period had started and I needed to concentrate on finals.
    I made it up to her during winter break, though. I’d passed all my classes and made sure I was in Carlos’s only course for the spring—Issues in Prehistory—so I opened gifts and went caroling with Beth and took her to the mall whenever she wanted. And had endless discussions with her concerning how lame our town was and how much more interesting it was in Providence.
    As before, she didn’t mention Carlos—thank God, because I’m sure my blushing would have led her to the conclusion that we’d actually done something—and I didn’t ask about her possible otherworldly powers. Beth’s room had been liberated of its antiseptic plastic boundaries and the décor had taken on a distinct style that reflected her own interests instead of mine. I was happy to learn about popular music download sites and architects who took their inspiration from M. C. Escher.
    “I’ve been able to master concepts like Belvedere already,” she said, pointing to a black and white lithograph of a building with two levels. I only saw what was unusual about it when I kept looking. The columns originating on the floor of the first level ended up on the opposite wall in the ceiling of the upper level. In three dimensions, the building would have toppled in the barest breeze.
    “Master the concept?” I asked.
    “Yeah, I feel confident I could draw up the plans for that building if anyone ever decides to build it.”
    I chuckled. “So, you’ve found the fourth dimension where such a building could stand