Page 3 of Us in Ruins

The entire class watched, snickering, as Margot hoisted herself out of the pit of doom. A whirlpool of embarrassment swam in her chest, a drowning tide. She took a breath and forced a smile. At least, she tried to. But Astrid’s laser-beam glare threatened to disintegrate her at any moment.

“She’s a threat to our whole excavation,” Astrid said. Did she seriously just stomp? They were about to be high school seniors. Nobody stomped anymore. “She shouldn’t be here.”

Dr. Hunt placated Astrid with a tsk. “Every student chosen for this trip had to submit the same assignment. Margot’s earned her spot here as much as anyone else.”

Astrid fumed. “She’s never even taken an archaeology class!”

“Good thing this is a summer class,” Margot said. “For learning.”

“Some of us are taking this seriously.” Astrid tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, haughty. “And at least the rest of us actually followed the essay assignment and didn’t write glorified self-insert fan fiction.”

Margot’s blood pressure rose so high her ears throbbed in time with her pulse. She pressed her fingertips into the soft of her palms until she was certain she’d leave permanent indentations. “Just because you won some dumb award—”

“The Pliny Junior Scholastic Award of Linguistic Achievement in Latin.”

“—doesn’t mean you’re better than everyone!” Frustration swelled, tears welling in Margot’s eyes, but she blinked them back. Exactly the kind of thing everyone expected from her. Too soft. Too emotional. Too loud. Too much.

Astrid grinned, a wicked slice of perfectly straight teeth. The poster child for orthodontia. “Not everyone. Just you.”

When Margot squeezed her eyes shut, she saw Van’s easy smile. God, the things she’d do to have the uninterrupted confidence of a white man. He’d probably just laugh. Astrid’s comments wouldn’t even make a dent in his armor.

Margot wasn’t like that. The snide look on Astrid’s face seared into the folds of her mind, branded her skin like a hot iron. She didn’t know how, in the wise words of Taylor Swift, to shake it off.

She opened her mouth, a tart retort already forming, but before she could say anything else, Dr. Hunt stepped between them with palms spread wide. Every interaction Margot had with her, she had exuded Cool Aunt energy, but right now, her professor was all business. “I’m going to operate under the assumption that it’s the jet lag talking and give you two a chance to work this out. Rhodes, Ashby, you’re partners for the summer.” She turned to the other eight students selected for the summer abroad and added, “The rest of you, pair up. Rule number one, always use the buddy system.”

A murmur coursed through the students, but Dr. Hunt fixed Margot with a stare.

“Put the notebook away for now,” she said, lowering her voice, “and try not to destroy a UNESCO World Heritage site on the first day of our dig.”

Margot nodded. It wasn’t like she could argue around the lump in her throat.

In the last six years, Margot had tried on countless versions of herself. Ballet, watercolor painting, musical theater, six months of violin lessons—like a Barbie playing dress-up. Nothing ever stuck. And Astrid was right about one thing. As the class paired off, Margot recognized most of them from passing glances across campus and evenings spent organizing the school yearbook, but not from class. Because Margot had never stepped foot in an archaeology classroom.

She’d only decided to take a real stab at archaeology a few weeks ago after finding a flyer for Dr. Hunt’s trip posted on the library’s bulletin board. Six weeks in the south of Italy, soaking up the sun, discovering ancient artifacts, solving millennia-old mysteries. Plus, helloooo, Italian boys.

Three nights in a row, she curled over her laptop with an IV drip of caffeine, hammering away page after page on her application essay. A few hundred Google wormholes later, she’d basically taken a crash course on Roman antiquity. She triple-checked her margins, double-spaced it, and slid her essay into Dr. Hunt’s office with only an hour to spare.

But these students, they all knew each other, needling elbows into each other’s sides and cracking jokes that went way over her head.

Astrid grabbed the only other girl on their trip by the arm. “Suki, partner with me.”

Suki Takeda was tall and slim with light brown skin, and she fiddled absentmindedly with the ends of her deep brown braids. She’d wasted no time taking a pair of scissors to her class T-shirt, and instead of the brown boots everyone else wore, Suki opted for a chunky pair of Doc Martens. “Nice try. I’m working with Rex.”

“He looks a little... preoccupied,” Margot said. She pointed over Suki’s shoulder, where Rex Yang sparred against Topher Kitsch, a Black boy with box braids, using shovels like gladiator swords.

Suki put two fingers in her mouth and whistled so loudly a bird crowed, fleeing the branches above them. Rex and Topher snapped to attention. Running over, they flanked Suki on either side. “Rex,” she said, “you’re with me.”

Rex raised his eyebrows so high they disappeared beneath the harsh line of his black hair. Mostly limbs and sinewy muscle, Rex moved with easy grace Margot knew had to be from hours upon hours of cheerleading practice. He smiled. Easy, confident. “If you say so. Sorry, Toph, you’re on your own.”

Astrid, evidently desperate to escape Margot like she was Typhoid Mary, pivoted. She raised her eyebrows at Topher in a silent plea.

Topher raised his open palms and said, “No way. I’m going to see if Calvin still needs a partner.” Then, as if realizing Margot was literally standing right there, added, “No offense, Margot, but you’re not...”

“Archaeologist material?” Astrid offered. There was a lilt to her voice, mean-girl playful. “Who wears red lipstick to a dig site anyway?”

Astrid linked arms with Suki, and the boys trailed after them. Every remark died on Margot’s tongue.

So, what? She wasn’t the daughter of some bigwig west coast museum curator like Suki, and she didn’t hail from a long line of archaeologists like Astrid, but what did it matter that Margot grew up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it Georgia town, taking etiquette classes with Miss Penelope instead of memorizing the names for each layer of sediment? She wasn’t embarrassed to try something new. And she definitely wasn’t going to be embarrassed about her lipstick. The leading lady always had a calling card—a signature scent or a beauty mark. For Margot, it was a perfect shade of red lipstick.

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