Page 46 of Backhanded Compliments

Now, in the empty halls, the museum is a lonesome sight. Juliette hears Luca’s footsteps catching up to her as she lifts her camera to snap a photo of theFarnese Bull. It’s a complex carving of Dirce, the first wife of the King of Thebes, tied to a wild bull. It’s a horrific image, one Juliette has never forgotten. She circles the sculpture to see Dirce’s face; strangely serene considering the bull’s hooves are about to crush her.

“Do you know Dirce means ‘double’ in Greek?” Juliette asks. She snaps a photo before turning to Luca. “You see she has a carving on her right wrist?”

Luca nods, stepping closer and lacing her hands behind her back. She leans forward to inspect the chiseled letters. “If you peak around the edge here.” Juliette points to Dirce’s left hand, clutching the leg of either Amphion or Zethus; Juliette can never tell. They’re twins. “You can see another carving here. She has double soulmarks.”

Luca blinks. “How did they know? Is it written?”

Juliette shakes her head. “She most likely didn’t. This is a Roman copy from the Greek original. And, I know you don’t speak Greek, but this second name is Dionysis.”

Luca’s nose scrunches in confusion. “What?”

Juliette grins, glad she retained something from her mother’s endless history lessons. “It’s believed that people would carve their gods’ names onto their wrists as a sign of devotion.”

“Oh,” Luca says, “so it doesn’t mean that Dionysis exists and was soulmates with this woman?”

Juliette shrugs. “I mean, he might’ve been. But the point is, a lot of art reflects the world’s beliefs of soulmates. It’s fascinating.”

“Fascinating is one way to put it,” Luca says, grimacing. “Carving into your own body still isn’t very pleasant.”

“A lot of history isn’t very pleasant.”

Luca’s head tilts, pondering Juliette with her intense eyes.

“Come on, let me show you something,” Juliette adds, hoping the exhibit she wants is still in the same place.

Luca follows quietly, a step behind. Juliette wants to say something to try to mend the broken pathways between them. She wants to shove Luca against a wall and demand that they can just enjoy each other without feelings or soulmate nonsense getting in the way. What had Luca meant bynot again?

Juliette knows Luca doesn’t owe her any answers, but it nags at her anyway, like a blister.

She fiddles with her camera, her stomach tied into a complex labyrinth of knots. Why had she taken that photo of Luca?

Juliette feels like a fool.

She knows in the heat of the moment, she’d wanted to capture the softened, vulnerable look on Luca’s face. When she’d touched her cheek, so quick, barely there, featherlight, Luca had flushed, a blotchy stain of heat, and her eyes had darkened with something akin to lust. Maybe it was only temptation. God or the universe or fate making fun of her. So what if Luca had unwound every tense muscle from her back? So what if Luca had slipped behind the barriers she’d built and seen the rot but decided to hold her hand anyway? So what if kissing Luca was like an ice bath after a long match, painful in its exquisite torture, but comforting in how right it felt?

Juliette finds the Maidens precisely where she remembers thembeing. They’re displayed front and center within a case, surrounded by their plaster brethren.

“Oh,” Luca says.

Juliette watches Luca take in the room, the gravity of the phantoms of death. “Are these…?” Luca breaks off, swallowing. She looks almost guilty, as if it’s her fault that Vesuvius erupted and covered thousands in his acidic ash.

“Yes,” Juliette answers. The exhibit is dim, the air heavy and somber, even though all it holds are plaster molds of what used to be real, living people. Now those people are nothing but decayed dust, lost to the unforgiving nature of a volcano.

Luca follows her to the heart of the exhibit. “The Maidens. Although, not really maidens, because they’re actually men,” Juliette explains.

“What does the plaque say?” Luca asks, her shoulder brushing Juliette as she leans in to try to read it. Juliette shivers at the silky touch of Luca’s jacket against her bare arm.

“It’s discussing the discourse of whether the two were soulmates.” Juliette has heard it all before, especially her mother’s rant about it being unlikely because the actual percentage of soulmate matches in the ancient world was quite low without social media to foster connections.

Juliette looks at Luca’s face as she studies the two figures, embraced together with one’s head angled into the other’s chest.

“It would be nice if they were,” Luca says. She meets Juliette’s gaze.

“Does it matter if they were?” Juliette challenges. Luca’s brow scrunches, as if the mere thought distresses her. “Can it not just be that they were two humans who, knowing the end was near, clung to each other because they wanted comfort?”

Luca blinks and whips her head back around to stare at the plaster replicas of the bodies long gone.

“Isn’t that more romantic?” Juliette asks, her throat tight.

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