"The common area was bustling with the chatter of interns, a stark contrast to when we had arrived at check-in yesterday. The hostel was also open to other travelers, but if there were any, none seemed to be awake at this hour of the morning.
Our internship team was only five bodies large, but the excitement of the day ahead rippled through each of us—all, except Angela.
"Mornin', sunshine," I chirped as I took a sip of the strong coffee set before me.
"It was a little after four in the morning and we had to leave on the shuttle in about fifteen minutes.
Angela and I had been dead tired after unpacking and getting cleaned up, so we had both decided to skip dinner and sleep off the jet lag instead. I had set the alarm on my phone to wake up on time, but we'd had an unexpected wakeup call echoing through the streets instead. I was aware that the call to prayer sounded five times per day in Arab countries, but I hadn't realized it would start as early as three in the morning. Imagine our surprise when a male voice had rang through the silence of the early morning hours. I had nearly fallen out of my bed startled, but Sleeping Beauty over here had rolled over and covered her head with a pillow and gone back to sleep.
Angela grunted her greeting before collapsing into the chair across from me. She might be a crank, but she looked ready to tackle her first day on a dig, appropriate in her Stanford burnout T-shirt and khaki pants.
"By the way, thanks for these awesome clothes." I motioned to the outfit she had laid out for me to borrow the night before.
She gulped her coffee unceremoniously. "What are you griping about? You look great. You could use more clothes to show off your curves."
"My wardrobe is just fine, thank you very much. We were told to dress conservatively, not like we're heading out to the club in the early 2000s!"
"Hey, I resent that. I just bought that outfit three weeks ago. The sales lady said bodycon is making a comeback. Get with it or get out." She "stuffed her mouth with the breakfast in front of her: salted fava beans with hardboiled eggs and pita.
The internship coordinator had sent us an email with customs to be mindful of when we traveled to Egypt. It explained specifically that conservative wear was required. We were instructed to be sure that our knees and shoulders were covered in public and that our clothes were not to fit too tightly against our bodies. I was certain that the short-sleeve, neon-pink bodycon top, which I suspected Angela had intended as a dress, and skinny jeans clearly violated the "tightness" rule. Luckily, my tits were smaller than Angela's, which afforded me some extra room in the top. But I could barely pull the jeans over my hips, let alone zip them. Thank God for the hair-tie hack I'd learned on TikTok to keep them buttoned! I was also lucky that Angela had packed some neck scarves to double as head scarves, which the coordinator had recommended we bring in case we wanted to visit any mosques during our stay. I was using the white scarf she'd loaned me as a shawl to cover most of my top from view.
I reminded myself to call the airlines later to see if they had located my bag. Something told me I wouldn't survive the embarrassment of Angela's wardrobe for much longer.
Suddenly, a devastatingly handsome guy sat down next to Angela. "Hey, I'm Felipe. Are you two ladies the Stanford participants?" His thick Spanish accent was warm and inviting. His boyish smile coupled with the dark hair on top of his head and stubble on his square jaw made him look like one "of those cute professional soccer players.
The tiredness in Angela's eyes instantly vanished as the setting on her make-believe battery pack switched to "flirt mode." She jutted her boobs out in Felipe's direction, the school logo on her shirt standing at full attention. "Were we that obvious?" The playful grin on her lips was like sugar mixed with honey—way too extra.
Not as obvious as you undressing poor Felipe with your eyes.
His smile shone bright while he politely avoided the tits in his face as best he could.
"You must be from the University of Madrid. I'm Kitty." I extended my hand over the table.
He took it, giving it a gentle squeeze—nothing awkward, just friendly. The internship program had sent out an email letting us know which universities had been selected to participate this year, and judging from his accent, he was the selection from Spain.
"And I'm Angela." She grabbed his hand before the guy even had a chance to offer it.
Angela's favorite hobby was men. Back in California, she had her pick of the lot, rarely ever seeing the same one twice. I admired her assertiveness—to go out there and take what she wanted. I wished I was just as bold. I'd had boyfriends in the past, but I could count them on the fingers of one hand. My dating life had hit a stale point lately, and Angela was putting me to shame by snagging the best-looking guy on our team.
"Are you two excited for today?" Felipe asked. "This is the first dig I've ever participated in."
"Same for the both of us. I don't know what to expect," I replied. I had only read about excavations in research papers and seen them in documentaries, so the thrill of participating in a live one was something I still couldn't quite believe.
"I just can't wait to get dirty, you know?" Angela's lips tipped up into a sly grin aimed straight for her Spanish crush.
Nervously eyeing her as if she were a hungry python in the hands of a zookeeper in a petting exhibit, Felipe continued, "It should be a lot of fun, even though I heard that Dr. Campbell can be rather difficult."
"Ugh, don't tell me he's a hard-ass," Angela groaned. "It's bad enough we need to be up at the crack of dawn; now I need to worry about some man who has small-dick syndrome or something getting on my case." Her Southern accent was always stronger when she was irritated.
"It's true," the guy sitting to my left added. "Hi, I'm Sean." His British accent meant that he was most likely the team member from Cambridge. He seemed to be a few years older than us, with a dark head of hair just like Felipe, but where Felipe had a scruffier appearance, Sean was well groomed and looked like he should have been teaching a class himself with his white linen shirt and dark blue jeans.
I introduced both of us this time around. "I'm Kitty, and this is Angela."
"It's a pleasure," he replied with a courteous smile only half as big as Felipe's was.
"Do you know Dr. Campbell?" Angela asked, redirecting the conversation back to the topic of our mentor.
"I don't. But my friend goes to Oxford and took one of his classes. She said he was the hardest grader she'd ever had. Just barely passed his final."
"Shit . . ." I frowned. I hadn't thought that our mentor would be the professor from hell. All the hope and excitement I'd had oozed away. I wasn't a worrier by nature, but a foreign feeling slowly crept into my chest—anxiety.
"Difficult isn't necessarily a bad thing. Maybe he just wants us to learn as much as possible," a raven-haired woman with delicate features said, interjecting. Her petite frame was on display as she leaned over the table, resting her hand on the surface as she spoke to us. Her accent was distinctly Italian, making her the fifth and final member of our team from the University of Rome.
"And who are you?" Angela asked pointedly, not liking that Hermione Granger had invited herself into our conversation.
"Isa-bel-la." Even the way she said her name, enunciating each syllable so that we would remember it, came off as pretentious. I had the sneaking suspicion that she was going to ask Dr. Campbell to add a research assignment to our program before the sun set today.
"I don't know about you, but I like to learn without a micromanaging dictator hovering over me," Felipe joked. This earned a disapproving scowl from Isabella.
"Forgive me for being so forward, but if I had to fly all the way here, then I'd want to get the most out of this experience," she snapped, glowering at him.
The group stared at her. We all wanted to get the most out of this trip, but shit, not all on the first day!
Sean's voice broke the tension. "Well, I think we should head out so we're not late."
Everyone agreed and grabbed their dishes to hand them back to the cook. The table looked just as tidy as it had been before we woke up for breakfast.
"Everyone got their sacks?" Sean asked.
I looked around at my teammates, all of whom especially overachiever Isabella—had backpacks filled with notebooks, pens, and water bottles slung over their shoulders. Everyone except me.
I was disappointingly unprepared for the most important experience of my college career.
Dear God, please help me to get through this day unscathed!