Antiquarian's Precious Find

Teri tucked the last of her daughter’s lunch into her lunchbox, glancing at the time on her cellphone. Seven-twenty-four. “Zoe! Get your stuff together! We’re late!” It wasn’t true, but usually it was the only way to get her perpetually tardy daughter to school on time.Touching the email icon on her phone’s menu, she leaned against the kitchen counter, sipping her coffee as it loaded. Down the hall came a thundering ruckus, terminating when Zoe stormed into the kitchen, frustratedly tossing her dangling backpack onto one shoulder only to have it slip and fall down her arm again.“I’m getting my shoes!” Zoe snapped moodily, dropping her backpack to the floor with a heavy thunk and taking a seat at the table.Unperturbed, Teri ignored the behavior, carrying the lunchbox to the table as she skimmed the new email contacts from her website. T

They departed for Moab in the RV the week after school let out for summer. Arriving to find the temperatures warmer than home, Teri and Zoe had immediately taken advantage of the weather, visiting Canyonlands National Park, Arches National Park and the Nature Conservancy's Matheson Wetlands Preserve the week after they arrived. The RV resort was positioned to offer astonishing views of the unique rock formations set alongside the Colorado River and was a perfect spot for a surprising variety of outdoor activities.Since their arrival at the RV resort for the summer, the tourist traffic into the city had increased steadily, particularly on weekends. Visitors funneled in, drawn by opportunities to visit the local national parks, or participate in another of the myriad activities in eastern Utah’s scenic Grand County.This week in advance of the Memorial Day holiday, the influx of travelers and vehicles had multi

“Zoe! Get your lunch and your pack together and get your shoes on!” Annoyed, Teri tossed her daughter’s shoes from the bathroom where she’d spent the last half hour stumbling over them as she readied for work. Pulling her blouse over her head, she finger-combed her hair into place and hurried into the bedroom for her own shoes.“Don’t wear the boxy black ones!” Zoe ordered bossily from the table as Teri emerged.“What’s wrong with them?” Her eyes skimmed over the very shoes, already in hand.Tucking her lunchbox into her pack, Zoe zipped it then hoisted it onto one shoulder, raising her brows in an expression she’d learned from her mother. “They make you look like those old women from that movie – with the monsters and the kids with weird powers. The women that could control time and turn into birds.”

Though the entire evening had been a concentrated exercise in body and voice modulation, the sheer magnitude of her accomplishment—sitting and talking politely, even managing to eat, mere inches from the sole man on earth who turned her mind to mush and irresistibly lured her seditious body like the Pied Piper—didn’t become apparent until Teri was mindlessly zipping northbound along Main Street towards the secluded sanctuary of her RV home.Once there, all the provoked and pent-up primal brain instincts surged to the forefront, vehemently denying further suppression, even now that the dangerous threat Jim’s mere proximity presented was removed.“The primal brain controls our innate and spontaneous self-preserving behaviors, which ensures our survival and that of our species,” she remembered with sudden clarity from a college biology lecture. “These are often sum

Evie barked and leapt off the bed, racing into the RV’s family area. Emerging reticently from the blissful haze of heavy dreamless sleep, Teri sat up groggily, a vague impression of noise in her head, though Evie now was quiet.Yawning, she rubbed her fingertips in gentle circles at her temples. At least her earlier headache was reduced to a weak dull pressure and the nausea she’d felt during lunch with Johansen was gone.Still wandering dazedly at the edge of dreamland, Teri gave a startled cry to a knock at the outer door that sent Evie erupting into another brief frenzied round of barking from the other room. Outside, she heard a voice call her name.Jim.An unadulterated confusing mélange of thrilled pleasure and raw fear bubbled up inside her.What was I thinking? Why? Why did I do this to myself? Why did I text him? M