While she was eating her cereal, Noa’s cell phone rang. It was Leonard, who had been following the news: more than a hundred thousand acres already, the fire crews pushed beyond exhaustion, no sign of containment. Strong winds had carried the embers into the city, and thousands had been forced to evacuate. He’d already called the Berkowitzes; Jack would come to get her. But Noa wouldn’t agree to it. She was in no danger, she argued. The fires were far enough away. To change the subject, she asked how things were going at the dig. Worked up about the lab results of some burned bricks, Leonard eagerly launched into a description of the newest developments. The tests had revealed that the formation the bricks had been found in was not original; that they had been reused after an older city had been destroyed. When bricks are burned, their magnetic north at the time of the fire is preserved forever. This is a fact she had known since she was young, but now she let her father go on about it while she drank the milk left in her cereal bowl, washed the bowl, and set it to dry upside down on the rack. Having pulled the carpet out from under the existing paradigm of tenth-century archaeology, as he liked to say, Leonard was now trying to get to the bottom of the question of who had destroyed the late Iron Age city. Noa had meant to tell him about the call from the rabbi, but before she could, Leonard was called away by his second- or third-in-command, his expertise required. He would call her back later, he said, and they would discuss then what would be most prudent.

Seeing the time, Noa realized she was late for work. She sniffed the armpits of a shirt lying on the floor next to the sofa, and pulled it over her head without bothering with the buttons or a bra. Her chest had been flat until she was fourteen, and then she’d developed two small mounds, as if her body would agree only grudgingly to womanhood. Monica had insisted on taking her to buy bras, though she’d hardly required them.

She liked the tropical climate of the florist shop, and its sense of perpetual event. Something was always happening to someone, some fact of life, happy or sad, that called for commemoration. The day before, they’d had to make twenty-five centerpieces for a wedding. The ranunculus had arrived shut up in themselves and had to be coaxed open with warm water. She’d stripped the fringed leaves off the lower stems and arranged the flowers in silver bowls. The bride had wanted lilac, but the shipment was delayed because of the fires. Insulated by many layers of people doing her bidding, the bride was dealing with this disappointment, though her bridesmaid kept calling to report her displeasure.