“So,” Vivian says, “aside from the barfing, are you…okay? I mean, what are you going to…Does the father know?”
She shakes her head. “No.”
“You gonna tell him? Is he here?”
“It was one time, the stupid New Year’s Eve party. He left on the Last Plane Out. Flight-scheduling guy. I need to figure out how to not let this ruin my entire life before I bring a guy who couldn’t care less into it.”
“How do you know?” Vivian says. “Maybe he would care…more.”
“I don’t even know his last name. He may not have known my first name.”
“Oh.”
“In my defense—once you’ve taken a million hikes and watched all the movies and gone to the library and played air hockey, there’s only so many recreational activities a person can fill their time with here. Also, we were completely drunk, so all I can say is, heed this life lesson—drunken sex with a guy you barely know? Not the best idea. Also? McMurdo serves perishable food from boxes with expiration dates in the previous decade. Condoms have a shelf life, too.”
“Gross,” Vivian mutters.
“Yeah. Well. And now I’m awake night and day freaked out about unsavory diseases…Oh God, I can’t think about it!”
“So get tested!” I say. “You’re having regular visits anyway, for the baby, right?”
“Harp, no…they can’t know.”
“Who can’t?”
“I’ve got to stay and finish. I’m being dramatic. I’m sure it’s fine disease-wise. The battery of tests they put us through to get here…but I can’t see the doctor for anything, because if they find out, they’ll make me go back at Winfly.”
“Which of course you will be doing…,” Vivian says. “Going home at Winfly. Right? Because you aren’t stupid?”
“What’s Winfly?” I ask.
“Viv,” Charlotte says, “haven’t you ever seen that Oops, I’m Pregnant! show? Or whatever it’s called? People carry babies to term all the time, and they don’t have any idea they’re doing it till they’re peeing or taking a bath one day, and Whoa!”
“Charlotte,” Vivian sighs.
“I’m not kidding! People smoke and drink and climb really high stepladders, and here come these perfectly healthy babies. I’m not doing any of that. I can’t handle booze, I hate smoke, I feel perfectly well except for all the throwing up—which is a good sign, by the way—and obviously I’m gaining enough weight. I’ll see the doctor the second the Winfly plane takes off, I swear. I’m a biologist—that’s practically a doctor anyway.”
“It is not!” Vivian shrills.
“Okay, well, it’s science at least! I have to stay and finish. If I can keep it quiet till after Winfly, they’ll have to let me stay.”
“What is Winfly?” I ask again.
“Seriously?” Vivian says. “I thought you were an ‘Antarctica-ist.’ Did you read anything in the manual at all?”
“Winter Fly In,” Charlotte says. “NSF’s got to get McMurdo set for October Main Body—resupply, get the labs and rooms ready. At the end of August, there’s this predictable tiny window when the weather clears up just enough while the ice is still firm and they can land a plane with a crew of, like, two hundred people to prep the station, and they bring all kinds of stuff with them. We’ll have lettuce again, and eggs and milk. Oh, and mail! Then the next day, the plane takes off, before the weather traps it here. It’s Santa Claus for Winter Over.”
“And when Santa goes home, you’ll be with him,” Vivian presses.
Charlotte frowns. “Winter’s not over till the end of September, your contracts and mine.”
“Who cares! You’ve got a really good reason to get off The Ice. They’d want you off, right?”
“Yes, but I can’t yet.”
“Charlotte!” Vivian cries. “Do not stay for the penguins. You can finish later! You can’t have a baby on The Ice. It won’t even have a country of origin.”
“Yes, it will! It’ll be Antarctic American. Also, the penguins are worth staying for—I’ve got to finish this research.
“I know,” I say. “But, Char…”
“And I’ve also got to turn it in on time to matriculate, or I won’t have a degree in my possession, and therefore I won’t be able to accept job openings now. If I leave it undone, I’ll never come back—not for years, and how will I support this baby then? I can’t dump a kid with someone while I go live on The Ice for a year. I need to be done, degree in hand, so I can have a real job at home and pay for rent and diapers and toys and candy.”
“You can’t give a baby candy,” I say.
“I’m gonna.”
“Oh jeez.”
“Listen to me. I can’t start over. Years have gone into getting here; a woman in science has to be three times smarter just to prove she deserves to be here, and then I’m black, so of course I’ve had to work ten times harder to prove…who the hell knows what….But I’ve done it. And I’m here, I’m nearly graduated, and I’m fucking exhausted.” She throws the covers back off, boiling again. “I can’t start over. Not with a baby to take care of. She’ll stay put till winter is over, I promise. Please help me.”
I barely remember the surgery performed on my feet. But I recall vividly begging Mom and Dad to let me do it. Promising to pay for it. Which I partly did, with babysitting money. It’s just shaving the bone, I’d sobbed. It’s completely routine. Dancers do it all the time. If I don’t, I’ll never be on pointe, please. Please help me.
“She?” Vivian says.
“Who?”
“You said ‘She.’ ”
“Oh. I can tell. This kid’s a giant pain in my ass already. She’s not going to take crap from anyone, ever. Including me.”
Vivian looks at me. “Fine,” she says. “No one’s going to know. But if you drop this kid on the ice and we get busted for knowing, it’s on you.”
“Got it.”
“Can I admit something dumb?” Charlotte whispers.
“Oooh yeah!” I squeal quietly. Vivian shakes her head.
“When I first found out and recovered from the stroke, I was…happy. I love kids. I love them. I want one. And I worried sometimes. About how, with my life this way, was I ever going to find time to meet a decent guy, get married, and have a baby before I turned forty?”
I think of every kid I babysit. Sneaking them ice cream and tucking them in. I see Willa’s face. My Saturday class, grabbing my legs, trying their best for me onstage, dancing their hearts out. Loving me.
“She was meant to be!” I sigh happily.
“Yay for faulty condoms!” Charlotte cheers weakly.
“Nice,” Vivian says.
“It would be kind of amazing if she were born here. You could name her…Nacreous.”
“Because no one makes fun of kids named Nacreous,” Vivian adds.
“Ugh, I’m so sick of being sick,” Charlotte moans, and rolls over to her side. “Hey,” she says, “was I hallucinating or were you in the bathroom sitting on a towel, wearing a black bra and underwear?”
I help her sit up and put the ginger ale to her pale lips. “Yes.”
“Yes what?”
“You were hallucinating. But that’s going around, so no big whoop. Eat a cracker.”
She tells us she’ll be fine, she can go back to her room, but Vivian and I agree we’d feel better knowing Charlotte’s getting some sleep in case she needs us in the night. So we tuck her in, Vivian lies down in her bed and turns away from the glow of the laptop, and I stalk Kate and read the rest of Mom and Dad’s emails. At eleven-thirty I find Ice 104.5 on the radio dial.
“Top o’ the midwinter to us all. Let the rosy sky warm and brighten a little more each day! Except for the predicted record cold snap on its way preceding Winfly. No matter. We’ll bundle up together, won’t we, our Antarctica family? Tonight I’ve got love in my heart for you all, and here’s a song to send you off to sleep, whoever you are. All of us. Together beneath the moon on this most be
autiful ice. Samhradh sásta, family.”
“That guy,” Vivian sighs in half-sleep.
And then from the tinny radio speakers comes a single note. A fiddle. A long, sweet draw across the strings and into an Irish lullaby.
I close the T3 folder, cover myself in blankets on a chair, and drowse in the warmth while Aiden plays us all to sleep.
Just as Aiden said, every day there is a little less pitch to the black of the sky. Not that we see much of it, Charlotte and Vivian and I. Aiden goes out for night hikes with the kitchen crew and his radio friends, disappointed I’m less amenable to the cold as the months go on. And I couldn’t say for positive, but maybe he’s still disappointed our sleepover never happened. Charlotte and Vivian and I are working twelve-hour days, struggling to get every sample cataloged, indexed, and aggregated to make a cohesive, compelling narrative that will save the Adélies from more human-caused illness, let their babies live and thrive—and let Charlotte’s life and baby thrive as well. Staying busy working and keeping huge secrets help keep me from mourning the loss of San Francisco to Kate.
Fourth of July brings another excuse for the scientists and support staff to drink and get sick and use all the probably expired condoms they want. Charlotte makes a beeline for her room the minute our work is done for the day, hiding her ever-expanding midsection beneath the shapeless sweaters she’s borrowed from Vivian and the LEAVE ONE TAKE ONE box in the hallway. I worry about her being inside all night and day, breathing circulated air, but she’s worried the cold would be worse. I beg her to go to the greenhouse with me, and she points out, rightly so, that lying on her back in a rope hammock would be a dead giveaway; Charlotte is very thin—this baby is appearing slowly as a volleyball-shaped addition to her narrow frame. Allison’s not dumb; her whole life is spent encouraging living things to procreate.
The Fourth party is raging beneath the disco ball when I go in to get Charlotte some dinner to take back to her room. Aiden’s working in the kitchen, and I’ve had enough partying with drunk scientists for one lifetime. Also, Vivian and I are pretty occupied with procuring food at odd hours for hungry pregnant people who want a soft pretzel with mustard right now.
Aiden waves from the kitchen, and I sneak in to him, inhaling the aroma of simmering sauce made from canned tomatoes, and the warmth of baking bread.
For a moment I am lost in missing Fog City. That we have a bakery, our family has a bakery, that feeds so many San Franciscans has always made me proud. To have people grow up on our bread. Every day after work, Dad or Luke take the end-of-the-day stuff to food pantries all over the city, and a percentage of every year’s quarterly profits goes to the food banks. I’ve known all this forever but can’t remember if I’ve ever said, “Hey, Dad. Nicely done.”
He is a good man. They are good parents.
I miss home so badly. I can never go home and live every day being Salieri to Kate’s Mozart. It’s a big world. There’s got to be someplace I’ll love as much as San Francisco.
More lost than when I began. I need a sign.
“Hello there.” Aiden smiles and pulls me to him by my waist. “Going to the party? I made a flag cake—Martha Stewart showed me how! Did you know she made peach cobbler in prison?” There’s a torn-out page from a Martha Stewart Living magazine taped to the cupboard.
Indeed, there is a sheet cake on the counter. But the strawberries and blueberries making the stars and stripes are thawed from freezer bags and leaking juice all over the white frosting.
“Might be a little soggy,” he considers.
“Looks beautiful to me,” I lie. “It’s a valiant effort, especially from an Irishman. Martha would be proud.”
He turns my face to his and kisses me, in front of all the rest of the kitchen staff, who whack wooden spoons against hanging pots. They hoot and cheer, alerting the cranky kitchen manager, who probably has T3 also and who hollers, “Hey, staff only! Get the hell out!” I slink sheepishly away.
“I’m off at two!” Aiden calls.
“I’ll be asleep!” I call back. “Charlotte’s starting at six tomorrow, but come over after?”
He smiles and nods, and stands looking sadly down at his well-intended but truthfully ugly cake.
I load a plate with steamed frozen vegetables and canned fruit, bagels and cream cheese. I want some lettuce more than I can express. Oh, a bell pepper would be so good….Allison’s leaves are growing well, but nowhere near the rate needed for everyone to have a salad every day. I’m looking forward to Winfly like it’s Christmas.
I knock on Charlotte’s door, and she lets me in, then flops back on her bed. “I’m so tired,” she sighs.
“Could be the twelve-hours-every-single-day working situation.”
“Yeah, or the giant baby messing around in here.”
“So not giant. You look like you had a big lunch.”
“Well, I did,” she says, and tears into a bagel.
I move some fruit around in a bowl. “You know what?” I stand and stretch. “You need fresh air. Just for a minute. Come on.”
She’s totally ensconced in a nest of blankets. Shakes her head.
“Yes! It’s…hold on….” I go to her desktop and see the current temperature. “Twenty-three below, perfect! Hasn’t been this warm in forever. Who knows when it’ll happen again. Get dressed. I’ll be back in ten and we’re going.”
“I need to eat first…,” she whines pitifully.
“Fine, shove the rest of that bagel in your face and we’re going. Boots on. That parka’s not going to fit forever.” And I’m out her door to go get Vivian.
- - -
“What are you going out for this late?” Beard crabs, practically hucking radios at us. “You know it’s snowing, right? Can’t go past the church, and no Ob Hill. Scott.”
“Lady time,” Charlotte demurs. “Don’t worry about it.” She is all about the honey-attracts-more-bees-than-vinegar way of dealing with this guy, but I’m not sure why anyone would want to attract bees on purpose. At least not on The Ice, where there’s nothing to pollinate.
Except ladies. Heh.
I’ve taken my newly invented Antarctic Wind Advil Cocktail, which is three Advil tossed back with a big cup of hot tea, slammed back fast, no chaser.
Outside, snow is swirling and the wind does feel good, what seeps through our layers to chill us. Its sharp, frozen cleanliness wakes us. We fill our lungs and clear out the warm, stale, recirculated McMurdo air. We cannot talk over the wind, so we walk past the buildings, our attention on the black and red flags, away from the streetlamps, to the edge of the frozen white. The storm is covering the Transantarctic range tonight. No moon. But here we are.
Charlotte holds her arms over her belly. Vivian’s are deep inside her parka, and I hold mine out, Titanic-style. I jump around, move. My poor body. Doesn’t feel like me anymore. Charlotte looks over at me and does some knee bends, whacks Vivian on her shoulder to get her moving, too. We are doing ridiculous calisthenics on Antarctic ice. But our blood moves. The icy snow stops pelting us; the wind seems to rage a little less. We close our eyes in our ski masks and inhale deeply. There is a sliver of a low moon in patches of the starry black sky.
And then I gasp from the coldness in my throat.
The sky.
Paintbrush strokes of color, flung from a palette of violet and crimson, of green and blue. Vivid, pure color, and it seems to move and shimmer, not like the pearly nacreous clouds; these are ribbons of pigment.
Aurora australis.
This is a really crazy time of year for the southern lights to show.
It’s a sign.
Of something.
- - -
We say good night to Charlotte. I take a hot shower and lie down on the kitten bed in the twinkle light, not sleeping. Vivian’s at the library. I get up and pull open my unmentionable drawer, search around in my underwear, and find Owen’s letter.
Nothing could get any worse. If he’s “lunching” with Kate, probably b
ringing her roses to opening night…and what am I doing with Aiden?
What am I doing?
I open the letter. Handwritten. LucasArts letterhead.
Dear Harper,
I’m going to try to just write this and give it to Luke to give to you, not agonize and edit and try to sound smart and casual, which would take hours, so forgive me if this is terribly written. But the thing is, I worry you left San Francisco because you think you owed it something and that you failed. I worry you think maybe you don’t deserve to live here anymore. If this is how you’re feeling, you could not be more wrong. You are more worthy of San Francisco than anyone I’ve ever known. Including Tony Bennett—that guy can go straight to hell. San Francisco needs to shape up and be more worthy of you.
You may be in Antarctica by the time you read this. If you read it. What is life like there? How is your job, and what is it, and have you seen penguins?
On a purely selfish note, I barely got to know you and tomorrow you’ll be gone. And I already miss you. A lot. You are in the middle of some really difficult—I was going to say crap, but it’s not crap, it’s your life. And I didn’t mean to intrude, and I’m sorry I flat-out begged you to stay and pretty much accused you of running away, because that’s not true. I know that, and it’s none of my business. I’m sorry. And I wish I could have helped more. If I’d known how, maybe you wouldn’t be going.
But then on a trying-not-to-be-selfish note, you know better than anyone what you need to do. Which is, sadly for me and your family and San Francisco, leaving.
So. Here’s a thing. I feel like we never got to go on a date. Like a “Hey, I’ll pick you up at eight!” date. Not to assume you would have agreed to one with me, but I never even got the chance to ask you to. There are so many things in the city I want to do with you. I want to ask you to show me the places you love best, and I want to show you my favorites, and wouldn’t it be great if some of them overlapped?
So here’s what I’m going to do. I am going to ask if you will go on dates with me while you’re gone. I am prepared for this to be one-sided. I have no idea how Antarctica works, if you’ll be able to respond. But it’s six months. (Six months, you are so brave!) If I don’t hear from you by September, when you’re supposed to come back, I’ll end this nonsense and leave you alone. But until then, I will get to know you by dating your family. Shut up. It’s not like that.
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