by Dan Eaton
I had a lot on my mind about the night before. First and foremost was what had almost happened at the end of the dance with Myra. I wasn’t sure what it meant or even if what I thought was going to happen would really have happened. I liked the idea of kissing a girl in general, kissing Nina would have been great, and the thought of kissing Myra was exciting and scary at the same time. She was one of my best friends and I didn’t want anything to change that. Before last night I had always thought of Myra as my friend and not really as a girl. Last night definitely changed that and left me very confused about our relationship. I couldn’t really talk to Mom or Dad about it so I decided I’d talk with Veronica at work and see what she thought. She’d probably tell me I was an idiot, but she always gave me good advice.
The other thing I had on my mind was the whole Hotel Whipple thing. The Habitat sat on the rim of Whipple crater and I know they tried to keep any construction centered between the edge of the inner crater rim and the edge of the outer crater rim. Building too close to the rim could cause the rim to slump with disastrous results for the building and any occupants. I wondered about the Whipple Hotel because they actually extended that tube all the way to the outer crater wall. I was sure they hadn’t done anything dangerous that would put the habitat at risk, but I was curious about the steps they would have had to take to keep things safe. That required talking to an engineer and I just so happened to be having breakfast with a good one.
“Hey Dad, I was wondering,” I said. “What did they have to do to build the Whipple Hotel extension so it didn’t accidentally collapse the outer rim wall?”
Dad smiled at me and asked, “Bryce, do you know what the number one rule in real estate is?”
I thought I knew it and said, “Location, location, location.”
“Yep, that’s it and the same thing determined where the Whipple extension could go.”
Back on Earth you could possibly modify a risky location to make it safer, but here on the Moon it would be difficult and ultimately you wouldn’t want any risk because of the potential for disaster. So they had to find a location that was naturally stable before they could even think about starting work. There’s a thing called the safety factor that is the ratio of the shear strength of a slope divided by the shear stress on the slope. They did a survey and found places along the rim where the safety factor is much greater than one.
I said, “So it’s a bunch of math saying where they don’t think the slope will fail?”
“Pretty much Bryce,” Dad said, “They looked at the rim and found the least likely places where a slip could occur. The crater wall is basically the heaviest debris that was thrown up when the impact event occurred. At the location where the Whipple is located the slope isn’t that steep and there are some rocks underneath that section that act like reinforcements to prevent a slide.
Satisfied the place wasn’t going to slide off into the abyss any time soon we settled into eating breakfast.
Mom asked, “How was the dance last night?”
“It was good, Mom. I danced a lot with Ananyu. Myra beat Ananyu to me for the final dance.”
I wasn’t going to talk to her about how the dance ended.
“Willie’s mom must have taught him to dance because he was out there really dancing last night.”
Mom was satisfied that the dance had been good for me and we settled into small talk before finishing breakfast and heading out on our separate ways.
I was so anxious to talk to Veronica that I actually showed up to work early. Sandy saw me come in and waved, but then went off to handle something. I opened the channel to Veronica and five minutes later she was signing in. “Hi Bryce. How was the big dance?”
“Uh, it was good. A funny thing happened at the end that I wanted to talk to you about.”
I told her about the moment that Myra and I had shared and how Willie had busted it up.
“So good for you Bryce, you got a girl interested in you,” Veronica said.
“Not so good for me,” I said, “It’s really confusing”
I sat down and told her how I felt about Myra. I said, “She is one of my best friends. I know it sounds weird, but I hadn’t really thought about her being a girl. Then there was the whole Nina thing—”
Veronica interrupted, “I’ve known you for about six months. During those six months I can count on my one hand the number of times you’ve told me about doing something with Nina. During the same time period I’ve heard so much about you and Myra that the only thing that surprises me about what happened at the dance is that it took Myra this long to go for it. You ever hear the saying about a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush? Myra’s a great girl and you’re getting nowhere with Nina so what’s the problem?”
I just looked at Veronica’s image on the monitor and the moment just drew out a lot longer than I intended.
Exasperated, Veronica said, “Come on Bryce. Talk to me. What’s wrong with just giving up on Nina and being happy with Myra?”
I slowly answered, “Myra is great. She really is my best friend, but until the other night I just didn’t think of her that way. She was just like one of the guys.”
Veronica started laughing and said, “I think you might need your eyes checked young man. I saw the video of you two at the homecoming dance and I saw the video of you with her last night. She’s gorgeous.”
“Veronica, I know she’s gorgeous. I know she’s sweet and kind and tough and she’s my friend. I know it’s dumb, but she’s also not Nina. I don’t know why I want to be with Nina so badly but I do and I also want Myra to stay my friend. So what do I do?”
Now it was Veronica’s turn to just stare at the camera.
Finally, with a sigh she said, “Everybody gets to be stupid their own way Bryce. When I was your age, I had a best friend who happened to be a boy. We did everything together, but I never thought of him in a romantic way. Senior year I met this other boy and he was so hot and everything I thought I ever wanted. We dated through college and got married after we graduated. That lasted for about four years and then we got a divorce. He wasn’t that hot and he was definitely not everything I always wanted.”
She went on, “After that I went back and tracked down my best friend and fortunately for me he was still single. After everything I went through I saw him in a lot different light. We’ve been married for ten years and I’m so grateful he came back into my life.”
“So you’re saying I should forget about Nina?”
“No, everyone is different. I’m just saying that maybe someday you’ll feel differently about Myra. Bryce, you need to be very careful with Myra. It may not be possible to save your friendship if you turn Myra down. And Bryce, just keep in mind the old saying that hell has no fury like a woman scorned.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Myra's Birthday
Good morning fellow NLH residents. It’s Friday, July 2nd, 2038.
In Habitat news this morning it’s Myra Cherneski’s birthday. Her parents will be celebrating her birthday with her in the main cafeteria at 17:30 hours this afternoon. They invite all of their friends to drop by and join them in wishing Myra a Happy Birthday.
The SpaceX liner, Lunar Spirit, arrived yesterday afternoon with the parents and members of NLH High School’s freshmen class of 2038. Please welcome the Bullock family with Gene, Constantia, and their son Stetson. The Daniels family with Puteoli, Marisa and their son Blayze. The Fromme family with James, Lynet, and their son Javin. The Hayen family with Lukas, Britta, and their daughter Evelina. The Huban family with Emory, Alisa, and their daughter Lylia. The Kaplow family with Quinton, Perdita, and their daughter Jocelyn. The Liaw family with Costa, Alessandra, and their son Konner. The Sidman family with Aubin, Mara, and their daughter Regan. The Stanforth family with Niles, Kelsy, and their son Ankur. The Warrior family with Joaquin, Miesha, and their daughter Meadow. There’s a welcome reception in the main cafeteria at 19:00 hours this evening. These families continue the conversion o
f the Habitat from scientific outpost to a real town so everyone please reach out and make them feel welcome. The Habitat’s resident population now stands at five hundred and twenty six.
Seline’s Bistro would like to remind you of their Friday night dinner specials.
In financial news today, on the Lunar Stock Market shares of Mussconny Machine are trading steady at $29.03 a share, Mussconny Fabrication at $31.60 a share, Hotel Whipple shares are rising at $29.87. O’Reilly’s Shellfish Company is up at $24.19 a share and CDB Farms is trading steady at $24.51 a share.
After the Prom things settled down between Myra and I. Whatever might have happened that night was buried in the rush to get through the last of the school year. It wasn’t like we didn’t spend time together, but there was always something going on and others about. After the first week I stopped worrying about it. There were finals to study for and Sandy always seemed to have work he wanted me to do in the off hours. Then came the final day of the school year and Miss Gayle gave us our final grades.
She wasn’t quite through with us though and said, “This has been an amazing year. When I took this job I thought it was going to be a challenge to teach six kids so far away. How were we going to relate to each other? How were we going to make the connections so necessary for each of us to be successful? You guys welcomed me into your lifes and trusted me and I just wanted to thank each of you for making this a wonderful year. I’m really going to miss you over the summer break.”
Adam snorted when she said that and we all chuckled when he said, “Miss Gayle, respectfully, you’re so full of it. The summer break is only two weeks long, so you can’t miss us that much. Heck, if you do, I’m sure you could talk to Miss Christine every day to get daily status reports on us.”
She rounded on him with a stern look that she was able to fully hold for about three seconds before busting out laughing and said, “I know the break is only two weeks Adam. But as much as you guys have let me into your life's, you’ve become part of mine and I will miss you even if it’s only two weeks. Besides Mr. Smarty Pants, I will be traveling to a wilderness area over the break and for much of the time I’ll be incommunicado, so I won’t be able to check in on you guys.”
She then had Adam hand out our report cards from a folder Miss Christine had placed in the room earlier and said, “Normally, I’d take a minute here to share with the class who the highest achieving student was and have everybody congratulate them before dismissing the class. Your class is unusual, so I’m going to share the class ranking with you. I’ve graded with a weighted GPA scale to reflect the advanced courses many of you have been taking and here are the results which you should all be proud of.”
She flashed the report up on the screen and to no one’s surprise, Nina was at the top of the list with a GPA of 4.5. From there it was me, Ananyu, Myra, Willie, and Adam.
Adam was quick on the draw and with a fake pained look on his face, exclaimed, “Miss Gayle, Miss Gale, does that mean I’m the class dunce?”
She laughed and said, “Why yes Mr. Dumas. You are the class dunce who’s eligible for the Honor Roll with a 3.75 GPA. I said this was an unusual group.”
That evening the families got together for a small party to celebrate the end of the school year. You know how it goes, just some families sharing a meal with a hundred or so of their closest friends. The highlight of the party was Chef Patel had arranged something special for the party and managed to import some popcorn. How he pulls off things like that I don’t know, but all of us were very happy we got to smell and taste popcorn again after so long without any.
The rest of the break went by in a flash. It was nice not to have to concentrate on school work, but my mom had the farms to run in her spare time and she was taking advantage of the school break by keeping Myra, Adam, and myself busy all of the time. It would have almost been nice if I had gotten to actually work with Myra and Adam, but we were her experts so she split us up and put us in charge of three teams of temporary workers Mom had hired just for the break. Fortunately, Mom had this all planned out so the work would all be done by Myra’s birthday on the second of July. The third would be a day to fully relax and then we’d have the holiday on the fourth before the summer session of school would start the next day.
Myra’s party started out great. The families were all gathered as usual along with everyone we knew. It never failed to amaze me how different life was here than when we were back on Earth. The Habitat now had five hundred and twenty six people living here along with twenty or so transient visitors and probably a third of them had shown up for the party. I certainly didn’t know all of them, but I knew a lot of them by face if not by name. Despite the lack of variety of things to eat or do, life at the Habitat had other compensations.
I had come over to the cafeteria with Mom and Dad and we sat down with Willie’s family when we got there.
Willie looked up and said, “Hey Bryce. Hi Mrs. and Mr. Burns. Hey Mr. B, is there any chance we’re going to get to visit your project anytime soon?”
The linear accelerator project my dad was working on was a constant source of fascination for Willie.
Dad replied, “Well, the transship facility is mostly done now, but we’re busy building out the track and things are a little hectic at the facility right now. We’re on target for the first payload for late October. When we get closer and I have a firm date I’ll talk to Miss Gayle about having the class out.”
Before Willie could pester my dad any further Ananyu and Adam came up.
Willie said, “Hey guys pull up a chair. Have you seen any of the new kids yet?”
Ananyu replied, “Miss Christine asked Adam and me to join her on the orientation tour for the new families yesterday.”
Adam broke in and said, “Did you know two of them are joining our class? There’s a guy and a girl who will be sophomores with us.”
Ananyu pulled the conversation back to her and said, “The girl is nice, but the guy is a real cutie. I might need to upgrade my V-blog co-host,” she said with a wink to me and Willie.
“Hey, no way babe, I’ve got an established audience and he’s got nothing,” replied Adam.
“Who’s got nothing,” Nina asked as she came over and sat down with us.
Willie jumped in and said, “Ananyu met the new kids and said there’s a nice girl and a real cute guy joining our class. She’s planning on replacing Adam with the cutie on the V-blog.”
“Hah,” Adam said, “never going to happen.”
The conversation went on like that with Ananyu and Adam verbally sparring while being egged on by the rest of us. It was all in good fun and I don’t think Ananyu was serious about replacing Adam. Myra came in looking really good in a top and shorts she must have got for her birthday because I didn’t remember seeing her in it before. We all said hi before her parents commandeered her and got the birthday festivities under way. Normally, the party would have been more laid back, but the cafeteria was double booked that evening with the welcome reception for the new folks occurring right after Myra’s party. It was no big deal because the party was going to go on until late anyways and this way the newcomers would get an enjoyable exposure to life at the Habitat.
We all sang Happy Birthday to Myra and then her parents sat her down and started handing her presents. My mom had the inside track on present ideas for Myra since Myra and she frequently talked while they were working together. Based on what Myra had said my mom had found the perfect shirt pattern and had two shirts printed with the colors of the second one being a variation of the theme of the first one. Myra must have liked it because she came over and gave each of us thank you hugs and her eyes were sparkling when she gave me a kiss on the cheek with my hug. The gift giving went on for a while. One thing about having a lot of friends is you got a lot of presents and the neat thing was most people at the Habitat put a lot of thought into the gifts they gave. Eventually, the pile of gifts ran down and the rest of us sat around talking while Myra ran aroun
d thanking people for coming.
The new people had started to filter in by the time Myra got back to the table with us. I was curious to see what the new kids looked like when there was a tap on my shoulder and Myra asked me to come with her. She took my hand and led me over by one hanging gardens where it was quieter.
She looked up at me with a warm smile and said, “Bryce, those shirts you guys gave me are really nice, but I was wondering if there was one more present you could give me for my birthday. Would you be my boyfriend?”
I know I had been given plenty of time to think of a tactful way of telling my best friend that I didn’t want to risk our friendship by taking it to the next level where it might fail. I knew that, but I’d never gotten around to actually figuring out what to say.
I stammered out “But we’re friends. Nina…” Time slowed down. I heard myself saying those first three dumb words and watched the emotions play across Myra’s face. It started with love, adoration, and hope. Then the stupidity marched out of my mouth and those three words triggered hopelessness and hurt.
I was horrified I had hurt my best friend so badly, but somehow my mouth just didn’t get the signal to shut up and I added insult to injury by uttering that four letter word. Nina. The hopelessness and hurt, I saw on Myra’s face vanished the instant I said Nina. What replaced them was anger. I could have ducked. I could have stepped back. I could have done half a dozen things that would have prevented her from hitting me, but I was in shock and maybe a little guilty for how badly I was handling this. Her punch caught me square on the jaw and thanks to the lunar gravity knocked me back on my butt. She went flying back too, but an instant after hitting the ground she was up and running out of the room crying.