The Big Bang Symphony: A Novel of Antarctica

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25 8 Rosie opened the door to the dorm room she’d been assigned and dropped her duffels. The room was empty. Was that possible? Had she really scored a room to herself this year? Perfect. She’d embrace solitude again. That had been the plan when she first took a job in Antarctica. Total exile. Her own personal Siberia. A way to make money, get on her feet, stop giving herself away to anything handsome on two legs. It had worked out the first year. This beast of a continent had slung her under its arm and set out running. Take me to your cave, Rosie had shouted, waving her arms and kicking her legs. What relief it’d been to look only at ice and sky, sleep in the narrow dorm bed, tend the grease-spitting galley grill. For an entire season she’d managed to love no one. Last year she’d slipped a bit. That wee little affair with the computer tech. Perhaps she hadn’t defined exile precisely enough. The word celibate came to mind now. Really, it came down to sex, didn’t it? She used to believe that sex was the closest one could come to truth. It was the biological imperative, right? The urge to reproduce . Though god knew the urge was one thing and the reproductions were another. Let’s just say the need to touch. One body touching another body transcended interpretation. Needed no leap of faith. It just was. But if sex was truth, why did it lead so quickly to lies and abandonment of oneself? Rosie walked down the hall to the bathroom and took a long, hot shower. When she returned to her dorm room, she unwrapped the towel and scrutinized her steaming body in front of the mirror. Her wide mouth, plumped with the damp heat, and her thick and glossy chestnut hair, the wet ends just touching her collarbone. Her full hips and breasts, the tangle of reddish hair between her legs. She knew that her looks somehow announced her out-sized appetite that attracted people. Her whole life she’d felt its draw on people, even if she didn’t fully understand why. As she looked and wondered, the heat evaporated off her skin, leaving her cool and clammy. How quickly one could go from hot and alive to cold and dead. Rosie dried her hair and dressed quickly. She grabbed her jacket, ran down the stairs of the dorm building, and pushed out into the icy Antarctic day. She walked around to the back of the dorm building where she could look out across Winter Quarters Bay and then beyond the frozen sea to the mountains. She had another chance to get it right. The girl had died after the crash landing, but Rosie hadn’t. That feeling of survival surged through her body like music, as if sorrow and joy were the same thing. Rosie sang to keep from crying. She sang to the bluing glaciers and the biting peaks, to the sea, and to all the orcas and minkes making their way south. As she sang, she made a vow to reestablish her exile. “Hey, Rosie.” Pamela’s voice, too soft with sympathy, snuck up behind her. “What a lovely singing voice you have.” “Thanks.” Pamela took the liberty of kneading her shoulders through the thick layers of fleece and down. “I’m so, so, so sorry. I heard you’re the one who found her.” She sounded excited, not sorry. Before Rosie could think of a way to escape, Pamela snickered, “So, it’s your third season, isn’t it?” Rosie knew what was coming and didn’t want to hear it. “You’ve heard what they say about the third season.” 26 Only about a hundred times. Pamela spoke slowly, drawing her words out with false sensuality . “The first season you come for the adventure. The second season you come for the money. Third because you no longer fit in anywhere else anymore.” Pamela laughed merrily and then said, “Ah, Rosie. Don’t take it so hard. We’re all family here. Everyone’s stuck. Except for the FNGs. They’re always trouble. Steer clear of them.” Rosie nodded. “Coming to the party tonight?” Pamela had managed to hook her elbow with Rosie’s. “It’d be good for you. You’ve had a hard start...