The Big Bang Symphony: A Novel of Antarctica

12

50 12 Sorry,” Larry said when Rosie answered the knock on her dorm room door. “I tried calling, but you didn’t pick up.” He ran a hand over the top of his freshly shaved head and opened that beautiful, asymmetrical smile of his, now apologetic. “So I thought I’d just stop by.” Her shift had ended an hour earlier and she had just begun to drift off in her customary afternoon nap. She considered pretending that he was just a dream. Anything could happen, without real life consequences, in dreams. Larry looked past her to the bed on the far side of the room, the one with the bare mattress. He said, “She was going to be your roommate.” Rosie nodded. “You okay?” Every time she looked at that bed she felt cold. But she smiled as she said, “Everyone wants their own room. Before I knew whose bed it was, I thought I’d won the lottery.” “May I?” “Sure.” Rosie opened the door wider and stepped aside. He walked directly to the empty bed and sat on it. “There,” he said, smiling. It did help, seeing a very alive man on that ghost’s bed. Rosie considered sitting down on the mattress, too, and leaning against him. Your boss’s husband, she reminded herself and remained standing . “So. What can I do for you?” “I’m doing a story on our flight for the paper. I was hoping I could interview you.” He touched the camera that hung from a strap around his neck, as if offering proof of his legitimacy. Rosie nodded, embarrassed by her relief. She hoped it didn’t show. Of course he was here on official business. Anyway, besides her vow of celibacy, besides his marriage to her supervisor, she knew these feelings—were they actually feelings?—had been crashinduced . Something about sharing a near-death experience with someone can inject emotions as artificial and powerful as drugs. “That was a week ago.” A long week, too, during which she’d only glimpsed Larry once, due to their offset work schedules and maybe, she guessed, to his avoiding her. “I know. They’ve only just released the official statement and I’ve finally been given the go ahead to write it up for the paper.” “Okay. Do you feel like a walk? I need some air.” “Absolutely.” She changed into boots and grabbed her hat and mittens. He took her parka off the hook by the door and held it open for her. Then, as they headed down the dorm stairs, “I bet you don’t really want to talk about it anymore.” “Well, I guess that’s true.” “I don’t need much.” She knew he meant for the story. But his modest demeanor lent the words a larger meaning. They left the dorm and walked around to the back side of the building where they took the long road down the hill to Winter Quarters Bay, the small harbor where later in the season the Coast Guard icebreaker and the resupply ship would tie up. It was a lovely day, in the high twenties, and perfectly clear. Beyond the bay, the sea ice soared toward the horizon, eventually meeting the sky. Larry stopped every few yards to take pictures. It seemed to Rosie that he shot almost randomly, photographing anything in his field of vision, and yet he did it with such single-mindedness, as if looking through that lens was his only way of seeing. She wanted to ask what he saw, but somehow thought that too personal a question. 51 Larry suffered no such shyness. “So. Tell me everything. Why are you here?” Rosie laughed at the blunt question. “You mean in McMurdo?” “Yeah.” “Money. Adventure. Same reason anyone else is here.” He shrugged. “I’m not sure why I’m here. Karen is hoping the experience will spark some ambition in me. But I don’t know. Almost dying in our plane landing kind of did the opposite. It made me want to cut all ties, forget about goals for the future, live every single second fully. Know what I mean?” “Sort of,” Rosie said, knowing exactly what he meant. She thought of the empty bed in her room. Allowing any kind of intimacy with her boss’s husband was a bad idea. But his invocation of their shared survival popped the...