Warming Trend

by Karin Kallmaker

  Eve gestured at her mostly empty crock. “Does Tonk get people food?”

  “It’s the only way to feed him enough, but never directly from the table.”

  They both set their crocks on the floor and a snap of Ani’s fingers brought Tonk to investigate. Eve had to laugh at the content woof.

  “I do like the way Tonk enjoys life. I wish everyone who ate my food was so vocal.”

  “It was really good,” Ani said, seemingly alarmed. “I’d have licked my plate if I’d known that would reassure you.”

  Immature puns sprang to mind and Eve struggled to control the sudden arrival of an inner teenager with raging hormones. She would not say, “Skip the plate.”

  “You cooked, I’ll clean. I’m really good at dishes,” Ani said. “I’ve been babbling, too. What’s your favorite kind of catering job?”

  “Any job where the client has a reasonable view of cost and benefit. It doesn’t matter what the budget is, as long as they’re realistic about what it’ll buy. The worst ones are the clients who tell you they could have made the same thing themselves for less because they got all the ingredients on sale. Couple weeks ago a client insisted no one could really tell the difference between canned and fresh tuna once it was cooked—if the cook knew what she was doing. And canned tuna had been buy-one-get-one-free.”

  “Cretin.” Ani efficiently scrubbed the gravy pot, then retrieved the nearly pristine crocks from the impressive reach of Tonk’s tongue. “So if you’d gone with canned, and of course his guests had found that strange, it was still your fault.”

  “Of course. I would have lacked the skill to put a beautiful sear and glaze on canned tuna. It’s always the caterer’s fault. But I still love it, don’t get me wrong. Most of the time people are lovely, and most of the time, the event is happy and people enjoy the food. I like what I do.” She busied herself whisking cream in a copper bowl until it was firm enough to pour on the simple pecan tarts that were left from the job earlier in the day. It helped her composure not to look at Ani too much. Every time she did look part of her wanted to dance, part of her wanted to sing, part of her wanted to swoon—and it was all new because she really didn’t think she’d felt like this before. How could she know, when this delirium hit her between the eyes, if she should be dancing or running away?

  No part of her wanted to run away and that was scary. And wonderful. Meanwhile, Ani seemed completely at ease, and that was not fair.

  They carried their dessert plates into the living room. Ani said no to more wine, and Eve likewise abstained. Her head was not nearly clear enough as it was. Tonk followed them, but accepted the rug in the foyer as a decent-enough place to have a good sleep. Eve put her stockinged feet up on the coffee table and was glad Ani felt comfortable enough to do so, too. Side-by-side, their plates balanced on their thighs, they talked about last year’s movies and this year’s books, following tangents and sharing opinions. Ani merely shrugged when Eve disagreed about a movie’s quality and Eve was reminded how Todd had insisted she had to agree with him, and would argue with her until she said she did.

  “That’s the thing about being on the ice. You’re surrounded by water, but everything is dry.” Ani licked her lips after her last bite of tart, and Eve was charmed that she’d missed a dollop.

  “Living in Alaska we ought to own stock in moisturizer.” She grinned as Ani tried to surreptitiously snag the cream with her tongue. “Would you like me to get that for you?”

  Ani tried to squint down her face. “A napkin would be nice.”

  “A napkin isn’t what I had in mind.” Eve could hardly believe her voice sounded so steady.

  “What did you…oh.”

  Eve leaned close enough to carefully lick the cream up herself. No slobber, no heavy breathing—at least she hoped. Their eyes locked and Ani made a noise, almost a low growl, then cupped Eve’s face and pulled her toward her for a kiss, a beautiful, long, searching, sexy kiss that was dancing and sitting in the sun and sharing good food and a promise of more.

  “I’ve been waiting all night for that,” Eve whispered. It was the truth, she guessed, but she had hardly meant to say it.

  “Me, too.”

  “I’m shaking,” Eve said needlessly.

  “Me, too.”

  “No you’re not.” She ran her hand down Ani’s arm.

  “On the inside.” Ani captured Eve’s hand, placing it firmly in the middle of her chest. “I was afraid I’d break your dishes.”

  Under her palm Eve could feel the rhythm of Ani’s heart, slow and strong. She swallowed hard as she inched her hand upward until she could cup the back of Ani’s neck. She didn’t mean to pull Ani close that eagerly, that quickly, and she’d forgotten about the plates. She needed to kiss Ani again, right now.

  “The dishes…oh…”

  “Forget about them.” Eve reached between them to push a fork to the floor.

  “Tonk will clean it up…oh…yes.”

  The delirious series of kisses were punctuated by Eve’s unanswered questions. How do you know what she likes, what she wants? Eve couldn’t focus on her own uncertainties and the fear that she felt far too much to be safe. She wanted to watch Ani’s face, get lost in her eyes, while her fingertips touched heaven.

  There was whipped cream on their shirts, which Eve discovered as she kissed her way down Ani’s front. Laughing, she said, “You’ve got to take this off.”

  “I will if you will.” Ani’s eyes were dark with desire, but there was still the golden light of humor dancing in their depths.

  In moments their shirts were on the floor with the remnants of dessert. Eve lost her breath—Ani was all muscle, rippling across her ribs to give way to the swells of her breasts. She tried not to look like a starving woman as she straddled Ani’s hips. Was it the contrast between them that was so arousing? Ani’s sleek, hard lines, her angles and edges sharp where Eve was all curves? She ran her fingertips over the smoothness of Ani’s stomach, tracing a faint scar, then following a path of unexpected freckles.

  She wanted to purr as Ani’s hands caressed her arms, then drifted upward to pull her bra straps from her shoulders. Her shivering response raised Ani’s gaze to meet hers.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes. I really want this to happen.”

  “When’s the next time you have to be somewhere?”

  Her calendar was blurry in Eve’s mind. “I have a helper coming here around two tomorrow.”

  “Trust me, then,” Ani said with a reassuring smile. “This is going to happen. Very slowly.”

  Eve gasped.

  Ani’s aura of confidence faded. “That sounded stupid, didn’t it?”

  “No. God, no.” She suddenly didn’t feel so unreal. “I can go slow.”

  One fingertip brushed against the front of her bra. She shivered again and Ani smiled. “Sure?”

  “As sure as you are.” Eve pushed her hand between Ani’s denim-covered thighs. Ani’s half-choked moan was gratifying. She laughed and Ani’s face split into a wide grin.

  “Minx.” Ani pulled her down for more kisses.

  Wiggles and caresses eventually left them out of breath and skin to skin, giggling a little.

  “I think,” Ani said, twisting out from under Eve, “you need to be on your back.”

  “Why?” Eve let her body turn to dead weight as she stretched across Ani. “I like this position.”

  “Because I want to make love to you and I can’t quite reach.”

  Eve smooched Ani’s wonderfully defined shoulder before giving her a laughing glance. “Why should I make it easy for you?”

  Just like that, Ani’s smile faded. Her voice broke ever so slightly as she said, “Please.”

  Eve’s stomach did one last flip-flop. She abruptly felt heavy and swollen, intoxicated with desire.

  With a mutual sliding of bodies, they faced each other on the narrow confines of the couch. With a nervous swallow, Eve said, “We could move to the bedroom.”

&n
bsp; “Not yet,” Ani whispered. “I so want this.”

  Eve felt Ani’s touch then, and realized, too late, that it wasn’t her body that was Ani’s for the taking. How do you know it’s safe to open your heart to her hands? Ani held her tight with one arm, whispered her name, her breath growing shorter and shorter with Eve’s, face flushed with concentration and eyes wide with desire—and disbelief. Eve felt it, too, part of her didn’t really think this was happening, that it could be so easy. Nothing was ever perfect.

  But it was. They were.

  They had been perfectly attuned that night, and so many nights after. A year of perfection, and maybe it had felt that way because they’d been so uncomplicated. They worked hard, pursued their passions and every possible moment they could spend together they did. The answer was always yes.

  With a shudder, Eve turned off the van engine, looking at her house. Same couch, same kitchen, same dog, same everything. No Ani.

  So much for perfect.

  Chapter 5

  “Perfect?” Lisa made a face over her pizza. Quickly bored with their layover in the Atlanta airport, she’d made a beeline for junk food. “Eww. Nothing and no one is perfect.”

  “She wasn’t perfect, and neither was I, but we were perfect together.”

  “Eww,” Lisa said again, more emphatically. “No wonder nobody ever got anywhere with you—living up to the Madonna and Julia Child put together in a supermodel body.”

  “Not a supermodel, far from it.” Lisa might be insightful, but Ani was getting tired of the spotlight on her shortcomings. She went for a distraction. “You’re a supermodel body.”

  “Oh.” Lisa subsided temporarily. “Sometimes you’re actually nice.”

  “Sometimes you are, too.”

  “You said she was gorgeous.”

  “She is, was, I mean. I mean, probably still is.” Images of Eve flickered through Ani’s mind. Lovely had always been the best word for Eve. She was laughter and light and wind chimes and chocolate. “First time I met her I thought, wow, all woman. Before her I’d kinda leaned toward the jock types.”

  “So I was right—she spoiled you for the likes of me.” Lisa’s hair flip was impressive.

  “Lisa, I have to tell you…” Ani gave her a sideways grin. “You might be incredibly fit but the last thing I think when I look at you is jock.”

  “Stop being nice. It makes it hard to needle you.” Nevertheless, Lisa was smiling. “Are you ever going to tell me why you bailed?”

  “I’m sorry.” Ani sipped her coffee, which was free of mocha, sprinkles or whipped anything. “I don’t think you’ll get it. Why my whole life fell apart in a day. It was better for everyone if I left. So I did. You’re going to think I was a big chicken.” Fine, she was starting to think so herself, except telling Lisa about it brought back the needles of pain that had shredded her courage—and her heart—three years ago. How strong was she supposed to have been? When she realized she didn’t even have Eve’s support, how was she supposed to survive that, too?

  “I already do. So telling me what happened can’t make my opinion any worse.”

  To her surprise, Ani laughed. What had she done to deserve Lisa suddenly in her life? She was torn between thinking of Lisa as a punishment for past crimes and a sign of heavenly favor. Two minutes ago the past crimes theory was on top. Right now, heaven was winning.

  “Where it started, there was this other researcher—Kenbrink. He and Professor Tyndell did a joint progress, with this huge grant at stake. They were working together to get a mini-grant for a joint project, but each had their own goals, too. Monica did an annual temperature and methane gas study of her own. Kenbrink was finishing a multiyear study on melt and composition. And both groups were doing extra measurements for the huge Institute of Science grant. Whoever won it was going to mount a massive trapped methane gas measurement from very deep core samples.”

  “Wait—why is methane important? Methane is, well, you know…” Lisa was apparently too delicate to name names.

  “Methane is one of the reasons shit stinks, yes. Methane gas is what you get when something rots. Well, millions of years ago, there was a warming cycle and there were plants in the arctic. Then they died when the world went cold again. Those plants rotted under ice. Now that the ice is melting, the gas from plants millions of years ago is adding to what man is doing today with carbon dioxide and methane from large animal farms, like beef, not to mention that rising temperatures rot more things quicker, so more methane from our forests. Throw in one of the nasty fluoride gases—a variant used in manufacturing things like computers and flat-screen TVs. None of the estimates of what’s happening to the climate includes anything but carbon dioxide, and that’s not the only thing that’s cooking us.”

  Lisa was frowning. “Are we going to go up in a big ball of crusted waste?”

  “If we don’t change, yes. I’m no sociologist—I don’t know what makes people change. But we can’t do anything about what nature is doing to the planet. We can only change what we do.”

  “Okay, I’m only half scared now. Very comforting.”

  Ani decided to ignore the sarcasm. “Professor Tyndell, over the last three years, had created an international team of people trying to get methane and nitrogen triflouride included in the estimates. If you do that, things are looking pretty bleak. Kenbrink didn’t agree with including methane gas, so if he wins the grant to take the samples it’s possible the results are shaded a different way than if she does. Now, with two years’ worth of data, nearly, most folks in the field are agreeing Tyndell was right to start measuring.”

  Lisa shook her head. “So, you got to go on this glacier junket, I take it?”

  “Twelve people, three weeks, two sleds and eight dogs, sleeping two to a tent on the ground. Not exactly a junket.”

  “Sounds like you loved it as much as I would love three weeks in St. Croix. To each her own.”

  Ani gave her a scathing look. “Yes, I got to go, which was quite a coup. I was really honored. We were delayed almost a month leaving because of late cold weather, and went in June when it warmed up really fast. That made for a lot of instability in the ice. First camp was four days out, and we were there six days. The second camp, where supplies had been dropped by helicopter, was another four days of hiking. Ice fields are like any other kind of geological structure—valleys, and canyons, peaks and gullies, plus you never know when a crevasse is only inches under the ice and you’ll fall in, like thin ice on a lake, except your falling momentum could wedge you permanently in place. With that much gear and supplies, you go slow, about four miles a day, depending.”

  “Why do you do that? It sounds brutal.”

  “Why do you surf?”

  “Because I have to. Okay, so you think you have to do this ice thing. So you’re at the second camp when something happens?”

  “Ice fog.” She flipped her empty cup into the nearby trash can. “Fog is when air and ground temperatures get close together. All it takes is vapor in the air and it condenses. Ice fog is where the air temp is already below freezing, then gets close to the temperature of the ground. That summer the big problem was the swinging temperatures. It would get into the fifties and the ice surface would slick up and there’d be some evaporation into the air. Then it would freeze hard in early evening—down toward zero. Glacier surface temps don’t usually swing that much, but it means that the vapor was plentiful, the air temp plummeted and the fog is sudden, thick and burning cold.” Ani shivered, but the feel of ice fog, the weirdness of it, wasn’t unpleasant with the right gear and a GPS locator. Her real admiration went to the natives who survived those conditions—likely by being smart enough not to go out in them—with bear skins and stone knives, while she got to be exhilarated by the challenge of the elements wearing the latest in lightweight breathable sub-zero outergear.

  “Anyway, we were all out in pairs boring holes for temperature and ice samples. I was good at predicting fog, and I suddenly thought we were
ripe for it, and radioed that everyone should haul ass for base. We all made it back before it set in, except for the profs. They didn’t answer either radio and we were all radioing back and forth about what to do when Professor Tyndell stumbled into camp. She was banged up pretty bad and she told us Kenbrink was probably dead. A canyon wall sheeted and they got caught by the sliding ice. Kenbrink had been unconscious by the time she’d gotten herself out from under the ice. She lost her radio—her entire kit—and was digging with her gloves. She couldn’t get him out on her own.”

  “So she had to go for help and probably saved herself by doing so. What a horrible decision to have to make.”

  A cold chill crept down Ani’s back. “She said from what she could see he was bleeding out and that he wasn’t conscious made it easier to face the facts. But yeah—not a situation I would want to be in.”

  They made their way to the queue for the flight. The distraction was welcome. Ani hadn’t realized it would be so difficult to make sense of the chain of events. She was clear on what had happened to her and when, but there were all the side issues, unfortunate coincidences and mistaken assumptions. She had been as numb as everyone else from the moment they’d found Kenbrink, after the fog had dissipated.

  It had been a bright, sunny day. Warm enough that whenever they were out of the wind most of them unsnapped their hoods. The dogs were in fine form, pulling an empty sled, ears up and tails wagging. Ani thought the researchers made a colorful procession, no two snowsuits alike. Monica led the way in brilliant turquoise. Ani was pretty sure she wasn’t the only one who rounded every corner hoping to see Kenbrink in his maroon and navy colors, waving to them.

  Finally, they were in a narrow canyon. Ani’s first realization that they had arrived was the sudden whines from the dogs. The sled skittered to a halt. Kenbrink was there, in his maroon and navy blue, but the dominant color of the scene was red. Red, dull like old bricks, spread out over the ice floor. Kenbrink hadn’t even tried to dig out. A knife of ice had crushed one leg and sliced open an artery.

  “I was trapped over here,” Monica said. She gestured at a tumble of broken ice. “I heard the crack and jumped backward. My kit is under at least six feet of that stuff. Fortunately, I was free from the waist up and my pick was on my belt. Once I could reach it I knew I was going to be okay. The fog was so bad I could barely see…” She swallowed hard.