Melt

by Robbi McCoy

  With all of this in mind, as they said their final goodbye in the car outside Kelly’s apartment house, Jordan had gathered her in her arms for an embrace. Then she pulled back and looked into her distraught, lovely face and the outpouring of love in her eyes, and was moved to kiss her. Very deliberately on the lips, a romantic, tender kiss that lasted only a few seconds, but pulsed with sensuality and focused two years of Kelly’s desperate longing into a single moment.

  That had been Jordan’s parting gift to Kelly, one kiss.

  What a hypocrite! she accused herself, grabbing the satellite phone from its charger.

  At the time, she had told herself she was giving a gift to Kelly. But she’d been lying to herself. She had just wanted to kiss her, plain and simple. She’d wanted to kiss her for a long time, but she couldn’t allow it until she was leaving. When it couldn’t lead to anything. Then she had simply walked away. After two years of basking in the warm glow of Kelly’s love and giving her nothing but crumbs, she had finally released her. Jordan had given her just enough affection to keep her love alive, but never enough to nourish or satisfy it. She had been utterly selfish.

  During her attempts not to exploit young Kelly, that’s exactly what she had ended up doing. She had led her on and she was ashamed of it. The only excuse she had for herself was that she too had been young. Younger, at any rate, and still learning how to protect herself from her treacherous emotions.

  Back then, she hadn’t been accustomed to being worshipped. It had felt wonderful. It was heady and hard to resist. It was easy to understand why so many of her colleagues succumbed to it, taking these girls or boys as their lovers, even though they looked absurd and incurred the ridicule of their colleagues. Inevitably the young devotee was moving on to the next interesting thing, usually within a month or two. But Jordan had kept her worshipper at her feet simply by denying her what she wanted most.

  She dialed the local emergency number.

  “I hope somebody can get out here fast,” Kelly said, clearly distressed. “I’m so worried Pippa is seriously hurt. Or even…” Again her eyes grew moist with tears. She never had been afraid of her emotions.

  Is she in love with this Pippa? Jordan wondered as the dispatcher’s voice came over the phone: “Alarm 112, hvad kan vi hjælpe med?”

  Chapter Eleven

  Pippa’s situation was now out of Kelly’s hands. All she could do was wait and hope the search team found her in good shape.

  A few steps away, one of Jordan’s students, Brian, the tall, bearded one, stirred a pot of canned stew on the camp stove while Malik, the taciturn Greenlander, stood beside him slicing a loaf of bread into careful, even slices. He was a muscular, clean-shaven man of medium height in a gray wool sweater and dark pants. Kelly found herself staring, fixated, at his head. His fine black hair was cut in a modified mohawk with a ridge of long hair across the crown and much shorter hair on the left side. On the right, it was completely shaved to display a red and white tattoo on his scalp, a depiction of the Greenland flag. The design curved around his ear and extended to his temple. She had never seen anything quite like it. In his left ear, he wore a two-inch long shark tooth earring.

  Besides Sonja and these two young men, there was one other student in camp: Julie, a sporty young woman who wore her long brown hair in a ponytail and whose attitude seemed cool and critical. She brought a stack of bowls to the stove and delivered them one by one to the table as Brian filled them. They worked together in silence, a well-orchestrated team used to their routine.

  Brian scratched his dense beard with his pinkie, then smiled at Kelly who sat at the table in navy sweatpants loaned to her by Sonja. She felt much better after cleaning up, though removing the mud had revealed dozens of small scratches on her lower legs.

  Malik’s dog, Atka, lay curled up nearby, dozing. He was a beautiful blue-eyed husky. Unlike all the other dogs she had seen in Greenland, this one was allowed to wander freely. Atka was a pet, apparently, not a working dog.

  Sonja arrived and lit a kerosene lamp that hung under the canvas ceiling sheltering the dining space. The sun had dipped below the tall cliff of the fjord, casting the camp into shadow and lowering the temperature significantly. Kelly knew it wouldn’t get any darker as the night wore on, but it would get colder. Her mind flew again to Pippa and she had to push back another wave of tears.

  “How are you?” Sonja asked, pausing beside her chair.

  “I’m fine. Thanks. Feeling much better.”

  Everyone was present under the dining tarp except Jordan. Kelly waited in tense anticipation for her appearance.

  Seeing her again after nine years had sent Kelly into a significant shock. She hadn’t been prepared, despite her many mental rehearsals. But they weren’t supposed to meet like this. All of her carefully constructed greetings had gone unexpressed. Instead, she had fallen apart all over Jordan—literally—in exactly the way she’d been determined to avoid.

  She hadn’t expected such a powerful emotional impact at seeing her again. When their eyes first met, a tsunami of emotions had washed over her. She had been so confused and surprised she had been unable to formulate words or thoughts. She couldn’t remember what Jordan had said or what her face had revealed, if anything. By the time Kelly had recovered enough to pay attention, Jordan was perfectly composed and treating her like it was just another day at the office. If she had revealed any emotion, good or bad, Kelly had missed it.

  It was too late now for the kind of first impression she had planned. All she could do was try to recover some decorum for the remainder of her visit.

  Over the years, Kelly had had many fantasies of running into Jordan again, ranging from brief chatty dialogues to life-altering sexual encounters. On occasion, she would imagine a quite different situation in which Jordan would meet her again and be blown away by the woman she had become. She would be sorry they had ever parted and want desperately to be with her. Kelly would coolly rebuff her, saying, “I’m sorry, Jordan. You had your chance and now it’s too late.”

  Despite the occasional revenge fantasy, Kelly had no resentment toward Jordan. Jordan simply hadn’t wanted her. Looking back, that made so much more sense than it had at the time when she had asked, “Why not?” The real question should have been, “Why?” She had been an inept and needy girl, a child in Jordan’s eyes. As Jordan had pointed out, it would have been unethical. “I would never get involved with a student,” Jordan had told her.

  As Kelly had told Pippa, she’d had nothing to offer Jordan back then. Even so, Jordan had been kind and indulgent despite what a bother Kelly must have been. She had shown the greatest possible compassion, especially in the end. That kiss! So sensual. So moving. It had burned on her lips for weeks and then continued to smolder in her mind for years. It had been the first truly romantic kiss of her life and breathtakingly perfect. She’d given up any hope by then of anything but friendship with Jordan and even that had come to an end. It had been completely unexpected, that kiss. How sad and pathetic she must have seemed to compel Jordan to offer that charitable token at the end.

  There was no doubt she’d come a long way since then. She was neither fragile nor pitiable now. She wasn’t that girl anymore.

  But what about Jordan? Had she changed too? Almost a decade later, she looked fantastic, almost the same. Her face was leaner than it had been, the way a woman’s face loses fullness as she ages, and her hairstyle was a shorter, more utilitarian cut than the one she used to have, but still the same dusky brown color. Her eyes, her inscrutable blue-gray eyes, were unchanged, intelligent and penetrating. They were the sort of eyes that seemed to see everything and reveal nothing.

  “Where’s Jordan?” Brian asked, taking his chair at the table.

  “She’s in her tent,” Sonja answered. “I’ll go get her.”

  As Sonja shoved her chair back, Jordan emerged from her tent and walked toward them.

  She wore a green Polartek jacket over a navy turtleneck T-shirt. She walk
ed in a relaxed gait to the table, smiling at the group, her gaze lingering briefly on Kelly before she sat down. There were no rings on her fingers; she wore no earrings or makeup. She was, as always, perfectly natural and effortlessly lovely. Kelly felt tremendously happy to find Jordan so entirely as she remembered her.

  “Any word about Pippa?” Kelly asked.

  Jordan shook her head. “Not yet. They wouldn’t have had time to get there yet. But with the coordinates you gave, the search area can be precisely determined, and I’m sure it won’t take them long to find her. They’re very practiced at this sort of thing.” She glanced around the table at the others as she took her chair. “Nivi didn’t stay for dinner?”

  Malik put bread and butter on the table and took his chair. “I did invite her, but she wanted to get home. She took a loaf of bread. I hope that is okay.” He spoke more haltingly and with a thicker accent than Pippa’s, but his English was excellent, smooth and practiced.

  Kelly couldn’t help staring at the right side of his head and his patriotic tattoo. His eyes were so dark, no pupils were visible.

  “Yes,” Jordan said. “No problem. She deserved a reward for bringing Kelly to us.”

  “Absolutely,” Kelly agreed, tasting the broth in her bowl.

  “I’m sorry we can’t offer you something more interesting for dinner. We didn’t know we were having company.”

  “This is perfect,” Kelly said appreciatively. “It’s funny how good canned stew can taste when you’re camping.”

  Kelly ate while Jordan spoke to her students briefly about the day’s work. She was friendly and engaging with them, but also professional. There could be no doubt she was the person in charge in this group.

  A few minutes into the meal, the sound of a helicopter reached their ears and directed all their eyes to the sky. The helicopter came into view to the east, then passed rapidly by.

  “That’ll be the search party,” Jordan said. “I hope your friend is safe.”

  Seeing the helicopter on its way to Pippa gave Kelly some sense of comfort. She made a conscious effort to avert her thoughts from that situation, realizing there was nothing she could do now but wait.

  “What was that you were working on this afternoon?” Jordan asked Brian. “With the wood and the hammering and all that?”

  “Remember the basketball hoop Malik found for us? We built a stand and backboard for it. We’re going to finish it after dinner and get in a little B-ball this evening. Do you want to play?”

  Jordan laughed ironically. “No, thank you! Not my thing.” She glanced at Kelly with her familiar sly smile. “I have a long-standing policy of avoiding doing anything with balls.”

  Sonja lurched forward, nearly choking, then burst out laughing. Kelly smiled appreciatively. She noticed that Malik too was smiling, and realized this was the first time she’d seen anything other than seriousness on his face.

  “Where do you go to school?” she asked him.

  “University of Copenhagen. Dr. Westgate was kind enough to let me join the team, since I am home for the summer.”

  “Home is Ilulissat?”

  He nodded. “This is where I grew up. This is close enough to hang out with my family on weekends. And have my dog with me.” He motioned toward Atka who lay nearby, awake and watchful, but making no move to interfere with the meal. “This is perfect for me. It fits so well with my specialty.” Anticipating her question, he said, “Paleoclimatology.”

  Kelly shot a questioning glance toward Jordan, who chuckled.

  “It’s the study of prehistoric weather patterns. You’ve forgotten.”

  “Sorry,” Kelly said, “I don’t remember much from my science classes. Prehistoric weather patterns? That sounds very technical. How can you look at that? Rocks? One thing I do remember is that Greenland has the oldest rocks on the planet.”

  “Yes, that’s true. I’m glad you remember something.” Jordan buttered a slice of bread, her lips turning up slightly in an amused smile. Kelly had always loved that particular understated look of pleasure. “In this case,” Jordan explained, “it’s ice, which, technically, is a rock. The ice too is very old here. Like the rest of us, Malik is here to delve into the memory of the ice.”

  “The memory of the ice?” Kelly stopped eating. “I’ve never heard that phrase.”

  “It’s a poetic way of referring to Greenland’s ancient deep freeze. Ice cores have been taken down to a depth of two miles. Each year’s snowfall is compressed into a thin layer, so you can read the cores like tree rings. Two miles down equates to over a hundred thousand years, so Greenland’s ice sheet is sometimes referred to as the two-mile time machine.”

  “Wow! But how does ice tell you anything about the past? It’s just frozen water.”

  “Not entirely.” Jordan gestured with her spoon as she spoke, her face so familiar and so evocative of past feelings that Kelly found it hard to listen to her words. “With each layer of snow, particles are captured. Like dust, volcanic ash and pollen. Atmospheric gases, too, are trapped in bubbles in the ice. By analyzing each layer, we can reconstruct what the climate was like year by year. How much snow there was, how cold it was, whether there were volcanoes erupting or forest fires burning, what sort of plants were alive. The further down you go, the further back in time.” Jordan fixed her gaze on Kelly. “The ice remembers everything.”

  So photos aren’t the only things that capture a moment in time, Kelly thought. “I had no idea you could get that much information out of ice.”

  “It’s amazing,” Sonja insisted. “The knowledge and technical skill that goes into this sort of research. There’s just so much data, it blows your mind.”

  “It sounds fascinating,” Kelly remarked. “Sonja, I know you’re at Boulder. So how did you get associated with this UCLA group?”

  Sonja looked perplexed.

  Jordan shook her head. “No, no,” she intervened. “I’m not at UCLA anymore.”

  “You’re not?”

  “No. I was there a few years, but once I got seriously into Greenland research, I transferred back to the Denver area. I’m teaching at Boulder again.”

  Kelly was floored. “Seriously?”

  Jordan nodded matter-of-factly, lifting her plastic water glass to take a drink. “I’ve been there for the last six years.”

  “The National Ice Core Laboratory is in Denver,” Sonja added.

  “Right,” said Jordan. “That’s where you need to be if you want to study the cores they’re pulling out of here.”

  “Greenland ice cores are in Denver?” asked Kelly, still barely comprehending the fact that Jordan had been back for six years.

  “Yes. They’re kept there permanently for scientific research. I’m not personally involved in the core drilling operation. Our research here is more about measuring the advance and retreat of glaciers. But the rest of the year, back home, we get to peer into the ice samples and tease out primeval mysteries.” Jordan grinned mischievously, as if there was something deliciously wicked about studying old ice. “You clearly didn’t stay in science,” she said good-naturedly. “What do you do?”

  Kelly roused herself from her thoughts to say, “I’m a photographer. I’m here with a journalist. He specializes in Greenland.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Charles Lance.”

  Jordan nodded. “I know Chuck. He’s been here several times before. In fact, I have a message from him asking to come out to talk. So apparently you’ll be back here soon on a professional visit.”

  Kelly couldn’t tell if that was good or bad news for Jordan.

  “The Arctic must seem like heaven to a photographer,” Jordan observed.

  “Yes. It’s the light, the round the clock light. Normally, twilight is so fleeting. It’s that magic time of the evening photographers covet. But here, it’s sunset all night long. Perpetual twilight. It’s incredible, really. I’ve been feeling a kind of giddiness ever since I arrived.”

  “I can imag
ine,” Jordan replied. “Like the feeling I had the first time I came here. Twilight to a photographer must be like ice to a glaciologist. And Greenland has them both in massive quantities.”

  “Speaking of ice,” Brian said, “we lost track of one of our buoys yesterday and I’d like to try to find it tomorrow.”

  The conversation slipped into work topics again as they finished their meal, leaving Kelly as observer. What she mainly observed was Jordan, who seemed relaxed and sure of herself. To Kelly, she was friendly, but not personal. Not that Kelly expected her to be in front of her students. She hoped to spend some time alone with her later where they could be more open with one another.

  She soon discovered Jordan had no such hopes when she pushed her chair back and said, “Sonja, can Kelly bunk with you tonight?”

  “Sure. I’ll take care of her.” Sonja’s mouth turned up in a subtle, ironic smile as she struggled to suppress her glee. She gave her head a toss, flinging her straight bangs away from her eyes.

  “Great,” said Jordan. “I’ve got some work to do, so I’ll say good night. If I hear any news, Kelly, I’ll let you know right away.”

  With that, Jordan left the table and walked rapidly toward her tent, leaving Kelly with the impression that she couldn’t wait to be rid of her.

  Chapter Twelve

  The storm that had come up overnight continued into the day, confining Asa and Gudny to their burrow. They stayed dry and comfortable inside, wrapped together in their furs and skins. But even without the storm they would not have been able to travel today. During the night the child Asa had been carrying, amid much pain and bleeding, had been stillborn. The ordeal left her weak and anguished, and she curled up next to Gudny in her cocoon and slept through most of the next day, comforting herself with the belief that the child, a boy, had been spared a life of hardship.