Melt

by Robbi McCoy

  She tossed the ball to Malik, who caught it, looking troubled. All of them stood motionless as Jordan walked to her tent.

  She sat at her desk, hearing nothing outside. They had apparently quit playing. Now Sonja was telling them her tale, embellishing it, no doubt, with imagined details.

  It wasn’t true that Jordan didn’t care. She did care. Of course she cared. But she couldn’t let herself be blackmailed. Where would it end? What would Sonja want from her next year? And the year after? Besides, Sonja was not someone she could trust.

  She knew she wouldn’t lose her job over an ancient love affair. Instead, the repercussions would be the whispers, the stares, the way people reevaluated their opinion of her. Nearly twenty years ago, that type of reaction had driven her away. But she wouldn’t let it happen again. She would stay at Boulder. She had to stay to continue her work, and her work was all that mattered. She had thicker skin now than she’d had then. And more to lose by walking away. Let them say what they wanted. Let them laugh at her.

  She shuddered involuntarily at the idea of people laughing at her.

  She had been sitting for several minutes, immobile, when a shadow at the flap of her tent drew her attention.

  “Jordan?” It was Malik.

  “Come in,” she said.

  He pushed the flap aside and stepped in, a sober expression on his face.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  He took a few steps closer. “Can we talk about Sonja?”

  She sighed. “I don’t feel like…”

  “Please.”

  She relented, gesturing toward the chair beside her.

  “Thank you,” he said, sitting. “I know she has caused you headaches. But she is good at this work and is a valuable asset to our team.”

  “I never said she wasn’t. It’s not her work that causes me…headaches.”

  “No. She is young and high-spirited. Not always wise. You must have many students who do stupid things.”

  “Oh, sure. But I’ve never had one blackmail me before.”

  He smiled. “She is not very good at that either, is she?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She told us about your love affair, when you were in school. The wife of your professor.”

  “Of course she did,” Jordan said with disgust, noting the lingering smile on Malik’s face. Even he was laughing at her.

  “We all shrugged and said, so what?”

  “You did?”

  “Of course. What does it matter? We have all had unwise love affairs. Nobody cares about that.”

  Jordan stared, wondering if this could be true.

  “If she apologizes,” Malik suggested, “would you let her stay?”

  “I would have let her stay before. I overreacted this afternoon. I knew that. But after she tried to blackmail me…”

  “She has great admiration for you, Jordan. It hurt her very much that you were angry with her. It made her do something crazy. She seems like she is full of confidence. She is puffed up like a rooster. But she is really not like that underneath. She is scared and unsure of herself. She tries to hide it by being boastful.”

  Jordan considered his assessment of Sonja. Perhaps he was right. If so, Sonja seemed more worthy of sympathy. Jordan could even recognize something of herself in that show of bravado.

  “If she stays,” she said, “she doesn’t get a guaranteed A. She’ll get whatever grade she earns.”

  “Of course.” He smiled. “Thank you! I will tell her.” He stood. “She will be so happy. And you will see, she will cause you no more headaches. I will make sure.” He turned to leave.

  “Malik,” she ventured. “Really? Nobody cares about my unwise love affair, as you put it?”

  He shook his head, then opened his eyes wide with a thought. “Brian did have something to say about it.”

  “Oh?”

  “He said, ‘Go, Jordan!’ Then he did the happy dance.”

  She laughed impulsively as Malik shimmied in imitation of Brian, the Greenland flag on his head wagging.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Pippa steered the boat into the fjord and pushed up toward Camp Tootega at a moderate pace. Along the way she had considered that this trip would have been more fun with Kelly along, if she were speaking to Kelly.

  It hadn’t been easy avoiding Kelly all week. The town was just not that big. But by Wednesday, the calls had quit coming. Kelly must have finally realized Pippa was not going to call her back. Though she had gotten over being mad after just a couple days, she had other reasons for avoiding Kelly. There were things she needed to think about, seriously think about. It wasn’t just about Kelly, although certainly she was the catalyst for all the questions Pippa was asking herself about who she was and what she wanted out of life.

  She didn’t think Kelly could help her answer these questions. Just the opposite. She was afraid she would be too influenced by her.

  If she were being honest with herself, she had to admit her obsession with Kelly didn’t seem healthy. Or mature. And then there was that interlude with Sonja. Immaturity of epic proportions! Pippa was still shaking her head over that. She felt like she’d made a narrow escape. She barely knew Sonja. She didn’t love her. She loved Kelly. At least she had been sure of that a few days ago, but now she wasn’t so sure. Maybe she just wanted so desperately to be in love that she had fixated on the first lesbian who had been kind to her.

  Either way, the conclusion seemed to be that Kelly had been right all along. Pippa wasn’t mature enough for a real relationship. It was all very embarrassing and she wasn’t ready to face Kelly yet. She needed some time to clear her head. The prospect of seeing Sonja again was also making her nervous. She hoped she would be off somewhere working today and they could avoid each other.

  Rounding the last bend, she saw the camp up ahead, a cluster of colorful tents tucked into a corner at the head of the fjord. She could see people milling about and two boats at the dock. Dr. Lund must already be here, she surmised.

  As she turned toward camp, a series of huge thunderclaps rang out all around her, booming through the fjord like a gigantic drum. Her heart leapt to her throat. At the head of the fjord, a gigantic chunk of the glacier dislodged and crashed into the water, sending up a dramatic wall of water as it plunged in. Pippa was used to calving glaciers, but she wasn’t usually this close to them, nor was she used to such an explosive noise, amplified by the narrow gorge. She slowed her approach, waiting for the iceberg to settle.

  It bobbed and rolled as it resurfaced, sending moderate waves her way. She turned her bow into them at the precise moment another ear-splitting thunderous crack rang out. Several pieces of ice fell off simultaneously, huge sections of the face of the glacier, crashing into one another as they hit the water. Pippa was riveted by the scene in front of her. She had never seen anything like it. Diverting her attention to land, a boulder on the north cliff came tumbling down the rock wall toward Camp Tootega, bringing a small avalanche of smaller rocks with it. Someone screamed and the boulder crashed into an aluminum table, taking it and all its contents down in a clattering blur.

  The boat bounced wildly as the waves hit. She quickly fastened her life vest tightly across her chest. She held on, her stomach lurching. Ice-cold water splashed over the sides, soaking her legs. The boats at the dock leapt about, banging against the pilings.

  The icebergs eventually came to a rest and the water gradually returned to its usual calm. Finally, there was silence except for the voices of the nearby camp dwellers that came to her on the air currents.

  * * *

  Returning to the boarding house, Kelly ran into Chuck in the entryway wearing his good black shoes and his Panama hat. He was buttoning his coat and clearly preparing to go out.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “To visit a friend in Aasiaat,” he replied.

  Kelly noticed how cleanly shaven his chin was, how uncharacteristically neat he looked, and then she sme
lled his aftershave.

  “A friend?”

  He grinned. “Yeah. I’m taking the ferry.”

  “We’ve got that interview tomorrow,” Kelly said, knowing the ferry would take a week to return up the coast. “How will you get back?”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll be back this evening. She’ll fly me.”

  “Will she indeed?”

  “She’s a bush pilot.” He smiled broadly under his carefully trimmed mustache. “She’s got a job here tonight.”

  Kelly shrugged off her coat. “Well, then, happy flying.”

  “What’ll you do while I’m gone?”

  “Not sure. I thought I might hang out with Pippa, but she’s gone somewhere for the day. I just came from her house. Her brother said she won’t be back until afternoon. So I guess I’m stuck here. Maybe I’ll organize photos. Or maybe I’ll spend some time fantasizing about a lady bush pilot.”

  “You could do worse.” He slapped her heartily on the back and went out.

  Kelly went to her room, disappointed with herself for not getting out earlier to catch Pippa. She was sure that if she could speak to her face-to-face she could smooth things over between them. Her brother had reported that she’d taken the day off work, but he didn’t know where she was. Maybe she’d found herself a new friend.

  As Kelly arrived in her bedroom, she felt an odd sensation as if she were having an attack of vertigo or loss of balance. She stood perfectly still, feeling even more unsteady. Then the floor seemed to roll beneath her feet and objects jumped off the shelves. The light fixture swung acutely and she realized it was an earthquake. From the front of the house, she heard Mrs. Arensen scream, then heard the sound of running footsteps.

  She dashed into the doorway, clinging to both sides of its sturdy frame as the rolling sensation subsided and then ceased. Altogether, it had lasted only seconds. There was quiet throughout the house. Only the light hanging from the ceiling still moved, its swinging arc less pronounced with each pass.

  Just when she thought it was over, the sound of an explosion rolled over the house and Kelly was sure she felt the door frame vibrate. Was the house blowing up?

  She stood frozen in the doorway, waiting and listening, her nerves on edge. When she began to hear the sounds of others stirring, she emerged from her room to find Mrs. Arensen and Jens in the dining room. Several pieces of china had fallen from the cabinet and lay broken on the floor. Mrs. Arensen stood in the midst of the debris looking lost, her hand over her mouth.

  “Is everyone okay?” Kelly asked.

  Jens nodded. “We’re fine. You?”

  “Yeah, I’m okay.”

  “Annalise and Trevor already left for work. Where’s Chuck?”

  “He’s gone out.”

  Jens bent down to pick up a teacup that had escaped damage. He placed it on the table.

  Mrs. Arensen stood mutely in place, staring at the pieces of porcelain on the floor. Then quite suddenly she put her face in both hands and began to sob, alarming Kelly, who had thought her incapable of such behavior. Jens enclosed her in his arms, patting her back. “Ah, mormor,” he said in a soothing voice.

  Kelly’s phone rang and she stepped into the hall to answer.

  “Whoo hoo!” Chuck hollered. “I nearly got drowned by a fucking tidal wave here on the dock! You should have seen it. It lifted up one of the icebergs in the harbor and dropped it right on top of some poor sap’s boat. Demolished it, just like that. What’s going on there?”

  “We’re okay. Just some broken china. Have you ever been in an earthquake here before?”

  “No. Most of Greenland is unfaulted. Earthquakes happen only on the coast and not often. Fortunately, the ferry hasn’t arrived yet. It’s still out in the bay in open water and appears to be intact. A couple of monster bergs crashed into each other out there and ice went flying everywhere.” He sounded excited. “Too bad you weren’t out here to film it. Damn! Really something to see. The size of these ice cubes is hard to comprehend, but it looked like two battleships ramming each other head-on.”

  “That must have been what I heard,” Kelly muttered, recalling the explosion. “I wish I’d seen that.”

  “The ferry’s just about here, so I’m gonna go. I just wanted to make sure you were okay back there. Be careful. There could be aftershocks.”

  After saying goodbye, Kelly considered taking her camera outside and waiting for an aftershock that might give her a taste of the remarkable scenes Chuck had just witnessed. She could be standing around for hours, she knew, waiting for such a thing, and it might never come.

  Frustrated, she returned to her room and turned on the radio to see if there was any news about the quake.

  * * *

  Jordan stood amid scattered debris where the kitchen had been. Still pulsing from the adrenaline rush, she mentally tallied up her students, seeing all of them nearby, all looking unharmed. Dr. Lund stood off to the side, his hands in his pants pockets, his hat cocked sideways on his hairless head. Malik ran toward the dock with Atka at his heels to greet Pippa as she edged her boat to shore. It looked like she too had escaped injury.

  “Wow, that was close!” Julie breathed, walking gingerly around the wreckage on the ground. “This is a mess.”

  “Aren’t we lucky, though?” breathed Jordan.

  “Because we’re all still alive?”

  “Of course that, but that’s not what I meant. I meant to have seen that!” She pointed toward the glacier as Brian walked up. “It’s not often you get to witness an example of punctuated equilibrium as it’s happening. Usually we only observe the results. But right before our eyes, the front of this glacier just receded a good thirty meters. At least!”

  In the fjord the hundreds of chunks of ice that had broken off were still bumping into each other, jostling for position. The new front of the glacier was a pristine wall of crystalline white and translucent azure, sheer and dazzling.

  Sonja picked up the overturned table and set it upright. It was severely bent in the center. She pushed down on the deformity until she had a semblance of flatness. She carried the table up the slope, setting it down where she could use it to collect the scattered kitchen items. Ever since Jordan had pardoned her, she had been on her best behavior and seemed for once to be truly cowed. Her apology had even sounded sincere and in the end, it seemed there was no harm done.

  None of the others treated Jordan any differently since learning of her youthful indiscretion. She realized that it had been a much bigger deal to her than it was to anyone else. It was old news and had no reflection on her present. She really had moved beyond it. It couldn’t hurt her anymore and she had Sonja to thank for showing her that. People could overlook the mistakes of the past, especially when a person had learned from them. As long as she didn’t allow any future missteps, she would be fine.

  “I want all of you up on the glacier,” she announced. “Check all the buoys and cameras and see what’s happened up there. Sonja, you can leave that mess. It’s more important that we take measurements as soon as possible so we know exactly what effect the quake had. If there are aftershocks, any of those can trigger shifts in the ice. Be careful and stay away from anything unstable.”

  “Are you coming?” Brian asked.

  “I’ll stay here a while and clean up. Leave Curly and I’ll catch up to you.”

  As the others began preparations for going out, Jordan introduced Salvatore Lund to Pippa. Whether he expected anything to come of this or not, he graciously listened to her description of the cave and its contents and her mysterious hopes for the discovery of human remains. As before, she did not explain why she expected something so extraordinary to be found.

  After they had gone, Jordan picked up the camp stove from the ground and wiped it down, hoping it still worked. A sharp cracking sound drew her attention toward the fjord in time to see a sliver of ice shear away from the face of the glacier and fall into the water like a knife blade, causing almost no splash.

  An
y photographer, she imagined, would love to catch this action on video. She’d been disappointed to see that Pippa had come alone again. Despite the anxiety Kelly caused her, she had hoped to see her one more time. But when it came to Kelly, she cautioned, it was probably better to leave well enough alone. She had a curious power over Jordan that undermined her senses. Her blowup at Sonja was enough evidence of that. Besides, there was no point in seeing Kelly again.

  She lit the stove and turned up the flame, glad to see it still worked.

  No, she decided, I don’t need any more turmoil right now. Leave Kelly out of this picture.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Kelly reviewed her photos on the computer, grouping them by date and subject, deleting some of the inferior ones. Her phone rang and she reached for it, hoping it wasn’t Chuck bragging about something else she’d missed. He should take a camera. She would insist on it from now on.

  “Hi,” she said absentmindedly, scrolling through her thumbnails.

  “Kelly, it’s Jordan.”

  She released the mouse and sat back in her chair, giving her full attention to the call. “Jordan, is anything wrong?”

  “No. Nothing wrong. The earthquake did a little damage to the camp, but everybody’s fine. Pippa had quite a ride in the fjord. She was just coming in when it happened.”

  “Pippa? She’s there?”

  “Not now. She’s gone off with Dr. Lund to look at the cave. You didn’t know?”

  “No. I haven’t seen Pippa at all this week. So you helped her out and got her an archaeologist?”

  “Yes. He’s working out here anyway, so it’s no big deal to come by and take a look. Pippa happened to arrive at the precise moment the quake hit. She made it safely in, but it’s a wonder she didn’t capsize with the ice calving off the glacier in masses. That’s why I called.”

  “Because of Pippa?”

  “No. Because of the glacier. The whole face of it came tumbling down. Cut it back a hundred feet. It’s still calving. You’ve got some photos from the other day so I thought you might like to take some more now. It’s a potentially important documentary of a rare event. Earthquakes in Greenland are fairly uncommon, so this is an excellent opportunity to observe what they can do to the ice.”