Chapter 23 #2
“But you could do a lot worse than a cute firefighter with a nice butt,” she finishes.
I blush, even though I’m still laughing.
“Thanks,” I say. “Turkeys?”
“Right,” she says. “This guy is really freaking out that all his turkeys are gonna thaw, and he wants to know if there will be freezing facilities if he gets evacuated...”
We sort out the guy with the turkey problem. I update the road closures. I keep all the other ranger stations abreast of what’s happening, and then finally, ninety minutes later, I get to leave work and head home.
I take the world’s fastest shower, because I haven’t bathed in three days, and then I frown at myself in the mirror. I feel like some kind of bedraggled rodent, because I’ve got circles under my eyes, my hair is wet, and I just look stressed.
I’m worried about Hunter fighting a dangerous fire, but of course I’m worried about that. I should be worried about that. If I weren’t a little worried I’d be some kind of monster.
But beneath that, I can feel a familiar cold, raw sensation gnawing at me, and I hate it. It’s the tiny voice that whispers he likes doing things that take him away from you, the voice that whispers he’s only here until he figures out you’re not very exciting.
I try not to listen to it, but it won’t fucking shut up.
Still, it used to be much, much louder. It used to shout at me when he was in the Marines, and thank God, it’s not nearly that loud now. I wish it would shut up entirely, but no matter how wrong I know it is, it won’t.
I take a deep breath, then point at myself in the mirror.
“Quit it,” I say to my reflection. Then I swipe on some mascara so I don’t look so tired, get dressed, and head next door.
After three days in the woods eating granola bars, oatmeal, and freeze-dried spaghetti, I eat two servings of lasagna, chicken cacciatore, meatballs, and then have cannoli for dessert.
It’s delicious, and all the guys are in high spirits, laughing and shouting and eating an incredible amount of pasta.
After dinner, a bunch of us sit around the couches in the living room and bullshit for a while. Hunter puts his arm around me, and no one blinks an eye, so I lean against him a little and listen to the guys talk about which dive bars in the western states have the strongest, cheapest drinks.
“What was that place in Deadwood called?” one guy is saying. He’s slouched on a love seat, his feet on the coffee table. “Something saloon, probably.”
“The Scarlet Lady Saloon?” someone else suggests.
“Nah, that’s in Idaho. Outside Moscow, maybe?”
“Maybe it was just the Deadwood Saloon,” the first guy says. “I just remember I got tanked there off of Jack and Coke. That cute redhead bartender practically had to pull me back to that shitty motel that put us up.”
Silas, the guy I played baggo with last Saturday, laughs.
“She wasn’t that cute,” he says.
“She wasn’t that redheaded,” Hunter says.
The guy who was talking about the saloon just grins and shrugs.
“She did drag my sorry ass home,” he says. “That’s what counts, right?”
“Yeah, that’s true love,” Silas says, leaning back in an easy chair.
“For my money it’s the Wildcat’s Lair,” says Daniel, the only other guy whose name I can remember. They keep introducing themselves, and I keep forgetting. “In beautiful Elko, Nevada.”
At least three of the guys, Hunter included, just groan.
“I’ve been there,” I pipe up.
The conversation stops awkwardly for a moment, like they’re not quite sure what to do with a new member, and I immediately feel like there’s a spotlight pointing directly on my face.
“What were you doing in Elko?” Daniel finally asks. “And what were you being punished for?”
I laugh, even though I can feel my face turning bright pink, because they were having a nice conversation about getting drunk and I interrupted.
“I had a conference for work,” I say.
“You’re the forest ranger, right?” a guy whose name I don’t know asks.
“I’m one of them,” I say.
“And there was a conference in Elko?”
I pull one foot onto the couch in front of me, still very aware that everyone’s looking at me. I kind of wish I hadn’t said anything.
“It was on, um, the microbiomes particular to the high desert region,” I say.
“That’s the crust, right?” Daniel asks.
“Yeah,” I say, a little surprised that he knows about this. “Cryptobiotic crust. There’s a lot of it near Elko, so we’d look at crusts during the day and drink at the Wildcat’s Lair at night.”
“You don’t have to look that surprised that I know about desert crust,” Daniel says, lifting his eyebrows.
I turn a deeper shade of pink.
“I wasn’t surprised,” I say.
“Mhm,” he says.
“I mean, I’m surprised whenever anyone knows about it because most people don’t really know a lot about desert bacteria? I only know because of my job. Otherwise I’d be clueless as a babe in the woods. Or a babe in the desert, I guess.”
I can’t believe I opened my mouth just to call Daniel dumb, I think. Shit.
Shit shit shit.
“Daniel, quit being an asshole, she’s new,” Hunter says.
Daniel just laughs.
“He’s not being an asshole, it’s just his shitty personality,” Silas says, also grinning.
“Yeah, I can’t help it,” Daniel says, then looks back at me. “Sorry, I have a shitty personality.”
“At least you know what desert crust is,” I say. I’m still blushing, but I’m relieved that at least I wasn’t being the asshole.
“And thank God for that,” Silas says.
Hunter strokes my shoulder with his thumb, and I feel some of my anxiety dissipate. He’s acting so normal about this, like of course he’s got a girlfriend over at the house, and none of the other guys seem to even notice.
I, on the other hand, had a weird conversation in a supply closet at work, and then completely clammed up when my very nice boss tried to ask about Hunter. I’m doing spectacularly on the “not making it weird” front.
“Did the Wildcat’s Lair get out the moonshine for the rangers?” Silas asks me.
“Not that I know of,” I say.
“Maybe it’s the desert crust that made that stuff so lethal,” Hunter offers.
“Everybody listen up,” says a voice from the door. We all turn, but no one stands.
Hunter’s boss is standing there, a dark-haired guy in his forties who’s just starting to go gray. The living room goes silent, and I hold my breath, because I have a feeling the announcement isn’t “There are cupcakes in the kitchen.”
“I just got the call that a cold front is moving through,” he says. “And there’s likely to be a pretty big shift in weather patterns over the next few days, so we’re heading up north to Eaglevale an hour before dawn tomorrow. Briefing in twenty.”
Then he walks off, and the pit of my stomach goes cold.
The guys in the room all exhale at the same time, like they’ve got one set of lungs. Hunter rubs one hand over his head and starts laughing, and then so do the rest.
“God, I thought we were gonna be stuck here forever,” Silas says.
“No kidding,” says Hunter. “Send us or don’t, just fucking decide. I can’t stand the sitting around.”
“I know it,” Daniel says, standing. “See you guys in twenty.”
“I should get going,” I say, uncurling my legs, standing, and sliding my shoes back on. Hunter gets off the couch too, but I can’t bring myself to look him in the eye right now.
“It was nice meeting you guys, maybe I’ll see you around again?” I say.
They both stand, and weirdly, we all shake hands.
“Have a good one, Clementine,” Silas says, and then I walk for the door, Hunter following me.
“Walk me home?” I ask him, trying to smile, but it feels mechanical.
“Of course,” he says, but he looks puzzled.
We head through the foyer. I wave goodbye to some of the other guys, and then I’m outside in the cool night air.
“Clem,” Hunter says, the moment the door is shut.
I walk down the porch stairs and onto the sidewalk before I answer.
He’s happy about it, I think, over and over. He didn’t like being here, sitting around. With me.
“Yeah?”
He grabs my arm and stops me.
“Say something, you can’t just go quiet and walk away.”
I want to wrench my arm away and shout watch me but instead I take a deep breath.
“I’m worried about you guys, because the Saturn Fire seems pretty bad,” I say. At least it’s part of the truth.
“I’ll be fine,” he says. “I’m always fine.”
“Yeah,” I mutter.
“What,” he says.
I just shake my head.
“And if I’m not, you can find someone who knows about desert crust,” he says.
“What the hell?” I say, my voice starting to rise. I swallow hard, trying to keep it down.
We stare at each other for a moment, and I can sense that we’re on the knife’s edge, one more word away from a stupid fight that I don’t actually want to have.
“Nothing,” he says, crossing his arms over his chest, looking away. “Sorry. Just forget it.”
I close my eyes and breathe deep.
It’s not about you, I remind myself. Almost nothing is about you, really, so chill the fuck out.
“I’m sorry,” I say, though the words come out stiffly. “You’re leaving and I don’t know when I’m going to see you again.”
“I know,” he says. “That was an asshole thing to say, I’m sorry.”
We stand there, awkwardly, on the sidewalk for another moment.
“I’ll see you in a couple weeks, okay?” he says.
I just nod.
We kiss, but it’s not quite right, too stiff and strange and mechanical. It’s almost worse than if we hadn’t had a goodbye kiss at all.
“Stay safe,” I say, and climb the steps to my porch.
“See you soon,” he says, and I go inside my house.
Then I close the door, put my forehead against the wall, and think: fuck. Fuck. FUCK.