Melt (30 page)

“Are you sure there isn’t?”

Kelly glanced up with curiosity. “The only evidence is Pippa’s dream. And the runes, but I’m sure they aren’t authentic.”

“You’re a very practical woman, aren’t you?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You didn’t used to be. There was a time you’d have been totally ready to believe in a possibility like channeling an ancient consciousness.”

Kelly picked up her tripod in her free hand. “I know. But I was a silly romantic fool back then, wasn’t I?”

Jordan raised one eyebrow, looking like she didn’t know how to take that remark.

“Pippa’s a really smart girl,” Kelly stated. “She wants to be a scientist and she could go far. But this tendency to fantasy is…”

“Immature?” suggested Jordan.

Kelly nodded with a smile.

“Isn’t that what being young is all about? You have unrealistic dreams and fantasies. It happens to everyone, the dismantling of our utopias bit by bit. That’s the definition of life.”

“I just don’t want to see her hurt.”

“But she will be if she does any living at all. In the meantime, I don’t see any harm in her believing in this particular dream. There are so many more destructive things to believe in. Many great thinkers have been inspired by dreams. They enable your imagination to burst free of what you think you know.”

“I suppose you’re right.”

If she appeared more cynical to Jordan now than she had as a nineteen-year-old, it was only because she had learned not to voice her more fanciful ideas. That was what was meant by “act your age.” It meant to control yourself. To stop yourself from saying and doing things that would embarrass you or your family and friends. That’s why she hadn’t confessed that night in Jordan’s tent that she still loved her. Kelly wanted to show her that she had matured. She wanted Jordan’s admiration and respect as much as she had once wanted her love.

Kelly jerked her head toward the glacier. “I saw it as we flew over. Quite a change. I wish I’d been here when it happened. Seems I missed all the action this morning.”

“It was scary,” Jordan said, “but exciting too. Do you want me to carry something?”

“Yes. Can you bring that bag? That’s got my lenses in it.”

Jordan followed Kelly down to shore where she selected a spot to start shooting. She set up her tripod and stared at the sheer wall of ice facing them.

“This is such a beautiful place,” she said. “Since I’ve been in Greenland I’ve noticed how the light seems different. It must be the angle of the sun. It changes the hues. It’s very subtle, but definitely there. The light is unusual at night, of course, but even now in the early afternoon, it’s like there’s a pale gold filter over everything.”

“You notice it more than most people, I suppose. You’re tuned into it.”

“The first night I was here I spent the whole time outside taking pictures. I didn’t get to bed until four in the morning. It was so spectacular, light all night long, changing subtly hour by hour.”

She screwed the camera down on the tripod and started shooting while Jordan stood nearby, silent, but by no means forgotten.

“It’s sort of warm this afternoon,” Jordan observed. “Do you want a cold drink?”

“Sure. That would be great.”

“We have Coke and lemonade. Or there’s some local beer, if you’d prefer.”

“Coke would be perfect.”

“Okay.” Jordan flashed her a warm smile, then walked up to camp while Kelly snapped a few photos, feeling invigorated by both Jordan’s invitation to come out and her welcoming demeanor.

This was a Jordan she hadn’t seen much of. She’d gotten a glimpse of it that night at the hotel restaurant. Now again today. She could almost imagine Jordan opening her heart. Kelly hoped she wasn’t just imagining it. At the very least Jordan was treating her like an equal, not just a troublesome student. If they could develop the beginning of a friendship based on that sort of equality, there was hope that Kelly could build on it back home. The important thing was to do nothing to scare her off. It would take time to attain the kind of trust Jordan required. Kelly was fine with that. As long as things were moving in the right direction, she could be patient.

She walked up to camp, arriving as Jordan poured Coke into two glasses. “Did you get some good shots?” she asked.

“Absolutely. Thank you for inviting me back for this. With all those new icebergs in the fjord, it’s a totally different scene.”

Jordan pulled a tray of ice cubes from the freezer. “Do you want ice? We’ve got plenty!” She made a sweeping gesture toward the glacier and laughed lightheartedly.

Kelly laughed too. “Yes, thanks.”

Jordan held an ice cube in her open palm, looking at it thoughtfully. “Ice is an interesting mineral,” she said. “It’s powerful enough to tear down mountains, but if you apply just a little heat, it completely melts away.” Water dripped between her fingers as the ice cube started to melt. “It’s both strong and weak at the same time.”

“A lot of things are,” Kelly observed.

Jordan looked up from her hand to catch Kelly’s gaze before dropping the ice into her glass.

“When are the others coming back?” Kelly asked.

“They won’t be back for hours yet. They have to go all the way up to the furthest of our checkpoints and take readings and download images from the cameras. We can see what the earthquake did right here easily enough, but we also need to know what it did to the entire structure of the glacier, surface and subsurface.”

Feeling parched, Kelly took a long swallow of her soda, then said, “Your work is so interesting.”

“So is yours! Wasn’t it you who rappelled into an ice waterfall? And the other day when you were talking about photography, you seemed utterly enraptured by your subject.”

“It’s true I like my work. Up till now, it hasn’t been this exotic. This place is just magical.” She set her glass on the counter. “The other day I took a walk south of town and came to a place where all around me the only color I could see was gray. The sky, the sea and the land—all gray. Even the ice looked gray. But it was still so many different colors, so rich with the differing textures and tones. It was like an artist’s study in gray. It was stunningly beautiful and I shot a hundred photos trying to capture that beauty.” Kelly sighed. “Frankly, I don’t think my camera understands Greenland. I’m still looking for the right settings for the light here.”

Jordan watched her closely, seeming to be listening, but she made no comment or gesture to indicate she was. Still, Kelly had the impression she liked listening to her talk about photography, so she continued, turning in a slow circle to take in the scenery.

“It could take a lifetime to capture that gray beauty in pixels. I mean, a photographer could literally work with that one scene for years. Like a paleontologist with a rich fossil bed or an archaeologist with an ancient city.” She faced Jordan, who still stared silently, raptly. “Or you with two miles worth of ice, spending your entire career on divining its secrets and never exhausting them. That’s how this scene felt to me. I had such a hard time tearing myself away.” Kelly shook her head. “There must be millions of scenes like that in Greenland. How many lifetimes would it take to master the entire rainbow of color here, I have to wonder?”

They stood face-to-face, looking into one another’s eyes. The depth of feeling between them seemed profound. If Jordan had been almost anyone else, Kelly would have moved into her arms at this moment and kissed her, confident that the gesture would be welcomed. Maybe she would have done it anyway if the sound of a boat engine had not entered her consciousness just then.

“That’ll be your ride,” Jordan said.

Kelly realized she had only minutes left before she and Jordan parted company for the summer.

“Jordan,” she said, gripped with sudden panic. “I hope we can see one another back home. I’ve been trying to play this so cool, but I’m scared to death I’m going to lose you again.”

She saw a flicker of fear in Jordan’s eyes, a fleeting look of vulnerability and indecision. She had seen this look before, in the photo she had taken the other day and faintly in the past. But what she had never seen before was that this look was a response to her.
Why?
she wondered.
Why would she be afraid of me?

“Your being here this summer isn’t a coincidence, is it?” Jordan asked.

Kelly shook her head, realizing she had just given everything away. She had just revealed that she was that same lovesick puppy she had always been, chasing the object of her desire to the top of the world for a pat on the head. Jordan would see her as pathetic, just as she had before.

“Not entirely, no. I wanted to see you again. That was part of the reason I decided to take the job.”

The sound of the engine came closer, sputtering as it was cut. Their time was up. Kelly heard voices at the dock, but she didn’t turn to look. She didn’t want to miss her last few seconds alone with Jordan.

“I’ve enjoyed seeing you again too,” Jordan said.

Kelly searched her face, trying to find deeper meaning behind her words, but she was unreadable.

Jordan reached for her and Kelly moved into her embrace. The hug was warm, but not intimate. No kiss this time, Kelly lamented.

“Kelly!” called Pippa. “Kelly!”

She glanced around to see Pippa running toward them. She spun back to Jordan. “Please call me. Let’s go to dinner or coffee or whatever you want.”

Jordan seemed uneasy. “I’ll…yes, of course, I’ll call you.”

Was that a genuine promise? Would she do it? Or was she just trying to avoid more melodrama?

Any fear that Kelly had had about losing Pippa’s friendship was swept away as Pippa plowed into her and wrapped her arms around her. But the look on her face was unexpectedly despairing and her eyes were moist with the onset of tears. So she had already gotten bad news. Kelly glanced over at the elderly man who walked slowly up the slope with a cane. Had it been so obvious to him that the runes were counterfeit?

“I’m so sorry,” Kelly said, holding Pippa affectionately. “I know how important this was to you.”

Pippa looked puzzled. “How do you know?”

“I just guessed…” Kelly began, reluctant to mention her skepticism again. “Well, why don’t you tell me what happened?”

“The earthquake wiped the whole thing out. There was an avalanche. There’s nothing left. Dr. Lund never got to see it.”

“Oh!” Kelly blurted. “That’s horrible. Can they dig it out?”

She shook her head grimly.

Kelly comforted Pippa while Jordan got the archaeologist a Coke and the two of them sat down at the kitchen table. Then Kelly collected her equipment while Pippa said goodbye to Jordan and Dr. Lund. Jordan raised an arm and waved toward Kelly, then turned her attention back to her colleague.

That was it, then, Kelly thought. She was sure she had blown her chance with Jordan with her too-obvious neediness. Why had she not been able to stick to her plan and keep cool? Why did she always have to wear her heart on her sleeve?

Chapter Thirty-One

Out of the corner of her eye, Jordan watched Pippa and Kelly speed away, then disappear from view, the sound of the boat motor fading rapidly.

During the moments Kelly had been speaking about her work, Jordan had been battling an overpowering desire to take her in her arms and kiss her. She had barely heard anything Kelly had said. There was no doubt now that Kelly wanted her too. She’d admitted it. She had come here with the purpose of reconnecting and seemed anxious to make sure they would be in touch back home. She seemed almost desperate, in fact. Kelly was still in love with her.

She was filled with happiness to know that, but the idea of Kelly was still so hard to face. The last time she’d given her heart to someone, she’d been destroyed. Kelly had the power to do that to her too. Jordan knew she could feel so much for her…if she let herself. Wasn’t it a million times easier to turn away from all that and just go on living her life the way she had been?

Dr. Lund was speaking to her, she realized. She focused on him with difficulty.

“I don’t understand,” he said, shaking his head, “why Pippa was so convinced there was a body in that cave.”

“She had a dream.”

“A dream?”

“She believes in her dream.”

“Believes it’s true, you mean? Why?”

“Because she wants to.” Jordan smiled across the table at his perplexed expression. “Sometimes believing is sufficient to make it true.”

He opened his mouth to object, then shook his head again. “I’d better get back. It was nice to see you again, Jordan. Come over to the island if you have a chance and take a look at my dig.”

“I will.” Jordan stood and shook his hand. “Thanks for coming over.”

After helping him launch, she walked back to camp. As she approached her tent, she noticed crackling static and indistinct words from inside. She hurried her pace and heard a clear message: “Jordan, come in!”

She dashed inside the tent and over to the radio.

“Jordan!” the tense, male voice repeated. “Jordan, please answer.”

She pressed a button on the radio. “What’s wrong, Brian?” she asked.

“Oh, thank God! We’ve had an accident. Sonja’s fallen into a fissure. We can’t reach her and there’s no way she can climb out.”

“A fissure? In the glacier?”

“Yeah. The quake broke it up quite a bit and left these huge gaps.”

“How far down is she?”

“Sixty, seventy feet. The problem is, the fissure is way deeper than that. We can’t see how deep. If she falls, it could be all the way to the bottom. No way to survive that. She’s sitting on a narrow ledge. All of our rappelling gear is in Curly. We thought of passing down some picks and crampons and having her try to climb out, but the ice is just too unstable. We can’t risk it without a tether.”

Jordan took a deep breath. “Is she injured?”

“No. She’s not hurt, but she is cold. And scared.”

“Where are you?”

“Camera three.”

“I’m on my way,” Jordan said. “Tell her not to move. Make sure she stays calm.”

“Malik’s talking to her.”

“Good. You call for a rescue team.”