buzz-saw insistence, as harshly demanding as a baby's cry, and his guilt over ignoring Cameron's calls at the onset of the blizzard made him habitually pick it up now. His reverie of isolation, watching the lonely ice cap as fire lookouts once held vigil on their mountaintops, was shattered. 'Lewis here.'
'Got a minute?' It was Norse.
'I'm busy, Doc.' The reply was sullen. The psychologist was the last person he wanted to talk to. He'd moved in on Abby. Started this mess, really. And it was beginning to annoy him that Norse carried his air of authority, of leadership, so easily. Annoy him that he'd let the man establish unspoken rank.
'You've been hiding out there.'
'I've been working.'
'Even the weather takes a break.'
'Data to catch up on.'
There was a pause as Norse thought about what to say. 'Look, I called because I figured you might be sore about the other night. Abby, the party. Guilty as charged. Trouble is, she isn't attracted to me. I guess it caused some trouble. We were all drinking too much.'
Lewis, his pride wounded, thought any apology was condescending. 'You can dance with whoever you want. We weren't a couple. As near as I can tell, she doesn't like me, either.'
'That's where you're wrong, sport.'
Lewis was curious what had led Norse to say that and was not about to admit it. 'And don't call me sport. Or friend, or son, or buddy, or sweetie. I don't like the Father Superior act.'
'No offense meant.' Norse's voice crackled over the phone. 'Just trying to repair the damage.'
'Why?'
'Because today's the first day of the rest of our lives. The post-Buck era. Remainder of the winter. All for one and one for all.'
Lewis inwardly frowned, knowing he'd voiced the same thoughts. Had Abby repeated them to Bob?
'Look, how about a meeting on neutral ground?' Norse went on.
'What do you mean?'
'The KitKat Club after dinner tonight. I've got an idea to help continue patching things back together under the dome. There's a bunch of crap out there that people leave behind. Hobbies, toys, eccentric gear. It's stored there. Might be something good for morale.'
'You're recreational director now?'
'I'm just trying to keep the station on keel.'
Lewis knew he was sulking. 'I've never even been out there.'
'That's the whole point. It's the station's start-over place.'
Lewis thought about it, fighting with his pride. 'Who said I need to start over?'
'Okay, maybe I do.' Norse waited.
'You're a manipulator, you know that? You manipulate people.'
'Of course I do. Any effective person does. But that doesn't mean I'm not your friend. I'm trying to help, dammit.'
'Help what?'
'Help the winter progress. Help make up for my own mistakes.'
Lewis was mad at Norse because he was still mad at himself. 'So why did you take her away at the party?'
There was a long silence. 'Look, I said I fucked up, okay? I cut in on you, I came on to Abby, I was feeling cocky that people were turning to me, and high that Tyson had split. I was drunk. Conceded. But it was a game to me and Abby saw through that and she shot me down. She told me she liked you. I should have known better. I did know better. And I woke up hungover like everyone else and not feeling too good about myself. So now I'm trying to move on from here.'
Lewis was silent. He was jealous of this man trying to hold things together. Jealous of Norse's glib rationalizations. Grow up, he told himself. He's trying to apologize.
'I'm a shrink and I've wound up as temporary, de facto… point man. Okay?'
Boss, Lewis thought.
'That's not a recipe for popularity, and I feel pressure like anyone else,' Norse continued, 'but we need each other and we need to get through the winter. Together. I think Abby really cares about you, Jed. She knows that other thing with Gabriella- she knows that was bullshit. So give me a chance to fix things. Manipulate, like you said. That's not always a bad thing.'
Lewis sighed. 'I just feel this whole winter I've been jerked around, with the meteorite and everything else. I'm tired of it.'
'This isn't easy for me, either, you know. If you haven't guessed yet, I've got quite an ego. When push came to shove, she chose you. That stung. But you, me, her- all of us getting back together is the right thing to do.'
'The right thing? I'm losing my bearings on that one, Doc.'
Norse laughed at himself. 'Okay. The best plan I have at the time.' There was a click as he hung up the phone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The KitKat Club was a two-story plywood balloon-launching shack, obsolete and abandoned, that an enterprising station carpenter had remodeled in his spare time into what he had jokingly proclaimed as 'a penthouse pad of pleasure.' Actually it was the top floor that had been turned into an unofficial storage attic for base personnel, crammed with cast-off junk. The bottom had been insulated, carpeted, papered with travel posters, and heated. While it was just three hundred yards from the dome, the building- named for the decadent nightclub in Cabaret- had become a place of physical and psychological separation and escape, the one refuge that didn't have a job attached to it. Neutral ground, Norse had called it. When its carpenter-creator left after one season, his shack became a place for parties, sexual trysts, verbal showdowns, and therapeutic solitude. Station managers like Cameron diplomatically ignored its existence because of its value as a pressure relief valve. Fingies were introduced to it after station and social acceptance. It was a perk, like visiting the abandoned base. Winter-overs thought of the KitKat Club, like the Pole itself, as theirs.
When Lewis arrived, Norse wasn't there. He flicked on the lights to look around while he waited. Small windows had been shuttered for the winter but smuggled incandescent bulbs behind a screen of colored paper, violating all fire safety regulations, gave the room a warm glow. There were two surplus single mattresses covered with unzipped nylon sleeping bags, a ratty and torn couch surplused from the dome, crates and a cable spool that had been liberated for tables, and makeshift shelves that held drifts of dog-eared books: Tolkien and Grisham, Shackleton and Byrd. A hot plate, an espresso maker, a small fridge. An old boom box and a shoal of CDs. The walls were a mosaic of posters, clippings, cartoons, and bumper stickers: He who dies with the most toys wins. It seemed unintentionally macabre after what had happened.
Maybe the psychologist would put him on the couch. He felt like he needed it about now.
He heard the crunch of snow outside and considered again what he wanted. Some kind of equality, he decided, some kind of mutual respect. An acceptance of who he was and an end to Norse's incessant observation. The shrink's real problem was that he didn't have enough real work to do and so dwelled on everybody else. With so many lost, they needed a reallocation…
'Hello?' It was Abby outside the door, sounding uncertain.
Just her voice was enough to get his heart to slip sideways off its track. Surprised, by both her presence and the strength of his own reaction, Lewis opened the latch.
She was startled. 'It's you,' she said, blinking.
'What are you doing here?' he replied.
Great beginning.
She glanced past him to see if anyone else was inside. 'Bob…'
Of course, it was always Bob, wasn't it? 'Come on in,' he said gruffly. 'We're letting out the heat.'
