“If not, I’m expecting you to whittle me one from an old pine,” Tone mutters with a weak smile. “I mean, what good is all that research of yours if you can’t do that?”
NOW
By the time we get back to camp, Tone is hobbling, leaning heavily into my arm.
“Why don’t you go rest in the tent?” I say, less a question than a command. “We can make breakfast.”
Tone purses her lips. I expect her to protest, but instead she nods. Her short blond fringe has stuck to her sweaty forehead.
“Might be a good idea.”
I help her into the tent and then walk around to the back of Emmy and Robert’s van, where Emmy is on her knees, rooting around in one of the boxes of tinned goods.
“Could you pass the alcohol stove?” I ask.
Emmy jumps at the sound of my voice, but then reaches in and pulls out the box containing the stove. She hands it to me with a glance over her shoulder, and a firebolt anger in her green eyes that makes me start.
I stand there holding the box for a few seconds, then back away to the middle of our little campsite. I get out the alcohol stove while Emmy continues to poke around in our food stores behind me. When she walks over and puts the open packet of instant coffee, the coffeepot, and water down in front of me, I look up.
“Alice, we need to talk,” she says, then sits down cross-legged on the cobblestones. She does it smoothly, in a single movement. She never used to be so agile. She used to be stiff and a little lazy, slow in the mornings and energized by night; used to yawn like a cat, wide-mouthed and red-tongued.
How many times have we eaten breakfast together? One hundred? One thousand? Her with hair wet post-shower, like now, me with yesterday’s makeup still clinging to my eyelashes. But this time my face is bare, and hers is closed.
The alcohol stove stands like a wall between us.
I light it.
“What is it?” I ask as the little blue flames appear, then wave the match to put it out. I try to keep my voice cool and professional. I’m her producer, after all. Her project manager. Her boss.
Emmy drops her forearms to her knees. There are grass stains on her jeans.
“I know you can see Tone’s sick,” she says bluntly. “And I can get why you wouldn’t want to call off this trip, but this isn’t sustainable. She needs to get to a hospital, now.”
Her words aren’t aggressive, just direct. Like a hand thrusting into my stomach and squeezing my organs.
“She says she doesn’t want to,” I say, then reach for the coffeepot and put it on the little stove. “She’s an adult, she knows what’s best for her.”
Emmy rolls her eyes.
“Come on, Alice,” she says, her voice somehow both irritated and unfeeling. “Don’t try that shit with me, you can see she’s not well. We both saw her in Gitta’s house—she was raving, for fuck’s sake! She’s probably delirious. She needs to see a doctor—now.”
“But she doesn’t feel like she has a fever,” I say, clenching my jaw so hard I can feel my muscles strain. Strangely enough, Emmy’s words make my own anxiety start to ebb away. I mean, I practically carried Tone back to camp, and she didn’t feel so hot to me. “She says herself it’s just a sprain.”
“Sprains don’t look like that, Alice.”
By now I can’t bite my tongue any longer. I snap:
“What are you, a doctor?”
“You don’t need to be a doctor to see she can hardly walk, and it’s only getting worse!” Emmy replies. Her hands are now clenched into small, hard fists.
“It’s not like I’m her mom!” I say. “Do you think I haven’t talked to her? Do you think I haven’t asked? I’ve asked her time and time again, but she’s insisting she wants to stay. So what am I supposed to do? Throw her into the back of the van, lock her up, and drive away? She’s a grown woman—we have to respect her wishes.”
“If you say so,” says Emmy. In the space between her words I hear everything she isn’t saying. The curse of knowing someone’s rhythms. Of being able to intuit her meaning, rather than her words.
“What are you suggesting?” I ask. I can hear I’m overarticulating, letting the syllables draw the lines I can’t.
Emmy stands up and brushes off her legs. I can’t take having her look down at me, so I scramble to my feet, too.
“Nothing, Alice,” she says, a rusty edge to her words. “I’m not suggesting anything. I’m just saying it’s weird that Tone’s fucking sick and that you, as her friend, don’t seem especially concerned.”
Her accusation knocks the wind out of me. I’m so angry that my teeth ache.
“Don’t you dare say that to me,” I bite. “Don’t you dare tell me I’m not worried about Tone. And don’t you dare talk to me like that.”
Emmy raises her eyebrows and opens her mouth, but I cut her off before she can speak. I’m feeling that delicious sting of being able to say what’s been hanging over me since I first saw her at our recruitment meeting, since I first noticed those delicate little laughter lines that had started to form around her eyes, the new highlights the henna had brought out in her hair, the strangely familiar lines of her ears. The shock and rage and sadness I felt at all of them.
“It’s great that you’re so worried about Tone,” I say, “you’ve never struck me as someone to worry about someone else’s well-being before. But I’m guessing it’s not Tone that’s the issue here, is it? It’s more about you getting the chance to tell me how self-obsessed and demanding I am. It’s like gold dust to you, any excuse to say that.”
I’ve heard the
