“Have you met any boys?”
I sigh. It stings me every time she asks. No, I haven’t met any boys. I didn’t sign up for this to get laid. After what I dealt with last year, I don’t really want to worry about that for a good long while, if ever again. Mom is Mom, though. I feel a little sick with myself at how I seize up, shaking with anger at her question.
She only wants me to be happy, I know.
“There’s a guy here that’s interested in me but I’m iffy on him. His name’s Brad. I think my roommate or tent-mate or whatever likes him more. I think they should get together.”
“Why don’t you ask him out?”
“Mom, we’re in the middle of nowhere. There is no ‘out’ to ask him to. Besides, I’d be screwing over my friend. She really likes him. That’s like a no-no. I can’t do that to her.”
My mother sighs. “Honey, I think you need to move on.”
“I did move on, Mom. I moved six thousand miles on.”
“Penny, I had to sow my wild oats, too, but you’re almost twenty-six years old. It’s time to start really building a future. You can’t minister to the heathens in a dust bowl forever.”
I wonder, why not? There are some volunteers who have been out in places like this for decades. The camp doctor has been with the group for forty years, and served in Africa, India, a dozen places in Southeast Asia.
All the things I could see and do. The world is so huge and open.
“I know, Mom. I’ll think about it.”
We say our good-byes. Dad gets back on. We chat until my timer dings, and then he grunts and says he’ll talk to me next week.
Then I hang up and walk back to our tent.
It’s getting dark.
It gets really dark out here at night. The camp and the construction zones are well lit, but that only makes it worse. It’s like walking on the bottom of the ocean. I feel floaty, like the current is trying to pull me up. I could float up and up and drown.
When divers spend too long under the surface, too far, they have to decompress to come back out. If they don’t, the nitrogen in their blood bubbles out under the lowered pressure. They call it the bends, but it’s more like bursting from the inside, like a soda bottle someone shook up until it’s ready to pop.
I’d be like that if I went home. Too much of a shock. I don’t know if I could cope with Philadelphia again, or even the suburb where I grew up. Maybe I should just stay out here, or go farther east. When my term is up I’ll be able to sign on again and go somewhere else. Some of the options are a little dangerous.
When I look out into that great, deep darkness that surrounds this tiny island of light, it feels pretty dangerous here.
I duck into the tent and grab my bag, head to the shower stall, and scour the dirt off my skin. The dust is everywhere when the wind picks up. It gets in everything. I keep my hair short for ease of maintenance and just run my fingers through it to dry it out after I’m done.
I grab an MRE from the supply tent and head back to join Melissa. Every meal pack has a cooker in it. You pour water in the pouch; the food is all sealed up so it doesn’t get wet. The cooker reacts with the water and gets hot, and heats up the food.
Or you can use the microwave, which we do. It’s as big as a regular oven and covered in scratches. It probably leaks radiation, but at this point I don’t care.
I lucked out and drew the veggie bean burrito. I should hate it but there’s something about the crust that reminds me of a pot pie. It doesn’t taste very burrito-y at all, but that’s fine with me. I munch it down in big bites, gulping bottled water in between to cool my throat before the superheated burrito can sear it like a steak on a griddle.
Steak, it’s been so long since I had a steak. Some things from the real world I do miss, I suppose. A nice rib eye would go well tonight.
I’m so hungry I eat the burrito and the nasty crackers (that always taste rotten, and are usually fairly soft) and the jelly and the chocolate. That one will make me regret it in the morning. I even mix up the coffee powder and drink it cold.
Melissa eyes her “chicken and noodles” and frowns at my precious burrito, or the few tiny crumbs that are left of it when I finish. She looks like she might lick the crumbs off my paper plate.
“I hate this stuff,” she confesses. “I know we should eat the same food as the people we’re helping, but I can’t stop myself from wishing for something better.”
She bites her lip, probably trying to figure out which sin that is. Gluttony? Avarice? Pride? One of them. It’s not Wrath, I know that.
I leave her to it. I want to sleep. I turn off my little lamp and lie out on the cot. Melissa doesn’t like it that I strip down to my skivvies in the heat, but she can stuff it if she thinks I’m sleeping in a damned nightshirt like her. It’s going to be in the upper eighties tonight. At least the humidity drops rapidly when the sun goes down.