“You tell us you don’t have friends, Tucker,” Bonnie said, “that you’re a lone wolf.”
“Well, Bonnie, I’m starting fresh,” Tucker said. Cher then introduced himself as Dwight, “the wizard-god of Logistics and Comms.” Too late, Cooper realized Tucker had slipped away.
“Judging by your attire,” Dwight said, “you are neither Beaker nor manager, neither galley slave nor Wastee. Reasonably attractive, yet with no obvious male companion.” He paused and looked over at Bonnie. “Wow, this is exactly like cosplay.”
“No, I recognize her. You were in the kitchen the other day,” Bonnie said, scrutinizing Cooper’s face. “I think you’re a VIDS psychologist, trying to blend in with the population.”
“I’m a painter,” Cooper replied.
“They sent people down to paint the walls?” Dwight asked, incredulous.
“Artist,” Cooper clarified. “The NSF sends artists down each year to do … whatever.”
Bonnie reached across the table and offered Cooper her hand. “Well, let me formally introduce myself—I’m Bonnie, the head cook.” Cooper took Bonnie’s chapped hand for a shake, but Bonnie grasped Cooper’s and pulled it toward her, caressing it. “Dwight, honey, feel her skin.” Dwight ran a bored finger over the top of Cooper’s hand and withdrew it, nodding.
“So pink and soft,” Bonnie cooed.
“That’s how we find the Fingys when there’s a blackout and we need fresh meat,” Dwight said in a monotone. “Their soft, infant-like skin.”
Cooper excused herself to beg a beer off George W. Bush. She cursed softly when she noticed, again too late, that the man sitting to her left was Floyd. “Who’s more heroic,” he asked his companion, brandishing a glass of whiskey, “a woman doc who got a common disease, but who was also trained to deal with it, or the pilot who successfully landed a Herc in the middle of a polar winter to evac her?” He paused here, letting his rage build. “You tell me which demands more bravery. You tell me who risked their life. Do you even know the pilot’s name?”
“Dude, I’m just trying to have a drink,” the guy said wearily, pushing his fingers in and out of a plastic jack-o’-lantern’s mouth.
“Major George R. McAllister,” Floyd said. “You remember that name.” He glanced over at Cooper. “You, too—George R. McAllister. Oh, hey, I know you. You’re the McMurtry apologist. Who the hell let you in?”
Luckily, death metal began blaring through the speakers at that moment and Floyd skipped over to the stripper pole and started gyrating. While everyone guffawed at this, Cooper noticed Sal was watching her, but he quickly looked away. She watched Floyd for a while—he was surprisingly agile—and finished the Canterbury ale Bush had loaned her, but it gave her a headache. She was about to leave when Birdie walked in, his thick glasses reflecting the lights from the revolving disco ball. He carried a bottle of Dewar’s bearing his name on a piece of masking tape and two highball glasses pinched between his thumb and fingers. He took a seat next to Cooper.
“Who told you?” she asked.
“Told me what?”
“About this place—who let you in?”
Birdie smiled and opened the bottle. He poured out two measures, then handed a glass over to Cooper. “She did.” He nodded toward Pearl, who was throwing darts with a couple of dining assistants.
“You’re kidding me.”
“This strains your credulity? I’m not offended. It strains mine. Look at her. She’s gorgeous.” Cooper looked over at Pearl. For the first time, the pink bandanna was off, and Cooper saw that both sides of her delicately shaped head were shaved to the skin, leaving only a thatch of blond hair, which had been pulled up into a ponytail. She was wearing a black headband with glittery cat ears, and when she laughed, Cooper could see what Birdie meant.
Cooper clinked her glass to Birdie’s. “Cheers.”
“How’s it going, then?” Birdie asked. “The painting, I mean.”
“Mittens,” Cooper said. “All I’ve got is mittens. And there’s no way to justify that as art.” Not that she hadn’t tried. The mitten is a talisman, an image of worship in a place where god is dead. It’s a study of both the humility of the simple garment and the hubris of our belief that it protects us from this savage continent.
“You?” Cooper asked.
“I’m having a hard time pulling things together myself. Now that I’m here, Bowers grows elusive.” Cooper could feel Sal’s eyes on her again, but didn’t risk a look in his direction this time.
“I can’t imagine caring enough about a person I’ve never met to spend years researching his life and writing about him,” she said. “You’d have to be obsessed.”
Birdie nodded. “Biography is not a genre for the lukewarm. Bowers was just a sledger, like me, head down, strap over his shoulder, the only one on the Scott expedition without skis. He was optimistic to the point of being demented. Cherry said there was nothing subtle about him. He wasn’t complex like Cherry, who was a head case. He’s not intrinsically interesting like Scott either, nor a hero like Titus, and thank god he wasn’t a narcissistic ass like Teddy Evans. There are no scandals to unearth on this fellow, no dark side. I suppose I’ll need to find a dark side. I’m told we all have them.”
“Except me,” Pearl chirped as she passed. She leaned down between Cooper’s and Birdie’s chairs and slung an arm around them both. “Dark sides are for moons, not people.”
Birdie nearly snapped his neck watching Pearl continue on to the bar top. Cooper told Birdie she had to hit the john. She passed Sal’s table on the way to the restroom, and he reached out as she walked by and hooked his fingers through one of the belt loops on her Carhartts. He was leaning back, his chair resting precariously against the wall—sodden, and more attractive for it, a feat Cooper had never seen achieved before. Next to him, his Russian cohort, Alek, looked up at her with bleary eyes.
“Where you going, strange person?” Sal said.
“To the bathroom.”
“I come with?” Alek said thickly.
“Sure, that’s going to happen.”
Alek fist-pumped toward the sky. “She says this will happen.”
Sal squeezed Alek’s shoulder with his free hand. “Alek’s drunk on moonshine.”
“Samogon,” Alek growled.
“Sorry—samogon. It’s a moonshine they make in the Urals. NSF thought it was isopropyl alcohol and let it pass. You met Alek, right? You can call him Rasputin.”
Alek frowned. “Always Rasputin. Why not Gorky or Pushkin?”
“Because you’re an evil monk, not a literary genius,” Sal replied.
Alek extended his middle finger and thrust it skyward. “Why do I allow you?” he bellowed.
“What do you actually do, Alek?” Cooper asked.
“I am here to help Sal win Nobel.”