Page 13 of Love Below Zero

13

NEW AND FAMILIAR

JAMES

The bedrooms in the dome are small and look like pie slices. The bed is pushed up against the curve, and a small set of drawers doubles as a nightstand. A table and chair are pushed against the right wall. An overhead light is the only source of illumination in the room.

I hate overhead lighting. Maybe I can procure one of the worktable lights to use as a bedside lamp. This little slice is home for the next four months, might as well make it comfortable.

I set my bag down, pulling out the few personal effects I brought with me. A framed photo of Jules and I at our graduation. Rebecca’s books. My laptop.

Eli and Joanna are in the rooms next to mine, with Rebecca and Frances across from us. I can hear Eli wrestling with his sheets and Joanna humming underneath her breath.

The agreement was that our rooms are private spaces and we aren’t allowed to enter without permission. Now though, our doors stand open, the first day excitement not worn off yet .

Frances is busy arranging several language books on her desk, her room neat and organised. “Are you planning on learning Spanish while we’re in here?” I ask her and she nods.

“Yep. It’s about time too. I’ve lived in Texas for too long now to not know the language.”

“Eli can probably help you out with that.”

I make my bed, then wander into Eli’s room, where he’s still struggling with the sheets.

“You do know Spanish and Italian are not the same language, right?” he asks, voice muffled by the cover over his head. He had physically crawled into the cover, trying to pull it over the inner.

“You’re in your thirties and you don’t know how sheets work yet?” I ask, leaning against the doorframe.

“Fuck you,” Eli says. I locate the opening of the cover and peek inside.

“You need some help?”

He blows out an exasperated breath. “Yes please.”

“What do you do at home?” I ask as he emerges from the cover. I take it from him, flipping it inside out.

“I just have a quilt. No need for any extras,” he grumbles.

“Here, this is an easy way to do it.” I find the corners of the sheet and grab the inner. In one smooth motion, I flip the cover back the right way and over the inner, shaking it out until it fits perfectly. “See, you just flip it over.”

I hand the bedspread to him and he mumbles a thank you, turning around to finish making the bed. A stack of Red Vines is piled on the desk, along with a small snake plant. The wall above the desk is already littered with photos. Eli was always the more sociable one out of the three of us. He makes friends wherever he goes, a skill I envied for many years. He is so easy-going, with the ability to talk about anything with anyone. It shows in his photos. There are various pictures of him on a beach with a large group of people, some of him on mining sites, others of him at parties.

In the right-hand corner is an older photo, one of him, Jules, and me on the night we met. It was at a fundraiser one of the colleges hosted, a Scooby Doo-themed party where we all coincidentally dressed up as Velma. Eli committed to the skirt, but I wasn’t brave enough for that back then, so I settled for some red pants.

“You still have this?” I ask, running my fingers over the photo.

Eli gives me one of his lopsided grins, the one that means he is hiding real emotion behind his charm. I might struggle to read strangers, but I know Eli well enough by now to recognise his tells.

“Yeah, my legs looked fantastic in that skirt.”

I snort, but don’t press further. Once he finishes with the bed, he plops down with a sigh.

“These walls are paper-thin. I sincerely hope no one snores.”

“Or talks in their sleep,” I say, straightening up and glancing out the door.

Rebecca’s bed is already made, her carry-on unpacked. A small black stuffed cat sits on her bed, and a lamp that looks like the moon sits on her nightstand. The space is quite minimal, compared to the rest. No photos or any other personal effects.

“Do you even need a bed?” Rebecca asks, looking over at me. “Don’t you just plug into the wall? ”

Eli snorts, then covers it up with a cough. “He doesn’t snore at night—he beeps.”

The two of them exchange mischievous smiles, and I do not like the camaraderie brewing between them. I especially do not like the way Eli looks at her. I’ve seen that look of his before. It tends to leave devastation in its wake.

“Do you need help with the work schedule?” I ask as I check my watch impatiently. “It’s almost dinner and we should get it sorted beforehand.”

“Yeah, let’s head downstairs.” Eli winks at Rebecca before grabbing his laptop and following me out of the room. We pass by Joanna’s room, and I stop dead in my tracks when I see the chaos going on inside. Her room looks like what I assume the inside of her mind looks like. Tools are everywhere, along with photos and at least three stuffed animals. She’s standing on the bed, hanging up some string lights. I don’t know why she needs them, considering the sun doesn’t set in Antarctica until February. The dome is relatively light, thanks to the semi-transparent covering. The top of the dome is covered in darker fabric, but it doesn’t make much of a difference. A ratty Yale University sweater hangs on the chair, and a large case sits on the desk.

“They gave us a fully stocked tool shed,” Eli points out. “Why do you need all of these?”

“They’re for my leg,” Joanna says, climbing down from the bed. “I’m working on a new model.” She flips open the case on the desk, revealing a sleek silver leg. I’m continuously impressed by her ingenuity, though her general sense of messiness makes my brain itch. The lack of order is concerning.

“How did you even get all of this stuff here? We had the same weight allowance and I couldn’t fit more than ten soil samples,” Eli grumbles.

Joanna winks at him. “A lady never reveals her secrets.”

I shake my head at them before tugging on Eli’s arm. “Come on, we have work to do.”

We say goodbye to Joanna, Eli mumbling something about bottomless handbags as we make our way downstairs.

Dinner is a bit of a sombre affair. Our excitement from earlier in the day has waned, and the first taste of pre-packaged food did not go down so well. Joanna dubbed it “astronaut slush,” and even Frances looked a little disappointed.

“It’s still better than what we got on the space station,” she points out. We didn’t have assigned seats, but we all gravitated toward a specific seat when we sat down. Frances is at the head of the table. I sit on her right-hand side, Eli beside me. On her left is Joanna and Rebecca.

I try my best not to make eye contact with Rebecca throughout dinner. The memory of her hand in mine took up too much of my processing space today. Eli and I had to go over the schedule twice. I can’t afford this kind of distraction, not with a potential future post at Oxford on the line.

So I do my best to politely ignore her.

“If we’re done here, I’d like to take you all through the survey we need to complete after every meal,” I say. We already agreed that we would eat breakfast and dinner together. Lunch is your own prerogative, but still mandatory. Eli and I made sure everyone got at least an hour in the middle of the day to eat. I didn’t have to walk them through the survey, but I wanted to make sure they filled it in correctly.

We dispose of our plates and cutlery, all made from compostable materials so we can recycle it back into the garden Eli is starting, and we migrate toward the lounge area.

Frances brought a projector with her and set it up, and I run the team through all of the survey questions. I can tell that the energy levels are low, so I try to make it quick. Rebecca’s eyes meet mine in the darkness a few times, two inky pools of black that almost cause me to stumble over my words.

Something in my chest tightens every time I look at her, the feeling both new and familiar.

I’ve felt this way about someone before, and it didn’t end well. In fact, saying it didn’t end well is a bit of an understatement. It ended disastrously. My world ended when Sara left, and it’s been a long time since any feelings have made their way to the surface. Yet Rebecca pulls them out of me without even trying.

The timing can’t have been worse. For years, my brain is not attracted to anyone, and suddenly it’s attracted to the most inconvenient person on Mars? Someone should study this phenomenon.

Rebecca brushes past me as we head for our bedrooms, and the mere ghost of her touch sends my brain into overdrive. It’s going to be a long four months in the dome with her.