What came to her mind on the spot was one of Cub’s shows on Spike TV, 1000 Ways to Die. People thrived on unhappy scenarios. In this case it was just the one way, freezing to death, and millions of unfortunates. She stilled her mind, trying to embrace this sadness Dr. Byron had asked her to understand.
“One of God’s creatures of this world, meeting its End of Days,” she said after a quiet minute. Not words of science, she knew that, but it was a truth she could feel. The forest of flame that had lifted her despair, the migratory pulse that had rocked in the arms of a continent for all time: these fell like stones in her heart. This was the bad news he’d received over the holiday. The one thing most beloved to him was dying. Not a death in the family, then, but maybe as serious as that. He’d chased this life for all his years; it had brought him this distance, his complicated system. She had only begun to know it. Now began the steps of grief. It would pass through this world like that baby in its pelt of red fur, while most people paid no attention.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
He looked away abruptly from those words, a gesture that gave her to know she might be needed here. Ovid was choking up. She spoke quickly to give him some cover. “I didn’t know it was that bad. I want to help out here, I’m glad to.”
“Nobody knows it is this bad.” He recovered himself almost instantly, willfully, she thought. Rubbing his chin. A man’s grief.
“But the news people are all over this thing up here,” she said. “Why on earth wouldn’t you tell them what’s going on?”
He looked at her oddly, studying her without speaking, and she flushed deeply, as if he were seeing her naked. The Butterfly Venus, that’s what was all over. “I don’t know what you’ve seen,” she said. “But it’s out of control. I keep telling them they need to talk to you. I swear, I do. Talk to Dr. Byron, because I’m no expert.”
Pete startled her by speaking. “That’s why they talk to you. Because you don’t really know anything.” He’d stopped stapling and was listening in on what she’d thought was a private conversation. She felt ambushed.
She turned around in her chair to scowl at Pete. “Excuse me?”
Pete shrugged. “It’s not your fault. They just don’t want to talk to a scientist. It would mess with their story.”
Dellarobia looked from Pete to Ovid Byron.
“A journalist’s job is to collect information,” Ovid said to Pete.
“Nope,” Pete said. “That’s what we do. It’s not what they do.”
Dellarobia was unready to be pushed out of the conversation just like that. “Then what do you think the news people drive their Jeeps all the way out here for?”
“To shore up the prevailing view of their audience and sponsors.”
“Pete takes a dim view of his fellow humans,” Ovid said. “He prefers insects.”
Dellarobia turned her chair halfway around to face Pete, scraping noisily against the cement floor. “You’re saying people only tune in to news they know they’re going to agree with?”
“Bingo,” said Pete.
“Well, see, I agree with you,” she said. “I’ve thought that too. How often do you tune in to Johnny Midgeon?”
“You’re right,” Pete said. “I don’t want to hear those guys.”
“So,” she said, “you’re the same as everybody.”
“Well, but it’s because I already know what they’re going to say.”
“That’s what everybody thinks. Maybe you do, and maybe you don’t.”
“The official view of a major demographic,” Pete said in an overly tired voice that reminded her weirdly of Crystal, “is that we aren’t sure about climate change. It’s too confusing. So every environmental impact story has to be made into something else. Sex it up if possible, that’s what your news people drove out here for. It’s what sells.”
“For God’s sake, man,” Ovid nearly shouted, “the damn globe is catching fire, and the islands are drowning. The evidence is staring them in the face.”
Dellarobia’s scalp burned with rage and bewilderment. Pete had just accused her of peddling sex, if she wasn’t mistaken, and Ovid hadn’t noticed because he was on a rant of his own. His voice was thick with the accent of his childhood. De eye-lands are drowning. Were they?
Pete picked up his stepladder and hefted it to the opposite side of the room, setting it down hard. End of discussion. He unfurled a length of the clear plastic, dragged it up the ladder, and started shooting the beams again. Bang, bang.
She spoke carefully to the room. “I think people are scared to face up to a bad outcome. That’s just human. Like not going to the doctor when you’ve found a lump. If fight or flight is the choice, it’s way easier to fly.”
“Or to sleepwalk,” Ovid said. “As you put it.”
“I was probably selling my own team short.” Defensiveness returned to her in full feather. “Can I tell you one more thing about myself, in this hiring process? I was going to college. It’s not out of the question for someone here to do that. My teachers said I should. I wanted it so bad my teeth hurt. I know you can’t put ‘wanted to’ on a job application, or we’d all be the president of Walmart or something.” She waited for some response, belief or disbelief, which was not forthcoming.
“But I have proof,” she added. “I drove over to Knoxville to take the ACT test.”
Both men were looking at her. With what kind of interest, she couldn’t tell.
“Just me,” she said. “I was the only one in my class to try for college, and Mrs. Lake said I had to go take that. I had to start out at four in the morning to get there and figure out those city streets to find the place. All the other kids looked like they’d had a good night’s sleep, I’ll tell you what. And I’m sure their mamas drove them.”
“Really.” Ovid seemed impressed by her initiative.
“Yeah, well. A tank of gas wasted. I did okay on the English but math and science, holy Moses. I’d never even heard of most of the stuff they asked. Plus, a baby on the way. That doesn’t lend itself.”
“Well,” he said. “It lends itself to having a child. A recompense of its own kind.”