Heat and Light (25 page)

“I had to extinguish you.”

Gia laughs soundlessly.

“You had half a can of Aqua Net in your hair. You were like a Molotov cocktail. We could have been killed.”

Gia wipes a tear from her eye. She's the only person he knows who actually laughs until she cries. “Jesus, that place. I know for a fact it hasn't been painted since we lived there. Me and Steve paid four hundred. Now it goes for twelve. Crazy, right?”

“Unbelievable.” Most nights Gia's tips are double his, for obvious reasons (her lightning quickness, the denim skirt). But even with the generosity of the drilling crews and the occasional twenty-dollar bill from Wally Fetterson, a thousand a month would be beyond her reach.

“Anyways, I like living with Rocco. If my mom were still
around, that would be a different story. But the old fart would be lost without me. You know he still makes me toast and coffee every morning?” Gia hangs up her towel. “Why would I move out when I have everything I need?”

“But doesn't it make things difficult?” It's the question he's been dying to ask. “Dating, and so on.”

“
Dating
?” she says, laughing. “And
so on
? Devlin, you are such a girl.”

His face feels heated by a blowtorch. Gia gives him a shove. “I'm just messing with you. Guys mostly have their own places. And if not, there are ways.”

Tell me about the ways,
he might have said, if he were not Darren Devlin, stone-cold sober. If they were people other than Darren and Gia, with everything that implied.

He bags the trash and carries it out to the Dumpster. When he comes back she's standing in the doorway to the stockroom. Behind her is the bulletin board where Dick pins confiscated fake IDs.

“Come here,” she says.

As kisses go it's a knockout, thorough and probing. He leans against the doorframe and pulls her in, thinking,
I am kissing Gia Bernardi.
Her body feels somehow familiar—for no other reason, probably, than he's been thinking about it for so long.

I had to,
she'll tell him later.
We'd both be eating Jell-O at Saxon Manor if I waited around for you.

Which, of course, is absolutely true.

A
ccording to Dick Devlin, there are two kinds of work: the kind where you shower before and the kind where you shower after. His elder son has always done the second kind—roofing, soldiering, hauling oxygen tanks for Miners' Medical. Now, compared with Deer Run, those seem like clean jobs. More than ever before, Rich looks forward to his afterwork shower, scrubbing away the prison with the hottest water he can stand.

Outside the rig noise stops abruptly, a small miracle. He undresses at full speed and stuffs his uniform into the hamper. With luck he'll be asleep before the racket starts again. Sunday sleep, the best of the week: with Shelby and the kids at church, it's the only time he can be reliably alone in his own goddamn house.

Two kinds of work. When you're as old as his dad, everything you say is familiar. At what age does a person stop having new thoughts? Dick has gone years—decades, possibly—without saying anything he hasn't said a hundred times before.

Rich turns on the taps and right away is struck by the odor. Shelby is right: the water smells like something. Lighter fluid, maybe? At the sink he hadn't noticed. Now, with the spray blasting down on his head and shoulders, it's impossible to ignore.

He takes an abbreviated shower, breathing through his mouth. The drain is a little slow—he's been meaning to snake it—and he stands, watching the tub empty. The water is cloudy. A rainbow film clings to the surface, like a spill of gasoline.

THE RIG IS LIT,
around the clock, with klieg lights. From a distance it radiates a sulfurous glow, like a football stadium at night. Several trucks idle loudly. Up close the diesel smell is overpowering. The engine noise makes his whole body vibrate. He sees no sign of human presence. It's as though the giant machines are running themselves.

He stands at the base of the platform, looking up, and finally sees workers. He counts exactly five men—from his vantage point, small as children. Given the scale of the operation, it isn't much of a crew.

“Hey!”

He waves his arms to get their attention, his body vibrating with sound. The noise is epic and surprisingly complex, layered like music: a low grinding he feels in the base of his spine, a shrill whine like the world's largest table saw. There is a metallic tapping, sharp and regular, and behind it all, a titanic whoosh of air.

“Hey!” he calls again, starting up the stairs.

Finally one of the men notices. He descends the staircase, gripping the handrail. It's the same guy as last time, the beefy little bulldog Rich has served at the Commercial.

“You can't come up here,” Herc shouts. “It's a hard-hat zone. I'll meet you in the trailer.”

In the construction trailer the noise is not quite deafening. The temperature is maybe a hundred degrees. Herc takes styrofoam plugs from his ears. He wears work gloves, a hard hat, grimy coveralls.

“Something's wrong with my water,” Rich says. He describes the smell, the cloudiness, the rainbow film. Herc listens without comment. Then, finally, he speaks:

“I can tell you right now, that wadn't us. Your well is what, a hundred feet deep?”

“About that.”

“We're nowheres near your well. We're drilling a mile down.”
His voice is surprisingly deep for a guy his size. His eyes are level with Rich's collarbone.

“My grandfather dug that well. It's been good for fifty years. Now it just happens to go skunky a week after you start drilling. That's some fucking coincidence.”

“I don't know what else to tell you.”

“You haven't told me anything so far.”

They stand nearly toe to toe, arms crossed.

“What are capturing charges?”

Herc frowns.

“On my statement. You charged me a thousand bucks for capturing charges.”

“
I
did?” Herc laughs. “I didn't charge you anything. You'll have to take that up with Dark Elephant.”

“I thought you
were
Dark Elephant.”

“We're Stream Solutions. We're subcontractors.”

Nothing, nothing is simple.

“Whatever,” Rich says through his teeth. “I don't care who you are. I'm having my water tested.”

“That's your right. I can recommend a company, if you want.”

“No thanks. I'll find my own.”

Herc goes to a cluttered desk and riffles through a drawer. “When you get your test results, call this guy.” He hands Rich a business card:
QUENTIN TANNER,
D
IRECTOR OF
C
OMMUNICATIONS
.

“Who the hell is this?”

“He handles environmental concerns. But I'm telling you, you're wasting your time.”

LORNE TREXLER CALLS,
always, after midnight. It's a little late for Rena, who's been up since dawn. Still, the timing offers certain advantages. By midnight Mack is long asleep, the house quiet, and she can be alone with Lorne's voice. She prepares for these calls as
she did, long ago, for chemistry and biology classes. Nearly every day, he sends her links to articles—pending lawsuits, drilling mishaps, legislative efforts in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. She reads carefully, knowing he'll question her later. He assumes, always, that she'll have an opinion, something no one has ever expected her to have.

He is an education.

“What do you think of
Silent Spring
?”

He'd given her the book when he walked her to her car.
Have you read this? Required reading for the environmental activist.

I haven't read anything,
Rena said.

“I haven't started it yet,” she admits. “Tomorrow for sure.”

She tries to picture where Lorne is calling from, the rented house a few miles from campus. He lives alone, something Rena has never done. Like her brothers and sister and everyone else she knows, she lived with her parents until she got married, or whatever she is, to Mack.

(Mack. Is that your husband?)

“Guess,” he says, when she asks what his house looks like.

“Neat. You're very organized. And you have books everywhere. Lots of books.”

“Guilty on the books. Otherwise, I gotta tell you, you have no future as a psychic. I'm a fucking slob.”

If Rena lived alone she'd stay up late and watch movies all night and eat cold cereal breakfast, lunch, and dinner—something she can never do, because Mack has a gigantic appetite and skipping meals makes her cranky. She never had a mother to cook for her and so attaches undue importance to such things.

Lorne doesn't ask what Rena's house looks like, which is just as well. Tonight she sits in the cluttered parlor, at the scarred rolltop desk where Pete had done the farm's bookkeeping, or pretended to. After his death they found the dusty ledger he'd kept under lock and key. The most recent entry was six years old.

Lorne talks about a public forum in Washington County, a promising e-mail exchange with a state senator, his upcoming meeting at the DEP. He speaks admiringly of the governor of New York, who's placed a temporary moratorium on gas drilling. Rena is only half listening. She looks around the room, trying to see it through his eyes: the faded floral wallpaper, the old-fashioned divan piled with seed catalogs, junk mail, unpaid bills. The few books belong to Mack, well-thumbed paperbacks (
World of the Soil, Alternative Treatments for Ruminant Animals
) grubby with farm dirt.

The many lives she will never get to live.

Watching Lorne drive away from the Pick and Shovel, his red taillights disappearing down Number Six Road, Rena thought, Take me with you.

“I stopped by Shelby's the other night. I wanted to ask her a question, but she wasn't home. Her husband wasn't too happy to see me. He claims there's nothing wrong with their water.”

“Denial. That's a pretty typical reaction. And—let me guess. His daughter is in perfect health.”

His voice—warm, resonant—fills a space inside her. She doesn't need to touch him or even see him. His voice is enough. Often, in passing, he mentions women by name—students, colleagues, an ex-wife with whom he remains friendly. He has never mentioned a girlfriend. Rena listens for subtext.

“He didn't say
that,
exactly. But here's my question.” She hesitates. “I looked up Olivia's medical record. Shelby brought her in to the ER on March first and again on May thirtieth. Same symptoms, nausea and vomiting. But they didn't start drilling at the Devlins' until June.”

Unusually, there is a pause. Normally he starts talking the instant she stops, as though he's been waiting his turn.

“Does that bother you?” he asks.

“It doesn't bother
you
?”

“It's not ideal,” he admits, “but let's say she did have a preexist
ing condition. It doesn't mean the water
isn't
contaminated. Ravi will know better than I do, but isn't it logical that a kid with a lousy immune system is going to be more affected by bad water than a healthy adult would be? Pregnant women, the elderly, people who are already ill—they're always the canaries in the coal mine.”

Rena, a healthy adult, thinks again of that day in the ER. If she'd been exposed to Flow-Z, she might have felt sick for a day. Instead she'd let a pregnant woman treat the patient. For the canary, the consequences had been grave.

“That's true, I guess. She's had four emergency room visits this year, two in the past month.”

“So they're getting more frequent.”

“Exactly. No admissions, but still. Also, her lab results—” Rena stops short. Patients' medical information is supposed to be confidential. “Let's just say the numbers are all over the place. I can't make any sense of it. I'm trying to get a copy of her record so we can take it to Dr. Ghosh.”

“About that,” says Lorne. “It looks like you and Shelby will have to go without me.”

“Why?”
She is embarrassed by the plaintive note in her voice.

“The Coalition is taking a busload of people up to Lincoln County, and I have to be there. The county commissioners are about to vote on a drilling ban—which, if it passes, would cover all the unincorporated land in the county.”

“Great,” says Rena, because a response seems necessary. “That's great news.”

“Potentially. They're holding a public forum before the vote, and our people will be out in force. I wish you could come, but it's more important to get Olivia in front of Ravi ASAP.”

The intensity of her disappointment is mortifying. She is fifty-four years old.

“You and Shelby will manage fine without me. And in the meantime, I have a proposition for you.”

Immediately she feels lifted, her mood reorganizing itself.

“There's a thing in New York next month. Upstate, on the SUNY campus. We're rallying in support of the moratorium.”

She speaks without thinking: “Who's we?” He could have another Rena, many Renas, in New York State, a whole platoon of sad farm wives waiting for his call.

“A coalition of local groups, plus as many students as we can wrangle the first week of the semester.” He pauses. “It might be interesting for you to see how it works. We could drive up there together. What do you say?”

MACK HAS BEEN SLEEPING POORLY.
She lies awake, listening to the clock. Somewhere a phone is ringing, which is not unusual. Lately Rena's cell phone rings more or less constantly: at mealtimes, at night when she's paying bills or staring at the computer and Mack is supposed to be sleeping.

Rena has a restless nature. Every so often, she'll get an idea in her head—nursing school, organic farming. She and Mack could raise goats or llamas, breed sheepdogs, study cheese making; the County Extension offers classes online. They could make their own yogurt, bottle and sell it. All they need is a website and something called a Twitter.

Sure, baby,
says Mack.
Sounds good to me.

The ringing stops. Mack gets out of bed and stands at the top of the stairs, listening.

There is a very long pause. For a moment she thinks they've hung up. Then she hears Rena's laugh, like some exotic birdcall.

Mack puts on her old flannel bathrobe and pads downstairs. Rena is in the parlor, which doubles as Friend-Lea's business office. Her cell phone lies on the desk beside her. She sits at the computer, reading glasses sliding down her nose.

“You're awake?” Rena looks astonished to see her. Mack, his
torically, is a heroic sleeper. They have never found an alarm clock that can rouse her. No matter how loud or shrill, the ringing simply becomes part of her dream. Each morning the alarm wakes Rena, who then shoves Mack out of bed.

“I heard the phone.”

“That was Dr. Trexler,” says Rena—unnecessarily, because it's always Dr. Trexler, often around midnight. He is nocturnal, the way Rena used to be and would still be, if Mack hadn't talked her into farm life. She was the sort of person who might have gone anywhere, been anything—unlike Mack, who was born to be a farmer. There was nothing else she wanted to be.

“We need to get the Devlins' water tested. The trick is finding a company that will come all the way from Pittsburgh. The labs around here don't have the right equipment, or something.”

“So why is he calling you?” Is it her imagination, or is Rena blushing?

Rena's eyes dart toward the computer screen.

It isn't her imagination.

“He says Shelby trusts me. Which is true, I guess. The drilling was her husband's idea. I don't think she had any say in the matter.”

Mack knows the feeling. It's her own fault, of course: back when the neighbors were signing gas leases, she'd happily left the decision to Rena.
Sure, baby. Sounds good to me.
It wasn't until Carl Neugebauer came calling that Mack began to wonder: What would Pop do?

“Come to bed,” she says.