“Very much.” An unrepentant grin spreads across my face. I’ll share all the details with her when I get back. “Everything okay? Did my father put you up to this? I’ve got him down to one call a day, but if he—”
“No, I haven’t spoken to Rand, but it doesn’t surprise me he’s calling so much. You know how hard it is for him when you’re away.”
“I know. I get it, but what happened to Mama . . .” Mama’s disappearance and presumed death form a broken circle that never closes, and I know those question marks are like scythes chopping into my dad’s sanity some days. The least I can do is take his calls and reassure him I’m okay.
“I get it,” I finish lamely after a moment. “So if you aren’t calling for Dad, what’s up?”
“Remember when we talked by the river right before you left?”
“Of course.”
“Has your path been made clear yet?”
I hesitate before answering. I want to tell her yes, but the three options I have still sit there, none of them compelling me to take a step. “Not really.”
“Okay. I have something that may interest you while you decide. Maybe. No pressure. I don’t want to influence your choices, but this just seemed—”
“Spit it out, Auntie.”
“I have a friend from college in Oklahoma, Jim Nighthorse,” she says, an eager note entering her voice. “Cherokee Nation on his mother’s side. He’s running for Congress.”
My mental antennae peak and I go still. My fingertips tingle.
“Okay,” I say slowly. “Tell me more.”
“He’s amazing, Lenn. He’s a lawyer, and has represented several cases on behalf of Cherokee Nation the last few years.”
“That all sounds incredible. What do you want? How could I help?”
“You could work on his campaign. I can email you his file, but don’t take a long time to decide. He’s setting up interviews now to outfit his staff. It’s gonna be a tough race. His opponent, the incumbent, supported a company’s bid for a pipeline in Oklahoma a few years ago.”
As soon as she says the words, something clicks and settles inside of me like I was waiting to hear them. I’ve heard so little about this man and this opportunity, but already it feels right. That’s been happening to me a lot lately. I felt certain about last night, about Maxim, and for some reason, I feel certain about this.
“And you think I can help?” I ask, even though I already believe I can.
“Yes. He needs someone bold and young, but wise and wily.”
“And you think that’s me?” I ask with a huff of humor.
“Oh, I know it is.”
I straighten from the wall and start back toward the table where my best friends wait, still dipping fries in mayo.
“Send me the file.”
17
Maxim
“My mouth is on fire, Doc.” Lennix waves her hand in front of her pouty lips, her eyes watering. I laugh and lift my glass of water for her to drink. Between greedy sips and gasps, she grins.
“I told you to slow down.” I fork through the portion of daging blado on my plate, the spicy, tender braised beef singeing my tongue and setting my taste buds on fire.
“Well I, for one,” says Kimba, “am loving the hell out of this fish. It’s spicy, too, but so good. What’d you call it, Max?”
“It’s sate lilit,” I reply. “Glad you like it. How’s yours, Viv?”
The pretty brunette’s glasses are practically fogged from the heat piled on her plate. “Everything is delicious. Thank you for bringing us here.”
“Best rijsttafel in the city.” I glance around the table, loaded with more than a dozen dishes of meat and vegetables and rice. Lots of rice, which is kind of the point. “You can’t come to Amsterdam and not have rijsttafel.”
“It’s a lot of food,” Lennix murmurs, scooping up rice and sate kambing, the savory goat she agreed to try.
“This is one of my favorite places in the city for it,” I tell them. “We had some in Utrecht, but this one’s better.”
“So you studied climate change there?” Kimba asks, chewing goat meat carefully as if considering whether or not she likes it.
“Climate science is my degree, but climate change is certainly a part of it, yeah.”
“What will you do with it?” Kimba asks.
“Everything,” I answer simply.
Kimba and Vivienne laugh, but Lennix watches me, her eyes and mine locked in recognition. She’s glimpsed my ambition in flashes, in the few things I’ve shared. She knows I won’t be deterred by anything when pursuing my goals.
“I also have a degree in business,” I clarify, answering the questioning looks the other two women give me. “I’m interested in the intersection of clean energy and commerce.”
“In other words,” Lennix drawls, her smile affectionate and cynical, “he wants to make lots of money off the planet.”
We all laugh, but I feel the need to reassure them I’m not some heartless capitalist asshole who would compromise greater good for greater gain. I’m not my father.
“It’s true I want to monetize green energy innovation,” I tell them, sipping the last of my Bir Bintang. “But I also refuse to let this planet go to crap without at least trying to convince people we should stop treating it like a bottomless trash can.”
“That’s why you’re going to Antarctica next week?” Lennix asks.
“There’s a lot to learn there, yeah.”
“Is it dangerous?” Vivienne loads a little more beef and rice onto the small plate in front of her.
“It’s the most remote place on Earth,” I reply wryly. “And basically, an ice-covered desert. Civilization is literally thousands of miles away, and you’re surrounded by icebergs. Not to mention the weather changes faster than you can say blizzard, so yeah. There’s some risk.”
Lennix’s brows knit into a frown over concerned eyes.
“I mean, not that much,” I rush to tell her. “We’ll have some limited phone and internet access for the most part.”
Not always frequent or reliable, but I’ve already made it sound bad enough.
“How long will you be there?” Vivienne asks.
“We fly out next week and will be there until November,” I reply. “So about eight months. One of the major hazards, beyond the weather and unpredictable conditions, is depression. Most of that time, there will be no sun. It’s dark for months in the winter, and a lot of people deal with seasonal affective disorder, some depression.”
“It sounds intense,” Lennix says.
“It can be. We have to adjust to chronic hypobaric hypoxia.”
“Um . . . what?” Kimba asks.
“Sorry,” I say, laughing. “We’ll be living for a long time with a third less oxygen than is available at sea level, but we’ve been training for these conditions. There’s a former Navy SEAL in our group, and I worked with him for weeks and have been maintaining the regimen he suggested.”
“So that’s why you’re so much bigger,” Lennix says. She grimaces a little when her friends giggle and snort. “I mean . . . you’ve just . . . it was four years ago. Just more muscle or whatever.”