Love, Lust 'n Geology (1ST DRAFT)

Chapter 9: Island visit

Chapter 9: Island visit

As much as she'd loathed running into Tom before, from that day, the day he'd generously shown up and helped rescue their truck, she found herself on the lookout for him, hoping that he and his partner might spot her and Chris somewhere and stop to chit-chat — only for a few minutes, of course! — or if that wasn't allowed, then warn them of something or the other. It didn't much signify what, like, be careful when you're driving at night cause moose have a tendency to get transfixed by headlights and won't move until you've hit them, at which point they'll try to enter your vehicle through the windshield. Anything, really. Of course, the fact that she and Chris spent entire days in logging areas likely had something to do with the fact that he never showed, which, of course, only made her more keen to see him!

At least that's what she thought, until the day actually arrived when their guests were expected. Their food supply had begun to run low by mid-week so it was decided that Grant and Phil would take their day off on Friday, spend it in Dryden — separately, most definitely separately! — and bring groceries back, returning early so Phil could get a head start on preparing dinner. (Tom had phoned Grant and told him that a weekday would work better for his partner, who was married, than the weekend.) Chris, ever solicitous of Phil, suggested that he and Samina also cut their day short so that he could help Phil out with the cooking, but Phil insisted that there was no need. Besides, it wasn't as if there was a heck of a lot to do in Dryden, anyway!

Perhaps she'd had too much time to imagine her upcoming meeting with Tom, for from the moment her eyes opened in the morning, indeed, even prior to closing the night before, the prospect of seeing him again had her so nervous that she was no longer sure that she wanted to! She had intermittent butterflies in her stomach all day long — particularly during lunch when she actually had time to envision their meeting — right through to when she and Chris paddled back to camp after their day in the field. (They generally didn't bother using the motor as by the time they reached water deep enough to start it up, they were just a stone's throw from the island.)

As she lifted her backpack out of the canoe, she honestly believed that she was more nervous now than when she'd first met him! How was that possible? They stopped by the kitchen area on their way to their tents and were told by Phil that Chris could come back and help out after he'd disposed of his gear, but that she could take it easy as her services weren't required.

She sat in her tent, musing if she should change. For example, should she wear a dress? Mmm, no. She was fairly certain that the boys would dress casually, if they bothered to 'dress' at all — they had a habit of wandering around shirtless all day — and the last thing she wanted was to stand out. Besides, she'd just end up spending the evening swatting mosquitoes and black-flies off her legs, anyway. But upon looking down and examining her shirt and pants, she decided that perhaps she could do Tom and his partner the honour of changing out of dirty field clothes.

As she emerged from her tent, wearing clean ones, she sniffed the air, the tantalizing smell of meat being cooked having made its way clear across the island. After an eight or nine-hour day in the field from which one pretty much always returned famished, it was a glorious one! She wondered if any bears on shore were feeling tempted to run a raid on their island right now.

On her trips to India, one or more meat dishes had occupied the tables of extended family at breakfast, lunch and dinner. While she'd never had anything against eating meat, she'd always been leery of consuming it on quite that scale. But out here it was a different story. If their meals hadn't been planned, and their food hence rationed — though to be fair to Grant, generously so — she was fairly certain that they could all consume an endless amount of meat, even Grant! Fieldwork definitely brought out the carnivore in one!