Camp

“Let’s zip up the roof,” she said.

“No way.” I pointed up. “You wanted to see this.”

“Just say you want to see the moon,” she giggled, and wrapped her sleeping bag around her thin, huddled legs. “So many years later, you’re still a child.”

“They say girls mature faster than boys,” I said.

“Great excuse,” she countered.

I rubbed my hands together, and thought of all the times she bossed me around, even years before we started meeting at the library. “In the first place, you were born first. You have almost three months on me.”

She shook her head. “Your parents never told you? I’m younger than you.”

I was confused. “Your birthday’s in January. The party was, at least.”

“I skipped a year of kindergarten,” the engineer whispered as if it were a national secret. “It changes nothing, but I hated anyone in our grade finding out. People make these things into bigger deals than they are.”

I laughed. “Aren’t you doing the same thing?”

“See, look!” she exclaimed. “You talked back.”

“I always talk back,” I insisted.

Catherine folded her arms, and shook her head. “Not with that look on your face.”

The moon was brighter than I ever knew, the glowing guide of a raft on a stormy sea of silver. The tent for four was too small for one man and one woman, adrift on the solid ground of a small camping site. The space between us was a forbidden stretch, larger than the space between us and the heavenly gods of Greece and Rome.

“Treat me as an older girl,” she said. “Exactly as you did before.”

“Okay,” I relented.

“Good boy.” Her lips curled. “If you must rebel, think of me as a younger woman — someone to guard from the evils of the world.”

I looked away, embarrassed. “You’re managing fine by yourself. And Tim . . .”

“He loves me, but can never protect me.” The engineer was adamant. “I married a scientist, someone who can change the world, and made a vow to serve my husband to the end. From the start, my mission was duty to history.”

We shivered, and listened to the crickets. After a long pause, I ventured: “What about Catherine Shanks, the great engineer? What about her story?”

“Stop with the feminism,” she said. “Let’s try to not freeze to death.”

The engineer joined our sleeping bags. They fit together well, too well. Under the same covers, I stared at the mesh door as she lay beside me, her shoulder touching my back. After some time, she nudged me.

“Look up, Gale. Otherwise, why leave the roof open?”

I turned around all the way, facing the profile of my friend’s wife, and held my breath at the sight of her lashes, unadorned by the mascara she always wore. “Weird to think we’d be this close,” I hushed.

“Is it?” she asked, more surprised than I thought. “You’re one of my best friends.”

“We drove each other nuts,” I reminded.

She shifted onto her side. I could scarcely see the Cat I knew in the engineer’s features, save for the freckles that danced on the bridge of her nose. The night was cold, but her breath on my chest chilled me like evening frost. “I was mean to you, but I liked seeing you at dinner parties. My parents didn’t let me play with many boys.”

I tried to shuffle away, but the warm polyester fabric trapped me with her. “All this time, I thought you hated me. I was okay with it.”

“Nonsense,” she said softly. “Hate is a sin.”

“I was never good enough,” I rued, playful as I tried to be. “Eroica has her schemes, you have your faith, Louise has her music. You three lost Ancra, and found me as a unworthy replacement. So many years later, best I can do is wordplay. ‘Worthless wanderer in Waterloo’ — alliteration.”

I thought the engineer would laugh politely, or chastise me with a smile. Instead, her tears came, and stopped not. No matter what I tried, lunar light glistened in the saline drops that pooled and flowed.

“What am I supposed to do,” I said, helpless.

“I can't stand it,” Catherine sobbed. “God created you, Gale Jones. He loves you, too. Don’t ever forget how much you’re loved.”

“There, there.” I rocked her back and forth by the shoulder. “I’m sorry, Cat. I was wrong.”

Wipe, hiccup, sniff. She smiled, and moved my hand to her wet cheek. “It’s been so long,” she said, and soon she was asleep.