The Simple Wild: A Novel(54)

At least it doesn’t smell like motor oil in here, though. I can’t describe the scent. A faint waft of brewed coffee and damp air, perhaps.

Rows of navy-blue chairs—the typical uncomfortable airport seats—fill the open space. There’s enough to accommodate thirty people, by my eyeball calculation. All of them are empty at the moment.

A thin brunette with rosy cheeks sits at the far end, behind one of two computers at the customer desk. Her round hawkish gaze is doing a once-over of me. When she sees that I’ve noticed her, she grins. “You must be Calla.” Her voice—a distinctive American accent that I can’t place except to say she’s not from Alaska—seems to echo through the open space.

I’m not sure how to take that.

I force a smile. “Hi. I’m looking for Agnes.”

“She’s in the back.” She gestures to a doorway behind her. “I’m Sharon, by the way.”

“Right. Agnes mentioned you the other day. I’m Wren’s daughter, Calla.” I shake my head at myself as I approach. “Which we just covered.”

She laughs and nods to the doorway. “Go on through.”

It’s not until I round the desk that I notice the basketball under Sharon’s shirt. My eyes widen involuntarily.

“All baby, right?” She pats her swollen belly. “And a lot of it.”

“When are you due?” Because she looks ready to burst.

“Eight more weeks, and I am so ready to be done.”

“I’ll bet.” She can’t be older than me. She might be even younger. I struggle not to grimace at the thought of being in her shoes. Maybe a baby will sound more appealing to me in a few years.

Like, ten years.

“Well . . . good luck.” I wander through the doorway and into a much smaller room decorated in the same outdated fashion, half of the space filled with filing cabinets of varying sizes and shades of metal gray, the other half by three large desks. Maps plaster the walls all around, and off to the far left is a small office with a door that wears a gold plaque with the name “Wren Fletcher.” It’s empty.

A portly white-haired man sits at a desk in the corner, stabbing at the keys of a clunky calculator with the eraser end of his pencil. The printer churns and a strip of white paper spits out at a steady stream. It’s a scene right out of one of those cheesy old movies that Simon insisted I watch, sans the thick haze of cigarette smoke and rotary phone.

Agnes looks up from her monitor, a pair of glasses that are much too narrow for her round face perched on the end of her nose. “Hey, Calla. Looking for your dad?” She’s not at all fazed that I’ve shown up here, but she never seems fazed by anything.

“No, actually I wanted to talk to you for a minute. Can you take a quick break?”

“I was just thinking I needed a coffee refresh.” Agnes stands and collects a green mug from beside her desk, and then the red one beside Calculator Man. “Another one, James?”

“Uh-huh.” He doesn’t even look up.

She hesitates. “Calla’s here.”

His hand pauses mid-poke, his bushy eyebrow lifting as he regards me. “Good God, you’re Susan’s spitting image,” he mutters, before glaring at the sheet in front of him. “Dammit, where was I?”

“James is ‘in the zone,’ as Mabel would say.” Agnes nods toward the door. “We try not to interrupt him. He gets grouchy.” She pokes her head around the corner. “Sharon? Keep an ear out for dispatch, will ya? Wren should be calling in soon.”

“Can do!” says the chirpy receptionist.

“Wren went up to St. Mary’s to check on some repairs to the station building.” Agnes leads me through a different door and into what I’m guessing is the staff room—a long corridor with a small kitchenette on one side, a rectangular table in the middle, and an eclectic collection of three worn couches in a U-shape on the far end, the pillows misshapen from years of being burdened by weight. A coffee table in front of them is stacked with tattered magazines and poorly folded newspapers.

It feels like it’s several degrees colder in here. I hug myself, trying to warm up. “So, that guy back there remembers my mother?” James, I think she said.

“And you.” Agnes retrieves the half-full pot of coffee from the maker and fills both mugs. “James has been coming in here every week to update Wild’s books for forty-eight years now. Can you believe that?”

Wow. “And he doesn’t use a computer?”

“Nope. Just that big calculator and his ledger books.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

Agnes shakes her head, amusement in her eyes.

“Is that the way things are in Alaska?”

“That’s the way things are in Alaska Wild.” She turns the tap on and begins washing a dirty mug left by the sink. The paper taped to the wall above that reads, “You use it, you wash it” was clearly ignored. “It’s the same reason your dad still books flights on scrap pieces of paper that I have to fish out of his pockets, and why we only take reservations in person and over the phone.” She chuckles. “In case you haven’t noticed, Wild is behind a few decades.”

“I couldn’t even find a website,” I admit. “Not one that had anything on it, anyway.”