SSSD - Day 3

The morning comes without undo awkwardness, although there’s also no sentimentality from Birgitte, who wakes up early. Alison is confused until she realizes that Birgitte has to get up early to make breakfast for everyone. Birgitte is warm and friendly enough, but it seems to end there. Alison has thoughts and feelings, but it’s hard to give those their due. Every morning at the Outpost begins with the same crisis: mustering the strength of will to leave a warm bed and make the cold trek to the showers. It’s not very far, but it feels like a long way and then the steam, the water, and even the bodies in the shower create a welcoming sense of warmth. Alison stays for as long as she can in Birgitte’s bed before throwing off the covers and emerging.

Apart from a stolen glance from Marit, Alison senses little in the way of reactions to her actions last night. Ro doesn’t appear to know; the petite redhead huddles pitifully under her showerhead, fixating on getting warm. Linda’s not here. Julie is, but she doesn’t care as she rather elegantly washes her hair. Niv is shaving herself in a brisk, unceremonious fashion and it appears in the interests of uniformity, she’s shaving it all. Signe’s already drying off.

No drama. No weirdness. There is, however, a slight air of distraction. Everyone has things on her mind. Now that Alison’s warm, she’s thinking about breakfast.

But breakfast is the most underwhelming meal in this place. Alison isn’t loving Norwegian food in general, but breakfast uniformly has always sucked so far. Today it’s these cracker things with two kinds of cheese, one of which is brown, and the Norwegians aren’t even asking questions. They don’t care that the cheese is brown. They’re cool with it. And some oatmeal that is the reason that Birgitte got up early: some effort obviously went into it. There’s like honey and blueberries and stuff. It’s good oatmeal. Fancy, even. Too bad that Alison hates oatmeal. So she’s eating crackers, yellow cheese, and drinking coffee with too much cream and sugar. These people are psychopaths. No cereal? No donuts? No Danishes? Not even like rolls or something that she could put jelly on.

“If I marry a Norwegian,” she mutters to Ro, who is gamely eating oatmeal, “I’m doing the cooking.”

Ro nods in silent, bleary agreement.

Golda enters the dining room. These Norwegians are all well put together, at least compared to the average American in a comparable situation, but Golda always comes off a bit more polished. She wears black slacks and a thick gray and white shirt with snowflakes and symbols on it. She’s put some effort into her hair, and Alison loves her understated rose gold earrings.

The crew instinctively quiets and looks at her as she takes her place at the front of the room, clasping her hands.

She says two or three brisk sentences in Norwegian. It doesn’t sound friendly or unfriendly, just relaxed and businesslike.

Julie replies briefly. Signe says something.

Marit takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, then nods.

Alison senses slight irritation, but not tension.

Golda says a little more. There’s a bit of feedback from the others.

“What are they saying?” Alison whispers to Ro.

“The schedule today. They’re making changes. I can’t…” Ro gives her a look. She can’t keep up with all the details. Understandable. Her Norwegian is basic.

Their conversation ends as they notice that several of the Norwegians are looking at them. They don’t seem upset or anything.

Golda speaks. Julie replies.

Alison and Ro shift nervously as Signe and Julie approach. Golda pours herself a mug of coffee and heads for the door, but not without a glance toward Alison first. Alison smiles. Golda almost trips. Blushing, she hurries out.

“We will do things in a different way today,” Julie says to Alison and Ro, looking toward Signe for confirmation. It’s not that these two aren’t confident people, they just aren’t confident in English.

“It is because of equipment failure,” Signe explains.

Alison nods. Yeah. Two things in like two days seems like a lot, although it was all normal maintenance-related stuff, not anything spicy. Still, it’s not a good look for Marit, if she’s supposed to be in charge of all this. On the other hand, this place and all the equipment is old. And Marit is just one woman. On top of that, she’s only Alison’s age. It’s a lot. CCL has almost twenty girls, and even so, it’s hard to keep the old mansion from falling down. It’s possible that Marit is slacking off, but she’s always seemed both competent and willing to work when Alison has seen her in action. Sure, last night she was smoking weed, but weed at night isn’t going to seriously impact someone’s ability to perform this function.

Alison focuses.

“Marit must do many things, and she will need help,” Julie says frankly. She and Signe exchange another look and Alison reads between the lines.

“Got it,” she says, sparing them the need to explain. “No, that makes sense. Using an intern as an extra pair of hands rather than a member of the science team makes perfect sense.”

Julie smiles, looking appreciative.

“Who’s it going to be?” Alison asks.

Signe and Julie don’t appear to have an answer for her.

Alison looks at Ro, who naturally doesn’t speak up.

The bottom line is that one of the interns will have to be Marit’s assistant today. Who should help Marit? Alison or Ro?