There are some hard-core veteran Winter Overers who would love it if the Internet had never been invented. “Antarctica has lost its sense of isolation,” they complain, isolation being the reason so many people come here year after year. Solitude. Escape from the rest of humanity. From life.

I’m starting to sympathize with them.

Ballerina Comes Home

It took moving 3,000 miles away to New York City for Katherine Grey to realize, “San Francisco is my home. It’s where I’m meant to be. This city is in my blood!” She laughs, as some of this San Francisco blood spills from an open blister on her foot and onto the studio floor of Grey’s lifelong ballet teacher, Simone Beaulieu.

“Kate could never be anything else,” Beaulieu says, intently watching Grey’s lightning-fast turns across the floor of her West Portal dance studio. “She was born to this.”

Which makes it no surprise the seventeen-year-old was chosen earlier this year by New York’s world-famous American Ballet Theatre to be an apprentice company member, a coveted position most dancers only dream of.

“But as soon as I got there, though the training was wonderful, my homesickness turned to something deeper,” Grey says.

Oh, really. Perhaps it’s the deep realization you’ve betrayed your best friend and lied to her for ten years. Or it could be you got a bad street-vendor pretzel. Who knows.

“I can dance anywhere. But I couldn’t belong everywhere,” a feeling Grey says she was willing to ignore, and she threw herself fully into participating with daily rehearsals at ABT.

“The managing director of the San Francisco Ballet was in town. He’d seen me at a competition earlier in the season and liked what he saw.” Then came San Francisco’s unique move of facilitating negotiations to get Grey out of her nine-month contract with ABT and offering her a two-year corps position contract with the San Francisco Ballet instead. Which Grey was “thrilled to gratefully accept!”

“Everything I’ve ever loved has always been here in San Francisco, in West Portal. Now I can say that for certain.”

“Harp?”

Charlotte is awake but still in my bed, beneath every blanket I could find. I close her laptop and reprimand myself yet again for being weak—I have got to stay the hell off Google and stop dumping entire containers of rock salt onto these wounds.

I go to the chair I’ve set up beside her. “Hey,” I say. “What do you need?”

She closes her eyes, her arm over her face. “It’s a million degrees in here. Can I get some of these covers off?” She shoves them aside and I fold them at the foot of the bed. “Thank you for staying. You don’t need to. I’m used to it—I’m so sorry I ruined your night.”

“You saved my night,” I sigh. I’m nursing a huge headache, my eyeballs are parched, I’m wrecked recalling alternately first how impossibly close I came to spending the night with Aiden and then plunging my thoughts right back into how much I love Owen’s laugh, his beautiful eyes, his intelligence, his kindness, his voice, sitting together by the bridge above the ocean and the lights and sounds of the New Year parade—

Poor Charlotte moans pitifully from the covers, sick and miserable.

“I’d almost rather have anything—strep throat, bladder infection—than nausea. I hate it so much!” she whines.

There’s a tap at the door, and I step into the hall, where Aiden hands me saltine crackers, a liter bottle of flat ginger ale, and a cup of ice.

“She okay?”

“Just the flu. She’ll make it. But I’m staying with her, okay? Sorry.”

He pulls me to him, hugs me in my far-less-sexy sweatpants and T-shirt ensemble. “Me too. I’m really sad our slumber party got hijacked.”

I nod into his chest, thinking miserably of Owen, awash in guilt, deserving of how awful my head feels, and so grateful I found Charlotte when I did—but then look what Aiden does. Brings her soda and crackers, kindness and care for us both.

“Thank you,” I say. “This will really help.”

“Here, I’ve got these,” Vivian says, suddenly standing beside Aiden, her face hidden behind an armful of folded blankets she’s found in Charlotte’s room.

“Oh my gosh, Vivian, thank you.”

Aiden’s eyes are wide. “Is this Tickle-Fight-in-Panties Night?!”

“Perv,” Vivian says, and shuts the door.

“Sorry!” I whisper to Aiden. “Thank you, thank you, call me later!” I slip into the room and lock the door behind me.

Charlotte sits up.

“I found these,” Vivian says, and piles them on top of the stack at the foot of the bed.

Charlotte falls back against the pillows. “I am the worst mentor ever. Holy crap, I’m going to get sued. I’ll be thrown in jail for contributing to the delinquency of minors, and I’ll deserve it. This is so bad….”

“Oh, relax,” Vivian says, dropping onto her bed. “You’re a science teacher, not a den mother. No one’s going to find out.”

Charlotte and I stare at her.

“What? Harper, you’re not going to tell anyone here. You’re not telling your parents, right?”

“Of course not, no!”

“Me neither,” she says to Charlotte. “It was nearly impossible to persuade them to let me come here. I’m not about to prove them right about how McMurdo pretends to be a science station but in reality is nothing more than a sex den of debauchery. So there you go. No one will find out Charlotte’s a South Pole dancer, and no one’s going to know Harper got drunk and made out with some dude in the hallway. All is well, and the world will go on turning.”

“Vivian,” I say, “I like you in a crisis.”

“This is not a crisis!” Charlotte wails. “Wait—oh God! Harper, did you tell me in the bathroom that you’re drunk? Are you drunk?”

“Not anymore.”

“Oh, sweetheart, please,” she begs. “You can’t, you cannot do that. Promise me you won’t—”

“Trust me,” I say. “I feel terrible. I hated it. And my parents will never find out about that, either.”

“Please just let your brain develop some more before you screw with it, okay? It is my fault; I’m your supervisor. Your mom would never forgive me. But also, Harper, my God! You know better! You’ve got to use the common sense I know you have. Was Aiden, too?”

I shake my head. “I don’t think that guy can get drunk.”

She rolls her eyes. “I’ll talk to his supervisor. This is why no one wanted to offer these grants. You can’t have teenagers in this kind of situation. Where the hell did he get the drinks?”

“From the bar, I’m guessing.”

“Was that him out there just now?”

I nod, pour the ginger ale over the ice, and it foams up a little.

“You tell him it’s the flu?”

“Of course!”

She closes her eyes again. “This is so dumb.”

“None of his business. No one’s but yours. Drink this.”

“Well, mine and the medical staff who aren’t equipped for childbirth.

“How many…like, how far along…?”

“Five, maybe six months.”

“How long have you known?”

She counts in her head. “Eight…teen weeks? My period is never regular in the winter. Sometimes it never comes at all. Core temperature can get so low it messes with it. But apparently not enough.” She pulls the covers back up around her.

“Girls at my school got knocked up all the time,” Vivian says, reaching for some saltines. “At least you’re an adult.”

I frown. “They did?”

“Sure. I mean, two or three a year, but there were only, like, five hundred kids in the whole school, so that’s a lot. Statistically.”

“In Minnesota?”

She rolls her eyes. “Yes, in St. Paul. People have sex there. Haven’t you seen Purple Rain?”

“I thought that was Minneapolis,” Charlotte says.

“So,” Vivian says, “aside from the barfing, are you…okay? I mean, what are you going to…Does the father know?”

She shakes her head. “No.”

“You gonna tell him? Is he here?”

“It was one time, the stupid New Year’s Eve party. He left on the Last Plane Out. Flight-scheduling guy. I need to figure out how to not let this ruin my entire life before I bring a guy who couldn’t care less into it.”

“How do you know?” Vivian says. “Maybe he would care…more.”

“I don’t even know his last name. He may not have known my first name.”

“Oh.”

“In my defense—once you’ve taken a million hikes and watched all the movies and gone to the library and played air hockey, there’s only so many recreational activities a person can fill their time with here. Also, we were completely drunk, so all I can say is, heed this life lesson—drunken sex with a guy you barely know? Not the best idea. Also? McMurdo serves perishable food from boxes with expiration dates in the previous decade. Condoms have a shelf life, too.”

“Gross,” Vivian mutters.

“Yeah. Well. And now I’m awake night and day freaked out about unsavory diseases…Oh God, I can’t think about it!”

“So get tested!” I say. “You’re having regular visits anyway, for the baby, right?”

“Harp, no…they can’t know.”

“Who can’t?”

“I’ve got to stay and finish. I’m being dramatic. I’m sure it’s fine disease-wise. The battery of tests they put us through to get here…but I can’t see the doctor for anything, because if they find out, they’ll make me go back at Winfly.”

“Which of course you will be doing…,” Vivian says. “Going home at Winfly. Right? Because you aren’t stupid?”

“What’s Winfly?” I ask.

“Viv,” Charlotte says, “haven’t you ever seen that Oops, I’m Pregnant! show? Or whatever it’s called? People carry babies to term all the time, and they don’t have any idea they’re doing it till they’re peeing or taking a bath one day, and Whoa!”

“Charlotte,” Vivian sighs.

“I’m not kidding! People smoke and drink and climb really high stepladders, and here come these perfectly healthy babies. I’m not doing any of that. I can’t handle booze, I hate smoke, I feel perfectly well except for all the throwing up—which is a good sign, by the way—and obviously I’m gaining enough weight. I’ll see the doctor the second the Winfly plane takes off, I swear. I’m a biologist—that’s practically a doctor anyway.”

“It is not!” Vivian shrills.

“Okay, well, it’s science at least! I have to stay and finish. If I can keep it quiet till after Winfly, they’ll have to let me stay.”

“What is Winfly?” I ask again.

“Seriously?” Vivian says. “I thought you were an ‘Antarctica-ist.’ Did you read anything in the manual at all?”

“Winter Fly In,” Charlotte says. “NSF’s got to get McMurdo set for October Main Body—resupply, get the labs and rooms ready. At the end of August, there’s this predictable tiny window when the weather clears up just enough while the ice is still firm and they can land a plane with a crew of, like, two hundred people to prep the station, and they bring all kinds of stuff with them. We’ll have lettuce again, and eggs and milk. Oh, and mail! Then the next day, the plane takes off, before the weather traps it here. It’s Santa Claus for Winter Over.”

“And when Santa goes home, you’ll be with him,” Vivian presses.

Charlotte frowns. “Winter’s not over till the end of September, your contracts and mine.”

“Who cares! You’ve got a really good reason to get off The Ice. They’d want you off, right?”

“Yes, but I can’t yet.”

“Charlotte!” Vivian cries. “Do not stay for the penguins. You can finish later! You can’t have a baby on The Ice. It won’t even have a country of origin.”

“Yes, it will! It’ll be Antarctic American. Also, the penguins are worth staying for—I’ve got to finish this research.

“I know,” I say. “But, Char…”

“And I’ve also got to turn it in on time to matriculate, or I won’t have a degree in my possession, and therefore I won’t be able to accept job openings now. If I leave it undone, I’ll never come back—not for years, and how will I support this baby then? I can’t dump a kid with someone while I go live on The Ice for a year. I need to be done, degree in hand, so I can have a real job at home and pay for rent and diapers and toys and candy.”

“You can’t give a baby candy,” I say.

“I’m gonna.”

“Oh jeez.”

“Listen to me. I can’t start over. Years have gone into getting here; a woman in science has to be three times smarter just to prove she deserves to be here, and then I’m black, so of course I’ve had to work ten times harder to prove…who the hell knows what….But I’ve done it. And I’m here, I’m nearly graduated, and I’m fucking exhausted.” She throws the covers back off, boiling again. “I can’t start over. Not with a baby to take care of. She’ll stay put till winter is over, I promise. Please help me.”

I barely remember the surgery performed on my feet. But I recall vividly begging Mom and Dad to let me do it. Promising to pay for it. Which I partly did, with babysitting money. It’s just shaving the bone, I’d sobbed. It’s completely routine. Dancers do it all the time. If I don’t, I’ll never be on pointe, please. Please help me.

“She?” Vivian says.

“Who?”

“You said ‘She.’ ”

“Oh. I can tell. This kid’s a giant pain in my ass already. She’s not going to take crap from anyone, ever. Including me.”

Vivian looks at me. “Fine,” she says. “No one’s going to know. But if you drop this kid on the ice and we get busted for knowing, it’s on you.”

“Got it.”

“Can I admit something dumb?” Charlotte whispers.

“Oooh yeah!” I squeal quietly. Vivian shakes her head.

“When I first found out and recovered from the stroke, I was…happy. I love kids. I love them. I want one. And I worried sometimes. About how, with my life this way, was I ever going to find time to meet a decent guy, get married, and have a baby before I turned forty?”

I think of every kid I babysit. Sneaking them ice cream and tucking them in. I see Willa’s face. My Saturday class, grabbing my legs, trying their best for me onstage, dancing their hearts out. Loving me.

“She was meant to be!” I sigh happily.

“Yay for faulty condoms!” Charlotte cheers weakly.

“Nice,” Vivian says.

“It would be kind of amazing if she were born here. You could name her…Nacreous.”

“Because no one makes fun of kids named Nacreous,” Vivian adds.

“Ugh, I’m so sick of being sick,” Charlotte moans, and rolls over to her side. “Hey,” she says, “was I hallucinating or were you in the bathroom sitting on a towel, wearing a black bra and underwear?”

I help her sit up and put the ginger ale to her pale lips. “Yes.”

“Yes what?”

“You were hallucinating. But that’s going around, so no big whoop. Eat a cracker.”

She tells us she’ll be fine, she can go back to her room, but Vivian and I agree we’d feel better knowing Charlotte’s getting some sleep in case she needs us in the night. So we tuck her in, Vivian lies down in her bed and turns away from the glow of the laptop, and I stalk Kate and read the rest of Mom and Dad’s emails. At eleven-thirty I find Ice 104.5 on the radio dial.

“Top o’ the midwinter to us all. Let the rosy sky warm and brighten a little more each day! Except for the predicted record cold snap on its way preceding Winfly. No matter. We’ll bundle up together, won’t we, our Antarctica family? Tonight I’ve got love in my heart for you all, and here’s a song to send you off to sleep, whoever you are. All of us. Together beneath the moon on this most beautiful ice. Samhradh sásta, family.”

“That guy,” Vivian sighs in half-sleep.

And then from the tinny radio speakers comes a single note. A fiddle. A long, sweet draw across the strings and into an Irish lullaby.

I close the T3 folder, cover myself in blankets on a chair, and drowse in the warmth while Aiden plays us all to sleep.