Page 5 of Love in the Lab
“Fine.”
“And I should call you…?” I know her first name, of course, but she’s just too easy to irritate.
“Molly.”
“Can I call you Mol?”
She pinches her lips together. “No.”
“How about Mollywog?”
She glowers. “Absolutely not.”
Molly turns her head toward the window, so I take the hint and stop talking to her. The song changes over to “I and Love and You,” and I have to stop myself from singing along.
When we stop at a red light, I glance over at the passenger seat. Molly’s searching around like she lost something.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“My phone. I think I probably left it on my desk.” She pats her pockets one more time.
“Do you need it? We can turn back.”
“No. I’ll be fine.” She folds her arms across her chest.
“Are you sure? It wouldn’t be a problem to—”
“I said it’s fine,” she snaps.
“Okay. Jeez. We’re almost there anyway.” Even though I know I’m pushing her too much, the words still sting.
Molly sighs. “I’m sorry. This is all a little—”
A trilling ringtone interrupts her, followed by a robotic voice repeating, “Incoming call from … Dad” over the speakers in the cab.
Inwardly, I groan. I’m not dealing with this today. I let it ring.
Molly stares at me. “Do you need to get that?”
“Nope.”
After another few seconds, the phone stops ringing and the speakers switch back to music.
I try to shake off the irritation my dad’s call brought up by focusing my attention back on Molly.
I grin at her. “We’re almost to the first site. We need to collect samples from four sites today. We can probably get two of them done before lunch and two after.”
“This is an all-day thing?”
“Yep.”
I pull off the road near what used to be the Bayou Bienvenue Wetland Platform. The Wetland Triangle is our first stop. Without waiting for Molly, I get out of the truck to pull supplies out of the bed.
I pause to admire the scenery. Looking out over the water, I’m reminded once again how much I love my job. Here it is, a weekday, and I get to be outside in the sunshine playing in the water. Bayou Bienvenue is approximately four hundred acres of open water stretching out in front of me, though some remnants of the cypress swamp it used to be are evident in the handful of limbless trunks poking out from under the surface.
They call it a ghost swamp because it’s now a sad echo of the thriving ecosystem it once was. Still, the water sparkles and the grass surrounding it is green and lush. Sure beats sitting in front of a computer.
Behind me, I hear Molly’s door slam closed. She walks around the back of the truck and stops next to me. I hand her my extra set of chest waders.
