No discoloration. No particular odor either, which didn’t surprise her. Solvents would emit a sweet smell, and fuels would smell like—well, fuel. Hydrocarbons. But lead would simply smell like dirt. So would arsenic.
After wiping her gloved hand on the thigh of her jeans, she jotted down her findings.
Normally, she’d be talking to her assistant sampler, Bashir, about their most egregious coworkers or maybe their most recent reality show binge-watches. But by this point in the afternoon, they were both too tired to make idle conversation, so she finished logging the sample silently while he filled out the label for the glass sample jar and completed the chain-of-custody form.
After she filled the jar with soil and wiped her hand on her jeans again, she labeled the container, slipped it into a zip-top bag, and placed it in the ice-filled cooler. One last signature to confirm she was handing off the sample to the waiting lab courier, and they were done for the day. Thank God.
“That’s it?” Bashir asked.
“That’s it.” As they watched the courier leave with the cooler, she blew out a breath. “I can take care of cleanup, if you want to relax for a few minutes.”
He shook his head. “I’ll help.”
Other than their thirty-minute lunch break, they’d been on task and focused since seven that morning, almost nine hours ago. Her feet hurt in her dusty safety boots, her exposed skin stung from too much sun exposure, dehydration had her head throbbing inside her hard hat, and she was ready for a good, long shower back at the hotel.
Her cheek also itched, probably from a stray smear of dirt. Which was unfortunate, because soil-to-skin contact was, in technical terminology, an exposure pathway. Or, as April would put it, a fucking bad idea.
Uncapping her water bottle, she wet a paper towel and swiped until her cheek felt clean again.
“You still have some . . .” Bashir’s finger scratched at a spot near his temple. “There.”
“Thanks.” Despite her headache, her smile at him was sincere. She could count the number of genuine friends she had at her current firm on one hand, but Bashir was among them. “Good work today.”
After one last swipe and Bashir’s affirmative nod—she’d gotten rid of all the mud this time, apparently—the paper towel ended up in the same garbage bag as her used gloves, and good riddance.
The soil was dirty in more ways than one. Until midcentury, a pesticide factory had operated on the site, polluting the facility’s surroundings with lead and arsenic. Because of that history, April had spent the last several weeks gathering samples of the soil to analyze for both chemicals. She wanted neither directly on her skin. Or on her jeans, for that matter, but paper towels were just a pain in the ass at the end of the day.
“Did I tell you?” As she gathered their paperwork, he slid her a sly grin. “Last week, Chuck told that new kid never to drink water in the exclusion zone. Because it’s bad practice, and goes against health and safety guidelines.”
Together, they turned to stare at their red cooler filled with water bottles, which she’d placed on the tailgate of their field truck that morning.
“Chuck’s a self-congratulatory twenty-two-year-old prick who’s spent almost no time on actual job sites.” At her flat statement, Bashir’s eyes widened. “He doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about, but is happy to tell everyone how to do their jobs anyway.”
At that, Bashir snorted. “Not just our jobs.”
“Oh, Jesus.” April rolled her eyes skyward. “Did he lecture you about hummus again?”
“Yes. Even though I don’t eat much hummus, or give half a shit about chickpeas. I guess he just assumes I do, because . . .” Bashir waved a hand at himself. “You know.”
Together, they began carrying the paperwork to the company truck.
“I know.” She sighed. “Please tell me he wasn’t telling you to try—”
“The chocolate hummus,” Bashir confirmed. “Again. If you’d like to hear about its fiber and protein content, or perhaps how it’s a vast improvement over more traditional versions of hummus—the hummus of your people, as he put it—I’ve been well informed and would be delighted to share my newfound knowledge with you.”
He opened the passenger door for her, and she tucked the paperwork inside the latching case of her clipboard.
“Ugh. I’m so sorry.” She grimaced. “If it’s any consolation, he also has very definite opinions about how his few female colleagues should dress to score more jobs.”
In a small private firm, consultants like her had to hustle for clients, woo them over lunches and at professional meetings, draw them aside at conventions and conferences about remedial technologies. Convince them she should be taken seriously and they wanted to pay her company for her geological expertise.
To remain optimally billable, she had to look a certain way. Sound a certain way. Present herself in the most professional light possible at all times.
Billable had become an epithet to her in recent years.
Reputation in her industry could be a fragile thing. Could be damaged. By, say, the revelation that a seemingly serious and practical colleague liked to play dress-up as her favorite pretend TV character and spent most of her free time discussing fictional half gods.
Bashir rolled his eyes. “Of course he has opinions about women’s clothing. You told management, right?”
“Literally five minutes later.”
“Good.” Bashir walked by her side back toward the sampling table. “Hopefully they’ll fire his ass before much longer.”
“He knows nothing. Less than nothing, if that’s possible.” A pluck of her fingers at her shirt demonstrated how it clung damply to her. “I mean, look at how much we sweated today.”
“Copiously.” He glanced down at his own sweat-soaked orange shirt. “Disgustingly.”
Stopping by the table, she shook her head. “Exactly. Someone needs to set that new kid straight. Unless she wants to end up in the hospital for dehydration, she needs to bring water.”
Bashir inclined his head. “You would know.”
“I would know.”
And she did. Up until now, almost a third of her work hours as a geologist had been spent staying upwind of drill rigs like the one on this site, poring over soil samples to be logged and shoved into jars and sent off for lab testing. For a long time, she’d loved the processes and the challenges and even the physicality of doing fieldwork. Some part of her still did love it.
Not all of her, though. Not enough of her.
As they flipped the table on its side and folded its legs, Bashir paused. “You’re really leaving, huh?”
“Yup.” This was her last day visiting a contaminated site in her current role, her last week as a consultant at a private firm, and her last time washing dirt from her jeans. “I’ll miss you, but it’s time. Past time.”
In less than a week, she was moving from Sacramento to Berkeley. And in less than two weeks, Future April would begin her new job at a state regulatory agency in Oakland, overseeing the work of consultants like Current April, which would mean more meetings and document analysis, and less time in the field.
She was ready. For so many reasons, personal and professional both.