Shera's Diary
Chapter 3
Quandary
By Kristen Gupton-Williams
Dear Diary,
I'm going to make this short. Since I was up until three in the morning last night writing down what happened, I'm really exhausted. I had to have a meeting with the lead electrician on the project this morning at six thirty.
That went fine, I guess, but…
I feel like I'm on a roller coaster. Last night, I really felt that I gotten through to Captain Highwind on some level. Turns out, I think it was more about the beer and less about me.
I went to him around two this afternoon with the schematics of the oxygen tanks. Even now I still…
Well, anyway, I walked up to where he happened to be sitting at the time. "Sir?"
Without even looking up from what he was reading, he growled. "What, Goddamnit?"
"I have something I would like to discuss with you," I said, smiling and trying to be my usual happy self.
"What?"
I set the plans on his desk. "These schematics for the oxygen--"
He pushed them over to the side, never even looking at them, and he cut off my words. "The oxygen system, Shera, is done. It's built already. It's a moot point. I can't implement any new fuckin' ideas now."
"I know but…"
"But what? I've got shit to do right now. I don't have time for this constant crap from you and the other engineers. Do your damn job." He still didn't look up at me.
My frustration was starting to get the better of me as I realized right there that he was still going to be the same way toward me as ever. I guess last night had just been a fluke. "I think there's something wrong though, Sir."
"What specifically?" Finally, he slammed his hand on his desk and turned in his chair to look at me, a scowl upon his face.
"Well… that's the problem. I don't know but there's just something that I--" Once more, I found myself cut off.
He stood up and glared down at me. "You think there's somethin', but you don't know what? Those fuckin' tanks, again, are built! I can't change shit with them, not when you can't tell me if there really is a specific problem! Those systems have been reviewed, again and again. I myself looked at 'em long and hard. There ain't SHIT wrong with the oxygen system. You don't come to me unless you've got a problem that you already have a solution for, you got me?"
I don't know what it is… I can tell you, honestly, that being talked to like that by anyone else would have brought me to tears. I didn't feel them, though. He was right. If I couldn't tell him what was wrong, then how could he believe that something was wrong at all? In the case of those tanks, I think I'm just letting my fear and paranoia get the better of me. I'm going to try and get my mind on other parts of the project for now.
Well, so much for keeping this short. I'm going to bed.
------------
Dear Diary,
I was sitting having a sandwich today on the grass that makes up what I guess is Captain Highwind's front lawn. It was late in the afternoon and a hot day today, and the shadow of the rocket not too far off, fell over where I was sitting.
It really is beautiful here. Even when this project is over, I'm not sure I ever want to go back to the big city. I think I could be perfectly content living here for the rest of my life.
I just wish I had someone to spend it with. I'm 23 as of yesterday and I've still never had a boyfriend. Is it just me or is that hugely pathetic? I know I'm not the best looking woman around, but I'm not exactly hideous, I don't think. I've made a lot of friends in this town, several of them male. We go to lunch here or there, I get invited to dinners and get togethers. It's not that I don't have a social life in Rocket, I do. Then again, I guess I would actually have to be interested in one of the guys I hang out with for anything to happen and, as nice as they all are, I'm not attracted to any of them.
Well, none of the ones I deal with socially, anyway. I'm not willing to even let myself think about what, or rather, whom I am interested in. That is wholly inappropriate of me to even think the sorts of things I have. I'm sure a relationship is the last thing on that man's mind anyway, and I know I would never be good enough.
I need to get my mind on other things.
------------
Dear Diary,
It's become a habit for me to have my lunch out on the grass now. I've been doing it for two weeks straight, but this summer weather here is just so lovely, I feel like I have to get out of that office at least once a day.
As I was out there, though, finishing off my soda, I happened to look back at the captain's house. I was quite surprised to see him sitting there on his front steps, just a few yards off. He was smoking, of course. I never thought he took breaks during the day, though. I guess I was wrong.
In any event, I noticed that he was looking right at me. Suddenly, I felt more than a little self-conscious. I mean, I was sitting on the man's lawn and I never had actually asked permission to do so. I braced myself, thinking that now that we were looking at one another, that he would tell me to get off his property.
He didn't, though.
What he did do, actually, confused me.
I watched, setting my drink on the ground before me, as he got up from where he sat on the porch and strolled over toward me, his hands in his pockets. His eyes were on the ground as he approached me, and I once again realized I was seeing something in the captain that no one else did. He almost seemed… shy? Was he self-conscious? What was it? His confident air was missing for some reason.
When he got close, he sat down next to me, facing the rocket as I had been. I turned my gaze from him at that point and to the rocket as well. I waited for him to say anything.
Several minutes went by before he huffed and then spoke. "ETA on lift off is just three months."
I had heard this from the others on the project. All was slated to be finished in just twelve weeks, seven months ahead of schedule. "It is shaping up to look that way, Captain."
"Shera… what will ya do?" he asked, his voice quiet, with no hint of anger or frustration whatsoever.
He was doing it again-- talking to me, really talking to me, and this time, it was without the aid of any alcohol. I knew that if nothing else, the captain kept his drinking strictly for after hours. I dared to look at him for just a few seconds. "What will I do, Sir?"
He nodded, not taking his eyes from his rocket. "Yeah, ya know? Will you stay in Rocket? Will you ask for Shin Ra to transfer you elsewhere?"
That was a very good question. I'd been so stressed over this project and the possible outcome, that other than just thinking that Rocket was a nice place to be, I had never considered my next career move. "I don't know. I do like it here, Sir."
"Ain't you got a family somewhere that y'all want to get back to?"
I was honestly shocked to hear such a question from him. "My only relative still living is my mother, Sir. She never stays in one place anymore. Since she retired, she's just traveled. So really, I don't have any other attachments."
I felt him looking at me again. "Not even a boyfriend or somethin' somewhere?"
I couldn't help but laugh and I turned my gaze to him, finding his blue eyes looking right back into mine. "None, Sir. I've… as ridiculous as it sounds, I've never had a boyfriend at all."
There was an expression that crossed his face at that moment. Captain Highwind seemed amused to hear that. "Ain't that somethin'? I woulda though y'all woulda had someone somewhere along the line. You're just… a real damn nice girl. Can't imagine why you ain't taken."
To hear such a thing from Captain Highwind as that… I know I blushed horridly and I looked away quickly. I knew he surely wasn't interested in me. "That's very kind of you to say, but I assure you, I'm quite single and have always been."
He reached over and jabbed me lightly in the shoulder with a finger. "Nothin' at all ever? Not even a good one nighter?"
"Captain!" I couldn't believe he'd ventured there with me. I smiled despite it. "I've done no such thing!"
For the second time in all the months I've now been around him, I heard him laugh. That really is a wonderful thing to hear him do, because you know it's sincere. "So I finally found the way to get a reaction outta ya, eh? The ol' sex life route."
I felt myself blush again, and I shook my head looking down at the ground. "You honestly perplex me, Sir."
He laughed one more time as he got up. The captain patted me on the head before he strolled back toward the rocket. "Well, don't hurt yourself thinkin' about it too much, Shera. I need that brain of yours workin' on my damn ship."
I'm going to be awake all night trying to figure out what in the world that brief conversation between us had really been about. I can't help but think there was some sort of subtext to it. Then again, I could just be deluding myself again. Still, he had complimented me in his own way. That alone made the day worth it.
There I go again… I need to get myself under control.
