Alpine Assault

First appointment

Tessa Okafor tells the school caretaker she's going to try the entrance the way she found it. He's brought a folding ruler. She has a bag of oranges. With one hand on the rail and twelve oranges tucked in the crook of her other arm, Tessa finds the loose point of a hinge he could never reproduce when he came out with both hands free. He tries it after her and drops two oranges. She leaves him the bag and presses the damp mark from his rail on a corner of her sketch. At home her daughter thinks it's funny how easily a grocery bag gets promoted to survey equipment.

There are four addresses on Tessa's work list today. She started with a carpenter who used to pay her to hold the other end of things. Now the town pays her to notice what a person coming in with full hands might actually do. Her climbing harness has stayed in a drawer for so long that her daughter Mia thought it was an obsolete belt.

The atlas

The BMW M4 GT3 came to the Hill Shed when Tessa was building up enough nerve to use an elevated practice course. She set the low end of a spare track section down on a thin book and did variations until she could predict the amount of correction she'd need once the car crossed the rise. By that winter it took a blue atlas with the eastern province maps mostly intact and most of the central ones taped back in. Mia found it under the ramp the afternoon she needed it for a class exercise. She made Tessa unload the ramp one piece at a time and show her how much higher they'd got.

In a group, Tessa tends to answer a different question from the one she was asked. It happens when she's thinking about what somebody might need afterward. The habit has cost her more than one turn at the gate. By the time she has made the last bit clear, the person who asked has already found another helper.

Three cars waiting

Tessa remembers waiting in the transport queue with the Cobalt Fury Renault and the Lime Venom Aston Martin when they all came back for Race 3 after Race 2. In one little patch of shade it was comfortable enough to take her jacket off. The queue moved. Someone opened a truck door, and the shade disappeared. Tessa put the jacket on again to keep the sun off her arms. She remembers how carefully everybody had prepared the cars, and that the only thing she'd thought to bring for herself was a coat that worked in either direction.

At the Hill Shed she freed a panel for practice gear and checked whether Nola could get her equipment down without having to wait for somebody tall. Nola chose the hook by the door in less time than it had taken Tessa to formulate the question.

What fits in a hand

She's on the last appointment now. The public library has extended its hours, and she needs to see how people find the side entrance when the main stairs close. There is a train home and there are stairs down to the lower car park where the BMW will be waiting. Tessa wants to try the same practice crest from a different approach next week. She'll have to look right before she loses sight of the edge. Mia has agreed to stand where she can see. The blue atlas has gone back to the bookcase, though there are oranges in the car.