It was a long shot, but what the hell? I logged in to my old AOL account. I went to the search field and scanned, and it came up right away: the email that Helen’s old boyfriend Shane had sent me nearly a decade ago, back when I lived on the Women’s Land Trust, and he was working as Rudy’s ground crew. Rudy’d had some short-lived plan about upgrading his business. He’d been fascinated by email but refused to use it himself, so Shane had been scheduling jobs, sending invoices. He’d responded to my query about clearing the ash out back. Shane’s email said, Sure thing. Me and Rudy’ll be there Sunday at 2 p.m. Eight years later, I pressed reply.

All these years, Helen had said she had no idea where Shane was. She said she didn’t know where he went when he left her. She said she’d never heard from him again. She’d never tried to contact him. When Shane left, Helen had missed him at first, then changed her position to good riddance. As if to prove she’d learned her lesson, she hadn’t dated anyone since. I felt like I was cheating, I mean I felt like I was having an affair, I mean contacting Shane was so easy. I sat there browsing the oil field jobs page, clicking back and forth to my in-box. Within five minutes, Shane had written back to me. Ten minutes later, I had a job.

Karen Sweeney, he wrote. Good to hear from you. I’ve been wondering about all my old friends down there. You ever hear from Helen? He wrote, You should see me, I’m living on steak and shrimp. I got in early with this industry and I’ve been making it pay ever since. You should see the new pipeline they’re building, he wrote. Supposed to stretch all the way down to Louisiana. He wrote, Sure there’s openings. There’s always openings. Sure, you should come up. I’m glad you asked. Roustabout on a pipeline crew. Pays twenty-two bucks an hour, twelve-hour days, sometimes more. You’re supposed to have some experience but I’ll vouch for you. I always like to help out friends.

He’d vouch for me, but he barely knew me, hadn’t talked to me in eight years. Last time Shane saw my face, Rudy was on the ground and Shane was running, scared and ashamed. That shame had made him leave town. Now we were old friends? But that’s how Shane was, I remembered it. No one was allowed not to like him.

He wrote, When can you start?