Are you back in Philly for the summer, maybe up on the scaffold again? I’m working at the hatchery, killing fish. The work’s not so bad once you get into a groove.
I hope you’re enjoying your separate path.
She hesitated over the signing, then scribbled, Yours, Tara. She put the card in the postbox and walked back to her apartment in the rain.
23
SHE GOT HIS LETTER on the Friday before July Fourth. She set it in front of her at the Muskeg, after getting a slice of pie and a coffee, but she couldn’t bring herself to open it. Then she placed it on her bedside table, waking in the middle of the night to rest it in her palm, trying to glean its contents. The envelope felt warm to the touch.
Saturday, Coast Guard helicopters thundered over Main Street. Newt snagged Mary Janes tossed from the backs of fire trucks, and made faces at the Civil Air Patrol kids waving from the boat trailer.
“I’ll be right back,” she told him. “Don’t move.”
She weaved through the crowd, then walked up the concrete steps to Castle Hill, the spot where Alaska had been transferred from Russia to the United States. She sat on a stone wall overlooking the water. A rope tinged against a flagpole. Her hands trembled as she slit open the envelope. If anyone had the right to be angry, she thought, it was her. He shouldn’t be able to put her on edge like this.
She looked over the roofs of town, then down at the letter. From across the water she heard the steady beat of rotors as the helicopters returned to the base.
27 June 1998
Dear T,
Thanks for the card. Pretty and sad this moss-covered cabin being swallowed back into the woods.
It’s good to know you’re alive out there. I was beginning to doubt it. The boat sounds lovely. Failing means you’re playing right? Good for you keeping on. There’s an old schooner on the Delaware. They’re looking for volunteers to work on her. I was thinking about doing it this summer if I can find the time. Sounds like you have a similar project ahead of you if you get that tug. Yeah I’m putting some hours with the crew bricking. Helping my mom out where I can.
On another note I’ve also been taking improv classes. Trying to loosen up. The idea is to put yourself in someone else’s world. And to never say no. I’m bad Tara. I mean really bad. Like my brain just doesn’t react so quickly.
It’s good (I think) that we’re living our own lives now. Although I will say in all honesty when I try and spin my life forward I bang my head against you. You are experiencing something powerful on that Rock of yours that has nothing to do with me. And I have my own world. My father (surprisingly) is all of a sudden trying to broaden his role in my life. Impromptu visits to New York. My mother can’t stand to be in the same room with him—you know all this.
But you you’re falling in love with a place—and perhaps a boat—instead of a person. Either way Alaska seems to soften you. I think this is a good thing.
That’s all for now.
C
She folded the letter, then went down the hill to find Newt. He wanted to go out to the docks to watch the fireworks. As they walked, Connor’s words turned over in her head. He had responded so quickly. It took her off-guard.
His father was a weird dude who dressed in French cuffs and pressed shirts and kept a neatly trimmed beard. He worked with banks in France, or something like that. When she thought about it, she realized Connor never really talked about the man. Then again, she hadn’t been great at asking questions.
They reached the end of the docks. When she strode up the gangplank of the tugboat, looming in front of them, Newt stayed behind, uncharacteristically bashful. “Does Laney know you’re here? She’s not my biggest fan.”
She knocked on the padlocked door, then cupped her hand to the glass. Chairs were arranged around the galley table, plates stacked in the dish rack. “She won’t mind,” Tara said. Her words, spoken into the glass, echoed.
“Hey, check this out.”
She turned to see the top of Newt’s balding head disappear down the hatch into the engine room.
Below, his penlight flashed over an unplugged chest freezer, chunks of rigid insulation, a workbench cluttered with mason jars filled with rusting screws. “Laney said to stop by, but I don’t think she meant for us to sneak on,” Tara said.
“Scared money don’t win, T.”
“Look who’s all gung-ho now.”
She followed as he ducked beneath a bulkhead. The beam reflected off the engine block. Newt ran his palm over the cast-iron, gasping. “Geezum crow—thing’s the size of a goddamn school bus! You could take a bath in these cylinders. Look here,” he said, running his fingernail along a crack. “Probably hasn’t run since Moses split the seas.”
“Six years,” Tara said, tracing her hands along a copper pipe leading to a cylinder. “That’s what Laney said.”
“Hell of a lot of elbow grease into this old girl to get her running.”
They climbed into the living space. Her eyes followed the white beam as it worked over the cookstove. A fine coating of dust covered the burner plates, the pots hanging overhead.
“Jesus Lordum Christ, yes!” Newt said as he opened the porcelain-plated oven, tapped the thermometer with a nail. He rapped his knuckles on the insulated exhaust stack. “Molasses, you better start thinking about picking up work at the processor. Get you enough money to buy this bitch.”
“Don’t call her that,” she said softly, walking forward into the salon. Buttery yellow cedar and orange splits of hemlock were stacked beside a built-in settee, up to the brass portholes. Now that they weren’t in a rush, she took time to examine the portholes from the inside, running a finger along the green oxidation coating the screw threads, rapping a knuckle on the glass. Tall narrow doors with cracked porcelain enameled numbers led to the berths. She opened one, looking inside to a neat bunk. “It’s just so fucking cool.”
“Yeah, cool until it’s fish habitat.”
“Laney fixed it up before the divorce.”
“A million ways to sink a boat, girlfriend. If you can’t run her a hundred yards, then the harbormaster will put on a demonstration.”
They climbed the ladder topside. Laney’s bed was made, her things on the plywood table gone. In the wheelhouse she could feel Newt’s sly mind at work as he gripped a spoke of the oak wheel. “The rudder on this bitch must be big as a barn door.”
“Don’t call her that,” Tara snapped. “Jesus, have some respect.”
“Look at you, all defensive.”
She reached up and twisted a knob on the ceiling; they both started as a bladeless windshield wiper scraped glass.
“Variable speed,” Newt marveled. “Damn, those old-timers didn’t mess around.”
They jumped as a boom echoed over the water. White and blue reflected on the back walls. Newt pulled a leather strap and a window dropped into a recess. Acrid air blew in as fireworks lit up the cloud cover.
“You saw those lights and you thought the police were coming for you again, didn’t you?” Tara said, slapping him across the shoulder blades, laughing.
He ignored her. “Well, looks like you got your channel marker. Took you almost a year to learn how the island punches. Now it’s time to punch back.”
24
THE NEXT DAY she went by the harbor office at the top of the docks. Beneath the glass countertop was a collection of photos showing derelict boats seized by the harbor, left to crumble on the beach.
“Can I help you?”
The harbormaster, taller than Tara, adjusted a mouthpiece away from her lips. Over her collarbone she had a washed-out banner of a tattoo that said No Matter How Far I Go, Always at Home.
“I just wanted to know what was happening with the tug out on the transient.”
The woman shook her head. “What is it with that old tug and you pie-in-the-sky girls? Can’t seem to get it into your heads this is a working harbor. For fishing boats. Not houseboats.”
“Do you know when Laney’s
coming back?” Tara asked.
“Who can say, the way that girl jet-sets. All I know is I’m sick of looking at that tug.”
The phone rang. The woman leaned in toward Tara. She flipped down the mouthpiece to answer. “I’m tempted to do everyone a favor and just sink that old slab. Good morning. Port Anna harbormaster.”
25
IN THE BOOKSTORE Tara bought another card, this one a woodcut of a muskox, a mountain goat, an elk, a bear, a puffin, and two seals crowded around a blanket, tossing a person in a fur-hooded parka into the air.
July 28, 1998
Dear C,
She gnawed the top of the pen cap. She wanted to tell him about the pea-sized salmon eggs, the threads of silver slipping into the black plastic disks. Also of the mink she saw clawing into the broken fridge where Fritz smoked the sockeye he dip-netted from the falls across the channel. The astringent smell of WD-40 each morning as she descended into the basement. The voltage that shot up her arm as she wrapped her fingers around a salmon tail. Holding females steady with one hand the way Newt showed her, bringing down the club of alder, the crunch as the skull collapsed.
She sighed.
Thanks for your letter, for telling me your news. Good for you branching out like that. I can’t imagine you doing improv. Gutsy.
Life on the Rock is good. The salmon have arrived at the hatchery so we’re hard at it. The summer days are loooong—it’s light until almost eleven. It rains ALL THE GODDAMN TIME. At first it bothered me, but now I’m getting used to it, growing some shell to deal with the wet.
There are rhythms on the island that don’t exist in Philly. All to do with fish, the winds, where the sun sets in the sky, and the smell in the air. When I first got here (thinking back on it now) I felt like I was holding my breath. Panicking. Just wanting to be back in Philly. By your side, planning an adventure
She stopped writing. Why did her words feel so clunky, so stilted? And why this sudden intimacy?
With her pen she scratched out everything following “Philly.”
Just wanting to be back in Philly. Now it seems like I’m beginning to understand the island, its knots (I’ve gotten good at tying them!), the people. And the tug. I can’t stop thinking about that boat.
As for the other stuff, Connor, I’m not sure what to say. Some part of me gets excited when you say you keep hitting up against me when you think down the line.
Please keep telling me your news. And I’ll do the same.
She reread the letter, then thought back to the other one he sent, so short, dismissive. She paused, about to sign Youse, then just wrote T, and mailed it from the post office.
26
AT THE BEGINNING OF AUGUST, the run of pink salmon slowed. In the meantime, Newt pestered her about getting a job at the processor.
“I got the Plume fund, and now it’s time for you to start a Pacific Chief fund. It doesn’t take an Einstein to see you’re sticking around. Get Laney on the horn. See what tune she’s singing.”
“I’ll figure it out.”
“You’re wound up tighter than Dick’s hat band is what you are. Listen to your buddy Newt.”
So she did. But when she reached Laney, an urban curtness seemed to have replaced the woman’s friendliness. “I’ll need twenty-five thousand cash and the boat’s yours. That’s my bottom. I was asking sixty-five. As I said, I like the idea of it going to a young go-getter like yourself. But I can’t go lower, so please don’t try and bargain. I’ve got those folks talking about towing her south, and they seem serious.”
Tara cursed beneath her breath. It was stupid to even be thinking like this—she had about a tenth of that stored beneath the sink. There must be some license required to drive a boat like that. She couldn’t weld, knew nothing about engines . . .
Laney’s voice softened. “Listen, Tara. I liked you from the get-go. I think we would have been good friends. If there’s a way of making it work, let’s do it. Scrounge up the money, give me a call.”
From the library she walked to the harbor, climbed up onto the deck of the tug, and looked around. She picked a tuft of grass growing between the planks, pinched it between her fingers. That strange gravity she had felt before, pulling her toward the island—this boat was its source. She could see her mother here, stepping into that galley, setting a basil plant in a porthole. And she could see herself in that Adirondack chair, staring across the water toward the volcano.
She flipped up her hood against the rain and walked from the harbor to the post office.
In her box she found a manila envelope doubled over and taped. Inside were flannel pajamas wrapped in plastic, along with a letter written on yellow legal paper.
August 6, 1998
Dear Tara,
I hope these PJs keep you warm for your second Alaskan winter (which should be starting right about now by my calculation). I was going to wrap them and tell you to hold off for Christmas. But I know you better than that.
You asked in your last letter about me. Picture a long-boned freckled guy in a black jumpsuit with a headset on and a clipboard, running around backstage at a small theater off Broad Street. Costume racks, dressing rooms, even a woodshop for set design. I’m the stage manager. My job is to keep the rabble in order.
We just ran through the dry tech. Show looks pretty tight. I agreed to be an understudy for a minor role (you’d be proud—unlike that stupid Guys and Dolls play in high school, I said yes) but generally I just make sure everyone gets to where they’re supposed to be. I quit improv. It was a lost cause although I’m doing my best to take its larger lessons to heart.
For sophomore year I’ll have my own place on the Lower East Side with a couple other acting buddies. I’ll continue studying postcolonialism. My father offered me a room in Lyon winter semester. It’s tempting. But I want to stay close to the theater.
Thank you for being in touch. I hope the PJs keep you warm.
Connor
She folded the pages, then stepped out onto the sidewalk, the door sucking shut behind her. A snow-slurry was caught in the needles of the potted spruce tree; drips from it splotched the envelope. The pajamas were printed with a pattern of blue anchors.
At the Bunkhouse, warehouse lodging by the processor, where Newt lived, she knocked on his door. “Yo yo.”
“Can you set me up an interview at the processor? I’m ready to make some money.”
He gave a lopsided grin, took a flask from beneath his cot, and toasted her. “Looks like baby’s ready to play baseball. It’s about time.”
27
A TALL, BEARDED MAN with a lazy eye introduced himself as Trunk. He took her into an office attached to the processor’s main floor and held a clipboard up to his face.
“Marconi. What’s that, Polish?”
She tried to smile, then realized he was serious and stopped. “Italian.”
“You know the difference between words and numbers, Marconi?”
“Yes.”
“Can you multiply and divide by ten?”
“Yeah.”
He brought the clipboard closer to his face. “Can you work for extended hours in the extreme cold?”
A memory of being a kid, shut in the bakery freezer, flashed through her. “Yes.”
“You’ll be required to distinguish shades of color to identify abnormalities or defects in the fish.” He looked up at her. “Your eyes both good?”
Better than yours, she thought. So many of the men on the Rock seemed to have been spit out the end of a meat grinder.
“They work fine.”
He read haltingly. “Employees are regularly exposed to toxic or caustic chemicals, and risk electrical shock and vibration. The noise can be unusually loud. You’ll be required to stand for long periods at a time, walk, use your hands to finger, handle, feel, and reach into fish.” Again he looked up. “All that good?”
“Okay.”
He set the clipboard aside. “Pay starts at seven sixty-five an hour. That’s two bucks
over minimum wage. Anything over eight hours a day is time and a half. Same for anything over forty hours a week. Good?”
“Fine.”
“You know what a king salmon looks like?”
She paused, thinking. “Not really.”
“How’s it different from a coho?”
She thought. “Bigger?”
He shook his head. “You’ll learn. King salmon opener starts August fifteenth. That work?”
“That’s a Saturday?”
He paused from standing and cocked his head at her. “Oh, excuse me, your honor. Does someone not work on Saturdays?”
Her heart thumped. “I’ll be here.”
She left the processor and went back to her apartment to check beneath the sink where she had been storing her money. Two thousand six hundred and seven dollars. She half jogged to the bank, where she opened an account, feeling like she did before a Golden Gloves match.
Let it be cloudy. She could keep up with the work. Blue skies were for suckers anyway.
August tenth, the following Monday morning, when Fritz came down the stairs, she asked if she could have a word. He sat behind the desk, adjusted his suspenders to give his belly room, then snapped his fingers against a puck of dip.
She took a breath, then started in. “I know it’s not the end of September, but—”
“You know that day your cousin told me you were interested in coming up here?” he interrupted. “I says to my wife, I say, ‘Fran, if this girl even makes it off that ferry, she won’t last longer than a week on the island.’ You believe that?”
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