How to Speak Dolphin

by Ginny Rorby

  “I love how boys can’t take their eyes off me.”

  I laugh. “How’d you know?” Boys see right through me, so I wonder if Zoe really does like them looking at her or is creeped out because she can’t see them. When I know her better, I’ll ask.

  She grins. “He’s wearing eau de fish and his sneakers squeak.”

  He realizes we’re talking about him, blushes, and walks away. His shoes do squeak. I hadn’t noticed.

  Adam makes a beeline for a kiosk selling hideous pink-and-blue inflatable dolphins. He stares up at them twisting in the breeze, flaps his hands, and makes raspberries. Suzanne picks him up and carries him toward the entrance. She puts him down when he starts to buck, and jogs after him, holding tight to his Kid Keeper leash.

  When we catch up, Adam is hugging the tail of a bronze dolphin, one of a pair, both of which are about nine feet tall. I get Zoe to stand beside him, and I take a picture with my cell phone.

  Everything looks the same as when Mom and I were here three years ago. We enter through a pair of giant shark jaws. Straight ahead is a bank of windows with an underwater view of dolphins in a tank. One of them seems to be scratching its face on a huge pipe. Another glides by the window.

  I don’t get a chance to describe any of this to Zoe before a blaring announcement for the upper-deck dolphin show crackles over the speakers. I guide Zoe toward the stairs.

  This show must not draw big crowds; there are no bleachers and no place to sit. People can stand at the railing around the tank, and risk getting wet, or on one of the two levels of metal steps that form a semicircle above the walkway. It’s only ten thirty, but the sun is already broiling hot. We walk to the side with an overhang and a little shade.

  Kiss’s “Rock and Roll All Nite” screams over the staticky speakers while three girls in turquoise-and-black wet suits stand in the front half of a pirate ship, tossing tiny bits of fish to the dolphins. I count six dolphins gathered below the ship’s bow, all chattering with their mouths open. Gulls circle overhead in anticipation of the feeding. One swoops in and snatches a piece of fish before the dolphin can catch it.

  Zoe’s holding on to the railing with both hands. She looks pale and her knuckles are white.

  “Are you okay?”

  She nods. “It’s the noise. I’ll be okay.”

  Duh. She relies on hearing to orient herself, so of course the loud music, kids laughing and shouting to each other, and the noise of people filling the metal stands makes her dizzy. No wonder Zoe understands Adam better than we do.

  “How big is the tank?” she shouts next to my ear.

  “I don’t know. Not very.”

  “How big?”

  I know I’m her eyes, but I want to have fun today. “Twice the size of our pool, Zoe. Okay?” Then I feel bad for sounding cross, so I tell her where the six dolphins are, and how the girls are tossing them fish.

  “They line up like that because they’re hungry,” she says.

  “How do you know?”

  “I’ve been reading about it online. That’s how they train dolphins and get them to do tricks. They keep them hungry.”

  Before I can tell Zoe to chill, one of the girls puts on a microphone and shouts out a welcome. “Our dolphins are big show-offs,” she shouts. The three girls signal the dolphins and they all lift out of the water, tail-walk backward across the pool, dive, and race to the pirate ship for their reward. After that, one at a time, the dolphins take turns doing flips, tail-walking, and splashing the people who chose to stand at the railing. All this brings shrieks and laughter from the crowd.

  Two of the girls in the pirate ship keep the dolphins that are not performing occupied by tossing them small pieces of fish. The one that does the trick gets a whole fish when it returns. Zoe turns her back on the show and stands facing into the breeze. There’s a thunderhead out over the water to our east, and she’s sniffing the air.

  “Our dolphins are trivia buffs,” announces the trainer. “This is my team.” She pans the dolphins with her hand. “Let’s see if you”—she means the audience—“can answer before they do.” She holds up a finger. “Question number one: Dolphins are fish.” The dolphins shake their heads from side to side a moment before the audience shouts, “False.”

  “That’s right—but my team got it first. Question number two.” She holds up two fingers, a signal to the dolphins, I’m sure. “The hole on top of a dolphin’s head is called a blowhole.” The dolphins nod; the audience yells, “True.”

  “The show’s kind of dumb,” I say.

  Zoe nods. “I’ve got ears.”

  “All our girl dolphins are moms,” shouts the girl with the microphone. “We like to think of Troy, our only male, as one very lucky boy to have five beautiful girlfriends. Take a bow, Troy.” The trainer lifts her arm and Troy dives, then sails into the air.

  Zoe turns and says loud enough for people around us to hear. “Are you kidding me?”

  “Shhhh, Zoe. People are looking.”

  “I don’t care. Does it occur to anyone to ask where their babies are?”

  The guy one level down from us has his kid balanced on the railing in front of him. He turns to look at Zoe. I think he’s going to tell her to put a cork in it, but he nods in agreement and says, “I was thinking the same thing, young lady.”

  We’re following the last of the audience down the steps from the upper deck. When we reach the bottom, Zoe turns. “I’m sorry about up there. I should keep my big mouth shut. I’m ruining this for you. Please don’t be mad.”

  “I’m not mad.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Pretty sure.”

  “Then you are mad.” Zoe lets her hand drop from my shoulder.

  Zoe’s as passionate about the dolphins as I am about doing what’s best for my brother. “It’s just … I have to be on my brother’s side. If Cutler Academy doesn’t help Adam, then maybe Nori will. At least here she’ll be safe and well cared for.”

  Zoe finds my arm and takes my hand. “Don’t be mad, okay. I won’t say another word, I promise.” She zips her lips.

  “Did I tell you that I was here with my mother a year before she died?” I don’t mention that Mom didn’t like it, either.

  “Oh, Lily, I’m sorry. I really should shut up.”

  I’m worried about how Suzanne is managing with Adam. There’s so much going on: show announcements, employees hawking photo ops with the animals, music pulsing from different directions like an orchestra tuning up endlessly and loudly, kids running and screaming, birds screeching, and the hot, humid air thick with greasy food smells. I can’t imagine Adam is coping well.

  Suzanne said they’d be at the manatee tank, but no one’s there except a girl tossing heads of romaine lettuce into the water. The three manatees munch on the fresh lettuce heads that bob among the remains of a prior feeding.

  We leave and wander through the Oceanarium until I see Suzanne waving from the stingray exhibit. Adam is mesmerized and doesn’t look up when we join them.

  “Has Don called you?”

  Suzanne shakes her head.

  “I wonder what’s taking him so long.”

  The stingray tank is long and shallow, with a pile of fern-covered rocks at one end. A ship’s anchor and more rocks decorate a center island. The water is a weak tea color, but still clear enough to see the sand and gravel on the bottom. The whole exhibit is completely covered with a canvas canopy. It’s as close to cool and breezy under it as it ever gets in Miami in June.

  Adam’s shirt is soaking wet. “Did he fall in?”

  Suzanne smiles. “Just wait.”

  I stare at the water. Stingrays sweep by counterclockwise in groups of threes and fours. Adam starts to giggle, arches his back, and pokes his belly out. One of the rays upends, exposing a creamy white belly, and looks like it is going to sprout limbs and crawl over the edge. Its eyes and mouth look like a smiley-face emoticon. It suddenly flaps its wings and splashes water in a wave over the side, soak
ing Adam’s T-shirt, pants, and shoes.

  I burst out laughing.

  “What?” Zoe says.

  I pull her over and stand her beside Adam. “You’ll see.”

  It takes a minute for the stingray to make a complete loop around the tank. They all look alike to me, but Adam sees his stingray coming and starts to giggle. I make sure Zoe is close enough to the tank so when it flaps its wings this time, it will get them both. Adam and Zoe shriek with laughter.

  “What did that?” Zoe’s still laughing.

  “One of the stingrays.”

  I look at Suzanne, and see in her eyes exactly what I’m thinking. This is all I want for my brother—to be a happy, laughing little boy. She pats my arm and smiles. “You okay?” She tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear.

  “Yeah.” But tears threaten. My mother was always doing that—tucking my hair behind an ear, and as soon as she turned her back, I’d shake it free again.

  Thunder has been rumbling, and now it starts to sprinkle. Don still hasn’t called, and when I try his number, it goes to voice mail, so we walk the short distance to the golden-domed sea lion show.

  Two-thirds of the gold geodesic dome is an open weave, like a metal spiderweb. The other third is covered with sheeting painted gold. We climb all the way to the top to find seats out of the rain. From there I can see the four pools, including the one Nori is in. Was in. It’s empty.

  Rain begins to hammer the metal sheeting of the dome, and the people sitting in the open get up and climb toward us, including the kids from the buses, all screaming and running like their skin is being burned off. We end up packed like germs in a head cold under the covered third of the dome.

  Suzanne has an umbrella. She opens it and holds it angled against the wind that’s kicked up. Down below, the show goes on. Salty plays catch with a beach ball, balancing it on his nose and tossing it back with a jerk of his head.

  My phone rings. It’s Don.

  “I’m with Nori,” he says.

  “Where’s that?”

  “On the far east side. Do you know where Adam and Suzanne are?”

  Lightning flashes, causing the phone to crackle. Then thunder booms.

  “They’re here with us.”

  “How’s he doing?”

  I glance at Adam. The trainer’s voice, amplified by the microphone, is high-pitched. Music blares, the sea lion is too far away to hold Adam’s attention, too many people are too close, and thunder is booming. He’s got his hands over his ears and has started to twist from side to side.

  “He’s fine.”

  “When the rain stops, bring him over here so they can get him suited up to swim.” The phone goes dead.

  “Don’s with Nori.” I show Suzanne where that is on the map. “We’ll follow when the rain stops.”

  “Adam, let’s go see your dolphin.” She picks him up, shields him with the umbrella, and starts down the wet steps.

  We came in on the left side of the dome, but Suzanne sees there’s a closer exit on the right and takes it. If she hadn’t, I might not have noticed the series of small tanks behind a tall board fence. We’re so high up in the stands that I can see over it. A large bull sea lion—another Salty, no doubt—is in a tiny, probably eight-by-ten, concrete tank. There’s chain-link fencing on three sides and the board fence on the side meant to hide him from the audience. Again and again, he leaps out of the water in an attempt to scale the wall of his tank. His situation is such a contrast to the setting they’ve created at the entrance for public consumption that I glance at Zoe, forgetting that she can’t see. I watch the sea lion jump and fall back, jump and fall back, while the Salty on stage climbs a set of stairs behind phony rocks and comes down a slide into the water.

  The sun is out, and steam rises off every stone surface as Zoe and I walk to where the Oceanarium keeps the dolphins people can swim with.

  “Welcome,” says a guy behind the ticket counter. “Are you here for Dolphin Encounter or Dolphin Odyssey?” He sees Zoe’s cane, leans and whispers to the person next to him. “Can she do a swim-with?”

  “I’m blind, not deaf.”

  “I meant there are … um … physical restrictions.”

  I hear Adam screaming in a changing room.

  Maybe it’s because of that sea lion, but I see this building, all clean and modern with a fancy gift shop, a separate ticket counter, and people who smile at us when we come in, as just another board fence, here to block our view to what this place is really about.

  “I’m not sure,” I say. “What’s the difference between the encounter and the odyssey?”

  Zoe smiles. She knows we’re not paying for anything.

  “The Dolphin Encounter is an hour-and-a-half shallow-water experience for a hundred and thirty-five dollars. Plus tax,” he adds. “You get to train and feed the dolphins, kiss them, and shake hands. The Dolphin Odyssey is an hour-and-a-half deep-water experience for a hundred and ninety-nine dollars, plus tax. It includes everything in the encounter and you can swim with them.” He looks at Zoe. “Observers are only fifty-four dollars.”

  The door to the restroom swings open, and a frazzled-looking Suzanne appears with Adam, who is crammed into a wet suit. Everyone turns to look at a kicking, shrieking black-and-blue sausage.

  “Are you together?” the guy behind the counter asks.

  I nod.

  He gives me a dirty look. “Our vet and your father are waiting for you. Out there.” He sends us through a set of glass doors in the wall of plate-glass windows.

  At first glance, this looks like the nicest place of all for the dolphins. The lagoon is about the size of two Olympic-sized pools side by side. It’s landscaped with a dense wall of palms, coral rocks, and white fencing. There’s a white-sand bottom as deep as I can see. Out in the center, held up by four white pillars, is a twenty-by-twenty canvas canopy. It creates a small square of shade from the sun.

  A closer look and I see that the back half of the pool is divided by water-level chain-link fences into six small pens—with a dolphin in each pen.

  Don waves to us from the far side of the enclosure. He’s with the vet and a woman who must be the therapist they’ve hired back to run their dolphin-assisted therapy program. She’s about Don’s age, but tall and thin enough to look good in the bathing suit she’s wearing.

  I guide Zoe around the perimeter of the pool, glancing out over the water each time I hear a blow.

  A cloud shadow passes, turning the water dark, then bright again.

  Don grins and opens his arms. “Nori’s new home.”

  Zoe whispers, “Just tell me, Lily, is it nice?”

  “It’s not bad.”

  “How bad is not bad?” Zoe says.

  “I thought you were going to let this go.”

  Zoe drops her hand from my shoulder. “I should probably wait inside.” She turns and begins tapping the walkway.

  “Zoe. Wait.” I get in front of her. Her cheeks glisten. “You’re crying.”

  “I still have tear ducts,” she snaps. She wipes her cheeks with the heel of her hand.

  “I’m sorry. I just don’t know what you want me to do.”

  “I might have been asking you to describe it to me because I’m blind, not because I was going to slam this place again.”

  “Yeah, right. That’s why you asked ‘how bad is not bad.’ ”

  Zoe smiles and I hug her.

  “So how bad is it?”

  “Don’s watching. I’ll tell you later.”

  Adam’s straining against the hold Suzanne has on the straps of his life jacket.

  “This is …” Don turns to the woman. “Is it Dr. Bowman?”

  “No.” She holds her hand out to Suzanne. “It’s Sandi Bowman. Are you the mother?”

  “My wife is dead,” Don says. “This is Adam’s nanny, Suzanne”—he puts a hand on my shoulder—“his sister, Lily, and Lily’s friend, Zoe.”

  I move out from under his hand. Suzanne is more than Adam�
�s nanny and I’m more than the center of our universe’s sister.

  “How lovely to meet you all.” Sandi beams at us with teeth a horse would envy. “I’m so happy to be back at the Oceanarium doing the work I love. Kids and dolphins. What more could one ask for?”

  I look at Don like you’ve got to be kidding me, this airhead is going to make the difference, but he’s smiling down at Adam, who’s lying on his stomach on the dock, arms held out to Nori.

  Nori’s got a raw-looking cut on top of her beak. “What happened there?” I point to it.

  “She probably rammed the fencing,” Sandi says. “I don’t think it’s easy for them to see.”

  Though it’s been two weeks since we were here, Nori obviously recognizes Adam. She blows an air bubble and pushes it toward him.

  He pops it, then squeaks and giggles.

  “Clearly, they are already friends,” Sandi says to Don. “Which is wonderful, since Nori’s had no training.”

  “Is it okay to ask? What does that training involve?” Zoe’s tone is as light and airy as Sandi’s.

  Don gives me a look, which I ignore. “I’d like to know, too.” I mimick Zoe’s tone.

  “Well, it’s all based on a system of rewards. Behaviors we want to encourage are rewarded, and undesirable behaviors or failures to perform go unrewarded. It’s quite simple.”

  Zoe was right, they keep the dolphins hungry. But training at the Cutler Academy is based on a similar system. They don’t withhold food, but I remember Elisa telling us that they reinforce the behaviors they want the kids to repeat by giving them something they want. Roberto chewed and swallowed his food for a tickle. Adam wants anything dolphin. Which will benefit him more? School or Nori? Or will it take both?

  Zoe gets braver. “Does that mean poor Nori goes hungry until she gets it right?”

  “Not really. They perform best when they’re hungry, but …” Sandi smiles at Nori. “Dolphins are so smart, they catch on very quickly.”

  Nori opens her beak and lets out a stream of clicks and whistles.

  Sandi laughs. “See.”