by CJ Hauser
Charley stubs out her cigarette in a coffee mug. “You’re hired,” she says. “Report to the redheaded felon out front.”
I’m so relieved I almost laugh. It may be small, but I don’t even care, I’m just so happy to be back on the beat.
6
Quinn
I crane my head out our front window and catch the blue smell of wild grapes getting fat on the vines that choke the trees to death. The fall makes me so goddamn melancholy. Today is my birthday. My ex-girlfriend Sam called at midnight. She was out at some bar, drunk but thinking of you! I listened to her message three times.
I go downstairs and sit on the steps of the Stationhouse. Today I’m on assignment with Leah Lynch, my new partner. What a person could have done wrong in this life to wind up both related to and working for Charley Lynch I can’t imagine. I thought I was hallucinating when this tall woman with a broomlike black ponytail walked into the Star office and sniffed the booze on me. Damn was she tall. Olivey-skinned with a wide, thin, serious mouth and eyes that showed exactly how disappointing she found the office. I listened in while Charley hired this sister-in-law, smoke drifting from her office, and I thought, Could you be the Woodward to my Bernstein? Are you the one I’ve been waiting for?
I operate best in units of two. Once, it was Sam and me. When Marta got sick, it became Marta and me. Imagine our family portrait: a confused and suspicious balding woman in a blue gown stares ahead as her snarling redheaded daughter crouches nearby, a protective animal. That was us. And then Marta died, leaving me alone in the frame. That wench. We were two parts of the same whole, and when she was gone I felt a lightness, a heavy weight unlashed from me. It should have been relief, not having to take care of her anymore, but instead I felt like I was floating, barely there at all.
Get me straight: I don’t need anyone, but old habits die hard. Sometimes, when I feel too nothingy for my own good, I want to pull someone, anyone, into that empty space next to me in the family portrait. Otherwise, I’m just an old snapshot of some random girl.
Rosie is taking someone’s breakfast order on the porch when she spots me sitting on the steps. Beyond the parking lot the train tracks are a rusty orange. The last of the summer weeds are busy pushing up through the gravel between the slats. How they keep from being blown to pieces when the engine goes through is a deeply fucking mysterious matter.
Rosie finishes taking the order and sits on the step above mine. She’s wearing a tight white T-shirt and faded jeans. Her pouch of waitressly things is tied around her waist and makes her look marsupial. She flips through her order tickets and rips one off for me. In the section where it says Table # she’s scribbled Happy Birthday! In the order section she’s written, This ticket entitles you to one highly mediocre birthday breakfast at the Menamon Stationhouse.
“Thanks,” I say.
By the time Leah gets here, I’m eating a plateful of huevos rancheros with blue birthday candles in them. Leah’s ride is what my mom called a woody. It’s the sort of car poor-ass surfers are always driving on cable television. Leah opens the door and scopes out the parking lot like she’s trying to decide whether this is the sort of planet she wants to land on. She squints into the morning sun and jangles her car keys as she approaches.
“Nice ride,” I say. “Want some eggs?” I offer a sloppy forkful of candle wax and red beans.
“I’ll pass,” she says, and squats on her heels so that we can talk. “It’s your birthday?” I shrug and extend the red beans to her again. She waves her hand to dismiss them. “Well, happy birthday.”
Over her jeans, Leah is wearing a cream-colored sweater that definitely can’t go in the washing machine. More than that, I swear her black hair is in a French fucking twist. Marta used to keep her hair that way. She was one of those women who went apeshit for Audrey Hepburn, a lameness of spirit only acceptable in someone as strong as my mother.
Leah eyes my Top-Siders and green hoodie that lets her know I used to play a mean field hockey midfield. On the back it says WINTERS 19. I can tell she’s questioning her sweater. She says, “I’m not quite sure how this works. I presume you know the ropes?”
“Slipknot, double cross, and superhold noose,” I say. “I know them all.”
Leah considers. “What percentage of the Star’s content would you say you write?”
“Sixty,” I say. “I’m a goddamn machine.”
“Sixty percent!” Leah stands up fast. She presses her fingers to her temples. Her hands are enormous. They fan out at the ends of her thin arms. “That’s obscene. Why don’t we divide up the work? You take this story. I’ll find another one.” This makes perfect sense, but what the fuck? We’ve barely met and already she’s decided she’d rather go solo?
“Nah,” I say. “You’re junior editor and I’m senior editor. I need to train you.”
“Train me?” She takes a few deep breaths. “Where does Charley fit in?”
“Charley is the Chief Amazon Lady of the Nile.”
“And how long have you been with the Star?”
“Four months. I used to be with the Fairhaven Hour.”
“What was your beat?”
I consider lying. I want to hang on to alpha status here, and the truth will hardly help. But I say, “Obits, you?”
“City section.”
A lot more impressive than obits. I hold out hope she worked at some podunk rag. “For who?”
“The New York Gazette.”
“Holy fuck, you wrote for the Gazette?” I shoot to my feet. “What are you even doing here?”
A diner shoots me a dirty look but I can’t help it. The Gazette is real shit. I have no business giving Leah orders. I should be licking a ballpoint to facilitate her note-taking. “Does Charley know that? Can you get me a job there?”
“Charley knows,” Leah says. She doesn’t say whether she can get me a job. Is it that easy to tell I wouldn’t be able to hang at a place like the Gazette?
Rosie comes out on the porch. She sticks her hand out and waits for an introduction. “Rosalind Salem,” I say. “Leah Lynch.”
Rosie says, “Pleasure to meet you. You want some eggs?”
“No thanks,” Leah says. “Is this your place?”
“Might as well be,” Rosie says. “It’s my tin can coffin. Where are you headed?”
“Out to Deep’s,” Leah says, “though I can’t imagine—”
The train signals flash and clang and the chugging of the engine approaching drowns out what she’s saying.
“Eleven forty-two,” Rosie calls over the racket.
Leah covers her ears and watches. Little pieces of her hair flick around her face and the sun is blazing away but she keeps her eyes open. They shudder back and forth, constantly settling on different parts of the train passing by.
7
Leah
Deep’s Fish Market sits in a wide, unkempt lot of reeds. In the reeds are dead boats, moldering and full of bugs. I pull out my notebook. I always have my notebook with me. The slop and pull of the water is loud enough that Quinn raises her voice to speak to me. “The party line is disappearing marine real estate,” Quinn says. “Just FYI.”
FYI? “How do you know what the story is already?” I say. “How do you know the real estate is disappearing?”
Quinn points at several hand-painted signs, staked in the yard: VOTE NO ON PROP. 2! and KEEP OUR WATERS, KEEP YOUR DINNER!
“So it’s an election story,” I say. “Concerning the upcoming issues for the town vote.”
Quinn shakes her head and pushes up her sweatshirt sleeves. “Come on, there’s Billy now.” She points at an anemic-looking boy with a blue knit cap pulled over his ears. He has enormous dark eyes, features too dainty for a fisherman, and a sideways smile. I present my hand for him to shake. The kid cocks his head and then smacks my hand like a high five.
“My da’s in the boat,” he says, already loping toward the wharf. “He’s got the Star real clean for you. Figured she’s the one you
’d want.”
Quinn vigorously scratches her scalp. “You have any Dramamine, Gazette?”
Down where the boats are tied up is a man Billy has no chance of equaling. Joseph Deep looks not a bit off balance as the lobster boat he stands in shifts from side to side. Fortysomething, there is a little gray in the hair that curls over his ears. He is wearing a hat like Billy’s, with an embroidered logo on it that reads DEEP’S MARKET, EST. 1952. He has the brightest blue eyes and a Black Irish complexion. His jaw is set hard but there is humor in this face that might be unlocked at any second.
“Joseph. Nice to meet you,” he says, and immediately grabs my hand. I watch him notice that it is approximately the size of his own. I think he’s going to shake it but instead he helps me aboard, one hand on the small of my back. Squatting in the back of the boat is the boy in the cap, Billy. He is chewing something. There’s an inch and a half of water sloshing around the boat bottom and my shoes soak through. The water is very cold. Billy is wearing rubber galoshes, and dozens of sunflower-seed husks are floating around his feet. He spits.
“You wanna life jacket?” he says.
“I’m an excellent swimmer,” I say.
“You’ll jump in and save her, though, won’t you, Billy?” says Quinn. Joseph has now extended his hand to Quinn but she says, “I wasn’t expecting a boat, Joe.”
I look over the side of the boat and the lettering says THE MENAMON STAR, next to which is an image of a compass rose. I think maybe we should use this image on the newspaper masthead. I wonder whether the paper is named for the boat. Quinn and I put on our life vests. Damp and salty, mine rides up too high on my chest. Cages are stacked in the back. Rubber bands coil in a bucket. Billy picks up a gauge from a box of metal tools and starts tweaking Quinn’s waist with it. “What size we got here?” he says, and Quinn slaps him away. “Aw, Da, she’s a runty one. We’ll have to throw her back.”
“I’ll take you over with me,” she says. “I swear to God I will use you as a raft.”
Joseph turns the engine over and the roar eats everything up. I smell diesel and we’re moving.
“How long have you been a lobsterman?” I ask.
Joseph shouts, “Since the fifties!” The engine settles. “But these days we mostly just run the shop, buy from the guys who set more traps. If we don’t lose Billy overboard, we just might stay in business another generation.”
“Not if they raise the rent again we won’t,” Billy says. “Not if those flatlanders make us move.”
“Who?” I say. I look to Quinn to see if she’s planning to ask some questions, but she seems bilious and distracted.
“The ladies over in the development have been complaining about the boats out front. Say we’re driving down real estate prices along the rest of the waterfront,” Joseph says. “But our rent has almost doubled since they changed the waterfront zoning. Cleared it for nonmarine occupancy so a developer could build those Elm Park houses on the water. And now the owners of that new house spent a fortune on a number of waterfront lots out by the carousel. Suddenly the real-estaters are thinking our shop might be more lucrative if it were owned by someone other than us.” I’m writing fast to keep up with them. Joseph turns over the engine again so it roars. “This stretch of water we call the jungle,” Joseph says.
“Mad lobsters out here,” Billy says. The water is thick with bobbing buoys in different colors. They rise and fall with the water like a comforter on a sleeping body.
Joseph says, “There have been disputes over who has the rights to this water since the seventies.”
“The lobstah wahs,” Billy says in a voice like a crusty old-timer’s.
Lobster wars? This is the news? I’m jotting fast to get everything down. It’s not that I didn’t account for this. I knew the news would be small. I just thought it would still be news. I try not to be too disappointed. The rent hikes, the zoning—that I could get behind. It’s worth some digging. I look up from my notes. “Quinn,” I say, because I want to see what she thinks of this angle. But she doesn’t even hear me. She is picking at sunflower-seed shells. She is not taking notes. Is she even listening over there?
“This is one of my pots,” Joseph says, and points at a floating buoy with different shades of blue in alternate stripes.
“What about that one?” I point at another buoy, tangled up and rolling around in the hull of the boat. Instead of Joseph’s blues, it has green and orange stripes. A blazing happy pattern like an Easter egg.
“That’s Hank’s pot,” Billy says.
“Henry’s?” I say. I have never heard Henry called Hank before.
“Hank Senior’s,” he says.
I pick the buoy up and turn it over in my hands. It is spongy and smells of mildew, but not old. I knew Henry’s father fished, but none of these details, these pots and lobster wars, has ever come up.
Joseph points at the floating buoy. “Why don’t you get this one, Billy,” he says. Billy scrambles to his feet, not so sure on them as Joseph, wobbly like a deer. He seizes the buoy and gets his back braced, ready to heave up the weight. He pulls, and when his arms give too easily, he tumbles backward. A length of rope comes onboard with nothing attached.
“Where’s the lobsters, Billy?” Quinn says. Her skin is sallow and she’s doing some regimented breathing. It is only now that I remember the terrible, melodramatic copy I’d spotted in the Star weeks ago. “Hot-blooded fury.” “Tails between their legs.” My stomach feels heavy.
I hiss at her, “Are you birthing a baby over there or are we writing a news story?”
She rolls her eyes. “If you don’t want me to ralph on you, I’d back down.”
I roll my eyes back, then realize how stupid that is. It’s Quinn’s fault, for getting under my skin like this and dragging me down to her level. The girl doesn’t know the first thing about reporting.
“It’s cut. Fucking crooks,” Billy says, inspecting the rope.
“Who would have cut it?” I say. I make a big point of lifting up my pen and notebook as I anticipate his answer so Quinn can see that this is what she should be doing.
“Could have been lots of people,” Joseph says.
“Quinn,” I say. She’s looking really green now. “We should take a picture of the cut line. Do you have the camera?”
She grimaces and pulls out a small digital camera. “Smile, Billy,” she says. Billy grins and holds up the rope like a prize catch.
“I don’t know that he should be smiling,” I say. “I mean, it depends what angle we’re taking but . . .”
Quinn snorts. “Okay, look dour, Billy.”
Joseph laughs as Billy pulls a long face. “Hey, move that trap there, Leah,” Quinn says. “It’s ruining my shot.” She points at me, then the trap. When I don’t respond she points again. In New York, I used to look over my photographers’ shoulders and adjust their lighting.
But clearly this is not New York. “This way?” I finally say, and drag the trap across the bottom of the boat so it splashes and soaks Quinn’s pants. She wheels around, more surprised than angry. I say, “Is that the best camera the Star has?”
“This is a nice camera.” Quinn shakes out her wet pant cuffs. “Charley got it for her birthday.” She looks approvingly at the little silver machine.
When we dock, Quinn scrambles to get out of the boat. On the boardwalk, water runs off her jeans and puddles at her feet. She takes several deep breaths and seems pleased to have her legs beneath her again. I stalk back toward the shop and Quinn runs to catch up. “So,” she huffs, “you take some good notes back there or what?”
I could murder her. This is the news.
In the store, we say good-bye to Joseph. Billy sits back down behind the counter. On a high shelf behind the register is a lobster mounted on a plank, standing jauntily on his legs.
“Who’s that guy?” I say.
Billy looks like he’s been waiting for someone to ask him this his whole life. “That would be the gentleman lobster
,” he says. He grins and takes the thing down from the shelf. Up close you can see the fine work of the taxidermist. The antennules are curled elegantly, framing the face, and the lobster is wearing a tiny pair of spectacles. A mustache has been appliquéd and on each of the lobster’s feet is a small shoe. He is wearing spats.
I laugh, in spite of myself. I have never seen anything like it. I look to Quinn, but she doesn’t seem to think it’s funny. In fact, she seems enraged.
“Where would one get a taxidermied lobster like that?” Quinn asks. While I’m glad to hear her engaging in something like journalistic discourse, I can’t see how we can possibly work this into our piece.
“You’re in the market?” says Billy. “Carter Marks is the guy.”
Quinn sets her jaw. “Let’s go, Leah.” She jingles her keys at me like I’m a dog and blows out the door. Billy’s face falls.
“Thanks again,” I say. “That thing is cool.”
Billy picks it up and stares into its face. “Thanks,” he says. I head out the door but peek over my shoulder as I go. I see Billy wiggle the platform back and forth. All eight lobster legs wobble, a small dance. Billy smiles.
8
Quinn
Driving Leah and me back to the Star, I can’t help but hold the wheel like it’s a neck. I might just be in the market for a gentleman lobster and it better be pretty glorious. It better be the most elegant fucking gentleman I’ve ever seen if that’s what was keeping Carter from my mother all these years. Keeping, because I know she called him once.
When Mom was sick I spent my Sundays in the bleak-ass kitchen, paying bills and eating Cheerios. I drank coffee until my head spun because I’ve always been shitty at math and I didn’t understand how things like taxes, hospital bills, and mortgages worked. It was on one such occasion that I spotted the scattering of calls to Menamon that Marta made right after she first got diagnosed. They were dated and numbered on the bill. Short, less than ten minutes. But there was one that lasted over an hour. I highlighted that line in yellow because it was a satisfying thing to do with evidence no one cared about.