Fly by Night

by Andrea Thalasinos

  “Okay, so I’m an asshole.”

  “You are,” Jen said.

  In the past whenever one of them had a secret, the other two would zero in.

  The side of Jen’s cheek had turned red.

  Bryce immediately sat up. He studied her as he forked a meatball from a Styrofoam cup.

  “She likes the cop,” he said as if Jen wasn’t in the room.

  Jen looked down at her hands, emotional all at once.

  “Shit. I think she loves the cop,” Bryce whispered in a voice loud enough for the sea horse in his tank to hear.

  Jen started laughing and crying. She swatted at Bryce to shut up.

  “Dad’s never seen you love someone like this before,” Bryce said and scrambled over to put his arm around her.

  Jen wiped the corners of her eyes. “Thanks, Bry. But he’s moving this spring, opening a restaurant/music venue with a few investors on the Duluth lakefront.” She grabbed the Styrofoam cup off the coffee table and forked out the rest of the meatballs before Bryce had the chance to polish them off.

  Amelia and Bryce shot glances at one another.

  “Impressive,” Bryce said. “Congrats, sis, many standard deviations away from the usual lot, pilfering change out of vending-machine coin returns.”

  Jen laughed as she punched him.

  “It kills me to think about him leaving.” Jen almost couldn’t finish the sentence.

  “And so you’re … not … going with … him because…” Amelia began, and looked long and steadily at her friend. They looked at each other in surprise.

  “I think I love him,” she said and kept wiping tears.

  “Then go,” Amelia said, on the verge of tears herself.

  Jen looked at her. “It’s not until June.”

  “Maybe you’re up at bat this time, puppy,” Amelia said.

  Jen hopped over onto the couch and buried her face into Amelia’s shoulder.

  * * *

  Early the next morning when Amelia showed up for work, someone had placed a paper memo on her office chair.

  Amelia bent over, reading it before putting down her bags. The memo asked if she would please call the HR office to schedule a time to come in for a meeting.

  “Fuck.” She dropped her bags onto the floor. What now? She thought back to what she could have done.

  The day before she’d instructed one of the volunteer tour guides not to dive in the saltwater tank without permission since it wasn’t a personal swimming pool. Later the woman who works with the Amazon poison dart frog exhibits pulled Amelia aside, warning her that the woman was the daughter of one of the “head honcho HR dudes” (in her words) and that Amelia should be careful.

  Picking up the memo, Amelia moved it off to the side.

  She needed to go get a coffee—nothing like a strong cup of coffee to settle her nerves.

  “I’m going to get some coffee,” she announced, having opened the prep kitchen door. “Anyone want anything?”

  A collective sigh of thanks, they all shook their heads.

  Riding up the escalator, Amelia weaved through the tangle of roller coasters toward the coffee bar. They knew her by name and upon sight would begin filling a large cup of coffee before she’d even ask.

  In the flow of crowd traffic walking toward her, a man slowed down to a stop. His face followed her as she headed toward the coffee bar. He looked dazed, as if someone had hit him over the head hard enough to get startled but not enough to knock him out.

  Amelia slowed at his reaction. Something about him was familiar. He’d moved off to the side, out of the flow of the crowd and faced her. He looked about to speak. She racked her brain. Where did she know him? Was it from a dive project? From the U of M water-quality program?

  Then a family with a double-wide stroller cut between them and paused, blocking the walkway. Giving instructions to their children as to how far to wander, Amelia glanced around the negotiating family but the man was gone.

  Once the stroller and family passed, Amelia stepped toward where the man had been standing, but there was only a miniature Christmas tree and a clump of flowers where he’d stood. Searching for him, she then backtracked, trying to spot him but he was gone.

  After a few moments she gave up and headed back to the Sea Life escalator, forgetting why she’d gone up to the mall level in the first place.

  20

  It was almost noon and Amelia still hadn’t responded to the memo. It was the Friday before Christmas and Alex was due in that Wednesday. Amelia and Bryce stood in a shallow pool in the off-exhibit area, suited up in wet suits, trying to secure a new tiger shark to check for pregnancy.

  The memo from HR filled her with a sense of doom.

  “Jeeze, I probably should have called by now,” she said.

  “So call after they’re gone for the day, which is what? Two p.m. at the latest,” Bryce said as she laughed. “Leave a voice mail.”

  She liked his strategy and chuckled, looking up at the top of his sandy-colored head. A lot more gray had come in since she’d last seen him without his cap.

  They’d struggled for twenty minutes along with the interns to catch the shark and then hauled it in a sling into the back room. Once into the shallow pool, Bryce and Amelia had finally restrained it so that Amelia could safely measure its belly.

  “Amelia?” One of the interns called over toward the tank.

  “Yes, Amber?”

  “Someone’s here to see you.”

  “Oh shit,” Amelia murmured to Bryce as he held the shark’s front end before they could measure it. “It’s that woman, Grace.” She softly started singing a rendition of “They’re coming to take me away ho ho, he he, ha ha…”

  “No, it’s not,” Bryce said. “They never come down here.”

  “Do you know who it is, Amber?” she called up.

  “I don’t know,” the young woman said.

  “Can you tell if it’s a manager?” she asked Amber, her eyes on Bryce.

  “It’s some older guy,” Amber said. “He asked for you by name.”

  “Shit.”

  “A hunj says you’re fired,” Bryce said in a low voice.

  She frowned and shot him a snide glance. “Shut up, that’s not even a bet.”

  “Think you could take a message or a number, Amber?” she called out. “I’m super busy right now.” She looked at Bryce who rolled his eyes.

  “He says it’s really important.” The intern was beginning to sound distressed.

  Amelia looked up at her. The young woman’s face was burning red. She knew Amber to be on the autism spectrum and today was her day to practice greeting visitors, not get stuck between head-butting adults.

  “Can you tell him I’m in a tank with a shark at the moment,” she said.

  “Why do women always say that about me,” Bryce murmured so only she could hear.

  Amelia tried not to laugh and lose her grip on the shark.

  “I’ll try,” the young woman said.

  Both heard distress in Amber’s voice.

  “Hey, Amber?” Amelia called up to her.

  Bryce looked at Amelia.

  “Forget it. I’ll be right there.”

  Bryce let go of the front end and threw up his hands. The shark immediately thrashed free as she let go of its tail.

  “Fuck,” she whispered, climbing out of the tank.

  “Thanks, Amber,” she said, her feet back on the cement lab floor. “You did the right thing by coming to get me.” She patted the young woman’s shoulder.

  Amber gave a doubtful smile. Amelia didn’t bother to change out of the wet suit as they walked up to the admissions entrance, slapping a trail of wet footprints behind her. She braced for the next “talking to,” maybe even “judgment day,” as Bryce alleged. The three of them had never had bosses before.

  “God, we’re just the world’s shittiest employees, aren’t we?” Jen had observed after a few weeks, as none of them seemed to be able to take anything seriously, e
xcepting animal care.

  At the front entrance, a man turned to look.

  It was the same man from two hours ago on the mall level.

  “This is Amelia, our animal-care curator,” Amber introduced.

  “Hello,” Amelia said. “How can I help you? I’d shake but my hand is sort of slimy.” Amelia held up her hands as if it was a holdup.

  “Amelia Drakos?” He held his breath.

  “Uh … yeah.” She hesitated. It felt like she was about to be read her rights. In the background there was frantic beeping of credit card machines as college interns swiped people’s cards.

  “Sorry to just show up like this but I e-mailed a couple of times, sent a copy of some papers explaining the situation.”

  He paused as she stared.

  “I’m Ted Drakos Jr.”

  “Oh.” Shit. She looked down at her bare feet and then crossed her arms, flustered and frightened by the vague family resemblance.

  Backing away toward the Ocean Tunnel she said, “Look, I e-mailed you back. We’re not related and I’m really super busy right now.” She wondered how he’d tracked her down.

  “There’s something I need to discuss,” he said.

  She kept stepping backward. “I-I told you I can’t help.”

  “It’s about your father, Ted Drakos.”

  “My father’s dead.” She stopped and shifted her weight onto one foot.

  “Born in Boston, lived in Baldwin, New York,” he said, watching her face to detect the slightest response. “Worked as a union printer.”

  That was her father. It was his voice too. She folded her arms. He had her attention.

  “He’s been dead over thirty years.”

  “I know.”

  How would he know? They looked at each other. She couldn’t believe his face, her mind kept scanning his features as they came together and then broke apart. It was a mix of many confusing things. There was no privacy in the Ocean Tunnel, the slightest sounds echoed against the Plexiglas.

  “Is there some place where we can talk?” he asked.

  “I’m working.”

  “My late mother’s will involves you.”

  Nothing he was saying made sense.

  Her face scrunched into a question mark.

  “I’ll explain everything and we can be done with this business.”

  “What business?” She suddenly felt afraid, cornered.

  “Please, can we go somewhere private?” He followed her as she backed away toward the Ocean Tunnel. “Or if you could take a few moments.”

  There was a sudden lull at the admission desk.

  Neither said a thing for a few moments.

  “Twelve thirty. Pizza Leanings. It’s upstairs to the left.” Amelia pointed to the escalators.

  He looked at his watch. “In an hour?”

  She nodded, turned, and hurried away. Back toward where she’d left Bryce.

  The heavy metal door of the off-exhibit labs shut behind her as Bryce began to gear up to catch the shark again.

  “You get canned?” Bryce called up to her.

  “No. Weirder.” She climbed back down into the tank, trembling as she tried to shake it off.

  “What?” He looked closely at her.

  She told him about the e-mails back in Rhode Island, the letter she’d tossed without opening.

  “How come you didn’t tell me?” Bryce asked.

  She flashed him a look. “Uhh, like there wasn't enough shit happening at the time.”

  “What’s he want?”

  She sighed deeply as her stomach jumped.

  “I don’t know; just grab the head before the goddamned thing bites me.”

  * * *

  Christmas and Chanukah coincided that year and the Mallers who’d worked there a while kept remarking on how unusually packed the place was. You had to wade, not walk down the pathways. And while Bryce had wanted to accompany her to Pizza Leanings, Amelia insisted on going alone.

  “There’s tens of thousands of people milling about,” she said laughingly through the locker room door as she changed into street clothes. “You think the guy’s gonna jump me across the table?”

  “It’s not so much that—”

  “I’m more worried about Minneapolis Fire Department’s occupancy codes,” she said. The center courtyard was so packed she worried that if someone fainted there’d be no room to collapse. They had to suspend the line at Sea Life, despite angry parents of cranky children waiting for visitors to cycle through.

  “Amelia?” Jen knocked on the door, folding her arms in concern as Bryce let her in. “Bryce just told me.”

  Amelia emerged in jeans and a Sea Life polo.

  “You should let us come with you.”

  Amelia harrumphed as she looked from one to the other. “Only if you both put on the Neptune and mermaid costumes from the interpretative theme room and come along.”

  “Stop it, Amelia, we love you, you’re making it sound stupid.” Jen raised her voice.

  “Fine.” Bryce touched Jen’s arm. Together they walked away. “Leave her.”

  “I’m sorry,” Amelia called after them as they both walked away, realizing she was angry and nervous at the same time. “That was really bitchy.”

  * * *

  Amelia kept checking her watch. She was more nervous than she’d thought about meeting Ted Drakos Jr.

  She’d managed to salvage fifteen minutes to Google Ted Drakos Jr. at her desk. Up came his work Web site, Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, a photo of him standing alongside eight other wildlife and fish biologists. She’d picked him out in an instant, the constellation of her father’s eyes, chin, and forehead. Her stomach leaped. Sitting on her desk was the last photo taken of her parents, probably snapped by a tour guide, standing on the steps of the Parthenon days before the accident. She’d kept the photo next to the glass beaker of shells on her desk because she’d never seen her parents look so happy and there was a type of memento mori sentiment about the photo, to keep as a reminder of the transience of life.

  She climbed the stairs near Pizza Leanings and saw Ted Drakos Jr. Taller and broader than her father but with more of an ashen complexion, she studied him watching for her. She noticed a gray ponytail wound and tied neatly at the nape of his neck. He wore an unzipped navy-blue winter parka, button-down blue oxford shirt, with a pair of jeans. Up close he was a larger facsimile of her father. Her neck and shoulders tensed, her emotions were wobbly.

  “Ted?”

  He turned.

  “Hi.” He reached to shake. “TJ, please. Everybody calls me that. Thanks for meeting with me,” he said. She motioned for them to sit at the only empty table in Pizza Leanings. A young high school–aged worker had just wiped off crumbs with a damp rag.

  “This good?” she asked. It felt like an awkward first date.

  He nodded and sat.

  She felt him taking stock and studying her face as carefully as she was studying his.

  “You hungry?” he asked.

  “Not really,” she said as she sat down. “But please go ahead.”

  “Think I’m gonna grab something.” He touched the button on the front of his shirt and then gestured to her. “You sure? Slice of pizza, Coke?”

  “Thanks but no.” It felt paternal. Her stomach was clenched.

  She watched him up at the counter. The set of his shoulders was so familiar. He turned to look for her. She ducked to check her watch, hoping he hadn’t seen.

  He returned and sat, placing the cardboard cutout of a Leaning Tower of Pisa in the center of the table, showing the embossed number.

  “I have an hour.” Her watch beeped, indicating she’d set a timer. “So, who are you?”

  He looked at her but didn’t smile. His face was sad, as if about to share bad news. Her mind jumped from her parents who were already dead, to Alex, who’d just texted to ask if he should bring a sleeping bag in case they didn’t have a couch, to Jen and Bryce who were down at work.
>
  Green flecks glittered in his eyes. His large hands were clean as he sat with them folded on the table. She guessed maybe five, six years older, though hard to tell.

  She watched him hesitate, carefully picking and formulating words. Then he took a deliberate breath before giving up and just saying it.

  “I’m a relative,” he said and looked down at his hands.

  He looked conflicted.

  “Your half brother.”

  “My half brother,” she repeated and frowned. She rubbed her brow without realizing. “And how’s that possible?”

  “Your father married my mother when they were in the Navy, both stationed in Germany, six years before he met yours,” he explained.

  He placed a thick white envelope on the table and then was quiet. She recognized it from Rhode Island.

  “Okay.” She stared at the back flap of the letter. “So … then they got divorced like everyone else in America,” she said to put an end to the mystery and both of their discomfort.

  “No,” he said. “They stayed married.”

  “They stayed married—what does that mean?” She leaned back, folding her arms and tucking her fingers into her elbows.

  “It means they never got divorced.”

  She stared back.

  He didn’t answer, didn’t blink either. He only looked sad.

  “TJ?” He turned toward his name and stepped toward the counter.

  A woman wearing a hat with a 3-D leaning tower of pizza handed him a tray.

  He set it down on the table and Amelia watched as he sat back down.

  She felt nothing for this person who didn’t fit into her understanding of anything.

  “Greek men don’t have two wives.” She could smell his shaving cream. It was odd enough to learn of her father having had another family that neither of her parents had ever mentioned.

  “He was trained as a mechanic in the Navy, my mother a flight nurse. That’s where they met. Married in Germany, moved back here. He couldn’t find work.”

  TJ looked down at his hands. She could tell there was more to it. He moved the envelope toward her.

  “What’s this?” She gestured with her chin to the letter.

  The food sat untouched.