by Ashley Ream
The bay was so much brighter than the day before. The green fluorescence stretched from the water’s very edge, where it lapped a flat plane into the sand, all the way to the horizon. The ocean was lit from below, and the light shimmered two feet above the water like God rays. It was unearthly in the most literal sense. Harry had no context for this, no comparison point. The sight of it arrested him, and while it was hard to look at it and hold other thoughts in his head, he was, for a moment, grateful that he had lived long enough to see it.
And then he fell.
Harry let out a yelp on the way down. He had tried to catch himself with his cane, and Shooby, who never abandoned his post, was underfoot. The cane came down on Shooby’s leg, and the dog let out his own miserable cry, which caught the attention of the crowd.
Harry wasn’t sure if he had hurt himself. It didn’t bear thinking about.
“Shooby? Shooby?”
Harry was belly down in the sand, only able to prop himself up with his left arm. His cane was out of reach, and so was the dog. He’d limped several feet away.
“You okay, boy? You okay?”
Shooby hurried to his master’s side, showing as much concern for Harry, but he wasn’t putting weight on his back left paw.
“You need a hand?”
Harry looked over, but all he could see from where he lay was thirteen miles of leg. The man appeared to be a giant. It was like trying to get a full look at a sequoia from up close. You just couldn’t get it all in your view.
The man ducked under the yellow tape to the civilian side and crouched down in the sand beside Harry.
“I’m fine,” Harry said, even though he hadn’t been asked and ambiguity remained. “But my dog is hurt.”
Shooby pressed his cool nose to Harry’s neck. He had never been one for grudges.
“Well, we should take a look at him then, but let’s get you better situated first.”
Harry did not take an instant liking to most people. There were too many unknowns, but he was skewing positive on this man. He did not try to take away Harry’s dignity—what was left of it lying facedown there in the sand.
The man, who was wearing rubber boots, jeans, and a jacket that seemed too light for the night, turned to call over his shoulder. “Rachel,” he hollered. “Come take a look at this dog, would you?” And then back to Harry, he said, “I’m Dr. Eugene Hooper. Everyone calls me Hooper.”
“Harry.”
“Well, Harry, you have a good side?”
“The left is better than the right, but good might be an overstatement.”
Hooper crab walked closer to Harry’s left side and said, “Would you like to put a hand on my arm?”
And with that he let Harry clutch on to him and, using his thirteen miles of leg, slowly lifted both of them upright without it seeming like he was helping that much at all.
When they got themselves situated, Harry noticed Rachel. She had come when called, and once Harry noticed her, it was all he could notice.
“Harry,” Hooper said, “this is one of my researchers on the collection team, Dr. Rachel Bell. Rachel, this is Harry.”
Rachel held out her hand to shake. Harry was conscious of being covered in sand. He wiped his palm on his coat before offering it. “I’m concerned about Shooby. He’s limping.”
Hooper had fetched Harry’s cane from the sand, and with it, Harry was standing under his own power. This final development was the last bit of interest for the looky-loos, who turned their attention back to the water.
Rachel looked uncomfortable. Whether she was uncomfortable with him or Hooper or just with herself, Harry couldn’t tell. She looked down at Shooby.
“Dogs aren’t my specialty,” she said.
Another man had joined them. Harry hadn’t noticed him before. He was young and darker skinned than the others with a tattooed pattern running up his neck and face, something, Harry was sure, he would regret in middle age. Rachel took a step away from him.
“My house is right over there.” Harry gestured with his chin. “But I’m afraid I can’t carry him, and I’d rather he didn’t put weight on that leg. If you wouldn’t mind?” He directed the question to Rachel.
“I can do it,” the tattooed man said. “I’m done recording the readings.”
Hooper interrupted. “No, I need you. Rachel can go.”
Rachel gave the professor a look and then scooped up Shooby, who offered no resistance. She didn’t say anything, just stood holding the dog and waiting for direction. Harry gave one last look to the younger man, who’d set his mouth in a thin, stern line.
“This way,” Harry said.
13.
They’d walked back to the house in silence, and the need to keep his eyes on his feet had kept Harry from staring, which was a small mercy. Harry was never so aware of how slow he moved as when someone was waiting on him, and Rachel had waited at the bottom of the stairs for him to clear them all before coming up.
“This is your house?”
She was looking up at it, much as Harry had tried to get all of Dr. Hooper into his line of sight. Watching her, he had the feeling that his home was garish. It was large, and all the lights were on and shining through the windows. It was like his house had gone and made itself gaudy while he’d been away.
“Yes.” An apology seemed in order, but Harry didn’t have one, so instead he said, “Would you mind bringing him inside? I’ll call the vet.”
Harry led her into the informal dining room off the kitchen where he’d eaten toast with Tilda. He picked up the phone and dialed from a list of emergency numbers Maggie had typed, laminated, and taped to the cradle. Fortunately, numbers on the island tended not to change much.
When he got through to an after-hours person, he described the situation and answered a short list of yes-or-no questions, after which he was told that it didn’t seem like an emergency and that Shooby would probably be fine until Harry brought him in the next morning. Harry didn’t like that answer very much. It wasn’t that he wanted Shooby to be having an emergency as much as he felt the need to fix what he had broken as soon as possible. Harry wanted very much to do something. But there wasn’t much for it, especially as Harry wasn’t driving anymore. He hung up the phone.
Rachel had taken a seat at the table with Shooby in her lap. Shooby, who was a medium-size dog, filled the space and from his perch could reach the tabletop, which he was licking for crumbs. It should have gotten him a scolding but didn’t. It didn’t seem to bother Rachel either. She was looking around the room and into the kitchen, which was full of more garish things, most of them stainless steel and granite. Maggie had insisted on a full upgrade.
It took a moment for both of them to notice that Harry wasn’t saying anything but that he was staring. She caught him and gave him her full attention.
“My daughter died when she was nine,” Harry said, trying to find someplace else to put his gaze. “If she had lived, she would have looked exactly like you.”
Rachel didn’t say anything.
Harry tried making eye contact with the dishwasher. “That was probably more than you wanted to know.”
“Not really,” Rachel said. “How did she die?”
“A car accident,” Harry said.
Rachel nodded and went back to inspecting her surroundings. Shooby nudged her neck with his nose just as he had with Harry on the beach. It seemed that was going to be a thing with him from then on.
“Would you like to take off your jacket?”
“No,” she said. And then, as though it took her a moment to remember her manners, “Thank you.”
Rachel had worn her hair in a ponytail that night. It was the obvious thing to do, keeping her long hair out of her face and her work, especially in the wind that blew constantly off the water. But wearing her hair up exposed her neck and the upper portion of her scars. Her jacket collar covered it. The house could have been 112 degrees, and she would have left it on.
“Are you hungry?” Harr
y asked.
“Yes,” Rachel said, “but I can’t stay. I have to get back. We’re very busy.”
“Of course,” Harry said. “I’ll make you something to go.” He started off toward the fridge. “Who was that other man, the one with the tattoo?”
“John,” Rachel said. “An ecologist.” She was running both hands over Shooby’s ears, and he was leaning into it.
Harry took out the plate Tilda had left him. He hadn’t eaten yet. He’d been too worked up to eat. Now he was giving his dinner to her. He limped and shuffled around the kitchen gathering tinfoil and plastic baggies and a handled sack from his last trip to the pharmacy. Leaning against the counter for support, he wrapped up the sandwich and stuffed a handful of chips and too many cookies into baggies. The last time Harry had done something like this it had been for his kids, and Tilda had complained that he gave them too much food.
“They’re schoolchildren not longshoremen,” she’d said and took the lunch-packing duties away from him, which was what she did when things weren’t done how she would have done them.
He put it all in the sack. “Do you want a bottle of water?” he asked.
“We have sodas back at the tents.”
“Okay then.” He handed her the meal.
“Was it a stroke?”
“Pardon?” Harry asked.
“You have reduced mobility on your right side, including slackening in your facial muscles.”
“No, neurodegenerative.”
She nodded. “Well, thanks for the food,” she said. “I’m getting pretty tired of eating out of the communal cooler.”
“I can imagine,” he said. Although he hadn’t really. She was getting up to leave, and he didn’t want her to go. “It must be interesting, the work you do.”
Rachel shrugged. “Most other people don’t think so, but I like it.”
“You get to see a miracle up close.”
“The water glows due to the preponderance of bioluminescent arthropods. Lots of other animals do it. Some deepwater fish, a squid off the coast of Japan—which makes the water look a lot like this but more blue—certain kinds of bacteria. Fireflies. Everyone knows fireflies. You’ve been here a long time?”
Harry’s brain lurched at the change of topic. It was like someone dumping the linguistic clutch. “We’re not one of the original island families, if that’s what you mean. We came with the first wave of gentrifiers.”
“What happened to the original families?”
“A lot of them are still around, but it’s getting harder to hang on. There aren’t a lot of ways to make a living on the island, so when some of the larger land holdings got parceled up and developed, the only people who moved in were people who already had money. The cost of living went up. Most of the original folks—the Kalers, the Wests, the Abernathys—have jobs in town and small places away from the water. My pharmacist is an Abernathy.”
Rachel thought about that for a moment. “So you’re an invasive species,” she said.
Harry smiled. “Don’t say that to Tilda. She likes to think of the newer people as the problem.”
“Who’s Tilda?”
“My ex-wife. She’s staying here for a while.”
Rachel nodded, as though having one’s ex-wife move in was nothing that needed further questioning. She might have been being polite, but Harry was beginning to suspect there were things in which Rachel took an interest and things in which she didn’t, and those were not always the things other people would choose.
“Where are you staying?” Harry asked, still trying to keep her in the kitchen a little longer.
“At the camp.”
Harry made a face. Juno had gone there one summer as a day-camper. Tilda had taken care of most of it, but Harry had a strong memory of a parents’ night that involved a talent show and a spaghetti dinner cooked and served in the mess hall. The pasta had tasted like canned Chef Boyardee and came with a piece of white bread and half a pear, also out of a can. The next year Tilda sent their son to sleepaway camp on the mainland, possibly just so none of them would ever have to eat that food again.
“I haven’t been up there in years,” Harry said.
“It’s cold, and there’s almost no hot water.”
“That doesn’t seem very comfortable. Do you have to stay there?” he asked.
“The university won’t pay for hotel rooms for all of us, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“I mean is there a reason, a reason other than money, to stay there?”
Rachel pinched her brows together like she didn’t quite follow. “There’s nothing special about it. It’s just cheap and big enough for all of us.”
Harry had hit upon a thought. If the idea were music, he’d be scrambling for a pencil.
“I was just thinking that the camp is a bit of a drive, and it’s not very comfortable.”
Rachel waited.
“You could stay here.”
“All of us?” Rachel asked.
“Oh, uh, no.” Harry had not foreseen this leap. He could not have been less interested in the rest of the group. “I’m afraid the house isn’t that big. I meant you. You could stay here. As repayment. For helping me tonight.” He stopped talking and then with a jolt started again. “Not just with me. With Tilda and me. I’m not suggesting—I wasn’t being inappropriate. I just hate to think of you out at that camp. It isn’t very nice.”
Rachel’s eyes were brown but not dark brown. They were a swirl of fawn and woody green and something almost golden that reminded Harry of an animal. Her pupils were quite large, and behind them, a lot of calculations were happening. He waited for whatever it was to be tabulated.
“I have a lot of equipment,” she said. “I can’t come if I can’t bring it with me.”
“Of course, feel free.”
“It’s a portable lab. There are fans and aerators. It runs twenty-four hours a day and makes noise. And I’d need to have a place to set up. Some tables.”
“I don’t sleep much anyway,” Harry said. “I can’t imagine your work would make any difference.”
“Then I accept.”
“Good.”
Rachel looked down. “We’re getting sand everywhere,” she said.
Harry was so pleased that it seemed a shame to concentrate on something as ridiculous as sand. But she was right. He could, now that he was paying attention, feel it crunching on the hardwood floor as he shuffled along. Tilda would be annoyed.
“I suppose I should’ve taken my shoes off by the back door,” he said.
“Here,” Rachel said. “I’ll do it.”
He did not resist. He sat and watched as she worked off first one shoe and then the other. The lamp behind him reflected in her shiny dark hair, making a circle of light on the crown of her head.
Rachel broke the reverie. “I’ll knock these off outside and leave them by the door on my way out.”
“Thanks,” Harry said.
She didn’t offer a platitude in response, just headed back to her work with his shoes and a bag full of his dinner.
“You’ll be back?” he called after her.
“I’ll be back,” she said.
When Rachel got outside, she took the steps down to the sand at a jog. Her heart worked harder than it should have, and her hands were tingling. She would write that down in her notebook but with an asterisk. It could just be the adrenaline. She needed to get her work away from John, and now she could. It was like a piece of unbelievable luck that fell from the sky. It was like winning a contest she didn’t know she’d entered.
She ducked under the yellow tape and took off toward Hooper. She would tell him she was driving the old man to urgent care and would be taking the truck.
* * *
The chef’s table was capable of seating a dozen diners, which made Tilda feel all the more conspicuous sitting there alone. Only a bar separated the kitchen from this private dining area. It was intended to put a spotlight on the cooks, but in her state, Til
da felt instead that it allowed them to peer out at her. She tried to look very appreciative of each course and had taken to giving the waiters awkward smiles as they rushed in and out for plates. The whole thing was exhausting. The only saving grace was that Tip had appeared in the window only once to give her a nod and otherwise seemed to have retreated to the far side, which was blocked from view by shelves and pans and all manner of stainless steel things. She hoped if she couldn’t see him then he couldn’t see her.
It wasn’t that the food wasn’t good. The food was excellent, if unrelenting. Tilda had expected to be presented with a menu but instead had been informed by her waiter—a man so perfectly able to blend into the background that even then she had a hard time recalling what he looked like—that it would be a tasting menu of small plates all chosen by the chef. He hadn’t even asked if there was anything she did not like, and there certainly was. Fortunately, it seemed Tip did not cook with cilantro.
As it was, she didn’t think she could take one more course. She had lost count, but there had been at least fifteen. Small plates or not, fifteen of anything leaves the average person overfull. The arrangement had made it difficult for her to divide the meal into the usual parts. She’d begun with an olive, her waiter had explained, stuffed with a very particular kind of ham taken from a very particular kind of Spanish pig that was raised entirely on hazelnuts and given regular saunas while listening to Handel. Surely that would be considered an appetizer or maybe an amuse-bouche. But after that, things got murky.
Tilda knew there had been a croquette made of carrots, which hadn’t tasted like carrots at all. And there was a Brussels sprout, just one, that had been pulled apart leaf by leaf and covered in a lemon foam, which looked a little like someone had spit on the plate. There had been fish, shellfish, beef, and more pork. It was a very good thing she wasn’t Jewish. At one point there had been a pureed chowder served in a demitasse cup.