Fly by Night (12 page)

“TJ…”

He didn't answer. It was his characteristic “I'll think about it.” Not a “no” but not a “yes” either. And while Amelia had blown him off, there was something exciting about returning the volley. The smart thing was to let the attorney contact her, but he'd wanted to. Yet the intensity of his desire to do so worried him. He'd hidden such eagerness from Charlotte, feeling in part that it was unnatural. Maybe nothing good would come of it and yet when flipping the situation to imagine what he'd have done, TJ knew he'd have jumped at the chance, jumped at being found, reached back to whomever was reaching toward him. But he wasn't her. He was desperate, maybe she wasn't. He hadn't a clue as to what Amelia's personal life had been like, which was why he'd hang up halfway through her recorded message before the beep. Pressing *69 to hide his number, hide his existence just as his father had kept him hidden until now. He was so keen on her knowing about him yet so chicken about taking the first step. Just like all those years ago when as a child he'd pretend and imagine that he knew her from the photos his father would bring. Sometimes setting one up on his desk and talking to it when Gloria was working the late shift at the hospital, and he missed his father, wishing he could reach through the printed images and have her know of him just as he knew of her. As a child walking to school, pretending she was walking beside him.

There were so many things he couldn't tell his wife, so many feelings, confusions, and compulsions that weighed so heavily.

As he turned back to hold her he felt Charlotte's eyes on him even though the room was dark.

 

10

A month had passed since Amelia was last underwater, the longest stretch of topside life since the weeks following Alex's birth.

It had also been a month since the closing of the lab and as Amelia came home from the grocery store she stepped up onto the stoop. Balancing the bag on her hip, she grabbed the mail and bit into the two letters, holding them as she fumbled for the house key in her purse.

“Where the hell?” She finally felt the outline of her key and fished it out of her purse.

She paused to look at the letters, a perfect mold of her bite impression in half-moon shape.

On top was a letter from the mortgage company. She gulped down a breath.
No.
A foreclosure notice after only one missed payment? The second payment bordered on being late though she'd spoken with a rep and pending approval they'd worked out a repayment schedule.
If you're losing money, then do it as slowly as possible
.

The other envelope bulged with folded papers, sporting a return address from Wisconsin and Ted Drakos Jr.

“Uck.” She leaned over the stoop's railing where the garbage can stood and let go of the letter.

Then she closed her eyes and took several breaths to stave off hyperventilation.

“Maybe it's okay.” Maybe just the repayment schedule they'd discussed.

Pushing open the front door, it yawned, her house smelled like coffee and leather.

What if it wasn't? The thought made her seize up. All the positive self-talk Jen practiced wasn't working.

Shit. They were coming for the Revolution House.

She staggered to the breakfast bar and set down the grocery bag and the mortgage company's letter. Stepping out of her clogs, Amelia ambled over to the couch and sat up straight on the edge of the cushion. How she wished Jen was home. Her friend had moved in earlier that week. Jen's pay from a part-time job in a doggie day care was not enough to make rent.

“I don't know what to do.” Jen had called, explaining the situation in high-register sounds that Amelia identified with being close to tears. Her mobile phone was cut off; she'd missed two rent cycles, sounds of barking dogs in the background.

“For crying out loud, just move into Alex's bedroom,” Amelia said, thinking of Jen's junky rusted-out Toyota that refused to start when the woman was running late, and burning through a cushion of overdraft protection just about the time she'd managed to pay it off. But Amelia wasn't much better. The barking set Amelia on end. She'd always been afraid of dogs since getting bitten as a child. Bryce and Jen found it amusing since she'd faced down many a shark and moray eel, but dogs made her nervous.

“Thank you, thank you.” Jen began to cry.

“Aw, don't cry, Jen.” It always made Amelia sad. “I'll have dinner ready. Nothing great,” Amelia said. “Give you a key. I still have cable.”

“Thanks.”

“Everything's gonna be okay,” Amelia said, though she was a fine one to talk.

“I don't know when I can pay.”

“Oh stop it—your money's no good here,” Amelia said as if talking to her son.

Massaging her scalp, Amelia tried to disperse the dull beginnings of a headache. Would her shoulders ever relax? Would she ever get a full night's sleep again or spend a full day awake?

No more bad news, things taken, people leaving. She flashed on Bryce's eyes as he'd opened the NSF envelope.

Grabbing her cheapie reading glasses from the coffee table, she mustered the courage to walk over and open the letter.

Money for October's house payment had been spent on relocating pair-bonded sea horses to facilities throughout the country that had promised to keep the lifelong mates together. Tossing and turning for nights, Amelia had walked the floors like the ghost of Revolution House past. She'd never missed a house payment. And while there were nightly news reports of people walking away from homes, she promised the Revolution House, “This will not be your fate.”

Perching the glasses on the end of her nose, Amelia eased down onto the bar stool. Thumb in the flap, she snagged it open and read. Ninety days to become current or the account would be transferred to a foreclosure agency.

Panic-stricken at the sight of those words, she thought of Diane, of Christmas shopping at the Mall of America. Maybe the job was still open. Earlier that month she'd mentioned Diane's tip about the job openings to both Jen and Bryce, who'd just stared back deadpan, like “Really.”

Then, she looked around for her laptop.

“Where the hell is it?” her voice grinded out as she got up, spotting it by the fireplace.

Carrying it into the kitchen, she plugged it into the wall by the toaster and searched. Sea Life Minnesota came up in an instant.

“Now where'd I put…” She looked around at the paper clutter on the counter. Where was the brochure and phone number Diane had given her? Maybe she could fast-track her way into the place.

“Damn.” Amelia riffled through receipts and letters from aquariums acknowledging the lab's “Gift” of the animals, cursing herself for not having put the Sea Life brochure in a safe place. She looked at her watch. Diane was out of town visiting her husband's mother.

You're on your own.
Amelia turned back to the screen.

Sitting up straight, she focused on the Web page—blond child models oohing and ahhing as they ran through a ferny jungle trail walled in by fish tanks, turtles, and sea horses as tall as a man. It seemed there were more Sea Life Aquariums in Europe and in over thirty countries and only five in the U.S. She had no idea that such an extensive shopping mall–based network of aquariums existed. More than eight million visitors a year in the Minneapolis site alone, like having the entire population of New York City trickling through each year. In Sea Life's Minneapolis location they housed over ten thousand marine animals.

“
A bad job's better than no job.
” Thanks, Penelope.

She clicked on their employment opportunities. The animal care curator and two associate positions were still listed.

“Oh, thank God, thank God.” She bowed in relief. They had time. The deadline was the end of next week.

Minnesota: mosquitoes, freshwater-lake ecosystems, and Garrison Keillor. Too bad it wasn't closer.

Amelia skipped over the job description, nodding in furious agreement, anything to save the Revolution House.

“Whatever.” She hit the
To Apply
link. “I can play Dolphin Girl,” she muttered a quid pro quo.

After typing in her first name, Amelia read it over a few times. The spelling suddenly looked strange; cursor blinking at the end of the last letter.

She picked up her phone and texted Bryce and Jen, pasting the link. “Filling out application for Sea Life Minnesota. All three jobs still open!!! DO IT.” She hit send.

Leaning on her elbows, her mind raced as she thought ahead.

Rent the Revolution House, work in Minnesota until new grants came through. If Jen and Bryce came along maybe it would feel more like being on location for an extended period of time than being landlocked on the prairies. The Revolution House would rent in seconds being so close to campus. How crazy to move fourteen hundred miles to save it, but hell, she'd done crazier things.

Clarity arose out of a burst of energy fueled by terror. Enough to compose a personal statement, cover letter, look up references, and complete the online form. Amelia imagined herself like some aging Mary Tyler Moore in a snowy Minneapolis apartment.

“I can do this,” she affirmed against her better judgment, looking around at the kitchen cabinets for support. Funny how cavalier it felt: just apply for a job, rent the house, and move to Minnesota like it was no big deal. And maybe it wasn't. Or maybe it was but would hit much later in the middle of a deep sleep in the form of bolting upright in a panic when after, as she and Bryce used to say, “The drugs wore off.” Or maybe the job had already been filled, she was off the hook and could bemoan about “having tri-i-ied.”

She hit the send key, the screen blackened.

“No!” she yelled. Had it gone through? The battery on her laptop had dislodged. One of the tabs to secure it was broken and when juggled in the slightest would dislodge. She'd repeatedly proofed her statement and cover letter, rooting out sounds of desperation. “Everyone's desperate,” Bryce would say. “Some of us just hide it better.”

She shoved the battery in and rebooted. Getting back onto their main Web site, again she hit the
To Apply
link. Nothing happened. She checked her e-mail, there was no confirmation of her application.

“Damn it,” she yelled.

Slumping over in defeat, Amelia rested her head on the edge of the breakfast bar.

“Shit, shit, shit.” She wanted to cry but couldn't.
Maybe it was a sign. Of what?

Peeking over at the stove clock she counted down on her fingers—11 a.m. in Minneapolis. Saturday at the mall, people were working.

“Okay.” She spotted the Web site's
For More Information Call
and dialed. A recording answered.

Then she dialed the number for
Party and Event Reservations,
thinking a live person might answer.
Everyone wants money.

“Hello, Sea Life.” A youngish woman's voice. “Planning a party? I'm Marissa. How may I help you?”

“Hi.” Amelia explained the situation. “I'm having trouble getting the HR link to work—I think it lost my application.” She began to explain but then stopped, realizing how crazy she sounded.

“Oh,” the youngish woman chuckled. “Some of those positions are already filled maybe that's why.”

Shit.
“Do you know if the director and curator position is filled?” As the words sailed out Amelia knew she was asking the wrong person. But the mix of adrenaline, the beauty of the sun shining through the 230-year-old windowpanes of her house made her want that job more than anything.

“Let me put you on hold,” the young woman said.

“But—” Michael Jackson's “Free Willy” was playing. Strange choice. Amelia closed her eyes and chewed on her knuckles.

“Hi.” The person was back. “Sorry to keep you waiting. Try it again. Someone said the system's been down.”

“Thanks,” Amelia said, hoping that was the case and not her laptop shutting down before transmission. “If I it doesn't work can I call you back?”

“Sure.” The young woman chuckled with no conviction. A child was crying in the background. “Well, good luck,” the woman said. “You scared of the shark, honey? It can't bite you.” Her voice trailed off as the call ended.

Going back to the
To Apply
link, Amelia clicked again. Her application came up under
saved
.

“Oh thank God, thank God.” She hit the send key before her computer quit, pressing it down long after her application was gone.

A window popped up.
Thank you for your application. Someone will contact you shortly.

Amelia then rested her head on her forearms to stop from shaking. It felt like the fatigue that came after she'd been swimming a reef for hours. More panic set in as she realized what she'd done and paced the creaky floorboards of the Revolution House, wandering like a disembodied spirit, waiting for Jen to come home.

*   *   *

Closing the lab had kept the three of them busy for weeks. She and Jen had ferried across to Long Island to deliver the rest of the sea horses to their new exhibit in the New York Aquarium that had been rebuilt after Hurricane Sandy. But busy as they were, Amelia fought blind panic as she avoided the issue of work, income, and what came next. She focused on “one foot in front of the other,” like a scientist does when following step-by-step methodological research protocol for an experiment. This way of thinking had saved her years ago when she was nineteen and pregnant with Alex.

On the lab's final day, Amelia had felt like a cop being stripped of gun and badge as she'd surrendered all of their plastic university key cards and ID badges at the security office. She'd watched as the clerk checked off each card on the computer screen, for Bryce, for Jen. They'd been parts of each other's bodies for years, her cards still warm from having just been on the cord around her neck.