Fly by Night (19 page)

Bryce looked more frightened than startled as the door flew open and in she stepped. She leaned against the black lab bench. Folding her arms, she glared at him.

“Let's go somewhere and talk.”

He looked up from the microscope.

“Shall we?” She could tell he knew he was in trouble.

“Sure,” he said slowly.

She smiled and waved to the other techs working at the lab benches. A few looked up.

“Just a sec,” he said as she watched him transfer a specimen to a slide for examination. Her chest tightened.

He stopped focusing through the microscope lenses and turned, looking at her through his safety goggles.

Amelia thumbed like a hitchhiker.

“In our office,” she said and left, marching down the hall as her feet squeaked, still wet with water from the tank.

Bryce stepped in. Amelia closed the door and leaned against it.

“How could you do that to me?” She raised her voice.

“I didn't
do
anything to you—”

“Letting Myles in like that without asking, asshole.”

He looked at her for a moment and then dropped down into his chair, crossed his leg, ankle on knee, and leaned his chin on his hand.

“You're right,” he said. “I apologize.”

She was taken aback, not expecting him to concede so quickly, furious at the concession.

“Imagine what that felt like.” She raised her voice as her hand hit the counter, shouting to make him feel it, though he already seemed contrite.

“I'm sorry.”

“But why? Why would you do such a mean thing?”

He only shrugged and shook his head as if it was all a mystery in which he'd found absolution.

“Sometimes I just don't
get
you.”

She flung open the door and left, her damp feet squishing along as she headed toward the women's locker room to change.

*   *   *

Something about Bryce bothered her. He'd never done anything like that before. Maybe he was angry for letting her talk him into moving to Minnesota. And for that matter, maybe Jen was too.

She had nothing to wear.

Pushing open the mall's exit doors, the freshness of arctic air made her eyes tear as she headed toward the bus stop. The sun was low, the sky a sluggish orange and gray since the days were some of the shortest of the year. She hurried along the sidewalk around to the bus stop, lamenting how reciprocity in love was such a tough thing to find. She'd dragged half-conscious men through enough quasi-relationships to know better. But the reverse was no better either—trying to fall in love with a man who began talking about finding a larger house together after only a few dates. She'd awaken each morning, hopeful that some cosmic love switch had flipped on so that she could say “I love you” and mean it, but instead their hands felt more like chemical irritants on her skin. And for six years she'd given up, taken herself out of the game until meeting Myles. And maybe it was precisely that state of deprivation that had made her an easy mark for such a polished man.

Hustling toward the bus stop, she spotted the long line. People stood motionless, thumbing through messages on their phones. Amelia slowed with relief, taking her place at the back of the line and burrowed behind the taller bodies for warmth. Each in their own thoughts, phones, although she was starting to recognize people on the same shifts.

Fast-food workers, store clerks, some uniforms barely concealed beneath coats—layers of plastic IDs and security cards dangled round their necks in glassine holders, some from rhinestone cords. The air felt good after the suffocating warmth of the mall's microclimate. Unzipping her coat, Amelia held on to both sides and fanned it.

Overly made-up salesclerks teetered on heels. Some had downgraded to sneakers, which looked odd given their lace-patterned hose and skirts. Eye makeup had melted into splotches beneath their eyes after standing nine hours greeting customers.

From walking around the mall, Amelia could spot some of the same women flagging down customers in Nordstrom, offering makeovers or cotton balls soaked in fragrance. If only they gave do-overs—nothing that the right product couldn't cure except for maybe low wages and no social supports. Here and there stray clumps of finely dyed hair indicated that their coiffures were giving out too.

She noticed the furrowed brows and clenched faces of the young “Mallers,” as Bryce called them all, and it brought her back to when she'd discovered she was pregnant.

*   *   *

At the time Amelia had been three and a half months along, just after finals during winter break when she'd worked up the gumption to tell the dean she was quitting school. Amelia had sat on a chair in the reception area, waiting.

“Welcome, Amelia.” Dean Williams had stepped out of her office after the last appointment. “Please.” She'd graciously ushered Amelia into the office. “Have a seat.”

As Amelia sat, so did the dean. The woman had been so helpful in the months following her parents' deaths; Amelia cringed at having to deliver the news.

She'd looked down at her fingers. Taking a ragged breath, she toyed with telling the truth but then decided against it.

“Good to see you, Amelia.” The dean beamed a smile.

She looked away.

“So tell me,” the woman asked. “How're things going?”

“Um,” she faltered, forcing the words out. “I have to withdraw.”

The dean looked at her as if not understanding.

“Withdraw,” the woman repeated.

Amelia nodded.

“From school?”

She nodded again.

The dean looked from one corner of the ceiling to the other and blinked several times. Amelia could feel the woman's years of experience zooming in on her, waiting for an explanation.

“The end of the semester is tough on everyone, Amelia.” The woman tried to defuse. “Let's face it, it's been a hard one,” the dean qualified. “How were finals?”

“Fine. Still have a four-point.”

“Well then. The holidays, the New Year—they're tough with your parents being gone a year—”

“Yes, I know, thanks.” She'd cut the woman off, knowing how skillful the dean was in talking people out of things. “I just think it's better if I withdraw for now.”

Hearing her sigh, Amelia watched as the dean clasped her hands and focused on her.

“Students feel overwhelmed; even in the best of circumstances, they want out. Hell—the faculty want out.” The dean chuckled airily and leaned back in her chair, rearranging her dark curly bangs.

“Uhh—it's more than that,” Amelia said.

The dean stared at her, trying to divine the reason.

“Well, how long are we talking about?”

“At least a year.”

“A year?” Dean Williams lurched forward.

“Maybe more. I'll have to see.”

“See what, dear?” The woman leaned both elbows on the desk, trying to engender enough confidence for her to share.

“I'd rather not say.” While she felt the dean deserved an explanation, she couldn't say it.

The woman sat back and looked at her with suspicion. “Gifted students don't just withdraw willy-nilly; won't the semester break be enough?”

She shook her head.

The dean was quiet. Her expression then changed to official business.

“You're forfeiting your scholarship.”

“I'm aware of that.” Amelia looked down at her hands, feeling the beginnings of a protruding abdomen.

“And you're willing to give up.”

“I'm not giving up; I just can't do it now.”

“Are you in some sort of trouble?” The dean's eyebrows rose as she said it and she stepped out from behind her desk.

Amelia smiled. She'd never been in trouble in her life.

“No.”

They stood in silence, absorbing the gravity of the moment and of decisions made.

She moved toward Amelia to hug her, but instead Amelia waved and slipped out of the door.

“Call if you change your mind,” the woman called after her.

Another thing about adult life she hadn't known—how to get birth control, how to sell a house, how to open a checking account, how to sell her parents' furniture. Funny how she knew in depth about the fertility cycles of marine animals, but hadn't thought about her own. And neither had Penelope mentioned it, possibly thinking it might be centuries before her daughter would even think such things, much less have the opportunity.

*   *   *

After the meeting with the dean, Amelia had gone to a pay phone in the lobby of the administration building, plugged in a quarter, and called Chris Ryan's office. This time he answered.

“Chris Ryan speaking, how may I help you?”

Silence. She listened for a few seconds and then quietly placed the receiver back in its cradle and stood there, intent on never speaking to him again.

*   *   *

After her conversation with Dean Williams she needed to think. Leaving her parents' car in the dorm parking lot, since the needle was brushing the empty line, she buttoned up her black peacoat, wrapped a red plaid scarf around her neck, and took off walking until she reached the university entrance sign on North Country Road. She stood for a few moments. Turning left she tucked her hands into her pockets and headed east along the shoulder of the highway toward the Port Jefferson harbor. The faster she walked the less nauseous and panicky she felt. Her breath puffed in streams. January's raw, damp maritime wind left a bone-penetrating chill for which the only cure was nothing short of a hot shower.

While the road was clear, snow lined the sides. Passing cars kicked up the slush mixed with sand from the last storm. Some sprayed her. She'd reared back to shield her face.

As she approached the town, snow piled up deeper off in the woods; tiny square Cape Cod summer cottages set back in the trees looked snowed-in. An occasional passing car honked.

From up on a ridge on the outskirts of town, the masts of tall ships were visible from down in the harbor. She inhaled the comforting smell of salt water and seaweed.

The road then began a steep, winding descent into sidewalks like switchbacks down to sea level.

One long blast of the Bridgeport–Port Jefferson Ferry startled her, announcing its departure, carrying cars bound for Connecticut.

The street was lined with wrought-iron, Victorian-looking streetlamps; across was a massive parking lot at the ferry entrance.

Port Jefferson was a historic whaling town dating from the mid-1600s. In eighth grade Amelia's class had taken a field trip when they were studying the earliest settlements in colonial America. Named after Thomas Jefferson, who'd invested funds to help shore-up and stop the town from its perpetual flooding, Port Jeff, as it was called, had been known for its whaling and fishing. The town retained the flavor of colonial-American roots by city ordinance as all of the buildings in the historic district were required to reflect that heritage.

Amelia stopped to watch as the ferry pulled away from the dock, hands in pockets. A loud squeaking made her look up. Overhead was the gold-leaf painted form of a swordfish, that said F
RESH
F
ISH
M
ARKET
in painted gold letters. The fish swung in the gusty winds off the harbor.

The storefront faced the harbor with nothing to block the wind. Another gust hit and knocked her off balance but not before she'd spotted the H
ELP
W
ANTED
sign tucked in the bottom corner of the front window. Spray from the waves hit the dock and made a thud as it landed on the hoods of cars waiting to load onto the next ferry.

Amelia ducked into the alley alongside the market for shelter and then noticed two men unloading wooden crates from the back of a truck. She hurried toward them and spoke up.

“That's some nice-looking black sea bass you got there.”

Both men glanced over like,
beat it.

“I see you got some swordfish there too.” She'd pointed to another wooden crate packed with headless fish and ice chips. “Looks freshly caught.”

“Can I help you?” said an older man, sounding more like,
get lost.
With wavy gray hair and a mustache, he placed both hands on his hips and walked toward her, wearing a rubber apron, gloves, and waders.

She was so tiny there'd been nothing about her that merited such an aggressive stance. She remembered wanting to start giggling.

“Yeah.” She'd put her hands on both hips too and faced him up. “I need a job.”

The other younger man, about her age, stopped unloading to stare at her too. They had the same shaped mustache. She imagined he might be a son.

“What are you, like twelve?” the younger one quipped. Both raised their gloved hands and began laughing in a way that might have chased off someone else.

“Nineteen,” she called back; her voice pealed through their laughter, clear and firm. “Twenty next month.”

They were quieted.

“I can show you my driver's license if you don't believe me.”

They studied her—long dark glossy ponytail almost to her waist, black woolen peacoat, plaid scarf, and jeans. She looked more like an adolescent, but stood like she'd take on either men, if needed.

“You know fish?” the older man asked.

“Boy do I know fish,” she said, nodding as she smiled.

And for many years Amelia would remember the feel of that smile.

“Hey—nothing personal,” the younger of the two said. “We don't hire girls. They're bad luck and bring trouble,” he said with the kind of hesitation borne of knowing you should keep your mouth shut.

“You don't hire girls,” Amelia repeated, nodding, looking into the inert eye of a sea bass that lay under chips of ice, only its face exposed. “You're kidding me, right?”

He shrugged a response.

*   *   *