Sea of Lost Souls

by Emerald Dodge

  “Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m an assistant gym teacher at one of the city schools.” My usual lie came out easily. The job was ordinary and explained bruises.

  He nodded and sipped his chocolatey drink. “You’re braver than I am. I’m not sure I could work at a job that beat me up like that. What did you do, fall down some bleachers?” His words were polite and friendly, but I thought there was a tiny speck of sarcasm in there, too. He reminded me of Marco.

  “That’s exactly what happened.” I was purposely neither enthusiastic nor dismissive. It was best to let civilians think what they wanted to think. The conversation was focusing on me far too much for comfort, so I pointed to his book. “What are you reading?”

  A woman outside the window answered a phone call. After a few seconds, she gasped and took off running in the direction I’d heard the sirens.

  Now I was intrigued, but I had to wait for the call to report to the scene—I was technically supposed to be at the clinic, much too far from the sirens to hear them.

  He held it his book. “A nursing textbook. I’m thinking about quitting my job and applying to the nursing school down at UGSC.”

  “Nursing. Wow.” I was impressed—The University of Georgia at Saint Catherine was the largest university in the region. “I don’t know much about it, but I’ve heard that it’s hard. Lots of long hours and cranky civilians. I mean, patients.” Whoops.

  “It can’t be harder than my current job.” There was an edge to his words. He hadn’t appeared to pick up on my mistake.

  “What do you do?”

  “I’m an errand boy for my parents’ human resources consulting firm. And before you ask, no, the work isn’t hard. Being with my family all day is hard.” He sank back into the couch. “I’m actually supposed to be on a job right now, but I decided to ditch.” He looked sidelong at me. “I’m glad I did, though. Normally the company here isn’t so nice to talk to. Pardon me for being so bold, but I love your Georgia accent. It’s thicker than others I’ve heard.”

  Heat crept into my face. How should I even respond to that? “I—I’m also ditching. My boss would freak if he knew I was here. But I’m glad I came, too.”

  I’d never had a real conversation with a young civilian man before, and Benjamin was incredibly nice to look at. Every once in a while he’d turn his head and his mop of light hair would bounce slightly, shifting into his eyes. He’d shake his head a little to clear it away, and I’d see his crinkly hazel eyes once more.

  Benjamin grinned. “So how about we waste more time? Tell me about your bad boss and I’ll tell you about mine.”

  His wide smile warmed my stomach. Against my better judgement, and the microwave’s half-hour warning, I started talking.

  “My boss isn’t really bad, just difficult to work with. He…Patrick is kind of controlling. He yells a lot and gets really angry when I make a mistake. He’s just really hard to please. But it’s usually my fault,” I added quickly. “I mess up, a lot and there’s so much on the line when I do. I deserve what he does.” I picked at a spot on the couch. “You wouldn’t believe how much I mess up at work.”

  Benjamin raised an eyebrow. “I can’t believe that. And your boss shouldn’t yell at you. Although…I’m being hypocritical, because my dad yells at me a lot and I never tell him to stop. But Patrick’s not your family.”

  Patrick actually was a distant cousin of mine. “Sometimes I think about quitting but then I feel terrible. Besides, Patrick would be so angry; he hired me and I owe him everything.”

  Benjamin set down his cup. “Jillian, I don’t know what this Patrick guy has been telling you, but you can quit your job. And you know, if he’s such an ogre that you’re afraid to give two weeks’ notice, you may want to report him to the school board. That sounds like a really bad place to work.”

  This was the downside to my cover story; it only worked at the surface level. “It’s not that easy,” I said softly. I looked up at him. “Tell me about your boss.”

  The lights flickered. Lee stopped cleaning and frowned at them.

  Twenty-nine minutes…but I didn’t want to go.

  Benjamin exhaled in a long breath. “I should start off by saying that my mom and dad are under a lot of pressure all the time. When things get bad, they lose control and start screaming their heads off. Dad’ll get gruff, mom will say something nasty to my brother, he’ll reply with an attitude…” He trailed off and sighed heavily. “And then everyone jumps on the crazy train.” He stared off into the distance for several long seconds, lost in thought. After an awkward second, he turned beet red and ran a hand through his hair. “I—I’m sorry, that was a lot to unload on you. Um, let me go get you another latte.” He jumped up and headed towards Lee, still red as tomato sauce.

  Smiling into the latte I was still drinking, I worked through his words, looking for the part that was supposed to be “bad.” Authority figures had a right to rein in their inferiors through any means necessary, and sometimes that included yelling, even hitting. It was just an unpleasant part of life, like hail or sickness.

  Still, I sensed that Benjamin thought this was unusual behavior in some way, so I sipped my coffee and decided not to comment on his family drama when he returned.

  When he sat down again with a new latte in hand, a few awkward seconds passed before Benjamin spoke. “So if you quit your job, where would you work? Could you teach something else?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know what I’d do. This is all I’m good for.” The pain in my shoulder flared and I winced. I’d have to go soon, whether I wanted to or not.

  He reached out to touch my shoulder, then drew his hand back. “I don’t believe that. Give yourself a chance.”

  I was tired of this part of the conversation, but I didn’t want to stop talking to him altogether. His black t-shirt said the word Nirvana on it and had a bizarre yellow smiley face below. “What does your shirt mean?”

  Two shrieking ambulances raced down Davis Street, followed by a firetruck and police cars.

  He pulled the bottom of his shirt to straighten out the front. “Nirvana? They were a nineties grunge band. You’ve never heard of them?” He was surprised, but I didn’t hear any suspicion in his tone.

  “No. Are they your favorite band?”

  I could hardly judge him for enjoying a band, since he was a civilian and had no limitations on what media he could consume. I wondered what Nirvana’s songs sounded like. They couldn’t have been too bad, if Benjamin liked them—he was just so polite. Nearly all civilian music could corrupt, but I’d always gotten the impression from our lessons that some music could corrupt faster and more completely than others. Nursery rhymes and traditional ballads were alright—I even knew a few. Nirvana, whoever they were, were probably on the safe end of the scale.

  “Eh, not really. They’re okay. The shirt was last year’s birthday gift from my sister. She’s visiting right now, and I wanted her to see me wearing it.”

  I sipped my coffee to hide my smile. I didn’t know what I’d expected from talking to this young civilian man, but such thoughtfulness about his sister’s feelings wasn’t it. I was moved.

  “What bands do you like?”

  Dang it. “Um, there aren’t any specific bands, but I’ve always liked singing with my family. We used to sing around campfires when I was young.” Those days seemed very far away. “Singing while we played in the meadow…while we worked…while we ran through the trees. I love to sing.” I hadn’t sung in six months.

  Benjamin’s eyes shone. “Were you in musicals when you were in high school? I wasn’t good enough to be on stage. I ended up doing debate and forensics, plus some other stuff. What did you do?”

  I knew what “debate” was, but not the other activity.

  However, before I could bluff my way through an answer, my phone rang. A quick peek at the screen showed that it was Marco. I mouthed to Benjamin to hold on a minute while I took the call over by the bathrooms.

  “He
llo?”

  “Jill, come home. There was a break-in at a bank and Patrick is freaking out ‘cause you’re not back. Tell me you’re close.”

  So there it was: a robbery. Didn’t criminals in this city ever sleep?

  “Of course I’m on my way home. I just left. Give me fifteen minutes.” I hung up and returned to the couch. “That was a coworker.” I hoped my anxiety wasn’t written all over my face. “I need to go.”

  Benjamin jumped up, and I saw for the first time that he stood at roughly six feet, just like me. “I had a great time talking to you,” he said, taking my trash. “I’ll just come out and say it: would you like to meet me here again?” He looked hopeful and shy at the same time.

  His words hung in the air between us.

  Nobody had ever asked to see me socially before. Back home, my only friends had been other children in the camp. Here in Saint Catherine, I had to be careful. Everything about the situation felt wrong. Forbidden. I could think of a dozen reasons to say no, the first one being the risk of Patrick pounding my face in for breaking a cardinal rule.

  “Yes, I’d love to,” I blurted. “How about next week, same day and time? In fact, let me get your phone number.” I dug around in my pocket for my phone.

  He told me his contact information and I saved it, making sure to label his contact file “Snitch #5” in case Patrick felt like randomly searching through it as he’d done in the past.

  When I was done, I stuck out my left hand. “It was great to meet you.”

  He shook my hand and a spark of electricity traveled up my arm into the back of my neck and down to my thigh. “And you, Jillian. I really hope you’ll consider what I said about your boss.”

  I nodded and we parted without another word.

  I was walking out the door of the café when I realized that my shoulder didn’t hurt anymore.

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