The Circle

by Dave Eggers

  As she paddled beyond the sailboats and breakers, she looked south, squinting in search of the barge where the woman and man lived, but the shapes that far away were not clear, and anyway, they were unlikely to have lights on this late. She stayed on course, cutting quickly beyond the anchored yachts and into the round stomach of the bay.

  She heard a quick splash behind her, and turned to find the black head of a harbor seal, not fifteen feet away. She waited for him to drop below the surface, but he stayed, staring at her. She turned back and paddled again toward the island, and the seal followed her for a bit, as if also wanting to see what she wanted to see. Mae wondered, briefly, if the seal would follow her all the way, or if he was, perhaps, on his way to the group of rocks near the island, where many times, driving on the bridge overhead, she’d seen seals sunning. But the next time she turned around, the animal was gone.

  The water’s surface remained calm even as she ventured deeper. Where it usually turned rough, where the water was exposed to ocean winds, it was, this night, utterly placid, and her progress remained swift. In twenty minutes she was halfway to the island, or it appeared that way. The distances were impossible to tell, especially at night, but the island was growing in her vision, and features of the rock she’d never grasped before were now visible. She saw something reflective at the top, the moonlight casting it in bright silver. She saw the remains of what she was sure was a window, resting on the black sand of the shore. Far away, she heard a foghorn, coming from the mouth of the Golden Gate. The fog must be thick there, she thought, even while where she was, only a few miles away, the night was clear, the moon brilliant and nearly whole. Its shimmer on the water was outlandish, so bright she found herself squinting. She wondered about the rocks near the island where she’d seen seals and sea lions. Would they be there, and would they flee before her arrival? A breeze came from the west, a Pacific wind swooping down off the hills, and she sat still for a moment, measuring it. If it picked up, she would have to turn back. She was now closer to the island than the shore, but if the water grew choppy, the danger, alone and without a life preserver, sitting atop a kayak, would be untenable. But as quickly as it had come, the wind disappeared.

  A loud murmuring sound brought her attention to the north. A boat, something like a tug, was coming toward her. On the roof of the cabin she saw lights, white and red, and knew it was a patrol of some kind, Coast Guard probably, and they were close enough to see her. If she remained upright, her silhouette would quickly give her away.

  She flattened herself against the floor of the kayak, hoping that if they saw the shape she was making, they would assume it was a rock, a log, a seal, or simply a wide black ripple interrupting the bay’s silver shimmer. The groan of the boat’s engine grew louder, and Mae was sure there would soon be some bright flood upon her, but the boat passed quickly and Mae went unseen.

  The last push to the island was so quick Mae questioned her sense of distance. One moment she felt she was halfway there at best, and the next she was racing toward the island’s beach as if propelled by heavy tailwinds. She jumped from the bow, the water white-cold and seizing her. She rushed to get the kayak on shore, dragging it up until it was entirely out of the water and onto the sand. Remembering the time when a quickly rising tide nearly took her vessel away, she turned it parallel to the shore and placed large stones on either side.

  She stood, breathing heavily, feeling strong, feeling enormous. What a strange thing, she thought, to be here. There was a bridge nearby, and while driving over it she’d seen this island a hundred times and had never seen a soul, human or animal. No one dared or bothered. What was it about her that made her this curious? It occurred to her that this was the only, or at least the best, way to come here. Marion would not have wanted her to go this far, and might have sent a speedboat to find her and bring her back. And the Coast Guard, didn’t they routinely dissuade people from coming here? Was it a private island? All of these questions and concerns were irrelevant now, because it was dark, no one could see her, and no one would ever know she was here. But she would know.

  She walked the perimeter. The beach collared most of the southern side of the island, then gave way to a sheer cliff. She looked up, seeing no footholds, and below was the frothy shore, so she returned the way she came, finding the hillside rough and rocky, and the shore largely unremarkable. There was a thick stripe of seaweed, with crab shells and flotsam embedded, and she threaded her fingers through it. The moonlight gave the seaweed some of the phosphorescence she’d seen before, adding a rainbow sheen, as if lit from within. For a brief moment, she felt like she was on some body of water on the moon itself, everything cast in a strange inverted palette. What should have been green looked grey, what should have been blue was silver. Everything she was seeing she’d never seen before. And just as she had this thought, out of the corner of her eye, dropping over the Pacific, she saw what she was sure was a shooting star. She’d only seen one before, and couldn’t be sure what she saw was the same thing, an arc of light, disappearing behind the black hills. But what else could it be? She sat for a moment on the beach, staring into the same spot where she’d seen it, as if there might be another, or that it might give way to a shower.

  But she was, she knew, putting off what she wanted most to do, to climb the short peak of the rock, which now she set herself upon. There was no path, a fact that gave her great pleasure—no one, or almost no one, had ever been where she was—and so she climbed using tufts of grass and roots for handholds, and placed her feet upon the occasional rock outcroppings. She stopped once, having found a large hole, almost round, almost tidy, in the hillside. It had to be an animal’s home, but what sort she couldn’t be sure. She imagined the burrows of rabbits and foxes, snakes and moles and mice, any of them equally possible and impossible here, and then she continued, up and up. It was not difficult. She was at the peak in minutes, joining a lone pine, not much bigger than herself. She stood next to it, using its rough trunk for balance, and turned around. She saw the tiny white windows of the city far beyond. She watched the progress of a tanker, low-slung and carrying a constellation of red lights into the Pacific.

  The beach suddenly seemed so far beneath her, and her stomach somersaulted. She looked east, now getting a better view of the seals’ group of rocks, and saw a dozen or so of them lying about, sleeping. She looked up to the bridge above, not the Golden Gate but a lesser one, its liquid white stream of cars, still constant at midnight, and wondered if anyone could see her human silhouette against the silver bay. She remembered what Francis had once said, that he’d never known there was an island beneath the bridge at all. Most of the drivers and their passengers would not be looking down at her, would not have the faintest idea of her existence.

  Then, still holding the pine’s bony trunk, she noticed, for the first time, a nest, resting in the tree’s upper boughs. She didn’t dare touch it, knowing she would upset its equilibrium of scents and construction, but she badly wanted to see what was inside. She stood on a stone, trying to get above it, to look down into it, but she couldn’t position herself high enough to get any perspective. Could she lift it, bring it down to her to peek in? Just for a second? She could, couldn’t she, and then put it right back? No. She knew enough to know she couldn’t. If she did, she’d ruin whatever was inside.

  She sat down, facing south, where she could see the lights, the bridges, the black empty hills dividing the bay from the Pacific. All this had been underwater some millions of years ago, she’d been told. All these headlands and islands had been so far under they would have barely registered as ridges on the ocean floor. Across the silver bay she saw a pair of birds, egrets or herons, gliding low, heading north, and she sat for a time, her mind drifting toward blank. She thought of the foxes that might be underneath her, the crabs that might be hiding under the stones on the shore, the people in the cars that might be passing overhead, the men and women in the tugs and tankers, arriving to port or leaving, sighing, ever
yone having seen everything. She guessed at it all, what might live, moving purposefully or drifting aimlessly, under the deep water around her, but she didn’t think too much about any of it. It was enough to be aware of the million permutations possible around her, and take comfort in knowing she would not, and really could not, know much at all.

  When Mae arrived back at Marion’s beach, it looked, at first, just as she’d left it. There were no people visible, and the light within Marion’s trailer was as it was before, rose-colored and dim.

  Mae jumped to the shore, her feet shushing deep into the wet sand, and she dragged the kayak up the beach. Her legs were sore, and she stopped, dropped the kayak, and stretched. With her hands over her head, she looked toward the parking lot, seeing her car, but now there was another car next to it. And as she was regarding this second car, wondering if Marion was back, Mae was blinded by white light.

  “Stay there,” an amplified voice roared.

  She turned instinctively away.

  The amplified voice came again. “Don’t move!” it said, now with venom.

  Mae froze there, off-balance, worrying briefly about how long she could maintain such a pose, but there was no need. Two shadows descended upon her, grabbed roughly at her arms, and handcuffed her hands behind her.

  Mae sat in the back of the squad car, and the officers, calmer now, weighed whether or not what Mae was telling them—that she was a regular renter, had a membership, and was merely late in returning a rental—could be the truth. They had reached Marion on the phone, and she corroborated that Mae was a customer, but when they had asked if Mae had rented that day and was just tardy, Marion had hung up and said she’d be right over.

  Twenty minutes later, Marion arrived. She was in the passenger seat of a vintage red pickup truck, the driver a bearded man who appeared bewildered and annoyed. Mae, seeing Marion walk unsteadily to the police car, realized she had been drinking, and possibly the bearded man had, too. He was still in the car, and seemed determined to stay there.

  As Marion made her way to the car, Mae caught her eye, and Marion, seeing Mae in the back of a squad car, her arms cuffed behind her, seemed to sober instantly.

  “Oh Jesus Christ,” she said, rushing to Mae. She turned to the officers. “This is Mae Holland. She rents here all the time. She has the run of the place. How the hell did this happen? What’s going on here?”

  The officers explained that they’d gotten two separate messages about a probable theft. “We got one call from a citizen who doesn’t wish to be identified.” And then they turned to Marion. “And the other warning came from one of your own cameras, Ms. Lefebvre.”

  Mae barely slept. Her adrenaline kept her pacing through the night. How could she be so stupid? She wasn’t a thief. What if Marion hadn’t saved her? She could have lost everything. Her parents would have been called to bail her out, and her position at the Circle would be lost. Mae had never gotten a speeding ticket, had never been in trouble at any level, and now she was stealing a thousand-dollar kayak.

  But it was over, and Marion had even insisted, when they parted, that Mae come back. “I know you’ll be embarrassed, but I want you to come back here. I will hound you if you don’t.” She knew Mae would be so sorry, and full of shame, that she wouldn’t want to face Marion again.

  Still, when she woke after a few hours of fitful sleep, Mae felt a strange sense of liberation, as if she’d woken up from a nightmare to know it hadn’t happened. The slate was blank and she went to work.

  She logged on at eight thirty. Her rank was 3,892. She worked through the morning, feeling the extraordinary focus possible for a few hours after a largely sleepless night. Periodically, memories from the night before came to her—the silent silver of the water, the lone pine on the island, the blinding light of the squad car, its plastic smell, the idiotic conversation with Mercer—but these memories were fading, or she was forcing them to fade, when she received a second-screen message from Dan: Please come to my office asap. Jared will cover for you.

  She rushed there, and when she got to his door, Dan was standing, ready. His face seemed to show some satisfaction that she’d hurried. Dan closed the door and they sat down.

  “Mae, do you know what I want to talk about?”

  Was this a test to see if she would lie?

  “I’m sorry, I don’t,” she tried.

  Dan blinked slowly. “Mae. Last chance.”

  “Is it about last night?” she said. If he didn’t know about the police, she could make something else up, something else that had happened after hours.

  “It is. Mae, this is very serious stuff.”

  He knew. God, he knew. In some recess of her mind Mae realized that the Circle must have some web alert to notify them anytime a staff member was charged or questioned by the police. It only made sense.

  “But there were no charges,” she protested. “Marion cleared everything up.”

  “Marion is the owner of the shop?”

  “Yes.”

  “But Mae, you and I know that there was a crime committed, don’t we?”

  Mae had no idea what to say.

  “Mae, I’ll spare you. Did you know that a member of the Circle, Gary Katz, had placed a SeeChange camera at that beach?”

  Her stomach dropped into her shoe. “No, I didn’t.”

  “And the owner’s son, Walt, had set one up, too?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, first of all, that’s troubling in and of itself. You go kayaking sometimes, yes? I see on your profile that you’re a kayaker. Josiah and Denise say you had a good talk about this.”

  “I do go sometimes. It’s been a few months.”

  “But you’ve never thought to check SeeChange to see about water conditions?”

  “No. I should. But every time I go, it’s really a spur-of-the-moment thing. The beach is on my way home from my parents’ house so—”

  “And you were at your parents’ house yesterday?” Dan said, in a way that made clear that if she said yes, he would be even angrier.

  “I was. Just for dinner.”

  Dan stood now, and turned from Mae. She could hear his breathing, a series of exasperated bursts.

  Mae had the distinct sensation she would be fired any moment. Then she remembered Annie. Could Annie save her? Not this time.

  “Okay,” Dan said. “So you go home, missing any number of activities here, and when you drive back this way, you stop by the rental shop, after hours. Don’t tell me you didn’t know they were closed.”

  “I figured they were, but I just stopped to make sure.”

  “And when you saw a kayak outside the fence, you just decided to take it.”

  “Borrow it. I’m a member there.”

  “Have you seen the footage of this?” Dan asked.

  He turned on his wallscreen. Mae saw a clear, moonlight image of the beach from a wide-angle camera. The logline at the bottom of the screen indicated it had been taken at 10:14 p.m. “Don’t you think a camera like this would be useful to you?” Dan asked. “Water conditions at the very least?” He didn’t wait for a response. “Let’s see you here.” He fast-forwarded a few seconds, and Mae saw her shadowy figure appear on the beach. Everything was very clear—her surprise at finding the kayak, her moments of deliberation and doubt, then her quick work of bringing the vessel to the water and paddling out of view.

  “Okay,” Dan said, “as you can see, it’s pretty obvious you knew you were doing something wrong. This is not the behavior of someone with a standing arrangement with Marge or whomever. I mean, I’m happy that you two colluded on your story and that you weren’t arrested, because that would have made your working here impossible. Felons don’t work at the Circle. But still, all of this makes me frankly sick to my stomach. Lies and aversions. It’s just astounding to even have to deal with this.”

  Again Mae had the distinct feeling, a vibration in the air that said she was being fired. But if she was being fired, Dan wouldn’t have spent this kind
of time with her, would he? And would he fire someone Annie, who was far higher on the ladder, had hired? If she were to hear about her termination from anyone, it would be Annie herself. So Mae sat, hoping this was going somewhere else.

  “Now, what’s missing here?” he asked, pointing to the frozen image of Mae getting into the kayak.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You really don’t know?”

  “Permission to use the kayak?”

  “Sure,” he said curtly, “but what else?”

  Mae shook her head. “I’m sorry. I don’t know.”

  “Don’t you usually wear a life preserver?”

  “I do, I do. But they were on the other side of the fence.”

  “And if something happened to you out there, god forbid, how would your parents feel? How would Marge feel?”

  “Marion.”

  “How would she feel, Mae? Overnight, her business is over. Finished. All the people who work for her. They’re all out of work. The beach is shut down. Kayaking in the bay, as a business overall, goes through the floor. All because of your carelessness. Forgive me for the bluntness, but because of your selfishness.”

  “I know,” Mae said, feeling the sting of truth. She had been selfish. She hadn’t thought of anything but her own desire.

  “It’s sad, because you’ve been improving so much. Your PartiRank was as high as 1,668. Your Conversion Rate and Retail Raw were in the top quartile. And now this.” Dan sighed elaborately. “But as upsetting as this all is, it provides us with a teachable moment. And I mean a teachable moment on a life-changing level. This shameful episode has given you the chance to meet Eamon Bailey himself.”

  Mae’s gasp was audible.

  “Yes. He took an interest in this, seeing how much it overlaps with his interests and the overall goals of the Circle. Would you be interested in speaking to Eamon about this?”