Shark Island

by Chris Jameson

  Jamie sipped his beer while she spoke, then gave her a nod. “You’re not wrong, but I’m not worried about it. Walter’s the best friend I’ve got, but I’m capable of entertaining myself. For instance, I can come in here on one of your theme music nights and listen to eighties pop songs that make me want to drive rusty spikes into my ears.”

  “Oh, please,” Alice said. “I’ve seen you mouthing the words to Hall and Oates songs—”

  “That stuff doesn’t count. I’m talking about Debbie Gibson and her ilk. Hall and Oates are musicians. Daryl Hall can play.”

  Down the bar, one of Rice’s buddies signaled for another beer. Alice waved to him to indicate she’d be right along.

  “Okay, big guy,” she said, and then she leaned over the bar so that her face was close enough for Jamie to feel her breath on his face. Close enough for him to kiss her, if he’d dared. Her eyes were bright, even in the gloomy bar. “All I’m saying is that if you’re getting bored with Walter busy all the time, maybe you should get yourself a girlfriend.”

  A hopeful spark ignited in Jamie’s chest, but he played it off with a scowl, afraid to read into it.

  “Why?” he said. “You got someone in mind?”

  Alice rolled her eyes and sighed in disgust.

  “Don’t be stupid,” she said.

  Then she kissed him. On the cheek, yes, but a kiss nevertheless.

  Alice glided along behind the bar, scooping an empty glass from in front of Rice’s friend and replacing it with a fresh pint of Guinness, a perfect head of froth on top. Jamie felt mesmerized, struck dumb by that kiss. His face flushed with emotion, only part of which consisted of happiness and excitement. The other part was a simmering frustration with his own idiocy. Alice had turned down every guy who had asked her out in the years since her husband had died, and Jamie had used that as an excuse not to ask her. Now he wondered how many conversations with her he had missed because he hadn’t had the guts to just ask.

  Idiot.

  The moment the thought struck him, he reminded himself it hadn’t been stupidity that had prevented him from asking. It had been cowardice. Fear of embarrassment, no different from the little fears that had plagued him in middle school and high school.

  Several minutes later, when she came back down the bar to see if he wanted to order dinner or keep waiting for Walter, he’d had time to get hold of himself.

  “You still waiting, or do you want to—” she began.

  “I’m glad you got tired of waiting for me to muster up the courage,” he said.

  Alice crossed her arms, staring at him. “You still haven’t. Unless you whispered that question to me and I missed it.”

  Jamie smiled. “Can I take you out some night, Alice? The very next night you have off?”

  “Where would we go?” she asked, brow furrowed, mulling it over as if the idea had never occurred to her.

  “Anywhere but here.”

  She took a deep breath, nodding slowly. “It’s a date. Now figure out what you want to eat, because your dinner companion has finally decided to show himself.”

  Walter strode purposefully through the bar, face etched with grim lines, like he’d arrived at the Salty Dog on a mission and didn’t want anyone getting in the way. A man as big as Walter, with hands large enough to crush skulls, got pretty used to people moving out of his path, but when he looked pissed off he also silenced those around him. People paused in conversation as he passed them now, just for the few seconds it took to confirm that his ire had nothing to do with them.

  “What’s this about?” Alice asked quietly.

  Before Jamie could even think to reply, Walter reached them. His usual stool waited for him, but he ignored it, bristling with nervous energy. Only then did Jamie notice the rolled-up newspaper clutched in his fist.

  “You’ve got murder in your eyes, man,” Jamie said. “You have a fight with Micah?”

  Walter smacked him in the chest with the newspaper. “You see this?”

  Alice asked what was going on. Normally Walter adored her, but he barely seemed to have heard her, gesturing for Jamie to look at the paper. He unfolded it, discovered it was that morning’s Boston Globe. He frowned. Walter was typically up too early to get a newspaper. He and Jamie both got most of their news from their phones or from television.

  “What am I looking for?” Jamie asked.

  Walter grunted as he snatched the paper back, flipped it open to the page he wanted, and shoved it back into Jamie’s hands, poking at a headline. Jamie scanned the article quickly.

  “You remember that shark attack down on Cape Cod last summer? Surfer got killed; girl lost her leg?” Walter asked.

  “Sure,” Alice said. “Her mother is the—”

  “Yeah. That one,” Walter interrupted.

  Jamie felt his brow knit. He didn’t like Walter being rude to Alice like that. He opened his mouth to comment on it, but by then he’d skimmed just enough of the Globe article to figure out the part that had Walter fuming.

  “Son of a bitch,” he said.

  Walter nodded, gesturing at the newspaper as if it were the enemy. “Uh-huh.”

  A voice called to Alice from along the bar, but she ignored it.

  “Someone want to tell me what the hell is going on?” she asked.

  Jamie stared at the newspaper article a few more seconds. “Scientists down at Woods Hole are doing an experiment. Think they’ve figured out some way to lure the seals away from their beaches. They figure the sharks will follow.”

  Down the bar, someone called for Alice again.

  “Just a damn minute!” she barked, then took the newspaper from Jamie’s hands. “That sounds like a pretty good idea. What am I missing?”

  “They’re trying to lead the seals up this way. Want them to make their nesting ground on the islands out by Bald Cap.”

  Alice stared at the newspaper. “We’ve got our own seals. Not to mention our own sharks. Though I guess maybe that far out, I don’t see the harm. Not many people to bother out there.”

  “You don’t see the—” Walter started angrily.

  Alice shot him a dark look and he exhaled, shoulders sinking.

  “Sorry,” he said, putting up a hand in surrender. “This thing’s just lit a fire in my gut. The harm isn’t in adding a few sharks. But you double or triple the number of seals out there and that means you double or triple the number of fish they’re eating to survive.”

  “Fish we need to catch to survive,” Jamie said. “We don’t need the competition.”

  “Damn right we don’t,” Walter said. He ran a hand across the scruff he called a beard, brow knitted in thought. “Which means what we really need is for this experiment to fail.”

  “What are you suggesting?” Jamie asked.

  Walter looked up, gaze intense. A silent communication passed between them, a grim determination Jamie felt keenly and understood very well. There might not be much they could do to interfere with the Woods Hole experiment, but he and Walter weren’t the type to let that keep them from trying.

  “They’re on the way now,” Walter said. “Probably hit the area a little before dawn.”

  Jamie scratched at the scruffy thickness of his beard. “I’m going to need another beer.”

  Behind the bar, Alice shifted nervously, looking like she wanted to come right over the top and knock some sense into them.

  “Even if you two idiots could interfere with this thing without getting yourselves arrested, have you seen the forecast?”

  “Idiots?” Walter said. “That’s the sweetest thing you’ve called us, maybe ever.”

  Jamie slumped on his stool, shaking his head. “Is that nice?” he said to Walter. “I’ve just asked her on a date and now she calls me an idiot.”

  Walter shot a startled glance at Alice. “He asked you on a date?”

  “I had to nudge him a bit, but he came around.”

  Jamie gave them a sheepish grin, but then his eyes were drawn to the televisio
n above the bar. The Red Sox game was between innings and the channel had broken in for a local news update. A woman mouthed a bit of news that seemed to involve some kind of sporting event for veterans; then that gave way to a report from the balding meteorologist. With the volume off, the details were impossible to make out, but the satellite map showed several possible paths for a storm that had been churning its way up the East Coast. The night before, the same fellow had predicted the storm would turn far out to sea, but now it looked very much as if it had shifted direction.

  “Guy looks almost giddy,” Jamie said.

  Amidst the buzz and music and chatter of the bar, the three of them exchanged worried glances. When the weatherman got excited, it never boded well for conditions at sea.

  “But we’re going, right?” Walter asked.

  Alice shot a disapproving look their way, then threw up her hands. “Idiots might be too kind a word,” she said. “I’ll go put in an order for the usual. You’re going to want to eat well and get to bed so you can be up early enough to do something really foolish.”

  As she marched away, Jamie felt a pang of regret. Then he thought about the Woods Hole scientists and the seals and how small and defeated he felt any time he came back into port with a catch too small to earn enough to pay his bills.

  “She’s not wrong,” Jamie said, then raised his beer to Walter in a toast. “But hell yeah, we’re going.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Naomi sat on a bench in the wheelhouse of the Thaumas, wet and shivering. The sea surged and roiled beneath them and she tried to tell herself the nausea would pass. She had been out on the water a hundred times, but never overnight and never in weather so rough. Two days earlier, she had asked the media relations manager at WHOI what would happen if this storm turned toward shore and been assured that the trip would be scrubbed, the experiment rescheduled. As recently as this morning, the forecast had called for the storm to continue turning east, making for some rain and wind but nothing like this.

  This, Naomi thought, sucks hard.

  Cold rain dripped down the back of her neck. Though she was shielded in the wheelhouse, she had been out on the deck a short time ago, just to get a look at the horizon, trying to steady her uneasy stomach. The weather and the lateness of the hour had put a damper on the entire team and any sense of adventure had bled away, leaving only the night and the cold. It might be early summer, but out on the Atlantic, with the wind and rain, it felt like the sky had not quite given up on winter.

  Bergting had the wheel. Captain N’Dour had gone below for a few hours of sleep and the first mate seemed content to let Naomi just sit there, comfortable with the silence. He’d offered her a mug of coffee, but she feared putting anything in her belly at the moment, so she’d only thanked him and kept gazing out at the darkness, trying to keep her eyes on the horizon despite the way the storm and the night conspired to hide it from her. She had put her camera away, there being little hope of her getting any usable photos under such conditions, but without it in her hands she felt cast adrift. The camera gave her purpose. A reason to be there. A way for her to avoid thinking about the phone call from Kayla, the things she’d said.

  She wants to fix it, Naomi thought now. Not fix me, but fix her mistake. Fix us.

  Naomi had shut her down quickly, even harshly. But ever since, the conversation had been echoing in her mind. Kayla had abandoned her—not by going to medical school, but by falling so fast for what’s-her-name … and just ghosting me—and now she had realized the error of her ways? Had she matured, or was she just feeling broken and lonely? Naomi wondered if it would be worth finding out.

  No. Stop. No more thinking.

  To take her mind off Kayla, she focused on what little activity there was on the boat this late. Tye camped at the stern under a voluminous raincoat, keeping an eye on the seals as best he could in the murk. With the crane blocking her view, Naomi could only see half of him, but she imagined he must be bored and wet and tired. He and Kat were taking shifts overnight, monitoring the seals to make sure they were still following. If something went wrong with the signal, they didn’t want to wait until sunrise to discover it.

  Rosalie had gone back to sit with Tye for a few minutes and Naomi watched their interplay, wondering if there might be something between them. As a child she had been pretty good at reading the body language between people, but the skill had grown rusty during high school and college, when she had become much more focused on her own emotions than those of other people. During her convalescence, with so much time to just lie in a bed or sit in a chair and watch people, she had begun to hone the skill again. She knew that Tye and Kat were exes just based on the way they dealt with each other, but this thing with Rosalie was harder to read.

  As Naomi tried to figure it out, Rosalie stood and made her way forward again. She was supposed to be keeping an eye on the data streaming in from the acoustics equipment, taking turns with Wolchko.

  When Rosalie reached the wheelhouse, she paused to stare down at Naomi. “Why don’t you go below? You’re not doing anyone any good up here.”

  Her tone made clear that she wasn’t trying to be helpful. She just wanted Naomi to go away. Once upon a time, Naomi would have shrunk back from that hostility, tried to make herself a smaller target. Even invisible. Given that she had pretty much barged into the lives of these people, she had expected a chilly reception and had prepared to be as cooperative and amiable as possible. But losing her leg and witnessing the death of Luke Turner, the surfer who’d saved her life, had changed her. Parts of her had been shattered by those events, but what remained had been forged into something harder than before, something that rose up within her instead of shrinking. Something unyielding.

  Naomi rose, barely noticing her prosthetic leg. She had mastered it, and it served her well.

  “I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt,” she told Rosalie, “which means I’m going to assume you see yourself as the hero of this little adventure and you’re not just some high school mean girl who’s grown up into a total bitch. Maybe you’ve got other things going on in your life and I’m a convenient punching bag, because when we get back into port I’m gonna get off this boat and you won’t have to see me again.”

  Rosalie cocked her head, pursing her lips, preparing one retort or another.

  “No, hold up,” Naomi said, one finger raised. “I’m only up here on deck instead of sleeping below because I’m trying not to puke. I’m not your enemy. I’m just a girl who got her fucking leg ripped off by a shark and who’s trying to do something with her life. I’m not in your way, woman, so don’t get in mine.”

  For several seconds, she thought Rosalie might lay hands on her. From the way Bergting had stiffened at the wheel, it seemed he also thought that a likely outcome. Instead, Rosalie bit her lip, took a calming breath, and gestured toward the hatch leading below.

  “There’s a massive bottle of Dramamine on a shelf just outside the head,” she said. “Take a couple of those. They’ll settle your stomach and put you to sleep.”

  Naomi stared at her in confusion.

  “Oh, don’t worry; I’m not being nice,” Rosalie went on. “I just don’t want you sitting up here while I’m trying to do my job, and I don’t want you puking where someone has to clean it up.” She made a dismissive gesture. “Now go, please. If you can’t be useful, at least be gone.”

  Queasy stomach giving another twist, Naomi decided the fight could wait until the weather, her condition, and her mood had all improved. With a glance toward a relieved-looking Bergting, she thanked Rosalie and went to the hatch, quickly descending into the cabin.

  The instant she went below, her nausea surged and she had to breathe through her nose. Tiny lights glowed at intervals throughout the cabin and that dull gleam allowed her to spot the fat white plastic bottle of Dramamine on a shelf built into the wall outside the bathroom. Trying not to wonder too hard whether she’d be able to keep them down, she quickly dry-swallowed tw
o of the dusty pills and then stood leaning against the shelf, slowly inhaling and exhaling, full of cautious hope that she would not puke her guts up on a boat full of strangers and with no chance of going ashore anytime soon.

  “You all right?” a soft voice rasped.

  Still taking even breaths, she turned to see Wolchko sitting up on one of the narrow bunks. He rubbed a hand over his stubbled chin and gazed at her in that soft light with a certain clinical detachment.

  “A little seasick. Hoping the pills will do the trick.”

  Wolchko nodded. “Better off on deck, but if you want to be down here, I’d suggest not lying down until they take effect.”

  Naomi agreed. Her stomach sloshed a bit and she breathed in. Her skin felt a bit clammy and she wanted to stay near the door to the head, just in case. Captain N’Dour had curled up on a bench next to the little table against the starboard side and Kat Cheong snored lightly on the bunk above Wolchko’s head.

  It occurred to Naomi that the skipper had left the rear bunk empty, probably for her, and the thought repaired some of the damage that her run-in with Rosalie had done to her spirit. Miraculously, just that bit of good feeling seemed to ease her nausea a little, too.

  “How did your family feel about this trip?” Wolchko asked.

  Naomi studied him. Such a strange man, and so direct, but she liked that about him.

  “There really isn’t much family. Just my mom and me, plus some aunts and uncles in Vermont, and a cousin at Tufts who we’ve sort of adopted.”

  She spoke quietly, not wanting to wake the others. The boat swayed back and forth, enough so that she could feel the blood rush to her face when it pitched to port.

  “My mom encouraged me,” she went on. “Honestly, she nudged me quite a bit and I’m glad she did. Some of my friends said stupid things, like they’d never go back on a boat if they’d been the ones attacked by sharks. As if sharks routinely boarded boats like they were pirates or something. Stupid, right? But I knew what they meant. They were just surprised that I wasn’t nervous about being out on the water again.”