Fly by Night (13 page)

Walking down the hallway in the marine biology building toward the exit, Amelia wanted to run just as much as she'd wanted to walk as slowly as possible. Though it was no longer her place, it would always be. Eleven a.m. and she had no idea what to do. Too early to go home and go to bed, too late to start a new life, what on earth would make the hours pass?

She'd touched her phone with the impulse to call but Jen was at the doggie daycare job and Bryce was attending his grandfather's funeral.

Just outside of the building Amelia stood dazed as the rush of changing classes engulfed her. Students whizzed by, backpacks grazed her; others glanced and then rushed off.

The fountain had just been winterized and covered with an aluminum shell for the season. Swollen charcoal clouds hung low over the bay. Sugar maples and birches had begun littering gold and yellow leaves.

A set of surrounding benches were empty. They'd been there as long as Amelia yet never once had she taken the time to sit by the fountain.

Touching the edge of a bench, she sat down.

Dried-up brown fall leaves blew in circles as birds chased each other, carried by the wind currents that moved like dust devils between the buildings.

Inertia kept her there until a damp wind off Narragansett Bay made her stand. She crossed her arms and headed toward where she'd parked the Jeep.

*   *   *

They'd always likened themselves to being the Three Little Pigs. Bryce was born into the house of brick and mortar, Jen into that of mud and straw, and Amelia into that of sticks. Each had lived at the mercy of “I'll huff and I'll puff and blow your house down” with Bryce having gotten the better advantage of the three deals.

Jen had grown up in the South Boston projects as well as intermittently in motel rooms that her mother would rent. Unlike Amelia, Jen's early home life had been unstable, sometimes being in foster care when her mother would get picked up for soliciting. But like Amelia, school was the one constant. Jen would often joke about having spent more time in the grade-school nurse's office than anywhere else. The school nurse would sneak in peanut butter and jelly sandwiches since Jen's mother had been out all night, forgetting to leave Jen lunch money.

Being smart had landed Jen a National Merit Scholarship. Graduate fellowships had taken her through and into Amelia's lab. The three of them had forged bonds like family for the ten years that Jen had worked there.

For Bryce, after a brief eighteen-month drug-themed stint after boarding school, that included following the Grateful Dead around after high school (just to shock his prominent Rhode Island financier father who drank scotch while sailing high-end racing boats for fun), Bryce had gotten serious. He'd breezed through his academic career and then emerged from graduate school as one of the more promising marine biologists. He and Amelia had met working in a lab at Cornell before stepping out to start their own gig at the University of Rhode Island, where they'd become co-investigators.

Money for Bryce was not a fungible concept. He lived like he had none, spent nothing on himself, gave much of it away to marine/environmental causes, and let the rest pile up. She and Jen would tease him about wearing the same running shoes for years at a time with the same exact hole in the fabric positioned right over his left big toe. The soles were worn so thin they'd speculate as to how much pressure it would take for a spiny sea urchin to puncture the rubber. Much of the food in his house was long past expiration dates, and he'd eat leftovers that both Amelia and Jen swore would kill the average man. Bryce's apartment was graduate-school threadbare except for his giant saltwater aquariums that spanned the entire living area except for the small space that housed his drive-in movie–sized plasma TV. On several occasions the brightness of the aquarium lights had prompted night visits from the Providence police popping in to “check that it hadn't turned into a decoy for an urban marijuana farm.”

*   *   *

Jen had called down the stairs in what she thought was a Fargo accent, “Betcha a night with a hotty lumberjack it might be fun, Am.” She'd just submitted her applicaton to Sea Life late that night after doggie daycare.

“Betcha a pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream they don't talk like that,” Amelia yelled back up.

“Oooh.” Jen had come running down the stairs and pulled open the freezer. “Do you really have some?”

*   *   *

It was Sunday morning and Amelia was well into her second cup of coffee; Jen was passed out upstairs in Alex's old bedroom when the phone rang. She'd been debating whether it was too chilly to sit out on the patio and then looked at her phone.

Minnesota number.

“Hello?” she answered before the first ring was over.

“Dr. Amelia Drakos?”

“Yes.” Her answer was short and clipped.

“Kyle Sanborne, here. HR manager, Sea Life Minnesota.” His voice had that ex-college-jock-cum-marketing-major quality to it, more like a sports announcer.

“Hope I'm not disturbing your Sunday morning—”

“Please.” Her laugh was tense. “Disturb away.”

He chuckled back.

“Just received your application for aquarium curator and…” He said it like a greeting. “It's been brought to our attention that you've worked with us over the past several years with summer funding through our Sea Life Conservation Foundation.”

“Yes, that's correct.”

“And it looks like you're funded for this summer in the Andamans as well.”

“Unless you tell me otherwise,” she said, immediately sorry she'd said it. Too dark, Jen would say.

“Well, congratulations!” He sounded like one of those calls about winning a free Caribbean cruise. “You've been selected for the first round of phone interviews for director and senior animal-care curator.”

“Thank you.”

“First of all, are you still available?”

Amelia stifled a laugh.
Oh, brother, am I.
“Yes, I am.”

“Awesome,” Kyle said. “We're scheduling phone interviews starting tomorrow and want to work you in ASAP.”

“Uh—how many applicants?” She stepped out onto the patio and brushed orange leaves off the chair, wrapping her cardigan around her like an Ace bandage. The ground was a jigsaw of red and yellow maple leaves, their edges crinkled with frost. The sun's strength was fading.

“Eight in the pool.” The man chuckled as if expecting her to laugh. “Bad pun, sorry.”

She was too tense to laugh and wondered who. Most people in the field knew each other or at least knew of each other. Asking would be the height of unprofessional etiquette.

“Tomorrow, Monday, kicks off the first round.”

“Okay.”

“Mind if I put you on hold?”

“Of course not.”

More of “Free Willy” as she waited. She hoped he wasn't changing his mind. The three of them had discussed the possibility of only one or two of them getting chosen.

Maple leaves made scratching noises on the redbrick patio as they tumbled in a wind gust off Narragansett Bay.

Her life felt as loosely knit as the weave of her house sweater. The elbows blew out first before the rest of it disintegrated after a season or two of constant wear. Looking like a vagrant came effortlessly. No wonder Myles had bailed. His new girlfriend was probably more polished, more sophisticated. The hand-printed kimono and lingerie Amelia had bought in a flurry of excited hope were now stuffed into the bottom dresser drawer. She'd only lounged in them when Myles stayed over, pretending she wore such beautiful things all the time. They'd still smelled of him. She'd neither the heart to wash them or go the St. Vinny's drop-box route.

Clouds from the bay shifted into the layered steel-colored shapes of fall. Canada geese honked as they flew in V formations from the bay right over her house.

She moved her feet up onto the rungs of the wrought-iron table as she listened to Sea Life's announcements of upcoming exhibits.

A yellow leaf sailed back and forth in the air current before drifting down to land on her thigh. With her finger she traced the veins throughout its leathery skin. Picking it up to examine the stem where it had detached from the woody branch—still supple, moist. Years ago she'd explained to Alex from this very spot how declining sunlight and cooler temperatures had caused leaves to change color. The five-year-old had been amazed as she'd explained how the red, yellow, and orange colors were present in leaves all summer long but were masked by green chlorophyll. Once the fall sun began to fade and the chlorophyll receded, only then were the hidden colors of autumn revealed. The boy had looked up, scouring the surrounding oaks, maples, and birches for telltale signs of color. He'd believed this was their secret knowledge that only the two of them shared.

“Sorry about the wait,” Kyle said as he picked up after the long hold. “We're having Web site problems—having trouble accessing the scheduling. You know what they say—when the technology works it's great.”

She nodded again, thinking he sounded Alex's age.

“Interviews for the position begin tomorrow through Wednesday,” he said. “Is there one day that's better?”

“Um…” Get it over with. “Why not tomorrow?”

“You okay with that?” he asked.

Do it before you chicken out.

“Yes.”

“Okay … tomorrow at ten a.m., eleven a.m. your time.”

“That's fine.”

“You'll be the first,” he said. She heard him hesitate.

Just get it over with.

“I'm e-mailing you a PDF about the aquarium, its policies, plus a map.” Then he began reading what sounded like a script. “Successful candidates will be invited to Minnesota for a final round of interviews where they will be given a full tour of the facilities. Final interviews begin the last week of October.”

“You mean next week?” She hard swallowed a gulp of coffee.

“We need someone in place November tenth, before Thanksgiving.”

Holy shit. Two weeks away.
“I see.”

“Is that a problem?”

Everything was a problem.
“Oh no,” she said with too much enthusiasm, examining the bubbling paint on the back clapboards of the house.

“Awesome,” he said. “Got a question for ya.”

“Okay.”

“Without violating confidentiality…” He paused. “I've got an applicant for one of the associate's positions who's listed the same contact number—”

“Oh, no problem, I'll get her.”

“Uh—okay.” He seemed flustered.

Amelia set down the phone and bolted inside, bounding up two stairs at a time to Alex's old bedroom. Barging through the bedroom door, she jumped on the bed like it was a seventh-grade slumber party.

Jen jumped up, startled, her eyes glassy. “What? What?” she yelled, looking around, her eyes not focused.

“Get up,” Amelia yelled. “Sea Life's on the phone. You're getting an interview.”

*   *   *

Bryce's phone was ringing after Jen had scheduled an interview. Amelia walked back outside and brushed more leaves off her thigh just as he answered.

“You owe me,” he answered. They'd made a bet as to who would get called first.

“Uh—not so fast, buster,” she said. “What time?”

“Just now,” he said.

“Jen beat you. Was a doubleheader at the Rev House since she listed my number.”

“That's sorta cheating, Am.” He acted incensed.

“There were no conditions placed.” Amelia leaned both elbows on the iron table. She started laughing and couldn't stop.

“God, I hate when you do this,” he said, which made her laugh even harder. “Amelia?”

“Sorry,” she said, wiping her eyes. “It's just funny. The whole thing is funny.”

Sounds of running water and Bryce clanking dishes were in the background.

“When's your interview?”

“Friday,” he said.

“Ah ha,” Amelia said. “Mine's on Monday, Jen's is on Thursday. Still got you beat.”

He was quiet for a few moments. “Well, I'm bringing the whole aquarium, Amelia,” he said. “Coral, sea horses, everything. Nothing gets left behind.” He sounded vaguely hurt, not quite defensive, like a little boy insisting that he bring all his toys.

“Whoa, whoa, cowboy, slow down,” Amelia's voice softened. He was upset. “No one's got a job yet,” she reasoned, curious by his sudden emotion. It was the first time since the NSF denial that she'd heard Bryce so upset.

 

11

She knocked on the passenger side window to get the cab-driver's attention at the Minneapolis airport.

The man looked up from his phone and rolled down the window. Amelia waited for him to speak.

“You on duty?”

His long gray/blond hair was matted past his shoulders. Amelia hadn't seen muttonchop sideburns and a Fu Manchu mustache like that since 1970.

He said nothing.

“Is the mall far?”

“Nope.” He turned back to scrolling through phone messages.

“Uhh … think I could get a ride?” She suggested, half laughing as she held both sides of her unbuttoned coat together. Armed with a new dressy wool coat and interview suit, Amelia was already uncomfortable in clothes that felt like somebody else's, begging for a new life from people she didn't know in a place she'd never been.

“Metro's faster,” the driver said without committing. “Cheaper too.”

“Appreciate the advice but I'm running late for a job interview.”

She couldn't recall ever asking permission for a cab ride anywhere in the world, from Bangkok to New York. The mall's Web site had mentioned “easy access from the light rail,” but she didn't want to waste more time, since a bird strike in a connecting flight from Philadelphia had caused her to be running late.