Monterey Bay(3)

He blinked twice but otherwise remained perfectly motionless. His beard was thick and brown, his clothes tattered. A tin plate of steak and soft-fried eggs sat in his lap, the meat deconstructed into a pile of small, equal pieces, as parents do when feeding a child.

“You’re awake,” he said.

She stared at the steak.

“My God, you gave me a scare.” He extended a beer bottle in her direction casually and without reserve, as if they were friends. “Turns out it’s little more than a concussion, but you were so delirious for a while there that I almost considered tying you down.”

She swatted at the bottle and looked away. She could recall everything now, and in near perfect detail—the blackness of the rocks, the way he had lifted his flask, the union of the snail and the blood—and she couldn’t decide whether it made her want to scream or fall back asleep.

“All right,” he said, nodding. “Something to eat, then.”

He selected a fibrous morsel from the plate and smeared it into the yolk. He lifted the fork and moved it toward her face. She tried to close her eyes again, but the pressure between them was too intense.

“My father will kill you.”

“I certainly hope not.”

“He’s done far worse. On account of far less.”

“I’m sure he has. And I’m sure I’d enjoy the story. But for now . . .”

He put the plate on the floor and rose from the crate as if he were about to leave the room. Instead, he approached the bed, put a hand behind her neck, and slid a pillow into place. She flinched, and then allowed her head to drop, the pillow releasing a brief hiss of air that smelled like pickling brine.

“For now,” he continued, “you should rest.”

“Where is he? He should be here.”

“I inquired at the hotel, but no one knew.”

She gripped the sides of the mattress and tried to pull herself upright.

“Careful now.”

“I’ll find him myself.”

“No, you won’t.”

“Yes, I will.”

But the nausea pushed her back down. A galaxy of small orange sparks was sizzling in the corners of her eyes, and he was smiling again, cocking his head and peering at her as if her discomfort were something to be studied instead of something to be solved, the smell of the meat strong enough to make her gag.

“Please remove that steak.”

“If you need to be sick . . .”

He indicated a metal bucket at his feet: one of the same ones he had carried through the tide pools. She retched. He held the bucket beneath her chin. She emptied herself into it. Then, with what seemed like the biggest and most concentrated effort she had ever expended, she wiped her mouth on the back of her hand, sank into the mattress, and let the universe knock her down.





When she woke again, it was dark.

Her vision was steadier, the pain in her head had softened and condensed, the sickness had abated. Dusk had made its blue black deposit, pale streetlamps shining beyond the window like lesser moons. On the small table next to the bed, she could see the satchel that contained her sketchbook, its leather water-stained from her fall. Outside, she could hear voices and cars, but not a lot of them. She could hear the ocean, too, and the biologist was still sitting on the crate next to the bed, exactly as before. The only difference was that the tin plate and the beer bottle were gone and in their place was a typewritten manuscript, which he was studying with a focus so complete, it was almost certainly fake, like how a sinner might pray. Before, in the tide pools, she had come to several conclusions, none of which had been proven wrong. Now, though, there was the question of setting. At the water’s edge, he had appeared to her in blunt-chiseled relief. Here, however, surrounded by his own necessities, the ceiling low and the light dim, it was more like something rendered in oil instead of stone: his outlines definite yet malleable, the paint dry but not quite hard.

She coughed. He looked up from the manuscript and fixed her with the same peculiar gaze as before. She shifted her limbs, testing them. He chewed on his beard with his upper teeth. The sparks returned to her periphery and fizzled away.

“Well, well, well.” He smiled. “Up and at ’em, I see.”

She looked away.

“Can I get you some water?”

She shook her head. He studied her for a moment longer and then returned his attention to the manuscript. She examined the room. Before, in the midst of her delirium, her only impressions had been those of danger and anarchy. Now only the anarchy remained. Rows of salt-stiff books, towers of warped glass jars, ragged undershorts and photographic negatives dangling side by side from a length of fishing line. A typewriter on a folding table, its keyboard a good deal larger than normal and outfitted with many foreign-looking keys. A collection of deer antlers in a hammered copper basin. Dozens of postcard-sized reproductions of famous works of art crookedly pinned to the wood-paneled walls.

“Where am I?”

He smiled again and tapped the papers against his knee. Then he rose from the beer crate and wedged the manuscript onto a crowded bookshelf across from the bed.

“My home,” he answered genially, returning to his seat. “My lab.”

“Lab?”

“Biological. I study things from the sea.”

She leaned back, narrowed her eyes, and inspected the room again. The biologist was not a designation she had questioned when her father had first introduced them. Now, however, she was skeptical. There was nothing here that indicated the contemplation of science, much less its practice.