Monterey Bay(51)

“I was young,” her father insisted. “And very confused.”

“As was I, once upon a time. But now my name is on the biggest boats in the bay. I own a house ten times as large as the one I was raised in. So tell me: what could you possibly know of this place that I do not? What scheme of yours could prove half as successful as what I’ve already been able to accomplish? What sort of salvation do you plan to grant those of us who have already been saved?”

“I’m doing something I should have done far sooner.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

Anders removed his eyeglasses. The air inside the warehouse seemed to spasm. The women shifted, the saint stared. Outside, a sea lion began to howl. When he started speaking again, his words were careful and slow and almost modest.

“It means I’m building an aquarium.”





The walk home was quiet and strained.

She stayed a few steps behind, allowing her father to seethe in peace. Every once in a while, a car would rattle past, headlights flickering as the wheels crunched across a patch of gravel. Otherwise, the only sound was of the ocean, the hiss of its tides growing fainter as they climbed, the sky a rolling swath of green and black. At certain points, it felt as though they were being followed, but she couldn’t tell for sure.

When they returned to the house, Anders retreated to the kitchen and Margot followed. She watched him from the doorway, hoping the additional confessions would pour forth of their own accord. He was already thumbing through his files, though, already consumed by his work.

“Why are you—”

“Where’s my pencil?”

She removed her own pencil from her satchel and handed it to him. He instantly began to scribble something on the nearest sheet of paper, his handwriting illegible.

“I didn’t realize—”

“Please, Margot. Not now.”

Heart racing, she went to the cabinet, withdrew a frying pan, and set it on the stove. Then she opened the icebox and desperately scanned it for something to cook, but it was empty.

“Not now!”

She turned to look at him. His eyes were small and red.

“What can I do?” she asked.

“Leave. And don’t come back until I’m asleep.”

Outside, Tino was sitting on the porch, chin cupped in his hands.

“Were you following us?” she asked.

“An aquarium,” he mused. “That’s wonderful.”

And how could she possibly respond without sounding foolish? How could she possibly tell him there was a part of her that had known it since the beginning? Not the conscious, striving part, but the part that refused to be taught. The part of her that, upon entering Ricketts’s lab for the very first time, honestly believed it had already occurred and that she had been taken captive alongside the fish.

“The new drawings,” she replied instead. “The dirty ones. Who bought them?”

“The brothel.”

“The one on the Row?”

“No. The one on Washington Street.”

“In Chinatown?”

“That’s right. They give them to the customers on their way out. Like souvenirs.”

“I can’t work with you anymore.”

When he winced and rubbed his neck, she was glad of it. Someone else was in pain now, not just her.

“But it’s so much money.”

“I can’t.”

“You’ll proceed on your own, then?”

“I don’t know.”

“Can I make a suggestion?”

She shrugged.

“Get a camera,” he said. “Sell the real thing.”





This time, the party in Ricketts’s lab could be heard from halfway down the hill.

As before, she stopped in the middle of the Row before entering. The curtains were fully parted in every room except the bedroom, so she could see what was happening inside, all of it misty with booze and lamplight. Once again, it was a segregated mix: the locals carrying on with an almost pitiful lack of self-awareness, the tourists behaving with the expectation of being recognized and celebrated from the shadows. Steinbeck was happy for once, radiantly so, his arm around the same blond actress who had once used Margot’s sketch as a fan. Arthur was sitting in Steinbeck’s chair, staring at the empty space behind the desk, the drink in his hand making him look just a tragedy or two shy of a grown man. Ricketts, yet again, was nowhere to be seen.

She went around the building and into the back lot, but he wasn’t there either. So she picked her way down to the waterline and found a rock that was mostly dry and adequately flat. Someone would come to her. She knew it. Ever since her arrival here, it had been like this: someone on the hill, someone on the porch, someone in the garage, someone behind the wheel of the Buick. At times, it felt like she barely needed to move. It felt like, if she waited long enough, the tides would bring everything she wanted and everything she didn’t, and the world would wait patiently for her to figure out the difference.

A minute later, Steinbeck appeared. He was holding two beer bottles, one of which he extended in her direction.

“Please don’t say no this time. It’ll make me feel bad about myself.”

She held up a hand and let him deposit a bottle into it. When she drank, the taste was bitter and weak, almost like nothing.