Monterey Bay(55)

And even though she was alone, she could feel the presence of others. Crawling things, shrinking things, things shutting and sealing themselves against an exposure that, to their tiny minds and bodies, must have seemed apocalyptic. The waterline, owing to a rare lunar aberration, had plunged dozens of feet beyond any low-tide mark she had ever seen, and the entire universe seemed stunned by the novelty of it. The gulls and sea lions were quiet, the moonlight wavered. She could hear noises in the lab’s garage now, sounds that carried easily across the calm water. I’m ready, she told herself. So she put a final creature in her bucket, took a final look at the bay, its depths entirely knowable, entirely hers, and then made her way through the grid of shark tanks and into the garage.

He was standing at the sink. She placed her bucket on the floor. At the sound, he turned to look at her. And that’s when she saw Arthur’s face.

“He’s already gone,” the boy explained.

She couldn’t speak.

“To Mexico,” he continued. “The Sea of Cortez, to be precise. The boat was ready a few days early, so they decided to take advantage of it. Him and Steinbeck and Steinbeck’s wife and a few hired hands for good measure. Won’t be back for a month or two, so he put me in charge.”

Even though her eyes were burning, she could see everything clearly. In a manner too precise to be unintentional, he had garbed himself exactly like his employer: apron, visor, black rubber boots, a woolen cap obscuring his hair. His movements, too, aped the older man’s gestures as he picked up her bucket and held it to his chest.

“It’s strange out there, isn’t it?” He grinned. “Feels like a dream.”

She looked at the chemicals in their bottles, the specimens in their jars. So much glass, she thought. So many things to break. And with the shards, she knew exactly what she’d do. She’d find the sharpest edges and wield them like scissors, cutting the clothes from Arthur’s body, cutting his skin and hair.

“Show me how to do it,” he said.

“All right,” she whispered.

But she didn’t join him at the sink. Instead, she turned for the door and ran outside. The tide was coming back in now, the sea reclaiming the shore with an audible speed, the sand hissing beneath the water’s sudden weight. Over the past several weeks, all the sharks had been euthanized and preserved and sold in fulfillment of her fake orders, except for one: his largest, his favorite, his pet, the animal to which she had once fed the bloody morsel of meat. She hurried to the edge of its tank, and when she plunged her arms into the water, she expected to have to fight for it, just as she had fought for everything else. But the shark’s body was already perfectly aligned, its rough skin raking against hers. A moment later, its gills were fluttering across her fingers like the pages of a book, so she made her fingers into hooks and cried out with the effort as she lifted the animal into the air.

“Margot, don’t—”

“Empty the trash barrel,” she growled. “And fill it with as much benzocaine as you can find.”

He stared at her, terrified, and then rushed back to the garage. She carried the shark inside, its body like a single, rough tendon, its jaws snapping in fear and futility. When she got there, everything was ready. Her arms shook as she dropped it into the barrel. First, the fury of recognition, mouth wide in what might have been a scream. Then the paralysis and collapse, a stiffness to its shape as it sank to the bottom of the barrel like a stone. Then the relaxation that in any other instance might have felt sweet: the shark loosening and bending and returning, in its death, to the posture of its birth, curled head to tail like an elongated fetus.

“We don’t have a display jar big enough,” he said.

For a moment, she envied Arthur’s innocence. But then she loathed it, her hands moving of their own accord now, unbuttoning the front of her dress, slipping it from her shoulders.

“What was wrong with me?” She was screeching like a harpy, her voice hateful and shrill.

“Margot . . .”

“What did I do?”

“Margot, he has a wife. She lives a few miles down the coast, up in the Carmel Highlands with their daughters. The oldest is just about your age.”

“I don’t care.”

“And then there’s Wormy, who has a husband of her own. And the dozens of women before that. . . .”

The bodice of the dress was crumpled around her hips now, her breasts bare. She looked at Arthur, expecting to see shock or desire in his eyes. Instead, she saw the same seriousness that had been on his face that very first day inside the lab.

“I’m a good person, Margot. Everyone knows that. And I’ve been watching successful men, men like your father. I’m figuring things out, doing what I can to make life good. I’ll buy a house on the hill, get a better job in the canneries: one that will support a family. Doc says we’re a perfect match, and if you’ll have me . . .”

“I don’t need you.”

At this, he finally looked at her breasts. She looked at them, too. They were swollen, sickeningly opaque, marbled with blue veins. Her stomach protruded.

“You’ll need someone.”

Instead of responding, she stepped out of the dress.

Then she sat on the Buick and slowly spread her legs until the appropriate expression was on his face: gratitude, disbelief, delight. He started to remove his hat, but she shook her head.