All the Dangerous Things(19)

“Welcome, Isabelle.”

I could feel a burning in my cheeks, knowing my face was quickly morphing into a deep crimson red, just like it had after we collided into each other that night on the water. For a moment, I forgot how to speak. I had lost my voice—it was stuck, lodged somewhere deep in my throat like a chunk of stale bread—although his voice was smooth and familiar, flowing easily from his lips like decanted wine.

“Hi,” I finally managed to say. I remember looking down at the nameplate on his desk, his name—BENJAMIN DRAKE—embossed in gold. I had known that was the editor in chief’s name, of course; it was written at the top of every masthead. But he had introduced himself as Ben. The most common name in the world. I had never seen a picture of him before, and of course I hadn’t interviewed with the editor in chief for an entry-level position. I had no way to recognize his voice. “Thank you so much for this opportunity.”

“Of course.” He smiled. I looked down at his hands folded on his desk; at the gold wedding band stretched tight across his finger. The wedding band I couldn’t see when he was wearing gloves. “Kasey, if you’ll give us a second.”

Kasey smiled beside me, slipping back through the door and closing it with a click. Once we were alone, that night came rushing back to me in a flash: our bodies pushed together close, talking for what felt like hours. His face when I had told him I was a writer for The Grit—and me, just assuming he was impressed. But that wasn’t the right expression, I finally understood. It was shock, maybe. A realization that he had just found himself spending the better part of a Friday evening chatting up not only his new coworker, but his new employee. A twenty-five-year-old subordinate.

And then, of course, there was that kiss. The way I had pushed myself up on my toes and leaned in; the way I had cupped his cheek in my hand before taking off to the bathroom; coming back out and realizing that he was gone. Walking home alone, embarrassed and confused and a little too buzzed, replaying the night over and over and over in my mind, trying to unearth a missed signal or an overlooked sign.

“I loved it, by the way.”

I blinked, trying to find the words. He was staring right at me, talking to me, and still, all I could think about was that kiss. Certainly, he wasn’t bringing that up right now … was he?

“I’m—I’m sorry?”

“Your article,” he clarified. “The one you attached with your application. I read the whole thing.”

“Oh,” I exhaled. “Oh, right. Thank you.”

Applying for The Grit required a hefty portfolio of previously published bylines, but being only a few years out of college, I didn’t have many to share. Instead, I attached a story I had written on my own about a dolphin that had been seen lingering around the Beaufort harbor for longer than normal; you could tell it was the same one because of the little bite mark on her dorsal fin. I had wanted to know what it was doing there—day after day, swimming in circles—so I asked the dockhand at the marina.

“She’s grieving,” he had told me.

“Grieving what?”

“Her calf.”

I must have looked confused, notebook in hand, because the old man flung a greasy towel over his shoulder and kept talking.

“Dolphins are complex creatures, darlin’. They have emotions, like you and me. That one there just lost a newborn a couple weeks ago. If you look close, you can see her pushin’ it around.”

“Pushing what around?”

“Her calf,” he said again. “Her baby.”

I remember squinting then, straining my eyes against the glare of the sun. And he was right: There wasn’t just one dolphin in the distance, there were two. One was alive, and one, much smaller, was dead.

“How long is she going to do that?”

I felt a peculiar mix of emotions in that moment: sympathy, yes, but also a sense of disgust at this animal pushing around the corpse of her dead baby, bloated and bobbing like some kind of gruesome pool float. It reminded me of a recent story I had seen in the news about a mother who kept her stillborn in the freezer, nestled among the vegetables.

“As long as it takes,” he responded. “As long as it takes to grieve.”

“That seems like a strange way to grieve.”

“Nothin’ about grief makes sense.” He shook his head. “Not for any of us.”

I later learned through my interviews that nobody knew how the calf had died. Sometimes it happens in childbirth, they explained, sometimes right after. And sometimes, male dolphins engage in a behavior called calf tossing, where they bash a baby to death in order to free up the mother for their own sexual needs—although that detail I left out. That wasn’t the story I wanted to tell.

But still, there was something so magnetically macabre about it all. About these creatures, so beautiful and serene, having a darker side. A violent side.

“Excuse me.”

I feel a tap on my arm now, making me jump. My neck jerks around, and my eyes adjust to find an old woman standing behind me, her leathery arm outstretched as it hovers over my shoulder.

“The cathedral is closing in five minutes.”

“Oh,” I say, the beating of my heart starting to slow. I look around, realizing the place is completely empty now. That the people perusing the aisles have long since left, and I’ve still been sitting here, oblivious. Totally alone. “I’m sorry … what time is it? I was just looking for a place to sit—”