Remarkably Bright Creatures(45)

Day 1,324 of My Captivity


TERRY HAS MADE A REPLACEMENT. SWAPPED OUT THE older lady for a younger model, as you humans might say.

He walked by my tank on the way to his interview. Shoulders pulled toward his earlobes, damp palms: clearly anxious. When he departed, his gait was fluid, relaxed. I could tell it had been a successful interview.

Something about the way he walked seemed . . . familiar. I wish I had more chance to study it, but he left the building too quickly. I suppose I shall have my chance soon. This evening, perhaps.

Not a day too soon. Last night, I journeyed around the bend to see whether the rock crabs were molting, as they are most delicious when their shells are soft. The state of the floor was, frankly, alarming. After I returned to my tank, I spent quite a while picking bits of grime from between my suckers.

I do hope the young man starts his new job tonight. The rock crabs were not yet molting, but they will be tomorrow. I do not relish another trip over those disgusting floors.

As for the previous cleaning woman, I can only surmise she is not coming back. I shall miss her.





A Sucker for Injured Creatures


Cameron’s spine feels like someone thrashed it with a baseball bat. Chopping up buckets full of mackerel bait and hauling them all over that aquarium is no joke. His lower back throbs, and there’s a nasty knot under his left shoulder blade and some annoying thing keeps popping in his neck every time he turns his head to the right, which is pretty often because the camper’s passenger-side mirror is busted.

The mattress isn’t helping. After several nights, Cameron finally couldn’t take it anymore. The camper’s previous owner must have used it as a urinal. The stale-piss stench was so bad last night that he dragged it out and flung it onto Ethan’s driveway, opting to sleep on the greasy plank of plywood instead. How bad could it be? he’d thought, half-asleep. It turns out: pretty bad. He’s getting old. Thirty, after all.

At least the tire and wheel well are fixed. Only took seven hundred of his eight hundred dollars. Assuming that his bag doesn’t magically show up, he just has to limp along on that last hundred until his first paycheck from the aquarium, which will be this Friday. Three more days.

Wincing at another crack in his neck, he makes one last right-hand turn and pulls onto Sowell Bay’s main commercial block with its woeful little strip of shops. The realtor’s office Ethan told him about is right in the middle. He parks in front and walks past an ancient meter that doesn’t look like it could possibly be in service. The storefront door lets out an anemic-sounding chime, like a kid’s toy with dying batteries, as he pulls it open.

“Can I help you?” The realtor is a middle-aged woman with bleached blond hair and a narrow, expressionless face.

Cameron introduces himself and explains he’s looking for Simon Brinks.

The realtor laughs and shakes her head. “I mean, I’ve seen his advertisements, but I can’t say I know him.”

“He’s in real estate, and you’re in real estate. There’s no way you could help me get in touch with him?” Cameron glances down at a plaque on the desk. JESSICA SNELL. “It would really do me a solid, Jess.”

“It’s Jessica,” she says flatly. Hers eyes flit around the empty office. There’s a calendar sponsored by some sort of adventure outfitter tacked to the wall, already flipped to August, which features a lone figure in a rowboat casting a rod over a misty lake. It’s only the second week of July, and for some reason the calendar’s premature turnover annoys the shit out of him.

“Please?” Smiling sweetly, Cameron presses his palms together. “I really need to find him.”

The agent narrows her eyes, her face crinkling into a sour shape, her papery skin finding the creases far too easily, like his old baseball glove. Adjusting her eyeglasses, she says, “Who did you say you were, again?”

He straightens as he restates his name. After a hesitation, he adds, “I’m Brinks’s son.”

“His son?”

“Probably. Or, like . . . maybe.” Cameron squares his shoulders. “I mean, I have good reason to believe he’s my father.”

Jessica Snell raises a brow.

“Solid evidence. I have solid evidence.”

“I don’t understand why you need my help, then.” The realtor shrugs. “Just ask someone else in your family? Your mother?”

“My mother abandoned me when I was nine.”

“Gosh. That’s terrible.” Her eyes widen a bit, her jaw softens. Hook, line, sinker. He’s the fisherman in that picture, and she’s a guppy waiting in the lake.

“And I don’t really have other family, you know?” At this, Cameron crosses his fingers behind his back. Surely Aunt Jeanne would understand, given the situation, the need for this tiny distortion of the truth.

Jessica Snell nods, sympathy etched around her eyes.

“So yeah. I’ve never met my dad,” Cameron continues. “My mother kept us apart.” Well, she did, didn’t she? At any point during her nine years with Cameron, she could’ve told him something, anything, about his father. And at any point since, she could’ve reached out to him. At least made an attempt to repair the mess she made. At least been available for Cameron to ask the question. So, yes, this is true. Like so many other things, this is his mother’s fault. And, in a metaphorical sense, it is his mother who kept them apart. If she hadn’t been such a mess, maybe Simon, or whoever his father is, if not the guy in the photo, would’ve stuck around.