The Unsinkable Greta James(56)

“I skipped it,” he tells her with a guilty smile. “There’s an eagle preserve in Chilkat that I wanted to—”

“Oh,” Greta says, remembering. “We saw one too.”

“A bald eagle?”

“No, this kind of sea eagle that’s really rare. Seller’s, maybe?”

Todd’s eyes go wide. “You saw a Steller’s sea eagle?”

“Yeah. It was mostly black, but it had white around the wings and—”

“You saw a Steller’s sea eagle?” he repeats as a large extended family comes pouring out of the elevator, midway through a raucous argument over who was supposed to have booked today’s floatplane tour. They stream around Greta and Todd, but even once they’re gone, his face is still frozen, like his brain has short-circuited from this information.

“I guess they’re usually from Asia?” Greta offers in an attempt to jog him out of it.

“You saw a Steller’s sea eagle?” he says for a third time. “Do you know what the odds of that are? There can’t be more than two or three ever spotted around here. Ever! They’re hard to find even in their natural habitat. And to stumble across one on a completely different continent when you’re not even looking for it?” He shakes his head. “That’s lucky. That’s, like, buy-a-lottery-ticket lucky. I can’t even begin to tell you how jealous I am.”

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, he was pretty far away…”

“No, I’m glad you saw it,” he says sincerely. “It’s something really, really special. Not just the bird itself, but it’s like…if you see a gyrfalcon in the Arctic Circle, it’s still an amazing thing, right? But when you spot one in Ohio, well, that’s something different altogether. It’s that it’s wandered so long and far, that it’s made it to such an unlikely place. The fact that it doesn’t belong is what makes it stand out. It’s what makes it even more extraordinary.”

An image of Greta’s mother flashes in her head, dancing in the crowd at one of her shows, looking entirely out of place and radiating happiness. She swallows hard.

“It should’ve been you,” she says quietly, but Todd smiles at her.

“No,” he says. “I have a feeling it was meant for you.”





Chapter Twenty-Two


Greta isn’t sure where she’s headed after that, but she finds herself crossing through the indoor pool, which is crowded and stuffy, the windows fogged and the air heavy with chlorine. There are still hours left to explore the town before they’re due to leave port again, yet half the passengers are idly leafing through magazines on lounge chairs or bobbing around in the hot tub, oblivious to the towering mountains at their backs. They could be anywhere right now, at a cheap hotel in Vegas or a community pool in the summertime, even in their own backyards, and Greta has a sudden and uncharacteristic impulse to scream at them for missing it all, this trip that others would give anything to be on.

Feeling claustrophobic, she weaves through the chairs and out the door on the opposite side, back into the fresh air, where she stands gripping the rail of the ship, looking out over the bay and listening to the incessant crying of the seagulls.

“Hey,” someone says behind her, and when she turns to see Ben, her heart lifts. He’s wearing fishing gear—orange waders and rubber boots—and a Boston Red Sox cap that’s bleached from the sun. Beneath the brim, he’s watching her with a slightly puzzled expression.

“Hey,” she says, turning to lean against the rail. “Catch anything?”

He nods. She waits for him to say something more, to make a joke or step forward and kiss her. But he keeps frowning at her like something is wrong.

“What?” she says finally, her pleasure at seeing him—and at the memory of last night—melting into something far less patient. Because this day has already felt like a thousand years, and she doesn’t need whatever this is too.

“I just…” He trails off uncertainly, then pulls his phone out of the pocket of his waterproof jacket. “You’re not…I mean…you would’ve told me if…”

“Ben,” she says with a sigh. “Just spit it out.”

There’s a flash of annoyance on his face, or possibly something more than that. Finally, he says, “You’re engaged?”

She stares at him. “What?”

This time, he doesn’t pose it as a question: “You’re engaged.”

“I’m—what?” she says again, her mind moving slowly. “No, I’m not.”

“It says so right here.” He holds out his phone. On the screen, there’s a picture of Greta and Luke kissing on a street corner. She recognizes it immediately, the night coming back to her in a hurry. It was two years ago, not long after they’d started dating. Greta had played a surprise set at a smallish venue in Brooklyn, previewing a few tracks from her album several weeks before it was due to come out. She and Luke had spent the day arguing about the bridge on one of them, and though she’d agreed to try it his way, she’d changed her mind once she was onstage. This happened often during her live performances; anyone who played with her knew she had a tendency to call audibles once she was out there. Sometimes the changes were successful, sometimes not. But they always kept her shows interesting. That night had been a good one, and afterward, elated by the reception—the mad applause from the crowd—she’d charged back into the greenroom only to find it empty. Out on the street, Luke was waiting for her, pacing around in the frosty air, his hands deep in his coat pockets. Greta was expecting a fight, but instead he pulled her close and kissed her.