The Unsinkable Greta James(72)

If you want to go along with this, I need a quote ASAP.

I’m happy to write it for you.

Something vague, maybe?

Or we can shut the whole thing down.

Let me know what you want to do.

Like, now.



She turns the phone off again and hurries down the hall. To her relief, the only people she passes—a group with matching family reunion shirts—are too busy arguing to notice her. It isn’t until she reaches the elevators that her luck runs out. Of all people, her dad is there, waiting with a newspaper tucked under his arm. Greta briefly considers darting away, but it’s too late. He glances over, raising his eyebrows at her disheveled appearance: wild hair, bare feet, heels dangling from one hand.

“I’m going whale watching,” she announces, because her brain is still too fuzzy to come up with anything better.

“In that?” he asks with an entirely straight face.

She steps up beside him, and they both turn to the elevator doors, hands clasped behind their backs in the exact same way. Above them, something soft and classical plays from the speaker, and Greta lifts her eyes to the ceiling, trying to come up with something else to say.

“I’m sorry I forgot your anniversary,” she tells him eventually, and he looks over at her in surprise. “It’s weird. Sometimes all I can do is think about her. And sometimes it hurts too much.”

His voice, when he speaks, is like sandpaper. “Me too.”

The elevator dings, the doors sliding open in front of them. It’s empty, but neither of them moves to get on. After a moment, the doors shut again.

Somehow, they’re still standing there. Together.

“She kept a picture of Glacier Bay taped to the fridge,” he says without looking at her. “Every morning, when she went to get the milk for our tea, she’d smile and say, ‘That looks just like heaven.’?” He turns his watery green eyes to Greta. “I have no idea how to do this without her.”

Before she can say anything, the doors open again, and this time, a family in swim gear is waiting on the other side, two moms with three kids, the toddler in the midst of a tantrum, red-faced and furious. All five of them shift to the side in a cloud of tears and sunscreen, leaving room for two more. But Conrad is still watching Greta, and Greta is still watching Conrad.

She’s about to let this one go too—not yet ready for the conversation to be over—when he looks between her and the elevator, his face flickering with indecision. Finally he gives his head a shake, and then, just like that, he turns and walks off down the hall without saying a word.

“Totally understandable,” says one of the moms with a grin. The other one catches the door before it closes, so Greta steps on.

When she arrives at the meeting spot outside on the pier, Ben is already there. He’s wearing jeans and sneakers and a puffy vest over his hoodie, and his eyes are shielded by the brim of a navy Columbia cap. There’s a moment before he sees her where she stands there watching him, and it’s a little dizzying, honestly, to feel her rib cage expand like that, to feel every inch of her heart inside it.

“What?” he asks, as she walks over and fits herself under his arm.

“Nothing,” she says.

The whale watching boat is bigger than the one she took yesterday, and she and Ben file aboard behind people with serious binoculars and even more serious cameras. Most of them huddle inside; the morning is chilly, and it’ll be a while before they’re far enough out to see any whales. But Greta and Ben head straight for the top deck anyway, their eyes already stinging from the wind.

They stand near the rail as the boat peels away from the dock, watching the cruise ship recede, their gloved hands wrapped around the metal railing. As they get farther out from the shore, they can see the whole of Icy Strait Point, a small collection of red wooden buildings on stilts and a rocky beach, all tucked beneath the cascading evergreens.

The tinny voice of a guide greets them through the speakers positioned around the boat. He walks them through the safety instructions, interrupting himself to point out a family of otters floating on their backs. Greta squints but can’t make out the shapes. Ben nudges her with his elbow and hands over a pair of binoculars.

“You’re so prepared,” she says, peering out at the sunbathing otters.

“I was a Boy Scout.”

“Of course you were.” She hands them back. “Have you ever seen one before?”

“A whale? Not up close.” He looks a little wistful. “I really hope we do. They seem impossible, don’t they? Something that big. That ancient. There’s something almost holy about them.”

Greta turns to face him. “How are you having trouble writing about Melville? You clearly love this stuff.”

“Well, it wasn’t all whales with him.”

“Want to know what I think?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“I think you’re afraid to move on,” she says. “You had a good thing going with Jack. He’s what you’ve always known. So it’s daunting now, the idea of figuring out someone new.”

“Are we still talking about dead authors or is this a metaphor?”

She laughs. “You’re the writer.”

“I think I prefer subtext,” he says with a grin as a few people in brightly colored jackets begin to emerge from down below, clanging up the metal staircase.