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.
Snell nibbles her thin bottom lip and glances quickly from side to side like she’s preparing to misbehave. “Here’s the deal. I couldn’t make it to the regional convention last year.” With a huff, she clarifies: “I mean, I could have, I was even registered, but then my daughter had a piano recital, and even though the convention is the biggest trade show in the area, it’s hard to balance those things, you know?”
Cameron nods firmly as if he empathizes deeply with this particular dilemma. Looking down, he notices a ceramic paperweight on Jessica’s desk, a large and stern-looking green frog. On the base, in playful lettering, it reads: NO BULL ACCEPTED HERE. Aunt Jeanne would approve.
The agent hikes her glasses up again. Why doesn’t she adjust them to fit? It’s an easy fix with a micro screwdriver.
She continues, “Right, so this convention. I skipped it, but I’m sure Brinks went. He lives for those things, from what I hear. A fan of the open bar, so the rumors go.” She extends out her pinkie and thumb and mock-tips her hand.
Resisting the urge to run his finger along the NO BULL frog’s rounded back, which is covered in a layer of dust, Cameron nods again.
“Anyway, they send out a directory of attendees to everyone registered. I could look him up.”
“Seriously, thank you. It would mean so much to me.” Cameron’s smile widens, and Snell’s cheeks flush slightly.
“Have a seat. It’ll take me a minute to dig that directory out.”
As Snell disappears off to some back room, Cameron sits. A scene begins to play out in his mind: a gray-haired man in a well-tailored suit beckoning him toward a polished mahogany bar, summoning a barkeep. You should know the good life, son, the man says, leaning an elbow on the shining bar while patting the seat next to him, which is topped in a pouf of immaculate burgundy leather, unlike the hard stools back at Dell’s, which have grimy ass-prints permanently ground into them. The man smiles warmly at Cameron, and he has a dimple on his left cheek, the same one Cameron has, and something inside him feels like it’s bubbling up, going to overflow, and it takes him a long moment to realize it’s a heady cocktail of joy and relief. Gold liquid splashes soundlessly into two glasses; cognac maybe, or top-notch whiskey like the stuff Ethan had. The liquor cascades over oversized ice cubes, and the man is about to clap him affectionately on the back when—
Ding-dong!
He jerks his head around to see a girl standing, fists clenched, just inside the real estate office door. Her hair is soaking wet. She’s hot, easily the most attractive he’s seen in Sowell Bay. Somehow, her furious expression makes her even hotter.
The girl calls, “Jess!” in a dull, exasperated way that makes Cameron think this is a repeated occurrence. Still admiring the intruder, he congratulates himself for guessing the realtor’s nickname correctly.
He flings a thumb toward the back room. “She’s back there.”
“Okay. Any idea when she’ll be back?” Her voice is tinged with impatience. She crosses her arms over her chest, which jams her small but perky boobs toward her tank top’s neckline, and in an instant Cameron finds himself shifting in the chair. What is he, twelve years old? But, really, it has been three weeks since Katie.
He sets his jaw. “I dunno? Soon?”
“What is she doing?”
“Um, serving me? Her . . . client?”
The girl barks a laugh and steps toward him. She smells like sunscreen. “You’re a client?”