“Thank you,” I manage to say.
Ms. Tish and Porter make small talk about surfing as we leave the museum, and I think he gives her someone’s phone number to get free tickets to some sort of surfing competition event, I’m not sure. She seems happy. We both thank her and jog down the stairs in tandem, passing Sandy the Whale on our way back to the van.
“Porter.”
“Bailey.” Lazy smile.
“Porter.”
“Bailey.” Lazier smile.
“That was so . . . Ugh. I don’t know what to say.”
“You didn’t think it was stupid?”
I bump his arm with my shoulder as we cross the street. “Shut up.” I’m full-on lost for words now, completely thunderstruck. Could he be any nicer? Doing this today was beyond thoughtful. . . . It’s almost too much.
I exhale hard several times. I’m unable to express how I feel. My words come out fast and crude. “Jesus, Porter. I mean, what the hell?”
He grins. “So I did good?”
It takes me several strides to answer. I swallow hard and finally say, “Today was great—thank you.”
“Don’t make it sound like it’s over—it’s not even two o’clock yet. Strap yourself in, Rydell; we’re headed to stop number two.”
I don’t mean to laugh. I sound like a demented person. I think I’m nervous again. I also feel a little drugged. Porter Roth has that effect on me. “Where to now?” I somehow manage to get out of my mouth.
“If this place was a slice of my childhood, then I’m about to give you a front-row seat to my nightmares.”
? ? ?
Porter’s family has an annual membership to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and it comes with a guest pass, so he gets us both in for free. This is no Podunk attraction. Porter tells me it draws two million visitors a year, and I believe that. It’s huge and beautiful and more professional than anything in Coronado Cove.
Today the crowds are sporadic, and Porter weaves around them. He’s clearly been here a hundred times, and at first I think it might be a repeat of the museum: He’s going to be giving me a tour, pointing out all manner of marine life. But after we stop to watch a little kid nearly fall headfirst into the stingray pool, things . . . get so much better.
We start holding hands in the middle of the darkened kelp forest exhibit. Unlike the natural history museum, this place is completely romantic, and I hope Porter doesn’t hear the little happy sigh that escapes my lips when his fingers slip through mine. I don’t even care that his knuckles are making my fingers ache a little, I’m not willing to let go.
The next dark place is the jellyfish room. They are gorgeous, all lacy and ethereal, shockingly red and orange floating up and down in tubes of bright blue water. Porter’s thumb follows their fanciful movements, skimming my palm in dreamy circles. A hundred shivers scatter over the surface of my skin. Who can concentrate on jellyfish when I’m getting all this hand action? (Who knew this kind of hand action could be so exciting?)
I would’ve been perfectly content to stay with the jellies, but a tour group is making things much too crowded, so we seek another place where it’s less populated. We didn’t exactly verbalize this to each other, but I’m almost positive we’re on the same page.
“Where?” I ask.
He weighs our options. We try a few places, but the only thing that seems to be empty right now is the place he doesn’t really want to go. Or the place that he does.
The open sea room.
And I think I know why.
“This is what I wanted to show you,” he says in a gravel-rough voice, and I’m both excited and a little worried as we step inside.
It’s almost like a theater. The room is vast and dark, and the focus is an enormous single-pane window into blue water and a single shaft of light beaming through. There’s no coral, no rocks, no fancy staged fish environment. The point is to see what’s like to look into the deep ocean, where there’s nothing but dark water. It’s effective, because it certainly doesn’t look like a tank. It’s endless, no perception of depth or height. I’m a little awestruck.
A few people mingle in front of the enormous viewing window, their black shapes silhouetted against the glass as they point at schools of bluefin tuna and silvery sardines gliding around giant sea turtles. We step up to the glass, finding a spot away from everyone else. At first, all I can see are the bubbles rising and the hundreds of tiny fish—they’re busy, busy, always on the move—and then I see something bigger and brighter moving in the dark water behind the smaller fish.
Porter’s hand tightens around mine.
My pulse quickens.
I squint, trying to watch the bigger, brighter thing, but it slips away, into the black deep. I think I catch sight of it again and move closer to the window, so close that I feel the cool glass against my nose. With no warning, bright silver fills up my vision, blocking out the dark water. I jerk my head away from the glass and find myself inches away from a ginormous shark gliding past.
“Shit!” I start to chuckle at myself for jumping, and then realize that my hand is being squeezed to mincemeat and that Porter hasn’t moved. He’s locked in place, frozen as if by Medusa’s stare, forehead pressed against the glass.
“Porter?”
He doesn’t respond.
“You’re hurting my hand,” I whisper.
It’s like he doesn’t even know I’m there. Now I’m getting freaked out. I forcibly pry my fingers out of his, and it’s beyond difficult: It’s impossible. He’s got me in a deadlock, and he’s crazy strong.
For a brief moment, I panic, looking around, wondering what I should do. Wondering if anyone else notices what’s going on. But it’s dark, and there’s barely anyone in here. He’s suffering in silence.
What do I do? Should I slap him? Shout at him? That would only draw attention to us. I can’t imagine that helping.
“Hey,” I say urgently, still working on loosening his fingers. “Hey, hey. Uh, what kind of shark is that? Is that the same shark that bit you?” I know it wasn’t, but I’m not sure what else to do.
“What?” he asks, sounding bewildered.
“Is that your shark?”
“No,” he says, blinking. “No, mine’s a great white. That’s a Galapagos. They rarely attack humans.” I finally break our hands apart. He looks down between us for the first time and seems to notice something’s wrong. “Oh, Jesus.”
“It’s fine,” I assure him, resisting the urge to shake out my throbbing fingers.
“Fuck.” His face goes cloudy. He turns away from me and faces the tank.