A barstool was now kept reserved for Hawley at the Flying Jib. The fishermen welcomed him into the daily market, where he could sell directly to wholesalers and other restaurants besides the Sawtooth. In the meantime, gossip spread of how he’d earned those scars—as a cop, as a soldier, as a hit man for the mob. Whatever the case, Hawley wasn’t talking. And now no one stole his daughter’s shoes. Loo didn’t even have to do homework. Principal Gunderson gave her a hall pass so that she could come and go as she pleased. The other boys and girls still considered her a weirdo, but a few even made attempts at friendship, which she handled awkwardly, as she did most things. So while her father began to spend nights at the Flying Jib with Strand and Fisk, who had given Hawley a table right next to theirs at the fish market, Loo continued life the same as always, except that she was not fighting. No one in her school would fight her. Not even when she wanted them to.
There was a taste that filled Loo’s mouth whenever she was getting ready to hit someone. Tangy, like rust. She could feel it in the glands on either side of her jaw. As if she’d bitten her tongue. The first few times the taste came slowly, but soon it flooded her mouth whenever a situation was turning against her. Then the pull took over her senses, and for a moment she crossed over and became another person—a powerful person—even if it lasted only until someone punched her back.
And for a while they had punched back. After she broke the noses of Jeremy Strand and Pauly Fisk, Jr., there had been a brief hiatus, a summer spent fishing and clamming with her father interrupted only by widows dropping off casseroles. Then in September Loo had returned to school and started fighting again. She learned to swing first, and she usually did, first with Rachel Mirden (hair-puller), Sung Kim (biter), Wanda Gregson (leg-swiper), Katie Jeffries (pincher), Larry Humnack (crier) and Ria Gupta (surprising left hook), until finally Principal Gunderson called her in for another sit-down in his office. Any more violence on school grounds and he’d take away her hall pass. “I’ve got parents asking for you to be expelled,” he said. “Please don’t make me do that.”
Loo tried to control her temper, but when she got home from school she still felt angry, and the only people she had a chance of fighting now were the widows, who flocked to their house like birds. So far none had taken the bait, or tried to even slap her, no matter how rude she tried to be. Still, whenever she heard the sound of their timid knocks, Loo’s mouth would fill with saliva.
Then, on one unseasonably warm day in November, just a few weeks after Loo had turned thirteen, the knock was different: two quick raps, brisk and assertive. She opened the door, and instead of a widow standing on their porch it was a child. At least, Loo thought it was a child. Then she noticed the Birkenstocks and Indian skirt and unshaved armpit hair peeking out from her sleeveless top and realized the child was a very short, middle-aged woman holding a clipboard. Her skin was weathered, her teeth bright but slightly crooked. And beside her, at the bottom of the stairs, half hidden by a rhododendron bush, was the boy whose finger Loo had broken: Marshall Hicks.
“Is your father home?” the woman asked.
“No,” said Loo.
“Well,” the woman said. “I’m here to talk about something very important.” She held up her clipboard. “Did you know that in ten years, there will no longer be any codfish in the North Atlantic? Unless we create a marine sanctuary in our waters, we’re looking at an environmental holocaust.”
Loo leaned against the doorframe and peered down at Marshall Hicks. The boy was dressed in a shirt and tie, nicer than she’d ever seen him in school. His forehead was shiny with sweat and he, too, was carrying a clipboard, as well as his mother’s jacket. He stared into the heart of the rhododendron bush, as if he wished it would swallow him up.
The woman pressed a pamphlet into Loo’s hand. What happens when the ocean is empty? Stop commercial overfishing at the Bitter Banks. Save the Atlantic cod! Loo turned the page. There was a photograph of a drift net full of dead fish.
“I need your father’s support. This is about saving lives.” The woman’s lips twitched as she spoke. Her eyes pinned Loo in the doorway.
“He should be back soon.”
The woman smiled and stepped inside. “Honey,” she said over her shoulder, “why don’t you keep going down the block. I’ll catch up with you later.”
“Mom.” Marshall Hicks glared at them from the bottom of the stairs. Loo nearly felt bad for him—for being beaten by a girl, for having to lie to his friends, for having such an embarrassing mother. But then she didn’t.
“Bye,” Loo said, and closed the door on him.
When she turned around, Marshall’s mother was already walking through the living room, looking at photographs, checking the spines of their books. The volumes were stacked from the floor to the ceiling. Hawley had made the bookshelf in their garage, and Loo had taken great pleasure filling it up with science fiction trilogies and textbooks about the constellations.
“Did you bring anything?” Loo asked.
“I beg your pardon?”
“They usually bring something. The women who come for my father.”
For a moment Marshall’s mother looked flustered. Then she put down her clipboard. She reached into her bag and took out a bottle of wine. “I’m Mary Titus.” She held out her hand.
Loo shook it. “I thought your last name was Hicks.”
“That’s Marshall’s father’s name. When I got married again, I took my second husband’s. You know the TV show Whale Heroes?”
“No.”
“Well, Marshall’s stepfather is the captain of the Athena. The boat that rams the Japanese whalers. He’s off filming in the China Sea right now. We’re divorced.” Mary Titus stood there holding the bottle. “Got a corkscrew?”
They settled in at the kitchen table. Mary Titus poured out the wine. Hawley had never let Loo drink before, and she hesitated for a moment before picking up the glass. Once she’d snuck a beer from the fridge and ended up pouring nearly all of it down the sink. The wine looked more promising. It smelled sweet and was the color of honey. Loo took a sip and held it in her mouth while Mary Titus talked about the petition. With five thousand signatures of support from the community, she’d be able to submit her petition to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for a marine sanctuary to be created at the Bitter Banks, an area of underwater plateaus sixty-five miles off the coast of Olympus, that brought nutrients to the surface and created a massive breeding ground for all kinds of fish, but especially cod. For centuries, fishermen had traveled out to the Banks and brought back massive hauls, but now, with trawler nets and giant commercial boats, the species was dwindling.
“The cod’s not as flashy as a whale,” Mary Titus said. “But it’s an important part of the food chain.”
Loo drained her glass. The wine was making her feel generous. And there was something compelling about Mary Titus, who seemed as if she were riding the edge of some great emotion. As she spoke about trawler fishing, the widow’s eyes brimmed with tears one moment and then she would bark out a laugh the next. She told Loo she’d seen her father selling his clams at the Sawtooth, where Mary Titus worked as a waitress.
“He looks lonely,” she said. “Do you think he’s lonely?”
“No,” said Loo.
The woman picked up Loo’s star chart from the table. “What’s this for? Is your dad into astrology?”
“Astronomy,” said Loo.
“I’m a Cancer,” said Mary Titus. “The crab. Loving but dangerous.” She held her hands up, fingers pressed together like claws. “When’s your birthday?”
“October twenty-fifth,” said Loo.
“Scorpio, then. That means you’ve got a hidden stinger.”
“Stinger?”
“Sex,” said Mary Titus.