Chapter 9
Cece arrives at the docks early, the sun chasing away the gray dawn sky. What transpired over the weekend has lent her fresh perspective on her situation, and while she’s prepared to give the job her best (her father didn’t raise no quitter), she’s also prepared to be let go.
On the dock, it’s only Santiago. Davi, it turns out, has been recalled by his mother due to a poor showing on the PSAT. No more helping his father until his grades improve.
“He must be disappointed,” Cece says, thinking back to those terrible years of test preparation: handwritten index cards with archaic vocabulary words, algebraic equations, and mazelike word problems.
Santiago gives a shrug. “She doesn’t want him to end up doing this for the rest of his life. Can’t say I blame her.”
“Does Richie know?”
Santiago nods and pulls a cigarette from the pack in his shirt pocket. “You’re with me today.”
“Out on the water?”
“Where else?”
Cece digs her tongue into the back of her teeth to hide her excitement. Act like you were expecting it! Like you deserve it. “When do we start?”
“Right now,” Santiago says, returning the unlit cigarette to the pack.
“What did Richie say when you talked to him?”
“He asked me whether I thought you were up to the job. I told him I didn’t think so, but we’re down a man, so here we are.”
Had Santiago been overruled? Cece wondered.
“Richie wants you learning everything about the operation today, so pay close attention. You’ll still have to wash the bags, too, when we’re finished.”
Finally! Cece thinks. It doesn’t matter that she wasn’t able to convince Santiago or Richie of her capabilities. She’s getting her shot—thank you, Davi—that’s all that matters. Now she just needs to make it count. “Sounds good,” Cece says and takes a step toward the boat.
Hand out, like a crossing guard, Santiago stops her. “A single fuckup today—a knot tied wrong, a buoy missed, an oyster damaged—you’re gone. Understand?”
Cece squints into the rising sun and gives him her best smile. “Loud and clear.”
“Good.”
He doesn’t waste any time running through his departure checklist. He speaks quickly while they move around the deck of the skiff, showing Cece where to top up the oil, how to check the fuel lines, filter, and battery terminal for corrosion.
He flips switches on and off, illuminating the dashboard in an array of yellow and green.
“This is your radio,” he says. “First aid and life jackets are under there.” He taps his stubbled chin and looks over the boat, like he’s misplaced something.
“You also want to check your other fluid levels: steering, hydraulic, and coolant. All of that is right here. Questions?”
“No.”
“Remember, the biggest mistake amateur boaters make is not respecting the ocean. They think just because they aren’t going out far or for very long they don’t need to take the necessary precautions, but that’s wrongheaded.
Whether you’re on a cruise ship or a pontoon boat, it’s your responsibility to be prepared if anything should happen. ”
Cece does her best to remember every detail, down to the knots tied around the deck cleats.
Once Santiago has gone through his checklist, they push off and set out into the cove, the tide low, waves merely a suggestion.
He puts Cece at the helm and points her where to steer—a mass on the horizon, cages floating on the placid surface.
He lets her get a feel for the boat, throttling up and down.
Compared to the swift machine she’d ridden earlier with Morgan, this boat feels more like a utilitarian barge, pulling against the waves like an oar through seaweed.
The rest of the morning is spent rotating racks, which ensures each oyster receives the same amount of nutrients to maximize growth rates.
Santiago demonstrates how to pull alongside a row of floating bags and flip them using a long pole with a hook at the end.
Once flipped, Santiago gives each bag a strong shake to clear any excess sediment.
Since these oysters are in their most mature stage, they only need to be flipped every four to six weeks, he explains.
After demonstrating a few more times, Santiago hands the job off to Cece while he pilots the skiff, correcting her with a blunt directive whenever she skips a step or messes up.
The oysters rattle in their cages, their shells the color of moss-covered stones.
Waves slap a rhythmic beat against the fiberglass body of the boat, and Cece’s forearms burn—one hundred fire ants biting in unison.
Only briefly does she dare to look up to see how many racks are left.
Rows upon rows, effortlessly bobbing in the blue-green water, mocking and malevolent.
“Only flipping this batch today,” Santiago says, like he’s reading her mind. “Those ones over there,” he says, “those won’t be moved until next week.”
Cece pretends not to hear him and keeps rotating the cages, afraid that if she stops, she won’t be able to keep going.
The sun is high and warm on Cece’s cheeks.
The boat moves under her feet, undulating to the infinite push and pull, and for a moment, Cece wishes she could stay here, in this strange equilibrium of perpetual movement.
There is no stillness, no stagnation, only the tides.
The ocean—briny and sweet—fills her nostrils, and she inhales sharply, flipping her last one in the row.
The floating bags don’t look like much, but Cece is overcome with a strange sense of pride.
She feels foolish—but then again, why not feel pride?
There’s a concreteness to the job she likes, Cece realizes, while they uncouple bags and haul them aboard, the oysters shining a dull white green in the sun.
Before their lunch break, Santiago and Cece transport the harvested oysters back onto shore where he starts up the grader and shows her how the merchandise is cleaned, measured, and sorted into specific buckets.
He’ll drive these over to Mystic, where they’ll be shipped to local restaurants tonight.
“So, these are ready to eat?” Cece yells over the roaring grader, shells clattering, water spray shifting sun into rainbows.
Santiago only nods. When they’ve finished grading, he packs the oysters away in ice-filled bins and stacks them in his pickup. If he’s even mildly impressed by Cece’s capabilities, he doesn’t let on. He hasn’t cracked a smile all day.
“What should I do while you’re gone?”
“You can hose down the grader. Just don’t touch the settings. And those could use some freshening up. Paint’s in the warehouse,” he says, pointing to a pile of sun-faded buoys before hopping into his truck.
Cleaning the grader is quick, and Cece takes a break to eat the ham sandwich she brought from home for lunch.
She unhooks her waders and shucks off the heavy rubber boots before walking along the dock, the wood rough and warm.
Shielding her eyes, she looks out into the cove, out where the oyster bags are floating, like rows of seals sunning themselves, and even though she is tired and spent, her mind still spinning from Santiago’s breakneck orientation, she is filled with a deep sense of satisfaction, not just from a job done well, but from proving herself.
She knows the work is easier now while the summer breeze is refreshing and the days are long, but even when she imagines the wintertime, the freezing white chop, the howling wind that cuts down under your layers, she can’t find any objections.
At least she’ll feel alive; at least she’ll be outdoors, making her way in the world, the real world, not a cubicle or a conference room, no laptop screens or client calls, just her and Mother Nature.
The euphoric sense of self-actualization is short-lived; the paint is ancient, and it takes an excruciating thirty minutes just to pry the tops off the rusted cans.
It’s obvious at this point—Santiago wants her to quit, which at the moment, only makes her more determined to stick it out.
If he hadn’t antagonized her, Cece might have quit within the week, seeing the job at Rayburn Oyster for what it was, a desperate and ill-fated attempt to run away from her problems. But now.
Now she wants to stay, to thrive, just to spite him.
Cece’s painted six buoys when Santiago returns.
She keeps working while he saunters over to the grader and reaches into the hopper, his upper torso disappearing momentarily.
There’s a commotion when he starts it up, grating gears and clattering metal.
Cece’s heart is in her throat while Santiago curses and hits the emergency shutoff.
The metal rollers from the conveyor belt lie in the gravel, glinting in the sun.
“What did you do?” he shouts, stomping toward her. “I told you not to touch anything.”
Bewildered, Cece rises, paintbrush in hand, legs shaky. “I washed it. Like you told me to.”
“Then how do you explain the rollers being loose? You must have hit the chain and jacked up the gears.”
“That’s impossible. All I did was spray it with water,” Cece says, surprised by how incredulous she sounds.
“How would you even know if you messed something up? I told Richie you’d screw up again.”
Something bubbles up in Cece, an indiscriminate rage pushing through her very pores. She’s been set up. Sabotaged. She knows it. “What were you doing by the grader anyway? You were messing with it right before you turned it on. How convenient.”
“Don’t blame me for your incompetence. Who’s Richie gonna believe? The guy who’s worked with him for the last eight years or some girl? Do me a favor: Go home before you break anything else.”
There’s no argument there. He has her beat, Cece realizes. Even if she can prove to Richie that Santiago set her up, what would he say? What could he do? Santiago is infinitely more valuable to the company than she is…“What’s your problem with me anyway?”