Naked in Naknek

1. It’s Not Just Straws

It’s Not Just Straws

LILLIAN

Abarnacled back breaks the surface as a spray of water announces the pod of gray whales. There are three adults and two calves, which is great news for their waning population.

“Hello, beautiful.” I smile.

With my elbows resting on the railing of the research vessel, I look through my binoculars. The Pacific rolls under me, steady and strong. Hope can be difficult to come by these days. Especially if you’re an environmental scientist. But two brand-new baby grays remind me of what's possible.

“Okay, I have your chai. Now spill.”

I look up to see Trudy standing beside me with a steaming mug of chai tea.

We might be on a research trip on the ocean, but the Pacific Marine Institute is one of the most well-funded research facilities in the country.

Because of this, we travel on a state-of-the-art vessel, the Rorqual, with all the amenities a person could want, including satellite internet. And chai.

I pride myself on looking nice for work, even at sea. But Trudy looks amazing, even in a boring gray pullover, thanks to her immaculate, gravity-defying box braids and a layer of red lipstick.

“Extra hot chai tea latte with steamed oat milk?” I ask.

“Obviously. Although, I don’t know how you can do extra hot in the middle of July,” she says. “In the middle of the ocean.”

I chuckle. “The heart wants what it wants.” I take a sip of my chai. Yes . . . perfection.

“Perfect segue,” Trudy says, raising an eyebrow.

“For?”

My friend rolls her eyes. “Girl, we’ve been on this boat for three days, and you haven’t said a single thing about the breakup.”

I frown for a moment and then realize. “Ohhhhh. Oh yeah. The breakup.”

Trudy scoffs. “Wow, you’re brutal. Don’t tell me you’ve already forgotten.”

“Didn’t forget.” Kind of forgot. Or pushed it out of my mind. “I’ve been focused on the whales.”

“Uh-huh.”

I sigh. When I’m at work, I’m at work. I forget about everything when I’m here. Including breakups. “What do you want to know?”

Trudy quirks an eyebrow and purses her lips. “You texted me Saturday night, ‘Ended it with Calvin.’ And when I pressed you for details, you said you’d tell me everything on Monday. Today is Wednesday. I brought you your gymnast-floor-routine-level-of-complicated drink. I want the details.”

I shrug. “There’s really not much to tell. We only dated three months anyway, so?—”

“He was cute, Lillian. Really cute.”

“Cuteness doesn’t make up for a crappy personality,” I say, taking another sip of chai.

“He was nice!”

“Nice doesn’t make up for being irresponsible!” I exclaim in response.

Trudy rolls her eyes. “Don’t tell me this is about the straws.”

“It’s not just the straws!” I say through a nervous laugh. It started with the straws. I ignored it at first until I realized every time we went out to get coffee, he’d throw away the lid and get a straw. “He also has a Prime account. And he will order a single tube of toothpaste and nothing else!”

“Plenty of people who work here have a Prime account, girl.”

I huff. “It’s not just straws and the Prime account!”

“Okay, then tell me what it is! Inquiring minds want to know.”

“It's everything. He needed a new car, right? It’s his first year out of residency, and he wants to trade in his 2007 Hyundai Sonata. Fine. He deserves it. He’s looking at little sporty cars?—”

“God, and he’s a surgeon. You could have been rich.” Trudy moans.

I ignore her. “I say, ‘Hey, it’d be great if you got an electric car. They’re better for the environment, and they’ll save money on gas.

And if you buy the right one, they perform better.

’ Calvin was all into that. In fact, he invited me to come test drive some electric cars with him.

We went to like four different dealers. I thought he was going to get a BMW i4. ”

“As if I know what that looks like,” she says dryly.

“Sporty little sedan. That’s all you need to know.” I pinch my brows together, and my jaw gets tight. “Imagine my surprise when he comes to pick me up on Saturday night. He’s not in a little electric sedan. He’s in a souped-up Chevy Silverado.”

Trudy’s eyes widen. Now she’s getting it. “A truck?”

“A gas-guzzling giant.” I collapse back in my seat.

“Oof. Yeah. That’s rough.”

I hold my hands up. “You get it now? It’s two-fold. He doesn’t get why it matters so much, and he wasted all my time looking for a stupid EV, when clearly he was just humoring me.”

Trudy purses her lips. “It does feel like a bait and switch.”

“Exactly. That’s exactly what it feels like. And if we’re only three months in and he’s already asking for my opinion just to humor me, I know it won’t get better the longer we're together.”

Trudy’s expression isn’t judgmental, but I can tell she’s worried about me.

“Don’t give me that look.”

“What look?”

“The worried, ‘Oh no, Lillian might be too picky to find someone’ look.”

She snorts. “You know I don’t think that. You just deserve someone great.”

“Sure, maybe. But I’m happy on my own. And l’d rather be alone than with a man who has a carbon footprint the size of Yosemite.”

Back in my office, I hear a sound and look up from my computer.

“A word in my office?”

My boss stands in my doorway the following day. His dark eyes stare me down. Dr. Harrison is the head of the animal population wing of PMI. He has been for over a decade, as evidenced by his silver head of hair and the deep wrinkle in the middle of his forehead.

“Of course,” I reply nervously.

He gives me a curt nod and disappears into the hallway.

I head out of my office and down the hall to Harrison’s.

His office is quadruple the size of mine with floor-to-ceiling windows looking out at the ocean.

I find him standing there, back to the door, observing his domain.

The Pacific. He gives me the creeps with his supervillain stature. I’ll enter low and hope for the best.

“Sit, Dr. Harvey,” he commands.

If it were any other man, I’d be itching to fight.

But he's my boss and if I want to get closer to his level of authority here at PMI, I need to play the game.

I sit down in the chair in front of his metal desk and wait.

He takes his time, turning back around and joining me at the desk, sinking into his chair.

He produces a manila folder from the top drawer and slides it over to me. “I have an assignment for you.”

He says nothing more. See? Supervillain behavior.

I open the folder and scan the first few details. “You want me to go up to Alaska?”

“Bristol Bay’s coho salmon population has been on the decline for several years now. Sockeye is doing great, but coho is not, which is worrying.”

I furrow my brow. That is an interesting issue. “Are they being overfished?”

He shrugs. “That is a distinct possibility. However, since coho is the most affected, I have to wonder if there’s more going on.”

It definitely is a mystery, and my heart races with excitement.

Dr. Harrison opens his hands up. “You’ve been at the top of my list for a while now.

I was just waiting for the right assignment.

The work you’ve done on monitoring the gray whale populations has been extremely solid.

” Moving on from a project usually means the project isn’t needed anymore.

We’ve seen great strides with the whales. I did that.

I smile. “But salmon isn’t?—”

“Your area of expertise, but I think you’d be a formidable arm of the operation.”

That’s a compliment. I know it is. Not every scientist is valued for their versatility and adaptability.

Dr. Harrison goes on. “Plus, if you publish, we could start discussing what it might look like for you to graduate to a senior research position.”

“Senior research? Really?”

“It’s the logical next step should everything go to plan.”

I swallow. Things hardly ever do when it comes to research.

“You’d be on your own, but we will make sure you have all the equipment and supplies you need.”

“Of course.”

“And Naknek is a lot smaller and quite a bit different than Los Angeles.”

I smile and nod. “I can imagine.”

“Can you?” Dr. Harrison asks with a raised eyebrow. “It will be a couple of months. Not just a weekend vacation.”

My shoulders tighten. “I’ll adapt. I’m not worried.”

Dr. Harrison smiles, a rare sight from him. “You leave in two weeks.”

I try to suppress my shock. “That’s quick.”

“That won’t be a problem, will it?”

“No. Not at all.” It’s not like I have anyone waiting for me at home. No boyfriend to attend to. Not even a pet. I just need someone to water my plants.

“Good. I knew I could count on you.”

“Of course. Always.”

“What do you mean you’re going to Naked, Alaska?” my sister blurts out the moment she walks into my apartment.

I’m already pouring glasses of wine for us. “Naked? Where’d you get naked from?”

“Um, from your text, obviously.”

Sarah holds her phone out for me to see. I texted her immediately when I got the news about my latest assignment. Sure enough. There it is in gray and white: I’m going on assignment to Naked, Alaska!

“Is it like a nudist colony or something?” Sarah asks, annoyed with my lack of response.

“Fucking autocorrect.” I laugh. “Naknek, Alaska. Not Naked.”

Without another word, I head into my room, and Sarah follows, picking up her wine on the way. “So, no hot naked fishermen?” she whines.

“If the fishermen are naked, we might have bigger problems than fish populations.”

Sarah snickers, mischievous little sister mode activated. “I’d say they’re going very well if?—”

“Sarah!”

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding!” Sarah plops down on my bed next to my suitcase. “Now, tell me all about your research assignment, Dr. Lillian.”

We get back on track, and I explain the trip to Alaska to Sarah while she navigates to the Airbnb page. Sarah’s a good listener, and even though she likes to interrupt with her cheeky comments, she never lets me go unheard.

“Oh, my gosh. This cottage is so cute. It’s like Little House on the Tundra,” my sister says, scrolling.

I laugh as I fold up another shirt. I called her when I got home to help me pack. Of course, Sarah’s version of helping me pack is lying on my bed while I do all the folding. No matter, I like her company.

“Thankfully, it has a bathroom. Not an outhouse,” I say.

She gasps. “Do you actually have to worry about that?”

I roll my eyes. Sarah is a real city girl, working as a corporate lawyer in Century City. “I mean, it’s not unheard of up there, but?—”

“You can’t go. You absolutely can’t. No sister of mine is going to be getting out of bed in the middle of the night to go to an outhouse. What if you run into a polar bear?”

I return to my closet to pick out a few more things. “I’m not going that far north.”

“Okay, but you never know. A feral polar bear could?—”

“Polar bears can’t be feral. They’ve never been domesticated,” I say, sorting through the hangers until I come upon my wetsuit. I pull at the neoprene and consider packing it until I remember the waters in Alaska are much colder than down here in California. I’ll need something thicker.

Sarah grunts, throwing her phone down and sitting up. “Why aren’t you scared?”

“I’m more worried about sleeping through the midnight sun than anything.” More items for the shopping list—eye mask and melatonin. “And subletting the apartment. That’s going to be hell.” I already put an ad online. Now, I’m waiting for someone to take the bait.

“Lil, I will pay your rent if you can’t?—”

“You will do no such thing! My little sister can’t pay my rent. That’s so wrong.”

Sarah tosses her hair over her shoulder as if it’s no big deal. She’s been dying it blonde since she moved to LA. “It’s what sisters do. I don’t want you to worry.”

I sigh and smile. “I’ll find a subletter.”

Sarah grabs her phone and lays back down. “Whatever you say.”

After a few more moments of packing, Sarah hums at her phone screen. “At least it looks beautiful up there this time of year.”

“Yeah. Really beautiful.” I’ve never been to Alaska.

I’ve always been in warmer climates for research, even though I specialize in cephalopods.

It will be a much-needed change of pace.

I need something different from the grind of being overworked and underpaid, which is the life of a researcher at PMI.

"How long is the flight?”

“Five hours to Anchorage,” I say as I toss a few pairs of socks into a packing cube. “Then, another hour to Naknek.”

“You’re really going to be out there, huh? The sticks?” she says with a far-off look in her hazel eyes, the same ones I inherited from our mother.

“The boonies,” I add with a spooky flair. “Ooooo . . .”

Sarah winces. “Better you than me.”

I laugh. “I’m excited. Nervous, but excited. It’s an adventure.”

Sarah turns onto her stomach, perching her elbows on the edge of my suitcase. “You’re going to be great.”

I smile gratefully. “You think so?”

“Duh. You’re the smartest woman I know.” Her eyes lock on mine. “Now, can we eat? I’m starving. How do you feel about sushi tonight?”