Chapter Forty-Two
We wander around Tofino, popping into shops selling crystals, seventy-dollar beach towels, and black-and-white photographs of moody coastlines.
The sky is still dark, but the sun bursts from the clouds in golden rays.
A rainbow bends over the harbor. Out of the cocoon of our bedroom, I feel foolishly happy.
George is determined to stick to The Plan. When he told me today’s theme is expansion, I laughed so suddenly, a piece of muffin got lodged in my throat. He looked at me, confused.
“I think we’ve both done our share of expanding this morning, don’t you?” I asked, and he was silent. Now I have a new appreciation for making George tongue-tied.
I buy a crop top with a screen print of a woman on a board across the chest at Surf Sister and wear it out of the store. I buy George and me each neon-orange Surf Tofino toques.
“Now we look like pros,” George says as I pull it over his head.
“Yep. This is who I am now,” I tell him. “I follow the tides around the world, with no one to answer to except the waves and the wind.”
“And you live off of…?”
“Sun, salt, and hand-painted pieces of driftwood I’ll sell at farmers markets.”
“No cooking? No recipe development?”
I squint an eye, looking at the mountains. “Maybe I’ll work on a cookbook on the side. Recipes inspired by my travels.”
“Sounds like the dream. Are you open to having a travel buddy?”
“Hmm…You never brought me on any of your adventures around the world,” I tease.
George stops walking and turns to me. “I don’t think I realized how much it bothered you.”
“I hid it well. When you told me you were moving out of our apartment after you graduated, I almost had a panic attack.”
He slants his head like he needs to process this new information.
I take his hand in mine and tell him something I’ve never told him. “I missed you before you even moved out. I couldn’t get through a shift without needing to find somewhere to cry. It felt like a breakup. I got used to being without you, but I never stopped missing you.”
He tugs me to him and cups my neck in his hands. “I thought about you all the time.”
I smile, and he kisses me softly.
“So is the plan to buy another suitcase to take all of those back with you?” I ask as we browse the shelves at Mermaid Tales Bookshop. George has three hardbacks and a notebook under his arm. He’s reading the jacket copy of a book about a couple living off the grid in the Clayoquot Sound.
“I’ll make it work.”
“I’m sure you don’t need another notebook.”
He looks at me, offended. “Do you know me at all? There’s no such thing—”
“As too many notebooks,” I finish. “My apologies.”
He glances at his watch. “But speaking of The Plan, we should head over there now.”
He pays for his books and leads me in the direction of the water.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” I murmur.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” George says, but he sounds nervous. “Today is about growth.”
“Ominous.”
“It’s about being open to new experiences.”
“Worse and worse.”
“And finding joy in places you didn’t expect. Maybe learning something about yourself along the way.”
“Oh god,” I say as we reach our destination.
We’re standing next to a wooden building on the harbor. I stare at the sandwich board out front, open my mouth to argue, and turn to George. His eyes brim with a hope that seals my fate.
“I hate whales,” I say pathetically.
“You don’t,” George says, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “You don’t know about whales at all.”
· · ·
“I thought you’d put up more of a fight,” George says as we put on our bulky red flotation jumpsuits.
“Me too,” I say, zipping up. “How do I look?” I turn around in a slow circle.
“Like one of Satan’s astronauts.”
“Ha.”
“So you’re not upset?” George asks as we take our seats at the front of a yellow Zodiac along with ten other passengers.
“I’m not thrilled,” I say. “But this boat looks fun, and I don’t actually have anything against most marine life.”
He smirks. “Just the whales.”
“Exactly. My animosity is purely directed at the whales, and we may not even spot any.”
I’ve never seen one in real life, and I have a feeling that won’t change today.
“I’m sorry,” a dude sitting behind us says. “Did you just say you don’t like whales?”
I glance at him over my shoulder. He’s about seventeen or eighteen, holding the hand of the girl beside him.
“Can’t stand them.”
They look at each other and then back at me. “That’s fucked,” he says.
“It really is,” George chips in, but he’s smiling at me like I’m the sweetest thing in the world.
“You can’t hate whales,” the girl says. “That’s, like, not a thing.”
“Believe me, it’s a thing. It’s my thing,” I say proudly.
“Then why are you even here?” she asks.
I nudge George with my elbow. “My best friend made me.”
It’s the first time the label feels too tight.
The girl squints at me as if trying to glean some deeper insight into my personality. I’m almost certain she’s about to ask about my star sign. But she tilts her head, her eyes full of sympathy, and says, “I bet you’re just afraid.”
George leans in to my ear. “Don’t worry. I’ll protect you.”
I turn to him, laughing. “From a forty-ton beast of the ocean?”
“No sweat. I had my protein shake.”
“Well, then.”
“Won’t even break my hand this time.”
I snort. “That was one of the most idiotic things you’ve ever done.”
He shrugs. “Dylan was a douchebag. I never understood what you saw in him.”
“He was cute.”
“That was it?”
“I mean, yeah. And Dylan was into me…unlike some people.” I give him a meaningful look.
George takes a long breath, his gaze locked on mine. “The night you kissed me. I thought about it a lot.”
My skin prickles. “Really?”
His voice is low. “And god, Frankie. What you asked me? I wanted to. I really wanted to.”
“Why did you say no?”
“It felt…” He pauses. “You said something about wanting to get it over with…It didn’t exactly feel great.” He nudges my knee with a gentle smile, letting me know he’s recovered.
“I’m sorry.”
The engine starts, and I barely register the captain’s voice over the speaker as he pulls away from the dock.
“So just to clarify,” I say, “it wasn’t because you weren’t attracted to me?”
He grins. “Of course not. You were hot. Are hot.”
I roll my eyes, but we’re smiling at each other.
“It was pretty confusing, having a best friend as beautiful as you are,” he says.
Am I shallow if this is my new favorite compliment? Another time, I’m going to ask George to tell me about all the moments he’s felt confused, and I’ll do the same. A promise for a promise.
The Zodiac picks up the pace, leaping over the water as it heads out past Vargas Island, past three sea lions perched on a rocky shore.
A group of seals swims right up to the edge of the boat and performs for us, diving and dancing, showing off.
We see tufted puffins, bald eagles, and dozens of sea otters floating on their backs around a small rocky island.
We coo about how adorable they are, and then our guide tells us stories about how vicious these creatures are, and we all look at the otters in horror.
Even though the scenery is spectacular, my eyes continue to find their way back to George’s.
I reach for his hand and braid our fingers together. He looks down at me and pulls my knuckles to his lips, laying a kiss there. The Pacific unfolds in front of us, the mountains rise behind, and it feels like I’m home. I rest my head on George’s shoulder and stare out at the ocean.
And then we see the whale.
· · ·
A puff of mist shoots out of the sea in the distance. The captain, Joe, points it out.
“There have been sightings of three gray whales feeding here today,” he says. “Let’s see if we can get eyes on all of them.”
I hold my breath as we get closer, and our guide turns off the engine again.
Everyone is silent. The only sound is the slosh of water against the sides of the boat, until another spray erupts closer to us.
It’s shockingly loud. We all lean forward, narrowing our eyes and focusing on the surface.
Two more exhalations follow and then a massive dark creature emerges, first its barnacle-covered back and then a flash of its giant mottled tail. I stare, utterly transfixed.
“Another at five o’clock,” Joe says.
A second gray whale appears, and mist belches from its blowhole.
I shake my head in awe as its tail waves and then slides back into the ocean.
The third whale surfaces on the other side of the boat.
We’re surrounded by a family of gray whales.
They are monstrous, terrifying, and undeniably majestic.
I’m trying to commit every detail to memory so I can tell my mom.
“In this part of the North Pacific,” Joe says, “grays were once near extinction, but conservation efforts have helped the population recover and stabilize. Now about twenty thousand visit these waters every year to feed on krill and plankton.”
Twenty thousand whales. The number is extraordinary. Mom stopped telling me about her beloved right whales when she came home, but every once in a while, a headline catches my eye. I know the North Atlantic right whale population is little more than three hundred.
They’ve never recovered from the commercial whaling that decimated the population in the 1700s and 1800s. That’s how they got their name—they were the right whales to hunt because their bodies floated after they’d been killed.
Researchers now meticulously record right whale sightings, entanglements, and offspring in a data bank.
Whales are recognized by their markings as well as the scars and injuries they have sustained from being entangled in lobster trap fishing lines and being hit by boats—two of the most common causes of right whale deaths.
Each whale is given a catalog number, and some get names, like Snow Cone, Monarch, and Cashew, that are reflective of the shape of their scars.
There’s only one whale named Francesca. Catalog number 1950.
When I was little, my mom would tell me when Francesca was sighted during her Atlantic migration.
Sometimes she had a calf swimming alongside her.
One of the challenges for the species’ survival is that very few females are reproductively active.
Francesca is one of the seventy or so who are still having babies. A prize whale.
I wonder where my namesake whale is now and whether she’s reached her summertime feeding grounds. She could be on Cape Cod or maybe in the Bay of Fundy.
The whales surface one at a time every five minutes with tremendous eruptions of ocean spray—great prehistoric gasps. Their choreography is graceful despite their size. It’s the most humbling experience of my life—what I imagine it would feel like to sit before a god.
I hear my mom’s voice, whispering my favorite bedtime story as she sat on the edge of my bed.
It was the funniest thing to share her name with a whale, but Francesca didn’t mind.
Because Francesca was a very special girl, and Francesca was a very special whale.
Every morning, the girl would rush from her bed and look out her window onto the bay, and her whale would greet her by leaping from the water and landing with a tremendous splash.
I don’t notice I’m crying until George wipes a tear from my chin.
“They’re beautiful,” I whisper, my eyes still set on the water.
He wraps an arm around me and presses his mouth to my temple. The kiss is so tender, given so easily, that more tears follow.
And then one of the whales breaches, its head and body rising out of the water and crashing back down with an enormous splash. A sob escapes my lips. I wish my mom was here.
“Hey.” The girl sitting behind us passes me a tissue.
I take it with a thank-you and dab my eyes.
“See,” she says. “You didn’t hate them after all. I think you were just afraid.”