2. 1993
Julia’s first job at the restaurant was washing dishes. After she broke six dishes and flooded the pot room, her father assigned her to one of the prep cooks. Three batches of over-softened compound butter and one batch of wilted salad later, he decided her talents might lie with greeting the guests.
At the same time, her mother discovered that Julia could be of some use to her. Julia learned to place orders, and one morning her mother said, “I’ll need you to go to Cardone’s to pick up a load of salmon that just came off the boat.”
So Julia followed her sister Alison down the pier to the fish processing plant that overlooked the bay and the fog-shrouded Golden Gate Bridge.
Bustling behind the counter of the plant’s tiny storefront, Ann Quinn paused long enough to wave a friendly hello to Julia and Alison.
Her face had deep lines and sharp angles, but her smile was quick and warm, with straight white teeth that did not quite match her rough face.
“Afternoon! They let her out?” she called to Alison in a husky voice, jerking her thumb at Julia. Without waiting for an answer, she burst through the door that led into the plant, barking, “Will! Dunphy’s order! ”
Moments later, a figure emerged, slinging a tote of salmon around the counter and dropping it onto the rolling cart they had brought. He straightened, his eyes lingering a moment longer on Julia’s unfamiliar face before dashing around the counter again without a word.
“Thanks, William,” Alison called, and he lifted his hand once before disappearing into the plant again.
“Who was that?” Julia whispered as they wheeled the cart back onto the pier.
“William Quinn.” When Julia drew a blank, Alison prompted, “The son?”
Julia looked back at the door he had gone through. “Ann and Jim’s son?”
“He goes to Holy Cross, you know. He’s in your class.”
“Really? I’ve never seen him.”
“You probably never noticed him because he looked like a new person every year. A couple of years ago, he grew about a foot. Then he spent another year or two looking like a stick insect.” Alison eyed Julia suspiciously, and grinned. “But I guess he’s worth noticing now?”
“I guess so.”
“You know he lives only three blocks away from us, right?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“A very easy distance for a late-night booty call.”
Julia smacked her. “Speak for yourself.”
The next afternoon, Julia pulled the cart into the plant by herself. Ann Quinn, behind the counter again, called out, “On your own, already? Well done!” Then, over her shoulder, “Will! Dunphy’s!”
William appeared with the tote and dropped it onto Julia’s cart. She halted his retreat by saying, “I hear we’re in the same class at Holy Cross.”
He turned a pair of blue eyes on her with a directness that Julia imagined some people would find unsettling. He said nothing, so she persisted. “I’m going to be a senior next year. What about you?”
“Yeah.” He stood his ground, with none of the shuffling or shoe-gazing of most guys her age.
“I can’t believe we’ve never had a class together before.”
“We’ve had two classes together. ”
“No way. When?”
“Earth Science, in ninth grade. And French, in tenth.”
Mortified, Julia said, “Oh, I’m surprised you even recognize me from back then. That was when the guys used to call me Horsey Face, and Mosquito Bites.’”
The corners of his mouth turned up slightly. “You held your own pretty well.”
“Even so, I did run right out and get braces as soon as I could. And I’m saving for a boob job.”
He still smiled faintly but said nothing more, so she said, “See you tomorrow.”
“Okay,” he replied, and dashed away.
The next day, as ever, William rounded the corner with the tote, but stopped when he saw Julia and her cart.
“Is that all you brought?” he said. When Julia nodded, he asked, “Didn’t you bring anyone else with you?”
“Why?”
“You’ve got a lot more today than you did the last two days. That cart won’t cut it.”
“Get the dolly and take it over, Will,” barked his mother.
Within a few minutes, Julia and William carried five totes of fish back to the restaurant, one on Julia’s meager cart, and four stacked on William’s hand truck. Walking alongside him, Julia had to crane her neck to look up at him.
“Do you work here every day?” she asked.
“Yeah, either at the plant, or on my uncle’s boat.”
“Your uncle’s boat.” It dawned on her. “You mean a fishing boat?”
He nodded.
“You help unload when he docks?”
“Yeah, and I go out with him sometimes too.”
“Go out. You mean fishing?”
Again, there was that almost imperceptible turning up at the corners of his mouth. By now, they were at the restaurant, and they had no more time to talk in the bustle of unloading the carts. He slipped out of the restaurant before she knew he was leaving.
One morning, while setting places with an excellent view of the pier, Julia spotted a familiar figure ascending from one of the boats. She recognized him when he lowered his hood and pulled the hat from his head, rumpling his wavy light brown hair even more than usual. William hoisted totes full of shimmering fish up to the pier. He and the older man he worked with were close enough that she could hear their voices shouting to each other.
The older man must have been his uncle. He was a stocky, middle-aged man with a weathered face, a mustache, and dark hair well-streaked with gray. He bore a definite family resemblance to William’s mother. Even from all this distance, she could hear him swearing and see him spitting over the deck.
William was cut more finely than the rest of his family, his manners less brusque, and Julia could not help but wonder what forces had shaped him differently. Besides, she had a weakness for the tall, lean types, and he combined that with such surprising strength that she found herself riveted to the window, watching him work.
The next day, though William slung a tote of salmon onto her cart in his usual rush, she took advantage of the one sidelong glance he cast her to flash her friendliest smile. He hesitated, and she said, “Where do you go when you go on the boat with your uncle?”
He stood still and faced her for a moment. “It depends on the day.”
“Okay, so where did you go yesterday? When I saw you working on the boat?”
His eyes widened at her revelation that she had been watching him without his knowledge. But in a steady voice he replied, “Yesterday, out by the Farallones.”
“Really? How often do you go out there?”
“Pretty often. I always try to go with my uncle when he’s heading out that way.”
“I’ve only been out there twice. The first time was when I was twelve, and my Uncle Rob took my sister and me. That’s how I became interested in being a marine biologist. That, and overdosing on too many episodes of Nature on PBS. ”
“Will!” Ann Quinn’s sharp bark made them both jump. “Those fish won’t clean themselves!”
William turned to go, but his striking eyes lingered on Julia for one moment longer. Julia was alarmed at just how peeved she felt with Ann Quinn at that moment.
The Fourth of July found Julia working the hostess station in the lobby of the restaurant. She had an excellent view through the floor-to-ceiling windows to the outside, where the throngs assembled in the distance for the fireworks. As light retreated from the sky, the stream of hungry patrons slowed to a trickle.
Through the window, Julia saw a figure approaching which had become all too familiar to her. William spotted her through the glass even before opening the door.
She smiled her usual bright smile that warmed her whole face. “Table for one?”
“I was just coming by to say hi.”
“Are you here all by yourself?”
“No,” he admitted. “I left my parents and sister back at Aquatic Park.”
He had cleaned up after his shift at work, and looked completely different in a plaid flannel shirt, jeans, and Doc Martens. After a moment’s hesitation, he ventured, “What time are you stuck here until?”
“Technically until ten, when we close. But I don’t think we’re going to get very many more customers today.”
“Think you can get away to watch the fireworks?”
“Not with the general in charge.”
“The general?”
“My dad. But you can see the fireworks pretty well through the windows here, assuming the fog doesn’t ruin them as usual. And I can probably get away with stepping outside for a few minutes, too.”
He shoved his hands into his pockets and glanced around. His eyes settled on the huge, brightly colored tropical fish tank behind her.
“That’s nice. I’ve never had the time to really look at it before.”
“Thank you! I have a smaller one just like it at home.”
He looked at her in astonishment. “You put that together?”
“Yes, I’m afraid I must accept all the blame.”
“Do you get any help from anyone else?”
“Not unless you count books and my former boss, who taught me how.”
He surveyed the aquarium again. “I hear those are pretty hard to take care of.”
“That would be an affirmative. But I had a really great teacher. I spent the last two years working for Castro Aquarium Service.”
“Why don’t you work there anymore? Seems like it would be the perfect job for you.”
“Because my boss died. Of AIDS. The shop closed down after he died. And the only reason I got the job in the first place was because my boss’s partner was my Uncle Rob. He’s too sick to work anymore, so he lives at home with my grandma now.”
It took him a moment to realize her uncle was not merely her boss’s business partner. “Oh. I’m sorry to hear that. Are you very close to your uncle?”
“Yes, very. Along with my grandmother, he and Tim practically raised me and Alison, since our parents work all the time. He’s responsible for the weirdo you see before you today. With an Irish grandmother and a flaming queen as parental figures, you can hardly be surprised that I turned out a little different.”
As usual, he gave a half-smile but said nothing. She blurted, “Wait here,” and ran off to the kitchen.
She found Alison plating panna cotta, and cleared her throat. “Excuse me.”
“Mm.” Alison did not look up.
“I’m going to take some panna cotta, okay?”
“Is this for a customer?”
“William Quinn is in the lobby.”
Alison smirked, but waved her assent. With no eye for presentation like her sister, Julia slapped two helpings onto the first plates she could find and hurried back to the front. She found him still sitting patiently on a bench, gazing at the aquarium.
“Since we’re stuck here, we may as well make the best of things,” she declared. She handed him his portion and sat beside him on the bench. “So, what bizarre, hidden talents do you pursue in your spare time?”
“Compared to your aquariums, nothing interesting.”
She waited for him to elaborate. “Okay, I get it. Me first. I know it looks like I was born in a thrift store in Bohemia, but the truth is, I make almost all of my own clothes. My Uncle Rob is responsible for that, too. He taught me to sew, and then I taught myself to knit and crochet.”
To her surprise, he reached out, touched her crinkled scarf and the crocheted flower on her hat, and said, “What about these?”
“Not the scarf or the hat. Those really are thrift store finds. But the flower on the hat? That’s my special touch.” When he still said nothing, she added, “I’m also an incurable reader. A classics junkie. The Janes, all the way.”
“The Janes?”
“Austen and Eyre. But I like it all. To Kill a Mockingbird. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Did you know part of that takes place in San Francisco?” She nudged him with her elbow. “What about you? Do you read?”
“Sure.”
“Okay. Still too soon, I get it. Oh! Did I ever tell you that I read the entire novel Gone With the Wind when I was only thirteen? It almost turned me into a flaming racist. My uncle rented the movie version for me. I was so disappointed that they cut it back to only four hours. It would have been much better as a miniseries.” When he still refused to respond, she insisted, “Okay, it really is your turn now. I asked if you read and you said, ‘Sure.’ So what do you like to read?”
He picked at his panna cotta. “I’m not much of a fiction reader.”
“ Fisherman’s Digest ? Penthouse Forum ? Come on, give me something to work with here.”
He shifted in his seat, cleared his throat. “I used to read a lot of poetry.”
She realized too late that the shock had registered on her face, plain for him to see. He set aside his half-eaten plate of panna cotta and turned to stare out the window.
“I’m sorry,” she gasped. “I’m so sorry. It’s just – if you had told me that you were a lizard disguised in a suit made of human skin, I could hardly be more shocked.”
He cast her a sidelong glance. “Wasn’t that the plot of a TV show?”
“Yes! See, that’s just what I like about you. You’re weird enough to know what I’m talking about.”
“Is it really so shocking that I would read poetry?”
“No, I’m just trying to reconcile my previous concept of you with this new information. You know, only sensitive boys read poetry, and all that stuff.” She lifted a spoonful of panna cotta halfway to her mouth, then lowered it again. “You’re not gay, are you?”
He only smiled.
“Oh, my God. You’re gay.”
“I’m not gay,” he laughed.
She had a moment of relief, then said, “Are you bi?”
He laughed again, shaking his head.
“I’m so glad. Not that there’s anything wrong with either of those things, mind you. It’s just, it would have been tragic.”
He reddened and looked out the window again, and she realized what she had just admitted. Quickly, she said, “So you used to read poetry. Do you still?”
“Sometimes, when I have time.”
“What poets do you like best?”
“I kind of like it all.” For a brief moment, it occurred to Julia that maybe he had made the whole thing up just to impress her. But then he said, “Everything from Coleridge and Whitman, to Kerouac. Maya Angelou writes some poetry too, you know.”
“I know; I have a volume of hers at home, right alongside my copy of I Know Why .” It still felt surreal to be talking about this with him. The working class boy and the poetry buff would not coexist in her mind. “Did you ever write any of your own?”
“I messed with it a little, when I was younger.”
“Why did you stop?”
“I wasn’t really any good.” He dug back into his panna cotta again, and she sensed that he didn’t really want to talk about this anymore. After a while, he said, “I also like photography.”
“Really? What do you take pictures of?”
“Whatever strikes me. Mostly landscapes and cityscapes. Sometimes people.”
“Do you ever take pictures while you’re out on the boats?”
“Sometimes.”
“Can I see them?”
To her surprise, he said, “Sure. Are you working at the restaurant all summer? I can bring them up here sometime.”
“Yeah. Well, except for next week when I’m going to marine biology camp.”
“There’s a whole marine biology camp?”
“Yep. My parents couldn’t help me much with the cost of it, so this is pretty much what I’ve been working and saving for the past two years. I’m hoping it’ll help on my application to UCSB. I’m so psyched; I get to go out on the boat and help document whale fecal plumes. For me, it’s a dream come true.”
She stopped talking because he hid his mouth behind his hand, and his eyes crinkled up in a way she had never seen before. At first she thought he was crying or about to sneeze, but then it dawned on her.
“You’re laughing at me!”
He removed his hand from his mouth, confirming her suspicions. It was a silent laugh, but a laugh nonetheless.
“Why are you laughing at me?” she demanded, snickering a bit herself. It was impossible to mind the transformation that laughter brought to his face.
“I’m not laughing at you. I’m just laughing at the idea of anyone getting that excited about whale fecal plumes. But it’s great.”
She beamed her brightest smile and leaned toward him. “You are laughing at me. But it’s okay, I don’t mind. I know you think I’m strange; everybody does.”
“I don’t think you’re strange.”
“But I am strange. Do you know, when I was thirteen years old, I converted to Islam for two days?”
He laughed out loud now, and she laughed with him .
“It’s true! Our church had a lending library with books about all of the world’s major religions. I read about each one, and somehow I got hung up on Islam. I stole a little rug from the hallway for my prayer rug and put it in my room facing toward Mecca, or at least I just faced it toward the east.”
“So why did it only last for two days?”
“It was a pain in the ass to pray five times a day.”
They both burst out laughing so loudly that the diners seated closest to them turned to stare.
“I’m just picturing you at school, trying to find excuses to go pray,” he said after a while.
“Exactly! Though it could hardly have made them think I was any weirder. I really didn’t have a lot of friends in those days. I used to shut myself up in my room, looking at atlases and encyclopedias all day. I looked at them so much that they finally fell apart, and I had to keep them together with a giant rubber band. I think my parents and sister thought I was masturbating in there, and just left me alone.”
He fell back in his seat laughing again, and flushed bright red. She watched him with pleasure, thinking first of all that he was way out of her league. And second of all, that in spite of that, she would be surprised if he didn’t ask her out by the end of the night.
The fireworks began. They stepped out into the chill and watched the show from just outside the front door of the restaurant. Julia clapped and cheered during the best parts of the show, but William stayed silent next to her. When the grand finale erupted overhead, the flashes of light caught his eyes as they turned away from her and back to the sky.
The sky went black again, and though her pulse slammed in her ears, she was determined to face him. This was it. If it was going to happen, this was the moment.
She glanced furtively at William and found him already looking at her. An awkward silence ensued, broken when William said, “I have to meet my parents at the bus stop.”
“I’ve got to go back inside to help close the restaurant,” she heard herself say.
He nodded. “See you tomorrow. ”
“Yeah,” she said, and he turned to go without another word to her.
What had she been thinking, talking to him about masturbation? Obviously, when he flushed red, he was just embarrassed. Sometimes she thought it was true what her parents told her, that she had no filter between her brain and her mouth.
She made up her mind to never let herself imagine things about him again.
Talk of her uncle got Julia thinking about a promise she had made. The day after returning home from her marine biology summer camp, she pushed her cart of aquarium supplies five blocks down the street. It was one of her favorite things to do, taking this walk through the fog that muted the sounds of the neighborhood like cotton in her ears. The fog didn’t depress her the way it did her mother, who was forever lobbying her father to move them to a different part of the city. It centered Julia, and lately Julia needed centering before seeing Uncle Rob.
When she arrived, she used the key on her chain to let herself in. The house smelled like potato soup. Julia found the source, and her grandmother, in the kitchen.
“Oh! You startled me, love,” exclaimed her grandmother, turning from the stove. Her voice still bore traces of her native Ireland.
“Sorry, Gran.” Julia went to kiss her. “How’s he doing today?”
“Today’s a good day,” said her grandmother. “He’s been up all morning, and he’s keeping down pureed foods. You’ll find him in the living room.”
“Can I bring him his soup?”
Her grandmother spooned it into a bowl. “Let it cool a while before you give it to him, though. If it’s too hot, it comes back up.”
Julia carried a tray with the soup and a cup of water into the living room. She found him in the easy chair in his pajamas and robe, gazing idly at the aquarium in the corner of the room.
He turned to smile. “Julie. ”
“Hi, Uncle Rob.” She set the tray on the coffee table and came to kiss his cheek.
“So it’s potato soup again, is it?”
“Gran says you’ve been able to eat today.” They shared the same copper hair, freckles, and quick metabolism, but he was looking more gaunt than ever lately. His temples looked sunken, a new development since the last time she had seen him.
“The old bat supposedly hung up her nursing uniform fifteen years ago,” he said affectionately.
“She says it’s been a good day. What have you been doing with yourself?”
“I managed to get a little writing done this morning.” He gestured over to the desk in another corner of the room. A half-filled sheet of white paper stuck out of the top of an old manual typewriter. A small stack of filled pages sat alongside the machine.
She set up his TV tray and placed the bowl and cup in front of him. “Can you manage it?”
He lifted the spoon. It was shaky, but the soup made it to his mouth. He set it down again to smile at Julia.
“So what brings you all the way over here? Not to watch me eat, I hope.”
Julia gestured to the aquarium. “Maintenance.”
“I can’t tell you what a comfort that thing has been to me. And an inspiration,” he added, looking over at the typewriter again.
“Inspiration?”
“I’m writing a novel that takes place on a tropical island.”
“I’m glad you’ve started writing again.”
“Me too. I’m just surprised I can still do it after all these years. So what about you? How was your camp?”
“Awesome! Even though I didn’t get to document whale fecal plumes, after all.”
“Such a pity.”
“But I did get to conduct an otter trawl for plankton. And we got to set up our own aquariums in the dormitories.”
“Let me guess who got top marks on that project.”
Julia laughed. “In the end I kind of took over as the unofficial instructor. You wouldn’t believe the total amateur they had in there. Just some marine biology grad student who happened to keep aquariums as a hobby on the side, and not even saltwater aquariums. Poor Kevin. He was still using techniques from the 1950s and he couldn’t get anything to survive in those tanks. But I straightened him out.”
“And wound up on a first name basis, I see.”
“Well, at first I think he kind of resented me. But by the end of the week, he was coming to me for advice on all kinds of things. And on the last day, he gave me his phone number and told me to look him up if I ever get into UCSB. He said he’d try to hook me up with an internship.”
“Oh, honey. Kevin wants to hook you up with more than an internship.”
Julia threw a napkin at him. “Stop.”
“You mean you don’t return his good opinion?”
“Not in that way. The main reason we clicked was because he seemed so familiar somehow. Then finally, about halfway through the week, I figured it out.”
“What?”
Julia went to the fireplace mantelpiece to retrieve a framed photograph she had known all of her life. It was a very old photo, the colors all fading to red. A very young Rob, with a very young Tim looking over his shoulder. Smiling, the both of them, their whole lives ahead of them. The water at their backs.
Julia brought the photo to Rob and pointed to Tim. Someone had snapped the photo long before Tim had grown portly, when he still possessed a full head of curly black hair, a full beard, and outmoded browline glasses.
“Kevin could have been Tim’s long-lost twin,” Julia said.
Rob smiled and touched the image of young Tim. “Well, you could do worse.”
She gestured to his soup. “Now, it’s time for you to focus on that. I’m going to get started.”
While he ate, she conducted the weekly water tests, scraped the algae from the sides of the tank, and replaced the filter carbon. By the time she finished, Rob’s bowl sat half-empty .
“Just like Tim would have done,” said Rob as she turned from the aquarium.
“I should think so. He drilled it into me enough. I’m still terrified to deviate from his instructions.”
Rob gave a shaky laugh. “He had that effect on people.”
Julia nodded toward his bowl of soup. “How’s that sitting with you?”
“Great, so far. I’ll finish the other half in a bit.”
When her grandmother returned to the living room, he looked cheerful again, and the bowl of soup was empty.
“Why don’t you two engage in another Skip Bo battle to the death?” suggested her grandmother as she cleared away the dishes from Rob’s tray.
When she was gone, Rob leaned his painfully thin frame forward in his chair and whispered, “Poor choice of words.”
“You’re telling me. I’m a goner, for sure.”
Julia reached into the cabinet for the battered pack of Skip Bo cards. He leaned back in his chair and watched her shuffle the pack.
“Where’s Alison today?” he wondered.
“She’s working today, like every day. I don’t think she’s going back to culinary school this year, though.”
“That must be a disappointment to your dad.”
Julia dealt the cards. “Between you and me, I think she’s going to try for her own cake decorating business.”
“You mean open her own shop?”
“No, I think she’s going to ask Mom and Dad if she can bake from home for a while.”
He played a hand. “The market is saturated.”
“I don’t know anything about that. But she has a real gift for it, you know. I think if anyone can break into it, she can.”
He discarded, and watched her draw three new cards. “So for you it’s marine biology at UCSB, then?”
“All the way.”
“I think that’s great. You know exactly what you’re doing and where you’re going. I had a good run, but I got off track a bit.”
“What are you talking about?”
He perked up and waved his hand dismissively. “Oh, I don’t mean to sound morose. I don’t regret a day I spent at that aquarium business. But I do regret putting my writing on hold for so long. You sure you wouldn’t consider reviving the old place one of these days? You have such a gift for it, same as Tim did. Almost seems a shame for you to not make a living out of it.”
“You mean the aquarium company?” She smiled, thinking of William. “You’re the second person to ask me something like that in the past couple of weeks.”
“Oh?” He sat up straighter, his curiosity piqued. “And who is the first, pray tell?”
“A friend of mine.”
“Oh,” he said, smiling. “A friend.”
She played her hand.
“Admirers coming out of the woodwork,” he ventured.
“He’s not an admirer; trust me,” she said drily.
“Well, dear, if marine biology is your true passion, then don’t ever let me see you put that on hold. Not for anything. Not for any one .”
She did not know how to respond to that, so she discarded. He played the last card in his stack, and won the game.
Julia said, “My fish at home are feeling jealous.”
Rob sat back in his chair and smiled at her. “Yes. Thank you for coming.”
She came forward and gave him a hug and a kiss.
“Love you, Julie,” he said.
“Love you too.”