The Compass (Catch and Hold)

5. July 1993I’ll think of something.”“Nostalgic is good.”“I’ve had better.”

JULY 1993

"I’LL THINK OF SOMETHING.”

“ W ill! Dunphy’s order!”

His mother’s sharp bark, hurled through the open door of the storefront into the depths of Cardone Fisheries, shattered William’s last reserve of calm. He straightened reflexively and dropped the knife with a clatter onto the filleting table. Abandoning the half-gutted salmon, he practically sprinted to the walk-in to retrieve the totes of fish.

For the second summer in a row, Julia was working at her parents’ restaurant across the pier. And this summer, her parents were sending her over to Cardone’s each morning to pick up their daily order.

The first time she came in, he recognized her immediately, of course. She stood out like a sore thumb, as always. This summer, though, there was something different about her. She still hid her figure under all those baggy layers, but her face had filled out somewhat, softening its sharp angles.

Also, she had taken notice of him .

Every morning, undeterred by his laconic replies, she forced her cheerful snippets of conversation on him – framed, of course, by that wide, radiant smile of hers. She was a burst of sunlight piercing through fog, and he caught himself looking forward to her arrival each morning.

A week ago, he had finally worked up the nerve to cross the pier to Dunphy’s. As they loitered near her post at the hostess’ station, waiting for the Fourth of July fireworks to start, Julia kept him in stitches about everything from bad eighties TV shows about lizard people, to her short-lived conversion to Islam at age thirteen. He learned she kept saltwater aquariums, including the giant one in the lobby at Dunphy’s – a skill she had picked up working at her uncles’ aquarium shop. She, in turn, pried it out of him that he enjoyed photography, and demanded he bring proof next time. And of course, they compared their favorite books and poets.

In the end, as they stood on the pier watching the fireworks, he had come tantalizingly close to kissing her, before chickening out.

Adding to his regrets, Julia left that very next week for some marine biology summer camp; so for the past seven days, he had endured her crazy sister Alison coming in to pick up the Dunphy’s Restaurant order, instead. Same oblong face, same slight overbite. No freckles. Peroxide-blond hair.

To make matters worse, Julia’s absence coincided with the one-year anniversary of something he had been trying very hard to forget. Without her burst of sunlight to distract him, the anniversary came and went in the most dismal fog.

He had given up fighting it, and let himself count the days until Julia’s return. Seven, six, five, four…

Yesterday, he rounded the corner into the processing plant’s tiny storefront, his legs rubbery with anticipation – and felt his stomach drop.

“She’s on the schedule to work tomorrow,” Alison explained with her cheeky grin.

It had ruined his whole day.

But that was yesterday. And today, as he pushed the hand truck through the swinging door to the storefront – there she was. With her goofy little two-tiered service cart.

She had buttoned a black vest over a shapeless long dress, rust-red with a small floral print. She wore black lace-up granny boots, and a voluminous mustard-colored scarf overwhelmed her shoulders. Knowing her, she had probably crocheted it herself. She had curled her copper hair and pinned on a miniature black top hat a jaunty angle.

Good God. What was it about this bizarre Dickensian waif?

She didn’t keep him waiting long for the answer as she greeted him with her usual bright smile. “Hi, William.”

“Hey, Julia.” He didn’t think he had ever said her name out loud before. He had turned the three syllables over and over again in his mind during the past week. Strange how prosaically flat they fell from his mere mortal voice.

He pushed the hand truck around the front counter, currently displaying rockfish, sole, and prawns on ice. Around the live crab tanks, empty and drained now, to where she stood just in front of the shelves.

He swung the totes onto her rolling cart, one at a time. Slower than usual. He pointed to the last remaining tote.

“This one’s a bit heavy. I’ll carry it over for you.”

It was an obvious lie, but she smiled even more brightly and said, “Thanks!”

He followed her and her cart out the open bay and onto the pier. They dodged the processing plant workers and the deckhands, hoisting their totes of sablefish, skate, and salmon from the boats.

Everything he had planned to say to her – gone.

When they finally detangled themselves from the crowd, he strode to catch up and walk alongside her. She smiled up at him hopefully. At least that’s what he hoped that look meant – that she was hoping he would say something first, for a change. She was walking very slowly. Too slowly.

“How was your marine biology camp?” he blurted .

“Great! Though I didn’t get to help document whale fecal plumes, after all. Their full-color brochure lied.”

The whale fecal plumes. Yes. Waiting for the fireworks, he had laughed at the absurdity of it with her.

“That sucks,” he offered.

Surely he had something more. Some joke, some mild sarcastic remark. Some sparkling gem of his wit and intelligence. But her beautiful proximity, after more than a week’s separation, stupefied his senses.

As usual, his reticence didn’t deter her in the least. “It’s okay; I think I’ll give it a week before I sue them for false advertising. You know – give the raw feelings a chance to mature into a nice ripe apathy. I don’t want to do anything too rash.” When he still said nothing, she persisted, “But, on the plus side, I did conduct an otter trawl for plankton. And I practically ended up teaching the unit on aquariums myself. They had foisted some hapless grad student on us who kept aquariums as a hobby, and not even saltwater aquariums. My Uncle Rob will be proud of me when I tell him.”

Her uncle. Of course. “How is he doing?”

“Not good,” she admitted, her smile straightening as she turned her eyes down to her cart; and he instantly regretted the question. “I saw him on Sunday, when I maintained his aquarium. He’s too weak to take care of it anymore. He lost a lot of weight in just one week.”

“I’m sorry.” Was that really the only response he could find? I’m sorry ? Her uncle had practically raised her and was near and dear to her heart. There were so many questions he could ask, but he didn’t want to seem intrusive.

To William’s dismay, they were already at the back door of the restaurant. Still tongue-tied, he followed her to the walk-in. It didn’t help that the frenetic pace and noise of the kitchen dazzled his senses even further. The prep cooks and line cooks shouting to each other in Spanish. The metallic crash of cookware, the roar of vent hoods. The electric buzz of the walk-ins and the reach-ins. The pastry chef – Julia’s sister – plating panna cotta while rebuffing a waiter’s advances .

Julia’s father, blustering into the kitchen, hot on Julia’s heels. “What the hell took you so long? Where is your mother?”

Julia swung open the door to the walk-in. “Hi, Dad! Nice to see you, too!”

“Get that shit inventoried and distributed so we can actually start service on time tonight. It’s bad enough that we’re down two cooks without you pussyfooting around like you work for the government.”

William knew that Paul could see him there, and he had known Paul for years from working at his parents’ processing plant. But Paul was too fired up to acknowledge his presence. He was already gone, rough-handling the grill in the absence of its proper occupant, demanding to know where the hell everyone was today.

“He’s a chef,” Julia stage-whispered to William, as if that explained everything. Thoroughly unruffled, she turned to smile. “Welp, I guess I’d better get started.”

A burst of inspiration struck him. “I can help you.”

Her eyebrows lifted. “Do you mind?”

Did he mind ? “What do I do?”

She gave him a quick once-over that he felt in every cell of his body. “You don’t have a coat.”

“Neither do you,” he pointed out, gesturing up and down the length of her. It gave him a welcome excuse to reciprocate her once-over.

She tugged at a couple of toggles on her bulky scarf. The loosened fabric tumbled down her torso, revealing itself as a waist-length turtleneck shawl, crocheted from thick woolen yarn.

He shrugged. “I’m warm-natured.”

She lifted a finger. “Wait here.”

He watched her trot down the hall to her father’s office and emerge a moment later with a triumphant grin and her father’s coat. William shot an anxious look at the grill, where her father was too preoccupied to notice her theft.

“I can’t wear that,” he balked when she caught up to him.

“He never wears this one, anyway,” she said cheerfully, swinging open the walk-in door. He opened his mouth to protest again, until she shut it by seizing his hand and yanking him into the walk-in.

Safely inside with the door closed behind them, he waited breathlessly in the cold to see what she would do next. He had heard rumors about things that went on in the walk-in at Dunphy’s.

But all she did was hold up the coat with a grin, inviting him. Sheepishly he squatted and let her help him into it, his pulse quickening a bit at the brush of her hands against his sleeves and shoulders.

Afraid to look stupid in front of her, he listened carefully as she versed him in the peculiarities of the restaurant’s inventory system. Her mother, she explained, had made it nearly incomprehensible so she’d never be out of a job.

Once he felt comfortable enough to begin logging the inventory on her mother’s convoluted charts, they fell into a quiet rhythm. She tucked her red curls behind her ear, but they would not be subdued and escaped to tickle her cheek. She blew on her hands and rubbed them together, trying to warm them. He had a sudden, palpable urge to warm them around his waist, inside her father’s coat.

He said the first thing he could think of. “Did you make that yourself?”

Startled, she followed his eyes to her shawl. “This? Do you like it? My uncle told me he used to crochet ones just like it for his girlfriends in high school. Before he came out of the closet.”

He wanted to reach out and touch it, as he had touched the crocheted flower atop her hat on the Fourth of July. But that had felt so natural at the time. He wasn’t as uninhibited today. And of course, he could think of nothing more to say.

So, as usual, she picked up the slack. “Speaking of hidden talents, when are you going to let me see those photos you bragged about on the Fourth of July?”

“I can bring them tomorrow. If you’re working, I mean.”

She smiled, scrawled something on her clipboard, and shelved a tote of sanddab. “You’re on.”

The door to the walk-in swung open, and the plump fifty-something woman who came through it flinched a bit to find Julia there .

“Oh, there you are,” her mother said to Julia, adding, as a groove notched itself between her brows, “Oh... And you too, William.”

“Hi, Karen – I mean, Mrs. Dunphy.” He cringed inwardly at his faux pas.

“Isn’t that Paul’s coat?”

Julia rushed to the rescue. “William delivered a heavy order for me.”

“Really? I don't think I ordered any more than usu–”

“And then Dad yelled at me because you weren’t here,” Julia swiftly cut in, “so William kindly volunteered to help.”

“It was taking so long that I went to look for you,” Karen explained. “I guess I went out the front door just as you were going in the back.”

“I think we have it under control,” offered Julia. “Do you need to update the schedule?”

“I updated it this morning.” Turning her frown back on William, Karen added, “But thank you, William, for your help. I think I can take it from here.”

William's heart plunged to his toes, as it had the day before when Alison showed up instead of Julia. He quickly wriggled out of Paul’s coat and handed it to Julia.

“See you tomorrow,” he murmured.

She lifted a hand in farewell. “Don’t forget the photos.”

Oblivious to his surroundings, he berated himself as he pushed his hand truck back down the pier to Cardone’s. Why could he never remember anything he planned to say to her when he finally had the chance? What had he planned to say, anyway?

Why did he still seize up like that sometimes?

He was aware of a familiar masculine voice intruding on his consciousness. “Ground Control to Major Will. This is Houston; do you copy?”

“Oh, hey, Uncle Frank. Sorry.”

Frank shouted at him from the deck of his boat, tied up at the pier. A stocky man with a mustache and black hair well-streaked with gray, he looked at least a decade older than his forty-three years. With his straight white teeth that didn’t quite match his craggy face, he bore a strong family resemblance to William’s mother.

His son Tony struggled with the hoist on the pier. They were nearly finished offloading salmon, which meant they had clearly been there for some time.

“Jesus, kid,” Frank said, “you almost walked right past me again. Of course, I didn’t bother you the first time, since you were with a cute girl.”

William didn’t quite know how to respond to that, but it intrigued him that someone else besides him found Julia cute. Until this summer, when she started coming into Cardone’s, he had never supposed her to be all that attractive, but over the past year, she had kind of grown into her looks.

And so, he supposed, had he. At least he hoped that’s what her furtive glances meant, when she thought he wasn’t looking. As well as her heart-stopping smiles when he was.

Tony stopped struggling with the hoist long enough to mumble a greeting to William. Tony was a short, skinny mope who lately insisted on being called Anthony and only worked on his father’s boat when he was home from Juilliard. William’s mother dismissed Tony as “more useless than tits on a boar.”

Frank said, “Hey, come on down, Will. I have a business proposition.”

William abandoned his hand truck and climbed down the ladder from the pier to the deck.

“Hey, buddy...” Frank clapped his arm around William’s shoulders and steered him into the cabin. “Mighty Mouse up there just told me he’s taking off to go paddle boarding in Tahoe with some friends.”

“Oh. That sucks. I hear the salmon are really biting.”

Frank reached into the little fridge and handed William a can of Coke, which he accepted. As he popped the top and took a swig, it dawned on William.

“You want me tomorrow.”

“It’s just for the day, if your parents can spare you. We’ll be back before dark. ”

William wasn’t sure if his parents could really spare him, but they knew he could never turn down a chance to go fishing, and they always humored him. He agreed to meet Frank at the slip at four in the morning, and it wasn’t until he was back inside Cardone’s at the fileting table that it struck him – if he went fishing, he wouldn’t see Julia the next day. He had promised to bring his photos.

So, when the plant wrapped up operations for the day, William wandered to the storefront. He told his mother he wouldn’t be there the next day, and his mother tsk ed at his account of Tony running off to Tahoe.

“Running around with his hoity-toity friends from Pac Heights. Not even bringing his girlfriends home to meet his own father.” She sprayed Windex on the display case glass and wiped it down with a vengeance. “Frank worked his ass off, paying for that turd’s private education. Not a grateful bone in his body.” Then she froze, Windex bottle in mid-air. Casting a sidelong glance at William, she hastily added, “Not that there’s anything wrong with going to private school, of course. Or college.”

William smirked to himself. “Hey, Mom. Would you do me a favor?”

“Name it.”

“When Julia comes in here tomorrow for the Dunphy’s order, would you let her know that I had to go help Frank on his boat? I told her I was going to show her some of the photos I took.”

His mother looked up at him in some surprise. He watched her expression slowly change as she connected the dots.

“Sure, Will.”

“You won’t forget?”

He detected a smile playing at her lips. “I’m pretty sure the second I lay eyes on her, it will remind me of this conversation. But Will, have you forgotten? Tomorrow’s your birthday.”

William couldn’t think of a better way to spend his birthday than going fishing with Uncle Frank. Unless, later…

“He said we’ll be back before dark. We’ll still have time to do something. ”

“What do you have in mind?”

His eyes wandered down the pier to Dunphy’s. “I’ll think of something.”

“NOSTALGIC IS GOOD.”

That evening, after agreeing to show his photo portfolio to Julia, William let himself into the in-law unit and flipped the light switch. The indolent fluorescent ceiling lights flickered, then decided to stay on. He listened to them buzz as he retrieved a banker's box from a cabinet and brought it over to the sofa.

He lifted the lid and pulled the photos out one at a time, trying to figure out which ones Julia might like. What did he know about her, from their handful of conversations at Cardone’s and the couple of hours they had spent together on the Fourth of July?

She loved the ocean, as he did; and she also loved marine mammals. He set aside photos of humpback and gray whales, and porpoises. Of fishing boats anchored on the horizon at sunset during Dungeness season.

She loved tropical fish, and aquariums. He wished he had been to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, but he had never traveled further than fifty miles from home – at least not by land. He considered sneaking over to take a photo of the enormous tropical aquarium she maintained at Dunphy’s, but he quickly dismissed that idea as too stalkery.

She loved sewing, knitting, and crocheting. He set aside a photo he had snapped in a Guatemalan textile market in the Mission District, the multi-colored fabrics all waving from the ceiling like curtains in the breeze from the open door.

She loved the Farallon Islands, where her uncle used to accompany her on whale-watching excursions. He set aside photos of the islands’ sea lion-strewn beaches, the rocks transforming the waves into white fans and silver beads.

She loved her Uncle Rob. He didn’t quite know how to interpret that in photo, and he’d have to be pretty careful since her uncle was dying of AIDS. She had put on a brave face, but it had clearly been a painful subject.

She told him once that her uncle and his partner used to keep an aquarium shop in the Castro. That in fact they had practically raised her and Alison there.

William had once gotten lost at night, and had stopped his motorcycle in front of the Castro Theatre just long enough to get catcalled, and to snap a close-up of its illuminated fa?ade.

He set that one aside for her.

He reached into the cabinet again. Retrieved a five-by-seven photo mailer and filled it with his selections.

Well before dawn the next morning, William dropped the photo mailer in his backpack and drove to Fisherman’s Wharf. He parked near Frank’s slip and boarded the boat. He found Frank already on the deck, chopping bait.

“Good morning,” Frank growled. For a career fisherman, he was a remarkably lousy morning person. William knew better than to attempt conversation this early. Instead, he sat silently on deck to bait hooks.

Later that morning, on the fishing grounds, six lines trolled through the water as they cruised along, mimicking a school of fish. Soon enough, the springs on top of the outriggers bounced, signaling a catch.

“Wow, you weren’t kidding,” William remarked. “They’re really biting.”

But there was no time for chit-chat. As soon as he gaffed a fish, he slammed its head against the gaff hatch to kill it, ripped its gills out, and bled it.

“Don’t gut it,” Frank grunted, too preoccupied for niceties. “Fishing’s too hot. We’ll dress ‘em later.”

So, William bled the salmon and dropped them right into the slush tank. It was a brutal, smelly business, but they had it down to an art form. The seabirds were having a field day overhead. Occasionally there was enough of a break in between bites for William to catch his breath and notice the whales in the distance and the porpoises flanking the boat.

“This is the life,” he remarked out loud. He could do this every day; just follow the path of his ancestors. Chapped skin and carpal tunnel and the constant threat of a watery grave – he would take it all in the bargain for the chance to inherit this boat, if Frank’s sons didn’t want it.

“Don’t get attached,” Frank grunted.

William re-baited the hook, and said nothing.

Frank added, “Sorry to rain on your parade, kid, but this life is going the way of the history books. I wouldn’t want to see you trying to make a living at this. Nothing but heartbreak; I don’t even want that for my own sons. I’m on my third wife now, you know.”

Well anyway, there was no better way to spend his birthday. Unless, maybe, later…

“Watch it!” bellowed Frank.

“Oh, shit. Sorry.” William had nearly plugged Frank with the outrigger line.

“That’s not like you. You pulled a Tony,” Frank laughed good-naturedly.

Determined not to make any more absent-minded mistakes, William forced all thought of Julia from his mind. That evening, as they drove under the Golden Gate Bridge and into the bay, Frank said, “Go up to the top drive. She’s all yours.”

Touched by his uncle’s vote of confidence, William climbed the stairs from the back deck to the second steering station. He maneuvered the boat alongside the pier in front of Cardone’s and watched as his uncle, instead of him, tied it to the pile.

It was seven o’clock before all the salmon were offloaded, weighed, and paid for. As usual, William’s father and uncle put on a show of arguing over the price. Often the argument went far beyond show, and later William’s father would grumble, “Most fishermen have never been on this side of the hoist.”

But today everyone seemed to understand that there was no time for arguments. While his father went to write Frank a check, Frank clapped a hand on William’s shoulder.

“Your mom tells me it’s your eighteenth birthday, you little shit. So not only are you wasting your first day of manhood with me, but I just got paid thanks to you. There’s no way I’m not taking you out to celebrate.”

William smiled sheepishly and shrugged his assent.

“Well, where are we going? It’s your call. Just remember – Uncle Sam says you’re man enough to go to war, but he still won’t let you take a drink.” Frank waited until William’s mother nodded her approval and retreated back inside the plant before leaning into William’s ear and whispering, “But Uncle Frank will.”

William chuckled, but his eyes drifted across the pier to Dunphy’s. “Honestly, I’m kind of tired. Can we just eat over there tonight?”

“You got it.”

William’s father had strategically outfitted the processing plant with a shower, and William had stuffed a change of clothes into his backpack, along with the photo mailer. William shed his foul weather gear and made short shrift of cleaning up. Within twenty minutes he joined his parents and his uncle again on the pier.

But in the meantime, Uncle Frank’s whole demeanor had changed. A phone call right there at the processing plant from his wife had informed him that his younger son Dom was in some kind of trouble with the cops. Frank tried to force all of his cash on William’s parents for the birthday dinner, but they insisted he save it for Dom’s bail, instead.

Frank’s hand was on William’s shoulder, and he fixed him with an earnest look. “Another time?”

“Yeah, sure.”

As they ambled down the pier toward Dunphy’s, William and his parents watched Frank hop aboard his boat and steer it away toward its slip. Once the boat was gone, William’s mother said, “Poor Frank. Such a couple of losers he has for sons.”

William’s father merely nodded in assent, and William couldn’t help smiling to himself at the irony, considering how their own two oldest sons had turned out. But he listened to his mother expound upon the inevitability of an aspiring rapper like Dom winding up in jail.

“Maybe Tony doesn’t look so bad anymore?” William offered good-naturedly, and she laughed and jabbed him with her elbow in response.

It was good timing because it made him smile, and they were at Dunphy’s now. Julia, leaning against the hostess’ station in front of her enormous, brightly-colored tropical aquarium, caught sight of him through the glass of the front entrance. She straightened in surprise.

“Hey!” she chirped as his father swung open the door. “What brings you guys here on a Wednesday night?”

“Today is Will’s eighteenth birthday,” Ann replied, squeezing William around the shoulders. He smiled sheepishly at Julia in response, but his legs felt as if they were coming out of his hip sockets and his knees were separating at the joints.

“What? I had no idea! Happy birthday!” she said warmly to William.

“Thanks,” he replied. His voice sounded far away.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” She rebuked him with a light swat on his arm, and his pulse rioted at the fleeting touch. “Luckily I still have a great table left for you.”

William’s eyes swept the length of her as she led them around the aquarium and into the dining room. He couldn’t help it. Today, she wasn’t wearing her usual slouchy thrift store finds and homespun accessories that hid her shape. Between the fitted bodice and shorter length of her babydoll dress, it struck him like a thunderbolt that the skinny waif in sophomore French had filled out into a tall, willowy seventeen-year-old.

Julia led them to a table with one of the best views in the smoking section, since William’s parents both smoked. William peered attentively at her, in her canary-yellow cloche hat, as she distributed their menus. Today, her hair hung straight from beneath its brim.

“My parents will be so mad that they didn’t know you were coming!” she admonished them. “They would have had something special ready.”

“We didn’t know we were coming either, until the last minute,” explained William’s mother, with a knowing look that William feared was all too obvious.

But if Julia noticed, she didn’t let on. She just smiled her usual bright smile and informed them that their waiter David would be right with them.

As she sashayed toward the kitchen, William suddenly remembered the photos in his backpack. He hoped he could somehow slip them to her in a way that wasn’t too obvious or desperate. He had taken so much care in selecting them that he now felt impatient to share them with her, and he wasn’t sure if she would be working tomorrow.

A new iteration of Julia’s father, less irascible than yesterday’s version, emerged from the kitchen to wish William a happy birthday. The waiter poured wine from a complimentary bottle that Paul brought out, and William’s father protested the indulgence.

“Nonsense! You only turn eighteen once.” Paul surreptitiously slid a second empty wine glass next to William’s father, for William. “It’s the least I can do for you guys.”

Amid the din, William spotted Julia again, smiling at the spectacle while she seated some more smoking patrons. He realized that she had gone into the kitchen to inform her parents that they were there. William suspected that Paul would comp their entire bill. Not only did Paul and William’s father have a great working relationship, but they grew up only a couple of blocks apart and were good friends, in their mutually grumpy way.

As the evening wore on, Paul sent out course after course and another entire bottle of wine to the Quinns’ table. A tureen of cioppino. A plate of fish cakes. Karen came out and chatted at the table with them for a long time.

When they had already been there for an hour and a half, William heard Alison’s voice in the dining room and watched her deliver an entire platter of desserts to their table. Alison lit a candle atop his tiramisu and performed an uncanny impression of Marilyn Monroe singing happy birthday to Mr. President.

It must have been clear to Julia from the too-loud laughter erupting from his parents that they were having a great time. But each time she came into the smoking section to seat a new table, she could never linger. As a result, he wasn’t having quite as great of a time, until at long last, things died down enough that Julia could join them. It was almost closing time. She emerged from the kitchen, balancing three coffee cups and a pot of coffee on a tray. Setting the tray on their table, she said good-naturedly, “I hope you guys aren’t driving home.”

“I don’t know if they’ll let us on the bus in this condition,” snorted William’s mother.

Julia poured them each a cup of coffee. She handed him his cup and then – finally! – she sat beside him at the table.

“If you need someone to drive you home in your car, Alison can do it,” she offered to William's parents.

For good form, William’s parents protested the inconvenience to Alison, and Julia reminded them that it was only a short walk from the Quinns’ house to the Dunphy residence. After a few more halfhearted protests, William’s parents acquiesced.

William felt his stomach drop again, as it had two days ago when Alison showed up at the plant. As it had yesterday, when Karen kicked him out of the walk-in.

And then Julia said, “We can bring William home later.”

William’s parents exchanged knowing looks, and a few minutes later, William watched complacently as his parents lurched their way to the front, trailed by Alison. When they were gone, Julia resumed her seat beside William. She rested her elbow on the tabletop, propped her fist on her chin, and gazed at him with those impish gray-green eyes.

William wasn’t exactly drunk, but the wine had loosened him up, and his smile was uncharacteristically easy. Every time he drank alcohol, he wondered if this was what normal people feel like .

“That was clever,” he said. He never would have dared to say it, without the wine.

A silence ensued and, for a change, William felt no compulsion to avert his eyes. Her lips twisted themselves into a softer, sleepier smile than she had given him before.

He said, “I hope my mom told you why I wasn’t there today.”

She nodded. “You had to go fishing with your uncle.”

He lifted his backpack from the floor and retrieved the photo mailer from its interior.

She said, “Is this your grand portfolio?”

“I don’t know; I’ll let you judge how grand it is.”

She reached into the photo mailer and examined them, lingering over each one for quite some time. She asked him questions. Was he in Guatemala when he took this one? Was it sunrise or sunset that created such light on the boats? What kind of camera did he use to freeze the waves in action like that? How did he feel when he saw whales on his uncle’s fishing boat?

She arrived at the last photo. The Castro Theatre, at night. She stayed with it the longest of all. She didn’t get choked up – there were no tears in her eyes. But some powerful emotion clenched at her throat, her jaw. Her face, normally such an open book, was now inscrutable.

He was sobering up in a hurry.

Finally, she turned a wistful smile on him. “You made me nostalgic.”

“I’m sorry,” he said quickly. So stupid. How could he have been so insensitive? He should have avoided any reminder of her uncle whatsoever.

But she shook her head. “Nostalgic is good.” She peered at him a moment and said, “Have you ever seen a movie with a sad ending, but you felt like a better person for having seen it? That’s how I feel about my uncle.”

He nodded. He would have to try to remember that when he thought about his Nonna .

“And you told me you had no hidden talents.” She gathered up the stack of photos. “Would it be super-rude if I asked to keep these?”

“Of course not,” he blurted.

“I’ll pay you for them.”

He waved away her offer. “No charge.”

“Okay, but you should totally go pro with this photography thing. Sell them at art festivals, and on postcards, and things like that.”

He shrugged. “I’m not sure it’s something I want to make a living out of. You know how it goes – once it’s a job, it’s not fun anymore.”

“Well, if you ever change your mind, you’ll have at least one customer. I’ve been making these fabric-covered photo frames lately, so I need something to fill them.” She tucked the photos back into the photo mailer. “You have the Asian flush.”

“The... what?”

“Asian people get it when they drink.”

He laughed. “I think it’s an Irish thing, too.”

“Oh, okay. The Irish flush, then.” She beamed at him with that broad smile of hers. It occurred to him then that her smile was toothsome in every sense, both literal and figurative. His heart stuttered at the sight.

Before the alcohol wore off completely, William took his shot. “I know a late-night diner we could go to, to sober me up.”

“Are you trying to say my coffee wasn’t strong enough?” she teased.

He smiled. Her coffee was too weak, but he wasn’t going to admit it.

“I really wish I could,” she added, “but I’ve got to stay and help here. And we won’t get home until almost one o’clock as it is. But I’ll totally take you up on that another time.”

She kept him company there in between bursts of helping her parents and until the rest of the staff had gone home. But the alcohol had really worn off now, leaving him more uptight than ever.

She had shot him down. He was sure of it. What other interpretation could there possibly be? Maybe she was nice about it – she had tried to soften the blow – but she had shot him down all the same .

“I’VE HAD BETTER.”

Early the following Sunday, when William arrived at Cardone’s, his father was already on a tear. Even from all the way in the back of the plant, William could hear his father bellowing in the office. The plant workers who had already arrived traded apprehensive glances with each other, and with William.

“I leave for one day, and you buy ninety pounds of sanddab? What the hell am I supposed to do with all that sanddab, Ann?”

“Sell it?” William’s mother retorted just as loudly. “Freeze it? Offer some to Paul? I can put it in the display case. People love sanddab, Jim. It’ll sell.”

The office door swung open, and as he burst through it, William’s father shouted over his shoulder, “Tell your brother to pawn his sanddab off on someone else next time.” Spotting William there, he ordered him to retrieve a couple of totes of sanddab from the walk-in and carry them over to Dunphy’s. “Offer them to Paul for a dollar fifty a pound.”

“Two-fifty,” William’s mother interjected, hot on her husband’s heels. “It’s fresh clean sanddab. He’d be crazy not to take it at two-fifty and make it a special of the day.”

William’s father swore under his breath and went to take it out on some hapless forklift driver. William’s mother grinned and winked before retreating back into the office.

William wondered just how much his mother really knew, or suspected, of his feelings toward Julia. He wondered if that was in fact part of the conspiracy at hand. It was hard to tell, with his mother. She rarely spoke about tender things. William had only ever seen her cry once.

“You’re a good man, Charlie Brown,” William’s father either praised or upbraided her, as the occasion or his ego suited.

In any case, it didn’t matter what William’s mother suspected. Over the past four days, William had successfully pushed all thought of Julia from his mind. When she came into Cardone’s to pick up the Dunphy’s order, he gave clipped answers to her questions. He didn’t offer to carry any more totes to the restaurant. He hadn’t re-invited her for coffee. He didn’t believe she really meant it when she invited him to ask again.

He had forgotten how she read her encyclopedias until they fell apart and she had to keep them together with a rubber band. How she had converted to Islam for two days, and stole a little prayer rug for her bedroom. How she dressed and spoke like a poet from another era.

He had forgotten her long slender legs in black tights that she crossed, knee over knee, as she sat beside him on his birthday. Forgotten the constellations of freckles on her face and collarbones, and the way the skin bunched up around her eyes as she smiled. How she kept turning that smile on him, though he rarely gave her any good reason to persist.

He was quite proud of himself, how thoroughly he had forgotten all of this as he braced the hand truck with the totes of sanddab against his side and pressed the doorbell at the back door of Dunphy’s.

The door flung open – and he remembered it all.

He forced himself to look away. Shifted his weight. Cleared his throat.

“Special delivery,” he croaked. He had planned to say it, but it sounded so lame now. “A load of sand dab, right off the boat this morning. My dad wanted to see if your dad was interested.”

“Normally probably so, but I warn you, we got a less than glowing review in the Chronicle this morning.”

“Oh.” He allowed himself one peek at her, and found his eyes lingering. She wore no hat. She had simply parted her hair at one side and pinned a teal-colored silk flower into it. The light illuminated the hair at the crown of her head like a copper halo. “What did it say?”

“Well, it compared our cioppino to something from a can of Chef Boyardee, for one thing. And it said something about the restaurant being apparently past its prime, like its owner and head chef.”

“Ouch.”

“Yep. Of course, I think my dad is the only one around here who’s surprised by any of this. I remember all too well the time at school when I overheard a guy ask who I was. Someone told him that my father owns Dunphy’s, and he said, ‘I hate that place. It smells like old people in there.’”

William smiled but said nothing. The rest of her hair tumbled in luminous waves halfway down the embroidered bodice of her Mexican-style sundress. A bodice with definite signs of curves that he quickly diverted his eyes from.

Julia waved him down the hallway toward her father’s office, where Paul sat uncharacteristically idle at his desk, the newspaper spread out before him. It took him a few moments to notice them standing there, but when he spotted William, he dragged himself to his feet to shake his hand.

“William. How are you? I hope you had a great birthday dinner here with your family the other day.”

“We did, thanks. The food was great,” William added kindly.

Paul sank back into his seat. “William, let me ask you something. You had the cioppino the other night. What did you think of it?”

William’s stomach lurched. He shifted his weight and glanced back at the load of sanddab he had brought with him, considering. He was all too keenly aware of Julia’s continued presence behind him. But he steeled his nerves, looked her father in the eye, and said, “I’ve had better.”

He watched outrage and mortification wage battle on Paul’s face. William had literally stunned him to silence for a few moments. When Paul finally recovered his powers of speech, he spluttered, “Oh really? Where?”

“My grandmother’s.”

Paul nodded, apparently spying an opening. “We all like best what we’re used to.”

William said nothing, and Paul demanded, “Well, what can I help you with? You came here; you obviously wanted to see me about something.”

William mentioned the sanddabs, which Paul inspected, somehow managed to find fault with, and dismissed brusquely .

Great, William thought as he pushed his hand truck back down the pier. His parents would be pissed that he hadn’t managed to foist the sanddab off on Paul. They would argue with each other; he could just hear his father gloating, “I told you so!”

And on top of all that – he was in love with Julia.

He had no control over his thoughts or feelings. There was no point fighting or denying it anymore. When and how could he see her again? His mind seized upon any excuse it could find.

The other day, when he delivered the tote of fish to Dunphy’s, her father had mentioned they were short-handed in the kitchen.

He had already pissed off Paul by suggesting that his cioppino sucked. Of course part of the problem with Paul’s cioppino was that it contained no Dungeness crab. And any San Franciscan worth their salt ought to know that cioppino without Dungeness crab wasn’t cioppino at all; it was just seafood stew.

It was harder to come by Dungeness in July, but as Nonna had taught him, it wasn’t impossible. Not if you knew who to ask.

William knew that if he made Nonna's cioppino and offered that as his job application, it could bruise Paul Dunphy’s ego and put him out of his good graces permanently. Or it might possibly – if he was really lucky – earn him a job there at Dunphy’s.

With Julia.

On his way home from work that evening, he went by the Italian grocers in North Beach that he used to frequent with Nonna. He bought the stewed San Marzano tomatoes, the vegetables, and the seasonings. He bought a package of rigatoni and a loaf of sourdough bread. He would make the clam juice himself, and he had already asked his mother to bring home the seafood. He told her he would be cooking dinner on Monday night.

The next evening, while his sauce finished simmering and his mother chopped the halibut, he retrieved the live crab from the bucket his mother had brought home.

“What turns a good cioppino into a great cioppino?” Nonna had once quizzed him.

By now, he had long-since memorized the answer: “Live crab. ”

He cracked them open one at a time, still wriggling, and removed the bodies from the shell. He dumped the meat into the sauce, along with the rest of the seafood and the rich but nauseating golden innards that Nonna called “crab fat.” When the clams opened, he knew the cioppino was done.

He spooned it over cooked rigatoni and served it to his family with a salad and the sourdough bread.

It was only the second time he had seen his mother cry.

The next morning, William appeared again at Dunphy’s kitchen door, ostensibly with another special delivery for Julia’s father. But on top of the tote of fish sat a round container. After Julia accepted the delivery, William turned to Paul.

“I also brought you some of my grandmother’s cioppino.”

At least he had the wisdom not to do it in front of any of the kitchen staff. Her father accepted the container, and said, “Of course you did.”

As William passed Julia on the way out the back door, she gave him a deer-in-the-headlights sort of look. But she stifled a laugh.

William made sure to return later that afternoon on some trumped up business for his father. Julia handed him back his clean container and whispered, “It was amazing.”

Spotting him while slicing leeks, Paul said cooly, “Give my compliments to your grandmother.”

His stomach plummeted to his toes. “I would, but she’s dead.”

The knife slicing the leeks slipped, and Paul narrowly avoided amputating his own fingertip. “But... you said it was your grandmother’s cioppino.”

William nodded. “It’s her recipe.”

“Who made this, then?”

“I did.”

Paul slowly lowered the knife to the countertop. “Bullshit.”

Minutes later, William stood in the kitchen in coat and hat with Mark, the sous chef, who frowned and sniped. William wasn’t quite sure what had crawled up Mark’s ass and died, but his resentment cooled quickly under William’s humility. William either did not know or pretended not to know certain little tricks and seasonings that Mark obligingly filled in for him, and in short, William played the part of the grateful student. By the end of the afternoon, they had a pot of cioppino that was superior even to what William had brought in.

Paul folded his arms across his chest and glared suspiciously at William. “You said your grandmother taught you this?”

William nodded. “I mostly learned by watching, then doing. The whole family cooks together, when we can.”

“And your grandmother was Italian?”

“Her parents were from Sicily.”

Paul scratched his nose. Considered. “What else can you do?”

“Pretty much anything my grandmother could do. Or at least three-quarters of it.”

By the time William left that night, he had a new part-time job as a dishwasher at Dunphy’s. Paul had offered only the vaguest promise that it could lead to prep cook in the future, and William would have to give up much of his work at the plant and on his uncle’s boat. But if he had any doubts about accepting, Julia assuaged them as he wriggled out of his chef’s jacket and tossed it into the hamper.

She rounded the corner and leaned up against the wall. She crossed her arms over her chest in mock severity.

“I thought you said you have no hidden talents.”

“If I told everyone about them, they wouldn’t be hidden,” he replied.

She flushed, and her mouth twisted itself into a coy smile. He answered it with a shy one of his own, his pulse tripping all over itself; then rounded the corner to leave.