19. Etta
ETTA
He was there when I came down at four.
Already on the dock with coffee in his hand and a thermos sitting on the bench beside him. He looked up when he heard my boots on the wooden planks.
"Morning," he said.
"You're early."
"Couldn't sleep."
I stopped beside him and looked out at the water. It was still dark. The sky was just starting to gray at the edges.
"Me neither," I said.
He picked up the thermos and held it out.
"Coffee?"
"Please."
He poured some into the lid and handed it to me. It was hot and black and exactly the way I liked it.
I drank it standing there beside him watching the light come up over the sound. The water was flat as glass. The air smelled like salt and diesel fuel and something green coming off the marsh.
After a minute he said, "You working the north bars today?"
"Yeah. The twos need checking. Daniella said Insley's buyer cleaned out half the sound yesterday."
"You want help?"
"If you're offering."
"I am."
That was new.
Not the question. The ease of it. The lack of anything else underneath it. No phone in his pocket waiting to ring. No schedule pulling him somewhere else.
Just the offer and the water and the light coming up.
"All right," I said. "We'll take the Charlene out at five."
"Sounds good."
He looked out at the water. "You think the weather'll hold?"
"Should. Barometer's steady."
"Good."
"You worried about it?"
"No. Just asking."
I smiled a little at that. "You sound like Ray."
"Is that bad?"
"No. It's good."
We finished our coffee and he rinsed out the thermos and the lid at the dock spigot. I went to check the engine.
It turned over on the first try. Smooth and steady.
"She's running good," he said from behind me.
"Changed the oil last week."
"I saw that. You do the filter too?"
"Yeah."
He nodded. "Looks clean."
We took her out at five and worked the lease until noon. He didn't check his watch once.
By the time we got back to the shucking house Yolanda had half the crew at their stations and the first crates sorted. Daniella was at the scale logging weights.
"How'd it look out there?" Yolanda asked when we came in.
"Good. The north end's producing."
"How many'd you pull?"
"Three crates of twos. Maybe four hundred singles."
She made a note on her clipboard. "That'll get us through tomorrow's shipment."
"Should. Depends on what Curtis pulls for Insley today."
"He was out early. Saw his boat go past around four-thirty."
I nodded and went to wash my hands at the sink. Sven was already there drying his on a rag.
Ray Cullens looked up from his station and said, "You see that current shift this morning?"
"Yeah. Came in fast."
"Told you it would. Moon's pulling hard this week."
Sven hung the rag on the hook and came over to the table. "You think it'll hold through tomorrow?"
"Should. Give it two more days and it'll turn again."
"What about the south bars?"
"They'll slow down when it turns. Always do. But the north end should stay steady."
"Good to know."
They talked like that sometimes now. Easy. Like men who'd worked the same water long enough to have a common language for it.
Three weeks ago Ray had barely looked at him.
Now he was asking his opinion about the tides.
Jesse Crowe came over with a bucket and set it down between them. "Ray, you want to show him that trick with the hinge?"
"Which one?"
"The one you showed me last week. For when they're stubborn."
Ray nodded. "Yeah, come here."
Sven moved closer and Ray picked up a shell and demonstrated the angle. Sven watched and then tried it himself on the next one.
"Like that?"
"Little more pressure on the back edge."
Sven adjusted his grip. Tried again.
"Better?"
"Yeah. There. You got it."
"Thanks."
"No problem. You're getting the feel for it."
I went to my desk in the corner and started going through yesterday's invoices. Daniella brought me the paperwork from the morning shipment and I checked it against the weights.
Everything was running the way it was supposed to.
I heard Yolanda laugh at something one of the crew said. Heard the steady sound of knives on shells. Heard Ray telling Sven about a storm that came through in ninety-four and took out half the docks on the eastern shore.
It was a good sound. A working sound.
I was halfway through the invoices when I heard the door open.
Footsteps. Heels on concrete.
Wrong sound for this building.
I looked up.
Simone Astala was standing just inside the door in a black coat and dark trousers that had no business being in a shucking house. Her hair was pulled back tight. Her face was pale and sharp and her eyes looked like sea ice.
The room went quiet.
She saw Sven and stopped.
Everyone had stopped working now. Yolanda had set her knife down. Ray had turned on his stool. Daniella was standing by the scale with her clipboard still in her hand.
Simone looked around the room once and then fixed her eyes on Sven.
"Sven," she said.
Her voice was too loud. It carried across the whole space.
He looked up from where he was standing with Ray. He didn't say anything. Just looked at her.
"I need to speak with you."
He set down the shell he was holding and wiped his hands on a rag. He didn't move toward her. Just stood there.
"All right," he said.
"Alone."
"No."
The word was flat. Final.
Her mouth tightened. A muscle jumped in her jaw.
"Please. I drove all the way out here."
"Then say what you came to say."
She looked around the room again. At the eleven people watching her. At the concrete floor and the wooden tables and the buckets and the knives. At me standing by my desk.
Her face flushed red.
"I need your help," she said.
"With what."
"Portland won't take my calls. The certifying board revoked my credentials. I can't get a meeting with anyone in the industry."
"All right."
She took a breath. Let it out.
"You could fix it. One call from you and they'd listen."
"I'm not making that call."
"Why not?"
"You know why."
"No. I don't. Explain it to me."
He was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "You worked for me for two years. You did good work. You were compensated fairly. That's where it ends."
"That's where it ends? After everything?"
"Yes."
She took a step closer. Her heels clicked on the concrete.
"I built the northern business for you. I opened Scandinavia. I gave you two years. I gave you everything."
"You did."
"I made you relevant in those markets. I opened doors you couldn't have touched on your own."
"You were good at your job."
"Then help me."
"No."
The word came out quiet and cold. Not angry. Just factual.
She stared at him. Her eyes were wide. Bright.
"That's it? Just no?"
"Yes."
Her hands were shaking. I could see them from where I stood. She balled them into fists at her sides.
"I don't understand. I did everything you asked. I worked eighty hour weeks. I missed holidays. I put my entire career into your company."
"You were compensated fairly."
"Fairly?" Her voice went up. "You think a salary was fair compensation for two years of my life?"
"Yes."
She let out a short laugh. It was a bitter sound.
"This is because of her, isn't it."
She didn't look at me when she said it. She kept her eyes on him.
"You're letting her ruin your professional judgment. You're better than this. We both know you're better than this."
He didn't move. Didn't change his expression.
"I'm not."
She blinked. "What?"
"Better than this. I'm not."
"Don't be ridiculous. You built an empire. You understand scale. You understand growth. You understand what it takes to operate at a level that actually matters."
"No," he said. "I don't."
Her face changed. The professional mask was cracking.
"Then what are you doing here? Why are you standing in this—" She looked around again. At the shucking house. At the water through the open door behind us. At the life she couldn't understand wanting. "In this quaint little operation."
The word landed hard.
Quaint.
I felt it go through the room. Felt everyone go still.
Sven looked at her for a long moment. His face was completely calm.
"Yes," he said.
His voice was quiet. Even. Like he was reading something off a ledger he'd memorized a long time ago.
"Quaint. Forty acres worked by hand. Eleven people. Sixty-three years feeding families off this water."
He paused.
"A woman who knows every bar on that sound by feel."
Another pause. Longer this time.
"You want to set that against two hundred boats I don't own anymore?"
The silence stretched out. Nobody moved.
Simone's mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
No sound came out.
"You can go now," Sven said.
I stepped forward.
I didn't think about it. I just moved. Out from behind my desk and across the floor until I was standing next to him instead of behind him.
Simone's eyes cut to me. Finally looked at me like I was actually there.
"None of this would have happened if you hadn't tried to take something that wasn't yours," I said.
My voice was steady. Matter of fact.
She stared at me. Her face had gone pale again. White around the edges.
"You don't know anything."
"I know enough."
"You don't. You don't know anything about what happened. About what we—" She stopped. Caught herself. "About what I gave up for him."
"I'm not interested."
She looked back at Sven. He didn't move. Didn't speak. Just stood there watching her with that same cold calm.
"Sven. Please. Just listen to me."
He didn't answer.
"Sven."
"I heard you."
"Then say something."
"I did. The answer's no."
She looked at me again. Her pale eyes were shining now. Wet at the corners.
"This is insane. You can't possibly think I was trying to?—"
"I said I'm not interested."
I wasn't angry. I wasn't cruel.
I was just done.
She opened her mouth. Closed it. Her throat worked like she was trying to swallow something sharp.
"You have no idea what you're doing," she said. "You think this is some kind of victory? You think you've won something?"
"I'm not trying to win anything."
"Aren't you? Standing there beside him like you own him?"
"I don't own anybody."
"Then what do you want?"
"For you to leave."
"That's it?"
"That's it."