1. Abigail

1

ABIGAIL

Oh lord, please let it be good news.

I worry the corner of my thumb as my iced latte sits in front of me, sweating and untouched.

My heart has been lodged in my throat since I woke up this morning to a text from Moriah asking me to meet her today.

I gave her my resume and cover letter weeks ago to pass onto her supervisor, and I haven't heard anything.

Until now.

My mind is all over the place, going through every possibility of what she might have to tell me.

The New York City Marine Life Center has been my favorite place in the city since I was a little girl. So, when she asked me to meet her here, I came earlier.

It always seems to lift my spirits to be here.

Except today.

I glance up at the towering, tubular aquarium to my left that serves as the center piece to the Coral Café.

As a child, I used to sit here with my mom, watching the fish explore the reefs with rapt attention as I ate my carrot sticks. This was better than any TV show. I was getting a front-seat view to the lives of all kinds of tropical fish from bright ombre Spanish hogfish to tiny, dartlike neon gobies.

Bethany, a beautiful, rescued sea turtle, navigates the cylindrical tank with ease, a graceful ballet of her green fins as she travels lower and lower until she's eye level with me.

I smile. "Hi, Bethany."

I like to think she recognizes me after all these years.

Bethany blinks her big, black eyes at me, then flutters away.

"Bye, Bethany."

I sigh.

I love the water and everything that lives there.

And this place right here was where my dreams grew, and where I decided that I wanted to be a marine biologist.

They say do what you love, and you'll never work a day in your life.

Except I'm not doing what I love.

Since I finished my master's degree this past spring, I've struggled to find more than short-term research projects or aquarium maintenance work.

A job here would change everything.

This is my dream job.

A chair scrapes in front of me, and I startle, looking up to a very flustered Moriah, her dark hair woven into a slicked back bun.

"Sorry to keep you waiting!"

"Oh, no worries, I was just…enjoying."

Moriah sits and smiles. "How've you been?"

"Good. Fine."

Miserable.

I'm a single girl in my mid-twenties still living with my dad and his new wife and their twins who aren't even a year old yet.

Jobless and stuck at home, I'm a glorified free babysitter half the time.

I love them all to death, but I wish I could be living my dream, starting my life as an independent adult who is ready to focus on a career and maybe even find someone to share dreams with.

Swallowing the sigh or sob stuck in my throat, I shake myself out of it.

Maybe this is it, the moment my life changes.

"How about you? Busy?"

"So busy," Moriah grunts and rolls her eyes. "We've taken in these blue tang from a hoarding situation, and it's been hellish keeping an eye on them and trying to get them healthy."

I wish that were me too. I wish I could be part of it. Please tell me I can. Please….

"That sounds challenging." I run my thumb down the slick side of my coffee.

Moriah glances down at my coffee, then back at me. And my heart shatters.

"So, I passed on your materials a couple weeks ago. And I wanted to tell you in person just how close it was, Abigail."

My throat is threatening to choke me.

The hardest part about this rejection being face to face from a friend, instead of over email or a phone call I let go to voicemail, is that I can't hide. Can't pretend it doesn't affect me.

"We had a position opening for supervising in the cetacean wing. Which, I know isn't your specialty, I know your focus is in aquatic birds, but I pulled for you because I know you could do anything. Really."

It all sounds like bullshit. Like she's trying to let me down easily. I nod. Once.

"I know they called your references, and you were in the pile, like high up in the pile."

I knew this was going to happen. They probably saw my name, crosschecked it with their backlist, and immediately tossed me out. It wouldn't be the first time and most likely, won't be the last.

"But…" I egg her on.

Moriah sighs. "They went internal."

Sure, they did.

"I'm sorry."

I smile, a placid exterior compared to the chaos of my mind in which the next ten years roll out in front of me. Barren. A failure.

I set my goal into having an established career before I think of starting a family.

It will take a long time to get where I want to be before I can even consider slowing down, looking for love, starting a family.

And every month that passes, that my first goal gets delayed, feels like another nail in the coffin of my dream life.

I'm young. I know I am. There's time.

But in a job market like this, it feels hopeless. Endless. Impossible.

"It's okay, Moriah. Just try and keep me in mind?" I push to my feet.

Her eyes widen as I get up. "Don't you want to have a coffee and talk? Or–"

"I have to go." I force a smile. "But thanks so much, Moriah. Seriously."

I grab my full iced latte and give her a limp wave before moving as fast as I can out of the café. I toss the full latte into the trash, knowing I won't be able to stomach it right now, and navigate through the rest of the aquarium.

This place used to be my salvation, my haven.

When my mom and dad were breaking up, I could come here and feel the embrace of the ocean. When I didn't get into my first-choice university, I could come here and remember my calling. When my older brother Nate left New York without notice and didn't speak to any of us for years, I could come here and feel connected to him through our love of water.

And then grad school ruined everything. The magic got broken.

I wanted this so bad. I knew I'd be good at it, too. And I was smart enough to do it too.

But then I got a look at the other side of this life.

All the politics behind the scenes. The sucking up and brown nosing. The forced networking friendships. The flirtations from older men in power you know you don't like, but don't know how to reject for fear they'll ruin everything.

And they do ruin everything.

I keep my head down as I plow through the families ogling the jellyfish displays and the children tapping the glass to get the attention of slow-moving groupers, my eyes blurring with tears.

I pass the seahorse alcove, paying no mind to it as I past, until a small sniffle makes me pause. I back up a few steps and look inside.

It seems empty at first but upon a closer inspection, there's a little girl standing at the center of the circular room with her hands over her eyes, her shoulders shaking.

She's completely alone.

She wouldn't be the first little kid to get lost here. Happened to me once, when I was desperate, so desperate, to look at the otters that I bolted from my mom and ran all the way there only to realize she hadn't been able to keep up.

I glance around, looking for a docent. Usually, this place is crawling with workers, but all the blue-vested aquarium workers seem to be elsewhere.

If I walk away and try to find someone, I might lose her.

I step into the alcove. "You okay, honey?"

The little girl jumps and lifts her head.

Her big, blue eyes tremble with unshed tears. She seals her mouth together. Gosh, she's a little thing. Couldn't be more than six or seven, I imagine.

I take a step to come a bit closer, but not too close. "Are you lost?"

She looks around herself to the tanks of seahorses like her answer exists with them.

"You got separated from your mom?"

"My dad," she says quietly, but nods.

I shouldn't have assumed, I know better than that. "You remember the last place you saw your dad?"

Her face squeezes together, and she starts crying again. She must be overwhelmed.

I crouch down, getting a little closer so I can show her I'm safe without scaring her off. "I'll help you find him. Is that okay?"

She wipes away her tears with the backs of her hands and then nods, making the ribbons in her ponytail bounce.

"Okay, good. Good. I'm Abigail. What's your name?"

The little girl braces her arms around her waist.

"Daddy tells me not to talk to strangers." There's an inflection in her voice, an accent. Or is she just talking so fast and through tears that her words sound different than they normally would?

I smile at her, letting her know it is okay. "I understand, my dad tells me the same thing."

She sniffles. "He does?"

"Oh, yes. Even though I'm a grownup, he still tells me all the things your daddy tells you."

The little girl cracks a small smile.

"Do you remember the last place you saw your dad?"

Her smile falls. "No."

"Mm. That's okay. Why don't we go talk to someone who works here, and they can get people to look for your dad?"

Her hands fly to her mouth. Then she shakes her head.

Okay, I've got to make her comfortable. Make her feel safe so that I can get her the help she needs because lord knows I'm not going to leave her here. "You like seahorses?"

The little girl looks up at the tanks again. "They're silly looking."

The more she speaks, the more I'm convinced she's British or from a different English-speaking country than here. "They are silly looking. Like teeny tiny dragons. Or horses, I guess."

"Or really old ladies." She looks at the display.

I laugh. "Don't let the old ladies hear you say that."

She laughs too, her eyes still appraising me nervously.

I push myself back to my feet and go over to one of the tanks. "Can I tell you something interesting about seahorses?"

She hesitates but comes over to join me in front of the glowing blue tank.

Inside, I watch the seahorses freefalling, their eyes goggling about and their snouts twitching and sucking. "You know moms are the ones who have babies? Among humans and every other animal?"

She gets a bit closer, and she nods.

"Well, that's true of seahorses too, but–" I point to a seahorse bobbling around, his midsection enlarged. "The dads are the ones that actually take care of the eggs and then all the babies. That's one there. He's got all the eggs in a pouch and when they hatch, they'll all explode out of the pouch."

The girl opens her mouth. "Explode?"

"Well, not literally. It doesn't hurt him."

I get a pang in my heart: I love this work. I wish I could be paid to do it. Too bad behind the scenes, there's so many politics and so much work in actually getting the job.

I guess I'll settle for pretending…especially if it's helping a scared little girl. "He pumps water into the pouch which displaces, um, moves the babies out into the water. "

Her eyes widen. "Strange."

I try not to giggle at her use of the word strange. Most kids would say "weird."

"And you know how baby animals all have specific names? Like bear babies are cubs and baby sheep are lambs?"

"And goat babies are kids, like me!" She seems excited to be able to add to the conversation.

"Yes!" I beam at her. "Do you have a guess at what baby seahorses are called?"

She pinches her lips together. "Foals? Because they're like horses?"

"That's a great guess. Really good guess. But not quite."

"Mm… What are they called, then?" The cadence of her voice is almost so British it seems fake which I think means it's real.

I smile. "Fries. Which is the word for what you call chips where you're from, I think."

Her mouth falls open, and she gasps with laughter. " Fries? "

"Silly, right?"

"Why?"

I lean against the wall beside the tank. "If I knew the reason why scientists did certain things, I'd tell you, but scientists are kind of weird."

"Are you a scientist?"

Is a scientist a scientist if they're not doing any sciencing? "Uh, yeah. I guess. I'm a marine biologist, which is someone who studies all the things you'd see at the aquarium."

"Wow."

My heart warms at her wonder.

Kids aren't so hard to impress, at least not at her age.

"How about I help you find your dad and, on the way, I can show you some things? Give you some fun facts about the animals here. Like a behind-the-scenes tour."

She bounces up on her tiptoes. "Yes, please ."

Nailed it. "Although before I can do that, I need to know your name, I think."

The little girl flushes, maybe embarrassed she hasn't yet given me the information. "My name is Bonnie."

"Bonnie. That's such a pretty name."

"Thank you."

I take a tentative step toward the archway of the alcove. "So, what do you say? I'll show you the second biggest sturgeon in captivity."

"Second biggest?"

"Yeah, the biggest one is a sturgeon named Herman who lives in Oregon."

Bonnie giggles, then moves to follow me. "Herman the Sturgeon. That's silly."

Without making a show of it or me realizing exactly what's happening, Bonnie takes my hand and walks with me out of the alcove.

"Okay, I'm ready," she says.

I smile to myself, trying to ignore the pit in my chest that I've just become responsible for a little British girl who lost her father.

This feels like the beginning of a Dr. Seuss book or something.

And I have to say, it's the most exciting thing that's happened to me in a long time.