Karen came out of the round white building, Neptune’s Realm, down from the Flying Dolphin Show. She waited on the walk, looking around, as the moms and dads with their cameras and kids moved on to the Shark Lagoon.
There he was. Across the lawn, walking with a girl brushing her hair. Both wearing the white shorts and red T-shirts. He must have come out another exit. Karen watched them go through the fence enclosing the shark pool. Maguire mounted the structure that was like a diving platform, playing out a mike cord behind him. The girl remained below: cute little thing with a lot of Farrah Fawcett hair. Karen wondered how old the girl was. Not much more than twenty. She noticed Maguire was quite tan, healthy looking; different than the man she remembered sitting in the dark. She approached the crowd that rimmed part of the cement lagoon. There was an island in the middle, a palm tree and several sleepy pelicans. Sharks moved through the murky water like brown shadows.
He looked younger in his white shorts. Good legs. His voice was different, coming out of the P.A. system. It sounded like a recording.
“Nurse sharks do not have a reputation as maneaters, but like all sharks they’re very unpredictable. They might not eat for three months, then go into a feeding frenzy at any time. What Lesley is doing is jiggling that ladyfish on the end of the line to simulate a dying fish, which gives out low-frequency sound waves that can be detected by a shark as far as… nine… hundred… yards away. There’s a shark coming in from the left… Look at that.”
Karen watched Maguire, then let her gaze move over the crowd, pausing on some of the men. Which one would you pick as an armed robber? Maguire would be about the last one.
“Well, this time for bait we’re going to use… Lesley. Yes, Lesley is going down into the lagoon in an attempt to hand-feed a shark with her bare hand… using no glove or shark repellant of any kind or… feed a barehand to a shark if she isn’t careful.”
The girl’s face raised, giving Maguire a deadpan look. Karen saw it. For some reason she thought of Ed Grossi, Ed eating his cottage cheese with a spoon-an hour ago at Palm Bay.
Then coming over the S.E. 17th Street Causeway and seeing the sign, seascape. Why not? She felt like doing something. She felt thoroughly herself, almost relaxed, for the first time in a week. And probably the only woman here in a dress. Beige linen, gold chain and bracelet. She should have gone home first and changed-remembering him saying, “Practically around the corner,” and telling him she had never been here.
He was saying to his audience, “We’re not having a whole lot of luck getting the sharks into the feeding area. As I mentioned they can go as long as three months without feeding. There’s one… no, changed his mind. Well… let’s give Lesley a big hand for getting down in the shark lagoon”-pause-“she may need one some day.”
“You sounded a lot different,” Karen said.
“I know,” Maguire said. “I hear my voice on the P.A., I think it’s somebody else. You want a Coke or something?”
“Don’t you have to work?”
“The main event’s on next. Go over there-see the yellow and white awning? I’ll meet you there in a couple of minutes. He seemed glad to see her, but hesitant, almost shy.
Karen got two Cokes and sat down at a picnic table away from the cement walk and the refreshment counter behind the grandstand. She heard, over the P.A. system, “Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. Welcome to Brad Allen’s World-Famous Seascape Porpoise and Sea-Lion Show.” Pause. “And now, heeeeeeeeere’s Brad!”
Karen said, “Was that you?” as Maguire sat down across from her.
“I’m afraid so.”
“You always do it the same way?”
“Well-no, not always.”
“The other night, I couldn’t imagine you working here.”
“No-”
“I wasn’t inferring anything by that.”
“No, I understand. I’m a little out of place, but nobody’s caught on yet.”
“Maybe I know you better than most people,” Karen said. “Do you like doing this?”
“It’s all right. It beats tending bar.”
“Why don’t you quit?”
“I’m thinking about it.”
“Did you-” Karen paused. “Well, it’s none of my business. I wondered if you sent your friends their share.”
“Yeah, their wives. I sent ’em money orders. They can use it.”
On the P.A. system in the background, Brad Allen was introducing Pepper, Dixie, and Bonzai to the audience.
“I still don’t know the difference between a porpoise and a dolphin,” Karen said. “You never told me, did you?”
“No, I guess we got into other things.” Looking away from her and then back, hesitantly.
He’d been doing that since she approached him. Natural, but just a little shy. She liked it and smiled when he said, “You didn’t have to get all dressed up to come here.”
“I was having lunch with a friend. Then coming over the causeway I saw the sign and thought, Does he really work there or not?”
“See? I wouldn’t lie to you.”
“I love your routine. Do you ever vary it?”
“Only when I forget lines. Or leave something out.”
Brad Allen was telling his audience that Lolly the sea lion was now going to balance the ball and walk on her front flippers. “Heeeeey, look at that!”
“I don’t think you’re going to last here,” Karen said. “I mean I wouldn’t think you’d be able to take it as a steady diet.”
“No-” He smiled, shaking his head. “You’re right.”
“What will you do then?”
“I don’t know. Go down to Key West, see if it’s changed any.”
“Not back to Detroit?”
“I doubt it.”
“We haven’t discussed Detroit yet,” Karen said. “Have we?”
“What’s to discuss? Have you ever been to Belle Isle? Greenfield Village?”
“How about where you went to school.” No-she shouldn’t have said that. Then, what year, getting into ages. He was younger than she was. A few years, anyway.
“I went to De LaSalle,” Maguire said. “By the City Airport.”
She had meant college; he was referring to a high school. “I know where it is,” Karen said. “I lived on the east side.”
“Where’d you go?”
“Dominican.”
“You’re a Catholic?” He seemed surprised.
“Sort of. Not the kind I used to be.”
“Yeah, I’ve fallen off myself. It’s funny, isn’t it?”
“What is?”
“I mean I’d never of thought of you as a Catholic. Even with your name.”
“Or with yours,” Karen said. “The thing that messes up yours is the Calvin.”
He was looking directly at her now.
“How old are you?”
Without a pause Karen said, “Thirty-eight. How old are you?”
“Thirty-six.”
“You don’t look it.”
“You don’t either,” Maguire said.
She should have told him thirty-six.
He said, “I told them I was thirty when I came to work here; everybody looked so young. I almost-just now I almost said I was thirty-two. Why would I do that?”
“Well, no one wants to get old.”
“But thirty-six, thirty-eight, that’s not old. I figure it’s about the best age there is.”
“It’s all right,” Karen said, thinking, Thirty-eight; what year was I born? “I don’t give it much thought one way or the other. You’re as old as you feel.”
“Right,” Maguire said. “Usually I feel about eighteen.”
“I like twenty-five,” Karen said. “I wouldn’t mind being twenty-five again. Do it right this time.”
“What would you do different?”
“Lots of things. I’d travel first, before I settled down anywhere.”
“Why don’t you do it now?”
“I may.”
“I’ve traveled,” Maguire said, “but mostly between here and Colorado. I’ve been to Mexico. Next-in fact, I was gonna get a passport.” He paused. “Then something came up.”
“Where were you going?”
“Spain. The South of France, around in there. Get a car and drive, like Madrid to Rome. That sounds pretty good.”