Their second date, they went surfing. It was a bigger day — five-foot swell, negative tide. James’s sexy, sculpted body looked even more outstanding in a wetsuit, like some kind of hot human-seal. She loved his blond sun-streaked mass of surfer hair. They caught the same wave, rode it all the way in to the beach. The sign, Mischa thought, because she always looked for signs, was the seal. The beady-eyed harbor seal rode the wave along with them, watching them, a silent witness.
That evening she went back to his house off West Cliff Drive, two sprawling stories and a separate garage large enough to be a second home. He showed her his office, his three-screen setup that faced the bay. Turned out Surfer James was also a multimillionaire day trader. Her mother would have been pleased.
After that, they were rarely apart, only when James worked or went out for solo fishing expeditions. He had a dirty old truck filled with fishing equipment. It was where he did his thinking, he said, his planning. Her skin prickled but she ignored this in favor of everything else he was: He shared her love of the bay and the creatures that inhabit it. He didn’t seem fazed by her lack of direction. He seemed to want to be her new one. Maybe she could do this, become a mom who walked back and forth on West Cliff rolling a baby all day, free of troubles. She loved strolling the pier, listening to the barks of sea lions, those little beacons of ursine aquatic fuzziness — the otters — and slick, observant harbor seals.
During the day, while James did things with stocks, Mischa returned to the Dream Inn with the stolen towel. James never asked where she went. Come to think of it, James was secretive himself. He sometimes wouldn’t call for a night or two, and sometimes he slipped out at odd hours, saying he had to be on East Coast time and didn’t want to wake her. They spent almost every free moment together but he never insinuated she should move in or that anything should change.
“Are you seeing other people?” she asked one night while they were grilling tofu steaks, veggie burgers, and onion-
and-pepper skewers on James’s porch. Her eyes fixed on the locked garage.
“I would never do that to you,” he said, and took a sip of sauvignon blanc.
She took him at his word. James was removed and solitary, tough to pin down, but so was she. “Why don’t you use your garage for something? It would be a great studio or something.” Like for me, she didn’t say.
“It’s just storage for my old surfboards and crap. Just crap I don’t want to deal with.”
“I can clean it out and organize it for you.” She sunk her teeth into some tofu.
“Nah,” he said, “not worth the trouble.”
While James holed up in his office, or went on boat trips to fish and think, Mischa surfed. After changing out of her wetsuit at the bathrooms and pulling the towel from her mother’s St. Tropez beach bag, she absconded to the pool and drank mai tais.
Were she and James growing apart? she asked herself one afternoon. Should she end it, legitimately become alone? Was he cheating on her? Why did the pier jutting out into the ocean sometimes look so sinister?
Then the seal popped up from the waves. She didn’t know how she knew this was the same one, but it was — this she knew as it rose and watched her back.
You need to find out. Dig into it. You’re practically a scientist. You need evidence. Take a closer look.
“You can’t communicate with me, telepathically or otherwise, seal. Sorry. What kind of rum do they put in these drinks?”
It’s Captain Morgan, love. But listen to me. Those mai tais are not the only thing that’s spiked. A look of intensity crossed the seal’s face before it dove under and disappeared.
Regretful of her dismissal, Mischa went to the pool every day and stood by the banister looking for the seal to resurface. She listened for it, becoming convinced that whatever its message, it was dreadfully important.
Mischa got her shift covered on a Wednesday night. She would follow James. He was still so aloof. They lived as if there was no future, and she had started wanting all of the false securities and illusions.
She borrowed a car from another waitress, and waited around the corner from James’s house. Hours passed. At almost eleven, she was about to give up when the lights of his truck went on and he pulled out onto West Cliff Drive, headed toward Natural Bridges. She hung back, then followed. He drove on. He parked near the Seymour Marine Discovery Center. If he was having an affair, this was a strange place for an encounter. Then she saw what he took out of the back of his truck: an Airbow, a lightweight rifle that precision-shot arrows. The downy fuzz on the backs of her arms and legs stood up. That was no fishing instrument. Hadn’t he said he threw them back? Or was that something she only wished was true?
She trailed him down to the cliff. He put on a high-beam headlamp, carried his Airbow down an opening to a trail to the ocean. He emitted a strange, low, hypnotic whistle. Mischa, lulled by the tone, resisted the urge to drift toward it. The moonlight rippled over the water. She plugged her ears as his whistling continued. And, as if he was a pied piper of marine life, animals began to surface: a pod of dolphins, some sea lions, a raft of otters, and a few seals. In the distance, under the moon, she saw the head of a solitary seal, keeping its distance. Even from there, she knew. It stared at her, caught her eye even from so far away.
You see? Now you know. What are you going to do about it?
The arrow struck. The pained howl of an animal rang out above the sound of the crashing waves. James cast a line, a wiry noose, and pulled it in. He covered the body with a tarp and dragged it back up to his truck, threw it in.
Was that her seal?
She followed him back to the house, her hands trembling in shock as they gripped the wheel. This was what he did when he went out by himself? She would have preferred if he were having an affair, because then at least he would be normal.
He unlocked the mysterious garage, pulled in the bloodied tarp, heavy with the body. Silently, she crept around the corner and watched.
It was no cluttered fisherman or surfer’s garage. It was as if a caveman’s home and a surgeon’s operating theater had merged into one. The walls were lined with James’s trophies: a baby otter, several sea lions, and a slew of seals among them. Some eyes seemed familiar. A light hung above a surgical steel table littered with scalpels, knives, hammers. A hot, bright rage consumed her. He was a criminal and a taxidermist. Addicted to his hobby like a drug. She fled back to the car and drove off.
A serial killer of otters and seals — if James could turn out to be that, anyone could be anything, really.
I know it’s hard. But you’re going to be all right.
“Oh my god, is it you? I was so worried I lost you.”
The head popped out of the water. Mischa wrapped her towel around herself and ran down the stairs to the shore. She dropped the towel and walked into the sea.
“You tried to warn me. I’m so sorry.”
Don’t apologize — stop your slacking.
“I’ll call the cops, they’ll search the garage—”
Nobody else can handle this for us.
“What do you mean? I couldn’t—”
You saw how many corpses line his shelves. But it’s not the same. Our lives are not of equal value, you see. Not according to his kind. You have to decide who you want to be. But I think you finally have.