Page 74 of Sucker For You

“You’re not. You’d crouch here until your legs went numb, just watching him breathe.”

“And dream. Every pigment cell in an octopus’s skin is under their voluntary control. So when they change color and texture while sleeping?”

“They must be dreaming.”

“Not to anthropomorphize, but yes. . .”

Another group passed by with cursory looks into the tank, bamboozled into seeing nothing. Wes eventually pushed to his feet. “Right, here’s a question that’s not on your list: what’s your octopus origin story? What got you interested in them, instead of otters or orcas, or—hell, I don’t know, sea slugs?”

—clutching an illustrated encyclopedia in the cafeteria of a school where she now attended Grade One with the family’s other children; it wasn’t so different from the kindergarten she’d gone to while living in the federal group home, but it wasnew—pressing the book over her rapid heartbeat while students yelled and threw straws or paper airplanes—wishing she could disappear, could be anywhere other than in this noisy, crowded room—wishing and wishing while a feverish pressure started to build in her head—

She dug her nails into her palms.

Stop.

But he should know. So she nodded and followed Wes to standing. She gave him the facts—for their interview. “I wassix. We were learning about sea creatures in class at my new school. I got my first migraine that week, and I was scared. I didn’t know what was happening. The pain. . . I was screaming, I think. On the floor, at night when it happened. I’d fallen out of bed. I scared the other children at the house. The adults, too. The parents. I just wanted to disappear. To be anywhere else. A place that was dark and cool and quiet, where no one could find or touch me. Or look at me. And—the teacher had told us about octopuses that day. How they could camouflage. Make themselves vanish. How they lived deep under the water. I’d had trouble focusing in class because of my prodrome—not that I knew what it was—but I was very interested. Then I had my first migraine episode that night and I. . . Later, at the hospital, the adults said I’d gone psychotic.”

“Psy—You were in pain. You needed help.”

“I knew something wasn’t right with me. That I scared people. I didn’t want to. I just wanted to be left alone.”

Silence.

Then: “I’m sorry about that. All of it. But, Isabel. . .” Her name lingered. “Do you still—”

A sudden crowd of middle schoolers from a class trip bore down on them in a dash toward the aquarium’s Splash Zone; their noise drowned out whatever he’d meant to ask. Maybe Wes shrugged in the crush, his arm extended to shield her from elbows and backpacks. Regardless, he was grinning and easy again a minute later, once the children had passed.

“How about we go see the Kelp Forest and Open Ocean tanks, grab lunch, and head to the wharf to buy more shrimp? Maybe even a little treasure chest and some plants for—Bubbles?Kali?Thalassa?”

“Yes.”

After flagging down a staff member beside the Rocky Shore’s touch pools, who validated their knowledge about shoreline bait balls (“No, schooling fish only form them as a last resort in open water”), they took discounted leftovers from the lunch rush at the Aquarium Café, ate on a deck that overlooked a living tide pool spilling from the aquarium to the bay, then rumbled back along Del Monte Avenue to the wharf’s midweek fish market.

“If it wasn’t a bait ball, what do you think I saw on Monday?” Wes weighed a sack of moist vegetation sprouts—halimeda, a popular tank plant—in one hand.

“It’s likely that the majority of marine species are still undiscovered.” Isabel paid for the sprouts. “Up to two million. Which means that most behaviors haven’t been observed yet, either.”

“True. I guess it doesn’t matter. It’s just weird. But that’s the ocean for you. Weird—”

“—and wonderful.”

“And wonderful.”

At her next stop, she smiled to herself while she placed a bag of prawns on the register scale.

“Hey, I remember you.” The vendor returned her smile as he waved off a gull and calculated her total. He eyed her flannel, then her hands. “You bought a load of shrimp over the weekend. Are you starting a restaurant? Or a popup? I’ve got bulk deals.”

“Oh. . . no, we’re not—”

He overbore her objections to list his discounts, and held the octopus’s feed hostage for her attention. Following several minutes of her silence and his bargaining, however, she had to admit that his prices were decent. Andwerethey operating a popup restaurant? A restaurant for one very hungry diner. If they kept feeding the two-spot through their tenure in the bungalow,discounted seafood prices would be useful. She turned to consult with Wes behind her—who wasn’t.

He wasn’t there.

He isn’t here, and a sharp stab of anxiety pierced Isabel’s chest. Between one quick inhale and another, her pulse accelerated. Her stomach seized. Her fingers froze.

“Careful with your bag—”

She caught the bag, but lost her breath. “. . . Wes?”