I walk past his Audi and pause. There’s something tucked under a windshield wiper. I glance over my shoulder and pluck it out. I hold it between my thumb and forefinger, blinking when I realize what it is.
A shark tooth.
I stare at it, rubbing my thumb over its serrated edges. I tuck it back under, snap a photo, and force myself to keep walking. Go, go, go, right to his door. It’s fine. It’s fine. I knock twice, then step back, darting a look at the woman with the cigarette who ignores me.
From behind the door, a muffled voice: “Who is it?”
I can feel him watching me through the peephole. Before I answer, he unlocks the door, and it swings open.
Chris Cooper. The cleanest man I’ve ever known. He’s stiff-backed and solemn with reddish-brown hair. Light blue plaid shirt,rolled up to the elbows. White lace-up shoes, clay-colored chinos. Black watch with a gold face that saysMaserati.
I shake my head. In my town, everyone wears the same unspoken uniform—grimy hoodies with stained sleeves. Ten-year-old T-shirts in black, gray, or dark navy. Cargo shorts or torn jeans.
Nothing like this man and his casual opulence.
I look down at my own clothes. Jeans, tomato sauce stain on the left knee that never quite came out. Black hoodie.
“Melanie?” he asks, uncertain for once. “That you?”
“Was.”
He stares hard at the tomato sauce mark like he’s never seen a stain before, then raises his eyebrow when he notices the anglerfish tattoo on my right hand. “That new?”
“No.”
“Well, well.” He smiles. “What else have you been hiding?”
“Let me in, Chris.”
He opens the door a fraction wider, hovering in the doorway, staring at me with a faint trace of amusement.
I step inside, my left shoulder brushing his. He smells like soap and not the masculine ones Oliver marinated in, bourbon and leather and sandalwood. Chris smells faintly feminine, pears and peaches. He always looks freshly showered, well groomed, as bare-faced as an infant.
He looks harmless, but he’s not. Journalists never are. They don’t lookatyou. They lookinsideyou. You’re not human to them. You’re a sack of secrets in meat.
Chris shuts the door with a loud bang that makes me want to hit him. I don’t like loud noises. I imagine others raised in violence feel it, too—the way our nervous systems flinch, riddled with bullet holes no one can see.
We close doors silently, keep our voices low, hold our drinks tight enough to crack the fucking glass. But people like Chris, they get to slam doors with no fear of retaliation. They get to live while the rest of us survive. Except now…I think of the tooth tucked under his windshield wiper.
Us. Them.
“Forgive me for asking…” he says, “but what on earth are you doing here?”
“I grew up in Kangaroo Bay. What areyoudoing here?”
His upper lip curls. “That place?” He really means,That shithole?But Chris Cooper doesn’t swear.
“How’s your story going?”
“What story?”
“Oh, we’re going to do this, are we? Bloody hell,” I say impatiently. “Your shark story. Bit light on the details, though…”
He frowns.
“Lemme guess,” I say. “The locals aren’t talking.”
He snorts. “You don’t know the half of it.”
