"What did you do?"
"I went into a CVS and waited it out, but it was there when I came out. Then, this tourist family came along, and a little girl started tossing popcorn. I left the lakefront."
I said, "I had a defenseman in my second season who ate the same pre-game meal for eleven months. Exactly the same. Same restaurant and same table if he could get it."
"It sounds like there's a punchline. What happened?"
"Someone told him that the restaurant had changed ownership."
Sully turned his head to look at me. "Had it?"
"Six months earlier."
We both laughed.
The aquarium wasn't busy on a weekday in late February. We paid and went in.
The main hall was cool and dim, with the light shifting to blue-green the way it does when you're surrounded by water on three sides. Sully slowed down where I hadn't expected. He stopped and watched a freshwater display of catfish as they browsed the tank's bottom.
"Love the whiskers."
"They don't grow so well on me."
Sully laughed. Next, he stopped at a display of moon jellies, floating in a light current. "They don't have brains," he said.
"No hearts either."
He considered my comment. "Living the dream."
We finally arrived at the beluga tank. We came around a corner and I saw Kieran first. He stood close to the glass, peering under the surface of the water. He turned when he heard us.
"Pratt." Then, to Sully: "Kieran Mathers. We met at your bar."
"Sully O'Reilly." He shook Kieran's hand. "You're the one closing the coverage gaps."
Kieran raised one eyebrow and looked at me.
"He texts," I said.
Kieran turned back to the tank. "You volunteer here, right?" I asked.
"I do." He said it simply, without elaboration.
A beluga swam up to the glass—close enough to its face, mouth turned slightly upward in what many people mistook for a smile. It turned in a slow arc, eye tracking us.
"This is Ansel," Kieran said.
"You know him?" Sully asked.
"He knows me." Kieran placed one hand flat against the glass. Ansel held his position, eye steady. "He's been here for a long time. We connect."
Sully stepped closer to the glass. Ansel shifted his position slightly. Sully didn't move. He stood and let the whale look at him. Most people would have tapped the glass or moved quickly, trying to generate a response. Sully just waited.
Ansel drifted closer.
Sully raised a hand and placed it flat against the glass, beside Kieran's. Neither of them spoke.
I stood slightly back and watched the three of them—Kieran, Sully, and Ansel—still in the blue light. It was a good afternoon.
