“I wasn’t wondering.”
“Then I guess I was,” he says sheepishly. “Silly, I know. I’m just having trouble calibrating things in my head.”
“Well, if you must know, then yes, every summer, I travel up and down the northeast coast visiting dive bars and sleeping with anyone who buys me a drink,” Cece says. Humor feels like the best defense. Laugh away the moment and all the real reasons.
Morgan chuckles. “Okay. Got it.”
“Me neitheris the short answer,” Cece says after taking pity on him.
“How’d you end up working for that Richie Rayburn? Doesn’t seem like your usual line of work.”
“What gave it away?”
“Now you’re just searching for compliments…Your hands mostly.”
Two weeks of oyster work and her hands are still in good shape, except for a few new callouses and chipped nails. Cece does her best not to weigh the cost-benefit analysis of being truthful in this moment. Be honest, she thinks. What do you have to lose that you haven’t already lost?
“I saw an ad online and was desperate to try something new and get out of Stamford. My fiancé and I broke up a month ago. We…he lives there.”
Morgan looks out at the water contemplatively. Cece can’t tell how this news has landed, his beard making his face inscrutable.
“I also lost my job. He didn’t react well,” she says before he can respond.
“Sorry to hear,” Morgan says. “Getting fired’s no fun.”
“You’ve had experience?”
Morgan grins. Those perfectly skewed teeth again. “God…more than I can count. Waitering gig at this real hoity-toity spot in Provincetown. A roofing job up in Portsmouth for a total crook. Then there was a welding apprenticeship…So yeah…I’ve been fired a few times in my day.”
Cece waits for him to say something or ask her questions about the implosion of her engagement, but he doesn’t. His seeming disinterest is so palpable, it makes Cece wonder whether she said it aloud at all. Waves slap against the boat’s prow, a hypnotizing rhythm. “It was my decision to call it off,” she says, unable to resist to urge to clarify her situation.
“It’s still hard to end things, even when it’s the right thing to do.”
That’s the problem! Cece thinks. She doesn’t know whether itwasthe right choice.
“But whatever reasons you had,” Morgan continues. “I’m sure they were the right ones.”
Cece wonders if he’s just saying all this to make her feel better but decides not to question him. Itismaking her feel better. Isn’t that what matters? “Thanks.”
“So what was the gig you got fired from?”
It takes Cece a moment to understand Morgan’s moved on to the next subject, no longer interested in the juicy details of her failed relationship. Surprised, but mostly relieved, she tells him about her career in what feels like another life.
“An actuary…Aren’t those the people who help insurance companies predict when you’re gonna die?”
“There are different types,” Cece says, sounding more defensive than she wants to. “You’re talking about a life actuary. They make sure the insurance company models are sustainable. But we do all kinds of work: pensions, property insurance, risk management. It’s just the science of risk.”
“Science of risk.”
“Using statistical tools to determine the probability of something happening.”
“Sounds complicated.”
“Not really,” Cece says. “I mean, you don’t even need an advanced degree for it.”
“You shouldn’t do that.”
“What?”
