There are so many questions Cece yearns to ask—how long has Mr. Shipyard lived on this street, has Lorraine ever seen him with anyone, does he seem like the kind of man who’d entertain a summer fling?—but she resists, nodding in silent agreement instead.
Lorraine leans from one leg to the other, looking like she has something to say but doesn’t. Cece is keenly aware of how quickly her living situation might go wrong, and she’s intent on staying on Lorraine’s good side. Their agreement is strictly verbal. There was no lease to sign, only a handshake and a long and ponderous up-and-down assessment from Lorraine when they first met.
“I better get back,” Lorraine says. “Groundhogs aren’t gonna trap themselves. I was hoping your dog there would scare them off.”
Cece apologizes for Bernard’s canine inadequacies and watches Lorraine lope back to the house while she nurses a second glass of wine, mosquitos nibbling at her ankles. She resists the urge to take a stroll by Mr. Shipyard’s house, the wine goading her on. Too soon, she thinks. Way too soon.
Back inside, Cece sits at the banquette and eats Chinese food leftovers for dinner. She forces herself to see the good, the silver lining, the glass half-full. Her confines are cozy, bespoke, vintage even! People would kill to have a place by the water for the summer (even if it’s a dingy pool house), especially all her friends who are stuck in the city, sweating it out with everyone who can’t afford to escape. Except that none of Cece’s friends live in the city anymore. They’ve all grown up, married, moved to not-so-far-flung places like Hastings and Tarrytown, Rye, and Beacon. Long gone are the heat-soaked days of July and August in cramped apartments, battling the oppressive humidity with early-morning walks in Central Park, taking turns in front of the air conditioner, catching the Jitney out to the Hamptons for one, maybe two, measly days. Cece hasn’t spoken to her friends of late. They still think she’s gainfully employed, engaged to Jonathan, planning awedding. They’d all sounded so excited, almost relieved, when she’d told them the good news. They’re still waiting for their save-the-dates, eager to slip the cards from their thick envelopes and proudly display them to their husbands—their last friend, the final holdout, getting married. It’s finally happening!
Through the window, tree limbs crisscross the darkening sky in menacing silhouettes. With only yellowed light from an overhead ceiling fan, the living space feels menacing and strange, unpacked boxes sending shadows up the wood-paneled walls, dusty valences hanging above the windows like morose specters. Cece gathers Bernard up in her arms for his walk. She pauses on the deck, the night warm and deep. She’s embarrassed, a grown woman afraid of the dark. For now, she’s glad Lorraine’s nearby.
Before she knows it, she’s passing Mr. Shipyard’s house, a ramshackle Cape with weather-beaten cedar shingles and a sagging roof. Scaffolding adorns one side of the home, running all the way up to the chimney draped in a plastic tarp. Out front, the yard is littered with pieces of freshly cut wood—molding, from the looks of it. Despite the carnage, there’s something charming about the picture, and Cece wonders how long he’s been working on it. She wonders what allows a person to see the beauty and potential in run-down things. Potential isn’t something Cece’s ever put much stock in.
No lights are on, as she suspected, but Cece still stands there for a moment, letting the breeze cool her aching neck, and she imagines what’s behind those walls and under that roof. She imagines the smell of the house, the muskiness, and she wonders if Mr. Shipyard dreams. And then she’s wondering whether it’s too late to start her life over, or if she ever started at all.
2
Sticky and hot, the base of her skull throbbing, Cece wakes to the whir of cicadas outside her window. Bare walls and a curtainless window—it takes a moment for her to remember where she is. Without a proper box spring, the mattress is strangely close to the floor, causing Cece to feel as if she’s been jailed in a bottomless pit. Then she remembers—the walk by Mr. Shipyard’s house—and suddenly she feels deserving of this punishment. The cicadas crescendo, the hundred-strongthick-thick-thick-thick-thickmocking and cruel. At least they get laid before they die, Cece thinks, rolling onto her back and examining the ceiling.
What was the probability, Cece wonders, that she’d end up here? Alone, mired in debt, fired from the only profession she’s ever known. Hadn’t she taken every precaution, done everything right, to avoid this very outcome? As early as middle school, Cece found refuge in numbers and mathematical formulas, even while most of her girlfriends gravitated toward the fiery heroines and impenetrable poems in English class, or studio art, with its emphasis on creativity and self-expression. Her preference for logic,deductive reasoning, and probability only grew in high school. Back then, the world seemed a chaotic and terrifying place (Bush versus Gore; 9/11; the war in Iraq), and what better place to find solace and refuge than in cold, hard numbers, equations, and solutions—inarguable facts, the truth?
Cece’s phone vibrates from under her pillow. She can already hear her mother’s voice:Don’t sleep with that thing so close to your head. It’ll give you a brain tumor!
Still groggy, Cece makes the mistake of swiping open the message before looking at the sender. It’s from Jonathan, her ex-fiancé:Just checking in. I know you said we shouldn’t talk, but I’m worried about you. Is this really what you want?
Rage detonates in Cece’s chest. The wording of the text, the blatant disregard for her feelings, the presumption! It’s all so Jonathan. He always knows best, and not just for himself, but for everyone. Cece had told him—in the plainest of terms—they were done, finished. She’d given back the ring! And yet, here he is, only a few weeks later, pretending as if their breakup, the implosion of their four-year relationship, was a mere bump in the road, something to be repaired, filled, and tamped down like an irksome pothole.
Dragging the sweat-dampened pillow out from under her head, Cece places it firmly over her face, making sure to yank down on either side for the sake of the neighbors, and lets forth a guttural scream. Why does he insist on being so willfully dense? Does he really think he knows what’s best for her? But even as she laughs at the absurdity of Jonathan’s message and squeezes her hands into fists, Cece catches herself, ever so briefly, wondering if he does, in fact, know what’s best for her.
Before Cece can consider whether to text back or block the number, a call comes through. It’s Santiago, the supervisor from the oyster farm, and he doesn’t sound pleased. It’s Saturday, but Cece had picked up the weekend shift to earn extra money, which means—she checks her phone—she’s already fifteen minutes late. Not a great start.
Cece takes a frantic shower, all the while fighting the urge to assume the fetal position. It’s foolish—bathing before a job like this—but she can’t bring herself to show up in her current state: bloated, sunburned, somehow hungover. She throws on a pair of sweatpants, a threadbare T-shirt, and takes Bernard for the quickest walk of his blissful canine life, tugging him along even as he stops to mark every tree and bush, eats two pieces of toasted white bread with cold butter, slugs a glass of tap water, and jumps in the car.
The docks are deserted, only moored boats and placid water—the occasional wheeze of a straining bowline. Cece yanks on her rubber waders in the dusty gravel parking lot. Two figures watch her impassively from the shade of the warehouse, its metal doors swung open below a faded sign:Rayburn Oyster Company. As she approaches, Davi, the boy, heads off without a word toward the dock, his gait slow and resentful. Santiago, his father, leans against a steel drum, a scar running ragged through his patchy beard.
“Sorry,” Cece says, weighing whether to make some sort of excuse.
Santiago gives her a shrug, as if to say,It’s okay—we don’t expect much from greenhorns anyway.He digs around in the blackened pouch of his sweatshirt before producing a pack of cigarettes.“It makes no difference,” he says. The tone of his voice reflects the unseriousness of Cece’s work. “Richie said you wanted extra shifts, so we waited.”
Cece’s face burns. The irony is not lost on her that all the years of schooling, the job experience, the accolades at her firm are worthless in this particular moment. Santiago points to the stack of black crates woven from plastic mesh. “Same gig as yesterday. Power wash those. Fix any holes with zip ties.”
Cece wants to say she’s ready for some real responsibility, a challenge. After a week of the same tiresome routine, she wants to get out on the water and show Santiago she’s capable of more, but he’s already walking to the boat, motioning, cigarette in hand, to his boy, who starts the engine, pale gray fumes curling upward.
The oyster crates are heavier than they appear. When she’d started work at Rayburn, she thought they’d looked flimsy and light, but now she knows they’re cumbersome and heavy, stinking of rotting seaweed and sea scum.
So, they’re not letting her on the boat until she’s proven herself. That’s just fine, Cece thinks, unhooking the first cage. The pressure washer is where she left it yesterday. She wheels it outside and starts it up, the sound deafening and terrible in the morning calm. She’ll clean the whole stack before Santiago and his boy return. She can’t give them an excuse to tell Richie she’s no good, worse than inexperienced, lazy.
Basket after basket, Cece’s back is tight, and even after a break, her forearms still tingle and quiver from the power washer. It’s only nine, but the day is already warming. Cece pulls her T-shirt over her nose to check her BO, but all she smells is theocean. On her eighth bag, Cece encounters the first sign of damage, a hole the size of her fist in the plastic webbing. Without gloves, the work is slow going and painful, the stiff plastic cutting into her hands, the zip ties sharp and unforgiving. It’s not long before blisters bloom and reopen on Cece’s soft palms, but she persists, cursing herself for not buying gloves in a foolhardy attempt to exude toughness.
If Kim, her mother, could see her now…would Cece’s work ethic elicit pride? Doubtful. More like shame, and most certainly a scolding.What was the point of sending you to that fancy college if you’re going to end up with rough hands and a farmer’s tan?Cece can hear her saying.If your grandfather were alive to see his granddaughter doing manual labor…I’d never hear the end of it.
The eldest of three, Kim was born and raised in Providence. Her father was a sanitation plumber for the city. He retired with full pension benefits at the age of sixty with forty-two years of experience. He died a year later from complications related to pneumonia. Kim was convinced his early death was connected to his work and exposure to toxic chemicals, but her mother refused to sue the city. She was a quiet but stern woman who lived her life guided by three principles: Go to church, donate to charity, and don’t blame others for your own misdeeds. Kim couldn’t get out fast enough when she turned eighteen, putting herself through school—two years at the local community college and then finishing up at URI.
Determined to avoid her father’s fate—body hobbled by decades of work, in the grave before he could enjoy retirement—Kim went straight to law school in New York City, dissatisfied with Rhode Island’s provinciality. Her mother thought she wasmad, spoiled even, for leaving. What was so special about New York City? How did she intend on paying Fordham’s hefty tuition, renting an apartment? Kim took out loans, got roommates, hustled, lived in the library, worked harder than she ever thought herself capable of, because that was her only advantage—her tolerance for asceticism in all its forms. The sacrifices—missed family vacations, skipped holiday parties, ignored flirtations—they were all necessary if Kim wanted to craft a better life for herself. She was wholly alone in her efforts. There was no family name, no legacy, no plan she could consult. Much later, Kim would recount these events back to Cece before she went to college—a college Cece suspected would stretch her parents’ finances—as if the selective details of her mother’s life might help Cece understand a simple truth: For people like them—people without family legacies, people who had yet to forget the dirt under their grandparents’ fingernails—college was about stability and guaranteed success. College was how you made sure you never tended bar or painted houses for a living. College was where you met fine men and drew a blueprint, for you, yes, but also for those who would surely come afterward: your children, and their children, who would know nothing of dirt.
With her ear plugs in, the roar of the pressure washer is reduced to a murmur. Despite arms turning to jelly and her back barking like a rabid dog, Cece falls into a rhythm, dragging a crate forward, unlatching it, hosing it down, then checking for holes and repairing anything that looks like an oyster might slip through. She’s not thinking about the sweat stinging her eyes or the sun beating down. Instead, Cece’s thinking about how there are parts of herself, parts she’d forgotten about, that prefer thiskind of work. Sure, it’s difficult and grueling, but there’s something deeply rewarding about watching the stack of crates grow. This isrealwork, Cece thinks to herself. Tangible. There’s nothing theoretical about the progress she’s making, no hypothetical scenarios to determine or consider.
Cece wishes she could pinpoint the moment she decided to become an actuary, but like most things these days, she finds herself unable to remember it clearly, to differentiate between the world’s desires and her own. She wishes she could blame her overbearing parents—Kim fixated on Cece graduating with a “useful” degree, her father, Barry, content, as long as she kept his D1 swimming glory days alive and well—but Cece can’t. She knows, in the innermost curvatures of her heart, that from her earliest days, she’s always moved through the world like a drowning swimmer toward a life raft, toward safety. What was the point of striking out on your own when a perfectly good path, traversed and mapped, lay before you? Was that not prudent, wise even?
