He looked at her again. Her teeth were crooked, her incisors longish and foxy. The imperfection should’ve made her unattractive, but it didn’t. Not at all. His eyes lingered on her mouth for a couple of seconds until he snapped out of it.
“Okay, then,” he said. “Tell me about your work history.”
“Sure,” she said. “Like I said, I started working in my grandparents’ restaurant when I was fifteen. Every day after school, during weekends and vacations. I learned how to do everything—clean, prep, cook, order, serve. Later on I took care of inventory and ordering and helped my grandfather with the profit and loss statements.”
“Where’s this restaurant?” asked Sam. “Japan,” Eve said. “Small town on the coast.” “Cool,” said Judith. “Ni hao!”
“That’s Chinese, doll,” said Charlie.
“Oh. Oops.” Judith blew cigarette smoke over her shoulder. “Godzilla?”
“Continue,” said Sam.
“After that I moved to Tokyo and worked as a sushi chef for six years. My father lives in Santa Barbara, so I decided to come out here and work with him for a little while.”
Daddy’s girl. Figures. “So who’s your dad?” asked Sam.
“Taro Ono. The managing chef at Geisha Sushi.” “Holy Toledo! He’s one of the biggest local buyers
of the sea urchin catch here at the harbor!” Judith exclaimed.
“You must know a thing or two about sea urchins,” said Charlie, nodding.
Having a seafood background was a plus. But something didn’t compute. “So why aren’t you at the restaurant?” asked Sam.
Eve paused. “It was entirely my fault. I…got involved with a prep cook. My father thought it interfered with the dynamics of the kitchen. So last night he fired me.”
Sam was surprised. He didn’t think a daddy’s girl would confess something like that, much less take responsibility for her actions.
Judith took another pull of her cigarette. “You’d be spending lots of time with Sam on the boat. Would your boyfriend be okay with that?”
Hot damn. The V-berth. With this girl.
“He wouldn’t mind. He’s not…possessive.” She turned to Sam. “So. What do you think? Do I get the job?”
Sam folded his arms. “Kitchen work is a different animal from the work you’ll be doing for me. It’s cold and brutal and sometimes it’s dangerous.”
“You sound like you don’t think I can do it,” she said, arching an eyebrow at him.
“To be frank, I don’t think you can do the job,” said Sam testily. “But let’s just say I’m in desperate need of a tender.”
Sam looked Eve over one more time. Hiring a new tender was always a gamble, and this hand seemed riskier than most. But he had to roll the dice. He needed to get back out on the water. He had to earn if he was to keep paying off his debt to Madrigal.
“Show up here tomorrow,” said Sam. “We’ll shove off at four-thirty in the morning, sharp. Then you can show me what you’re really made of.”
****
When the sun went down, Eve locked her bike up outside the university library. If people didn’t look too closely, she could pass for a college student.
The library was quiet and warm. She read the newspaper, an illustrated guide to marine life in the Northern Channel Islands, and a couple of psychology journal articles on thalassophobia.
As she read, she tried to untwist the knots in her stomach. Logically, she shouldn’t have been afraid of the ocean. But simply looking at it—its glittering endlessness, its darkness—made her feel anxious and afraid.
If she weren’t desperate for a job, she’d point her bike inland and pedal as far from the water as she could.
At least that boat captain—Sam was his name— looked like he knew what he was doing. When he asked her why she’d been fired from her last job, she had to think fast. “My father doesn’t believe women can be good sushi chefs,” sounded absurd, even though it was the truth. An illicit love affair—now that was easy enough for anyone to understand.
At closing time, she found a hiding place under a table in the stacks. Using her backpack as a pillow, she closed her eyes and fell asleep.
But sometime in the night the black beast got her again. It was always the same dream. She was sitting in her grandmother’s tiny house in Ishihara. Her grandfather was still at the restaurant. An afternoon snack of boiled sweet potato and coffee sat on the table.
Just as they sat down to eat, the shaking began. Eve had experienced earthquakes before, but none as strong nor as long as this one. The house danced on its foundation, pitching and swaying as Eve’s grandmother held onto the edge of the table. Three minutes passed before the shaking stopped.
“Get our jackets, Eve-chan,” said her grandmother, using a term of endearment to calm her granddaughter.
“We have to go to the school now. It’s on higher ground.” Eve grabbed the jackets and they put on their shoes in the entryway. Eve’s grandmother closed the front door and they walked with their neighbors to the school on the hill a quarter mile away.
“Stay calm,” said her grandmother, holding Eve’s hand.
“What about Ojii-san?” Eve asked.
“Your grandfather is fine. He knows what to do.” They walked in a group of a dozen neighbors,
mostly housewives with elderly parents and small children. They were halfway up the path to the school when Eve heard the first crash of water behind them. She spun around.
What she saw would haunt her dreams forever.
Rushing down the street was a surge of black water, monstrous with splintered wood and debris, rising and swirling and filling the streets of her town. For a moment, Eve thought she was imagining it. Then it knocked down the side of a warehouse. With a low groan, the metal building crumpled like paper.
Eve looked up the path. Hundreds of people were gathered at the school on the hill. She looked behind her again. The surge was big—bigger than the hill. And gaining speed.
Her grandmother couldn’t move quickly. Eve picked her grandmother up on her back. The tiny woman weighed nothing.
“Hold on to me, Baachan,” Eve said. “Hold on.
Don’t let go.”
Terror filling her veins, Eve charged up the hill.
No. Please, no.