Tomorrow Ye Will Get Your Pay
Wednesday July 18, 2057
“Yes, Mom, I’m fine,” Bryanne says into the phone for the hundredth time. She’s sitting on the deck of the Thylacine , sweating in the interminable heat. “No, I definitely don’t need to bother you with it. Please. Mike is letting me stay at work— it’s fine. I’m there most of the time anyway. Yeah, he’s honestly getting the better end of the deal, because if I’m sitting around here doing nothing, I’ll be bored out of my mind. So he’s going to get free maintenance work out of me. No, I’m not going to tell him to pay me overtime. He’d kick me out. I said— No, Mom, seriously, I don’t need to stay with you.”
The conversation is going in circles, and she’s more than tempted to throw her phone overboard. She supposes that she was lucky that she was able to find it in the rubble; Marcus’s never turned up. Maybe it’s still in the house, which they have been forbidden (by the fire department) to enter, even to get their stuff. It’s annoying, and she’s not sure how the situation is going to resolve. What she should do is start looking for a new lease for her and Marcus, but the idea of doing so makes her feel a deep-seated resentment that she can’t shake.
It’s not like Marcus did anything wrong, at least that she can name, but the gulf between them shows no signs of repairing itself any time soon. She hasn’t spoken to him since he biked away, though she knows where he is: Atlas reported that she saw him at work. He’s living on the Wampanoag , just like she is on the Thylacine , though his living conditions must be much worse than hers. She’s not even sure if he got permission to move himself on board— he probably didn’t. But his boss, Joe, seems to turn a blind eye to him lurking around there after hours, so she figures as long as Marcus is careful, no one will find out for a while that he’s sleeping in the steerage. She should find a new apartment for both of them; he’s certainly not going to do it.
Or she should call his mother, and get her to put him up somewhere, so that he’s not functionally homeless and sleeping at his job. His parents have plenty of money— they helped out with rent when Bryanne was short on cash several times. But snitching to Marcus’s parents that their son is going through some kind of mental break that makes him want to pretend to be a 19th century sailor all the time seems like a low blow, even for her. Even though they argued— or whatever it was that passed between them— she doesn’t have any desire to hurt him. She even wants to see him again, on the condition that he gets his life together. Probably she should sit down with him and tell him so in as many words, but she can’t stand the idea. He either understands what his problem is, or he’s beyond anything she can say.
“You should call your uncle,” her mother says over the phone. “He says there’s a good spot available for you. Especially if you don’t have a lease right now, a long term job like that—”
“I can’t really think about this right now, Mom,” she says. “I have to at least work the rest of the season with Mike.”
She can hear her mother pursing her lips— it’s an expression as familiar on her mother’s face as it is on her own.
“I really can’t believe I had to find out all of this from your brother, instead of you telling me,” her mom says. “What were you thinking he’d help you with?”
“I wasn’t asking for help,” she says. “I just wanted to talk.”
“So, you’ll talk to your brother, but not your mother. I see how it is.”
“I’m talking to you right now,” she says, but this just makes her mother huffy.
“Well, if you decide you want to stop being homeless, you know my door is always open to you. But I can’t make you! I’m only your mother, I suppose, and that’s never been enough—”
“Yeah, Mom, I’ve gotta run,” Bryanne says. “Mike is calling me.”
Mike is absolutely not calling her, but she can see Atlas walking up the dock towards her, bearing a reusable grocery bag.
“Please call me later,” her mom says, and Bryanne mumbles her assent and then hangs up with relief.
Bryanne stands up when Atlas calls, “Hey, Bee!” and holds up the grocery bag like a weightlifter. “Brought you something!”
“You really didn’t have to,” Bryanne says. “I was just planning on stealing kitchen leftovers. There’s plenty of them.”
Atlas grins and comes on board. “Oh, I know. Catch—”
She tosses the bag to Bryanne, who dodges out of the way, thinking it’d be heavy, but it’s actually quite light, and falls to the ground with a plop rather than a clunk. Bryanne opens it, and discovers that it’s full of her clothes— some of her favorite shirts and her two best pairs of shorts.
“What the fuck?” she asks.
“Emergency preparedness course I took says that if you have to leave your house in a hurry, grab your dirty laundry bin, since by definition, it has the clothes you wear in it. I took the liberty, since you seemed like you were going to keep obeying that caution tape all over your front door.”
“You broke into my apartment?” She doesn’t need to ask how Atlas knew where she lived— the address was in the news.
“It’s not really yours anymore. I think the city took it.”
“It’s not structurally sound,” Bryanne says. But despite her immediate gruffness, she can’t help but be grateful for the clothes. The emergency outfits she keeps on board the Thylacine in case her usual work clothes get damaged or too dirty to wear are not her favorites, and are uncomfortable and too warm for the season.
“I wasn’t that worried,” Atlas says. “I think it did most of the collapsing it was going to.”
“You say that. But that’s what gets people killed. Things can always get worse.”
“Bee, I love how cynical you are.”
“Realistic.”
“Mmm.” Atlas cocks her head. “I gave Marcus his share of dirty laundry, too, but he seems happy as a clam wearing his costume. Something wrong with that man.”
“I hope he doesn’t have a concussion.”
“He sounded fine. But I’ll keep an eye on him, if you’re worried. Maybe you should ask Mike if he can stay with you here.”
Bryanne tosses the bag of laundry towards the stairs down to the Thylacine ’s cabins. “I’m not worried.”
“At all?”
“I think we might have broken up.”
“That is a lot of indeterminacy,” she says. “Did you break up or did you not?”
“I told him to go to hell.”
Atlas laughs. “Sure.”
“And he told me to quit my job here and move out, essentially. But we didn’t get to finish yelling at each other before the house fell down on us.”
“Will you?”
Bryanne goes to lean over the rail. “I don’t know. Maybe. I should stick out the season, at least.”
“Are you saying that because you actually want to stick out the season, or because Mike is letting you live here?”
“I could go stay at my mom’s if I had to.”
“There’s a reason I’m not staying with my parents,” Atlas says, faux scandalized. “You’re what, twenty-seven?”
“Eight.”
“Yeah, no, I wouldn’t go back to your mom’s house if I was you, either.”
“You think I should quit?”
Atlas leans on her elbows, facing the opposite direction from Bryanne, but speaking directly to her. “I’m not sticking out the season,” she says.
“Oh— fuck you!” Bryanne says, instantly angry. “Do you know how much of a pain it is for the mates to have to give your lectures and stuff? It’s not my fucking job!”
Atlas holds up her hands. “Hey, you could quit, too. You’re right that it shouldn’t be your problem. Don’t let it be.”
“Mike wouldn’t be able to run tours without three mates,” she says. “I’m not the kind of person who can just run off whenever I don’t feel like sticking around and doing work.”
“So mean to me,” Atlas says dryly.
They fall silent for a minute.
“You and Marcus would get along,” Bryanne says. “You know, what we fought about was him telling me to take a job on an oil tanker.”
“And you said no, I assume.”
“I don’t particularly want to say fuck it, get my paycheck, and watch the world burn,” Bryanne says. “Like you said to me once, I’ve got my conscience in the right order.”
“It’s not really your problem,” Atlas says. She waves her hand. “It was fucked before you got here, and it’ll still be fucked after.”
Bryanne scowls. “Don’t you have nightmares about that whale?”
“I don’t dream,” Atlas says. “Never have.”
She should have expected that answer, but is nevertheless frustrated by it. “But you can just watch it and say, oh, I don’t care, I’ll let it happen.”
“Bee, I’m living in my boat. I’m not causing any problems for anybody,” Atlas says. “I don’t know what you think I can do about it. Atone for my parents’ sins?” She shrugs.
“I don’t know.”
They’re both quiet. “Here’s something you’ll be happy to hear,” Atlas says.
“What?” Bryanne can’t get any excitement into her voice, and Atlas’s comment was wry, anyway.
“My grandmother’s going to kick it,” Atlas says. “End of the line.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re not happy to hear that someone who really was responsible for the state of the world is about to die?”
“Is she going to hell?” Bryanne asks.
“You tell me,” Atlas says.
She shakes her head, and Atlas leans her arm on Bryanne’s shoulder.
“Anyway, that’s why I’m going,” Atlas says. “My parents want me there until she does die, and then the funeral, and whatever. So I’m off, sooner rather than later.”
“You break the news to Mike— I’m not going to run interference for you.”
“Already have,” Atlas says. “That’s part of why I hiked all the way over here. I stopped in the office before I came to see you.”
“And what did he have to say to it?” Bryanne looks at her carefully. “You seem pretty cheerful for someone who just got yelled at.”
“He just waved me out of the office,” she says. “I think he was busy. He didn’t seem to care.”
Bryanne purses her lips. “He should care.”
“Well, you talk to him about it. Maybe he has an alternate lined up, or something.”
“He definitely doesn’t. Our previous naturalist can’t come back— doctor’s orders to actually stay retired.”
Atlas shrugs.
“Are you leaving right away?”
“No,” she says. “I can probably do one or two more weeks. But it won’t be the rest of the summer and fall. As soon as the end is near, I’ll have to drop everything, borrow a car, get down there.”
“You won’t sail down?”
“Too slow.” She tugs on Bryanne’s ponytail, which makes her slap her hand away. “Hey— you can feel free to borrow my boat while I’m gone. Go out and have a nice time on the water when you’re not working.”
“What for?”
“What do you mean, ‘what for?’” Atlas asks. “Has anyone ever needed a reason to go sailing?”
“Yes,” Bryanne says.
“I think you’re the first sailor I’ve ever met who doesn’t actually like the sea,” Atlas says.
“I like the sea,” Bryanne protests. “I just…”
Atlas looks at her tenderly. “Hey— it’s a sailboat,” she says. “It’s quieter than this beast.” She slaps the Thylacine ’s rail. “I see whales out there all the time. They don’t get scared away from me with the prop noise.”
“I don’t think there are any left.”
“There’s plenty of humpbacks.”
“You know what I mean,” Bryanne says.
“I haven’t seen any scientist say that one was the last one. There’s some out there still, if you want to go look for them.”
“They don’t say that the species is extinct until fifty years after the last one’s seen,” Bryanne says. “They probably won’t even declare it during my lifetime.”
“Come on. You know there’s more out there.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Take me up on the offer,” Atlas says. “I’m told that performing acts of charity is good for my soul.”
“I’m not a charity case,” Bryanne says.
“You’re homeless, aren’t you?”
Bryanne shakes her head and walks off.
Bryanne thinks about going to find Marcus before her next tour departs, and she even heads down to the Wampanoag on Thursday to catch a glimpse of him. But she goes during his tour hours, so that she has a convenient excuse at hand not to talk to him, if she decides that she doesn’t want to.
She doesn’t. She sees him on the deck, gesturing to the tryworks and leading around a big family group in shirts that say WARREN FAMILY REUNION on them, and decides it’s best not to try to interrupt, even though she could find him during his lunch break, or when the tour group moves on to the next step. He sees her standing on the dock, and their eyes meet, his widening in an expression of surprise, like he’s seen a ghost. He raises his arm in a silent wave, and she nods back, but neither of them call out to each other. She doesn’t stick around, pretending that she has some errand to run further away in town.
It’s strange to not talk to Marcus, to not even text him. She is used to him, in the way that people who have been living together entwine their lives, every thought circling back around to the other eventually. It’s hard, in that circumstance, to evaluate if she loves him, or if she is just accustomed to him. The pleasure of going out of her way to see him that she felt when they first started dating has faded over time into a simple knowledge that he would be there— a sure thing waiting for her every time she stepped back on shore. There is a relief and comfort in that, but she isn’t sure it is the same thing as love. Does she feel free without him, or does she feel lost? The difference is hard to calculate.
Regardless, it’s a relief when Friday morning comes, and the Thylacine gathers her passengers up to go. There’s fewer than there usually are, about half of the cabins empty. Bryanne checks the passenger list again and again as she stands at the gangway and checks in the small group of people who board— are there really this few? The gaggle of them gathered down at the dock looks forlorn, even though by the time boarding time rolls around it’s blindingly bright outside. The passengers’ shadows stand out stark on the ground, an extra set of immaterial forms boarding the ship with them.
One of the passengers, a woman whose husband has walked on ahead without paying Bryanne any attention at all, says to Bryanne as she gets on board, “I thought about not coming, since I saw the news, but we had already booked everything, and it would have cost us more to cancel than just to go.”
“Well, I’m glad you came,” Bryanne says. “I’m not sure I know what news you’re referring to.”
“You saw that dead whale,” the woman says.
“Yes.”
“They’re saying that was the last one in the area.”
“I doubt it,” Bryanne says. “They have different migration patterns, and they have plenty of opportunity to come back into the bay. It’s a rich feeding ground for them, and ships have limited speeds there, so it’s safer for them…”
But the woman isn’t really listening. “And I saw the photos,” she says. “It looked really awful.”
At least that explains why the tour is so bereft of passengers, if there’s been some sort of shocking news article telling people that there won’t be any whales, especially one with the company’s name attached to it. It’s very bad PR. Presumably people who would book a tour with them in the first place are the type to pay attention to that kind of news.
“It was sad,” Bryanne says, and she keeps her voice as flat as she can, because thinking about the dead whale makes her want to scream. “But I’ll talk to the captain. Maybe we can take a little jaunt out to Stellwagen, to see some humpbacks.”
“That would be nice,” the woman says, and wanders off once Bryanne gives her the welcome envelope with instructions on how to get into her room.
As soon as she has a spare second, Bryanne tries to find the news article that the woman was referring to, and she does find several articles, but the moment she opens them, she’s inundated by pictures of the dead whale, and has to close them immediately. It’s not that she has a squeamishness about it, but the open, dead eye of the animal looks out at her and makes it hard for her to breathe.
When they cast off and pull out of New Bedford’s docks, it’s high tide, the water sloshing against the wooden supports of the piers, pushing against the stone walls that hold the sea back from the cobblestone streets of the historic district.
During storms, this whole area tends to flood, the river overflowing its banks and spilling into the arteries of civilization: roads and basements and storm drains. She knows that in her lifetime, the sea level has risen almost two feet. Civil works project after civil works project has tried to shore up the coastline, to keep the beaches from sliding down beneath the waves, to keep the waves from sliding up over the cities on the coast.
She pictures the future, the Thylacine like a doomed Noah’s ark, bobbing along the top of the ocean, the sail screaming and clacking in the wind like the voices of a thousand seagulls, riding a tidal wave that sweeps across the city. There goes her apartment, underwater. There goes the library. There goes the museum. The Wampanoag is tied down too tightly to the dock; when the water rises, it strains against its ties but can’t escape them, and the water crushes it, too. Atlas, on the deck of the Whole Wide World, casts off with a grin and a holler: “This place has gone to the dogs, hasn’t it?” And she bobs away over the top of the city, the water swallowing everything.
Bryanne looks down into the water, picturing her daydream, and hoping at least in this waking nightmare, she’ll see a whale down below, taking its place in the ocean-sky above New Bedford. But the only thing she can imagine, swimming their cold and silent way through the streets, twisting and turning between the buildings, are sharks.
She shakes her head to clear it, and turns back towards the centerline of the boat, real and chugging along. The propeller throws up a churn of white foam behind them, and she watches that for a while— it’s hypnotic— until she goes to find Mike at the helm.
Aside from checking in when she first got on board, this is the first time she’s spoken with him in days, since the night she called him and asked if she had permission to sleep on board. He’s looking ahead, and nods at her as she comes in. He has a grim look on his face, and she’s not sure what it means.
“Did we have a big group cancel, or something?” Bryanne asks, holding up their half-empty passenger list.
“Lots of small groups,” he says. “But I think even before that, we were having trouble booking full.”
“Ah.”
“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that,” Mike says, which is never a good thing to hear.
“About what?”
“Financials,” he says.
She’s silent, and waits for him to continue.
“We’re probably going to end the tour season early,” he says. “If we can’t figure out a way to get revenue back up, we’re going to have to start cutting costs.”
Bryanne says nothing, just goes over to look at the whale sightings list on the wall, then at the logbook on the table. She’s not sure what she’s looking for, only that she has to put her eyes somewhere, and looking at the log and the instruments at least feels like something that she should be doing.
“It won’t be for a while,” Mike says. “And it isn’t my decision. I’m pushing to extend it for as long as possible, because giving refunds will dig us deeper into the hole, but I don’t know how much I can push for. We might get through August, but we’re not getting through October.”
“I understand,” Bryanne says.
“I know that this is a problem for you,” he says. “Especially because of your house—”
“It’s fine.” She cuts him off. “Don’t worry about me. I have it under control.”
He glances at her sidelong— he doesn’t believe her, but he respects her enough not to press the issue. “Alright.”
“I figured this might be the case,” she says. “Since Atlas told you she’s quitting, and you didn’t worry about it.”
“It’s one less person whose livelihood I have to worry about being responsible for wrecking.”
Bryanne snorts. “I think our local trust fund baby will be just fine.”
“I was under the impression that she was going to get cut off if she didn’t get her life together and stop running around the globe,” Mike says.
“Sure,” Bryanne says. “I’m sure someone even believes that’s the case.”
“Well, now you know.”
“Always glad to be the last one to find out,” she says dryly.
“It gives you time to find some other work,” Mike says. “I can make some calls for you, if you need a recommendation—”
“I’ll let you know.” She snaps the logbook shut and puts it back on the shelf where it belongs. “My uncle says he knows someone who’s looking for a first mate.”
“That’s good. If you do need anything—”
“We should try to get more wedding groups,” she says, abruptly changing the subject. “That’s what we should focus on in our advertising, I think. They have a harder time canceling.”
“Or an easier one, if the wedding falls through,” Mike says. “But that’s a next season problem. It’s too late to book any big groups now.”
Assuming there will be a next season— that’s the height of optimism.