“Hope, I love you.”
“Back at you.” I bare my teeth in my most charming smile.
Zuri’s lips flatten into a line, the same exasperated expression I often receive from friends and family. “I love you, but that would be the third one-star rating I’ve had since I hired you.”
“Technically, the first one came when I was still training, so…”
“Hope,” she repeats my name with the warning tone of a mom threatening to turn the car around. “You’re fired.”
I’ve never been fired before, and it’s a unique sensation. Like bungee jumping at a discounted rate. A thrill mixed with a reasonable amount of panic. Freeing, but also mildly horrifying.
“Fired, fired?” My voice sounds stunned, even to my own ears. The fact that I didn’t want this job in the first place doesn’t mean I want it snatched out from under me. Shepherding tourists on paddleboards and kayaks isn’t where I saw myself at thirty, but helping out Zuri has given me an excuse to put off coming to grips with the embarrassing truth that I’ve let heartbreak derail my career. “Or more of a temporary suspension?”
“You really think I can pay you to sit the bench?”
“Fair point.” Surf to Shore is not exactly a corporation. “But I promise I can do better. Especially if you stop making me wear these shirts.” I pluck the fabric away from my chest, damp in the muggy June heat. “They’re an open invitation to—”
“Deliver unsolicited lectures about sharks?”
My mouth drops open, then I shrug. “I mean, yes.”
“Everything is an open invitation for you to educate people about sharks.” She sighs. “Which isn’t a bad thing, necessarily. That’s why I’m kicking you out of the nest.”
I squint against the sun reflecting off the brilliant turquoise of the lake behind her, my sunglasses forgotten in my beach bag as usual. “Are you the mama bird in this scenario?”
“When am I not?” she asks, and I chuckle, thinking of how she rounded up the employees this morning and checked to make sure everyone had a water bottle and snacks. Her smile fades, though. “I honestly don’t know what I would’ve done without your help after Eric’s accident.” She sniffs, but her eyes are dry, holding my gaze. “But I’ve found my way. And I refuse to be your excuse to keep hiding.”
I’m used to being called impulsive and single-minded, but I am not timid. I’m not hiding from anything. Except my old colleagues, career, and a certain shark researcher with midnight-dark eyes and a lopsided grin who broke my heart by letting go.
“I’ve only been here for a month.” My previous job, working on an invasive species study in northern Michigan, wrapped up in the spring. Knowing the project was coming to an end, I should’ve had something lined up, but returning to shark research also means facing my ex-boyfriend. The possibility of running into him has kept me stalled, procrastinating my job hunt as if delaying the inevitable will make a difference.
“Long enough to make it clear to everyone, including my customers”—I flinch at the emphasis—”that you don’t want to be here.”
Shoreline Dunes is one of my favorite places. But while the lack of sharks in the Great Lakes is a huge draw for some people, for me, it’s a drawback. I can’t reboot my career if I refuse to leave the safety net of my hometown.
“It’s embarrassing, how much time I let pass.” The words scrape their way past a throat gone dry. I drop my head, catching sight of the turquoise nail polish on my toes, chipped from navigating the rocks at the water’s edge.
What began as a few months away to help Zuri care for her young children after the sudden loss of her husband somehow turned into three years. Somewhere along the way, shark research became entangled with my feelings for Adrian, and if I can’t manage to separate the two, I’ll remain stranded.
A moment later, an arm comes around my shoulders. Zuri, pulling me in for a hug. “Life happens. But we keep going, right?” Her words are born of experience, picking up the pieces after unimaginable loss, and my heart lurches for her.
The truth is, I have no qualms about defending my employment history. My work in the lab gave me worthwhile experience. But applying for jobs or going back for a PhD means coming to grips with the fact that not only am I starting over but that my worst fears about love were absolutely founded.
“I was thinking of applying to the Shedd,” I tell her, and she pulls away, frowning.
You’d work at an aquarium in Chicago? With tourists?” Her skepticism tells me she’s fully aware of how I view tourists. One star. Would not recommend.
“Not like I plan to work the ticket counter.” Besides, I worked at an aquarium for a time, while earning my master’s degree, and unlike my current—former, I guess—gig working for Zuri, there were no complaints on my job performance back then.
A warm breeze shifts off the lake, bringing with it the crisp, earthy scent of freshwater, so different from the briny tang of the Atlantic. Here, at least, memories of the man I used to love with my whole heart aren’t everywhere I look, but the call of gulls is enough to transport me back to a dock at sunrise. Adrian’s calloused palm against mine, our fingers laced together.
The first time he’d told me caught me by surprise. I love you. I’d looked up at him, backlit by pink and violet and tangerine hues of dawn, all broad-shouldered vulnerability, and when he spoke those three words, my whole world changed.
Before that, I loved how effortless it felt to be near him. I loved how we fit together, even when we were apart. But that morning, I realized I loved him. Loved Adrian with a fierceness that defied comprehension.
Even now, my lips part in memory of the kiss that followed those words, threaded through with want and promise, my fingers flexing at the phantom touch of his tight curls beneath my fingertips, his touch remembered by every cell of my body.
But all I want is to forget.
A volleyball lands nearby, splattering my shins with grains of sand, and the whisps of memory dissolve. I toss it back to the group of swimsuit-clad beachgoers by the net. “I just thought I’d be over him by now.”
“You’re really going to let a guy keep you away from sharks?” She grabs one end of a kayak and I stoop to lift the other. It sounds irrational because it is, even though she knows full-well Adrian isn’t just any guy. He’s the guy, the one I never expected to find, never went looking for. The one who showed me a kind of love I didn’t think existed.
My feelings for him defy logic. No person should have that strong an effect on another. Love isn’t quantifiable, and yet here I am, still trying to fall out of love with a man I haven’t spoken to in years.
We hoist the kayak onto the rack, the fiberglass hull a reminder of the moments I spent with Adrian at sea, rushing to catch a glimpse of my first shark, pointing overboard at the dark shape below, his presence warm and solid against my shoulder, both of us breathless with excitement. Memories I can’t seem to leave in the past. “It just feels so daunting to start over.”
“Why don’t you reach out to some of your old contacts?” Zuri suggests, like I haven’t thought about that. But thinking is all I seem to do lately. The lack of action is unlike me. “They might have leads you’re not seeing online.”
Nothing I haven’t already considered and discarded. “I barely speak to anyone in the shark community.” Too painful without taking part. I don’t even have social media anymore to keep tabs on people. “Marissa is the only one who keeps in touch, and the last time we talked was her birthday.”
“Reach out. It’s worth a try.”
“Why, so she can tell Adrian I’m desperate?” She’s Adrian’s cousin, and while our friendship outlasted my relationship with him, I have no doubts of her ultimate loyalty.
“Aren’t you?” At my glare, she relents. “Is she that kind of person?”
“No.” Marissa’s not vindictive, or else she wouldn’t have spoken to me after I stopped dating Adrian. But family comes first, and distance has weakened our once strong friendship. “At least, I don’t think so, but—”
“Text her,” Zuri insists. “What have you got to lose?”
Good question. I’ve already lost the love of my life, my career, and as of five minutes ago, my day job. And I know Zuri won’t let up until I follow her advice. It’s impossible to bluff with a friend who’s known me since we both staged a walk-out—or maybe it was a crawl-out?—of tiny tot ballet class.
I squat by my backpack and dig out my phone, scrolling down to the thread with Marissa. Our last conversation was months ago, and I wince at the idea of breaking the silence with a request. But one thing that’s kept my friendship with Marissa intact is we always pick up right where we left off. Except this time, I’m going to raise the subject I haven’t broached in years.
Hope: Long story, but say I was looking to get back into shark research…
Marissa: I don’t care how long the story is, I need details! But first: are you really thinking of coming back??
Hope: Not just thinking about it.
Marissa: Please tell me you’re serious, because if so, your timing is perfection.
A thrill of anticipation runs through me. Another text appears, but the wind whips streaks of sand across my screen, obscuring the words. Hands unsteady, I swipe away the grains to reveal what might be my way back into shark research.
Marissa: Don’t get too excited. There’s a catch.
My mind instantly floods with potential issues. An unpaid position? Not ideal at this stage in my career, but I’ve got savings. Something that starts immediately? I could pack my bags and be gone tomorrow. A job outside the country? Logistical hurdles, but an exciting opportunity. I can only think of one dealbreaker. Working with Adrian.
Excerpted from SECOND TIDE’S THE CHARM by Chandra Blumberg. Copyright © 2024 by Chandra Blumberg. Published by Canary Street Press, an imprint of HarperCollins.
