Charlie, kneeling before the dog, caught the trembling creature up in his arms. As he walked away, the dog looked into his face. Charlie could feel its heart beating through the bony cage of its chest. When its warm tongue licked his hand, he screwed up his eyes against the brightness of the sun and breathed deeply.

  “Why’d you do that for?” Tom appeared at Charlie’s side. His breath smelled of beer.

  “It wasn’t right,” Charlie said.

  Tom scratched his head. “It’s jus’ an old dog,” he informed Charlie, as if perhaps this was knowledge his friend did not possess. “An old dog,” he repeated.

  “He shouldn’t of thrown a rock at it,” said Charlie. He shifted the dog in his arms, cradling its hind legs as he might a baby. “It’s just hungry is all. It wasn’t bothering nobody.”

  Tom whistled. “You know who that was you knocked down back there?” he asked. He didn’t wait for an answer. “That was Poker Greenwood. You don’t want to mess with Poker.” He shook his head wearily at the tragedy of the situation.

  “Too late for that,” said Charlie. “I already done it. Besides, he shouldn’t of hurt this dog.”

  “That there dog should of gone and done what Poker told it to,” Tom said. He looked at the dog accusingly, and it growled low in its throat. “Well, you should of,” Tom told it.

  They walked far enough that they were at the door to Charlie’s rooming house. “What now?” Tom asked him. “You gonna put that old dog down now and come have a beer with me?”

  Charlie shook his head. “Guess I’ll take him inside,” he said. “He’s still hungry. Guess I can give him somethin’.”

  Tom looked at the dog, then at Charlie. He put his hand on Charlie’s shoulder. “You are one crazy son-of-a-bitch,” he said. “Knockin’ down Poker Greenwood cause he took after this here old dog.”

  He petted the dog roughly on the head, ignoring the growl and the narrowed eyes. “You are one lucky dog,” he told it. “You got yourself a good man here. A good man.”

  He patted Charlie once more on the back, then walked away, singing the words to a song he appeared to be making up as he went along. Charlie watched him for a moment, then went inside. He carried the dog up the stairs to his room. Mrs. Ring, hearing him, looked out her door. When she saw the dog, she came out to have a look at it.

  “Man was beating it,” Charlie said before she could object. “Hurt him pretty good.”

  Mrs. Ring opened her mouth, then shut it again with a snap. She eyed the dog for a moment, then reached out to stroke it. The dog shrank back against Charlie. Then, understanding that Mrs. Ring meant him no harm, he allowed himself to be petted.

  “You got some food for it?” Mrs. Ring asked Charlie.

  Charlie nodded. “Got some hamburger,” he said.

  Mrs. Ring sighed. “Take him on up,” she said. “Poor thing.”

  Charlie nodded his thanks and climbed the rest of the stairs. Once in his room, he sat down on the bed with the dog in his lap. It had stopped shaking and was panting softly. Charlie rubbed its ears. “Good boy,” he said. “You’re a good boy.”

  Not knowing why, he buried his head in the dog’s fur. It smelled of oil and fish and salt. “You’re a good boy,” Charlie said as tears began to form in his eyes. “A good boy.”

  Hudson put the pages down. He had read the passage before, many times in fact. But still it moved him. He just wants something to love, he thought. Someone to love and to love him back.

  He yawned. Although it was nearing five—a perfectly reasonable time to get up—he wasn’t quite ready. He put the manuscript and the copied pages to one side. Five minutes, he told himself.

  It was much later than that when he awoke to the sound of his cell phone ringing. He fumbled for it on the bedside table, knocking over the empty water glass, which hit the floor and shattered.

  “Shit!” he said, looking at the pieces.

  “Pardon?” said a voice, and Hudson realized that he’d managed to answer the call.

  “No,” he said quickly. “I mean, hello. Who is this?”

  “It’s Ben Ransome.”

  Hudson had to think hard to recall where he’d heard the name before. Then, in a rush, it all came back to him: Monterey, Ricketts, coffee. “Ben,” he said, relieved. “It’s good to hear from you.”

  “I hope I didn’t wake you,” Ben said.

  Hudson glanced at the clock. It was after nine. “No,” he said. “I’ve been up for hours.”

  “Well,” said Ben, “I was calling to see if you might be free for dinner tonight. At my house. I thought we could continue our conversation about Steinbeck and Ricketts.”

  “Dinner,” Hudson repeated. “Sure. That sounds great. What time?”

  “How about seven?” Ben suggested.

  “Seven is fine,” said Hudson.

  “Great,” said Ben. “Here’s the address.” Hudson searched for a pen and scribbled down the address Ben gave him. “I’ll see you tonight,” Ben said when he was done.

  Hudson barely had time to respond in kind before the call was ended. He set the phone on the table and stared at it. He was filled with a vague sense of unease. But why? He knew it had nothing to do with Ben Ransome or his call. It was something left over from the night. He’d been dreaming about something, but now he couldn’t remember what it was. An image lurked in the recesses of his thoughts, just out of sight. He tried to call it forth, but it retreated swiftly.

  He noticed the papers strewn over the bed, and remembered. The dog. He saw it emerge from the darkness, its tail wagging hopefully. That’s what it was, he told himself. It was just the dog.

  CHAPTER 22

  “Can anyone tell me how deep the Monterey Canyon is?”

  A young man, his face bearing the harsh red eruptions of new acne, raised his hand. “Two thousand feet?” he said hesitantly.

  “Try again,” Ben said as the boy looked down at the floor and rubbed self-consciously at a spot on his chin.

  He waited for someone else to speak but was met with a sea of blank faces. After a full minute had passed, he sighed and gave them the answer. “The canyon bottom reaches a depth of around eleven thousand eight hundred feet,” he announced.

  He paused, expecting at least one or two of them to be impressed. When they clearly weren’t, he continued. “That makes it roughly the same size as the Grand Canyon,” he told them. This time there were a few appreciative nods. At least some of them have been on family vacations, Ben thought, trying not to be annoyed. But it was too late; he was already annoyed. He hated addressing the summer interns, the dozen or so high school students selected to spend a month at the station learning about marine biology. Most of them were the spawn of generous donors, accepted into the program in return for their parents’ continued financial support. Two or three had a genuine interest in the ocean; the rest just took up space and got in the way.

  It was a condition of Ben’s funding that he oversee the intern program. He resented the time it took away from his own work, and each year it was more and more difficult to feign enthusiasm for what he considered enforced babysitting. This year, however, Angela had offered to help him shepherd the would-be biologists, for which he was more than grateful. He looked at her, standing beside him, and shook his head. She stifled a laugh.

  “Because the Canyon comes so close to the shore here, we have a wonderful opportunity to study deep-sea life that we otherwise would probably never get to see,” Angela said, picking up the spiel she and Ben had rehearsed earlier that morning. “Numerous new species have been discovered by researchers utilizing our submarine program.”

  Ben listened as Angela described some of the research projects carried out at Hopkins. She sounds so enthusiastic, he thought. I remember when I sounded like that. But that had been quite a few years earlier. Now he was just weary of trying to make other people excited. His own work still interested him, but he wished he didn’t have to bother with all of the other stuff, the administrative duties and ass-kissing that seemed to be necessary to keep going. He hated that so much research was dependent on the beneficence of people with money, people who were usually more interested in the glory of patronage than in the actual discoveries their largesse made possible. He was always amazed by how much people were willing to give just to have their name attached to a newly discovered species of octopus. One of these days I’ll probably have to name a nudibranch Archidoris Paris Hilton, he thought, unamused by the thought.

  “So we hope all of you enjoy your time here at the Hopkins Marine Station. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me or Dr. Ransome.”

  Ben, sensing the weight of two dozen eyes suddenly falling upon him, was jolted back to the moment. He smiled stiffly. “Yes,” he said. “Ask me anything.” Now go away and leave me alone, he added silently.

  The interns obeyed, scattering to their assigned areas of the facilities, becoming somebody else’s problem, at least for the moment. Ben, sighing, retreated to his office with Angela. She shut the door as Ben dropped with relief into his chair.

  “That wasn’t so bad,” Angela said.

  Ben rubbed his temples. “I’m too old for this,” he said.

  “You’re not old,” said Angela. “They’re too young.”

  Ben smiled. “They get younger every year,” he remarked.

  “Well, I made sure none of them was assigned to your project,” said Angela. “That should help.”

  “Thank you,” Ben said, genuinely grateful. “I don’t think I could stand another year with some stupid girl who insists on calling nudibranchs ‘snails.’ ”

  “Hey,” Angela admonished him, “I was one of those girls once.”

  Ben looked at her with surprise. “You were an intern here?”

  “Seven years ago,” Angela answered. “But you wouldn’t remember. I worked with Dr. Rashid.”

  “Seaweed,” Ben said. “I remember her. She was researching cancer treatments.”

  Angela nodded. “Well, she decided there was more money in cosmetics,” she said. “Now she and her seaweed are coming up with ways to erase fine lines and wrinkles.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me before?” asked Ben. “About being an intern, I mean.”

  Angela shrugged. “I knew you wouldn’t remember,” she said. “Besides, it’s not important.”

  Ben looked at her. “So you fell in love with seaweed and decided to make it a career,” he said. “Interesting.”

  “Actually, it wasn’t seaweed,” said Angela. “It was a basket star.”

  “Really?” Ben said.

  Angela nodded. “They brought one up from one of the Canyon trips,” she said. “It was the weirdest thing I’d ever seen. I really wanted to know more about it, but of course I was too cool for that sort of thing.” She laughed and shook her head. “If it wasn’t about music or boys, it wasn’t cool enough for me,” she added. “But I never forgot that basket star, and eventually I figured out that it was way cooler than music and boys. That’s when I decided to study marine biology.”

  Ben leaned back in his chair and regarded the grad student from a new perspective. “So what you’re saying is that there’s hope for these little morons,” he said.

  “Well, for some of them,” said Angela. “Probably most of them will go right on being little morons. But you never know. One of them might fall in love with a squid or a decorator crab.”

  “I guess I should give them a little more credit,” Ben said.

  “Just a little,” agreed Angela.

  “How come you’re so much smarter than I am?” Ben asked her.

  “Not smarter,” Angela corrected him, “just younger.”

  “Hey!” Ben objected.

  Angela held up her hands. “All I’m saying is that maybe you’ve forgotten what it was like to be their age. I’m starting to, but I still remember it well enough to know that they haven’t figured out who they are yet.”

  “You’re right,” Ben admitted. “I don’t think it’s so much forgetting, though, as it is not wanting to remember. As I recall, it wasn’t all that much fun. At least, not for me.”

  “It’s fun for some of them,” said Angela. “But mostly it’s not. You’re old enough to know you want to be somebody, but you’re not old enough to be it. That’s frustrating.”

  Ben nodded. He understood that. That’s where Caddie is right now, he thought suddenly. She’s trying to be somebody she’s not ready to be. He’d been so consumed with figuring out who they were in each other’s lives that he’d neglected to realize that she couldn’t know that until she knew who she was.

  “The boy,” Ben said suddenly, and Angela looked up. “The one with the face,” Ben added, waving his hand in front of his chin to indicate the acne he recalled as the young man’s most distinguishing feature.

  “What about him?” Angela asked.

  “What’s he assigned to?” said Ben.

  Angela looked down at a list attached to the clipboard she carried. “Rhodes Latrell,” she read, running her finger along the page. “He’s working with Dr. Patcher.”

  “Salps,” Ben said dismissively. “Nobody cares about salps. Take him off that and put him with us.”

  “With us?” Angela repeated.

  “With us,” Ben confirmed. He saw that Angela was looking at him with an expression that combined wonder and amusement. “Nobody cares about salps,” he said again.

  “I’ll take care of it,” Angela said. “Anything else?”

  Ben shook his head. “No,” he said. “Send him in when you get a chance.”

  “Great,” said Angela. “I’ll get back to analyzing the extraction data from those dorids we brought in the other day. That is if they’re still in the refrigerator. I blended a dozen of them and Jenkins almost drank them. He thought they were a smoothie.”

  “That’s not a bad idea,” Ben said. “Nudibranch smoothies. I bet Jamba Juice would go for it. We can say they’re full of antioxidants.”

  “Okay, Dr. Rashid,” said Angela, standing up. “I’ll get right on that.”

  “It was just a suggestion,” Ben called out to her retreating back. “We can even name it after you. We’ll call it ‘Angela’s Archidoris Antioxidant. ’ ”

  Angela shut the door without responding. Ben, grinning, beat a tattoo on his desktop. He felt immensely better. Angela was a great girl. Woman, he corrected himself. She’s a great woman. Suddenly, he wished he knew someone he could set her up with. There was no one at Hopkins, at least no one he would want to see her with. And he had no idea what kind of guy she might be interested in anyway.

  Then he thought of Hudson Jones. He and Angela were probably close in age. Hudson was a good-looking guy, and he seemed intelligent. Yes, he thought, they might be good together. And since Hudson was coming to dinner that night, he had the perfect opportunity to introduce them.

  He was now in a much-improved mood. He would invite Angela to dinner, but he wouldn’t tell her about Hudson. Nor would he tell Hudson about Angela. It was perfectly natural that he would have the two of them over. Except that you’ve never had anyone over before, he reminded himself. He brushed the thought aside. It didn’t matter. Angela would come, and Hudson had no idea that he was Ben’s first dinner guest in recent memory.

  Having come up with a plan, he realized that he had given almost no thought to dinner itself. Pasta had been in the back of his mind, but now that seemed inadequate. The problem was, he didn’t know how to make anything else. It was his one culinary accomplishment. And you saw how well it went over with Caddie, he thought.

  Caddie. He’d been avoiding thinking about her. They’d had dinner together the night before, a strained half hour during which they’d downed Chinese food that Ben had picked up on his way home. He’d asked Caddie about her day and gotten vague answers in response. He hadn’t pressed her. She’d at least deigned to eat with him, which was an improvement over the previous two nights.

  After dinner she’d retreated to her room, claiming exhaustion. Ben had let her go, happy to spend the evening alone in his office. Peaceful disinterest was preferable to outright hostility, and if Caddie didn’t want to talk about her life with him, he would let her have her secrets. How much trouble can she get into in Monterey anyway? he’d thought. It wasn’t like L.A., with its endless temptations for a young woman.

  Part of him hoped Caddie wouldn’t make an appearance at dinner that night. Immediately he felt guilty for thinking such a thing. Of course he wanted Caddie there. But only if she behaves herself, he admitted. Suddenly his mind flashed back to when Caddie was three or four. Carol had wanted to take Caddie to dinner with them at a restaurant that, while hardly gourmet dining, was several notches above fast food. Ben had protested. “What if she acts up?” he’d said. “She’ll bother the other diners.”

  “She’s a child,” Carol had argued. “Of course she’s going to act up. And we’ll deal with it.”

  There had been a big argument, and ultimately Ben had lost. They’d taken Caddie, and she had acted up, refusing to eat what they ordered for her and throwing a tantrum. Ben, mindful of the annoyed glances from other patrons, had begged Carol to leave. “She’ll never learn if we give in to her,” Carol had said. And so they’d stayed, Ben trying to eat his steak while Carol, with great patience, calmed Caddie down and got her to at least try her spaghetti.

  Spaghetti, he thought. She wouldn’t eat it for me then, and she won’t now. It was ironic, in the most obvious yet painful of ways. He had been unable to understand his child then, and he was unable to understand her now. Then again, he reasoned, Carol couldn’t handle her now either. The problem of Caddie had grown too big for both of them. Or perhaps Carol had just run out of patience. Or maybe now she cares what other people think, thought Ben. What was acceptable at three was, at sixteen, more difficult to defend against the reproachful looks of strangers.