Page 43

I laugh awkwardly. Oh, if she only knew. “It’s nice to meet you both.”

“Are you taking summer classes or something?” asks Rosa.

“Oh, no. I just…” I pause. How much to tell her? “I’m just doing a bit of extra-credit work. Everyone says I should stop being such an overachiever,but I can’t help it! And… well, Mr. Chavez’s class really gave me a new appreciation for our local sea life. I’m dying to learn more about it.”

For the first time, my answer seems to have pleased Quint’s mom.

“You do know we aren’t a public facility?” says Shauna. She unclips a pen from the clipboard, thumping it against the pages. “But I can surely help you schedule an appointment. Rosa, I’ll go check your calendar for the week.” She heads into the building, humming to herself.

“I’m sorry,” I say to Rosa. “I didn’t mean to intrude. If I could just ask a few questions about, say, local marine habitats, and maybe how tourism impacts the lives of these gorgeous animals?”

Rosa chuckles, but it lacks humor. “Well, I could give you loads of information about that,” she says dryly. “But Shauna is right. This isn’t a good day. I’m sorry. One of my volunteers didn’t show up, and we just recovered a sea lion this morning—it’s the second time she’s been brought in, which is…” The groan she makes is full of disappointment. But then she waves her hand at me, brushing her frustration aside. “Never mind. It’s a sad story. Maybe we can schedule a phone call? Or here, I’ll give you my card and maybe you could just email your questions?”

“Yeah,” I say as Rosa walks past me into the lobby. She starts riffling through a desk drawer. “That would work. That’d be great, actually.”

She finds a card and hands it to me, then stands back, two fingers pressed to her lips. Her apprehensive frown has returned. “You know,” she says uncertainly, “Quint could probably tell you as much about this place as I could. Maybe you could talk to him?”

I laugh. I can’t help it. If she’s making this suggestion, then she must not know the details of our less-than-stellar partnership after all.

“No,” I say, wishing I could snatch back the laughter as soon as it’s out. “I mean, I’m sure he’s… I just really think it will look better for my project if I can talk to the…” I glance down at the card. “Owner and director. Not, you know. Her son.”

“Well, be that as it may, I know your biology teacher was very supportive of Quint’s time here. If you do decide to come back, maybe we can talk a bit about those volunteer opportunities you mentioned. Honestly, it’s been along time since we brought in new help, so I’m not entirely sure what I’d do with you. But with some training, it might actually be nice to have another set of hands.”

“Right,” I say, tucking the card into my pocket. “Volunteering. Yeah. I’m really sorry no one is around to… train me? I’m sure that really takes a lot of time and effort. You know, I should probably just let you get back to work. But I’ll email you some questions for sure. Thank you.”

Her eyes wrinkle around the edges when she smiles, and it’s odd how she can look simultaneously too young and too old. I find myself searching for a resemblance to her son. Her hair and skin are darker, and her eyebrows are reasonably tamed… though I suppose that could be maintenance as much as genetics. She’s a beautiful woman, and I can see vestiges of her youth. I think she might have looked more like Quint at one point. But she also seems tired, stressed. Like there’s a weight on her shoulders that hasn’t been lifted for a long time. Whereas Quint exudes a carefree confidence, like there isn’t a thing in this world that could worry him.

“Thanks for stopping by,” she says.

“Of course.” I tip my head gratefully, backing toward the door. “I’ll just let you—”

My back smacks into something and I stumble. A hand grabs my arm to steady me.

I glance over my shoulder and freeze.

So doeshe,his hand still gripping my arm.

“Oh. Quint,” I say, daring to smile. “Wow. What a small world!”

FOURTEEN

“P-Prudence?” Quint stammers.

He’s wearing a yellow T-shirt, too, and now I can see the logo printed on the chest. The wordsFORTUNA BEACH SEA ANIMAL RESCUE CENTERsurrounded by a ring of turtles and seals and dolphins.

“What are you doing here?” I say, even though I’m staring right at the answer.

He works here.

But that means that Quint Erickson has a job. Or, at least, a volunteer job. I wonder if his mom pays him to be here. Somehow, that idea seems easier to digest. Either way, though, the utter lack of responsibility he showed all year long makes it impossible to imagine him staying in anyone’s employ for long.

Maybe his mom just hasn’t had the heart to fire him.

Quint lifts an eyebrow and his hand falls away. He walks around me, into the lobby, which is suddenly cramped with the three of us standing there. “I work here,” he says. Then his eyes narrow, first skeptically, and then into something almost smug. “You read the paper, didn’t you?”

I cross my arms. “Maybe.”

I wish his mom weren’t here so I could immediately start yelling at him. All my annoyances from the morning come storming back. How he went completely rogue on our project, without even bothering to inform me of theparticularly relevant and might-have-been-helpful information thathis mom runs an animal rescue center.