Page 10 of The Hundred Loves of Juliet
That makes Colin flush even more.
It takes us five trips back and forth from the truck to the boat to get everything on board. I sing an old sea shanty under my breath; work puts me in a good mood.
“What about bait?” Colin asks when we’re finally finished.
“We’ll get that tomorrow morning right before we leave. That way it’s as fresh as possible.”
“Oh, right,” he says, pulling the notepad out of his coat pocket and jotting down this new information.
Down on the dock, Adam appears, waving at us. “How’d our greenhorn do?” he hollers.
“I’m still alive, Uncle!” Colin shouts.
Adam chuckles at the joke, although there’s an undercurrent of somberness to his laugh. This may be Colin’s first season of king crabbing, but the Merculief family has been in this industry for generations, and they’re well aware of the dangers that take place in the pitch-dark skies and freezing waters of January. On average, one crab fisherman in Alaska dies each week.
Thankfully, Adam’s girlfriend, Dana Wong, appears from the parking lot with a picnic basket and changes the subject. “Lunch?” she asks.
“Depends,” I say, although I’m already smiling as I climb down the ladder to the dock. “What do you have?” Dana owns the sole barbecue joint in town, and my stomach growls just thinking about what might be in that basket.
“Oh, nothing much,” she says with faux solemnity. “Smoked brisket, barbecued chicken, baked beans, cornbread.”
“And beer,” Adam adds.
“Well, if you’ve got beer, then I’m in,” I say. “Otherwise, I wasn’t the least bit interested.”
Dana shoves me, a little harder than playful, but that’s just the way she is. “Come on, boys. Let’s get out of the cold and I’ll feed you.”
The four of us head into the small trailer in the parking lot that serves as our operations office. The desk is neat but covered in stacks of invoices for the seafood plants that buy our king crabs. I’m damn grateful that Adam takes care of all this accounting andpaperwork. He’s a “people person,” and the customers love him. I, on the other hand, tend toward taciturn, and that isn’t the personality you need to land big accounts.
Colin unfolds a card table, and Adam and I rearrange the only chairs in the office around it. It’s a tight fit when we sit down—my back is pressed up against the window, Colin’s wedged in by the door, and Dana and Adam are flush against the desk—but once Dana unpacks the picnic basket, it doesn’t matter. The office smells gloriously of charred wood and smoked meat.
“Babe, you outdid yourself again,” Adam says, leaning over to give her a kiss. Unbeknownst to Dana, he’s been saving his share of the profits from this season’s catch so he can propose next month with “a ring so big it’ll give her arthritis.”
I look at them across the table, perhaps too wistfully, because Dana says, “You know, Seb, you could have what we have, if you let yourself.”
I shudder. I know full well what’ll happen if I give myself permission to be happy. Thoughts of Helene flit through my mind, and I have to bat them away like flies.
A cloud drifts over my mood. But I don’t want to spoil the lunch, so I shrug at Dana in that insouciant way of dedicated bachelors, with only one shoulder, as if it’s hardly worth the effort to explain how irredeemable I am. “I’m not the type to settle down.”
“True,” Adam says. “He’s already married to the boat. Better if Seabass sticks to flings with tourists who stay in Ryba Harbor for a couple days, then never come back again.”
Colin looks at me with teenage admiration.
“Ugh,” Dana says. “You can do better than that, Seb. Youdeservebetter.”
Do I, though? I’ve tried relationships with women other than Juliet. But they’ve always failed, because I’m “too aloof” and my girlfriends “can’t get close” to me. I made an effort, I truly did. But once you’ve been in love like I have with Juliet—once you’ve known what it’s like to pour your entire being into another, to hold your soulmate in your arms, to feel that warm sense of safety and comfort and belonging—you’re ruined for anything else. That’swhy I don’t date. It’s not fair to break hearts because I’m incapable of giving mine to any save Juliet, who already owns it.
Meanwhile, Dana gives Adam the stink eye. “I can’t believe that’s the kind of relationship advice you dole out to your best friend.”
Adam crosses his index fingers in an X in front of him, laughing, and says, “Back, woman! Don’t hex me with your glare.”
She looks at me and sighs. “See what I have to deal with?”
Adam darts in and steals another kiss from her. “You know you love it. You can’t resist trying to reform us.”
I laugh, and Dana takes a bite of her brisket to hide her smile.
When we’ve all eaten as much as we can, Adam hands me a bottle of cheap chardonnay. Alaskan lore provides that pouring wine on deck will bring fortune to the fishermen. “For tomorrow,” he says.
