August 20, Juneau

Laura sat at a high bar stool on the pool deck, eating a wood-fired margherita pizza from a small counter service restaurant. She marveled at the thought of building a wood fired pizza oven fifteen stories above the cold Pacific ocean. But she couldn't argue with the results; a crisp, spotted crust and fresh and fragrant basil and tomatoes.

A chef walked in front of the oven and started launching small pies into the clay and brick behemoth with a large peel.

Laura cleared her throat. "Chef, can I ask you a question?"

The man nodded. "Sure, we have 90 seconds while these bake."

"How do you get fresh basil and tomatoes at sea?"

The chef wiped his forehead. "We load the tomatoes into the ship green, and then we ripen them with ethylene gas as we go." He leaned against the counter. "The basil is a little harder."

Laura nodded. "Makes sense."

"We buy it from a hydroponic grower, then we keep it alive in hotel pans of water. When we need it, we lop a chunk off."

"So you keep it on life support and then tear off its limbs one by one? Kind of morose."

The chef laughed, and his timer beeped. He pulled the pizzas out of the oven with the huge peel, and handed them off to another cook who sliced them with a large polished mezzaluna.

She started to hear a murmuring on the deck about whales. A couple in teak lounge chairs started talking about it. Well, the much younger wife anyway. The fossilized husband just grunted, bloody Mary in hand.

She walked back to her room and took off her blazer and her holster, stashing her sidearm in the room pin-pad safe, and hanging her blazer on a coat hook. She settled in to read her emails and scanned a new flurry of activity about a security detail for a controversial tech CEO. It was a slow, boring tennis match. A serve: where should we arbitrate disputes? A volley: are these performance milestones adequate?

There were about 25 emails about his office. He wanted to stay in a 30th floor corner office with glass, to look over his kingdom. Laura insisted that he move to a ground floor office. What if he needed to be evacuated? Why take the risk of waiting for an elevator if a bad guy with a gun shows up? Ultimately, Laura brought his insurance carrier into the fray, and they refused to cover him if he was above the second floor.

Laura heard a knock at the door and shook her head to clear her mind. She opened the door to Francis, still in a dark suit but holding the promised bottle of Chateauneuf-du-Pape Blanc, and two wine glasses in one hand. In the other, he held a plate with a wedge of Camembert, baguette, and a sliced peach. A large pair of binoculars hung around his neck.

"Get in, Francis. We're running a stakeout on some whales."

He smiled. "I have snacks."

"You understood the first rule of a stakeout: always bring snacks." She held the door as he walked in. "We're off to a good start."

She slid the door to the balcony all the way open. The smell of salt water blew in on the cool air. The low late evening sun cast long shadows over the water. Francis carried the wine and cheese to the small teak balcony table. He fiddled with the controls on one of the teak lounge chairs, and adjusted it to sit upright. He perched on the side of the chair. Laura grabbed her jacket and the waiter's corkscrew by her ice bucket.

She sat on the edge of the other lounge chair and picked up the wine bottle, looking at it appraisingly. "This is a solid bottle of wine, Francis. Thanks for sharing it. And great work with the fruit and cheese."

"Happy to. I don't know the first thing about wine, honestly. I feel like I should, working on a ship like this."

Laura peeled the foil from around the cork. "Don't stress about it. Seriously. The entry into wine knowledge should be through enjoyment and appreciation, not a fear of your own deficits."

"That should be on a motivational poster."

She tilted her head. "Ha ha, very funny. It's the truth, though." She screwed the corkscrew partially in. The bottle felt cold in her hands, and wet with condensation. She levered out the cork with a quiet sound, and poured two glasses. "Take this wine. You can know the terroir, the unpronounceable name, and the backstory that white wines from this region are under-appreciated. Or, you can just drink the damn thing."

He sipped tentatively.

"Smelling anything?"

"I'm not sure. Fruit?"

"Definitely." She took a long sniff. "Some stone fruit, a little bit of powdery floral, maybe a little pear." She took a sip. "Taste anything that stands out?"

"Oh wow." He said. "It's acidic. Kind of like sour green apple candy."

"Bingo. See? You've got it." She leaned forward and sliced a small hunk of camembert. "Now try it with some cheese."

He did the same. "Oh no. I could get used to this."

"Right? This is a strong wine. It stands up against a heavy, runny cheese." She plucked a slice of peach. "There's a lot of stone fruit and almond in this wine, too. It's great with peaches. They have the same kind of acidity and round fruit flavor. And besides, it's a good break from fatty cheese."

"Makes sense." He turned around to sit forward in his deck chair. "How did you learn this much about wine, anyway?" He paused. "Don't take this the wrong way, but you aren't old. And you don't seem... pretentious."

She turned in her chair, and looked at the ocean. "I spent a few years working in kitchens. One of my summers in college, I had the chance to stage in a very old school Parisian kitchen. They had a Michelin star."

"Oh wow."

"It sounds like an 'oh wow,' but sometimes it felt like more of an 'oh shit.' They worked you from 8am to 3pm, then from 5pm to about midnight." She sipped slowly.

"Sounds like cruise ship hours."

"Ouch. The kitchen was a brigade. So it was hierarchical, and it worked like a well oiled machine. A stage sounds fancy, but it's really unpaid manual labor. You put in a few weeks of around the clock work, to hopefully impress one of the chefs. They generally don't notice, though. A stagiaire is basically invisible. Or, you do it to put the name on your resume. So, you spend a few hours in the morning preparing a heap of onions and shallots. They have to be the exact right brunoise. Then, if a chef trusts you, you can crack lobsters for part of the day."

"Why did you do it?"

"Well. I'd worked my way through school so far in kitchens. I'd done a lot. And put up with a lot. France is the mothership, if you're cooking in a western kitchen. So, it seemed like the next step." She sighed. "Anyway, they'd work you to the bone. This restaurant had a wine shop. One of the Chef-de-Partie brought a bottle of wine out for the afternoon break. We'd sit on milk crates behind the kitchen drinking and talking about wine. He had a funny way of describing it. He said 'we are crushed by the machine all day. Why not drink something a machine crushed for us?'"

"Wow."

"Right? I spent the summer after that studying for the Sommelier exam. I made it to level 2."

"How many levels are there?"

"Four. So, big deal right? But, I always thought there was a life for me selling wine. It's my backup career."

"Sure. But wait, weren't you a cop?"

"That happened later. I got my degree in Political Science. No one really knows what to do with that degree. Even the professors. Or, especially the professors. There are no jobs, so you either keep studying and become a professor or do something completely different."

"Well, being a cop is definitely different."

"Very. But the weird thing is, the FBI recruits on campus a lot. A few of the three letter agencies do. Especially Poli Sci, History, and other degrees like that. They reached out to me before I graduated. Maybe there are enough true believers in the democratic system in a Poli Sci program."

"And they know there aren't any jobs."

She tipped her wine glass toward him. "That too." She tore off a chunk of baguette and reached for another slice of camembert. "That's a lot about me. What about you? How did you wind up here?"

He shrugged. "I wanted to travel. My family doesn't have a lot of money. I took a Greyhound from the middle of nowhere farm country, Canada to Vancouver. I got on the ship there. After this Alaska season, I have the option to do a few Caribbean routes in the winter."

"How are the hours?"

"Terrible."

"The pay?"

"I shouldn't be telling you this."

"It's fine. I'm friends with the captain. I can find out anyway."

"Oh God." He hung his head. "I thought you were. That's even worse."

"No. I was an actual narc. But, I won't narc."

"Fine. You won't be surprised. It's awful. You basically get a free room, a tiny stipend, and some tips." He looked up at the sky. "I don't really know what my plan is. I've heard you can make a better living getting promoted into the entertainment team. But who knows."

"So, it's one of those things you can only do when you're single and 20 years old?"

"Kind of like a stage in a restaurant."

She laughed. "Touche."

A few quiet moments passed by with the calm crashing of waves. Then, in the distance they caught sight of a splash. Francis sat bolt upright. "I saw one!"

He snapped the binoculars to his eyes.

Laura saw another splash, closer this time. "Look a bit closer in, just saw another one."

A third splash, right near the second. "There they are!" He laughed in excitement. "I can't believe it every time. They're amazing." They could hear distant cheers from the nearby balconies.

He leaned forward and threw the binoculars' loop over his head and passed them to Laura. She raised them to her eyes, adjusted the focus, and scanned for the water churned by the last jump. She caught an adult Orca jumping. She could see the spots of black and white, and water spraying from its blowhole. "Beautiful."

****

A few decks above, Helen stood at the long bank of windows at the bridge. She balanced her spotting scope against the windowsill, and held her phone behind it. She snapped a picture of a breaching whale and smiled. She sent the picture to Alex with a whoosh.

In Seattle, Alex and Iris huddled over the bright glow of his phone to see the whales.