Mary Alice Monroe - Swimming Lessons

And never was that more true than today.

She glanced over her shoulder at the white crate in the back bed of Brett’s pick-up truck. Big Girl lay quietly beneath a padding of towels. Toy chewed her lip, hoping the towels were still damp. Sitting shoulder to shoulder beside Cara and Brett in the front seat of the pick-up, she directed Brett to the rear loading dock of the Aquarium. She sighed with relief when she spotted two male volunteers in Aquarium logo shirts waiting at the black iron gate.

“Hey Favel! I sure am glad to see you,” Toy called out as she hopped from the cab of the truck. Her gym shoes landed with a soft thud on the cement. “We had a heck of a time hoisting Big Girl into the crate for the trip in.”

“Big Girl?” Favel’s white hair was like snow on top of a tall mountain and made all the more striking by his deep tan. He was typical of the dedicated volunteers who spent as much time working at the Aquarium as the hired staff. Favel had been a diver since the Aquarium opened. Retired, he had to be forty years older than Irwin, a baby-faced college student majoring in marine biology.

“That’s what we call the loggerhead. When you try and lift her, you’ll know why.” Toy turned and made quick introductions to Cara and Brett.

“Ethan isn’t too happy that you’re bringing this turtle into his domain, you know,” Favel told her in a low voice.

“He isn’t?” she asked, feeling a sudden stab of nervousness.

“You know how fanatic he is about cross contamination,” he replied. “And, the fact that no one consulted him.”

She swallowed hard, feeling her insecurity about bringing the turtle into the Aquarium as a lump in her throat. “Well, Jason approved it.”

“Right,” Favel said, acknowledging Jason as the last word. “So, let’s give this turtle a room at the inn.”

Brett helped the two men load the heavy crate onto a rolling cart. Toy followed them as they rolled it toward the lower dock entrance of the building. Toy didn’t have much occasion to come to the cavernous port entry. Down here, enormous, monolithic cement pilings rose to form the underpinning of the Aquarium. Charleston Harbor flowed in and out of giant square bins, rising and falling with the tide and filling the air with the pungent scents of mud and salt. The raucous cry of gulls and the horn of the tour boat, Spirit of the Carolinas, sounded in the distance. The wild sea hovered at the precipice of the great Aquarium.

Inside the Aquarium the basement literally thrummed with power. Giant pipes and wires snaked along the ceiling. Red painted pumps, shiny black valves and rows of gray steel fuse boxes lined the walls. She followed the cart to the huge industrial service elevator and pushed the button for the third floor where Jason told her a holding tank would be waiting. She clenched and unclenched her fists as the elevator crawled slowly upward, worried about Ethan’s reaction. She hoped that the others did not sense her nervousness. At last the elevator steel doors yawned open and they stepped out into another world.

The Great Ocean Tank, which the staff simply called the GOT, extended over two levels of the Aquarium and held 380,000 gallons of water and hundreds of animals and plants. From the public’s side, the great tank provided breathtaking views of the sandy sea floor, the rocky reef, and the deep ocean to the public. Here at the top of the tank, however, behind the curtains, it was markedly different from the gleaming, light-filled rooms the public saw. Back here was the heart of the exhibit.

The top of the GOT was rimmed with ceiling-to-floor black curtains on one side, like a wall of starless night separating the exotic world that lived in the ocean tank from the utilitarian world of giant pumps and filters behind it. Pipes and valves connected to cavernous filtration tanks pumped salt water in and out of the tank like major arteries and veins to the heart.

Behind the GOT were several smaller tanks. These held quarantined fish, hospitalized fish, and back-up stock to replenish the main exhibit. She knew most people didn’t have a clue how much effort went into caring for a major Aquarium. It truly was manipulating a world for the animals.

And this world was the realm of Ethan Legare.

“Where is Ethan?” she asked, looking around as they rolled the crate onto the floor.

“He’s usually in the tank first thing,” Favel told her. “He dives to make sure all the animals in the tank are okay. And to check for floaters on the surface. He’s got a big shark that likes to snack at night.”

“And Jason?”

“Haven’t seen him yet.”

She exhaled, anxious that no one had been here to meet her. She turned to the group. “Could y’all just wait here for a minute? I’m going to go find someone who can tell us where to put Big Girl.”

As she walked toward the top of the Great Ocean Tank, she couldn’t help but notice how meticulous Ethan was in his care of the area. Every hose, pipe and brush was in place and the water in each of the smaller tanks was gleaming. He must have been here for hours already, she thought.

She came to the steel railing that surrounded the huge mouth of the tank and looked down. No matter how many times she experienced it, looking down into forty-four feet of crystal clear water teeming with giant fish was surreal. She spotted a tall, lean man standing on the metal dive platform inside the Great Ocean Tank. He was dripping water from his black dive suit and bent over a large dead grouper. He seemed focused on his task and she hesitated to disturb him. Looking over her shoulder, she saw the group waiting around the turtle. Deciding, she called out, “Ethan!”

He immediately lifted his head to look over his shoulder. Water cascaded from the tips of his brown hair down his face. He lifted his hand in a brief wave.

“I’ll be right up,” he called back then turned back to the half eaten fish at his feet.

She waved in acknowledgment and ducked away with a sigh of relief. He didn’t seem too put out at having his third floor kingdom invaded by a sick animal.

She didn’t know Ethan Legare all that well. He was a senior staff member and one of her superiors, thus he breathed the rarified air of management. Ethan remained an enigma to most of the lower level staff she worked with, as well. No one knew much about him, other than that he came from an old Charleston fishing family and had a sterling reputation as a marine biologist. She’d heard colleagues talking with a twinge of envy about the exotic places he’d traveled to while doing research.

It wasn’t long before Ethan joined them at the cart, still in his black wet suit. He’d slicked his dark hair back with his palms but narrow trails of water still dripped down his face and lingered on the tips of his lashes.

“Ethan, this is Cara and Brett Beauchamps,” she said, stepping up to make introductions. “They’re members of the Island Turtle Team and helped bring the turtle in. You remember my talking about them, don’t you?”

“I do,” he replied, extending his hand. Though dressed in a wet suit, Toy noticed he had the manners of a man in a three piece suit. “Thanks for all your help.”

The elevator doors opened again and this time, Jason stepped out. He grinned and waved in jovial welcome, shaking hands with the group and slapping Ethan’s back.

Jason, too, was a source of feminine gossip at the Aquarium. Like Ethan, he was in his thirties, tall, great looking, and unmarried. Jason wore his dark hair neatly trimmed and his manner was more open and less reserved than Ethan’s, despite the seniority of his position. Ethan and Jason were equally passionate about the Aquarium and their work, which prompted a lasting friendship and mutual respect between them. Avid fishermen, their expeditions to gather specimens for the Aquarium garnered them their nickname, “the saltwater cowboys.”