Joanne Michael - It Takes Two

“No kidding,” Abby said. “And I hope you understand that I feel pretty strongly about what I do. And I’m certainly not here to put anyone out of work.”

Marc nodded. They never are, he thought to himself.

THE FOG from the night before was just burning off when Abby shut the gate behind her the next morning. She looked back over the fence and saw Figgy contentedly chewing on a bone next to the apartment door. Confident the small dog would be fine until lunch, Abby turned, hitched her bag up onto her shoulder and walked down the road in the direction of the marine center.

The facility itself was housed in a large, three-story building on the banks of the Saguenay River. A sloping driveway led down to the structure through a parking lot and past a spacious dry dock.

During the five minutes it took for Abby to walk from her apartment to the center, she didn’t pass a single person on the sidewalk. Off to her left, she could see some activity around a few of the boats tied to the town dock, but that was it. Farther out, past the bay, the mist still hung over the Saint Lawrence.

Glancing at her watch, Abby saw she was twenty minutes early for her introductory appointment with the center’s director, so she forced herself to walk around the building for ten minutes before entering the double glass doors to the main lobby and visitors’ center.

A pretty young woman at the front desk smiled at her. “May I help you?”

Abby walked over to the desk, reading the name tag on the woman’s vest. “Yes, thank you, Marie. I have an eight-thirty appointment with Dr. Bouchard.”

“Of course,” Marie said, picking up the handset on her desk phone. “May I have your name, please?”

“Abby Miller. Dr. Abby Miller.”

While Marie spoke softly into the phone, Abby looked around the lobby. The entire interior—walls, ceiling, carpeting—was blue. To the left of Marie’s desk was a gift shop, its shelves crammed with stuffed plush whales, whale books, CDs of whale songs, posters of sea life, and the usual coffee mugs, glasses, T-shirts, hats, tote bags and key chains all with the whale theme.

“Dr. Miller?” Abby turned at the deep baritone voice to see a smiling, bearded man she judged to be in his late thirties.

“Dr. Bouchard?”

“I’m very pleased to meet you,” Peter Bouchard extended a hand. “Welcome, and please, call me Pete. We’re a pretty informal bunch around here, as you’ll quickly see.”

“Thank you.” Abby shook the director’s hand. “It’s great to finally be here.”

“Everyone is looking forward to meeting you. Most of the researches are out for the week, taking some last days off before the summer season begins. But they’ll start trickling back in by the weekend. If you’d like, I can show you around.”

“I’d love it,” Abby said. “If we have time for it now.”

Pete shook his head. “Now’s the perfect time. Besides, I’m very proud of this place and welcome the opportunity to show it off.”

Abby laughed, already liking the man who would supervise her research for the next twelve months. “Then by all means, lead on.”

“This is our public area.” Pete indicated the lobby and gift shop. “You’ve already met Marie?”

“Not formally,” Abby said, shaking the woman’s hand. “Hello.”

“Marie is our director of volunteers,” Pete told her.

“Do you have many volunteers here?” Abby asked.

“We have a volunteer staff of around thirty,” Marie said. “They do everything from run the gift shop to give museum tours.”

“In addition to Marie’s volunteer army, we have ten full-time researchers working out of here with another half-dozen lab assistants,” Pete told Abby. “Plus a full maintenance crew and a small secretarial staff.”

Pete directed Abby into a darkened room to the left of the entryway.

“This is our museum,” Pete said, as they walked down the hallway. “Keep in mind, we’ve still got two weeks before we officially open to the public, so things look a little rough right now. It’s taken longer than we planned to change our exhibit for the year.”

Both sides of the hall were pocketed with enclosed display cases depicting the life cycle of the Saguenay whales. In the museum itself, the first thing Abby saw was a massive skeleton of a fin whale hung from the ceiling, keeping a silent watch on a large-scale model of the Saguenay River Fjord, Tadoussac Bay and the surrounding area.

Along the walls, display cases hung open with an array of smaller marine models, and literature and photographs lay scattered around the floor.

“See what I mean.” Pete touched the corner of a drop cloth with the toe of his shoe. “But we’ll have it ready to go by the time the tourists get here,” he said confidently. “Now, right through here….” He led Abby through a door on the far side of the room marked Employees Only.

“The labs are all on the second floor,” Pete said as they walked up a flight of stairs that opened into a long hallway, doors on either side.

They stopped at the second door and Pete rapped softly on the jamb.

“Chris, you in here?”

“Yo, boss, right here.” A young man in a garish Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts, his long blond hair tied back in a ponytail, bounced up from behind a stack of boxes, clipboard in hand.

“Chris Gervais, meet Dr. Abby Miller. Abby, this is Chris. You’ll want to be very, very nice to him. He oversees the assignment of all laboratory space here and he is only too aware of the power he holds.”

Chris shook Abby’s hand. “Don’t believe a word he says. I can’t be swayed by sweet talk. Now, cash bribes, that’s another matter entirely.”

Abby laughed. “Happy to meet you, Chris. We’ll have to talk about those bribes.”

“Too late,” Chris said with a grin. “Got your assignment right here. Your area’s acoustic imprints, right?”

“That’s right,” Abby said.

“Okay, so I’ve set you up near the auditory lab. Your application didn’t say anything about needing office space, but we have a couple of available rooms on the third floor. They don’t have the best views in the place, but it would be all yours.”

“Might not be a bad idea to take one,” Pete said. “Just to give yourself a quiet place where you can go and shut the door. Plus, you could have your phone in there.”

Abby nodded. “If there’s space available, sure, that sounds great.”

“Okay, then,” Chris said. “Let’s go back to my office and we’ll get you squared away.”

“Why don’t you go on ahead with Chris,” Pete suggested. “I’ll wait for you in my office.”

Back in Chris’s office, Abby stood while he rummaged in a desk drawer for a moment, finally rising with a cry of triumph. “Aha! Here we go. Put out your hand.”

Abby did as he instructed and he gave her four keys. “This one’s to the front door, to the lab, to the audio lab and this one’s to your office. I have all the duplicates in case you lose or forget one. See me for any lab supplies you need. We should have pretty much everything you could want in stock, but I have my own system for keeping track of it. It’s convoluted, but it works. And since I’m the only one who understands it, it assures a bit of job security.”

Abby laughed and, after getting directions, walked upstairs to the administrative level. Counting down the doorways, she stopped outside Pete’s office. Peeking around the partially open door, she saw the director behind his desk, phone at his ear. He signaled for her to enter.

The director had what must have been the best view in the place. The windows of the corner office looked over the bay on one side and the Saguenay River on the other. As Pete spoke on the phone, Abby watched the ferry coming across the river.