at Sanker, known to be the straightest of the straight.
Sam knew that Haley's life had been a strange mixture of ups and downs. Before her adoption at age nine, life had been very tough. With Ben and Helen her intelligence flourished. By sixteen she could fly Ben's float plane and run any boat that floated.
Academically she excelled, obtaining a Ph. D. degree in marine biology at age twenty-seven.
Because of her success, Sam knew the last great fall was very hard.
For the present she had taken to operating a bicycle and motor scooter-rental business thirty feet from Sam's sitting spot. She owned it, and had part-time employees, but lately seemed to be showing up herself. Sam's return to the island had just followed Haley's expulsion from her job and concurrent ostracization from local scientific society. She hadn't wanted to talk about the scandal much. He glanced her way and waved. She used that iron will of hers to return a good smile left over from better days and waved back.
Then she came closer.
'Can I interrupt your work a moment?' she asked.
He, of course, had no work during his recuperation but his learning, to which he was devoted. In response he put the book of early-island history aside. He was studying the history of the place, what grew in each microclimate, when it bloomed if it did, the resident birds, the migratory visitors, what was in the sea and what was beside it, the terrestrial life, the mammals, the invertebrates, the habits of each, and their place in the order of things. It was an ambition.
If Haley's face was looked at in an unguarded moment, the symmetry of it was pleasing, and the slight round of it and the softness in it had the look of caring. She was only thirty-two and beautiful. In her smile he saw the residue of pain. Lately she was always very welcoming, and when he looked at her, it was starting to feel like Irish cream in his coffee. That Fourth of July in 1994 passed through his mind again. He nodded.
'Of course,' he said. 'What's up?'
'It's about Ben,' she said.
From the corner of his eye he saw Ben Anderson's lady friend and personal assistant, Sarah, approaching, the fourth member of their little family. Sarah was an attractive, forty-five-year-old redhead who looked in her late thirties and always had a good word at the right moment. She was sincere, soft-spoken, and liked corny jokes. Additionally, she was a fitness fanatic and had the strong elastic body to prove it.
'I assume Sarah's arrival is no coincidence,' he said.
Ben, Haley, Sarah, Sam, and Haley's best friend, Rachael, had created something of an extended family.
Haley nodded. 'I asked her to come.'
It may have been Haley's tone, or Sarah's appearance here on a Sunday but Sam had suspected something was up. Also the bicycle-rental business was virtually shut down this time of year and Haley's appearance to repair a bike was a little thin. Sarah lived on Lopez Island, and on Saturdays she didn't typically cross San Juan Channel in her little runabout until later, about the time Ben typically quit his weekend work. Sarah worked for Ben, had for years, but Sam figured there was something growing between them.
Sam stood. Together he, Haley, and Sarah adjourned to the uphill side of the veranda in front of the sidewalk-servicing window of the local coffee shop.
They placed their orders, then retreated from the window to wait.
'Haley looks like a brunette version of Cameron Diaz in that hat,' Sarah said, referring to Haley's tam-o'- shanter. Haley always wore a hat of some sort.
Haley gave a smile as if she didn't believe it.
'Haley wanted to talk,' Sarah said, 'and I did too. Although I have to admit that I'm feeling a little guilty because I didn't mention this talk to Ben. He and I are having dinner tonight after I, quote, 'finish some chores at home.''
She had Sam's interest. He looked to Haley for an explanation.
'We're worried about Ben,' Haley said.
'How so?'
'Well,' she said, 'he is not acting like himself. He's keeping things secret. Actually, he's keeping everything secret. From me, from Sarah. We want to know if he's told you anything he didn't tell us.'
Sarah nodded in agreement.
'Ben doesn't talk much about his work,' said Sam. 'What do you think is going on?'
'I think he's got more on his mind than his work. Or leaving Sanker.'
'You might be right,' Sam told Haley. 'You know the rumors-that Ben's discovered some sort of longevity secret.'
'You heard that?'
'Only vaguely,' Sam said. 'From everything you do know, do you believe Ben discovered some kind of magic bullet to slow aging? I mean, for significant lengths of time?'
Sherry had their coffees ready, but no one moved to get them.
'Let me put it this way,' Haley said in a lower voice. 'If you conquered cancer in North America-I mean completely conquered it-you would only increase average life expectancy about 3.5 years. Heart disease is better, but still only about seven years. Isn't it shocking that by eliminating these two big killers, cancer and heart disease, we're only talking a little over a decade of extra life? The real miracle, if someone could pull it off, would be 'youth retention.''
Sam raised his eyebrows in question.
'Youth retention,' Haley explained, 'would be truly slowing aging, not just extending life and being old for a heck of a long time.'
Sam nodded.
'It's a hot area in biology these days, and the fundamental problem is that so many bodily systems deteriorate with age,' Haley said.
'I think he's discovered something about energy, and something about aging,' Sarah said. 'But it's complicated- I don't understand it, and I'll feel very guilty if I speculate. I think he might have a secret lab and that's all I'm saying. Period.' She sat back.
'That's a shocker. What on earth do you mean by a 'secret lab'?' Haley sighed, obviously frustrated that she hadn't gotten much out of Sarah, but Sarah had obviously zipped her lip.
'He's spending time with a lot of different people, I think,' Sam said.
'What people?'
'Science people?' Sam speculated.
'Yeah. That's all I know as well. Strange goings-on- people coming into town at night, and Ben hustling off to meetings,' Haley said. 'He's mum as a mummy about it all.'
'To me too,' Sarah said.
'Well,' said Sam, 'we all agree that he's leaving Sanker. It's just a matter of time, right?
Distance from Frick and the corporation has to be a good thing.'
'Absolutely a good thing,' Haley said. 'If they let him leave.'
CHAPTER 3
After Sarah left, Haley locked up the bikes, deep in thought. In the ocean when the fmgerlings or the herring were jumping and roiling at the surface, you knew there was something having dinner down below. She couldn't shake the feeling that Sanker was having dinner. Her worry over Ben was incessant. As with Ben's work, she had questions about Sam. After a fashion she had known him for twenty-three years, since she was nine. At that time he was nineteen and an impressive college jock.
Sam's father-a difficult, macho-type guy, to hear Ben tell it-had all the empathy of a wooden wall, but he had a sister who was the opposite. Her name was Helen, and she married Ben. Because of the rogue-male lifestyle led by Sam's dad, Sam would sometimes come to stay with Ben and Helen. That was mostly before Haley's time, and then after her time, he came out of gratitude and affection for Ben and Helen. Sam had a little of that family feeling in him despite the tough upbringing.
