Fragment

2:11 P.M.

Andrew Beasley was a gangly, narrow-shouldered scientist with a mop of blond hair and thick-framed tortoise-shell glasses. His long, birdlike face often displayed an optimistic smile.

Raised by his beloved but alcoholic Aunt Althea in New Orleans, the gentle young scientist had grown up surrounded by aquariums, for he lived over his aunt’s seafood restaurant. Any specimens that came under his study were automatically spared the kettle.

He had gone on to live out Althea’s dream of becoming a marine biologist, e-mailing her every day from the moment he left home for college to the day he accepted his first research position.

Aunt Althea had passed away three months ago. After surviving Hurricane Katrina, she had succumbed to pancreatic cancer, leaving Andy more alone than he had thought possible after feeling so terribly alone all his life.

One month after her funeral, he had received a letter inviting him to audition for SeaLife. Without telling him, Althea had sent his curriculum vitae and a photo to the show’s producers after reading an article about the casting call for marine biologists. Andy had visited his aunt’s grave to put flowers on it, flown to New York, and auditioned. As if it were Aunt Althea’s last wish being granted, he had won one of the highly contested berths aboard the Trident.

Andy usually wore bright clashing colors that gave him a slightly clownish appearance. It also made him a natural target for sarcasm. He was as blindly optimistic and as easily crushed as a puppy-a combination that drew out a maternal impulse in Nell that was surprising to her.

Andy fidgeted with the wireless mike pinned to his skinny yellow leather tie. He wore a Lacoste blue-white-orange-yellow-purple-and-green-striped shirt, which resembled Fruit Stripe gum. Paired with the vertically striped shirt, he wore Tommy Hilfiger boardshorts with horizontal blue, green, pink, red, orange, and yellow stripes. To set it all off, he wore green size-11 high-top sneakers.

Andy’s teaching props, a number of latex hand puppets of various sea creatures, lay scattered on the white deck before him. Beside him sat a panting, broad-nosed bull terrier with a miniature life vest strapped on his square chest.

Zero Monroe, the lead cameraman, changed the memory stick in his digital video camera. The previous one had blinked FULL in the middle of Andy’s lesson, something that had been planned, much to Zero’s chagrin, in order to start rattling Andy and get him primed for an eruption.

“Are we ready yet?” Andy asked, flustered but still trying to smile.

Zero raised the camera to his right eye and opened the other eye at Andy. “Yup,” he replied. The rangy cameraman used words sparingly, especially when he was unhappy. This job was making him unhappy.

His lean physique, wide aquamarine eyes, and deadpan humor lent Zero a vaguely Buster Keaton-like quality, though he was six-two and broad at the shoulders. He wore a gray Boston Marathon T-shirt that he had earned three times over, and battered blue New Balance RXTerrain running shoes with orange laces and gel-injected soles. His faded brown Orvis cargo pants had fourteen pockets stuffed with memory sticks, lenses, lens filters, lens cleaners, mike filters, and a lot of batteries.

Zero had made his living and reputation photographing wildlife. He had mastered his trade in some of the most inhospitable environments in the world, taking assignments from the infested mangrove swamps of Panama (filming fiddler crabs) to the corrosive alkaline lakes in the Rift Valley of East Africa (filming flamingos). After the last three weeks, Zero was wondering which assignment was worse-this one, or standing in mud that ate through his wading boots while his blood was drained by swarming black flies.

“Let’s go, Gus,” Zero growled.

A grip clacked a plastic clapper in front of Andy’s face, startling him. “SeaLife, day fifty-two, camera three, stick two!”

“And…ACTION!” Jesse Jones shouted.

Jesse was the obligatory obnoxious member of the on-camera “crew.” The real crew wore uniforms and tried to stay off-camera as much as possible. Universally hated by both his shipmates and the viewers at home, Jesse Jones was delighted to play a starring role. Reality shows needed at least one cast member everyone could loathe with full enjoyment, one who caused crisis and conflict, one whom sailors in olden days would have called a “Jonah” and heaved overboard at the first opportunity.

Tanned and muscular, with heavily tattooed upper arms, Jesse wore his hair short, spiked, and bleached white. No one had taken advantage of the show’s legion of sponsors quite so much as he had. He was decked out in black thigh-low, ribs-high Bodyform wetsuit trunks, complete with a stitched-in blue codpiece, and over them a muscle Y-shirt printed with palms and flowers. On his feet were silver Nikes and on his nose rested five-hundred dollar silver-framed Matsuda sunglasses with pale turquoise lenses.

“Where were we, Zero?” Andy said, cranking up a smile.

“Copepods,” Zero prompted.

“Oh yes,” Andy said. “That’s right-Jesse?”

Jesse threw a rubber hand-puppet at Andy, who ducked too late. It bounced off his face.

Everyone laughed as Andy replaced his imitation tortoise-shell glasses and gave a crooked smile to the camera. He slipped his hand into the puppet and wiggled its single google-eye and two long antennae with his fingers. “So Copepod, here, gets his name from this microscopic sea creature.”

The banana-snouted dog barked once and resumed panting next to Andy’s leg.

“Poor Copey!” Dawn Kipke, the crew’s surf-punk siren, crooned. “Why would anyone name a dog after that ugly freaking thing?”

“Yeah, that’s uncool, dude,” Jesse shouted.

Andy lowered the puppet and frowned at Zero, who zoomed in on his face.

Andy’s face turned red and his eyes bulged as he threw the puppet down. “How can I teach anything if nobody ever LISTENS TO ME?” he raged.

He stormed off the deck and down the hatchway.

The crew turned to Zero.

“Hey, I’m not in charge, man,” Zero said, walking backwards as he shot. “Ask the guys upstairs!” He panned up to the bridge, where Nell stood looking down at them. She made hand-antlers at them in the window and stuck out her tongue.