Swimming Without a Net Read Free Page A

to miss Lost .”
    “You’re trying to get out of a date to watch TV?”
    “It’s the season opener!”
    Fred shrugged. “They’re not going to really tell you anything. You know that, right? Every week is just another hand-job, courtesy of ABC.”
    Sam’s frown deepened. “If the subtle clues fly over your head, that’s not ABC’s fault.”
    “Hey!”
    “But as I was saying. Assuming we went on this travesty of a date—”
    “Hey!” Fred was used to being the most irritating person in the room. Sam’s attitude was startling, to put it mildly.
    “—we’d take the T to Le Meridien—I’d treat for the subway tokens.”
    “I have a T card,” Fred volunteered.
    “Fine. We’d have drinks and dinner and, since I’m a generous tipper…” He tipped his head back and stared at the ceiling. “Call it a hundred fifty bucks.”
    “No dessert?”
    He ignored her. “Then we might decide to take in a late show. Call it another twenty bucks. Plus popcorn and drinks. Another twenty-five.”
    “I’d still be full from dinner. No popcorn for me.”
    “Nothing must be left to chance. So that brings us to one hundred ninety-five dollars. But since you’re a modern woman, you’ll insist on paying for half.”
    “Also, I don’t want to feel obligated to put out.”
    “Too right. Which makes your share ninety-seven dollars and fifty cents.”
    Sam waited expectantly. Fred swallowed a grin and said, “Will you take a check?”

Two
    “So that’s what you do? All day? You feed fish?” Blind Date Number Four (she could not remember the man’s name for her life) asked, forking more linguine with clams into his maw, which was always open—either for food or inane chatter.
    “That’s all,” Fred replied, repressing a shudder and attacking her salad like a moray eel going after an angelfish. She was allergic to shellfish and watching Number Four shovel it in was fairly nauseating. “I feed the fish, make sure the little ones aren’t getting chomped, like that.”
    “I think I’ve see you in the tank!” Number Four exclaimed, and a tiny piece of masticated clam hit Fred’s left cheek. “You’re one of the guys in the scuba suits who hang out in that big tank.”
    “Main One,” she corrected him, concealing a shudder as she wiped her cheek with a napkin. It was telling how much this one was irritating her; she never called it Main One. That was strictly a Dr. Barb rule. “And I doubt you’ve seen me.”
    If he’d seen her flailing around in her wet suit, he certainly would have remembered. She couldn’t swim with legs; only with her tail. It made her job trickier than it had to be, for sure. For one thing, she always ended up upside down in Main One, and her scuba gear always tried its best to get tangled, despite her years of certification.
    “I monitor the water levels and pull out any sick fish and stuff like that.”
    “Cool! So what’s that pay?”
    She gave him an odd look. Number Four had managed to work money into the conversation a record seven times. She already knew what his house cost, what his annual salary was, what his tax bite was, and what a flight to Tokyo cost these days.
    “Enough to keep a roof over my head.”
    “I’m gonna say fifty,” he guessed. He looked like an accountant—brown suit, brown hair, mud-colored eyes, stubby fingers. Not unattractive, just…blah. “Fifty K. You’ve got an advanced degree, that’s gotta be worth some bucks.”
    Fred laughed. “Shows what you know about advanced degrees…and private nonprofits.”
    “So quit and work in the public sector.”
    “I like my job.”
    “I bet you could make six figures in the public sector.”
    “Sure, thinking up new and improved crap to dump in the ocean. No thanks.”
    “Six figures!” Number Four repeated, spraying more clam sauce.
    “Don’t care. Don’t need it. Getting bored.”
    “Want dessert?”
    “Hell, no.”
     
    For the third time, Fred explained to Number Four that he didn’t