In fact, to say that the sea horse exhibit is exhibiting a sparse public interest would be a vulgar euphemism. The aquarium is empty. Only the Coffens and a few straggling employees. Why would nobody come and bask in the unmitigated splendor of these underwater steeds? Anybody’s guess.
But the silver lining in this sea horse cloud is that Coffen, Margot, and Brent can easily view each aquarium. There are sixteen small ones, all in the middle of the room and shaped like little domes with varying species of sea horse. The nice thing about the size and shape of the individual orbs is that they allow a 360-degree view of the horses’ habitats — Margot and Brent rotate all the way around the tiny universes, following the creatures as they slalom about. Some of the sea horses are the size of coffee beans, while others stretch out six, maybe seven inches. There’s a wide array of colors and patterns on their bodies, but they all have those thin, elongated noses.
Coffen stands next to his daughter, watching the sea horses. “Is it better than seeing them online?” Bob asks her.
“It’s different. I don’t know if it’s better or not.”
“They are beautiful in person, aren’t they?”
“I can zoom in and get closer to them when me and Ro go swimming.”
“Right, but here you can actually appreciate their uniqueness. There are living, breathing sea horses contained in this environment.”
“Right, but if I zoom in I can really analyze that uniqueness.”
“Right, but seeing them here gives you a sense of scale.”
“Right, but if I swim up quietly, I can hold one in my hand.”
“Right, but that isn’t your real hand.”
“Right, but it serves the same purpose. There’s a fish in my hand that I’ll probably never get to see in the wild.”
“You should learn to scuba,” Bob says, hoping to find Margot a real-world hobby. “I’ll happily pay for those classes.”
“Maybe.”
Now there’s an employee’s voice calling, “Hey! Hey!” and waving at the three Coffens. “This one’s about to give birth. Get over fast and observe science firsthand.”
They make their way to the aquarium in question.
“How do you know?” Coffen asks the woman.
“Because I’m a college-degreed scientist is how,” she says.
The particular sea horse in question is in the dome alone. It is bright orange, almost fluorescent orange, or that’s the association Bob makes. It’s near the bottom of the tank and has wrapped its tail around a rock to steady itself. A hole has opened in the abdomen. Its body lunges in staccato, contracting motions.
“She’s going to be a mommy?” Brent says to the crabby scientist.
But it’s Margot who answers: “A daddy. With sea horses, the daddies give birth to the babies.”
“Aren’t you a smart girl?” the scientist says.
“I spend a lot of time under the sea.”
“Good for you.”
“She means under the sea on the computer,” Coffen says.
The scientist smiles at Margot. “You’re smart to take advantage of every resource to learn more about nature.”
At that, there’s the first volley of newborns flying out of the hole; somewhere between twenty and thirty tiny sea horses shoot out, rolling in the water. They are pale, wiggling, the size of slivers of fingernail. Once birthed, they swim haphazardly, directionless.
Margot pulls out her iPad and starts shooting video.
“Enjoy the moment,” Bob says.
“I am.”
“Just be here.”
“I am.”
Another large burst of brand-new sea horses dash from the abdomen.
“Just exist in the here and now,” he says to her, knowing that she’s not going to hear him, that she’s incapable of listening to any of his words. What she doesn’t understand is that they’re warnings.
“I am here. I am now,” Margot says.
More babies tumble from the father.
“Does the daddy feed them all?” Brent asks Bob.
But that doesn’t stop a certain scientist from piping up. “They aren’t like people. The daddies don’t care for the babies once they’re born.”
“Who does?”
“They have to take care of themselves,” Margot says, continuing to film it all.
“You are a fantastic student of the ocean,” the scientist says to her.
“Thanks for noticing.”
“It’s scary that nobody takes care of them,” Brent says, looking up at Coffen. “Don’t you think that’s scary?”
“Yes, it’s scary,” Bob says, “but you’re safe. Don’t worry.”
Everybody is staring into the aquarium. They are transfixed. Coffen can’t comprehend why he ever felt so seduced by artifice. What was so enthralling about the unreal? Why had he stationed himself away from the present? What could have ever seemed more compelling about fake lives when all this life was happening around him?
“Isn’t it incredible to witness stuff like this?” the scientist says.
Every Coffen nods, spellbound.
Scout’sHonor!®
Tilda isn’t buying the story Coffen stammers through. He’d hoped that she’d kind of accept the fact that the quarterbackclad mouse he now swings slowly by its tail before her eyes is Schumann. Unfortunately, she’s proving impervious to the spell of his spiel.
This is transpiring at Taco Shed in the late afternoon — after fro-yo, after Bob had dropped his children off at home. Tilda mans the register. As this is the chain’s pre-dinner lull, no other customers or employees are there. Her muscles seem especially plump on this fine day, in that fine uniform.
Her eyes stay trained on the dangling mouse. “I didn’t know there were any other ways men could break up with me; I thought I’d seen it all before, but now you’re trying to tell me an evil magician turned him into a mouse.”
“He’s not an evil magician per se,” Coffen says. “Honestly, his motives remain pretty obtuse to me. But I wouldn’t say outright evil.”
“I knew Schumann was married and that our affair, no matter how torrid, had a short shelf life, but now you’re waving a mouse in my face saying that’s him? Jesus, I didn’t think it would get any worse than when that welder gave me gonorrhea on Valentine’s Day.”
Coffen continues to swing Schumann back and forth by the tail like he’s trying to hypnotize her. “Tilda, I wouldn’t make this up. Frankly, my imagination isn’t capable of making something like this up.”
“I thought me and you were friends.”
“We are.”
“Then why are you lying to me?”
Bob Coffen is not the man for the job of mouse-sitting right now. Normally, sure, he’d be happy to place Schumann in a shoebox with some handfuls of newly shorn grass, a wedge of fine Danish cheese for him to nibble the day away, an exercise wheel to burn off those heavy dairy calories. But not tonight. Tonight has to be all about Jane and the show with no distractions.
“I was hoping you’d baby-sit him,” Coffen says to Tilda.
“What now?”
“Will you watch him for a few hours?”
“Baby-sit the mouse?”
“Please.”
“You make that welder who gave me the drip seem like the most romantic man in the universe.”
“Between you and me, I’m about to go try and win my wife back. I can’t be responsible for Schumann tonight.”
“Maybe that welder’s number is still listed. Gonorrhea really isn’t that big of a deal when you think about it in context with all the other atrocities going on in the world today — a little gonorrhea, big whoop … ”
There are certain sentences that human beings are never prepared to utter until they leave the lips, and here goes a doozy from Bob: “I would never say this mouse was Schumann unless this mouse was indeed the notorious Schumann.”