Free Eye of the Whale by Douglas Carlton Abrams

pan. The oil welcomed the garlic as it sizzled and began to glow like edible gold. The aroma made him smile as he was transported back into his mother’s kitchen, the heat of the stove against his skin, the steam of the boiling water in his nostrils, the smells that would embrace you with a love of life.
    From the bag he pulled the package of black squid ink pasta. His stomach growled. Pasta con frutti di mare con salsa fra diavolo. He could practically taste the shellfish and the spicy garlic and tomato sauce. Frank opened the refrigerator. He stared at the barren cavern. In his mother’s groaning refrigerator, you had to spend five minutes rearranging food to find space to fit an olive.
     

    N O ONE HAD POSTED ANYTHING about the whale song changing on the discussion board. A chill crawled up Elizabeth’s spine in her sparsely furnished office. There were no personal effects on her laminate desk, no pictures of family, just piles of paper. Elizabeth drummed her fingers on one stack. What if I’m wrong? She could not imagine any errors she might have made in her recording or her deciphering, but she had been warned not to be a maverick, and challenging decades of research findings certainly would qualify her as one.
    Dr. Skilling, her dissertation adviser, had often told her that academia was a shark tank. She thought about the whale birth and how she had escaped the tiger shark. I am willing to take my chances, she decided, and posted her audio recordings. After packing up quickly to go home, she reached for the door handle. It started to turn.
    “Elizabeth!” It was Dr. Skilling. She was surprised to see him wearing a brown tweed coat with a maroon turtleneck and wire-framed reading glasses. He was usually dressed for fieldwork, but whether wearing jeans and a T-shirt or his academic uniform, he always looked effortlessly handsome. His light brown hair, strong jaw, and emerald-green eyes made him the object of endless gossip among both the students and the faculty. His celebrity status stoked the flames of fascination.
    Dr. Skilling was the chair of the evolutionary biology department and head of the small Institute for Toxicology and Environmental Health. He was one of the world’s leading experts on pelagic species and was conducting a major research study on apex predators—white sharks and killer whales—at the Farallon Islands. But most people knew him as “Dr. Shark,” the host of numerous television documentaries.
    “I was worried you wouldn’t get back in time,” he said.
    “In time for what?” Elizabeth asked.

    “To fill out the forms. Didn’t you get my e-mail?”
    “No, I’m afraid I didn’t…What forms?”
    “More bureaucratic bullshit,” he said, handing the papers to her. “The department secretary needs them in her box by 9:00 A.M. tomorrow morning.” His smile was reassuring, but somehow she didn’t feel reassured. She missed Professor Maddings—he could find a way out of any dilemma. Yet Elizabeth remained grateful for Dr. Skilling’s support in a hostile department. He was highly respected, which made him a powerful mentor.
    She looked down at the papers he had given her. “Why do they need them?” Elizabeth asked.
    “I explained in the e-mail that you’re not going to be able to file your dissertation at the end of the semester if you don’t get these forms in to the dean’s office by the deadline.”
    “File my dissertation? But I’m still collecting my data.”
    Dr. Skilling sighed. “You have plenty of data, Elizabeth. Now what you need to do is finish your dissertation.”
    “I’ve discovered something new, which I think puts me really close to—”
    “You don’t need more data. You’ve been working on your dissertation longer than anyone in the department’s history. We’re getting a lot of pressure from the dean’s office.”
    “But I have another year of funding for my fieldwork.”
    “Elizabeth, the e-mail explained that, too…The department has