My dead friend isn’t supposed to be on the whale watching tour. It’s a pale summer morning, the harbor glazed with fog. I’m standing on the boat’s upper deck directing tourists aboard, gesturing to empty seats, passing out pamphlets. And there she is, lined up behind a family of five. She’s wearing a navy windbreaker, jean shorts, and muddy white sneakers.
Why are you here? I ask. You’re scared of the ocean.
Only the Pacific, she says. The Atlantic is fine.
I say, Okay, but don’t freak out the children.
We jet off, gliding over the glass panes of the sea surface. It’s an hour journey to the watch spot, the boat picking up speed once we reach deeper waters. Roughly fifty passengers sit sardined on narrow benches, stuffing their arms into jackets as the cold cuts into the air. My friend follows me to the mic station. The concessions guy walks by and glares at her, since the area is roped off from pedestrians. I tell him she’s a wealthy socialite, so it’s fine.
My voice vibrates through the shitty speakers: As you can see in your pamphlets, there are many types of whales. Blue Whales, Orcas, Sperm Whales…Forget about those. We’re here for the Humpbacks.
A little girl, whose wispy hair is whipping in all directions, asks something. Her voice is drowned out by the engine, so I tell her to speak up.
How long are Humpbacks!?
They can be 48-62 feet, slightly larger than a school bus.
My friend cups her hand to my ear. Are you on birth control?
I mute the mic.
Not everyone’s birth control kills them, I say. I know yours gave you a pulmonary embolism, but something like that simply wouldn’t happen to me. You were on some weird high-hormone brand anyway. So don’t worry.
Now the little girl’s father is seasick. He puts his head in his hands, moaning and rocking. This kind of thing happens often. Through the intercom, I command him to stare at the horizon. Something about it resets your balance. But there is no horizon. Due to the fog, the gray blue sky melds to the ocean. Guess he’s out of luck.
You weren’t my favorite, my friend says. But you were the fun one.
You mean the slutty one, I say.
I remember our first fight. In college I helped her make a Tinder, taught her how to scam men for money. But she got upset, called it amoral. She actually wanted to go on dates, to be touched. I called her unrealistic.
That was a nice fight, she says. By the end, we saw each other’s perspectives, and I got a boyfriend.
The dad is trying not to throw up, his forehead all sweaty. A stranger gives him a swig of Pepto Bismol. His daughter keeps poking him and shouting, Look at that! Look, Dad, look! She points to nothing. He stands up.
Don’t go to the bathroom, I holler. It will only feel worse in there, and we need it available for the others.
He sits down.
I turn to my friend and say, I suppose you’re here to blame me for your terrible taste in men.
That was the algorithm’s fault, she replies. You don’t have to make everything about yourself.
I do make everything about myself. I wish my friend hadn’t died. It’s never fun to discuss at parties. I shelled out all this money for a therapist. For a whole six weeks, I stopped having sex. Then for a whole six months, I had too much sex. Her death makes me hate the ocean, which she always lied about being afraid of.
The fog thins, tinting the water blue, deep blue, endless blue. I continue my spiel: Before a whale surfaces, there are clues. Look for circles of bubbles. If you smell something rotten, it’s their bad breath.
The little girl gets a kick out of that. Her dad finally throws up in a paper bag, and the couple beside him flees.
You know, I was in love with you, I tell my friend.
There you go, making everything about yourself again.
Isn’t that why you came, for a confession?
No, I came for the whales.
The boat slows, then stills, the engine clicking off. Bubbles form. We watch, wait. A Humpback breaches in the distance, a sliver of gray slicing through the waves. People rush to the railing to take zoomed-in pixelated photos for Facebook. Water spouts from the blowhole. Its tail tips up before submerging. The onlookers ooo and ahh.
You should stop taking birth control, she says. Not any good.
Do you want me to get pregnant? Kind of weird.
Maybe if you got pregnant, you’d finally get over me.
Now here she is, making everything about herself. When I take my pill, I think of her. When I meet someone with anxious-avoidant attachment, I think of her. When I imagine kissing a woman, I think of her. If she would have kissed me back. If she would have said I was doing it for attention. But isn’t it human to want attention? She’ll never understand that.
The boat idles. The little girl is jumping up and down, struggling to see around the adults, and her dad has thrown away his bag of vomit. The sun spurts through the clouds. I point out more whales. To the right! To the left! Go, get your fill, your eighty bucks worth. The crowd clusters from one side of the deck to the other.
You know, you weren’t in love with me, she says. Grief makes you uncomfortable, and pretending you loved me makes it easier to process.
This is really homophobic of you.
No, it’s homophobic of you. You’re fetishizing a dead woman.
So what am I supposed to do? Just get over it?
Yes! Just get over it! People die all the time. Go get knocked up by some man and move on with your life. You’ve been bumming me out.
I announce that it’s time to get going. The engine starts, and everyone sits. I hand the dad another bag to barf in. I let the little girl keep her pamphlet, even though I’m supposed to re-collect them for other tours. I tell my friend she’s right. When I step off this boat, I’ll quit birth control, find a nice man to knock me up, and stop having gay fantasies about my dead friend. I saw the whales today, after all, and that’s what’s important.