SPANISH DANCER

Rosa holds out a white paper bag. “My mother made these.” Inside are warm circles of pastry sprinkled with cinnamon. “Pastelitos,” Rosa says.

We sit at the Formica table and eat, dusting our lips in confectioners’ sugar.

“It’s illegal,” I say. “But we’ll do it out of the garage. Word of mouth. You in?”

“What do you mean it’s illegal?”

“Nothing’s going to happen. It’s a fisherman thing.”

Rosa lifts her guitar and begins to strum.

“We’re just selling shrimp, right?

“That’s all we’re doing. Just a hundred pounds. One tote.”

“I don’t see why you’re doing it. If it’s illegal.”

“If I can sell for him—by myself, to see how it works—it will change our whole business model. We’re not making it.”

“Sofie, nobody’s making it in the business. It’s not your dad. It’s the ocean.”

I feel my lips grow taut like my father’s when he’s angry, even though I know she’s right. Just last night Pete was talking about selling his quota of what the government allows him to catch to try to get out from under some of his debt.

“Forget it, Rosa. Just forget it, okay?”

Now Rosa tries to fix us. She says, “Okay, so my mom’s a pastry cook. What do I know?”

I don’t answer. I want to say, You’re right . . . you don’t know anything.

“I’m worried about you, Sofie. Don’t you eat anymore? Look at you.”

She reaches forward, runs her hands down my cheekbones. I put my face up to hers and trace my lips with my finger to show her the confectioners’ sugar I can still taste.

“Who doesn’t eat?” And she traces her lips with her finger and we stick out our tongues and we laugh. But it’s true about how little I feel like eating.

“I’ll do it,” she says.

I say, “I have to fix the ocean. We need to make it here together, my father and me. Or he’s leaving.”

Rosa puts her guitar down and pulls up a song she’s been learning on her phone.

“Hold off,” Rosa says. “Fix the ocean later. Get your guitar.”

“No, you play.”

We listen to this melody while I begin to letter a sign for our illegal trade on the back of an old poster project.

Rosa plays along to the song on her guitar, “Spanish Dancer.” It’s a girl nervous about love, wondering what it was like for her mother, when she was young.

I pull up the chain of the dog tag that I now wear around my neck.

Sanna

Lucas

O negative

Protestant

Universal donor. His blood will match with anybody’s. Even mine.

- - -

We wear half gloves with the red tips of our fingers working machine fast. We pack plastic bags with Mrs. Tuttle’s shrimp. Put ten bags of shrimp over ice in an ice chest, with the sign mounted on poster board. Sweet Northern Shrimp Fresh Off the Karma.

We sit, our heads propped on our mittened hands, ready. Drivers do stop.

“How much would it cost for shrimp without heads, ready to cook?” a serious young woman asks.

“Six dollars a pound,” I say, believing a person would never pay six dollars for a pound of shrimp.

“Atlantic asks seven,” she says. “And I know your father. I’d rather have the Karma’s shrimp.”

“Take these, and the next time you come, we’ll have processed shrimp.”

The woman finally does take the whole shrimp and pays three dollars for two pounds. We sell all the shrimp we have.