Caddie was surprised. She hadn’t really wanted Rhodes to be asking her out, but she’d liked it better when she’d thought that he was. Now she wondered why he hadn’t been. What didn’t he like about her?

“You thought I was asking you out,” said Rhodes.

“I did not,” Caddie said.

“You did,” Rhodes insisted. “And you’re mad that I wasn’t.”

“What’s this girlfriend’s name?” Caddie asked him.

There was a pause before Rhodes answered, “Rose.”

Caddie turned in her chair. “What’s on your screen?” she demanded.

“Nothing,” Rhodes said, his fingers tapping rapidly.

Caddie got up and pushed his chair so that it rolled away from the table and he could no longer reach the keyboard. On his screen was a photo of a pink-colored nudibranch with very long papillae. At the bottom, in the space for the file name, was typed OKENIA RO.

“Okenia rosacea!” Caddie crowed. “The Hopkin’s Rose. I thought so.” She looked at Rhodes, whose cheeks were now the same color as the nudibranch. “No one under eighty is named Rose,” she said.

“Okay,” Rhodes said. “Then what’s your boyfriend’s name? Rufus? Baptodoris? Aldisa?” He rattled off parts of the names of several local nudibranchs.

“Brian,” Caddie said. “And those aren’t even good tries.”

“Rufus is a name,” Rhodes insisted.

“For a dog,” Caddie said.

“Well, what’s this Brian like?” asked Rhodes, miming quotes with his fingers when he said the name.

“He works at the aquarium,” Caddie said. “He’s studying marine biology.”

“Brian Foster?” said Rhodes. He looked at Caddie.

“You know him?” she asked.

“He went out with my sister, like, two years ago,” Rhodes said. “The guy’s a top-shelf a-hole.”

Caddie felt herself getting angry. “Sounds like you’re jealous,” she said.

Rhodes snorted. “Of Brian Cerfiss? Not even I’m that lame. Did he tell you how he volunteers saving sharks?”

Caddie felt the skin on the back of her neck prickle. “Why would he say that?” she asked. “Does he?”

“No,” Rhodes said. “But he tells girls he does. You know, he has this lame-ass thing he does when he works the kelp tank. He picks a girl in the audience and starts talking to her. That’s how my sister met him.” He laughed again, as if he couldn’t imagine anything more stupid.

“It worked, though, didn’t it?” Caddie said.

“It did with Sonia,” Rhodes agreed. “At least until she caught him a few weeks later doing the same thing with a bunch of girls visiting from Wisconsin. He just about crapped his wet suit when he saw her glaring at him through the glass.”

“Maybe he’s changed,” said Caddie. “He’s been great to me.”