“Tell me more about the sharks,” Caddie prodded, trying to keep the conversation away from herself and what she was or was not studying at her fictitious college.

“Sharks are amazing,” said Brian, instantly enthused. “What we’re doing to them is absolutely fucking insane. We should be worshiping these things as gods. I mean, they’re one of the last things left around from the dinosaurs. So what do we do, we kill them off by the millions.”

He looked over at Caddie. “Sorry,” he said. “I get carried away. But you’re probably used to that, what with your dad being a marine biologist.”

Caddie nodded vaguely. She’d actually never heard her father talk about anything to do with his work, at least nothing she’d listened to very carefully. She didn’t know if he had an opinion about sharks or not.

“Anyway, they’re beautiful,” Brian continued. “Just amazing. You know how they always say that they have dead eyes? It’s not true. A shark’s eyes are absolutely perfect.”

He continued to talk about sharks—their eyes and every other part of them—for a good ten minutes, while Caddie ate her burrito and listened. She enjoyed hearing Brian talk. He was completely different from her father, who couldn’t tell an interesting story to save his life. If he ever got as excited as Brian did, she might actually have cared about what he did. As it was, she didn’t even really know what it was he worked on.

“One time we were down there and Juan—he’s one of the scientists—pointed behind me,” said Brian, still talking about his experiences the summer before. “There was this big school of hammerheads. There must have been fifteen or twenty of them. They swam right by us, like they saw divers every day of their lives. They couldn’t have cared less.”

“Wow,” Caddie remarked, not sure how else to respond. To her the idea of being near a bunch of sharks sounded more like a suicide attempt than something to get excited about.

She drained the last of the horchata from her glass and wiped her fingers on a napkin. Brian, who had finished several minutes before, piled everything on the tray, then picked up a paper from a pile that was sitting on the floor near their table. “Let’s see what’s playing,” he said, opening the paper and leafing through. He found the movie listings and folded the paper over, laying it on the table and smoothing it with his hand.

“Anything good?” Caddie asked.

“You’re the movie expert,” Brian replied. “I’ll let you pick.”

“What are my choices?”