Sea of Tranquility. Lesley Choyce

agency in Chicago. Up until then he’d never even heard of cappuccino and if he had he would have assumed it to be an alcoholic drink, something rich people gulped down to get loaded in places like Monte Carlo or Rome. Turned out, he liked the stuff himself. And the cappuccino caught all the tourists off guard. The word of mouth on Moses’ cappuccino probably brought him an extra thirty clients last year, more loot in his pockets. Moses was a man with good instincts when it came to business. All he needed today was to get in close to a couple of whales, send this innocent family back to Jersey with stories of sea wonder, and more Yanks would come this summer, almost guaranteed.

      He prayed to the sea gods that today there would be whales. Had to be sooner or later. But it had been a bad year, a real bad year for sightings, and that had never happened before. The only whales he’d seen this year were miles and miles off shore, too far to take the tourist trade, took too much time to get there, much more dangerous, all wrong. Why were they not coming in this year to the Trough? Another bloody thing gone wrong with the sea. If the whales disappeared, what would he do next? Had to stay one step ahead. Not enough money to be made in a lobster season — too few of them, season too short. Tried the sea urchin thing but the starfish population got out of control, ate up most of the urchins, left the gourmet-goers in the Tokyo sushi bars starved for the little pink mess. Price went through the roof but not an urchin to be found on the sea floor. So, there had to be whales.