The Circle

She thought of the
     foxes that might be underneath her, the crabs that might be hiding under the stones
     on the shore, the people in the cars that might be passing overhead, the men and women
     in the tugs and tankers, arriving to port or leaving, sighing, everyone having seen
     everything. She guessed at it all, what might live, moving purposefully or drifting
     aimlessly, under the deep water around her, but she didn’t think too much about any
     of it. It was enough to be aware of the million permutations possible around her,
     and take comfort in knowing she would not, and really could not, know much at all.
    When Mae arrived back at Marion’s beach, it looked, at first, just as she’d left it.
     There were no people visible, and the light within Marion’s trailer was as it was
     before, rose-colored and dim.
    Mae jumped to the shore, her feet shushing deep into the wet sand, and she dragged
     the kayak up the beach. Her legs were sore, and she stopped, dropped the kayak, and
     stretched. With her hands over her head, she looked toward the parking lot, seeing
     her car, but now there was another car next to it. And as she was regarding this second
     car, wondering if Marion was back, Mae was blinded by white light.
    “Stay there,” an amplified voice roared.
    She turned instinctively away.
    The amplified voice came again. “Don’t move!” it said, now with venom.
    Mae froze there, off-balance, worrying briefly about how long she could maintain such
     a pose, but there was no need. Two shadows descended upon her, grabbed roughly at
     her arms, and handcuffed her hands behind her.
    Mae sat in the back of the squad car, and the officers, calmer now, weighed whether
     or not what Mae was telling them—that she was a regular renter, had a membership,
     and was merely late in returning a rental—could be the truth. They had reached Marion
     on the phone, and she corroborated that Mae was a customer, but when they had asked
     if Mae had rented that day and was just tardy, Marion had hung up and said she’d be
     right over.
    Twenty minutes later, Marion arrived. She was in the passenger seat of a vintage red
     pickup truck, the driver a bearded man who appeared bewildered and annoyed. Mae, seeing
     Marion walk unsteadily to the police car, realized she had been drinking, and possibly
     the bearded man had, too. He was still in the car, and seemed determined to stay there.
    As Marion made her way to the car, Mae caught her eye, and Marion, seeing Mae in the
     back of a squad car, her arms cuffed behind her, seemed to sober instantly.
    “Oh Jesus Christ,” she said, rushing to Mae. She turned to the officers. “This is
     Mae Holland. She rents here all the time. She has the run of the place. How the hell
     did this happen? What’s going on here?”
    The officers explained that they’d gotten two separate messages about a probable theft.
     “We got one call from a citizen who doesn’twish to be identified.” And then they turned to Marion. “And the other warning came
     from one of your own cameras, Ms. Lefebvre.”
    Mae barely slept. Her adrenaline kept her pacing through the night. How could she
     be so stupid? She wasn’t a thief. What if Marion hadn’t saved her? She could have
     lost everything. Her parents would have been called to bail her out, and her position
     at the Circle would be lost. Mae had never gotten a speeding ticket, had never been
     in trouble at any level, and now she was stealing a thousand-dollar kayak.
    But it was over, and Marion had even insisted, when they parted, that Mae come back.
     “I know you’ll be embarrassed, but I want you to come back here. I will hound you
     if you don’t.” She knew Mae would be so sorry, and full of shame, that she wouldn’t
     want to face Marion again.
    Still, when she woke after a few hours of fitful sleep, Mae felt a strange sense of
     liberation, as if she’d woken up from a nightmare to know it hadn’t happened. The
     slate was blank and she went to work.
    She logged on at eight thirty. Her rank was 3,892. She worked through the morning,
     feeling the extraordinary focus possible for a few hours after a largely sleepless
     night. Periodically, memories from the night before came to her—the silent silver
     of the water, the lone pine on the island, the blinding light of the squad car, its
     plastic smell, the idiotic conversation with Mercer—but these memories were fading,
     or she was forcing them to fade, when she received