Chapter 1: Josie Chapter 1 Josie Josie Tayloe was a scientist. Had been a scientist. Was still a scientist? Let's see: there was MIT's science and engineering summer camp, there was a bachelor's in Developmental Bio at Tufts, there was four-fifths of a PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Stanford. And don't forget the years of fieldteching the forests and beaches of America, the Fulbright Fellowship to Nicaragua, the EPA Star grant, the articles in Nature and American Myrmecologist. And so on. And now what? Now thirty-four years old at a gas station in central Maine, risking a potentially severe case of public plumber's crack as she inspected the casual insect holocaust of interstate travel. Josie crabwalked between vehicles at the pumps, checking windshields, side mirrors, radiator grills. Mostly she found midges and gnats, some poor honeybees, but you had to sort the wheat from the chaff. Case in point: that very afternoon, an hour north of Boston, she'd collected a candy-striped leafhopper, murdered gracefully in a Mercedes hood ornament. Even Dean, never one to cream his pants over invertebrates, was impressed. Midge, cricket, mosquito. Thorax, wing, antenna. She picked through the chitinous layers. Was this hard science? Probably this was not hard science. Beyond the fluorescence of the gas station hung the great northern woods like a curtain. It was dusk. Saturday. Late July. The nocturnal phylums droned and swarmed the floodlights. Josie could see Dean inside through the big store windows, stocking up on energy drinks, snacks, antacids, beer. They were on their way to Acadia National Park for a week of oceanside camping, after which they would drive farther north--Canada practically--to the Mad Mountain Tavern. They would make the long drive because the Mad Mountain Tavern had a stage, and Josie's sisters were booked to perform on that stage. Not the most glamorous gig in America (or even Maine), but her sisters hadn't played live in almost a year, so Josie would be there. "Can I help you with something?" A fortysomething mustached man, presumable owner of the minivan before which Josie was crouching. Bucket-sized coffee in one hand, sleepy-eyed daughter over his shoulder. "Just making a routine survey of hemiptera," Josie said. "Sorry?" "Bugs," Josie clarified. "Your vehicle has a dreamy front end. Killer surface area." The man nodded as if he was used to the compliment. He buckled his daughter into her seat, unscrewed the gas cap, and filled up, leaving Josie to play with her bugs alone, as people usually did. Midge, midge, mosquito, gnat. Josie's knees popped when she stood. She inspected two sedans, a motorcycle, a Winnebago, then circled back to a maroon Saturn with California plates, parked next to Dean's 4Runner. Dean was now standing in line for the register. Josie watched him chat up a big woman in motorcycle leather, almost as tall as Dean. She threw her head back at something funny he said. Dean had that effect on people. He'd never bring home ribbons for Best Looking (lanky, no chin: an Abe Lincoln lookalike with worse skin) but the man could charm honey from the comb. He was a labor organizer with UNITE HERE Local 26, and--like all working-class heroes--hadn't allowed himself a true vacation in years. But as soon as Josie had mentioned that her sisters were gigging up north, Dean began researching campgrounds. He wanted to make a trip of it. He and Josie "needed" some time, just the two of them. They would unplug. No phones, no family. It would be relaxing! And didn't Josie deserve that, a little relaxation? One week without her heavy sash of worry? Okay, she'd said. Okay, okay, okay. She'd taken off work. She made sure her sisters were set with grocery money and spare keys and appointment reminders: She asked Ara if they'd be alright. She asked Emma if they'd be alright. She didn't believe either of them, but what else could she do? "You can pack your bags," Dean had said. "We are going to have some fucking fun." OBSERVATION: Dean's never mentioned wanting ( needing ) to get away like this. HYPOTHESIS: Getting away = excuse for alone time = Dean prepping her for bad news. Why did Josie expect the worst? Because the worst was what happened. Family history had been clear on that lesson. Even if Dean was sort of right about the trip so far. So far the trip had been fun. Relaxing. And a candy-striped leafhopper to boot. Josie watched Dean crack another joke in line. The woman doubled over in laughter. He gestured outside. The woman waved. Josie waved back, then returned to the pulpy batter of thoraxes, wings, and antennae that plastered the Saturn's headlights. Mosquito, gnat, beetle, gnat. Josie missed the lab. One did not simply go years without access to a DNA thermocycler and feel like a fully functional human being. She worked now at a neighborhood reptile and insect zoo where she was overqualified by two academic degrees. Thank Darwin the place had a leafcutter ant colony. Josie loved ants. Obsessed over ants. In the past she'd observed ant colonies, extracted and amplified DNA, ran gels. Now she changed UV lights, dished out frozen mice and crickets, lectured groups of sticky toddlers and their hot foreign nannies. Not exactly hard science. But Josie, as a young girl, had fallen in love with science for the same reason she was in love with it still: science was everywhere, you just had to look. And look-- A moth. A big honker. Wedged between the Saturn's license plate and frame. That hindwing patterning. That shade. She squinted and leaned closer. A gas pump chugged behind her. A whiff of diesel floated in the air. She forbid herself from becoming too excited. She slid a bobby pin from her hair and gingerly pried the fuzzy body from the vehicle. She held the little bugger to the floodlights like an offering to the gods of good taxonomy. Wingspan: two inches. Hindwings: distinct white marginal banding. Forewings: striated, wood camo patterning. Antenna: white scaling on dorsal surface. Oh my God. It was impossible--a Kern Primrose sphinx moth, Euproserpinus Euterpe --and yet. Josie was certain. She was ninety-nine percent certain. She could not be one hundred percent certain because she'd never observed a Kern Primrose in the wild. Few people had. One of two moths on the Federal Endangered Species List, the insect's only known habitat was California's Carrizo Plain, where Josie had spent countless weekends, wading through those sharp grasses, head bowed, looking for egg, larvae, caterpillar, moth. You didn't have to volunteer to do these bullshit research favors for your dissertation advisor, but Josie had. The urge to please. That old story. Even now, she couldn't help but fantasize Dr. Lee's forgiveness should she, Josephine Tayloe, all-star mentee, the next E.O.-goddamn-Wilson (Dr. Lee's words, not hers), send news that she'd discovered a Kern Primrose light-years from its habitat. A complete specimen, no less. She turned the moth carefully in her palm. She pumped a fist. Darwin, she loved this shit. Delicately, so delicately, she wrapped the dead moth in a casket of Dunkin' Donuts napkins and entombed the bundle in the glovebox where she and Dean had sequestered their phones, as demanded by the most sacrosanct of their Vacation Commandments: Check Not Thy Phone No Phones was more challenging than Josie would've liked to admit. It helped that Dean was family-cleansing with her. Dean's mother was used to calling daily, and Dean was used to picking up. But not today. Josie, in solidarity, had resisted the urge to check in with her sisters. Emma and Ara undoubtedly needed something--Dean agreed wholeheartedly on this point--but he trusted they could survive one week without her. Josie mocked his ignorance: What peer-reviewed studies, what data sets, what field notes supported his crackpot theory? Josie did not worry because worry was the dominant allele of her emotional genotype (though it was), she worried because her family gave her so many brilliant reasons to worry. Which was why--glovebox open, phone right there , Dean busy dumping his haul of beer and snacks for the cashier to tally--she couldn't resist. She reached in. She turned on her phone. Only the damn thing took forever to power up. Dean was paying now at the register. Walking out. She waited until the last possible second and--no luck--tossed the phone back into the glovebox as the gas station doors went whoosh . Dean loped outside, his new friend in tow. "Josie, meet Wanda. She's a fan--" "--Fan doesn't cut it, I'm diehard, baby. Lost my V-card to Jojo and the Twins. Heard about the Caribou show and dammit I can't move my shift but I'll try to make the encore. How about a photo? Here sweetcheeks, you know what to do." She gave her phone to Dean and threw an arm around Josie. These random fan encounters still happened every so often. "Say cheese," Dean said. Josie and Wanda held their breath, smiling. "So your man here"--Wanda took her phone from Dean, grunting approvingly at the screen--"he says you're Jojo, and I'm like, 'Wanda Jenks you're paying those girls back.'?" Dean fanned the air with dollar scratch tickets. "Wanda got us a gift." "Not a gift. I owe you fair and square. I downloaded your tunes for free, way back. A dog's age, but that doesn't make it right." Jojo and the Twins was the name of Josie's sisters' band, and because Josie never appeared onstage, fans like Wanda often assumed she was the quiet visionary behind the music--the Fifth Beatle, so to speak. This wasn't the least bit true, but Josie had stopped correcting the record a long time ago. After all, she was a crucial part of the band. Her sisters now earned about forty-three cents a week in streaming royalties. If not for Josie, they would be homeless. She covered ninety percent of their rent and one hundred percent of their Netflix and yoga. She was no George Martin making musical magic behind the Abbey Road curtain, but credit was absolutely due. "When can I get my mitts on the new album?" Wanda said. "Soon," Josie said, a line that had been getting old for years now. "Good. We need you girls. This country is going worse to worse." Wanda gave engulfing hugs, kick-started her motorcycle, and ripped the night in two, yelling "Slay it in Caribou!" as she roared off. Back on the road, Josie unwrapped the Kern Primrose to show Dean. She didn't want to make a big deal of it, not yet. "Morphological observation is no substitute for genetic confirmation," she said, but Dean whooped and honked the horn, so happy for her that she had to smile. "So what's it mean?" he said. "For migration patterns? I'm not getting my hopes up. The car had California plates. It probably collided somewhere near Carrizo and drove it across the country." "Not for migration patterns, for your career." "I don't have a career." "This could be your ticket back!" Josie envied his naivety. She knew all too well the pitfalls of open-faced hope. She turned on the radio. She scanned the static, the Christian rock, the sports talk. She scratched Wanda's lottery tickets, won five dollars, and celebrated by fisting a bag of Cheetos. She licked cheese dust off her fingers. She prepared to ask Dean (rhetorically of course) how he expected her to return to academia with her sisters--and her mother--more dependent on her than ever. Before she could ask, however, her phone rang from the glovebox. And, at nearly the same moment, her sisters came blasting from the speakers. "American Mosh" was the 2002 single that had earned Jojo and the Twins a Grammy nod, a gold record, a Wikipedia page, a legion of diehard fans. Every so often you still caught some lone DJ playing it for Throwback Thursday. The bassy intro was epic. Then Emma's voice launched into the first verse with her trilling, operatic vault that still had the power to raise the hair on Josie's arms all these years later. Dean waited out of respect for the verse to end. Then he reached to turn off the radio. He cleared his throat. "You broke a commandment." He nodded at the glovebox, where Josie's phone continued to loudly betray her. "You committed vacation heresy." "What can I say, I'm heretical." Josie opened the glovebox. Sure enough: "I knew it. It's Emma." "Don't pick up, Jo. Please." "Something might be wrong." "She's fine. Don't answer. You know you'll regret it." But Josie couldn't help herself. First a freakishly rare Kern Primrose, then a nearly-as-endangered broadcast of "American Mosh," and, at the exact moment, her sister calling? The signs couldn't be clearer. "You know she's going to ask for something. You don't have to pick up. You can put down the phone. It's your choice." Since when had Dean mastered the tone and cadence of a hostage negotiator? Josie swiped, brought the phone to her ear, and exhaled. "Em, everything okay?" "Jojo! Thank God you answered." Josie felt her heart plummet below the x-axis of her chest. "What's wrong?" "The Mad Mountain Tavern changed dates on us. They moved it up. We're on tonight." Josie took a breath. She was not her sisters' manager. "I wish I'd known earlier. We could have driven you up." "Oh that's okay," Emma said. "Well have you told them there's no way you can make it?" "Huh? No. We're here." "You're where?" "Here. We flew. We're loading-in right now." Josie clenched her jaw. "Ara's intake session was this morning. Please tell me she didn't miss it." "Um..." " I told you, " Josie mouthed to Dean. "Em? Let me talk to her. No, you know what, forget it, I'll reschedule for her. I'll call tomorrow." "Okay," Emma said, and then she asked, "Is there any chance you can make it tonight?" Josie glanced at the dashboard clock. She ignored Dean, who was shaking his head violently and dragging imaginary blades across his throat. "What time's sound check?" she asked. "Nine," Emma said. "But we have to eat first. And we still haven't found anyone who can work the merch table..." "I'll do it." "Oh my God, really? I know you're on vacation. We were nervous to ask. We don't want to inconvenience you." "You're not inconveniencing me. I'm offering." "Honestly, it would be a huge help." Help. The word was a skeleton key that opened every dopamine vault. Josie's brainstem began dumping huge quantities of the neurotransmitter into her amygdala, her prefrontal cortex, her hippocampus. She understood what was happening, at the cellular level, yet resistance was futile. "Of course, Em. One hundred percent. I'll be there." "Thanks, Jo." "Put Ara on real quick?" "I stashed the merch bag in the greenroom. Just go in and grab it if we're onstage. Love you, love you, kiss, kiss, kiss!" "Wait, put on--" Emma hung up. Josie made a big show of turning off her phone and returning it to the glovebox. "Their gig got moved up." "So I heard," said Dean flatly. "We need to go to Caribou. Tonight." Dean's foot tapped the brake for no apparent reason. "I thought we were camping?" Josie knew she pushed Dean, asked insane things of him. Ironically (sadistically?), the fact that he was incapable of saying "no" often made her push harder. "They need someone to work the merch table." "Your sisters need a favor from you. I am shocked." "Dean. This is important. They haven't gigged in almost a year." "Camping reservations at Acadia. Summer weekend. Not easy to get." "We'll only miss one night." "Why can't someone else work the merch table?" "The merch table isn't the point." "Then what is the point?" Josie loved ants, in part, because they put other social organisms (like Homo sapiens ) to shame. Ant colonies, as she never tired of explaining to anyone willing to listen, are complex social networks comprised almost exclusively of females. And not just females, but sisters , genetically speaking. Sisters who, thanks to the diploidic quirks of ant reproduction (of which almost nobody was willing to listen), share more DNA with one another than they do with their mother. Sisters who are ready to work and fight and sacrifice for each other without second thought. Even if their sisters are impulsive, washed-up rock stars who'd squandered a record label and a semi-fortune. Josie was one of a colony. That was the point. The point was to support Emma and Ara at this lowest asymptote of their career. The point was to check up on Ara, who Josie suspected of using again. A fear so deeply destabilizing that she couldn't air it aloud, not to Dean, not even to herself. The point was inclusion, for Josie, like every younger sibling since Zeus, hated being left out. "The point is they need me," Josie said. "You do know that you could be like a national spokesperson for unhealthy codependent relationships? I just want to make sure you're still aware of that career option." Josie remained steadfastly unamused. They drove in silence. Then Dean veered suddenly into the middle lane, shifted to accelerate, gunned the gas, and threaded a slot canyon between two tractor trailers. He punched the steering wheel. He punched the steering wheel again. "Alright. Alright. Let's go hear some damn music." Excerpted from The Frequency of Living Things: A Novel by Nick Fuller Googins All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
