Swimming with the Angels

by Colin Kersey

  Stu crossed his arms over his chest.

  “I don’t really see how we can go wrong,” Virgil said. “I say, let’s give her a go.”

  “Have you considered how are we going to be ready in time?” Stu said. “We’ve got fishing rods to be repaired and strung with line and fences to be painted. And one more thing: you cannot put up signs without a permit and, slow as the county bureaucracy is, I guarantee you are not going to get a permit in the next three months, let alone the next couple of weeks. Have you forgotten all the hassle we went through just to put that little, bitty trout farm sign in the front yard?”

  Virgil sighed. “You’ve got a point, Stu.”

  Having faced off with my father, a man who would not begin to say “maybe” until he had taken a pound of flesh, I was not ready to give in. “Haven’t you heard of bootleg signs? Real estate people would be out of business if it weren’t for temporary signs on weekends.”

  I looked at the faces around the table. “The fish are ready. The only thing I can’t vouch for is the weather.”

  “Bootleg signs,” Vonda mused. “I kinda like the sound of it.”

  The next two weeks flew by in a rush of mowing, feeding the trout and preparing for the early opening. I found a FedEx office where I used a computer to design the ad and a flyer that Annie consented to post in her restaurant by the cash register.

  The ad broke ten days before the opening with a brief news story I wrote in the Herald. The phone began to ring the same day the ad appeared with people calling from as far away as Seattle and Bellingham to ask for directions. As it continued to ring throughout the next several days, the Van de Zilver household seemed to waken from a deep slumber.

  I was encouraged to see Valerie’s mood improve and the return of her peculiar midday sandwiches. One day it was roast beef, cheese, and apple slices. Another day, it was peanut butter, celery, and raisins. I never knew what to expect. Quite often, I would remove the bread and eat the ingredients individually.

  Even Virgil seemed to quicken his step. He showed up one night after dinner when I was painting signs in the barn. “What can I do to help?”

  “Can you paint?”

  “I used to be pretty fair with a brush.”

  I handed him the brush and paint. While he painted, I continued to sketch the letters onto boards with a carpenter’s pencil.

  “You’ve managed to get this place stirred up these past few days,” Virgil said while carefully filling in with color the letters I had drawn. “I’ve got to admit, you’ve added another dimension to the trout business.”

  I smiled, grateful that life was finally on the upswing, my mental health on the mend and my work, however menial, had value once again.

  “One thing I don’t understand,” Virgil said a little later, “what’s in this for you? Why risk your own money? It’s not like I pay you a great deal.”

  “Just putting my money where my mouth is. Besides, I’m fairly confident what a little promotion can do.”

  For a few brief seconds, I allowed myself to remember my iMac computer with retina display and the ease of designing something as simple as an ad or a sign. My fellow students at Otis would laugh if they saw my working conditions now as I sat cross-legged on the barn’s cold concrete floor, the only light coming from fluorescent tubes high overhead and the sound of crickets chirping from just outside the open door.

  Virgil took his time. I noticed he liked to stop and admire his work.

  “I expect you miss your father,” he said after a while.

  “I never really had a father,” I said. “I had a foreman.”

  “What did he do, you don’t mind me asking?”

  “He is—was—a physician. The kind who believed there was only one way to tie a suture or earn a living. Going to art school didn’t fit within his frame of reference.”

  Virgil nodded. “My dad was about the same. Summers, he made me hoe weeds in our vegetable garden from sun-up to sun-down with never a break except a half-hour for lunch. Never paid me one red-cent of allowance either. Said he did not believe in it. Had a Chevy he kept garaged. I had to keep it spotless, inside and out. Miss a speck of dirt and he would let me know about it. Sometimes I think he cared more about that car than for me.”

  I continued to sketch letters, warmed by our conversation.

  “I always wished I had a son,” Virgil said. “Someone to carry on the family name.” He waved his paint brush in the air, and I began to wish I had spread a few more newspapers on the concrete. “Don’t get me wrong. I would not trade my daughters for anything. I am sure they were both easier to raise than a son would have been. Even when Val needed a special tutor to teach her Braille, she was really no trouble. As sweet a girl as you could imagine most of the time, but now and then with a temper. Just like her mom.”

  Then Virgil said something remarkable. “I think my daughter has taken a shine to you.”

  For a half second that felt much longer, I was afraid Virgil meant Vonda.

  “Valerie may not be as pretty as some girls,” Virgil said.

  Truthfully, I thought her delicate natural beauty to be more attractive than many of the young women in Southern California who spent hundreds—even thousands—of dollars on hair, nail, and skin care, not to mention teeth whitening, breast augmentation, and other enhancements.

  “But she’s a hard worker,” he continued. “Always looking to please me and her sister. Not a big fan of Stu, as you probably noticed. They can be as cantankerous as a couple of wildcats. Best to keep ‘em separate if you don’t want to see the fur fly.”

  “Anyway,” he continued a few minutes later. “If you and my daughter were to hit it off, might be you could take charge of this operation someday. Maybe even run it once I’m gone.”

  I was too startled to respond.

  “Just thinking out loud,” Virgil added after a period of silence. “Not going to change my will tomorrow.”

  “I have to ask: you wouldn’t have a problem with my Indian heritage?”

  He looked up at me. “Listen here, son. There are some up here who may have a problem, but I ain’t one of them, and Valerie for damn sure is not one of them either. If everyone were as blind to color as she is, I believe the world would be a much happier place.”

  It took me a minute to digest Virgil’s declaration. In a few seconds, he had just destroyed most of my preconceived beliefs about older, rural white males.

  “What about Stu and Vonda?”

  Virgil snorted. “I don’t think Vonda would hang around one second if she had someplace better to call home. You’ve heard her. She thinks fishing and living in the country are for hicks and people down on their luck. As for Stu,” he looked at me, “he could be planning to keep this farm running after I am gone, but I don’t think so. Just between you and me, I am not sure he didn’t have something to do with those fish dying. Plus, I don’t think he is cut out for cleaning fish and waiting on people. Got an attitude like God made him better than the rest of us poor folks.”

  I was temporarily too overwhelmed to speak. Virgil obviously was not aware of the Sinaloa Cartel and its sicarios who were probably hunting for me right now and eager to kill not only me, but anyone foolish enough to hide me. Fortunately, I did not have to respond.

  “Where do you intend to put these signs?” Virgil asked.

  “I thought I’d drive down the road and post a sign wherever I came to an intersection that looked busy.”

  Virgil nodded. “Unless you are looking to burn a lot of fuel and time, ask Stu or Vonda to ride along. They can show you the best places.” He stood. One of his knees made a popping noise, and he rubbed it.

  “I believe I’ll let you clean up,” Virgil said. “Think about what I said. Might be a future here for a hardworking, smart young man like you.”

  I watched in silence as Virgil walked out of the barn and into the cool, dark night. I finished painting the last sign and laid it aside to dry. After giving up hope of ever having a
nything resembling a normal life again, I found Virgil’s offer mind-boggling. I felt like Lazarus must have two thousand years ago. Back from the dead.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  “Would either of you be willing to be my guide setting up directional signs tomorrow morning?” I asked. It was the day before we were to open, and I had just finished helping Valerie clean up the Friday evening dinner dishes. As usual, Vonda and Stu were sitting in the living room, watching television.

  Stu ignored me.

  “I’ll help,” Vonda offered.

  Stu stared at her like she had lost her mind.

  “He doesn’t have a clue about local traffic patterns and the best sign locations,” she said. “We’ll be lucky if folks don’t end up in Wenatchee.”

  “He made his bed,” Stu said. “Let him lie in it.”

  “Why not help out?” she asked. “Seems to me, he’s working for the benefit of us all, even you.” She turned to me. “What time were you planning to leave?”

  “Six.”

  She made a face. “You sure you couldn’t go later? Lord knows I need my beauty sleep.”

  Stu laughed. “Be a cold day in hell before you see this woman out of bed that early on a weekend. There would have to be a going-out-of-business sale at Nordstrom.”

  “Then why don’t you go?” Valerie said from the doorway. No one had seen her enter. “He’s only trying to bring us some business.”

  “I’ve got better things to do getting us ready for fishing,” Stu said. “And they don’t include setting up illegal signs.”

  Mindful of his threat to cut me up into fish food if I so much as looked at his wife, I did my best to put the matter to rest. “I appreciate your offer of help, but I’ll make do on my own.”

  And so it was with more than a little surprise as I drove past the house early the next morning with a light drizzle falling and a chilly mist swaddling the hills, that I saw Vonda poke her head out the back door, her hair still unbrushed, and wave.

  Two minutes later, she exited the door dressed in blue jeans, rain hat and parka.

  “Good morning,” I said when she had climbed into the Toyota’s passenger seat.

  “No, it ain’t,” she said. “It’s colder than a loan officer’s heart at Christmas, it’s wet, and I want to be back in bed, so get a move on before I change my mind. Here,” she said, and handed me a commuter mug of coffee as we exited the driveway. “Valerie made it.”

  “That was kind of her.”

  “I don’t think she was too keen on my coming,” she said.

  “And why would that be?”

  “Because she’s a jealous little bitch.”

  I drove in silence for few minutes as I enjoyed the coffee and pondered Vonda’s reply. “As a married woman, don’t you find her jealousy a little odd?”

  “Not really.” She pulled a pint bottle of caramel-colored liquid from her coat pocket, unscrewed the cap, and took a pull. “Matter of fact, I find it kind of amusing.”

  “What’s that you’re drinking?”

  “Nectar of the gods. Want some?” She held up a bottle that smelled of over-ripe fruit. The label read, “Apricot Brandy.”

  “Thanks, but I’m the designated driver this morning. Did you run out of wine?”

  “Wine’s too cold in the morning.” She took another pull on the bottle. “Besides, wine is a sad, fire-in-the-fireplace kind of drink for when the day’s winding down, but you’re still hoping something might come of it. Wine helps hide the truth as long as possible. By the time you realize the evening has turned out to be shit, just like all the others, you are past caring. This stuff, on the other hand,” she held up the bottle, “is full of surprises. Kinda perky. Like me.” She winked.

  We drove down narrow, unlined ribbons of asphalt that wound between tall evergreens and alder trees so dense with new leaves that it was impossible to see what lay beyond. Thick and unruly from the never-ending rain, the grass that hugged the shoulder was over a foot tall and so green it shone nearly black. Tiny birds—chickadees, juncos, nuthatches, and the occasional goldfinch—swooped and flitted from shrub to shrub. We passed the Mountain View Estates—“Models Open”—and a small market where a faded sign proclaimed, “Food Stamps Accepted.” A rust-scabbed Cadillac, missing a door, was decomposing in the weeds out back.

  “Tell me about your wife,” Vonda asked.

  “What do you want to know? She was tall, red-haired, and liked to laugh. She could also punch hard enough to give you a black eye.” Which she had accomplished once when I criticized her checkbook balancing. Or lack thereof.

  “Did she want kids?”

  I frowned. “She wanted to travel, live in a big house on the waterfront, drive a fast car—all stuff we couldn’t afford.”

  “Sounds a little like me,” she said, her words beginning to slur. “Stu is a world-class skinflint. For our anniversary, he used to send me a box of flowers, but no vase. If I were lucky, he’d take me to the buffet line at the Indian casino.” Vonda took another swig. “Now, he doesn’t bother. I doubt he remembers the day at all.”

  “Not exactly a romantic, is he?” Even at this early hour with no makeup, her hair tucked under a watch cap, and wearing a bulky parka, Vonda was more than pretty enough to turn men’s heads.

  Forty-five minutes after starting out, we put up the last of the signs, each of which featured a smiling trout pointing in the direction of the Van de Zilver farm. We stood in bracken fern and ankle-tall grass near the edge of a two-lane county road where another road dead-ended, forming a “T.” Water gurgled nearby as it coursed through a drainage ditch. A stand of alder and Douglas fir trees rose behind us. The countryside remained muffled by the heavy mist that dampened sound and limited visibility to a few hundred feet. Ours was the only vehicle we had seen.

  I hammered the signpost into the rocky soil, so that the sign would be seen by cars traveling from any of three directions. I glanced over at Vonda and caught her scrutinizing me.

  “We’d better get back,” I said. “Our first customers are apt to show up soon.”

  “Don’t worry,” Vonda said thickly. She had by now consumed well over half the pint of brandy. “Stu will take care of ‘em. Sure you don’t want a taste?” She held the bottle up. “Guaranteed to warm you up.”

  “Let’s go.” I started back to the truck.

  “Hey,” she called out. “You with the frown. You’re a party-pooper, know that?”

  On most days, you could see the line where sky and land met. Today, however, was not one of those days. Clouds, hillside, trees, shrubs, and asphalt had merged to become a soft, green-gray smudge.

  Vonda stuck her arm through mine. I turned again toward the truck, but she pulled me to her.

  “Stop for a damn second.” She stared into my eyes. “You really know how to bolster a lady’s confidence. Am I that unappealing to you?”

  I started to say, “It’s not—” and then her lips were on mine. The bottle fell with a thud and her hand grasped the hair on the back of my head. Her tongue searched my mouth and I tasted rain and brandy and teeth.

  We heard the car approaching at the same time and I pulled away. “Time to go.”

  The mood in the truck for most of the way back to the farm was quiet as Vonda stared out the window. “What was that about?” I asked.

  “A girl just needs to have fun now and then,” she replied. “I swear, you are without a doubt the world’s greatest killjoy.”

  Remembering Stu’s threat, I said nothing.

  “Tell me something, Gray,” Vonda said. “Did you come here thinking you were going to save us all from ourselves?” She took another swig of brandy. “I guess now that you saved a few trout, you think you can walk on water, too.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  While I had done my best not to show it, I had spent the past week anxiously watching the sky, my ears attuned to the television for clues about the weather. My fear was that it would rain on the Saturday we opened, and
all my hard work and bravado would come to naught when no one showed up. Then Stu would make sure I ate crow for at least the rest of my life.

  And then I remembered that other Saturday when my wife and my life had been taken from me by a fucking, red-lipped bitch and it was like something woke the beast.

  By the time Vonda and I arrived back at the trout farm, the mist had evaporated, and a diamond-shaped field of blue had nudged its way through the clouds. The gravel parking lot displayed a motley assemblage of sedans, SUVs, pickup trucks, and one Harley-Davidson motorcycle. Virgil was waving to the driver of a recreational vehicle, directing him to park on the grass alongside the driveway. Someone, probably Valerie, had set up a large stainless-steel percolator on a card table near the back door with a bag of Styrofoam cups. A half-dozen balloons lined the fence surrounding the kids’ playground. Beautiful. I made a mental note to commend her.

  No sooner had we rolled to a stop by the barn than Stu was storming toward us, exuding anger with every step.

  “What took you so long?” he demanded. “Can’t you see we’ve got customers?”

  “They wouldn’t be here if we hadn’t put out signs,” Vonda said. She brushed by Stu without saying anything more.

  Hands on his hips, Stu watched her as she made her way to the house. He swiveled to face me. He looked like he wanted to poke me in the chest again but thought better of it. “You remember what I said about fish food?”

  The taste of rain and brandy were still on my tongue, the warmth of Vonda’s lips and the press of her body still imprinted in my mind. “Nah, I forget. Want to remind me?”

  “Let’s get to work,” Stu said. “I’ll show you how to clean fish. Meanwhile, it is your job to make sure everyone has got a line in the water. Give ‘em one of our bamboo poles if they need one. If they do not catch fish, we don’t make any money.”

  Two men, both well over sixty-five, climbed out of the front seat of an immaculate, vintage Oldsmobile. It exhibited the original two-tone, brown and cream paint and upholstery, its chrome glistening in the early morning sunlight. They grabbed rods and a tackle box from the trunk and, without a word, headed down the hill toward the large pond. The women who had ridden with them were left with unloading lawn chairs, a picnic basket, and a coffee thermos.