Designs of the Heart

by Renee Ryder

  “Well, no one has ever told me, ‘You’re a fisherman? Shame on you!”

  “Oh, God! I’m so sorry,” she said, embarrassed for the gaffe.

  “No problem at all. It seems like we’re forever having misunderstandings. Like with the photo.”

  “It seems yes.”

  “From now on, when you say something that sounds off, I’ll ask what you meant.”

  “Yeah, that would be better. So, I should show up tomorrow morning around nine and check what you got?”

  “Yes, but I don’t know if we’ll get more pezzogne. I’ll definitely let you choose from what we catch.”

  “Thanks. I will be here, even though I do not know Italian fish.”

  “Don’t worry, I can introduce you to some.”

  His response didn’t seem very clear. She could tell he was joking, but since he had said it so seriously, she tried to analyze it more closely. When he burst out laughing, it became evident that he was indeed teasing her.

  “About Italian fish! Those damned prepositions!” she huffed, appreciating his sense of humor and laughing with him. “They are traps to me.”

  “Listen, Anna. Will you give me a hand covering the boat?”

  “Sure.”

  With him at the stern and her at the bow, they fixed a thick, heavy, turquoise tarp over the boat. The sides of it hung down below the hull and two ropes ran the length of it.

  “Grab the ends and pull,” he told her, referring to the ropes, while he pushed behind the stern. She yanked and the tarp went taut, wrapping the boat like a package. Then he joined her at the bow and knotted the ends together.

  “All done. Thanks, Anna.”

  “You are welcome.”

  In his left hand he picked up a bucket full of sponges, rags, bottles, and spray cans, while with his right he grabbed a handle of the tub next to it, containing a fishing net.

  “Are you sorry?” he asked, nodding toward the other handle.

  “Why should I be sorry?”

  “No, it’s just a way of asking for a favor, like ‘do you mind?’ ”

  “Oh, gotcha!”

  She took the handle and they carried it together to the street.

  “Is it heavy?” he asked her, clearly concerned.

  “No, for nothing. Where are we going?

  “To our storage room. See there, that open area?” and with the hand holding the bucket he indicated an empty space near the cafe tables where he’d brought her the pezzogne.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “From here you can’t see it, but at the end there’s some stairs that go to all the fishing storage.”

  “I see. Um, can I do a question?”

  “Shoot.”

  “Oh, you say that the same way as us. Shoot! Um, sorry.” She tried to go back to being serious. “Why you use oars instead of the engine?” She’d noticed the one but not the other while they covered the boat.

  “Engines cost a lot. You put in gas and watch your money burn. It’s not worth it for those of us who fish close by, ’cause the engines pollute and people swim here. Plus, exercise is always good.”

  “I see.”

  “But we’ve been putting a little something aside to buy a bigger boat. One with an engine. That way we could fish farther away and stay out there for a few days.”

  “I presume you are a fisherman since when you were child.”

  “In our family we’ve been doing it since before my great grandfather. I only met my grandpa, though. He spent his whole life on boats. I don’t know if he ever left Porto Loreno, in the sense that he knew everything about fishing, but almost nothing about the world. This way,” he added, leading her through the open area. “Before my dad, they were always happy to fish around here, but I convinced him that times are changing and that if we’re able to just survive right now, we need to expand or we won’t be able to keep our heads above water.”

  I know that one! She remembered adding the idiom to her list last night, even as anxiety began to bite at her heart …

  Walking with so many people around had felt perfectly comfortable, but now that they were heading towards a more secluded spot, it gave her pause.

  “What about you, Anna? What do you do for work?”

  “I am a web designer.”

  “How long have you been doing that?” She got the impression he wasn’t well acquainted with the subject. “No way it’s since you were little like me!”

  “I found this job one year and half ago.”

  “What do you actually do?”

  “Among other stuff, we do the kinds of thing that make your phone work.”

  “Like?”

  “We create some apps. You know Facebook, Whatsapp, and all them, yes?”

  “Sure.”

  “When those people made up them in the first place, nobody knew them. So, small companies use our apps in this period, but our goal is … is that we will create something big one day.”

  She had hesitated because, when they reached the stairs, she realized that she was about to go down a narrow path into the shadows of the houses with no one around. With some reluctance she walked down the steps, counting on the fact that he felt trustworthy and anyway there were people a dozen yards away, within earshot.

  “If you hit it big like they did, you’ll be a millionaire.”

  “Well, like a lot of people, we try also. Then if we will get lucky, yes, we may become rich.”

  “Here we are.” He set the bucket down on the ground and indicated that she do the same with the tub.

  There were six or seven wooden doors, one next to the other like American storage units, except that here each door was in a different color and condition, with a variety of latches—a few had chains with padlocks. Nico’s was the first past the stairs, brown and crumbling, missing varnish in spots and bits of wood in others, shut with a lock.

  He pulled out the key from his jeans pocket and opened it.

  “I have to fix some things inside, but if you want to stay it’d be nice to have some company,” he told her, taking the tub and bringing it into the room which looked about the same size as a big two-car garage. He put it down and grabbed a chair with a padded seat. “It won’t take me long,” he added, picking up a rag as he returned outside with the chair.

  Aside from the fact that not another living soul was around—although she heard noise from the street—the situation didn’t feel dangerous.

  “So?” he pressed, setting the chair next to her.

  She felt uncertain, but considering she’d remain outside …

  “Okay. I can stay.”

  Nico dusted off the seat with the rag and she made herself comfortable while he carried in the bucket.

  When she saw him put on a T-shirt, she felt calmer still, even though she doubted he’d done it to put her at ease—the temperature in this little nook was a few degrees cooler. This made her realize that she didn’t need her sunhat here, either. She took it off and hung it on the back post of the chair.

  “Last night didn’t go so great,” he said, removing the net from the tub, while she ran her fingers through her hair to loosen it from being smashed by the hat. “The sea was as flat as a table. The wind picked up after dawn, but by that time we were already pulling up the traps. You know, the moving water confuses the fish. If the current doesn’t move in the deeps, they see the traps. They’re not stupid!”

  She listened to him, but the storage room distracted her; the two men kept it remarkably clean and orderly.

  On the side where Nico stood, there were stacks of nets, each seemingly different from the other. In the adjacent corner sat a neat pile of wooden support blocks, like the ones she’d seen under the boat keels, while a coiled rope hung on a huge nail on the wall. Below, an anchor and a huge stone, each tied with lines also wound in stacked circles.

  She was fascinated by the equipment, which gave a glimpse into the life of a fisherman. Their sacr
ifices. Their passion. Sacrifices and passion. Aren’t those the building blocks for making a career, of any type?

  “Everything okay?”

  Nico’s question pulled her from her thoughts.

  “I was thinking, this place is fabulous.”

  “This hole?”

  “Can I come in?” She asked, rising.

  “If you want.”

  She entered timidly, passing close to a work counter that held hooks, fishing lines wrapped around pieces of cork, gloves, a hammer, a chisel, and various tools. Nestled vertically in the space between the counter and the corner of the wall were oars, harpoons, some very fine nets on long handles, and an oxygen tank. An assortment of receptacles followed, a tub full of floats and fishing weights, another with some pulleys and some oarlocks, a huge bucket with other buckets inside like a series of Russian dolls, a smaller pail with flippers and a snorkeling mask, and the last one filled with some grease that didn’t exactly smell like Chanel …

  “This would be a great room to draw.” She sighed, observing the array of large and small traps hanging on the wall.

  “Huh?”

  She looked at him, confused.

  “You spoke in English.”

  “Oh, sorry.” She blushed. “I said this was a great room for to draw.”

  “You draw?” His face lit up and he let go of the cables he’d been setting aside.

  She figured his interest wasn’t genuine. Like when, at work, Alex started talking about his passion for chemistry, and she showed interest just to be polite to her boss. So she understood where Nico was coming from.

  “Yes, in my free time I like to draw,” she said, her attention grabbed by a small statue of a fisherman with a rod placed on a shelf.

  “If you want, it’s at your disposal.”

  “Really?”

  “Sure. Go get your paper and pencil. I’ll wait for you here.”

  “You mean now?”

  “Why not?

  “Well, I thought you cannot wait for going to take rest.”

  “I can sit here while you draw.” He gestured towards a mass of nets with a tarp, like the one covering the boat, folded and set on top. “Then we can chat. But only if you don’t mind talking while you work. If you do, I’ll just lie down and rest right here.”

  Four thirty, she thought, reading the time on her phone.

  How would she have spent the rest of the afternoon? If Susan and Roger had gone out, she’d be alone until dinner.

  And what if they’re home?

  That would look even worse …

  She’d spent an entire hour without thinking about Ryan. Being alone or hanging out with his parents would only bring him back to the center of her thoughts again.

  “So?” Nico pressed.

  “I’m tempted. Are you sure?”

  “I am. It’s up to you.”

  12. The Fisherman

  “I understand that you don’t like her, but this time—”

  “Don’t put words in my mouth.”

  “—you’re crossing the line.”

  “The end justifies the means. An Italian said that, if memory serves me correctly. And this one seems polite and generous.”

  “Generous in what sense?”

  “Those fish were a gift, weren’t they?”

  “They were. But like hell he’d have given them to us if it wasn’t for Hannah!”

  “I imagine that doubt will haunt us for eternity.”

  “Come on, Sue! Can we talk about it seriously?”

  “There’s nothing to talk about.”

  “If you encourage our son’s girlfriend to hang out with a young Italian guy, we’ve got a few things to discuss.”

  “Goodness gracious, you’re making a big deal of this!”

  “It sounds like you don’t care at all about Ryan’s feelings.”

  “But it’s for his own good that I suggested Hannah make friends with the fisherman!”

  "Yeah, I’m sure he’ll thank you when he finds out.”

  “Now, Roger. Sarcasm has never been your forte.”

  “Sarcasm or not, we don’t need to push her towards the fisherman, as you call him.”

  “If she were really going to end up in his net, I know Ryan would hate me. What do you think? Of course I’ve taken that into account. But after he rages for awhile he’ll understand that we have saved him from something worse.”

  “ ‘We’ have, huh?”

  “…”

  “If he loves Hannah as much as he says, I doubt it’ll go that way.”

  “That’s just the point, Roger. He doesn’t love her.”

  “He told you that?”

  “No, but you can see it by how he treats her.”

  “What are you talking about, Sue? Hannah is a lovely person. You can’t deny it. He says that he’s in love with her, and is convinced enough to bring us on vacation with them! This is a fact.”

  “Roger, Roger, Roger. You always let appearances mislead you.”

  “…”

  “I don’t deny that Hannah is a very sweet girl. But when our son’s future is at stake, that is secondary.”

  “…”

  “You claim that he loves her. So, enlighten me. How come he prefers his work to her? Work versus vacation with his girlfriend … And work won! Not just once, either. And I can guarantee that I had nothing to do with that.”

  “…”

  “We were supposed to leave all together, but … oops! ‘Go ahead, I’ll join you later.’ Now tell me, what man who’s in love with his girlfriend sends her on vacation alone with his parents? If we’d had more of a relationship with her, with a little indulgence I could have understood. But we’d only met her three times. And he, rather than being present for the process of us getting to know each other better, to thoughtfully reassure her the way any boyfriend in that situation would, what does he do? Goes to Tacoma with a customer.”

  “…”

  “Of course, extraordinary contingencies can occur. In some cases, things just go wrong. But two times? In only a few days? Come now, Roger! If he truly loved her, after the first time he threw her under the bus, when she picked herself up he wouldn’t have pushed her in front of it again.”

  “Tell me one thing, Sue. Ryan’s twenty-eight. How many of his girlfriends has he introduced to us?”

  “…”

  “Let’s see. There’s Hannah. Then, we have … um … uh … Any others come to mind?”

  “…”

  “Couldn’t it be that, for the first time, you’re jealous? Maybe scared that someone is taking away your little b—”

  “Don’t be an idiot!”

  “I’m saying that if he brought her home and then insisted we come along on their vacation—and find me another guy who, instead of going off alone on a trip with his girlfriend, brings along his parents! That tells me he’s got serious intentions with her.”

  “It’s clear his intentions are serious. That’s exactly why ‘serious intentions’ and ‘girlfriend he doesn’t love’ create an erroneous equation and make it our duty to intervene.”

  “You’re basing this on the idea that Ryan doesn’t love her. But how can you be 100% sure of that? We could take an ultrasound of his heart and still wouldn’t know the truth.”

  “I could be mistaken about his feelings. You’re right. That doesn’t take away from the fact that, as his parents, we have to stop him from making an error that he’d regret his whole life, considering that Hannah isn’t the right one for him.”

  “Hang on a minute. I can’t believe I’m hearing this. But what in the hell are you talking about?”

  “You saw her, right? With the fisherman?”

  “So what?”

  “They come from the same place in life, Roger. You’ll never see her that comfortable with Ryan, just like you’ll never see him that way with her. If history’s taught us anything, it’s that mixing different
social classes can work in the short term, but in the long term will always fail. It doesn’t matter how much they think they love each other.”

  “You and I have been working for more than thirty years, though. Or do you have something to tell me?”

  “Don’t be silly, Roger. You and I work well. But that’s because you were determined enough to become a successful business owner by the time you were twenty-five. There’s little to debate. If you come from nothing but end up with the position you have, especially when you made it happen through your own tenacity, those in my social circles might look down their noses at you, but they’ll respect and accept you.”

  “Are you saying that if the business hadn’t succeeded, you wouldn’t have married me?”

  “Of course I would have married you. But it wouldn’t have worked out.”

  “…”

  “You went to the bank to ask for the loan to take over your uncle’s business and expand it, but if you’d continued to be a bricklayer for him, do you think my family would have welcomed you with open arms like they did? To be with you, I’d have had to leave them and the social circle I’d grown up in. I wouldn’t have hesitated because you were more important than anything else, but that would have made me unhappy. And what about you? Your pride would have made you unhappy as well, because you wouldn’t have been able to take care of me in the manner to which I was accustomed. We would have loved each other, but been frustrated and poor. And with this as the basis, no love can survive the test of time. Let’s be realistic, Roger. The opportunity to screw each other over would have come up within a few years. But we’re here together. Like we would have been if my father had been a blue collar worker instead of a CEO.”

  “…”

  “Dear, it’s no one’s fault that the world works this way. The rich with the rich, the poor with the poor. There’s a reason it’s always been like that. It’s human nature. Destinies cross, but the economic imbalance between the two sides will always put cracks in the relationship. In one way or another. And with time, the cracks become chasms.”

  “Okay. In our case you could be right. But damn it, it’s different for them.”

  “Yes, it would be worse.”

  “Worse?!”

  “Can you imagine how much embarrassment Hannah would cause for Ryan socially?”