Fishing With RayAnne

by Ava Finch

  RayAnne had thought the fishing circuit was misogynistic, but Ingrid has told stories about big banking that could curl her hair—the richer they are, Ingrid claims of the investment executives she investigates, the more engorged their senses of entitlement, the bigger their boners for owning everything, even everyone, in their sightlines, whether they actually want them or not. Ingrid reckons there are as many sex addicts and acquisition-alcoholics in banking as there are steroid abusers in the Tour de France. She claims most men she encounters actually despise females, uttering the word “woman” in the same tone they reserve for “Democrat.”

  “Trust me,” Ingrid will say, shrugging. “The same thing that makes these guys desire a woman is the same thing that makes them hate one. I mean, they’ll get women, they’ll own them, but somewhere in their psyche is probably some little boy with a horrid mother who used to slap his peepee when he wet the bed or locked him in a cupboard if he touched himself.”

  Ingrid can seem a little world-weary to RayAnne.

  When Ingrid’s firm steps in to evaluate a bank or investment group, those under investigation expect big guns in power suits girded by troops of number-crunchers and assistants. When they see the emissary is a mere woman without even an assistant at her slender side, they breathe a sigh of relief—their first mistake. Their second is misreading her Scandinavian reserve for shyness, assuming this winsome blond with a disarming Faroe accent is what she appears.

  There is an entire staff poised behind Ingrid’s back. She’s a strategist—and like those she’s paid to take down, holds a Harvard MBA and has The Art of War down pat. But her résumé also includes degrees in economics and philosophy. She’s considered an expert in statistical analysis and is in a pool of talking heads sought out for think tanks and comments by the press. Her resolve to see Citizens United abolished is downright ferocious; Ingrid does not want her sons to grow up in an America puppeteered by corporations. There’s been talk of her teaming up with Elizabeth Warren for the fight, but whenever the subject of moving to Washington is broached, Ky sticks fingers in his ears and hums. He loves Minneapolis as fiercely as he dislikes its suburbs.

  Ingrid’s work wardrobe—components of it laid out on the bed RayAnne lounges on—appears utterly feminine but has a strategy as serious as a heart attack. All skirt hems land one inch above her knee, revealing precisely the amount of leg that incites a desire to view more. She’d never “go in” wearing pants: “So Hillary! And oh, does the boys’ club hate her.”

  Ingrid’s gabardine and pinstripe Hugo Bossy underwire creations are a collaborative effort between her and an effeminate tailor in Saint Paul named Tran. Tran and Ingrid meet twice a year to cut up Vogue and Esquire fashion spreads, pairing one image of a stunning dress with another of a man’s Italian cashmere suit, or a herringbone number with razor pleats. Despite the language barrier, Tran seems to understand Ingrid’s mission perfectly, shaping various elements into designs and adding his own dragon-lady flair. The end result is sexually charged yet utterly untouchable, the power broker’s wet dream, detonating their instinct to either pursue Ingrid or resist her, both win-wins for her team.

  “My armor,” she calls the wardrobe, keeping it all in a separate closet. “I’m rarely manrrupted wearing Tran’s creations.”

  “Manrrupted?” RayAnne is examining a suit jacket; its tailoring reminds her of Helga the Bra Viking’s Valkyries.

  “Interrupted by a man.” At home, Ingrid manages to look elegant in yoga togs and scuffed ballet slippers.

  RayAnne catches herself in the mirror; her own weekend ensemble is plaid cutoffs and a tank top not quite covering the shoulder straps of her jogging bra. If clothes announce an agenda, hers would be don’t mind me.

  After Ingrid’s garment bag is locked and loaded, RayAnne glances out the window to the house across the street, which looks like an afterthought to the four-car garage that dominates it. She drops the diaphanous underpants she’d been unconsciously fondling and falls back onto the pillows. “Come back to the city, Ingrid.” RayAnne pleads, “Come back and live closer to the Human Beings.” Meaning her, of course.

  “Ky’s always saying the same thing; so is Bernadette,” Ingrid laughs. “You guys!”

  Big Rick takes the twins out back with the walkie-talkies, and RayAnne follows Ingrid to the boys’ room, where Danny Boy is happily reclining in his cage among candy wrappers. The boys have been hamster-sitting and have been promised that if Danny Boy makes it to the end of September, they will be given a pet of their own. After two months, Danny Boy is fatter and probably diabetic, but beggars can’t be choosers, and she’d begged Ky to take care of him while she was working at Location for the summer.

  “Sorry, Danny.”

  In the kitchen, they watch Big Rick and the twins through the vast windows. The back of the saltbox is nearly all glass. “Like a dollhouse,” RayAnne muses, prompting Ky to shift in midstep to become a stiff-legged Ken doll. The kitchen is larger than the entire first floor of her row house, and many times brighter, with lighting that seemingly glows from nowhere and bounces off an institutional amount of stainless steel.

  They crack pistachios and rehash the plan they will pose to Big Rick over dinner—that he go back to Arizona and make up with Rita. Ky suggests reverse psychology.

  “You know, challenge the old ego, maybe suggest Rita won’t take him back?”

  Ingrid calculates this risk in her actuary’s brain and shakes her head. “Wrong approach.”

  “We could . . .” RayAnne ventures. “We could encourage him to go back to her like we’re concerned for his well-being, you know, his happiness.”

  When Ky and Ingrid both blink at her, she surrenders her palms. “Well, I don’t know.”

  “He can stay here for four days.” Ky leans back, crossing his arms. “Max.”

  Ingrid frowns. “Why not till next weekend? That way I can see him again.”

  They look at Ingrid as if she has special needs, then back to each other.

  “Do you think he’ll really go back?” Ky looks dubious.

  RayAnne shrugs. She has to feel sorry for number six. Rita, like the others, is younger than Big Rick by decades. “I wonder what they have in common to even fight about.”

  “And that’s probably the problem.” Ky is tossing pistachios and catching them in his mouth. “I doubt he invests much in husbanding, anyway. So what’s to fight about?”

  “Point. Maybe he yelled himself out with Mom.”

  RayAnne and Kyle grow quiet, as if beamed back to the past when Big Rick would arrive at the house after a trip like a train pulling in, when he and Bernadette would roar and screech so loudly that RayAnne and Ky would crawl under their beds or creep like a Little Big Man Pawnee to the top of the stairs. Given their mother’s lousy aim, the glassware and pottery pitched at their father’s head rarely hit the mark, and though Big Rick never struck Bernadette, there always seemed to be the possibility, the threat that one of them would win one day on some level, meaning the other would lose. They sometimes feared their mother might drop the pottery and pick up a knife. For the year or so before the divorce, RayAnne mused that at least a slap would be specific; blood would be a definite something.

  Ky had once tried to explain the family dynamic for Ingrid, but she hadn’t grasped the notion, responding rationally, “But Kyle, alcoholism is a disease. Surely your father didn’t mean to be horrid.”

  He may not have meant to be, but he was. At the time, the word “disease” would have meant nothing to a couple kids clinging to a stair bannister in the middle of the night, pajama sleeves wet with tears and snot.

  “Well, he’s promised.”

  The three stand at the open trunk of the taxi. The driver is itching to get going. RayAnne will ride along to the airport and catch the light rail back to her neighborhood. Big Rick has agreed to stay a few days with Ky and the boys, then go back to Ari
zona and give it another go with Rita. In the meantime, he’ll send flowers and a conciliatory e-mail, which Ky will help draft.

  Her father stands at the open door with a twin on each shoulder, both waving as the taxi backs away. Ky is in the driveway, giving RayAnne a look as they pull out, knitting his fingers to sign, “I’m fucked.”

  Ingrid, on the other hand, is optimistic Big Rick will keep the boys occupied so that Ky might get some hours of research in on his latest project, a book on the early years of the NHL. Ingrid’s mania for hockey is as deep as Ky’s and Dot’s. During the Stanley Cup, they all wear the same jerseys and talk hockey ad nauseum. RayAnne leaves them all to it for the duration of the playoffs.

  It’s all settled then. Big Rick is squared away. RayAnne can drive up to Location in the morning with only the show to worry about.

  She leans back into the seat and considers Ingrid’s profile, so serene, yet always pinballing between her family—the dervish twins and neurotic Ky—and the pressure-cooker job that requires her to be battle-ready and utterly confident.

  “How do you do it, Ingrid?”

  “Do what? Oh, you mean everything?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s kind of a cliché but it’s true—the calmest place? It usually is the eye of the storm.”

  After her second six-hour drive in five days, RayAnne pulls into Location and brakes to a skid just as she sees Hal driving in the opposite direction with a beautiful woman in his passenger seat. She remembers he had volunteered to drive the guest—the climatologist from the educational nonprofit Norah’s Ark.

  Cassi’s already set up in the trailer.

  Banging in and dropping her duffel, RayAnne asks, “Where’s Hal taking the ark person? That is the ark builder, right?”

  “I’m great, thanks. How was your weekend?”

  “Don’t ask. My butt is flat from driving. Yours?”

  “Ass or weekend?” She taps her travel mug with green fingernails. “Hal’s probably taking Norah over to Schmancy Camp.”

  “Johannson’s?” RayAnne frowns. The fancy resort is where guests are sometimes housed since there’s nothing like a decent motel nearby. Johannson’s is expensive and often overrun with honeymooners—some guests complain it’s almost too romantic; others swoon over the monogrammed everything and little pine-tree soaps. RayAnne has only ever been in the resort’s bar, next to the lakeside restaurant that does not list prices on its menu. Dot knows all about it; apparently she stayed there with Ted back in the day, when it boasted a Michelin-rated chef.

  “Yup.”

  “He staying there too?” RayAnne chews a nail.

  “How would I know?”

  “They seem cozy?”

  “You really want to know?”

  “No. Yes.”

  “They laughed a lot. But I haven’t caught them, uh, doing it. What do you care? He’s a sponsor.”

  “Right. And . . . sponsors should act professional.”

  The next morning she’s on the dock tapping her foot, waiting for Norah to be delivered by Hal. They are late.

  “Where are they?”

  Cassi rolls her eyes. “Three minutes late, Ray, keep your knickers on.” Winking, she adds, “Maybe they overslept.”

  RayAnne harrumphs, digs out her phone as if she has more pressing matters, and walks to the end of the dock for better reception.

  She calls Ky to check in. He reports it’s going well enough. “I’m hiding in our bathroom with my laptop, actually getting some work done.”

  “He’s okay with the twins?”

  “They’re five. Easy to impress. Yesterday I had the whole house to myself. He took them to Canterbury downs to see the horses.”

  “The track? You let him take your children to the track.”

  “Three hours of uninterrupted alone time, Ray? Of course I let him. He promised upon pain of death he would not touch a drop. Besides, I strapped a cell phone with GPS to Michael Jordan just in case.”

  Cassi sidles up and nods toward the road where Hal’s Wagoneer is approaching, ticking through the trees. “Ky, I’ll call you later.”

  “Before I forget, Mom called from some yoga camp, Cripple-you?”

  “Kripalu.”

  “Anyway, she said Gran called her, worried you were stressed out or something, so Mom called me. She thinks you’re too busy to be bothered.”

  “Who, Mom or Gran?”

  “Gran.”

  “Why would she think that?”

  “Dunno. Have you called her lately?”

  RayAnne smiles brightly for the camera, maybe too brightly. “Four years ago, climatologist Norah Smith bought a Winnebago and turned it into a rolling classroom equipped to teach awareness of global climate change. Hoping to spread that knowledge across southern states, she outfitted her RV to look like an ark on wheels. Today she brings the facts of environmental science to thousands of kids in schools where creationism is taught and evolution is banned from the curriculum. We’ll talk with Norah about global warming, the state of melting polar ice caps, and the fate of our coastlines. Norah, welcome aboard.”

  The camera pans to Norah, a younger, much hotter version of Meryl Streep.

  “RayAnne, I’m so glad you asked me.” Her accent is a genteel drawl.

  She imagines Hal is glad as well. Sponsors do love to worm in, get their thumbprints on things, then hang around the sets and act the big shot. Or, in this case, sniff around resorts where guests stay and chaperone them. RayAnne shakes herself back into the moment, takes one look at Norah, and feels suddenly so dowdy she could be a different species. Of course he would pick someone this gorgeous.

  Unprompted, Norah begins, “My goodness, I am so thrilled, I just love this show. I can’t believe I’m on it! And RayAnne, you are even prettier in person.”

  Messing with her, surely. “Well, that’s very . . .”

  “And all this nature. Lordy, we’ve nothing like this down in Alabama!”

  RayAnne sneaks a look at the notes written on her palm. She’d had the entire weekend to study the guest materials, but Big Rick had monopolized every waking moment. “First, Norah, congratulations on your genius grant.”

  “I know. So exciting! Now I can build an actual boat, so the classroom can float right there on the gulf, a real Norah’s ark.” She pronounces it “auk.”

  “I hear you had some trouble at some of the summer church camps?”

  “Oh, yes, the Jesus camps. Once the Baptists discover I’m teaching climate awareness, my welcome can wear out reeeal quick.”

  “And you were even escorted to a county line?” RayAnne frowns convincingly. “Have you been threatened?”

  “Well, I’ve certainly been discouraged and called some names—everything from ‘the Devil’s Handmaiden’ to, well, you can imagine.” Her laugh is like glass chimes, and when Norah stands and readies to cast, her reel spins a perfect line, making RayAnne wonder if Hal spent any time teaching her to fish. She imagines him close behind Norah, arms around her, his hand covering hers on the pole . . .

  Cassi’s canned voice in her ear catches her in mid-drift. “Snap to, Ray.”

  Brightening, she asks, “And the ark was vandalized?”

  “Scorched some. Nothing a little elbow grease and paint couldn’t fix.”

  As Norah talks about the science behind climate change, RayAnne scrutinizes her. This woman is the very type she admires, smart and warm, yet tenacious, like her mother, Dot, and Ingrid. When she looks to the camera boat, Hal is giving a thumbs-up, and RayAnne smiles before realizing he’s looking past her to Norah, who is gushing statistics about the end of the climate as we know it. “And all these lovely spruce and birch will die out in two or three hundred years, or be underwater from the melted polar ice.” She looks around. “Shame, isn’t it? These pretty lakes are so romantic.”


  RayAnne smiles tightly. “Are they?”

  “Oh!” Norah’s eyes widen. “My, I think I’ve hooked something . . .” She starts reeling. “Just a little nibble,” she nearly giggles. “Like a love bite.”

  While Norah flirts with her fish, RayAnne faces the camera. “When we come back: Is keeping up with fashion draining your bank account? Ana Kozlak is the creator of Pockets, a label designing custom uniforms for busy women. We’ll have a runway show on the dock featuring Ana’s uniform creations for a florist, a writer, a teacher”—she pivots to camera one—“and even a fishing show host. Here’s a sneak peek of what’s in store.”

  Footage from that morning features a number of models sashaying across on the dock, RayAnne bringing up the rear in a knee-length fishing-vest dress with perhaps fifty pockets. Overkill. Her bit will be edited, she hopes, at least the moment when the toe of her shoe stuck between the dock boards and she stepped out of it to continue down the runway-dock with one foot bare.

  After taping, RayAnne finds Norah at a picnic table, lighting up a cigarette. To RayAnne’s inquisitive look, she shrugs. “Well, we’re all gonna die from something . . .”

  “Hmm, I wish I could think like that. The things I would eat. Does Hal smoke?”

  “Ha, I don’t know about smoke, but he sizzles some.”

  “Huh.” RayAnne grins. “Speak of the devil.”

  As Hal is coming up the path, Norah crushes her cigarette and fluffs her hair, wondering quietly under her breath, “I s’pose he’s married?”

  “Hal?” RayAnne feigns indifference. “Hmm, I might’ve heard that. Probably has kids and the whole shebang. You didn’t ask?”

  “No.” Norah is looking past her, suddenly looking annoyed. “Oh, there’s that girl who pops up everywhere like a prairie dog.”

  “That’s just Cassi.”