by Ann McMan
“Confused. Afraid.” She lowered her eyes. “Excited.”
“Excited?” Shawn squeezed the top of her hand.
Kate slowly nodded. “But don’t forget confused and afraid.”
“I won’t.” Shawn took Kate’s hand between both of hers. “I promise.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about this?” Kate picked up the papers with her free hand and gave them a gentle shake. “It’s crazy.”
Shawn chuckled. “So I guess you’ve now had enough time to figure out what you think?”
Kate finally smiled.
“Do you wanna go see it?”
Kate stared down at their pile of hands.
“Try and stop me.”
Two and a half hours.
Two and a half hours they’d been drifting around in these goddamn weeds and nothing. Not a single nibble.
It was ridiculous. He didn’t know a lot about fishing, but one thing he did know was that fishing was like gambling. And in gambling, you never stayed with a cold machine or a table that wasn’t paying out. You kept moving until your luck changed.
He watched Quinn try another cast.
You’d think she’d realize that nothing was going to happen here. You’d think she’d notice that not another damn boat had shown any interest at all in this spot.
But, no. She kept tossing out her lines and reeling them back in. Over and over, like some kind of idiot savant. She’d probably done it a hundred times now. Montana wasn’t much better. The two of them kept taking turns. Quinn would pull her line in and Montana would throw hers out. She was working the other side of the boat, trying her luck with different kinds of lures. They were both crazy.
He shifted on the recliner. It wasn’t his job to point anything out.
He checked his watch again. Twelve-thirty.
Only another hour and a half to go, and this first day would be over. Then there would only be two more to go. The tournament would be over—and Barb’s damn workshop would be over. They could all get out of here and get back to their normal lives.
He watched Quinn and Montana. What a weird-ass couple.
He scratched his leg. These damn trousers were bugging him. They felt foreign. The fabric itched. He didn’t like having to wear them. He couldn’t wait to get off this boat and change back into something normal.
Normal.
Right. None of them had anything remotely like normal lives to get back to. He understood that now. Barb had done a good job assembling her crew of wackos. Together they were a big, simmering pot of hot mess. This whole production should make one helluva show.
Of course, none of that crap made sense to him either. Why did the government fork out taxpayer money to erect these high-priced monuments that glorified everything fucked-up about society? Shit. If you wanted a good dose of reality, you didn’t have to pay to go to a damn museum. All you had to do was watch the eleven o’clock news.
He tried asking Barb about that one night, but she just laughed at him and fired up another smoke. Barb was a piece of work. He’d never met anyone quite like her. She just took things at face value and didn’t ask a lot of questions. She reminded him of Mrs. Alvarez.
“I think it’s time for a lunch break.” Montana secured her fishing pole against the deck railing. “Who else wants a hot dog?”
“I do.” Quinn turned toward her. “Let me tie this thing down.” She reached for some bungee cords.
“Are you gonna leave your line out?”
Quinn shrugged. “Why not?”
“Suit yourself.” Montana walked over to the gas grill. “How about you, Mav—Marvin? You hungry?”
“I could eat.” He watched her open the valve on the propane tank and light the burner. “What else you got on board this thing?”
She waved a hand toward the dry storage area located beneath one of the padded bench seats. “Chips. Cookies. Some beef jerky. There’s water and sodas in the fridge.”
Sodas?
“No beer?”
“Nope.” Montana shook her blonde head. “It’s against tournament rules to have alcohol on the boat.”
Well shit.
Even with the steady wind blowing, it was getting hot out here on the water. He got up and walked toward the refrigerator.
“Anybody else want a soda?”
“I’ll take one of Junior’s grape Fantas.” Quinn walked over to join them and flopped down on one of the long seats.
Marvin handed her one of the plastic bottles filled with purple liquid.
“How do you drink that shit?”
Quinn slowly twisted off the cap so the foamy drink wouldn’t spew out. “It’s not that bad once you get used to it.”
“I’d still rather have a beer.”
“Well you aren’t gonna get one until after the weigh-in. We aren’t allowed to leave the boat.”
“Say what?” Marvin wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly.
Quinn nodded. “Tournament rules. We’re not allowed off the boat until we check back in at the Marina at two.”
“You have got to be fucking kidding me?” Marvin was dumbfounded. He couldn’t even get off this damn barge for a piss break? That had to be against the Geneva Conventions.
“Hand me that pack of hot dogs, will you Mav—Marvin?”
Marvin rolled his eyes and snagged the pack of McKenzie franks off the center rack of the fridge. He tossed them to Montana.
“Look, little girl. Why don’t you make it easy on yourself, and just call me Mavis?”
Montana looked embarrassed. She concentrated on opening the pack of hot dogs and placing them on the grill. They made soft hissing sounds when they connected with the hot grate.
“She could call you Marvis.” Quinn suggested. “Or Mavin.”
Marvin glared at her. Quinn didn’t seem to notice. She warmed to her idea. “I kinda like Mavin.” She took a big swig of her purple drink. “It fits.”
Marvin was about to ask Quinn if she’d like to see how well his foot would fit up her ass when he noticed something strange happening in the background behind her. Quinn’s fishing rod was vibrating. He pointed at it.
“What the hell is going on with your gear?”
Quinn swiveled around on her seat. The rod was now shaking from side to side.
“Jesus!” Montana yelled. “You’ve got a live one! Get over there!”
Quinn stumbled to her feet and lunged for the rod just as it broke free from the bungee cords. She managed to grab hold of it before it slid off the side of the boat. The reel was wide open and singing as line flew out across the water.
“Stop the spin! Set the hook!” Montana was scrambling around the grill to get to Quinn.
Quinn flipped the crank lever on the reel and stopped the line from feeding out. She yanked hard and away on the pole, then lowered the tip and slowly started to wind in the line.
Marvin was mesmerized. Whatever was fighting on the other end of the line was plainly massive. Quinn’s pole was bent at an impossible angle. She kept switching the direction of the pole from left to right as she fought to keep winding up her line.
“Oh, god.” Montana was right at her elbow. “Don’t let the line break.”
Something flashed in the water.
“There it is!” Montana cried.
Marvin could see it too—something oblong and bright, undulating just below the surface. It was getting closer.
“I don’t think my pole can hold.” Quinn was really struggling now. Her fishing pole was nearly bent in half.
“Keep the head down, keep the head down.” Montana grabbed the net. “Just get it in as close as you can to the boat.”
Marvin could see it better now. It was huge—and—pink?
“What is that thing?” He moved over to stand beside Montana. “That’s not a fish.”
“No.” Montana’s shoulders sagged. She looked up at Quinn who was still fighting to bring it in. “It’s an umbrella.”
“It’s a what?” Quinn loo
ked at her.
Montana pointed out at it. “It’s a pink umbrella.”
“And it’s open,” Marvin added. “No wonder it was such a bitch to reel in.”
Quinn’s pole lurched and was nearly yanked out of her hands. The umbrella surged away from them.
“Hey!” Quinn took a tighter hold of her rod and commenced fighting it once again. “This damn thing’s alive.”
Montana was peering out at it. “Oh, my god. This cannot be happening.”
“What are you talking about?” Marvin followed her gaze. “I don’t see anything.”
Something splashed inside the umbrella. The pink fabric flounced out and flattened in rapid succession.
“There’s a fish inside it.” Montana got on her knees and signaled to Marvin. “Get over here and help me pull it into the boat.”
Marvin hesitated. He hated fish—unless they were deep fried and covered with tartar sauce.
“Goddamn it, Mavis—Marvin.” Montana threw her net aside and reached into the water. “Now!”
Marvin squatted down and blindly shoved his hands into the water. He grabbed hold of the first thing he could reach. It felt like one of the metal ribs. Together, they hauled the fussy pink and white striped umbrella up over the side of the boat. The damn thing looked like an oversized snow cone. Its handle was broken off and it was rusted into a semi-open position. It crashed to the deck like a ten-gallon water balloon and drenched everything in sight. The panel facing them was emblazoned with a ridiculous caricature of a wide-eyed cat. Hello Kitty, it proclaimed.
Montana was screaming at him. “Rip it open, rip it open!”
“What do you want me to use?” Mavin yelled back at her. “My teeth?”
The damn umbrella was in motion, sliding all over the deck.
Quinn dropped her pole and crouched down beside them. “What the hell is in there?”
“Goddamn it.” Montana reached into her cargo shorts and pulled out a pocketknife. In one swift motion, she flipped open the blade and sliced the fabric away from one of the wire ribs. Three fat largemouth bass flopped out and writhed around between them on the soggy carpet.
“That’s what’s in there,” Montana proclaimed. “Now let’s get them into the cooler, fast.”
“Holy shit.” Quinn grabbed the fattest of the struggling fish and held it up. “This thing is huge.” Her hook and chartreuse worm dangled from its upper lip. She backed the hook out and tossed the line over toward her discarded rod.
Montana had already wrangled the other ones. Marvin thought the two fish hanging from her hands made her look like that statue of Lady Justice.
“Mavis?” Lady Justice was yelling at him again. “Snap out of it and open the damn cooler.”
Marvin was too stunned to do anything but obey.
When the three big fish were safely stowed in the massive, thirty-gallon cooler, Quinn connected the aerator and waited until the water started to bubble. Then she walked to the Kelvinator and opened its freezer compartment. She pulled out two frozen grape Fanta bottles and held them up for Montana.
“One or two?”
“Hell.” Montana dropped back on her butt and waved a hand at Quinn. “Use ’em both.”
Marvin watched Quinn drop the two bottles into the tank with the fish. Then she closed the lid on the cooler.
“You cannot be serious?” He looked from Quinn to Montana. “There is no way in hell that can be a legal catch.”
Quinn looked crestfallen. “Is it?” she asked Montana.
“Wasn’t that your jig I saw you pull out of the mouth of the big one?”
Quinn nodded.
“Then that’s a fair catch. The other two must’ve hitched a ride while you were hauling her in. Nothing in the rules against that.”
“Well I’ll be damned.” Marvin shook his head.
“So.” Montana got to her feet. “I’d say our work here is through.” She walked to her grill. A soggy trail of water spread out along the carpet behind her. “We’ve got about an hour to kill before the weigh-in. Who wants a hot dog?”
Essay 11
If you’re reading this, it means you’ve decided to find me. They told me I wasn’t allowed to know your name or attempt to make any kind of contact with you—that only you could ask for communication between us. I understand that. It’s a right I surrendered when I gave you away. So the only thing available to me is writing this letter. They said they’d add it to your file, and that if you ever wanted to know about me or find me, you could read it and use the information I made available.
I don’t know whether you’ll ever want to meet me, but if you’re reading this, it must mean you’re at least curious about the woman who gave birth to you. I don’t know, either, about when you might find yourself holding this letter. It could be next month or next year, or it could be decades from now. I’m writing to you now to tell you about what happened so many years ago in my life, and how you came into being.
For starters, I want you to know that you were made during an act of love. Even though what happened ended up being a big mistake, I’m not sorry about what I did. And I have never been sorry that you were born.
I was very young—only eighteen—and I met the man who would become your father through the part-time job I had after school. I worked afternoons at a local dry cleaning establishment, taking in piles of mismatched and soiled clothing, and returning bags of freshly pressed shirts and suits to people who were always in a hurry. It was a hot and humid environment, even on the coldest days of the year. I got to know the regulars and memorized all of their special requirements. No starch. Extra starch. Make certain there are no double creases on the sleeves. Replace buttons. Bleach the collars. Some of the regulars made small talk with me, but even that was on the fly. Most people used our drive-up window and never bothered to come inside the store.
But he always did.
I got to know him. He was many years older than me. He was a professional. I could tell that by his suits. They were expensive. His shirts were all monogrammed. And he wore French cuffs. We didn’t see a lot of that in our small, Midwestern town. I never asked him what he did, and he never offered any details. He wore a wedding ring, but he never brought anything but his own clothing to us. And no one else ever picked his items up. I knew his name and address, but I never thought about trying to find out more about him. There was no Internet in those days. And no cell phones. So I learned about him in the only way I could—bit by bit.
Everything about our world was changing. President Kennedy had been assassinated in Dallas, and nothing about the lives we lived seemed safe anymore. The news I listened to on the TV or the AM radio was all about the war. Every night, Walter Cronkite told us the latest about what was happening in Vietnam. Every day we waited to hear about how many soldiers had been killed, and how many more were being sent over. It seemed like everyone I knew at school had a brother, father or cousin in the service.
I think his appeal to me was more than just the exotic nature of the mysterious life I imagined he lived. In my immature mind, he reminded me of my father. By that, I mean the father I never got to know. He died when I was just a toddler. He ran a full service gas station and one day, a car he was working on rolled off the lift and crushed him against the back wall of the service bay. My mother never remarried, and she raised my brother and me by herself.
But I always had fantasies about my father—great notions about what kind of man he was, what noble and good deeds he performed, how strong and upstanding a figure he was in our church. And even though I didn’t realize it at the time, this handsome stranger was exactly like everything I’d been led to understand about my father. So I found myself drawn to him like a moth to a flame. And he liked me, too. I could tell by the way he always teased me and noticed whenever I wore something new or styled my hair a different way. It never occurred to me that there was anything wrong with his attentions to me, or in my responses to him. I was a very young eighteen. Still a virgin, and
still very shy in the ways of the world. My mother was very strict, and I did next to no dating.
One day, near the end of my senior year in high school, he came into the store and told me it would be his last visit. He was relocating to another office, out of state. I was devastated and unable to conceal my disappointment—my panic at losing the most important man in my life again. He took pity on me. He offered to come back at the end of my shift and take me out for a soda—just to say goodbye properly. Even in my sadness, I knew that something about this felt wrong—that my mother would be furious with me if she found out. But I didn’t care. I agreed to meet him.
I’m sure you can figure out the rest. It only happened that one time. Then he was gone and I was left alone to deal with my guilt and shame about what I had done. I never told anyone, and I never tried to find him. I never thought I’d have to. Everything changed about two months later when I began to suspect that I was pregnant. I was terrified. I thought my life was over. I knew my mother would disown me, and I was too ashamed to tell any of my friends. But time was my enemy. I knew I’d be unable to conceal my condition for long—I was already starting to show. Understand that this was a different time. Abortions were illegal. Like most girls my age, I had been taught that they were scary and dangerous procedures, performed in back alleys by untrained criminals. And I was Catholic; so even thinking about finding someone to perform one was a mortal sin.
I had to tell my mother.
Her anger and disgust were worse than anything I could have imagined. She told me I was a disgrace to the family. That there was no way she could submit herself, my brother, or the rest of our relations to enduring the shame of what I had done.
She resolved to withdraw me from school and send me away, to a place where no one would know my name. I would stay there until the baby was born, and then the baby would be given up for adoption. I had an aunt who lived in Seattle, and she told my mother about a place where girls like me could go. Within days, I was on a train to Washington. I had only one suitcase containing the things I would need for my stay there. Anything else I required would be provided. I was not permitted to see any of my friends or to say goodbye. My mother would have no contact with me during my absence. She insisted it would be better that way.