by Ann McMan
“You knew about this, too?” Linda pushed her wine glass away. “I really do need to stay out of the bar.”
“It’s okay.” Gwen patted her on the arm. “I only know because Shawn told me.”
“Shawn told you?”
Gwen nodded. “I am still her agent.”
“Right. Of course. Well.” Linda sighed. “I guess it’s pretty much common knowledge, then.”
“The only knowledge that’s common is that you made her the offer,” Viv clarified. “Do you know what she’s decided?”
Linda was quiet for a moment.
“Well?” Viv shot the word out like an accusation.
Linda smiled and reached for her water glass. “In fact, I do know.”
Gwen smiled. “But you’re not going to tell us.”
“Correct.”
“Well, that’s just plain ridiculous.” Viv sat back against her seat in disgust.
“Calm down, pookie.” Towanda nudged her. “We’ll find out soon enough.”
Viv was still fuming.
“Look at the bright side.” Gwen snagged another piece of bread. “It’s binary. Either she did or she didn’t.” She looked at Linda. “Knowing Kate, I’d say it’s a fifty-fifty proposition.”
Viv tapped her fingers on the table in agitation. Then she expelled a deep breath, pushed back her chair, and got to her feet. “Where the hell is Cricket?”
Gwen was confused. “Cricket?”
Viv stormed away from the table.
Towanda nodded. “She needs someone to hold the bets.”
“You are aware that everyone is watching us, aren’t you?”
Darien nodded. “Of course. You had to know they would.”
“I suppose so.” V. Jay-Jay scanned the restaurant. “Where did Viv go?”
“Who knows? Maybe she spotted some actuarial infraction and had to go intercede.”
“That’s probably about as likely as any explanation.”
Darien smiled and shook her head. V. Jay-Jay noticed.
“What is it?”
“I was just thinking how funny it is that we ended up as the object of so much scrutiny.”
“It was bound to happen.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Oh, come on. Look at us. We don’t exactly fit together very well.”
“On the contrary.” Darien raised an eyebrow. “I think we fit together just fine.”
V. Jay-Jay looked down at the tablecloth.
“Are you blushing?”
V. Jay-Jay didn’t reply.
“Oh, my god.” Darien leaned forward. “You are blushing.”
“Please don’t advertise it.”
“Why not?”
“It’s embarrassing.”
“It’s not embarrassing. It’s charming.”
V. Jay-Jay sighed. “I don’t know what to do with you.”
“I have a few ideas.”
“Can you be serious?”
“What makes you think I’m not being serious?”
“You have a tell.”
Darien was confused. “I have a what?”
“A tell. Like a card player or some other kind of gambler.”
Darien raised a hand to her face. “You mean like a facial tic or something?”
V. Jay-Jay looked amused. “Or something.”
“What is it?”
“Your tell?”
Darien nodded.
“It’s something you do with your eyes.”
“My eyes?”
“Yes. I noticed it about you on the first day we were here.”
“You noticed me on the first day we were here?”
“Of course.”
Darien felt irrationally pleased by that. She scooted closer to the table. “What did I do?”
“It isn’t what you did. It’s something you said. It was during our first group meeting. Viv made a comment about how Barb’s concept for the sculptures reminded her of the funhouse at Coney Island.”
“I remember that.”
“Do you remember what you said?”
Darien thought about it. “No.”
V. Jay-Jay smiled. “You said that in your experience, funhouses were rarely fun.”
“Oh, god. That sounds like something I’d say.”
“That’s what I thought, too. It told me something about you.”
“What? That I have a sophomoric sense of humor?”
“No.” V. Jay-Jay rolled her eyes. “That you’re self-deprecating. Which, I might add, you just illustrated again.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
V. Jay-Jay slowly shook her head.
Darien sat back. “I remembered noticing you, too.”
“You did?”
“Uh huh.”
V. Jay-Jay didn’t reply. Their standoff lasted about five seconds. Darien folded first.
“Come on, Vee. Aren’t you going to ask me what I noticed about you?”
“I don’t have to. I already know what it was.”
“What?”
“When Barb was splitting us up into teams, I caught you staring at my legs.”
Darien opened her mouth to disagree, but V. Jay-Jay cut her off.
“Twice.”
Darien sighed. “I guess I have more than one kind of tell.”
“I guess so.”
“Did it annoy you?”
V. Jay-Jay considered her answer. “No. I found it oddly exciting.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“You do have great legs.”
“Thank you.”
They lapsed into silence again. Darien couldn’t remember the last time she felt so at ease—so comfortable with where she was and where she thought she might be headed. She hated for their time together to end. That was especially true now, since they’d finally agreed to see where their fledgling relationship might go. There were still a lot of things up in the air, however. When they might see one another again, for starters. The logistics of that one would be tricky. Vee lived in Boston, and Darien, when she wasn’t on the road, made her home outside Philadelphia. Vee hadn’t mentioned anything to Darien about any ideas she had for when and how they might meet—or if she thought about it at all. And Darien was nervous about asking. She didn’t want to appear stalkerish or overanxious. And part of her really just wanted Vee to be the one to make the first move.
She looked across the table at her. Vee was so beautiful with her dark hair and olive-toned complexion. She was fragile, too. But her fragility was well concealed by the brusqueness she wore like a second skin. It had been a revelation to Darien to discover what a shy and uncertain woman lurked behind the curtain of diffidence that Vee presented.
She supposed they were alike in that way. And in many other ways, too. Especially when it came to exercising any kind of confidence about relationships.
“Why are you staring at me?”
Darien blinked. Vee was looking back at her with an unreadable expression.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to stare.”
“It’s all right. You looked really lost in thought.”
Darien fiddled with her table knife. “I guess I was.”
“What about?”
“I was just thinking about how soon this trip will be over.”
V. Jay-Jay nodded.
“You’ll go home. And I’ll go back to work.”
“I know.”
“And I was just wondering.” Darien was now drawing patterns on the tablecloth with the tip of her knife. V. Jay-Jay reached across the table and stilled her hand.
“You were just wondering when we might see each other again?”
Darien nodded dumbly. She felt like a loser. And an idiot.
V. Jay-Jay squeezed the back of her hand. “I have some thoughts about that.”
Darien met her eyes. They looked almost teal in the light reflecting off the window.
“You do?” She hoped she didn’t sound as giddy as she felt.
“Yes. Being up here and witnessing all this tournament hoopla has inspired me. So I’m thinking that I’ll go back to Boston and purchase some horribly overpriced watercraft. Then I’ll promptly default on the payments. With luck, the loan company will quickly dispatch a tall and bewitching asset recovery agent to my door.”
Darien smiled. “We don’t normally come to your door. We normally head straight for wherever the asset is stored.”
“What if I promise to keep my asset wherever I am?”
“Then I probably would show up at your door.”
“See?” V. Jay-Jay smiled back at her. “My plan will work like a charm.”
“It might. However most loan companies will wait until you’ve missed at least three consecutive payments before contacting us.”
“Three payments?” V. Jay-Jay didn’t look happy with that suggestion. “You mean, three months?”
“Yep.”
“Well that’s certainly disappointing.”
“I agree.”
V. Jay-Jay sighed. “I suppose we could consider a more expedited approach.”
Darien was trying to hide her smile. “Such as?”
“I could just invite you to come and see me. I mean, if you would be willing to consider it.”
Now Darien did smile.
V. Jay-Jay squeezed her hand again. “Is that a yes?”
Darien lifted her hand and laced their fingers together.
“Oh, yeah.”
On day two of the tournament, the winds roared in steadily from the south. The lake was so choppy that most of the anglers retreated closer to shore. Quinn was fishing some of the spots on the Pisces map that were nested in tight along the shoreline. But it was so blustery that even in the buffered areas, casting was next to impossible. She had to keep adding weight to her lines just to keep them from flying back and hitting her in the face.
Montana kept yelling at her to cast with the wind, but it was easy for her to forget. She only knew one way to do things and trying to introduce variables at this stage just confused her. Consequently, she’d ended up losing several of her best rigs because the lines got blown off course and tangled up in trees that stood close to the water.
Being in first place was weighing on her. She couldn’t deny that. She had worried all last night that she’d be too preoccupied now with winning to concentrate on the work she still had to do. And fishing was all about work. You couldn’t be distracted. At least, she couldn’t be distracted. She understood she’d been a lot better off when nobody thought she had a shot. That meant that her best would always be good enough, and no one would judge her performance—regardless of the outcome.
But not anymore.
As soon as she walked away from the weigh-in yesterday with that first place card, she knew she was in for it. Now every pair of eyes belonging to every angler in the tournament was focused solely on her. Now it was hers to lose. Now it was hers to screw up.
And screwing up was one thing she knew a lot about.
For the first time since she got the idea about entering this tournament, she regretted her decision.
They’d been at it for nearly three hours now, and Quinn hadn’t had a single nibble.
Marvin was being quiet—for once. He sat there on his natty throne, reading one of the back issues of Guns & Ammo he’d borrowed from Page Archer. Quinn was pretty sure that was because he realized that all of this would soon be over. If they showed up at the marina this afternoon with nothing in their live well, they’d effectively be out of the tournament. There’d be no way they could catch three bass tomorrow that would be large enough to make up for not putting any points on the board today.
Montana was on the bridge, doing her best to keep the pontoon from drifting into the rocks along the shore. It wasn’t easy. The waves were pitching and rolling and kept carrying them closer than it was safe to be.
Montana was pointing at something in the water—probably a spot she thought looked promising. She yelled something at Quinn, but the wind just carried her words away.
Quinn squinted her eyes to try and see what Montana was pointing at. But all she could make out was roiling, gray water.
She thought about Junior’s advice. “When all else fails, try a worm.”
Well. All else had pretty much failed today. She decided to give it a try.
She reached into her tackle box and pulled out a long, pumpkinseed-colored worm. Junior said to attach these with a couple of glass beads on the line, just to give the thing some glitter. She set the hook the way he taught her, with the head and the tip hidden in the egg sac area along the bottom seam. He called this setup a Texas rig. She guessed that probably was because somebody in the Lone Star State first figured out this method for getting reluctant bass to come out of hiding.
Once she had her line set, she walked to the edge of the boat and prepared to cast.
Montana was yelling at her again. The only word Quinn could make out was “wind.”
She let her line fly just as a big gust blew in and pushed the boat sideways. Quinn’s line twisted in the air and doubled back. She closed her eyes when she realized that the whole rig was hurtling right back toward her.
“With the wind!” That had to be what Montana had yelled.
She realized it now, but it was too late.
Quinn stood there wincing and waiting for it, but the line never hit her. She opened her eyes and scanned the area around the boat.
Shit.
There it was. Her rig and all of her line were tangled up in the bare branches of a dead tree. The worm dangled in mid-air, about eighteen inches from the water. The line was impossibly snagged. Quinn tugged the rod in every possible direction, but it was clear that she’d never be able to dislodge it. She’d have to see if Montana could maneuver the boat close enough for her to try and cut her line. She really wanted to save the worm—it was one of her favorites.
Marvin seemed to take pity on her. He got up from the recliner and walked over to stand beside her at the edge of the boat.
“Looks like you’re up shit creek without a paddle.”
“Yeah.” Quinn waved a hand at her worm. The wind was causing it to spin around maniacally. Sunlight glinted off the glass beads. “I have to figure out a way to cut it down, too. It’s one of my best worms.”
“I guess you’ll have to wade out there to get it.”
Quinn shook her head. “We’re not allowed to leave the boat. Remember?”
Marvin grunted. “Stupid-ass rules.”
Montana joined them. “I told you to cast with the wind.”
Quinn shrugged.
“Well there’s no way I can get the boat in there. There are just too many rocks.”
“Can we at least try it? I don’t want to lose my rig.”
Montana sighed. “If we get in too close and another one of these big waves takes us, I won’t be able to keep the pontoons off the rocks.”
“What if I stayed starboard and used a couple of those awning poles to keep us pushed back from anything too high?”
Quinn looked at Montana in surprise. Was that Marvin?
“Well?” he asked impatiently. “It could work. We did the same thing on the ferry when we had to dock in choppy seas.”
Quinn was still too stunned to speak.
Montana chuckled. “I’m game if you are.”
Marvin nodded and headed back to retrieve the aluminum poles.
Montana returned to the bridge and started the motors. If both of them worked, the boat was a lot more maneuverable—she could reverse their direction to turn and back the boat as needed. She joked that in calm water, she could damn near parallel park the thing. Quinn didn’t doubt it.
When Marvin came back with two of the long support poles, Quinn took her place at the front edge of the boat. The rig was still swinging around wildly in the wind. She’d have a time trying to grab hold of it.
“Use that boat hook to grab the line.”
It was clear that
Marvin was reading Quinn’s mind.
Quinn walked back to retrieve the telescoping rod they sometimes used to pull the boat in closer to docks or to pick up things she’d dropped in the water—like cleat lines. She kept it clipped to the front of one of the bench seats.
It felt like maybe the wind was calming down a bit. That was lucky. It would help them get in and out quickly, and maybe avoid doing any damage to the boat. The bottoms and sides of the pontoons were pretty scratched and dented up, and not all of the damage was her fault. The thing was already in pretty poor shape when she got it from Junior—like most of the stuff the Ladd brothers had for resale at their salvage yard.
When Quinn knelt down to unsnap the boat hook, she heard a loud splash. It startled her. She thought at first that maybe Marvin had fallen off the boat—or had finally tossed something overboard. He kept threatening to do that—to get rid of her non-fishing related stuff. For someone who didn’t care about the tournament, he sure had strong opinions about how the boat should be set up.
Marvin called out. “Holy motherfucking shit!”
Quinn bolted to her feet and wheeled around to see Marvin, still rooted to his spot, pointing at the tree where her rig was caught. The line was still there, but it took her a moment to realize that a huge bass was now dangling from its end. The fish was flopping and twisting, trying to break free. But it was well and truly caught. That line was going no place.
Montana had seen it, too. She was screaming at Quinn. “Get over there! Get over there! Get a net under it—quick!”
Quinn stumbled toward the front of the boat and Montana started moving them in closer.
Marvin dropped one of his poles and grabbed the boat hook from Quinn.
“I’ll snag the line and haul it closer. You get a net under it before you cut it.”
They had to work fast. The fish was furious. It was flailing like a dervish. Quinn was afraid it would break free before she could reach it.
But Marvin snagged the line on his first pass. “Almighty god! This thing must weigh ten pounds!”
Quinn was able to position the net beneath the monster fish and clip the line. It dropped into the net with the force of a falling cement block. Quinn was barely able to hang on to it. She used both hands to haul it to safety over the deck of the boat and set it down on the threadbare carpet. Montana quickly reversed the engines and pushed the pontoon back out into deeper water.