I heard the mudroom door open, then shut.
Panic rushed over me. I began to wriggle, struggling to pull my arms out of the fins, to push the costume over my head.
Steps down the hallway. Oh, please, God, if You care about me at all . . .
I had only one choice. I flopped down on the bathroom floor and began to squirm my way out of the contraption.
“What in the sam hill are you doing?” Mike’s voice.
I froze. I couldn’t look at him. Really—I couldn’t move. The costume had pinned me down with just my nose showing. When I glanced sideways, all I saw was a slice of the toilet. And then Mike’s black steel-toe boots.
I felt hands lift me. Set me upright.
I pulled the suit back into place. I couldn’t bear to face Mike. And I refused to look in the mirror. I turned my head and looked out the window. It had started to snow. Soft, fluffy flakes that would turn our town to white. I would simply hobble outside and just let it bury me, encased in scales.
“What . . . is . . . this?”
I closed my eyes to Mike’s barely audible words. He sounded like he might be asphyxiating on his own laughter.
“I agreed to . . .” I couldn’t say it. Just those three words attested to how far I’d lost my mind.
“Be a fish.”
I winced, nodded.
“Have I told you how much I love you recently?”
I still refused to meet his eyes, but he took my chin and turned my face toward his. “I knew something smelled a little fishy when the guys at work told me you were the bravest person they knew. I thought it was because you were married to me.”
“Very funny.”
He leaned down, as if to kiss me. “Ew, what’s that briny smell? Oh, it’s freshly caught trout.”
“Go away if you can’t be nice.”
“I think you need me, my little tuna, because I saw you trying to wrestle out of your scales. Someone needs to pry you off the hook.”
“Seriously, how long are you going to do this?”
He took my fins and pulled them above my head, working the neckline over me until I slipped out. I shrank down and crawled out of my smelly tomb.
“Remind me to pick up some tartar sauce. I think we’re running low.”
“You won’t be laughing when I cheer them all the way to the state championship.” I stood, gathering my new body into my arms.
“Oh,” Mike said, kissing me on the nose as my own words sank in and produced a groan, “I think I’ll be laughing long, long after that.”
Chapter 5
I admit it—I longed, prayed, pleaded for rain. Or sleet. Or a blizzard the likes of which the county had never seen.
Saturday dawned clear and crisp and even on the warm side. I started to wonder whose side God was on.
Mike at least had pity on me. He had taken the canvas fish out to the garage and, very carefully, so that Bud could regain use of his costume intact someday (we were all still hoping, even though he hadn’t yet returned from the hospital), stapled the Trout at the waist, raising the hem about a foot. From a distance, it looked like our Trout had simply added yet another roll of belly fat.
I thought it couldn’t get worse—until I tried on the head. I suppose I shouldn’t have waited until two hours before the game, but I simply couldn’t bear to pull it over my head, to encase myself in the smell and grime of a couple decades of unwashed hair pressing into the mesh. Probably I was being hard on Bud, but I could have made the same assessment about Mike’s state of cleanliness on a Friday night. I’m sure bathing wasn’t at the top of Bud’s list when he prepped for a football game, not with the cowbells and the pom-poms and the signs to create.
I had created my own sign—“Go, Big T!” Coach Grant had delivered Bud’s cheering supplies, and I found a couple of cymbals from Amy’s old trap set and fitted them with handles.
I kept staring at the Trout head, grimacing.
Mike sat at the kitchen table eating his shredded wheat, hiding a smirk. “This is the perfect day to be a fish. Just do it already. How bad can it look?”
What, in comparison to the body of the fish? I wondered if people might start speculating that I might be expecting. Surprise!
“There’s never a perfect day to be a fish,” I muttered.
Kevin had left for the team bus early in the morning. I blessed my good fortune that the game was an hour out of town. Maybe people wouldn’t come.
“We need to get going soon. Let’s try on the head.” Mike dropped his bowl into the sink, then stood there in his EMS jacket, hands on his hips, as if he were a representative from the Game and Fish Department.
I reached for the head and, closing one eye and holding my breath, pulled it on. When it dropped onto my shoulders, the weight of the eyes pulled my head forward, shutting the mouth and pitching me into darkness.
“Whoa!” I said, tottering forward. Mike’s hands on my shoulders helped right me, yet as I took a step back, the top of the head overcorrected.
Mike grabbed me again as I tilted backward. “I don’t think you’re going to be able to do this,” he said, his first words of doom since he’d discovered me on the bathroom floor. “Can you even see?”
I held the head in place as best I could. The mouth drooped over my eyes, and I had a perfect view of Mike’s knees. “How does Bud do this?”
“I think he might wear a baseball hat.”
Yes! I remembered seeing that on him at the last game. I felt better all around. “Get me a hat.”
Mike’s legs disappeared into the mudroom and emerged a moment later with a hat. I heard him adjust the back before he held up the fish’s mouth and plunked the cap on my head.
Then there was light. The top of the mouth rested on the brim, and although I could feel the googly eyes bearing down on me, I could see enough to walk.
Mike grinned. “That was a close one.”
Foiled again. I pulled off the head and plunked it onto the counter.
Clearly I couldn’t escape my fate.
Mike stepped close, his strong hands rubbing my arms. I’d dressed in a thermal shirt and sweatpants, not wanting to dig out Mike’s hunting gear and add to the padded effect. “Are you okay?” he asked.
I sighed.
“You can do this, you know.”
I nodded. “That’s not it.”
“You’re a good mom.”
“I know.” I sighed again.
“Then what is it?”
I made a face. “I think you’re going to have to help me get dressed.”
He laughed and pulled me to himself. “Oh, you cute little trout, you.”
We arranged to meet at the game, where he would dress me. I felt like I had when I was pregnant, near the end, and I had to ask him to tie my shoes.
He loaded the Trout into my SUV, and I dropped him off at the EMS station. He didn’t have to work today but wanted to check in. He would ride out with some of his EMS pals and meet me at the game.
Which gave me an hour to sit and ponder my life as I drove.
I’d seen Jenni Simpson in the store yesterday, the day after our meeting. She cornered me next to the lunchmeat section. She had her baby in a car seat propped on the shopping cart.
“I just don’t understand why we can’t have something different for our tea theme. We young moms never get a chance to get out. It’s our one chance to dress up, and we have to eat Swedish meatballs?”
I reached for the sliced ham, trying to be a peacemaker. “I know, Jenni. And I appreciate your suggestions. I’ll talk to Gretchen. It’s just that she’s put a lot of time—”
“I thought it would be different with you,” Jenni said, arms folded. “I thought you would figure out that this tea is for everybody. It’s supposed to be an outreach, something everyone would enjoy going to. Not just Gretchen and her cronies.”
“Jenni—”
“Whatever.” She threw a package of hot dogs into her cart. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”
Well, maybe not in those exact words. But they contained enough truth around the barbs to stick with me, make me think.
Why, exactly, did we have a Christmas Tea? Was Jenni right? Or did Gretchen and her “cronies” deserve to keep their traditions? After all, they were the backbone of the church, and most of them watched the babies in Jenni’s Mother’s Day Out group once a month. That seemed to merit some recognition.
As I pulled up to the stadium, I could taste the excitement. From the band unloading from the bus, to the football players chanting on the field for their warm-ups, to the smell of hot dogs grilling on hibachis, football fever ladened the air.
The Miller Creek Moose would fight the Big Lake Trouts at a mutual location—a meet-in-the-middle city stadium twice the size of ours. Thankfully, we’d drawn home-team status.
I opened the trunk and grabbed the box of my cheering paraphernalia, then trekked toward the field. I waved to one of the offensive line coaches, who opened the gate and let me through to the sidelines.
I had never been on the sidelines, not during a real game. I’d never made the cheerleading squad—not that it mattered to Mike—but I’d always longed to be one of those girls who could jump and touch her toes, climb on each other’s shoulders, do a flip in midair.
I didn’t even want to think about the way I’d be making my debut cheering performance. I set the box down near the fence and returned to my car.
I noticed Mike standing with the EMS crew from the local county.
He waved to me and pointed to the back of their rig.
Yeah, I remembered.
Pulling the costume out of the trunk, I draped it over my shoulders, grabbed the head, and snuck over to the ambulance.
I went in a human woman. And came out a Salvelinus namaycush, according to Mike, who had taken the time to look up the official name for trout in his never-ending quest to mock me. I especially loved the “saliva” part of the name.
Good thing we were married, because Mike pulled and prodded the costume onto me and then had to wrestle me to a standing position. He held the head and popped me a quick kiss before lowering it over my head. “Go get ’em, Trout Girl.”
“Rah,” I said. But I had to admit, the look of appreciation on his face made me think that perhaps this might be better than being one of those shapely cheerleaders.
No, probably not.
“Wish me luck!”
“Oh, you’re the luck, babe!” He patted me on my fishy backside and I waddled my way to the field. With Mike’s alterations to the costume, I could actually jog if I wanted to. I might even be able to do a little sideline jig.
A strange power began to fill me as I walked through the crowd. People parted for me. A few gave me a thumbs-up.
I raised my fin. “Go, Trouts!”
I decided to do a little pregame cheering warm-up and stopped in the parking lot, right outside the stands, holding out my fin.
Fans whacked it as they went past.
“Yeah, Trouts!”
Smiles abounded.
“Go get ’em!”
I spied Gretchen Gilstrap approaching, her five- and six-year-old grandchildren in tow. Her eldest grandson played on the team with Kevin. For a second I wasn’t sure if I should run, hide, or just pretend like I didn’t know her. But she stopped in front of me, a look of confusion on her face. “Marianne?”
“Hello, Gretchen!” I decided that no explanation might be the best, so instead I bent over at the waist, intent on offering her grandson a chance to fin me. “Hey there! Are you a Trout fan?”
He reminded me of Neil, with his pudgy cheeks pressed together in a hat that tied under his chin. His yellow jacket sporting a school bus. His blue eyes peering up at me. I held out my fin.
As I watched, those sweet eyes filled with a sort of horror. He looked at me, looked at my fin, then opened his mouth and screamed.
He shot away from me and behind his grandma, and I think even tried to climb her. On the other side of Gretchen, her five-year-old granddaughter, Amelia, stood paralyzed with terror, not looking at my eyes, but above me. She clutched her grandmother’s hand as tears filled her eyes.
“It’s okay. It’s Mrs. Wallace . . . from church? Remember me? This is just a costume.” I tried to open the mouth wider so they could see my face.
Amelia turned and buried her face in Gretchen’s jacket.
“I’m . . . I’m sorry,” I said, backing away.
“Shh,” Gretchen said to Amelia, shooting me a glare. “It’s okay. Mrs. Wallace didn’t mean to scare you.”
As she pulled the still-screaming, crying children away, I stood there, wanting to launch into my own screaming and crying.
I heard chuckling and turned to find Pastor Backlund entering the stands. “It’s probably the eyes,” he said. “They looked different on Bud.”
Yeah, like farther away.
Pastor finned me as he passed. “This is certainly a different kind of ministry tool, Marianne.”
My jovial, albeit short-lived, mood sputtered and finally nose-dived into the cold dirt as even Rachel’s children carved a wide arc around me.
I gave up and trudged onto the field. Above me, the stands were full of happy fans sitting on their padded seats under their stadium blankets, drinking coffee. I wondered if I could even see the game from behind the football players.
No wonder Bud needed a bench. I’d need a two-story building.
“And now, introducing the Miller Creek Moose!”
Gil’s voice from the announcer’s booth registered with me a second before the Moose poured onto the field. Something wasn’t right. . . .
And then I remembered: “If we can’t fin him on the way to the field. . . .”
At the entrance, the Trouts were lining up. All the way across the field.
No. How could I have forgotten?
I calculated the distance and even shot a glance at the announcer. As if reading my mind, Gil caught my eye. He nodded.
I took off around the field, half jogging, half waddling, as if my life depended on it. The game certainly might. Not that I believed in superstition. . . .
Okay, maybe I bought into it a little. After all, if I didn’t, I’d hardly be in a Trout suit, would I?
I could hear the stands start to laugh and finally cheer at the top of their lungs. I wasn’t sure if it was for me or the team now clustered at the entrance, but I pressed on.
Coach Grant was grinning like a wolf as I stumbled up, breathing hard. “You made it.”
“Let’s . . . just . . . do . . . this.” I held out my fin.
Gil announced our team, and they poured in.
“Thanks, Mrs. Wallace.”
“You’re the greatest.”
“Rock on, Mrs. Wallace.”
One by one they finned me.
Kevin ran by. “Love ya, Mom!”
I somehow found my voice. “Go, Trouts!”
Coach Grant and his staff ran last onto the field. I heard Gil on the speaker as I returned to my field position. “Thanks again to Marianne Wallace for stepping in for Bud Finlaysen today.”
I looked up and saw that the crowd had taken to its feet, applauding wildly.
Oh.
Mike, who was leaning on the fence near the end zone, caught my eye. He was grinning.
We won the game by two touchdowns. I clanged my cymbals, shook my pom-poms, rang my cowbell, and even made up a fishy dance of my own design. Most of all, I lost my voice and decided that yes, this was the perfect day to be a fish.
Chapter 6
It’s easy to be a celebrity in a small town.
Every week the paper prints the highlights that comprise the latest doings in our community. If there’s a fire or a car wreck, of course that makes the front page. In less tragic weeks, articles covering such notable events as the Girl Scouts’ holiday bazaar, the winner of the community Halloween costume contest, the annual bake-off winners, and the opening of a new dentist’s office keep us Bi
g Lakers abreast of the times.
So it wasn’t with great surprise that I discovered a formerly ten-foot, now eight-foot Trout on the front page of the following Wednesday’s paper. The picture actually portrayed me in a friendly light—I had cleared the ground and had my hand outstretched in a victory fin five with Coach Grant. And better yet, the angle obscured my face, so those who still wondered who had possessed the body of the Trout were no closer to their answer.
I had survived my stint as a fish.
With Thanksgiving ahead and the next game not until after the holiday, I could push it out of my mind and hope for the best. I’d caught wind of the news that Bud had returned home, and either he would emerge back onto the field fully restored, ready to resume his position as team mascot, or Coach Grant would find a new victim.
At any rate, I hung up my fins and dove into Thanksgiving preparations.
The snow still refused to peel from the sky. I couldn’t help but mourn the snowy white holidays when we’d gone sledding or even snowmobiling down our little mountain. I tried to talk Mike into spraying ice on the pond to smooth it out, but he gently reminded me that the last time Brianna and Kevin had ice-skated, they’d both been about twelve. Their skates were probably rusted.
I thought it had been more recent than that.
I washed and ironed tablecloths, changed bed linens, and assembled casseroles. Kevin loved my corn pudding, and Brianna was a sweet potato girl. I baked a pumpkin pie for Kevin and an apple pie for Brianna.
And all this a week before the event.
“You’re a little anxious, aren’t you?” Mike asked that evening as he came in. I noticed he had about five copies of the paper under his arm.
“What are those?”
“Keepsakes. The kids need to see this new side to their mother.”
“I’m going to burn those when you’re not looking.”
“Then I’ll hide them.” He swept past me. “Where’s Kevin?”
“Out with a couple teammates,” I said, putting the rolls in the oven. He hadn’t been home much this week, practicing hard after school and running over plays with his coach at night. I had to admit, I missed the sound of his Xbox down in the basement.
The Great Christmas Bowl Page 5