Portion of the Sea (17 page)

“So, what are you going to cook me for dinner tonight, dear?” Lloyd asked as the ferry headed across the bay.

I quickly flipped through the pages of the cookbook without really looking at the recipes and said, “You know I’ve never cooked before. Do you think it was a mistake not bringing along a chef or housekeeper?” I closed the book and dropped it in the bag.

“I regret not giving you a more female orientation toward life earlier on,” he said. “But it’s time you learn now.”

I bit my lip, for he had rattled my cage. It suddenly dawned on me that maybe his taking me on a getaway was more than just that. It was a ploy to domesticate a girl that didn’t want to be domesticated. I didn’t want to cook elaborate meals. I didn’t like eating them. I could get by on coffee–a good strong cup of percolated coffee–and a bagel. My stomach felt queasy. My father giving me the cookbook made me feel like a victim of a smear campaign, the kind I read about in the papers all the time. And I wanted a confession from him, but I knew he would only profess his innocence.

When the ferry dropped us off, we checked into the cottage we had rented on Sanibel’s east end. Lloyd and I differed on what we were to do first. He thought I should go grocery shopping and he would go fishing, alone, and then return for a home-cooked dinner. I wanted to go for a walk on the beach, alone, so I could secretly find Marlena’s cottage and after enduring endless days and nights with a guilty conscious, return the journal to her.

“If you could just wait a couple of hours,” I told my father. “I’ll be back and I’ll go fishing with you.” I didn’t want him going alone. I was nervous about his health and didn’t want him doing much of anything without me.

“Fishing is for men, dear. Maybe I can catch something good and bring it home for you to cook,” he said, flipping to the index of my new
Betty Crocker Cookbook
. He was looking up fish recipes for me.

“That’s it,” I said. “I’m going fishing with you. I’ll go to the beach when we get back.”

XIV

“DUNGAREES?” LLOYD ASKED WHEN
he saw me.

“What’s wrong with dungarees?” I asked as I tied a scarf around my head, babushka style. “We’re going fishing.”

His eyes looked at me as if I were a project at work that went bad. “You’d rather I slip into a party dress and white gloves?” I laughed and shook my head.

“Party dress, no,” he said. “But a blouse and jumper might have been more appropriate.”

“There’s so many injustices in the world, Daddy.”

“What do you mean?”

“Girdles and petticoats namely,” I said as we strolled along a pathway through dense trees. “There’s a reason why men are considered more athletic and physical than women. It’s because, historically, women’s bodies have been squelched inside corsets and girdles, and if you ask me, it was a victory for women when the corsets were tossed, but it’s time we toss the girdles as well and the skirts and catch up physically with you men.”

“Lydia,” he said. “Promise me you’ll never share your views on that with anyone but me, you hear?”

I rolled my eyes, and when I noticed Lloyd breathing heavily, I stopped talking of things that upset him and slowed our walking pace as well. Doctor Conroy said that walking was a good activity at this point in his recovery, but walking and talking about my views toward life probably
wasn’t.

“Do you hear that music?” I asked as we reached a sandy road. “Where’s that coming from?”

We stopped and listened. I liked it, and so I walked further until I saw a boy around my age sitting under a tree playing an instrument. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt, and like the fronds of a palm, his hair stuck out in all directions and hung down shading his eyes.

We stood there still and silent like two audience members at the symphony, front-row seats. I squeezed my father’s hand to let him know how amazing I found the music. When the boy blew into his instrument, his cheeks puffed out as if he might float off into the air and pop, but when he cast his eyes toward me, the music stopped, and he stared as if he hadn’t ever seen a girl before. I stared right back at him, into his eyes, brown like a puppy dog’s. I typically never rested my eyes on a boy for more than a two-second count, and unless he were a journalist and I had something important to say, I usually had no desire for talking with boys. But this one played his music so passionately that I stared for about three and a half seconds before looking away and probably another four seconds or longer after that. Still, he was all boy, dirt on his face and all, I noticed.

“Excuse me,” Lloyd said, interrupting the way the boy and I were looking at one another. “We’re looking for the Sanibel Fishing Pier.”

“You’re just about there,” he answered, reeling his eyes off me. “I’m about to head over there myself. Just give me a second, and I’ll go with you.”

He put the tip of his finger over his lips like he might blow me a kiss but instead closed those lips and blew hard. I watched for his cheeks to blow out like they had before, but they didn’t this time. He put the instrument back up to his mouth and did it all again, this time on the mouthpiece. When he finished, he tucked his instrument into a carrying case and looked up at us again. “I’ll bet you’re looking for Max Crowe.”

“We are,” said Lloyd.

“Max is my dad. He’s out there waiting for you.” We started walking, and the boy looked at me and asked, “You’re going to watch the big boys fish?”

I was offended. “What do you mean by that? Do I look like I’m on my
way to a soda fountain?”

“She says she wants to fish,” Lloyd said on my behalf.

The boy smiled. “We sure could use something pretty to attract the fish our way.”

He epitomized the definition of a huckster, and I wanted to slap him. I wanted to tell him “D.D.T.”, which means drop dead twice. I wasn’t used to any boy telling me I was pretty. I know the men my father took home for dinners were attracted to me. I could tell by the way they said “hello” and shook my hand and watched me before dinner was served. But then, once I opened my mouth, they did everything but cover their ears with their hands, trying to make me believe that a girl that talks of ambition is noisy and boisterous and belongs in a rookery full of nesting birds.

“A girl who fishes is a fine thing,” the boy added, interrupting my percolating thoughts.

“I appreciate that,” I said.

Just then a tan-skinned man carrying fishing poles and a bucket greeted us on the pier.

“Hi, I’m Max. You must be Lloyd.”

“Pleased to meet you. And this is my daughter Lydia.”

“Pleasure, Lydia. Looks like you’ve already met my son, Josh. We send him off a couple hundred yards to practice his music. We don’t let him play here on the pier. He’d scare the fish away and probably attract the kind we don’t want,” said Max. “Son, give me a hand with the bait now.”

Josh walked over to the white bucket, and I followed. “So, what are we using for bait?” I asked.

He tilted the white bucket for me to look inside. It wasn’t what I expected, and I tried not to have a cow, but when one of the translucent, monstrous creatures spilled out onto my sandal, I jumped and screamed, “Lord God Almighty!” It was the second prayer I had ever said, one stolen from Ava, and I didn’t know where to go from there, but I think I felt a bit of peace and was able to regain my composure for having uttered those three words.

“So tell me,” I said, switching to my journalistic tone. “What exactly are those things?”

“Shrimp,” Josh matter-of-factly said as if he hung out with them on a daily basis. “Shrimp are the most universal bait. What did you think they were?”

“I have no idea—Cooties, maybe,” I said, and we both laughed. But all of a sudden, I felt my stomach curdle, so I sauntered to the edge of the dock, where I bent over and gagged, then dry heaved a moment before standing straight again to look if Josh had seen.

“You going to be okay?” he asked.

“Fine,” I insisted as if it never happened. “I’m just used to seeing shrimp wrapped in fried coconut and coated in lime sauce, not at all naked like those shrimp.”

We walked over to our fathers, and I was handed a pole. I looked around at all the men that were fishing and I felt good about what I was wearing. I’d look like a fool hooking bait in a jumper and blouse and vomiting over the pier. I intended to do whatever it was that men who go fishing do, and if I was going to catch the biggest and best fish, then I had to be wearing dungarees to do so.

I could hardly wait to begin. I had so many questions. “Why do you use shrimp?” I asked Max.

“Most fish are line-shy so from the dock we use the smallest hook, lightest sinker and thinnest line possible,” he explained. “Shrimp are easy to keep alive. They’re cheap and all, but sharks will bite on shrimp.”

“What
types of fish might we catch in this water?”

“You sound like a journalist,” Josh noticed.

I could hardly speak I was so flattered. It was the best thing anyone had ever said to me, and I could feel a smile appearing on my face. “That’s exactly what I plan to be,” I said. “I’ve been working at the
Windy City Press
now for two years every day after school. I’ve applied to college, and I’m waiting to hear if I get accepted. If so, I’ll start in the fall.”

“Good for you,” he said.

Lloyd cleared his voice as one does before speaking into a microphone.

“I’ve been trying to tell Lydia,” he said, “that nurses are in demand. She’s got steady hands. Look at her with that fishing pole. I think she’d make a great nurse.”

“But it sounds to me, sir, as if she wants to be a journalist,” Josh replied.

I tried giving Josh the look that says, “don’t go there,” but instead my eye did its own thing and winked at him, and my mouth, with a mind of its own, gave him a smile.

“So tell me, boy,” said Lloyd. “You look like you’re about my daughter’s age. What do you plan to do with your future?”

I felt tremors inside my gut, telling me something was about to erupt. My father had a reputation at the bank. When someone impressed him business-wise, he would carry that person straight to the top, but if they made an error or said anything he perceived as stupid, look out! He’d become like a volcano, his words hot as lava.

“I just graduated from high school, sir,” he answered. “I’m spending the summer fishing with my dad. Then I’m thinking of chartering.”

“I wish you the best of luck, son.”

It was my chance to rescue Josh from the volcano. “So as I was asking before, Max,
what
types of fish might we catch in these waters?”

“Pompano, cobia, redfish, grouper, snapper, shark, sea trout, hogfish, amberjack, barracuda, whiting, flounder …”

I was beginning to relax and understand why it was that men fish, when all of a sudden I felt commotion at the end of my line. “I’ve got something,” I announced with loud pride and confidence. I looked at the men on the pier to be sure they had heard me, and I said it again. “I think I’ve caught my fish for the day.”

“Start reeling,” instructed Max.

“How?”
I asked, bobbing my wrist up and down as if playing with a yoyo.

“I’ve never reeled before.” But then I felt Josh’s strong hands over mine, and I knew he was standing behind me making sure I was reeling just fine. I may not have been reeling fine, but I was feeling fine.

“Lydia, why don’t you hand the pole over now?” Lloyd suggested. “I think you’ve done enough.”

“It’s my fish,” I said. “I’m reeling it in—with a bit of help.”

Everyone’s eyes were floating on the water in anticipation of what I may have caught, and I was ready to win all records set by man for having
so easily secured the largest, most desired fish out there, perhaps a tarpon, but when my fish surfaced, I nearly peed my pants. The most hideous-looking sea monster, worse than the see-through shrimp, was dangling from my line.

“Lord, help us all,” I screamed. “What on earth is that thing?”

“Puffer,” said Max.

I tried loosening my grip so I might drop the entire pole into the water, so we might never have to deal with that monster again, but Josh tightened his hands over mine and steadily forced my hands to do what they didn’t at all want to be doing. Together our hands lifted the creature up and over the rail so it landed smack onto the pier where all of us were standing.

“Get it away from me,” I cried, jumping up and down and spinning in circles.

“It’s just a harmless puffer.”

The thing was yellow with brown stripes and coated with pointy, sharp spikes, and within seconds it inflated itself like a balloon.

“It’s going to explode!” I shouted, jumping two giant steps backward and landing on Josh’s feet. “Get out of its way!”

“Relax,” Josh said touching my arm. “Relax.”

“I can’t. The thing is blowing itself up.”

“Pull yourself together,” he said. “You’ve got to for all our sake. We’ve been trying to tell you, it’s just a harmless puffer.”

“A what?”

“A blowfish,” said Max as he unhooked it with a pair of pliers, and then tossed it back. We watched it deflate and swim away.