The Animal Girl (24 page)

Slowly they worked upstream, casting as they went. Now and then, Evelyn looked over at him, poised above the water, staring intensely at his leader as it drifted with the current, then lifting his line into the air in a backwards arch, gorgeous and seeming for a moment to hover, before he tossed his fly upstream again. He was utterly absorbed by this activity that Evelyn found, in all truth, after only half an hour, tedious. Nonetheless, it was clear to her then—she experienced the unannounced suddenness and simplicity of the feeling even as she teetered in the cumbersome rubber suit and pushed through the water—that she loved him.

“Are you enjoying yourself?” he called over to her.

“Yes,” she lied. It was thrilling to see him now, with his floppy green hat, his sunglasses, his graceful command of the rod, and know that she loved him, never mind the fact that above the thick canopy of trees on the opposite bank she could make out in the distance a battery of high buildings that she knew to be part of the huge university hospital where, in one room among thousands, Russell's wife had slept for three years. Was still sleeping now, at this moment.

To avoid this thought, she kept her eyes on the river and struggled to cast her fly into the current. Just as she was settling into a fishing torpor, struggling to appear absorbed, Russell let out a loud, wild call. “This is it,” he said. Evelyn shrieked now as a snowy flurry of bugs lifted and fled from the dark glass of the water and fell over her, soft as spider web. Silky multitudes were in her hair, on her arms and bare neck, so fragile and tiny that they seemed to die as soon as they landed on her. She might have stopped, swatted at them, even cried for help had Russell not yelled at her. “Get your fly in the water! This will only last a few minutes longer.” The river boiled with fish breaking the surface, their muddy bodies flopping and roiling.
Russell had already caught and released one fish and had another on the line when Evelyn looked up at the blue sky, cloudless, immaculately clear, and, absurdly, imagined herself painting a ceiling; with a simple flick of her wrist, she finally cast her fly into the middle of the frenzy. “You're going to get a hit,” Russell said.

And Evelyn felt exactly that—one and then another hit—and now the end of her rod bent low. “Shit! Shit!” She backed up, lost her balance, and nearly fell before she felt her rubber boots sink into the river bottom and grip. She half wanted to let go of the pole and allow whatever was fighting her to win.

“Keep your tip up! Don't let any slack into the line!” Russell was shouting at her now, not with anger but with rough, urgent excitement. “Great. You're doing great.” The fish ran upstream, then down, the reel whining like a buzz saw as the line fed out. “Let it go. Let it get tired,” he told her. When she finally pulled it in, Russell crouched below her and netted a large, thick-bodied bass, viscous yellow, ugly, bleeding at the mouth and gills, and, as Russell announced, nearly dead. “We'll have to keep this one,” he said, taking a good-sized rock from the bank and killing it swiftly with a blow to the head.

“My goodness,” she said.

“Congratulations,” Russell said. “This will be dinner.”

That night, he called from Evelyn's kitchen phone to tell Tessa's grandmother he'd be staying later than expected. Evelyn opened a fine bottle of white wine, and they ate her fish fried in a batter of cornmeal, buttermilk, and eggs with a batch of what Russell called, in a clownish French accent,
pommes frites
, thickly sliced potatoes, pan-fried and seasoned with herbs and salt. After weeks of lovemaking, this was the first meal they'd shared together. They were hungry and ate their greasy, delicious food quickly, though Russell's good manners, the way he had set the table, the cutlery correctly placed and the cloth napkins folded into tents over their salad plates, the way he waited for her to lift her fork before beginning to eat, the way he looked her in the eye when they toasted to more fishing trips, were not lost on Evelyn, who could be picky when it came to small matters of etiquette.

After they made love that night, the first time they'd done so in
darkness, Evelyn, resting in his arms, listening to the hushed and constant working of his heart beneath her, had to ask a question. “Did she fish with you?”

“No,” Russell said. “Jenny didn't much like that sort of thing.”

Evelyn squeezed him tightly and held him like this for a moment. “I do,” she said. “I like it a lot.”

“Good,” he said.

Some hours later, Evelyn woke when she heard Russell getting dressed. “I love you,” she said in a dark so thick that she could see nothing.

“Yes,” he said.

“Yes, what?”

“I love you, too.” She heard him walk over to the bed. He bent down and whispered, “Would you like to meet my family next week?”

Evelyn smiled, thankful that he couldn't see her obvious happiness in this dark. “I would.”

And then she heard her bedroom door open and close, and she knew, before falling asleep again, that he was gone.

Three days later, Evelyn met Tessa and Margaret at the house on Murray Avenue for an early dinner. Heidi had warned her to prepare for the worst. “I'm sure the little girl still hopes her mother will come back. She might not be welcoming. And you might want to think about dressing down a little—not looking too pretty.” Instead, Evelyn wore her nicest blue sundress, blue being the color that complemented her most, brought a bottle of wine and a dozen orchids, which turned out to be unnecessary in this house surrounded by garden beds of irises, tulips, daisies, and other flowering plants and bushes that Evelyn could not name.

“This is my good friend Evelyn,” Russell said, introducing her to his family on the front porch. They'd all dressed nicely, too: the grandmother in a white blouse and yellow skirt, a surprisingly youthful outfit for this woman who wore her gray hair in a tight coil, and the girl in a green dress with a lace collar. The girl's long blond hair had been fussed over, pulled into a braid held together by brightly colored barrettes. They all shook hands, after which Tessa stepped
back, behind her father, from where she stared at Evelyn with obvious perplexity. Evelyn had never felt comfortable around children—their high volume, their fierce likes and dislikes, their blatant honesty and unchecked emotions—even if she'd always wanted to have at least one child of her own. In the last weeks, she'd caught herself wondering what it might be like to assume a maternal role toward another woman's child. But now that she stood before the girl, she was surprised by a rush of anxiety, even as she forced herself to bend down, smile, and say, in her sweetest voice, “I've heard a lot about you, Tessa.” The girl stepped out from behind the shelter of her father now and twirled, her dress flaring out. When she faced Evelyn again, Tessa was smiling, and Evelyn felt relieved; for whatever reason, this gorgeous little girl seemed to like her, at least for the moment.

“Welcome,” Margaret said in a voice that was polite, if not entirely warm.

Out back, Russell donned an apron and presided over the fire with an easy authority, a large grill fork in one hand and a spatula in the other, while Tessa took Evelyn on a tour of the flowerbeds. “I'm responsible for the backyard,” she said. “I water twice a day, in the morning and evening. It's better to water when it's cooler. And earlier in the spring, I keep the squirrels away from the tulip bulbs; they like to dig them up and bury them at the neighbor's so that next spring our tulips come up in someone else's yard.” After telling Evelyn of the thieving squirrels, Tessa smiled mischievously. “You're my dad's girlfriend, aren't you?” she whispered.

“Well,” Evelyn said, flustered.

Tessa nodded. “I thought so.”

They sat out on the back porch for dinner and talked about harmless topics—the cold, long winter that had recently ended, Tessa's soccer league, and Russell's latest project, a stone path through the flowerbeds, which he'd start on next week. In the shallow darkness lightning bugs drifted by, and Russell lit citronella candles to keep the mosquitoes away. Now and then, the rattle of locusts began in the distance, crescendoed, and all at once ceased. While Tessa remained talkative, if increasingly tired, sprawled in her father's lap, Margaret was reserved, listening too carefully to Evelyn, nodding at her every
word, and seeming to watch her so closely that Evelyn became self-conscious whenever she looked at Russell and made sure she did so without obvious affection.

It was not until Russell had gone upstairs to put Tessa to bed that the two women, Margaret at the kitchen sink rinsing wineglasses and Evelyn loading the dishwasher, talked more openly. “Tessa's wonderful,” Evelyn said, wanting to break the silence of the last few moments. “In fact, to tell you the truth, I was worried that Tessa, for obvious reasons, wouldn't much like me.”

Margaret had just turned the water off and faced Evelyn now. “Yes, she is a wonderful girl. And it's more than clear that she likes you.”

“But you don't like me,” Evelyn said, responding to the elderly woman's chilly tone.

“No,” Margaret said, “it's not that. It's that I don't know you yet. I'm sure you're lovely. Russell is very taken with you. Of course, you're aware of his feelings.” Margaret smiled briefly, but her tone remained guarded. “I should tell you that I have no illusions about my daughter. She is not at all likely to return to us. At the same time, I still struggle with wanting things to be otherwise. I still hope. And I think I can say for Russell that he still hopes, too. It is not impossible, you know, that she could return. It is only nearly impossible.” Margaret took a dishcloth from the counter and began drying her hands vigorously.

“Russell tells me the chances are a million to one.”

To this, Margaret snapped back, “There is a chance, isn't there?”

“Perhaps I should go,” Evelyn said.

Margaret shook her head. “I'm sorry. I've been rude. But you'll understand, won't you, that it's different: the way a mother sees her daughter and the way a husband sees his wife? A man can always go out and find someone else. My daughter will always be my daughter, no matter what happens.” Her voice had become angry, and she paused, surveying the wiped surfaces of the kitchen, before looking at Evelyn again. When she spoke now, her anger was gone. “Russell has been without a companion for years. I can certainly understand that he'd want … that he has his needs. In any case, he tells me that you're serious about him.”

“Yes.”

Margaret nodded, not to approve but merely to register Evelyn's brief answer. “I should tell you, if Russell has not already, that we've considered letting her go. We've considered stopping food and water, but I haven't been able to reconcile myself to taking an active role in terminating her life. I think Russell might do so if it were just his decision to make.”

“I'm not sure why you're telling me this,” Evelyn said, noting how practiced and calculated Margaret's speech had seemed.

“With you,” Margaret said, “there might be added pressure.”

“There won't be added pressure.” Evelyn felt her voice rise, but Margaret did not seem at all ruffled.

“Good,” she said, folding the dishcloth, placing it resolutely on the countertop, and making it clear with this gesture that they could move on to other topics of conversation.

By early June the thunderstorm season had ended and left the river level high and its waters full of debris and insects, so that the fish, Russell claimed, were more eager to feed on the surface. Evelyn's cast improved and Russell became more at ease on his bike, though he was cautious in ways that irritated Evelyn and, at times, drove her to provoke him. Russell would never, for instance, run a red light, even if no cars were visible for blocks in either direction. He cycled on the sidewalks whenever possible while Evelyn, not about to satisfy his paranoia and avoid the traffic with him, especially when there was no traffic, rode beside him in the street. She even made a show of it. “Look,” she'd say, lifting her arms into the air, “no hands.” During breaks in traffic, she ran red lights and waited for him on the other side of the intersection until the light turned green.

On a breezy, sunny afternoon, at the end of a long ride, Evelyn, fed up with Russell, who was waiting at the crosswalk, shot into the intersection of Huron and Main just as a Ford Explorer had been about to take a left turn on a green light. Though Evelyn and the Explorer stopped, easily avoiding a collision, Russell began shouting at her from the corner. “Get off!”

“What?” Evelyn was still in the middle of the intersection, and a car behind the Explorer began honking.

“I said to get off. We're walking.” The anger in his voice made Evelyn comply.

Without talking, they walked their bikes down Huron, passing the meager oak saplings that the city had just planted at intervals along the pavement. “I don't understand why you're so upset,” Evelyn finally said. “That wasn't even close.” He just kept walking, determined, it seemed, to remain silent, and Evelyn mounted her bike and rode into the street again. “I won't let you bully me. I won't.”

He stopped then, and so did Evelyn. A car whipped past her. His face was red and streaked with sweat. “Please get out of the road.”

“No,” she said.

“You do this on purpose,” Russell said. “You run red lights, you ride too fast. And I don't know why you do it.”

“I can't always be afraid.”

“You almost … you almost got,” he began to say.

“I didn't almost get anything.”

Russell shook his head and let out a long breath, after which his shoulders seemed to collapse, as if he were conceding the point. “Please,” he said. “Please just walk with me for now. Tomorrow you can ride in the streets. You can do whatever you want.”