Gone Fishing

The first week of summer was always the most exciting. Students still remembered the bitter taste of finals and were licking freedom off their fingers as they reached for more. County fairs and farmer’s markets popped up here and there, drawing crowds of people who wanted to forget life for a while. People drove with their windows down and their music up on their way home from cabins. Shorts and tan lines were a common sight yet again, and the neighborhoods came alive with droves of kids on bikes and scooters. 

As for plans that summer, I had none. My senior year of highschool was creeping closer, and I wanted to ignore it as long as possible. There was a lake that was a five minute drive from my house, and I knew of a perfect spot to fish. 

The parking lot next to the boat access was almost full. It was one of those afternoons - the kind where you spent all day out in the sun and then went back home for a barbeque out on the deck. There was one spot left in the lot, a small rectangle of space that would have been better suited to a car half the size of mine. 

I grabbed my phone, rod, pliers, and the package of wax worms that I'd bought at the gas station earlier in the week. Passing the access, where two men were navigating a boat into the water, I found the maple tree that I liked to sit up against. It didn’t take me long to get my line in the water and soon I was watching the red and white bobber drift up and down in rhythm with the waves. A pontoon motored by, and I waved to the old couple on board.

My mom texted, asking where I was. ‘Fishing’ was the one-word response. Any further thoughts were cut off as I watched the bobber go down and stay down. The fish tried to swim away - apparently it didn't occur to him that he still had the hook in his mouth. The sunfish soon found himself dangling high above the water, pumpkin yellow belly shining in the afternoon sun. I pulled the hook out with the pliers, “Sorry ‘bout that."

I wasn't sure why I was talking to the sunfish, but he didn't seem to appreciate it. After a reproachful look from the fish, I rolled my eyes then tossed him back. 

He hit the water with a splash, sending out circular ripples.

“You weren’t big enough to eat anyway.” I muttered, but the fish was long gone.

My conversation was interrupted by the appearance of a girl about my age. She looked as surprised as I was. She took a hesitant step back, looking like a deer in the headlights.

"There's enough fish for both of us," I offered. 

She stood there for a few seconds, comprehending what I had said. Then she walked past me, sitting against her own tree and casting out a neon yellow bobber. 

She didn't bait her hook. 

I shrugged and turned to my own line. We sat there in silence, with me catching a few more fish, and the girl staring blankly at her bobber. 

"Do you want some wax worms? You'll… probably catch more fish that way."

The girl jumped, as if she hadn't expected me to talk to her.

"Oh." She said something else, but it was so quiet I couldn’t have deciphered it if I had wanted to.

She didn't try to ask for any wax worms, so I decided that the incoherent mumbling meant that she had declined my offer.

I got another text from my mom, summoning me home. After one more cast, I packed up. 

“Hope you catch something,” I told the girl. 

She nodded rigidly, eyes glued to the spot of neon yellow. If she was going to catch anything, it would have to be by willpower alone.

*****

When I arrived at the maple tree the next day, the girl was already there. I baited my hook and tossed it into the water. Our bobbers drifted up and down, in sync with the tiny waves that lapped up against the bank. 

“Catch anything yet?” I asked. 

She shook her head, dark hair falling in front of her face. Her hand went up, barely brushing it away from her eyes. 

“Need any bait?” 

No response. I reeled my line in, left my pole on the bank, and walked over with the wax worms. 

“Here,” I held out the box. 

She looked up at me, fear ringing her eyes in dark circles. I crouched down next to her slowly, as if I was trying not to scare away a wild rabbit. 

“Reel in your line,” I told her gently. “I’ll help you put the worm on.”

I didn’t know why I felt the need to do this. Maybe it was the girl herself that intrigued me. Maybe it was the fact that I knew she wasn’t going to catch any fish - and I wanted her to, so she could enjoy it like I did. 

She did as I asked, holding the pole in front of her. I walked to the tip and grabbed the hook, sinking it into the segmented white of the wax worm. Letting it drop, I motioned for her to cast it. She did, and it landed in the lake with a distinctive plop. I returned to my line, pulling in a silvery crappie a few minutes later that was only four or five inches long. Too small to eat.

The girl yelped, and I turned to see her frantically reeling in her line. The rod bent as the fish struggled against it, and I dropped my own rod to help. 

I reached for the fishing line - it was swinging through the air as the fish thrashed around. Soon I was wiggling the hook out of the sunnie’s mouth with the girl hovering nervously next to me. 

“This one’s a good size,” I told her, barely keeping my grip on the slippery scales. It had to be eight or nine inches long, with the characteristic bright yellow belly. “Want to keep it?”

Her eyes went wide. “Keep it?” she whispered.

“To eat,” I explained. 

She shook her head vigorously. “No, that’s okay.”

“Want to throw it back?” I offered the fish to her. 

Again, she shook her head, and I tossed the fish back into the lake. 

“Thank you,” she said quietly, looking at her feet. “I ran out of bait… and was thinking that I might still be able to catch something.”

I laughed slightly. “Fish are dumb, but they aren’t that dumb.” I offered her the box of wax worms again, and this time she accepted. 

“I’m Max,” I said, digging for another worm after she’d taken hers. 

“Caroline,” she replied, smiling slightly. It was a quiet kind of smile, wistful and dazzling at the same time. I decided I liked it. 

We spent the rest of the afternoon under the trees, casting bobbers out to drift aimlessly among the waves. 

*****

The summer had been marching on, each day growing hotter and hotter. I don’t remember when I stopped going fishing for the fun of it and started going fishing because it was an excuse to hang out with Caroline. We met underneath the maple trees almost every afternoon, and through small conversations, we grew to be friends. 

I learned about her family - both parents travelling around, selling an expensive product to big companies. She stayed at home with her older brother, who was working through college and looking for a job. She was indeed a junior, like me, but she went to the fancy charter school in the next city over, instead of the public highschool. She went fishing because she used to do it with her grandpa, and it made her feel closer to him, in a way. Her smiles were a rare thing - and I loved them because of it. 

One morning in late July, my mom had ordered me to bring enough fish back for the three of us - her, myself, and my little brother - to eat for dinner. Obligated, I threw a five gallon bucket in with my fishing gear.

There were five or six sunfish flopping around in my bucket that afternoon when I decided to invite Caroline to come over and eat with us. It threw her off; so much so that she crossed her line over mine, and we spent the next five minutes getting them untangled. 

“Sorry,” she mumbled. 

“It was bound to happen at some point,” I pointed out. 

She grabbed a new worm out of the box. “That’s really kind of you. To invite me. I’d… love to come.”

“We’ll need a few more fish then,” I told her. “Mom’s frying them up for dinner."

We ended up with an assortment of ten sunnies, crappies, and a perch. Caroline carried the bucket, and I had the rods. She followed me to the truck, climbing in the front seat after dropping the bucket in the bed next to the rods. I sent a quick text to my mom, letting her know I was bringing a friend for dinner. The truck didn't start the first time - normal, but still anxiety inducing. Would this be the time where we were left stranded in a parking lot? 

The engine roared to life with the second turn of the key, and I let out a nervous laugh. 

"That's normal," I told Caroline.

In return, I got a smile. It was a silent ride home, with Caroline shifting nervously in her seat. I pulled into the garage, left the fishing gear in the bed of the truck and grabbed the bucket. 

“C’mon,” I motioned for her to follow me. “My brother should be home. You can meet him.”

I left the bucket of fish in the sink, Caroline following me closely. Zach’s room was at the end of the hall, and he was there, lounging in his beanbag chair playing on his nintendo switch. 

“Zach.” He didn’t look up. “Zach. Zach.”

He continued to ignore me. 

I rolled my eyes and went over to him, standing right in front of him and raising my voice. “ZACH.”

His head flew up and he looked at me in annoyance. “What.”

I stepped to the side, revealing Caroline standing awkwardly at the door. His jaw dropped. “You have a girlfriend?”

I was pretty sure that my face was as red as Caroline’s. “This is my friend,” I emphasized. “Her name is Caroline.” 

“Sure. Tell that to Dad.” Zach replied, grinning smugly. “Hi Caroline.”

I shook my head and led her out of the room, shutting the door as I left. “Sorry about that,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck. “He just says whatever he thinks.”

“I can see that,” she responded, blushing furiously. 

“MAX!” my mom shouted from the kitchen. 

“COMING!” I yelled back. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Caroline barely flinch. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” she reassured me, “Let’s go see what your mom wants.”

It turned out that she wanted help filleting the fish. Caroline watched in fascination as I slit the fish behind the gills and slid the knife along the spine, exposing the innards. I then passed them to my mom, and she shaved off the silvery-green scales that reminded me of sequins. 

"So this is…?" my mom asked, looking at Caroline.

"Right. Sorry. This is Caroline. Caroline, this is my mom."

"I'd shake your hand, but they're a bit slimy right now," she told Caroline. "My name's Minnie."

"Nice to meet you," Caroline replied. 

"So how did you and Max meet?" The question seems to be directed towards both of us. 

"Fishing," I told her, handing her the last sunnie. "Over at Kingfisher."

Caroline nodded in agreement. "We've been hanging out in the afternoons."

My mom proceeded to ask Caroline more questions as she and I cleaned up. Guts went in the trash, fillets into a pan. It didn’t take long for the kitchen to be filled with easy conversation and the smell of butter and fish crackling in the pan. I pulled out some potato salad from the fridge, directing Caroline to the cupboard where the cups were stored. We worked together to set the table and after we were done, I retrieved Zach from his room, sending him a few lightly veiled threats. 

He shoved me lightly and grinned, as if he thought I wouldn’t follow through. 

If he messed this up, he’d learn very quickly that I did not plan on leaving those threats empty. 

The first ten minutes of dinner were awkward. Like “I would rather run around the neighborhood in my kindergarten halloween costume” awkward. And for those curious, I was Percy from Thomas the Tank Engine. We skirted around just about every subject that you could talk about, no one really knowing what Caroline was comfortable with. Eventually we settled on the subject of board games, apparently a family tradition at her house. 

“My dad and I have quite the rivalry going,” she told us, a delicate fondness in her voice.

And so we took that subject and ran with it. After the plates had been cleared, my mom sent Zach to the basement - ordering him to dig through whatever random junk we had piled down there and return from his journey with a game. 

He came back with Uno. It wasn’t a board game, which was what the rest of us had in mind, but it was good enough. I won a few rounds, Caroline won two, and Zach won once. My mom… well, she was a good loser. Nine o’clock came and went, and at nine fifteen, Caroline tapped my arm. 

“I need to go home soon,” she said quietly. “If it wouldn’t be a big deal…”

“Of course, of course,” I replied, standing up and shoving my chair in. “We can go right now.”

“Thanks so much.”

I grabbed the keys and we left. Remnants of the sunset lingered in the sky as we drove past the lake, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw Caroline gazing out the window at the streaks of pink. 

“Pretty, yeah?”

“Yeah,” she murmured. “Gorgeous. Like cotton candy in the sky."

She directed me down darkened roads, and I tapped the brakes once for a pair of deer that dashed across the pavement. She stopped me in front of a rickety old mailbox that was bent half-over. 

“Thank you again for inviting me. I had fun.”

“Even as awkward as it was?” I asked. 

She chuckled. “Yeah. Your family is really nice.” She unbuckled and turned to leave the car. “I had a question though. Your brother mentioned your dad?”

“Deployed,” I answered. “Border patrol down south.”

“Oh.”

“He’s gone pretty often, but we’re proud of him.”

She smiled. “I’d be proud too. G’night, Max.”

“Goodnight Caroline.”

*****

Zach was attending a birthday party the next morning, and I planned on stopping at the lake on the way home from dropping him off, just to cast my line in once or twice. It would be earlier than usual. On my way to the lake, it began to sprinkle, and I turned the wipers on. They swiped the raindrops away like someone wiping away tears. 

Caroline, - surprisingly - was there, and like normal, she didn’t have any bait. What wasn’t normal was the fact that her bobber wasn’t in the water. Her knees were pulled up to her chest, and she was staring out over the lake, absentmindedly playing with the hook on her line. 

“Hey,” I said hesitantly. 

She whipped towards me, nose bright red and eyes shining with tears. When she realized it was me, she slumped back against the tree. 

The utter picture of defeat. 

I leaned the rod up against the tree next to her and crouched down. “What’s wrong?”

Shaky breaths emerged from behind dirty fingers. She was quiet for a couple minutes, wiping a mixture of tears and raindrops from her face. 

Why was she crying? 

"I'm sorry," she started. 

Why was she apologizing? "For what?"

"I haven't been exactly honest with you." Trembling fingers delicately traced the fish hook. "My family… isn't exactly like I've said it was. And I haven't been going fishing because I did it with my grandpa. It was because I was avoiding them."

"Why are you telling this now?"

And what exactly did her family do?

"Because," she sniffed. "The truth is hard. And… It's like a fish hook. Without anything to cover it, it's unappealing and sharp."

The truth was like a fish hook. I watched her fingers slip up and down the metal. Unappealing and sharp.

"So what is the truth then?"

She put her head down on her knees. "The truth is that I didn't come fishing because of my grandpa. I came because they were always yelling. My family. My brother and step-mom, specifically. My dad wasn't yelling… he was in jail. He got out yesterday."

She paused, looking up at me for the first time. "I didn't think that anyone like you… someone with a perfect family… would want to be friends with someone like me. Someone who lies and runs from their family."

"Hey," I told her, putting a reassuring arm around her shoulders. "You don't need to apologize for running. I would've run too. I'm really sorry… about all of that."

Tears leaked from the corner of her eyes and ran down her face. Hesitantly, I wiped one away. She gave me a slight smile in return. 

"If you ever want to go fishing," I told her, "And get away… I’ll be here." 

"Thanks Max.”

The truth was out, sharp and unappealing. But I knew life would march on, and I would be there for Caroline, even if it was just to go fishing.