“It’s dumb is what it is,” Maya had said. “I’m over it.”
“Wait!” Renee yelped. “I think I have a nibble!” The line pulled again. “Oh my God, what do I do?”
The fish was tugging hard. Blue rushed to help, shouting orders about when to reel and when to let, adding her own hands to the pole when the fish gave a vigorous yank. Suddenly they were all excited.
“It’s probably a tuna,” Blue said. “And a big one, the way it’s pulling. In fact, I’m certain of it, a bluefin, I bet—over fifty pounds for sure!”
Maya was impressed with Blue’s depth of knowledge.
“I think it’s a shark!” Renee kept saying. “It’s going to pull me in with it!”
“You’re going to need a bigger boat,” Maya quipped.
There was a great deal of carrying on. Hannah had her camera at the ready while Blue and Renee engaged in the tiresome struggle. Maya left after twenty minutes and returned with doughnuts just as Renee managed to reel it the last few feet to shore. They whooped and cheered as Renee gave one last tug of her pole. Then suddenly they all went quiet.
“Wait.” Maya said. “What is that?”
It took a split second for it to register and then she laughed so hard she choked on her doughnut as Renee pulled from the sea a man’s rubber fishing boot. She ran out to it, held it up. “It’s kind of cute and maybe my size. Do you think you can catch the other one?”
They’d all dissolved in giggles then, calling Renee Captain Ahab and suggesting they phone the local papers to report the impressive catch. They even brought it to the pier and weighed it on the fish-weighing scale. Somewhere there was still a picture Blue had taken of Renee proudly holding up that rubber boot and grinning ear to ear. When they returned to school in the fall, the story of that “fish” grew and grew. By the time they graduated, it was a five-foot mako.
That was the same year Blue had made a sign in her shop class and then nailed it above the door of Nana’s house the following summer. It was a big wooden arrow pointing toward the ocean, and in hand-painted letters it said “To the Sunrise Highway.”
Maya smiled now, remembering. “That was so great, right?”
Renee sighed.
Blue flagged down the waiter. “Can I get a shot of tequila, please?”
“Me too!” Maya said. “And those problem-solving calamari as soon as possible.” She looked between her feuding friends. Wished they would just get over this stupidity, remember all the good. Reminding them didn’t seem to be working, so for now it was probably best to try a new tactic, direct the heat onto herself. “So...a funny thing happened on the way to paying my property taxes.”
Neither of them looked at her or acknowledged that she’d spoken. Both had disengaged entirely, were staring off in opposite directions, stewing in their own silences.
“Hello!” Maya said. “Anybody home?” She threw up her hands. “Oh, for God’s sake. I’m going to the bathroom.” She grabbed her purse, marched off. Nothing was going as planned, and she felt suddenly light-headed and floaty, precarious as a balloon in a child’s hand.
Just outside she could see Hannah on the patio, clutching the phone to her ear as she paced between the white plastic tables. Maya skipped the bathroom and made a beeline for the bar. Several men turned as she entered. She zeroed in on a young guy in the corner. He looked about her age, maybe a little older, a lonely, soulful fisherman she decided, judging by the weathered lines around his eyes. She smiled at him and his whole face lit up with happy surprise. He raised his glass.
“Oh, hello there,” she said under her breath, enjoying the way his smile grounded her back into her body. She sat down next to him, and the lightness in her head became substance and clarity again. He was exactly who and what she was looking for, a cute boy to have a flirtatious spin with, maybe even make out a little, clear her head of all the drama.
He watched her settle in, his face full of unguarded hopefulness, and as they grinned at each other once more, she had the urge to lean over and kiss him, to disappear into that black, thought-free universe where kissing took her. She glanced back at Renee and Blue slumped at the table, telegraphing misery like actors playing to the balcony, over to Hannah pacing outside. She thought of her house in foreclosure, her dead-end job, her fractured friend-family, everything real and closing in on her. “Save me,” she said.
“Happy to,” he said. He scanned the crowd to locate the threat, then turned back to her. “From what exactly?”
“Where to begin? Let’s start with sobriety.” To the bartender she said, “Light beer on tap. He’s buying.” She turned back to the guy. “Please tell me you’re having a good night.”
“I am. Sort of. Well, actually...my dog died. I came here to raise a glass...”
“To your dead dog.”
“Indy. Yeah. He liked Bud.” He gave a little chuckle as if remembering.
“Interesting,” she said. “It wasn’t a drunk driving accident, was it?”
“Nope, he had his own chauffeur. Paws couldn’t reach the pedals. Oh, and it gets worse.” He pulled out a small metal container with a paw print on it.
“That’s not...” She poked it with her finger, leaned in toward it, whispered, “Indy, is that you?”
“He doesn’t talk so much anymore. Used to be quite the conversationalist.”
“Well, I should probably leave you to your mourning.”
“He had a good life. Let’s call it celebrating.” He grinned at her.
“You don’t carry that everywhere, do you?”
“Nope. Not yet anyway. Just picked it up on my way home from work. I’m planning to...spread them somewhere. But don’t know where yet. It’ll come to me.”
“This is by far the strangest bar encounter I’ve ever had. And believe me, that’s saying a lot.”
Her beer appeared on the bar top. She took a sip and raised her glass. “To Indy,” she said.
He smiled and his gaze fell from her eyes to her lips and there was a lift in her stomach, like she was taking hills at speed. “To Indy,” he said, raising his glass. “And to the sudden appearance of beauty in unexpected places.”
Cheers erupted from a scatter of patrons watching a ball game on the TV above the bar.
“I think you just scored,” she said, smiling as she clinked his glass.
She was not usually such a drinker, but tonight the alcohol was a wonder, tasted like summer parties and old boyfriends, tasted like a past worth remembering and a future worth looking forward to. “I’m Maya by the way.”