When I was about 16, I was bedazzled by a young lady who seemed to have everything going for her, yet she still took time to talk to me. This anomaly made me think that my luck with the fairer sex might be changing — or that she at least had a sympathetic soul. She was also mysteriously foreign. In other words, she was from another school district. The real benefit to that was she didn’t know my friends … or too much about me, either.
We managed to go out a couple of times, and things were going relatively well, especially since I had little to compare it to. Through a leap of faith, I decided that during our next date, I would take her into my confidence. I broached the idea during a phone call. “Confidence?” she said suspiciously. “Exactly what do you have in mind?”
“I want it to be a surprise,” I explained. “I’ll pick you up Saturday at 7:30 a.m. Just dress for the weather.”
“What kind of weather?”
“The outside kind,” I said. That should have been a hint for one of us. The morning welcomed a beautifully crisp October day, the frost leaving a crystalline icing on the red and golden maple leaves that had drifted from their summer’s perch.
I arrived at a prompt 8:05 a.m. She was sitting on the porch steps, her mother wrapped in a blanket behind her, sipping a cup of coffee. I got out of the car and began walking over, but stopped as her mother gave her a long hug and seemed to be whispering in her ear. Her mother then looked at me skeptically and walked back into their house, leaving her daughter behind.
My date was wearing a colorful jacket and a pair of sturdy-looking walking shoes. A ski hat with one of those little yarn balls was pulled down to ward off the chilled air. To me, she rivaled the very colors and thrills of autumn. “Where are we going?”
“Guess,” I said as we got into the car.
“Are we going to the Pumpkin and Cider Festival?” came the apparently eager and hopeful reply.
“Nope. Guess again.”
She thought for a moment, “We’re going for a walk at the state park? I’ve got my camera,” she said as she pulled an Instamatic from her jacket.
“Almost, but even better,” I said. “We’re going fishing at the park in one of the best secret spots I’ve ever found!”
I was hoping she realized just how much I had to trust someone to reveal such information. She must have been tired, having to get up early in the morning and all. I could tell because we didn’t talk much during the drive, and she looked to be nodding off as she gazed out the side window. The low water levels of autumn made stepping from rock-to-rock easy, so waders weren’t necessary — I’d have never expected her to wear waders anyway.
I explained how to use the fishing reel, the weight of line, how casting works, the spinners I planned to use, what a smallmouth bass looks like and other pertinent details. I demonstrated with a few casts in hopes she might catch on and then offered her my spare rod — all rigged and ready to go.
“Go ahead, I think I’ll just watch for a while,” she said as she picked lint off of her jacket.
I carefully stepped across the rocks and began casting to pools and below riffles, hoping to find a smallie hiding within the currents. The water dashing around the rocks made it hard to carry on a conversation, so most of the time I spent casting and hopping. I glanced back now and then and she would smile and wave. She seemed content, busily picking up and examining leaves and snapping an occasional picture of the stream and autumn landscape. I gingerly made my way back to see how she was doing.
“You haven’t caught a fish, yet,” she said with some concern.
“That’s why they call it fishing and not catching,” I explained with a grin. “Are you sure you don’t want to try?
“No … it’s all right. I just didn’t wear the right clothes,” she said as she removed another piece of invisible lint. Yeah, like there are “right clothes” for fishing, I thought. My experience playing high school football dictated it was time to punt.
“Do you want to go to the Pumpkin and Cider Festival for a while?” I hadn’t even picked up my tackle and she was back at the car. We stopped and surprisingly had a really nice time as we walked about the festival’s vendors and displays.
There was pumpkin spiced everything, pies of all kinds and hot cocoa. She bought a bag of red delicious apples, feeding one to a coachman’s horse. She even took my picture scratching its hip when its tail embarrassingly swished across my face.
Later, I was about to daringly take her hand when I spotted my buddies Ron and Loui. I quickly put both hands in my pockets and began to change direction to avoid any forced introductions.
“Do you know those guys?” she asked.
“What guys?”
“The two back there,” she said, nodding in their directions. “The ones laughing, waving their arms and yelling ‘Hey, Jimmy’?”
“I don’t think sooooo … buuuut … aren’t they saying Timmy?”
“Something doesn’t seem right about them,” she commented as we picked up our pace.
Returning to her home, her parents were leisurely raking leaves in the yard. She invited me in, and I was aware of her father following. As she left to grab a couple Cokes from the refrigerator, I felt a hand on my shoulder turning me, another thrust out for a shake, “So, you’re Jim. I think she mentioned your name…once.
So, where’d you take my little girl?” he asked — or demanded.
“Just fishing at the park, and then we stopped at the Pumpkin and Cider Festival,” I confessed nervously. “Honest.”
With a little laugh, he said, “Well, did she fish?”
“No,” I admitted. “But the fish just weren’t biting anyway.”
“Daddy …” came the warning. It was too late — he was walking me toward what I was soon to discover was his den. She followed nervously.
On the walls were huge trout, salmon, a near state record bass, walleye, a sailfish and two other saltwater somethings. There were antique rods and reels displayed and dozens of framed photographs. He saw my interest and let me browse.
I soon began to notice that a lot of those pictures were of my date at about every stage of her life. In each, she was dressed like her parents owned L.L. Bean, and she was most often on a boat or hip deep in waders. They all included her holding fish of all kinds, including species I couldn’t name — all bigger than my fantasies could imagine.
Looking at his daughter, “Sweetheart, do you still write that boy that you met while we were fishing for giant brookies in Labrador?”
“Daddy …” Another warning and now, a scowl.
“I’m not surprised she didn’t want to fish in that little crick,” he said as he slapped my back. Ever since taking up fly fishing and trying her hand on the big ocean stuff, the rest of it kind of bores both of us. I’ll give you an ‘A’ for effort son,” he said while giving another pat. “But how did you know she liked to fish?”
I felt like I’d just switched positions with the horse’s tail. I looked across the room to see a sheepish smile and a nearly imperceptible shrug as she avoided my wide eyes.
Except for chance meetings at church, we never did much together after that. I wonder if she still has the picture of me standing beside that horse’s south end — bet her dad framed it. Now I know why the Marine Corps puts so much emphasis on reconnaissance.
“Okay, this is the wisdom. First, time spent on reconnaissance is never wasted. Second, almost anything can be improved with the addition of bacon.”
— Jasper Fforde
