The Angler

by Gloria Rose-Potts

And when she stepped out onto the trail, from behind the branches, her arm still elevated with her phone angled towards the canopy, I didn’t recognize her. I had seen many others stop to capture the same image; it was early autumn, and the birch trees were the first to change. They did so fabulously, scatter­ing their yellowed leaves like the freckles across her nose. My mouth tensed to a polite smile when our eyes met, my usual greeting on the trail for other hikers. It is a greeting for strang­ers—brief, without stopping, moving forward, through the muck. I had places to reach, up the steady climb, over rocks, tiny waterways, and the rotted stump. I had no time for chit-chat, as my mother would say.

But she said Gloria.

My forward motion ceased. Something in the back of my brain sparked. Some abandoned path through synapses that I hadn't felt in a long time lit up. I knew her, but not from here. From my hometown, on the shore, two hours east and sixteen years from where I stood now. Brydie was a friend from the time I started lying to my parents in earnest, started driving, started smoking weed, started thinking I had something to say. She was from the summer when the salty, sticky, sweetness of life rested on the tip of my tongue.

It was the June between sophomore and junior year of high school. When we would pile ourselves into Brad’s basement, finding space between couches and old furniture. Brad was broad in the shoulders with blond hair, and the first time I showed up I recalled that I had a huge crush on him in 7th grade. He was quieter than what I remembered liking, or maybe I was just getting loud. And anyway, Cibelly liked Brad. Brydie was with Shane. I kissed Jared but only once, I didn’t like that he tried to put his hand down my jeans on the first night. There was Sam who was Little Sam, because she was smaller than Big Sam (the distinction somewhat unnecessary, because Big Sam didn’t even hang around this basement). Gan­non showed up a lot, and someone’s cousin who’s name I have completely forgotten but there was some story about him never changing his socks. And, remarkably, Justin. He lived up the street and rode a yellow racer bicycle. I can still see him leaned over the handlebars, coming around the last corner before stopping by the chain-link fence of Brad’s house.

Brad’s parents rarely commented at the number of us that would slither in, unless the smell of smoke became too notice­able. The house was a five-minute walk from the beach; you could smell the ocean between those walls. It's funny, all my memories of sitting in the sand are dark. We spent most of the day inside, playing Guitar Hero or Mortal Kombat, or I’d only make it over once I finished my shift at the pizza place (this was also the summer I started working). In the twilight hours, we’d venture to Main Street, where’d we scrounge dollar bills together to buy ice cream cones and then walk around hoping to be seen. There was an Army Surplus store that provided plenty of fodder for our digital cameras. We’d take turns trying on long jackets and metal helmets, pursing and puckering our mouths. Eventually, we’d return to the basement, always end­ing there.

Justin started the summer with auburn curls, but he shaved early in the summer. Still, he continued to look at me like he was watching me from behind a perfect ringlet. But I was still uninterested in feeling the peach fuzz left on his scalp. I was much more interested in the 1991 station wagon that was finally mine. It had over 200,000 miles on it, but I was too naïve to be impressed or concerned by this. My only concern was finally being able to leave my house. I would often just drive down 6A with my pile of mix CDs in the center console. I’d compose them myself and give them names in green perma­nent marker like “Put on Your Summer Skin”, “Craving that Sound”, and “a little AHHH, a little mmm”. I considered myself artistic, clever, and worldly in a way I didn’t have a right to. When a CD skipped, I’d take a hand off the wheel to bang the dashboard. The windows were always down, and my hair with it. The breeze would whip my thick mane against my face, but I didn’t mind because my sunglasses protected my eyes. I wasn’t supposed to drive anyone, so my passengers always had to be ready to duck. There was a thrill to the fact that my mom’s job was so close to Brad’s house. I loved feeling a little wicked.

I was a latch-key specter in my home. I was often alone—both my parents working and my sister too. Or they were just gone, somewhere else. I learned to make scrambled eggs and grilled cheese at a young age. My family always has trouble spotting me. To this day, one of my parents describes me as a straight-A student. I wasn’t, but this assumption allot­ted me the freedom I craved. I was parched for touch. I was pining for soft tenderness. This desperation made me uneasy and childish, so I hardly looked back at Justin. I’d let him chase me with his gaze from across the room.

A night in July, it was close to midnight when we finally stumbled out of the basement. We went to the marina to go fishing off the dock. Justin came prepared with rods and frozen shrimp. We poked the hooks through their cold, pink bodies and dropped the line. There must have been some conversation happening, but I can only remember the sound of waves slap­ping the sides of the boats and the tension of the line as we watched the bobber. When he fished, Justin moved slow and steady. Careful to keep the lines from getting tangled. He had a tendency to let his mouth hang open when he listened to some­one talking. His voice came out like a growl when he thought he was being funny, and he was usually right. I was still weeks away from wanting to kiss him. When I finally did, he kept both hands on my hips with the same steady movements as they wrapped around my lower back.

The bobber disappeared. The line was taut. Something was on the line.

We pulled up an angler, a monkfish, slimy with its mouth wide open. We laughed, seeing the frozen shrimp sitting at the back of its throat. I hated removing the hook from the fish’s lips—I think it made it too easy to imagine the pain of being caught and pierced—and Justin removed the hook slowly, so he wouldn’t damage anything. He tossed the angler back off the dock.

We caught it two more times that night, and we knew it was the same one. We could see all three frozen shrimp in its open mouth. Each time its black eyes seemed more and more arrogant. It would eat our shrimp all night, it didn’t care. Keep tossing them down.

That summer ended with Justin moving farther away from Brad’s house. He got rid of his bike, and I quit the pizza place. I gave him a ride to the condo his family had purchased. It was smaller than his old house, on a busier street, and farther away from his friends. In his new room, Justin threw himself back­wards on the bed, his eyes to the ceiling as he sighed. And I reached out and touched him. It was the only thing I could think of to do, and it was what I really, really, desperately wanted to do. His skin was soft.

In a living room in December. This is where I was the first time I admitted I was in love. Brydie was just inches away from me, wrapped in and turned towards her own young love. I was laying on the floor and an inch away from Justin’s face. No one else heard his confession, and we were both tucked in the green sleeping bag I’d brought from home. Crazy to me, to think of that single sleeping bag that could somehow hold two bodies. We were much smaller then.

The last time I saw Brydie, I was crumpled across the din­ing room table while her and Shane watched me with what I imagine was pity, or maybe just concern. It was only a few days since Justin had broken me, saying this was for the best. He was joining the Marines, and I was moving two hours west for my first year of college. What could we possibly expect? Or more specifically, what did I expect? Brydie and Shane sat with their arms still wrapped around each other, their head just inches apart, as they tried, and failed, to comfort me. But I didn’t want to be comforted. First heartbreaks have their own sort of romance, after all.

He did write to me. He did come see me once. But only once.

I picked a double major because I am terrible at making decisions. I wanted, and still want, a bit of everything. I also wanted to be everything to everyone, but this isn’t something I still want. I slowly learned that honesty is not always best when it is cruel, and I tried to make these adjustments. I kissed more people. Once, someone got so drunk on our date, I had to drive him home and halfway there he forgot where we were going. This didn’t make me more selective, it took a few more years before that really kicked in. What can I say, I still love a good story, but I try to cut down on the riffraff. I asked my mom if she knew I was high the night I came home and sat in my dad’s recliner with a sizable bowl of chocolate-chip cookie dough ice cream. I asked my mom if she saw me that time on Main Street when I drove past her with two friends in the car. She said “no” to both. The 1991 Volvo died, and I still cherish the photo I have of myself grinning sitting on the hood of the car. The truck I drive now doesn’t have a CD player. The first time I ate avocado, I didn’t wait long enough for it to ripen, and it was hard as a rock. I dug into it with the edge of my spoon and ate as much as I could. I had a similar experience the first time I tried to cook sweet potato, but after a semester in Australia making pasta for every meal—I got more daring. I met my husband at a birthday party, and it was actually the birthday party of the girl he was seeing at the time. She still doesn’t like me, but I get so happy watching how he tenderly checks the eggs for cracks at the grocery store that I don’t care. In the shower, he holds my left shoulder firmly while he scrubs the center of my back like he’s polishing a mirror. I was a babysitter, I managed a grocery store, and oh, why the hell not, I tried stand-up comedy for about five years. At one point, I was so depressed that I applied to a graduate school, and this turned out to be the best thing I’ve done for myself. I’m trying to heal my intuition. I think I still get mixed up thinking about what I ought to be doing, instead of just doing. I think this is what my writing gets to be about. I still drive with the win­dows down. I still sit in the sand when I have the chance, but I live closer to woods now. I try to get outside as much as possi­ble because I’ve realized it makes my days worthwhile—walk­ing in the yellowing leaves, recognizing the face of a girl with a scattering of freckles across her nose, and letting the years col­lapse around us.

Gloria, she said. How are you?

I’m good. I said, I’m really good.