Spring Tide (21 page)

“How’d that go?”

“She pushed me off. Told me to stop. I told her I was just kidding and she said, ‘You’d better be.’ I didn’t try it again. I couldn’t risk another move. I was afraid of losing her friendship. It was better than nothing. That’s what I thought at the time anyway.”

“I’m sorry you lost her.”

Jackie glanced over with a thankful smile, then took Stef’s hand in hers and held it between them on the seat. Stef closed her fingers over Jackie’s, enjoying this spontaneous gesture of affection.

At the end of a cow pasture, they reached a levee and climbed the dirt road to the top where Jackie took her hand back to maneuver the sharp turn. They suddenly had a wide-open view of an expansive waterway flanked by the grassy interior slope of the levee and the occasional scrub oak. The water was grayish green and murky like most of the Delta sloughs. There was a fisherman in a small aluminum boat on the opposite bank in the shade of a tree. Other than that, the road and the water were deserted.

The truck bounced on the rutted road as Jackie took it slowly for less than a mile to a spot where a smaller slough forked off from the main channel. They pulled off at a wide dirt pull-out and parked.

Stef stepped out of the truck and stood on the bank of the slough, listening to a red-winged blackbird singing. The sky was clear except for some wisps of stringy clouds. On the other side of the levee were fields planted with rows of corn and occasional, well-spaced houses. There was a warm breeze and an odd odor, vaguely familiar, in the air.

“What’s that smell?” Stef asked.

Jackie sniffed the air. “Anise. It grows wild around here.”

Stef took a deep breath, recognizing the licorice aroma.

Jackie took the trap and a can of dog food out of the back of the truck.

“This is a nice spot,” Stef said. “Hardly anybody around.”

“By boat, we’re quite a few miles from the river, more than you’d think based on how short a drive it was, so not a lot of boat traffic. There are a lot of spots like this in the backwaters of the Delta. Lots of others you can only reach by boat.”

She started down a narrow dirt path to the water’s edge, then punched several holes in the bottom of the dog food can with a can opener. “You don’t want to open the can so they can get the food out. Just let them smell it.”

“What do crawdads normally eat?” Stef asked. “In the wild where dog food and hot dogs don’t normally show up?”

“They’ll eat most things. Little fish, dead fish, worms, insects.”

She put the dog food can in the cage, then Jackie waded a short distance into the water and lowered it behind a submerged log. She tied the cord to the log, then returned to shore.

“By tomorrow morning,” she said, shading her eyes from the western sun with her hand, “that would be full of mudbugs if we left it overnight. Like twenty or thirty. That’s all there is to it.”

“Seems pretty straightforward,” Stef said.

“We’ll check it in a little while. We might catch a couple if they’re close by and smell the bait.” Jackie sat on a boulder and anchored her heels in the sand.

The fishing boat across the way suddenly roared to life and headed upstream. The sound of its motor gradually faded away.

“Tide’s coming in,” Jackie observed. “There’s a full moon tonight so it’ll be a spring tide.”

“What’s a spring tide?”

“That’s the highest tide. Because of the full moon. It’s the best time to catch fish.”

“Why?”

“Fishing is about two things. Where and when. You learn with experience how to read the water and find where the fish hang out. But when is even more important. Like most things, being in the right place at the right time is often the key. Fish feed when the tide’s moving in or out. The movement stirs things up, like shrimp and worms and whatever lives in the mud. During a spring tide, things get shook up more than usual and the fish get excited.”

Stef laughed shortly. “Sorry. That struck me as funny, the idea of excited fish. I guess there’s more to fishing than I would have thought.”

Jackie nodded. “Some people can talk your leg off about technique, the right equipment and all that. There are as many techniques as there are old fishermen. And women. Granny swears by the cows.”

“Cows?”

“When the cows are up and eating grass, the fish are biting. When they’re lying down being lazy, you won’t catch anything.”

“Is it true?”

“It’s worked for her. Some people have a fishing pole for each type of fish they go after, all rigged up differently. But, you know, there still has to be a fish there to catch, and luck plays a part too. You don’t have to know much to catch a fish.” Jackie pointed to the west. “It was right down the road I caught my first fish. I was just a toddler and obviously knew nothing about it. My dad gave me his pole to hold while he went to the car to get a beer. When he came back, he just left me holding this huge fishing pole while he talked to my mom. After a while, I thought it felt funny, kind of jumpy, but I just sat there holding it like I’d been told to do. Finally, he looked at the pole and said, ‘You got a strike!’ He told me to reel. I tried. It took a long time, not because there was such a monster fish on the line, but just because I was awkward and didn’t know what I was doing. I finally got it reeled in and there were two striped bass on the line, one on each hook. He always fished with two hooks, but normally people reel the thing in after the first hit, so they don’t get two fish at once. I was so excited I threw the pole down and jumped around screaming. I don’t remember it very well, but this story’s been told to me many times.”

Stef realized it was Jackie in the photo she’d seen on the bulletin board at the bait shop, the little girl proudly holding a line with two fish hooked.

“That’s a cute story,” Stef said.

“It never happened again in all the years since.”

Jackie smiled warmly at her. She seemed anxious to show and thereby share her world with Stef. To welcome her into it, open-armed and unreserved, like the town itself. The atmosphere Stef had noticed since arriving in Stillwater Bay was one of familiar hospitality. The closest thing she had known to this unambiguous goodwill was from visiting her grandmother when she was little. She’d show up at the back door, uninvited, unexpected and usually disgruntled about something at home or school. Grandma Mattie’s face would light up like she’d opened the door to Ed McMahon delivering a check from Publisher’s Clearing House. “Oh, look at my little sweetheart! Soaking wet and grouchy to boot. You look like a half-drowned cat. Take off those muddy shoes and come on into the kitchen. I’m going to slice you a big old piece of chocolate cake!”

That was always her solution to Stef’s troubles. A bowl of ice cream or blackberry cobbler or chocolate chip cookies and a glass of milk. Grandma Mattie served up love and dessert. And that was normally all that was needed. And all that was wanted. By the time that piece of cake was half eaten, they’d be sitting at the kitchen table laughing together over some funny story, all childhood misery forgotten.

Grandma Mattie had died when Stef was twelve and she’d never known such unquestioning warmth since. She had no doubt her mother loved her, but her mother’s affection was understandably diffused with worry and pragmatism and was never totally unreserved like her grandmother’s had been.

Not everyone in Stillwater Bay was open and friendly, but most of them were. They didn’t seem to care who she was or what she’d done before. They automatically liked her, trusted her and accepted her with a kind of general belief that the world would do them no harm. Jackie was a product of that environment. Stef wondered if her invitation could possibly be as straightforward as it felt. Jackie would be so easy to escape into.

A flock of ducks flew overhead, quacking raucously on their way to their evening roost. A little black mud hen swam out of a clump of tules into their clearing, saw them, and abruptly spun about and hurried away. This was the scenery Stef had pledged herself to for the foreseeable future. How could this not bring her peace?

“It’s hot,” Jackie said, wiping the back of her hand across her forehead. “Do you know how to swim?”

“Sure. I’m guessing you learned by jumping in a river. I had swimming lessons.”

“You’d be right about that.” Jackie flashed a devious smile.

Without warning, she leapt to her feet and tore off her shirt, then shimmied out of her shorts and ran into the water in her underwear. She swam twenty feet out where she stayed, treading water, grinning a challenge.
She wants to play
, Stef thought with an unexpected sense of lightheartedness. She removed her watch and hat, laying them on the sandy shore, then rapidly stripped to her own underwear and jumped in. The cold slapped her, but as she swam out, the shock rapidly dissipated and it felt good.

Before she could reach Jackie, she swam away laughing. Stef gave chase, knowing she wanted to be caught, and a few minutes into this game, she got hold of Jackie’s ankle and climbed up the length of her until she could lock one arm around her waist. Jackie screamed and giggled, her voice echoing across the water. She pushed with both hands against Stef’s shoulders as they splashed through their mock struggle, but Stef held fast. She heard her own laugh like a foreign language she could barely comprehend. Before yesterday, it had been months since she’d heard this particular laugh, carefree and unrestrained.

With Jackie still trying to wriggle free, Stef pulled her closer and placed a couple of light kisses on her mouth. Jackie quieted and let herself be kissed properly as they drifted together, gently kicking to stay afloat. Still kissing, Stef stroked powerfully with her legs to move them closer to shore until she could feel the muddy bottom beneath her. She stood in water up to her shoulders, encircling Jackie in her arms and kissing her deeper, tasting again the sweet, soft warmth of Jackie’s uninhibited desire.

The bare skin of her back and stomach felt velvety smooth in the water. Jackie wrapped her legs around Stef’s waist, anchoring her nearly weightless body close. Stef ran her hands over Jackie’s back, then around to the front where she caressed her through the lacy material of her bra. Jackie’s murmur of pleasure verified she wanted to be touched like that so Stef squeezed harder and kissed Jackie deeper, tasting her eager mouth and tongue with growing urgency.

Stef’s senses were soon overwhelmed with Jackie’s body. She closed her eyes. There was nothing but Jackie. She no longer felt the water they were standing in. There was just Jackie’s skin and arms and exploring mouth, so anxious and generous, and the delicate, distinctive aroma of anise wafting past them on the breeze.

Gradually, a foreign sound reached her ears. It wasn’t a cow lowing or a bird singing or the soft moans of a woman whose body wanted desperately to give itself to her. It was unnatural and unwelcome. She released Jackie’s mouth and looked down the length of the slough to see a motorboat heading their way. On it were two men and two women in swimming suits, talking and laughing. Their voices rose and fell on the air currents as they sped past.

Stef noticed it was getting dark. The sun had gone down and the sky was orange and purple on the western horizon. The moon had moved higher in the sky and shone brightly down on them. Waves from the passing boat splashed over their skin and Stef shivered, suddenly realizing she was cold.

“Come on,” Jackie said, taking Stef’s hand. “Let’s pull in our trap and go back.”

The trap contained three crawdads, two adults and one juvenile. Jackie lifted the largest one out between thumb and forefinger, careful to avoid the pinchers. After seeing something akin to affection in her face as she regarded the creature, Stef agreed to release them back into their habitat. With towels from the truck, they dried off their hair, then sat on the towels on the way back to town, underwear soaking through their shorts.

As she drove, Jackie frequently glanced Stef’s way and smiled. Stef still had reservations about Jackie. She was a beautiful young woman and Stef wanted her badly. But she also seemed so pure of heart and Stef was worried about what Jackie wanted from her. Whatever it was, it was likely more than Stef was prepared to give.

“Do you want to go to dinner or something?” Jackie asked as they reached town. “Our Cajun place isn’t bad. A little seafood étouffée or jambalaya?”

“I can’t see myself going out to eat like this,” Stef laughed, indicating her wet shorts. “It seems like every time I go anywhere with you, I end up all wet.”

Jackie raised her eyebrows, then lowered her voice and said, “I’d say that was a good sign.”

Stef snorted in appreciation.

“I have a better idea,” Jackie said. “Let’s pick up some eggs at the Quickie-Mart, and I’ll cook you my famous mushroom and broccolini frittata.”