I was driving to Carrots's house with a goofy grin plastered on my face that has been there since I took her huckleberry picking two days ago. Let's just say that huckleberry fights are awesome (if you don't mind getting permanent stains on your clothes). Today we're going fly-fishing. I planned on spending the day with her and hopefully get enough courage to ask her to hang out with me tomorrow. It's a special day tomorrow…
I was whistling "Danny Boy" (I think that's my new favorite song) turned to her house. One minute everything was still and the next, a blurry object was running straight toward Bluebell. The door opens and I yelp in surprise and slam on the brake. She's sitting there in the seat that has become her throne this summer in her hiking boots, shorts, and sports polo glory, her hair a little mussed from the run. She flashes me an innocent smile.
"Let's go," she says. I narrow my eyes. I don't think so.
"What's with you?" I ask. Fly-fishing is great and all, but it's not something I would die for. She seriously scared me to death. The thought of accidentally running her over sends shivers down my back. God, if something ever happened to her…
"Nothing," she says back with the innocent smile still plastered on her face.
I frown. You know I know you're lying so spit it out already. She seems to read my thoughts and sighs.
"My mom's back," she confesses. Oh. I don't get why she was running away.
"And you don't want her to see you with me?" I ask. Is she ashamed of me? She glances over her shoulder and waves. I turn to look as well and see her mom peeping from the front window of her house, staring at us. I turn to look back at Carrots right before she looks at me.
"No, silly," she says. "I'm stoked to learn fly-fishing, that's all." Yep, something's wrong. I know Carrots and never in a million years would she ever call me (or anyone) "silly". I don't believe her and I know she knows that I don't believe her, but I let it slide. I turn back to Carrots's mom and tip my Stetson through the windshield and her mom disappears from the window. I revive Bluebell and pull out of Carrots's driveway. Well, a fly-fishing we go.
"Fly-fishing is easy," I tell her about two hours later. I've shown her the basics from the relative safety of the grass and we're going to hit the water now.
"You just have to think like a fish." She smirks at me.
"Right," she says. "Think like a fish."
"Don't mock," I warn looking at her in the most serious way I can without cracking up.
"Look at the river. What do you see?" I ask. Yes, I am fully aware that I'm pulling a Pocahontas moment here.
"Water," she says. "Stones and sticks and mud." Haha, very funny.
"Look closer," I tell her. "The river's its own world of fast and slow, deep and shallow, bright and shadowed. If you look at it like that, like a landscape where the fish live, it'll be easier to catch one." Was that too deep?
I turn to look at her and she's staring at me a little in awe.
"Nicely said," she tells me. "Are you some kind of cowboy poet?" I blush. Never thought of it that way.
"Just look," is all I could manage to mumble through my self-consciousness.
She gazes upriver as I continue to stare at her. I can see that she's looking at the river in new eyes right now, the same eyes that she used to gaze at Old Faithful when went to Yellowstone together. She looks at me and smiles with determination.
"Let's do it." And she lifts up the fly rod.
"I promise, I'm thinking like a fish." I snort and roll my eyes. Almost.
"All right, fish," I gesture to the river. "Right there's a sandbar you can stand on." She stares at me for a second with bewilderment clear on her face.
"Let me be sure I've got this right," she says. "You want me to stand in the middle of the river?"
"Yep," I say. "It'll be a bit chilly, but I think you can handle it. I don't have any waders your size." She looks at me skeptically.
"This isn't another one of your ploys to have to rescue me, is it?" she says. Okay, it's nice to rescue you… "Because don't think I've forgotten the Jumping Tree." I haven't forgotten it either.
"Nah," I say with a stupid grin. She rolls her eyes at me but I can see her trying to hide her smile.
"Okay," she says and takes a step into the river. She gasps at the cold and I feel a little bad. I think I'll ditch the waders today… When she reaches the sandbar, I wade out next to her and start to tie the fly.
"This is one of my favorites," I tell her as I attach the bait. "Pale Morning Dun."
"Nice," she says. I look at her and see that she has no idea what I'm talking about. I smile. You're adorable when you're clueless.
"All set," I say and I release the line take a few steps away from her. "Now try it like we practiced on the grass. Two beats back to two o'clock, one beat forward to ten. Pull out a little line, and back again. Once you cast the line forward, relax it to about nine o'clock." My summer in a nutshell.
"Ten and two," she repeats. She raises the rid and casts the line backward to the general direction of two o'clock then whips it forward.
"Gently," I couch. "Try to hit along that log over there, so the fish thinks it's a nice juicy bug."
"Right," she says with an embarrassing giggle. "Think like a fish." She tries some more times. She's still stiff, but I don't break her concentration. After about ten minutes she says something.
"I don't think I'm fooling them."
"Your line is too tight – your fly is dragging. Try not to cast like windshield wipers," I say. Wow, I never knew I could be so forward when I'm near her.
"Sorry," she says in almost a whisper. I run my hand through my hair. I hope she wasn't offended because she's not doing terribly. Okay, so after I saw her ski and ride a horse, I thought she'd be great at this… Turns out she's doing pretty badly compared to those experiences.
I watch her. I can't seem to take my eyes off her. I notice her hair blowing in the direction of the faint breeze, how the water laps at her shins in a rhythmic pattern. I notice her shoulders tensing a little and her golden eyebrows that don't match her hair color and the slight blush on her cheeks.
"This is fun," she says, interrupting my thoughts of how it would feel to run my fingers through her hair.
"Thanks for bringing me."
"Yeah," I say. "It's kind of my favorite thing. You wouldn't believe some of the fish I've caught in this river: brook, trout, rainbow trout, cutthroat trout, some brown trout. The native cutthroat are getting rarer, though; the introduced rainbows breed them out." Okay, so I fish a lot… Nothing wrong with that, right?
"Do you throw them back?" she asks.
"Mostly. That way they grow to be bigger, smarter fish. Better to catch next time," I tell her. "I always release the cutthroat. But if I catch the rainbows I'll take them home. Mom makes a fierce fish dinner, just fries them up in butter with some salt and pepper, a bit of cayenne sometimes, and it almost melts in your mouth." Why do I sound so passionate about fishing? I hope she's not bored…
She smiles at me. "Sounds heavenly."
"Well, maybe you'll catch one today," I say, trying to divert the attention to her.
She shrugs. "Maybe."
"I have tomorrow off," I tell her abruptly. Now of never. "You want to meet me at the butt crack of dawn and hike up to watch the sun rise from the best in Teton? It's kind of a special day for me." I look at everything but her. I hope she doesn't reject me. It'll be my birthday after all…
"Sure," she says.
"I can't believe summer's going by so fast. And I thought it would drag on forever," she says. She has a faraway look in her eyes and a ghost of a smile on her lips as if she's thinking that she never wants summer to end. I don't want it to end either, Carrots.
"Ooh, I think I see a fish!" she exclaims, her eyes lighting up again like a two-year-old seeing a puppy at the park. Carrots starts waving her line around but I can't see a fish anywhere. She might have scared it off.
"Hold on," I groan. "You're just waving it around now." I step toward her right as she cast the line back. Not good.
The fly catches my Stetson and jerks off my head. I swear under my breath and lunge to try and grab it. I miss. Not my hat!
"Whoops! I'm so sorry," Carrots says. She draws the line in and manages to snap my hat free from the hook without slipping in the water. She turns to me, holding my hat like a peace offering. The look on her face tells me she's trying really hard to suppress a giggle. Oh, I can't stay mad at her. I look at her with a little mock scowl and snatch my hat back. We both start laughing.
"I guess I'm lucky it was my hat and not my ear," I say through a few chuckles. "Stay still for a minute, all right?" Just to be safe.
I wade to stand behind her. I'm conscious at close we're standing to each other and I can smell her: sunshine, river water, and the strawberry-vanilla scented shampoo. It's intoxicating. I don't know what I'm doing. I take a strand of her hair between my fingers without thinking. It's soft and silky.
"Your hair isn't really red, is it?" I ask. I'm not sure why I asked. I can see her shoulders tense as she holds her breath.
"What do you mean?" she asks in a choked whisper. I shake my head. Now, why would you want to lie about your own hair color, Carrots?
"Your eyebrows," I tell her. "They're, like, dark gold."
"You're staring at my eyebrows now?" she asks, but I can see her relax just a second. I stare at her, the most beautiful girl in the world, the girl I'm crazy about, the girl I love.
"I'm looking at you," I say. "Why are you always trying to hide how pretty you are?" Clara, you're so beautiful and so wonderful. I wish you could hear my thoughts. I wish you could know how much you mean to me. When I'm around you, I feel like we've known each other for years even though we've only begun to know each other this summer. Clara, I love you. I love you so much already and I can't phantom why. What are hiding, Clara? You can trust me. I won't ever let you down. She takes a step away from me and everything almost seems to happen in slow motion.
"Whoa," I say. I catch her before she falls headfirst into the river, snaking both my hands around her waist and pull her close to me, bracing her from the current. I close my eyes as I take a few deep breaths with her, taking in her strawberry-vanilla shampoo and the feel of her in my arms.
"You got your legs under you?" I ask after a few slow-pacing seconds pass between us. She turns slightly, but doesn't move away from me. Good, I'm not ready to let her go just yet. I close my hand on hers, holding the fishing rod steady.
"Yeah," she rasps. "I'm fine." We stand there for a few more seconds, neither of us moving away. I clear my throat to break the silence that's awkwardly descending on us.
"Watch the hat this time," I say. We lift the rod together and swing it back, then forward, my arm guiding hers. I continue to guide her arm through the motions, telling her in a low whisper as if I was telling her a secret. We try casting a few times, back and forth, me setting the mesmerizing rhythm: slow back, pause, forward, over and over again. She relaxes against me as we continue to cast and wait for the fish to rise and take the fly.
"Ready to try it on your own again?" I ask her after a while. I half wished that she would say no, but there's no reason for her to say that. She nods and I let go of hand and move away, missing her nearness. I back toward the bank, pick up my own rod, and head into the river to cast by myself.
"You think I'm pretty?" she asks when I stand a few feet from her. Oh, I mentioned that somewhere in my trance, didn't I? Totally embarrassing, Tuck!
"We need to stop talking," I say a little gruffly. My ears start heating up. "We're scaring the fish off."
"Okay, okay," she says. I can hear the smile in her voice. That makes me blush more.
We fish a while in silence, the only noise coming from the river and the rustling of trees. I catch three fish, one of them being the cutthroat. I take a moment to show it to her before I throw the fish back into the water. After another moment, she retreats from the cold water and sits on the bank.
I can feel her gaze on me, but this time, it doesn't feel like I'll burn from the excitement of her noticing me. This time it feels like the sun shining down on me, making everything warm and peaceful. I angle myself and glance at her direction. She looks like an angel, sitting on the bank, watching over me. The rays of sunshine pour over her, bathing her in a soft golden light. And she's giving me that special smile girls give to that special guy. I angle back and face the river with a special smile of my own. I don't think there was ever a time in my life where I knew in that moment, things were meant to be. Until now. Everything about this moment with Clara felt right. Perfect. Destined. And so we just stayed that way, me fishing and thinking about her, Clara sitting on the bank looking at me, while the world around us slipped away.