The Line Tender

by Kate Allen

  “Thank you for searching for Fred.” I covered his right hand with my left hand, which made him cry instantly.

  “Good one, Lucy,” Sookie said, passing Lester a wad of napkins.

  “We shouldn’t have taken you guys there in the first place,” Lester said, wiping his nose on another napkin. “Let’s talk about something else.”

  Sookie and Lester finished their burgers in silence, and Sookie ate a piece of apple pie. After Susie gave Sookie the check, I tested something random that had been on my mind.

  “What kind of fish do harpoon fisherman go after?”

  “Tuna. Swordfish.”

  I was glad Sookie didn’t mention whales, but then he said, “Sharks.”

  I frowned.

  “You used to use harpoons, right?” I said.

  “I used to,” said Sookie. “We use nets now, but we use a gaff all the time.”

  “A what?”

  “It’s a stick with a hook at the end,” Sookie said.

  “It helps you wrangle large fish,” said Lester.

  “Oh,” I said. “But do you think you could still aim a harpoon and hit something?”

  “Depends on what the something is,” said Lester. “If it was a blue whale, Sookie could make contact.”

  “Funny,” Sookie said in a flat voice. “Why did you ask? I didn’t harpoon that shark, if that’s what you’re getting at. It got stuck in the net.”

  “I know,” I said. “I just wanted to know if you were still capable of hitting one.”

  “Why?” he asked, looking at me with narrowed eyes.

  “Just wondering.”

  * * *

  ° ° ° °

  Sookie paid the check, and he and Lester headed for the dock. I decided to stop at the mailbox to drop off another postcard for Fred. I walked by window boxes and tiny front yards crowded with bright flowers—tall zinnias, yellow daisy-like blooms, and pink roses had exploded like rashes on fences and arbors. Something about the sea was like steroids to the flowers through town. They grew strong.

  I stopped in front of the bookstore and dropped the postcard into the mailbox. Mrs. Lynch, who worked at the bookstore, was standing in the doorway. She wore a long, flowy skirt with a Greenpeace T-shirt tucked into the waist.

  “Hello, Lucy,” she said, smiling.

  “Hi, Mrs. Lynch,” I said. When my mom was a kid, Mrs. Lynch had been her babysitter. It was hard to imagine Mrs. Lynch, with her gray hair, wrapped in a bun, as a teenager, dancing to music in the living room with my mom.

  “You got a pen pal?” she said. “This is the second time I’ve seen you at the mailbox this week.”

  “Not exactly,” I said. “Just sending postcards.”

  She looked at me with a serious expression, and it was as if she wanted to talk but couldn’t find the words. I knew it was about Fred. I looked toward the water because I just couldn’t handle another person looking at me like I was someone to feel sorry for.

  “Lucy, Fred ordered a book,” she said. “It came yesterday. It’s paid for. Would you like to have it?”

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Hang on a sec. I’ll get it.”

  I followed her inside. I’d been in the bookstore a thousand times before. On hot days, Fred and I liked to take the spiral staircase downstairs and sit on the rug in the children’s section, looking at books. I felt torn between wanting to bolt out the door and a vague curiosity about Fred’s last book. While I waited for Mrs. Lynch to come back, I spun the postcard rack.

  I pulled out one that was covered in different types of native saltwater fish and one that had an old Victorian drawing of a mermaid. I put four cards on the counter by the register and dug a couple of dollar bills out of my pocket. I almost left the money on the counter and disappeared, but Mrs. Lynch appeared with a thin textbook and placed it on the surface in front of me. It read, The Biology of the Great White.

  I flipped through the pages. So many of my mom’s books were general shark books, filled with pictures of all different types of sharks. Some had narrow, pointed snouts, like columns of new lipstick. Others had stubby heads with impressive, wide jaws. And then there were hammerheads, whose eyes branched off in far-reaching directions. But did they all look the same inside? Or were great whites built differently from others? I had wondered about this when I was drawing the backbone in my sketchbook.

  “Thanks for the book,” I said. She smiled. I knew it wasn’t paid for in advance, that it was a gift from Mrs. Lynch.

  I wanted to go down to the cool basement to read. I longed to hear Fred’s sneakers on the metal steps behind me, but I wasn’t ready to go down there alone. Right where I stood, I cracked open the shark book on a wide pile of new releases and started turning pages.

  I looked at a table of measurements of white shark teeth with its tall columns of numbers for height, width, and angle. It was the sort of data that Fred would study until he found a pattern. I had almost dismissed the book when I turned the page and saw a photograph of a white shark’s teeth, removed from the jaw and standing alone. Each white tooth was laid out on a black background in two straight lines, ordered from small to big. The tiniest tooth was like a pebble and tallest tooth was three centimeters high. But in between were a dozen teeth, each slightly bigger than the last, each a perfect enlargement of the one that came before it, like Russian dolls. The photo was a piece of art. I looked closer and noticed that the teeth weren’t exactly the same. Some pointed straight and high like an equilateral triangle and others were angled like a sail in the wind. I zeroed in on the tiny, steak-knife ridges on the sides. These teeth were meant for tearing meat. My stomach growled.

  At that very moment, I looked up and saw Fiona walk past the open door to the shop.

  “I have to go,” I said, closing the cover. “Thanks for the book.”

  “You’re welcome,” Mrs. Lynch said.

  I gathered my postcards and stuffed them inside the pages. I headed out the door to see where Fiona was going.

  22. Chinese Shoes

  Fiona was alone. She walked toward Bearskin Neck and I followed her, keeping a few paces behind. I wanted to talk to her, except I didn’t really feel like talking to anyone. She wore olive pants and a white T-shirt that were both probably from the men’s section of the Army-Navy Store. Her hair was wet, like she was just out of the shower. She carried a small black purse, the kind that was just big enough to hold a passport. I didn’t own a purse.

  After rounding the bend, she ducked into the Chinese import shop. I waited outside for a few minutes on the treeless road, wondering whether I should go in. I knew there was no hiding from Fiona in that tiny store. I took a breath and turned the doorknob.

  A bell rang over my head and I closed the door behind me. The shop was crowded with racks of T-shirts, but there were also tiny satin pouches and silk pajamas with high collars. The reds and blues were as bright as oil paints.

  Fiona was at the counter speaking with Mrs. Wong, the woman who owned the store.

  “The red ones,” said Fiona.

  “Size eight?” asked Mrs. Wong.

  “Yup.”

  “I’ll help you next, Lucy,” said Mrs. Wong, disappearing into the back of the store.

  Fiona turned around and looked down the center aisle to where I was standing just inside the shop.

  “Hi,” she said, surprised to see me. Fiona was holding one of my favorite canvas shoes, the Chinese Mary Jane slippers. I’d probably owned a dozen pairs since I was a kid. My mom had bought them for me when I was little. At some point, I just starting asking Dad for money to buy new pairs.

  “I love those shoes,” I said.

  “Me too,” she said. Fiona looked a little tired.

  * * *

  ° ° ° °

  Fiona persuaded me to get an ice cream with her, and we walked to t
he end of Bearskin Neck with our cones. The coffee ice cream slid down easily and I started wondering whether I could survive on ice cream alone.

  “How are you doing?” she asked.

  “Okay,” I said, looking at my hands.

  When I didn’t elaborate, she added, “What’s that book?”

  “Shark anatomy,” I said.

  “What are you doing with it?” she said, licking a drip from the bottom of her cone.

  I told her about how I’d been working on the field guide (the one she had thrown out of Fred’s window) and how Fred and I had wanted to create a section for Sookie’s shark. I explained that I wanted to get the drawings just right, but I thought it might help to understand the shark inside and out.

  “Your projects are always so interesting,” she said.

  “Well, they were usually Fred’s projects,” I said.

  She shrugged.

  “But I’m kind of into it now,” I said. “It’s kind of overlapping with my mom’s work. She predicted that the great whites would start heading north.”

  “Really?” said Fiona.

  “Yeah, I found this research proposal she’d written before she died,” I said. “It explains everything, but some of the details are a little over my head.”

  “You could bring it to Ms. Solomon.”

  “I guess so,” I said, remembering Ms. Solomon outside the church at the funeral. Fiona looked a little distracted, like something was buzzing inside. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m okay,” she said. “Just worried about my mom, and Bridget’s never around.”

  I nodded.

  “How are you doing this?” she said, her brow wrinkling. “Your mom and then Fred. I can’t even deal with Fred.”

  While I was thinking about what Fiona had said, I started choking on my ice cream cone.

  “Are you okay?” Fiona asked.

  “Yeah, it’s normal. Since the accident anyway,” I added.

  She looked puzzled.

  “It’s my brain,” I said. “For some reason, I’m afraid I’ll choke on my food. But then I make myself choke thinking about it. Remember the night in Fred’s room when you threw his backpack out the window?”

  “Yes.”

  “And I thought I was going to barf? That was whatever this is,” I said.

  She nodded and took a bite of her cone. “I used to be afraid of germs. Like, if the flu or a stomach bug was going around school, I would be freaking out.”

  “I don’t remember that,” I said, watching her swallow. “Not anymore?”

  “A little, but it’s much better.”

  “How’d it get better?”

  “I’d try to imagine the worst thing that could happen, like getting the flu or barfing for a couple of days.” She took another bite. “In the end, it just doesn’t seem like that big of a deal. Unless you die from the flu, but that’s rare.”

  “I don’t know anyone who’s died from the flu,” I said.

  “Me neither,” she said.

  We walked to the end of the peninsula and made a loop past the break wall and the wide ocean.

  “I didn’t figure it out on my own, though,” she said. “I talked to Mr. Scanlon. Do you know him? The adjustment counselor at your school?”

  I nodded. “He lives by Mill Pond.”

  She nodded.

  I tossed the last of my cone in the garbage can and shifted the shark anatomy book, but the postcards fell onto the ground. Fiona popped the end of her cone into her mouth and wiped her hands. We both kneeled down to pick up the cards.

  “These are cool,” she said. “I love the mermaid.”

  “Take it,” I said, handing the postcard to her. I wanted to ask her if she thought I was nuts for writing to Fred, but I didn’t.

  “Thanks,” she said. She smiled as she took the card, but her face changed. She stared at my chest. I lifted my hand to the spot and felt Fred’s gold necklace. It must have fallen out of my shirt when I picked up the cards.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “It’s a necklace,” I said. “I found it in Fred’s backpack.”

  It felt like a confession, as though I had stolen something that now belonged to Fred’s family.

  She reached out and I felt chills on the back of my neck as her nails slid over my cotton shirt. She gently pulled the pendant toward her for a closer look.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said. “Another mermaid.”

  I nodded.

  “Why did he have this?” she whispered.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Do you think he wanted to give it to you?” she asked.

  I shrugged.

  “Did he ever say anything to you? I mean, about me?” I asked.

  “All the time,” she said. “But not like what you’re asking. I used to annoy him about girls, but he never gave up any info.”

  She looked me in the eye and let go of the necklace. Then her brow wrinkled again. “What’s it hanging from? Is that thread?”

  “Dental floss,” I said. “Cinnamon.”

  She shook her head. “You need something stronger than that.”

  “I know,” I said.

  We walked back down the Neck toward home.

  “Who else would understand your mom’s research paper?” Fiona asked. “Your dad?”

  “Maybe.” I didn’t really feel like asking Dad about it. “My mom wrote it with a teacher of hers. I was kind of thinking of asking him about it. Only, I’d have to go to Maine to see him in person because he has dementia. It’s a long story.”

  “You should go,” she said.

  “Seriously?” I said. “That’s not weird?”

  “No,” she said. “I mean his memory isn’t gonna get any better. What if he can tell you something about the project that no one else knows?”

  I nodded. “But my dad can’t drive ’cause of his foot.”

  “That’s a problem,” she said. “I’d take you myself, but I just went back to work last week. What about Sookie?”

  I gave her a look.

  “Seriously.”

  * * *

  ° ° ° °

  At home, I opened the white shark anatomy book on the kitchen table. I slurped on a lime Popsicle, continuing my quest to survive on frozen treats, and leafed through the pages, wondering which part to draw next. I put the Popsicle in a glass and flipped through my sketchbook for a clean page, but halfway through, I paused at the moon snail drawings. I stopped breathing when I saw Fred’s hand wrapped around the huge snail shell, his thin wrist and bulky watch. I remembered his fingers pulling the leaf out of my hair, making my head spin. He was alive then, just a few pages before now. I stared at the sketch until my vision started to double. I found the first blank page on the pad.

  I made myself look at the anatomy book and I focused on the same picture for a while. I knew how the backbone worked, which really wasn’t bones, and now I decided to try to make sense of the fins. A caption explained that fins were what made the shark an efficient swimmer.

  I drew a dorsal fin on top and an anal fin on the bottom, to prevent the shark from rolling side to side when it was moving forward. I drew a pectoral fin on the side and a pelvic fin on the bottom to help the shark move up and down. I gave it a strong caudal fin—a tail—to allow the shark to swim side to side and propel it forward. The fins all had different jobs, like the wings of an airplane. While I still thought my mom was crazy for swimming with sharks, I wondered what it would look like to see those fins in action, to see a shark moving through the water.

  Still, my great white looked like it was frozen on the page, a sandbag, accessorized by some deluxe fins. I wanted my drawing to look like it could swim to life with its torpedo body launching the shark at the speed of a car. I wondered which lines were the most
important lines of the shark’s shape—which ones made it a great white—and where did that powerful energy come from?

  I pulled out the fish postcard. On it, I drew a pencil sketch of a shark, labeling the fins. Over the sketch, I wrote a note to Fred.

  23. Sookie Steps In

  The next morning, i woke up from a dream, crying. I had been swimming up from deep, green water—the quarry—except it was light outside. The closer I’d gotten to the surface, the more I could see the sunshine. All I could think about was getting air and how good it was going to feel to break the surface, but when my head popped above the water, I realized that I had forgotten to bring Fred with me. When I looked down, he was nowhere in sight.

  My pillow was sweaty. I felt terrified to be alone and I ran for the door, as though I’d seen a millipede skitter across the rug. On my way out, I stepped on a plastic animal figurine that had fallen off the top of my bureau days before. I grabbed the bottom of my foot and howled. Then I picked up the toy and hurled it into the far corner.

  Before I made it to the living room, Dad called out, “Lucy, are you okay?”

  He sat up on the couch where he’d slept and moved his leg with two hands, landing his boot on a pillow on the floor. All the time, he was looking at me, concerned.

  “Are you limping?”

  I nodded, crying louder.

  He patted the cushion. I sat down close beside him, rubbed my foot, and told him about the dream.

  “Look at me,” Dad said.

  I sucked in a large breath and looked at his wide, brown eyes.

  “You couldn’t have saved him,” he said.

  “No,” I said. “But we shouldn’t have been in the water.”

  “Lucy, it was an accident.”

  This didn’t make me feel any better.

  “It’s not like it was when Mom died,” I said.

  “How so?” he said.

  “I was little. I’m older now. And I know Fred is not coming back and I know exactly what that means.”

  Dad scratched the back of his head and said, “It’s been five years since your mom died and sometimes I’m still waiting for her to come home. I have spent most of my time lately replaying the rescue in my mind, imagining how we could have gotten to Fred sooner.” He shook his head and hesitated for a moment. “But it’s out of my control now. I need to let it go, so the grief doesn’t eat me alive.”