Fisher of Men

by Phoebe Alexander

  “Geez, Mom, I'm in a tiny little resort town, not the Bronx,” Leah laughed, looking into Glory's huge brown eyes and wondering how likely it was her little body would spring into protective action should the need arise. She looks about as menacing as a...as a cute puppy, that's what, Leah sighed. She fastened the pink leash onto Glory's matching pink rhinestone collar and led the dog out onto the sidewalk. She parked a block off the boardwalk. It was eerie to only see a few cars scattered through the streets around the inlet. In the summertime, visitors might drive around for an hour looking for a place to park.

  The breeze had picked up and was blowing Glory's ears back, but she headed nevertheless bravely into the gusty wind, dragging Leah behind her. It was amazing how much pull sixteen pounds of beagle had, and the closer to the water she got, the stronger the pull became. As Leah looked both ways to cross the street despite the lack of traffic, a shop on the corner she'd never noticed before caught her eye. It was a weathered two story building with dark-stained wooden siding and a faded red tin roof. A huge yellow sign with black block lettering announced “Bait and Tackle” and a neon sign in the window blazed blue and green with the words “Charter Fishing.”

  An image of Captain Chris Sheldon from Saturday night's party instantly flashed behind her eyes. I'm sure there are lots of charter fishing captains in Ocean City, she thought, shaking off the thought that she may have stumbled into his natural habitat. Even though Glory was fervently straining toward the beach, Leah crossed the street in the direction of the shop instead, her curiosity pulling her as if she had it on the leash instead of the dog.

  The shop was closed, which was unsurprising since it was November and no one was on the boardwalk. The windows looked dark but she peered inside, searching for a clue to convince herself that this was not Captain Sheldon's shop. She saw nothing that would confirm or deny her suspicion. Then she stepped around to the side of the building where a wooden staircase ascended to the second story. There was a metal mailbox clinging to the weathered wooden siding with black letters across the face spelling out S-H-E-L-D-O-N.

  After her long lunch outing, Leah holed herself up in her office to tackle the towering stack of paperwork. She reflected on how sad Glory looked when she coaxed her back into her crate. After running free along the surf under the sparkling sunshine, her confinement now seemed even more unbearable. Leah had taken an Instagram picture of her little pup attacking a wave and then another of her tiny paw prints in the sand.

  I wish I could just stay out here all afternoon, she'd thought, but knew Barry would be disappointed if she didn't take care of the pile of work that awaited her. She commiserated with her pup: “You're not the only one who would rather be back out on the beach, trust me, Little Girl.” She left her a fresh bone as a consolation.

  She was just about to start a fresh pot of coffee in the staff lounge when her cell phone buzzed on the desk next to her keyboard. She glanced over to see who it was before deciding whether or not she would take the call. It was her best friend from college, Aimee, who had finished the hospitality program at Cornell alongside Leah. Aimee had every intention of climbing the corporate ladder in some swanky hotel but had instead gotten married and was now just about ready to pop out her first baby. Leah leapt for the phone just in case there was some sort of birth news, even though Aimee was still several weeks out from her delivery date and as of her last doctor's appointment showed no signs of early labor.

  “Before you even ask, yes, I'm still pregnant!” Aimee offered, not even attempting to disguise her strong tone of snark.

  Leah laughed, envisioning her best friend, small and olive-skinned with a glossy black bob and a perfectly round baby bump jutting out from a stylish maternity top. “I know better than to bug you about that!” Her friend had always had a short fuse, perhaps the Italian in her coming out. Leah had historically been the patient, conscientious one of the pair.

  Aimee launched into an impassioned rant involving an attempt to assemble the new baby's crib, but she and her husband were dismayed to learn that half the hardware was missing. Thus, the expectant couple had no choice but to trek all the way back to the store and ream out the manager for selling them a crib that had been returned and clearly not checked for all its parts.

  Being trained in the hospitality industry made both women intolerant of poor customer service. Leah could only imagine the earful that the store manager got. Angry pregnant lady with a degree from Cornell's hospitality program? That is one smart but crazy hormonal bitch! Leah mused. I wouldn't want to incur her wrath!

  “So, you got a brand new crib, right?” Leah guessed. Her phone glued to her ear, she'd ventured out of her office, down the hallway and out the back doors. She was one of those people who couldn't help but wander or pace while talking. She walked around the parking lot and through the carefully landscaped grounds until she was bayside and soaking up what was left of the day's Vitamin D supply. The sun was sinking toward the horizon which was reaching up to catch the golden orb with crimson arms.

  “I sure did as well as a $50 gift card for our hassle. I threw in that we had to fight traffic and stand in line and that all the stress was giving me contractions!” Aimee bragged.

  “That's too funny!” Leah giggled, knowing how gifted her friend was in the dramatic arts. “So I'm still planning to come up to help out for a while after the baby's born.”

  There was a pause on the other end.

  “What?” Leah asked, confused. “I thought we'd agreed about this.”

  “Leah, it's going to be Christmastime shortly before the baby is born. I don't want you to use your vacation time to come help me. Your parents would be so angry if it prevented you from going home! You should really go see them for Christmas.”

  “I'm staying here in OC for Christmas,” Leah explained. “Coming up to Philly for a few days to help you with the baby isn't the same as journeying across the country to Nebraska. Besides, I am going to use you as an excuse not to have to go home.”

  “But you haven't been home since June,” Aimee argued. “I know your mom has to be freaking out by now! They've never gone this long without seeing you, not even when we were in school!”

  Leah hated being told what to do. She had thought a lot about making a trip home for the holidays, but every time she imagined it, she was filled with a sense of dread. She simply did not feel like she belonged in Wahoo, Nebraska, anymore. She had outgrown that place. The town seemed like a collection of scenes from Norman Rockwell paintings: charming in a saccharine, 1950's way. It was so wholesome it might rot your teeth out. Maybe it was because she had been exposed to such worldly people since she'd been out on her own; her eyes had been opened to things she never knew existed. Like this Casey's Group business, which after meeting Chris Sheldon and then stalking his place of business, she couldn't seem to get off her mind.

  Sure, Leah had heard of swinging. But to actually meet a swinger...let alone a whole room full of them? For them to exist and be real people? It was beyond her imagination. And to think, those attending Casey's party, for the most part, looked like ordinary people. Leah was sure if they were dressed in regular street clothes, she'd never be able to pick them out of a crowd. Listening to some of the attendees talk, they seemed to be articulate, professional, career-minded people, not crazy drug-using hedonists who thought of nothing but sex. It was just one of many misconceptions about people and life that seemed glaringly apparent after spending so much time away from Wahoo.

  The world wasn't split into the proverbial black-and-white dichotomy of good versus evil or sanitized versus sinful like her father preached from the pulpit of Wahoo Christian Church. Even within one person, those mythical opposing forces waged constant battle, resulting in people who were just people, not entirely good or evil, just regular people who tried to be good but who screwed up once in a while.

  “I appreciate your concern, Aimee, but my parents will be just fine without me and my mom is not freaking out at all. You know
my brother Andrew just got engaged, right? She's so over the moon with that news that I've kind of slipped off her radar the past few months. And that's fine with me. It's really time for me to put down roots here and get on with my life. I don't want to be running home all the time.”

  Aimee immediately perked up, a tiny gasp of glee slipping through her lips. “You mean find a man and get married?” she queried hopefully.

  Leah laughed, “Maybe. Or perhaps I'll just take over The Pearl and become filthy rich someday!” She relished the way the ocean breeze was blowing the layers of her strawberry blonde hair into her face. She felt a wisp catch in the corner of her mouth and then the wet ends brush against her cheek as they flew back toward her ear. “You know, I really do love living here. I can't believe I was landlocked in Nebraska for most of my life. I didn't even know what I was missing!”

  “True,” Aimee reasoned, “but the problem is that you're in this resort town where people are always coming and going. There aren't any men who actually live there full time to sweep you off your feet. And besides, you're so busy with work, even if there were eligible bachelors, you wouldn't be in the right place to meet them, not the local ones anyway.”

  Leah sighed. “I know.” This problem had not escaped her notice, and she'd contemplated several methods of meeting local men, but at the end of the day, she was so caught up with The Pearl and Glory that she rarely had the energy to venture out beyond her comfort zone.

  “Case in point,” Aimee continued, “what did you do last weekend? I bet you didn't do one thing that put you in a position to meet an interesting, available local man.”

  “Well...” Leah stalled as she mentally reviewed the past few days. “I bartended for a local charity group's private party on Saturday night. I met a couple of interesting people.” She was picturing the word “interesting” with air quotes, and her emphasis on that word reflected such.

  “Interesting how?” Aimee took the bait.

  “Because they were swingers!” Leah revealed. She had been dying to tell someone.

  There was another pause as Aimee was thrown off guard, scrambling to formulate a response. “Swingers? What the hell?” was her choice.

  Leah laughed out loud. “I know, it's crazy, isn't it? I did sort of get hit on by this one guy though!”

  “I bet you did!” Aimee joined in the giggling. “Oh my god, swingers? You really are living a wild and crazy life, aren't you?”

  “Don't worry, I kept it strictly professional,” Leah assured her friend. “Me and a swinger? Can you imagine? That's completely ridiculous, isn't it?”

  “Well,” Aimee advised her, “I don't recommend shacking up with a swinger, but maybe you ought to think about not being quite so professional all the time...you know, let your hair down a little. You tend to be pretty serious and that might put men off a bit. They might think you're too intense.”

  In her younger years, that criticism would have put Leah on the defensive. But she knew Aimee had a point and that her feedback came from a place of care and concern. “You're probably right. But I also believe God will bring the right man to me when He is ready and when He thinks I'm ready.”

  Aimee was a non-practicing Catholic who had rejected all doctrine of predestination and leaned much more toward secular humanism these days. She clearly didn't have the energy to argue theology with her friend so she just sighed. Leah knew what that signaled: it was time to wrap up the conversation. “I'm still going to come visit you after the baby comes,” she brought the discussion full circle. “Just try and stop me.”

  “Okay, okay, well, hope you have a good week. Let me know if you come across any interesting, non-swinger men, alright?” Aimee conceded.

  “Sure thing. And you take care of that little bun in your oven!” And with that, Leah ended the call and headed back into The Pearl.

  The next morning, Leah walked with Glory over to the beach to catch the sunrise over the Atlantic. The crisp salt air blew across the waves, sending tiny droplets of water into the air as the surf crashed on the sand. Glory was fascinated by this phenomenon and proceeded to splash in and out of the constantly reaching and receding foam-crested waters. Leah couldn't help but imagine how badly her apartment was likely to reek of wet dog when she got home from work that evening.

  Far off on the horizon, she saw a fishing boat which immediately made her think of Captain Chris Sheldon, his dimples, silver-streaked beard and ocean-blue eyes glowing in contrast to his darkly tanned skin. She let herself wonder if he was married or single, how old he was, if he was from the area, what led him to pursue swinging, and all sorts of questions to which she was not truly sure she wanted answers. I guess it's just been so long since I looked at a man and saw anything more than a father, a brother, a boss, or a guest at The Pearl...maybe I'm just longing for my next romantic adventure. She began to drag Glory back toward her apartment as the little dog protested by pulling back toward the surf. Maybe it means I've healed. Finally.

  Leah shook away the chill that crept up her spine, a chill spawned by the idea of falling in love. After the last time, she vowed never to let it happen again. Having one's heart ripped out and stomped upon should be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, she concluded. But there was something in Chris Sheldon's smile and mannerisms that brought to mind the way she'd been reeled in so swiftly, so unconsciously. The charm and magnetism were an alluring bait, too alluring to be resisted. The last time she fell victim, the fisherman was an immature, selfish, narcissistic jerk disguised as an ambitious, intellectual graduate student. Surely once a man has some years on him, Leah thought, considering that Mr. Sheldon had to be at least forty years of age, surely he learns to think about someone other than himself. Surely.

  THREE

  You have heard the commandment that says, ‘You must not commit adultery.' But I say, anyone who even looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. -Matthew 5:27 (NLT)

  Leah stared at the book her mother had sent in the mail. It was a collection of daily devotionals for women. The paperback cover was pink and featured the silhouette of a woman walking in the sand along a shoreline. No doubt Mom saw this and thought of me on the beach. Mrs. Miller was always admonishing her daughter to pray and study her scriptures. It was part of a sermon series that Leah had been subjected to since she had first learned to speak and read. She would probably have a heart attack if she knew I hadn't cracked open my Bible outside of church for months, Leah thought, a silvery blade of guilt stabbing her in the heart. But I do pray, she offered up as a consolation. I pray all the time.

  She flipped through the book halfheartedly and several references to being a godly wife and mother leapt off the pages at her. She felt a lump collect in her throat. It was just another reminder that her parents measured her success on a different scale than the rest of the world. What if I'm not meant to be a mom? she wondered. Maybe it's not God's Will.

  She flashed back to a youth group missions trip she had taken the summer before she left for Cornell to an orphanage in Mexico. She remembered holding motherless babies, rocking them in hand-hewn rocking chairs, their little chests pressed against her shoulder, their downy heads resting in the crook of her neck as they drifted off into sweet slumber. She had tried to envision one of those tiny bodies having come from her own womb. She'd tried to imagine soothing an infant's wails at her own breast. It was a vision she was unable to grasp. And now, at twenty-seven, despite her biological clock ticking away, it seemed even less tangible than it had at eighteen.

  She had never told her mother that she felt devoid of maternal aspirations. It would have broken the poor woman's heart. After Leah graduated from high school, her mother made the abrupt conversion from expecting her daughter to keep her legs tightly closed to incessantly reminding her that she dreamed of grandchildren. The irony of this sudden change was not lost on Leah. She had been fed a steady diet of “abstinence, abstinence, abstinence” for eighteen years and now she was getting seven h
earty courses of “procreate, procreate, procreate.” Within the confines of marriage, of course!

  Leah had more or less diligently maintained her virginity throughout high school, not that she had much of a choice. With her parents breathing down her neck 24-7 and the entire church congregation watching her every move with hawk-like precision, how could she possibly have gotten away with fornication? It seemed like her parents would discover she had a new beau before she even knew for certain.

  “So, Leah, I was talking to Nancy Jones today, you know, the lady in the produce department down at the supermarket, said she said she saw you and Nick Anderson holding hands behind the bleachers at Friday's football game. Is he your boyfriend?” her mother had asked her one day when she arrived home from school.

  Leah had felt her face flush at her mother's accusation. Holding hands was not the only thing she and Nick Anderson had done behind the bleachers. He had also slipped his clammy, but eager hands up her sweater. She had felt his trembling finger brush tentatively across her nipple, sending a shock of electricity through her body so hot it kept her warm for hours afterward despite the frigid chill of the dark, fall night. She was only fourteen and it was the first time a boy had really touched her. She learned a lesson though that night: the bleachers have eyes. And big mouths. And after a couple more creepy incidents she was able to extrapolate this lesson to the entirety of the town of Wahoo.

  Not that a couple of boys didn't try to persuade Leah to push her limits. “I heard that preachers' daughters are the biggest sluts in town,” the new boy at school, Kyle Jacobs, had taunted her, his eyes narrowed with lust as he mentally calculated what her breasts looked under her unflattering gray gym shirt.