Fishing With RayAnne

by Ava Finch

  Back in the living room, RayAnne hands over a bowl of popcorn and muses, “We’ll see gay marriage legal in every state, Dad, just watch.”

  “Texas? Louisiana?” Big Rick grunts. “When hell freezes over.”

  By the time she settles back down on the carpet, the final guest is already in the boat.

  “Kathleen Carter has worked as a marine mammal trainer at such amazing aquariums as the Shedd in Chicago and the Monterey in California. After her first marriage ended, she realized that the training she did by day with seals and dolphins might be adapted to her human relationships.”

  Kathleen is a round, pleasant-looking woman with apple cheeks. “The basic premise is soooo simple, RayAnne. You just turn away from bad behavior—ignore it—and reward what you perceive as good behavior.”

  “But how?”

  “With positive reinforcement!”

  The boat rises and falls in the swells. Neither is holding a pole; it’s too choppy—they each just hang on to their bench seats or the gunnels.

  “Okay.” RayAnne bobs, thinking of Ky. “Say your child is throwing a fit on the floor of Walmart because you won’t buy him Skittles?”

  “Easy. That child should get nothing. And here’s the important part—besides no Skittles, he should get no acknowledgement of his ploy. The less reaction on your part, the more successful you’ll be. The child will eventually see you’re not going to give in to your own anger or frustration—the very buttons they are trying to push.”

  While this soaks in, RayAnne nods and holds up a copy of Very Good! “In your book, one of the chapters is titled ‘Exude Indifference’; might that be perceived as a little . . . um, cold?”

  “Think detached, RayAnne. Sometimes cold is the best defense we’ve got.”

  “Where do most people go wrong in relationships?”

  “That’s easy. They bargain—as if it’s a good idea to cut deals with a crying child or irrational partner in the midst of a tantrum or argument.” Kathleen turns to the camera to wag a finger directly at viewers. “Do not bargain!”

  “Right. You don’t actually use the term ‘behavior modification,’ but it’s implied.” A strand of RayAnne’s hair escapes to lash her face and stick to her lip. “You claim you can train a partner or child from the beginning?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “But how about in preexisting relationships, like with siblings, or . . . parents?”

  “Now that is a bit more difficult. You’re born into the dynamic of multiple sets of behaviors, what we know as family. Not hopeless, but not easy.”

  “No kidding.” RayAnne touches the feed going into her ear and turns to the second camera like a train switching tracks. “More with Kathleen after a short break to thank one of tonight’s fine underwriters, Lefty’s Bait.”

  RayAnne is dismayed to see herself grinning so stupidly on camera. She’d been thinking of Hal. She looks to her father to see if he’s noticed. He hasn’t.

  Kathleen’s wrap-up focuses on getting behaviors under control and standing your ground. “And next time your child is very good, offer nonmaterial rewards, such as a trip to the park, playing a game, watching a film, or just having some one-on-one time alone. And if it’s a partner—anything from a date to a favorite meal, or, well, a favorite position.”

  RayAnne presses her back to the couch. As is so often the case when taping, she’s so consumed by the mental gymnastics of forming the next question while processing the answer to the previous one, it’s hard to tell how well or badly a show is going until after the fact, when it’s committed to digital and too late. This episode isn’t half bad.

  With the swell of a wave lifting the Penelope, RayAnne asks a final question: “Kathleen, which is easier to train, a difficult partner, or a dolphin?”

  “A dolphin, of course.”

  Big Rick gives her shoulder a little nudge with his foot. “Nice one.” As credits begin to roll, he stretches and reaches for the remote.

  “Hold on, Dad. The best part’s coming.”

  It had been Cassi’s idea to run outtakes at the end of each show. So far this season, flubs have included a wind-borne Post-it note plastering itself over RayAnne’s eye like a pirate’s patch, a cameraman valiantly fighting a battle with his balance before tipping off the dock, RayAnne laughing so hard she doubles over and hits her forehead on the steering wheel, and a long shot of Penelope at speed with a guest’s hat blown from her head to skip along the wake behind like an errant wheel.

  The outtake chosen for this show is a confused heron. Just behind the final credits, a heron clumsily lands on Penelope’s foredeck. It struts across, talons clicking like high heels while RayAnne and Helga the Bra Viking watch, mouths agape. When they burst into laughter, the bird gives them a look, then launches from the boat, pulling along its chopstick legs. The final outtake is of Penelope rising and falling in the swells, RayAnne, alone in the stern, facing the camera as it steadies and tests focus. The swells are high enough that RayAnne’s head goes up and down, in and out of frame, and her voice is heard, mimicking the Verizon guy, drolly repeating, “Can you see me now? Can you see me now?”

  A really good show, and she’s made it through a day with Big Rick with no fits, sulking, or growling. All in all, a pretty decent day.

  Not that it’s over.

  As soon as Big Rick is asleep, his snore ruffling through the ceiling grate, RayAnne is fastened like a moth to her laptop, trolling for activities in hopes of filling every moment of the next day.

  Kathleen Carter was right, of course: the notion of rewards for good behavior makes ultimate sense. She looks for something, anything Big Rick might enjoy—a car show, a river cruise, a Segway tour of the Mill District. The microbrewery tour is not an option for obvious reasons, and the Walker Museum is just a bad idea—modern art and Big Rick do not mix: “This Motherwell joker’s got nothing on my grandsons—at least they can color in the lines.”

  There are sheep dog trials, which RayAnne would like to see herself, but unfortunately they are too far in the opposite direction of Ky’s suburb, where they will be heading for supper.

  A Twins baseball game seems like a safe bet. Of course there will be Budweiser, but a few beers never make her father quite as stupid as Scotch or brandy does, neither of which are available at the stadium as far as she knows. Because it’s so last minute, she can’t get great tickets, but it’s about the game, not the view, so she presses the “Buy” button.

  At midnight she drags herself up the stairs. Pleasantly worn out from the yard work and lightheaded from holding her breath much of the day, she sleeps like the dead.

  In the morning she leaves the baseball ticket printout next to Big Rick’s coffee and watches his face when he sees it, pleased that he’s pleased. After a drawn-out brunch over the Sunday Strib, they head for Toys “R” Us so he can buy gifts for the twins. Leaving the store, she makes a mental note to remind Kyle he can thank her for nixing Guitar Hero and steering their father toward the pair of walkie-talkies.

  Traffic to the stadium is the usual snarl, with Big Rick growing testier by the minute. It occurs to RayAnne that by this point, he probably physically needs a drink. Still, he should be able to maintain for the next half an hour until he has a beer in his hand. No sooner are they seated in the nosebleed section—the best seats RayAnne could get—than he buys two Miller Lites from the roving vendor, one ostensibly for her, which she knows he assumes she will not drink, so he can then down it himself. She makes an exception and manages to chug it despite the taste, winking at his dismay. “My father’s daughter, right?”

  At the start of the second inning, Big Rick spots an old acquaintance while scanning the stadium with his binoculars. He hands them over, pointing to the window of a private box. “Over there, down two levels. You remember Al Faring.”

  Al Faring was a client back when Big Rick was at the
top of the pro-guide roster—fishing guide for hire by the moneyed—usually to exclusive fly-in posts in Canada or ranches near streams in the triumvirate of trout states: Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming.

  Just as RayAnne adjusts focus on the binoculars to make out Al Faring, her father practically pulls her up from her seat. “Hell, he’s got a box. We don’t have to sit up here in the trailer park.”

  On the way down, he tells her all about how rich Al Faring is, how his family owns half of Saint Paul, how they might be good people for RayAnne to meet. “Yeah, Dad, I know. I’ve met them more than a few times.”

  When they reach the door of the box suite, she hangs back, certain Big Rick will make an ass of himself. Sure enough, when Mr. Faring opens the door, there is barely a glimmer of recognition on his face. His wife, Jeanette, comes to the door, graciously containing her annoyance, until she looks past Big Rick to where RayAnne is hoping to be absorbed into the wall.

  “Rick Dahl. And, look, here’s his daughter, RayAnne! RayAnne, come here this minute. Why, all the gals in my book club are watching your show!”

  “They are?”

  They are urged inside, Big Rick pretending to object, saying he only stopped by to say hello even as he’s stepping inside and pulling RayAnne by an elbow. The box is sleek as a Hotel W suite, with a bank of plush swivel chairs overlooking the field, two flat screens for instant replay, and its own bar, of course. RayAnne sags.

  Jeanette Faring pulls her to a love seat. “Talk about coincidences, my friend Donna—she’s on our committee for the Children’s Diabetes Gala—anyway she’s just back from Sedona on a trip with your mother. Oh, she didn’t call it a hot-flash tour . . . but a whatsit . . . ?”

  “Blood-Tide Quest?”

  “Yes! Your mother! Oh, Donna absolutely adored her.”

  RayAnne nods.

  Jeanette flutters her heavily ringed fingers. “I’ve signed up for one of her trips. One north, at some sacred Native American place . . . Saca-something.”

  “Sacajawea Springs.”

  “That’s right. It looks fabulous on the website. And did I hear Bernadette is writing a book?”

  “She might be.” A vague memory of a mention, her mother talking about taking a class at the Loft Literary Center . . .

  “Oh, you should have her on the show!”

  “My mom?” RayAnne laughs. “That would be . . . ah—”

  “Fabulous, right?”

  “Nepotism?” A wave of cheers and a thousand fans jumping to their feet disrupts their conversation. Jeanette sighs. “Oh, I suppose we’re winning?”

  After the uproar settles, Big Rick commences doing what he does, reminding the Farings how fantastic they are, asking all the right questions while RayAnne wriggles through the third inning, toggling between watching the action on the field and politely answering Jeanette’s questions about the show. And while she does not look back at her father or Al, she is acutely aware of each bottle cap pried, every foamy pour and clink of a beer glass.

  As empties accumulate, Al seems to remember more of the old days, prompted by Big Rick, whose versions are certainly embellished. By the fourth inning they are great buddies enjoying a reunion. To celebrate the eighth home run, Al pulls a liquor bottle from his personal stash while explaining, “Gift from a colleague. Can I interest you in a sip? It’s twenty-year.”

  When he sees the label, Big Rick grins. “Talisker?”

  At this, RayAnne swings around and glares. Big Rick composes himself, chuckles, and says, “Gosh, I dunno, Al, Miss Gestapo here keeps pretty tight reins on her old man.”

  Mr. Faring clucks at her, “Ach, he’ll have just one, then.” Mr. Faring has begun sounding like he’s just off the boat from the Scottish Highlands.

  “A course I will,” her father says loudly, in RayAnne’s direction, perfectly imitating Al’s accent. “But just one.”

  Through her teeth, RayAnne mutters something unintelligible and turns back to Jeanette and the game. When the other team scores, the stadium erupts in boos, and RayAnne whispers, “Yes!”

  Jeanette just laughs and pulls a fat paperback from her crocodile Prada purse. “I only endure these games to keep an eye on Al.” She lowers her voice and smiles wearily. “Usually I just sit here and read whatever’s on tap for book club. See?” She drops Fifty Shades of Grey back into her bag. “Thank God you’re here. A real person! And your show! So clever. We just love love love it.”

  Big Rick is as good as his word and has only one Scotch, but since it is sloshing in a sea of beer, he is cheerfully loud all the way back to the parking ramp, where they argue over who will drive. He doesn’t relent until she refuses to get in the Lincoln, and he tosses her the keys, muttering, “Jaysus, RayAnne, such a schoolmarm.”

  EIGHT

  The streets of Ivy Dales, Ky’s outer-ring suburb, are not streets; they are Trails, Places, Ways, or Lanes, all named for great institutions of higher learning, though Ky would wager few if any residents besides Ingrid have matriculated from schools like Oxford (Lane) or Trinity (Circle). The Dales are laid out in such a manner as to defeat anyone as directionally challenged as RayAnne. She’s forever finding herself on Wellesley Place when she should have turned on Wellesley Trail to reach Ky’s faux saltbox on Wellesley Way.

  Unaccustomed to maneuvering a vehicle as large as Big Rick’s Lincoln, she ignores his colossal sighs while wrestling the wheel to turn around and drive back the way they came. Ivy Dales is a maze. The last time she was this turned around was a city walking tour she took with Dot during her college graduation trip to Prague, when their guide had wound them around the cobbled streets of Old Town, explaining that when the Germans marched in to occupy the city, wily residents took down all the street signs to confound and confuse the enemy troops.

  The same afternoon, she and Gran had visited a museum of art made by children of the Holocaust. She remembers thinking she had never seen Gran so quiet for so long, probably thinking of her own little girl, Betsy, who, had she not drowned, would have been an older sister to Big Rick, an aunt to RayAnne. Wouldn’t it have been nice to have an aunt? RayAnne wonders if her father might have been a different person if he’d had a sister, a different childhood.

  After that gray trip to Prague, RayAnne could have kicked herself for choosing the former Eastern Bloc when they might have done the Mediterranean. It had been her graduation gift from Gran, the destination left up to RayAnne, who had been reading Milan Kundera at the time, so of course they’d slogged through the history of Wenceslas Square, ate awful meals, and got scowled at by sour-faced Putzfrauen in the restrooms for never leaving the right amount of coins in exchange for the few sheets of rough toilet tissue. They could have gone to Italy, toured Naples and the Amalfi Coast with Dot as her guide. They should go now. Why not? She decided to bring up the idea at Thanksgiving.

  “There!” Big Rick cranes his neck. “Jesus, Ray-Ban, you’ve passed it again!”

  She had to back up to the cul-de-sac. In Ky’s driveway the town car settles low when coming to a stop, like a boat.

  Not everything on Wellesley Way is as it seems. The reason the split-rail fence surrounding Ky’s yard looks perfectly weathered but in an oddly repetitive way is because it’s made of wood-grained composite. Upon closer inspection, the fieldstone foundation is a little too glossy for real stone and has seams. And while the shingled house is designed to look New England–old, its interior is as beige and new as the suburb itself. Ky has grown to hate it all—the fakeness, the isolation, his riding mower, the homogenous skin tones of every neighbor. Ivy Dales is a wooded, more expensive version of the suburb Big Rick lived in after their mother kicked him out.

  Ky is particularly rankled at being the object of curiosity and good-natured ribbing as the only stay-at-home dad in their neighborhood. He laments moving from the cramped inner city duplex he and Ingrid started out in, where junkies sometimes peed into t
he mailbox, but at least there was a coffee shop within a few blocks, a decent bowl of Vietnamese pho, and a sidewalk to walk to it on.

  Ivy Dales may feel like Ky’s purgatory, but to Ingrid it’s a haven. After her arduous workdays spent working in DC or Manhattan, weekends at home are spent soaking up the chlorophyll green and the rambunctious silliness of her sons, so refreshingly real compared to the mind-numbingly predictable and seemingly soulless investment bankers she deals with.

  Because it is Sunday evening, Ingrid is gearing up to catch a red-eye after the boys are in bed. RayAnne finds her sister-in-law in the master bedroom, folding fine washables still warm from the dryer into her garment bag. Ingrid’s everyday married-lady underwear is sexier and nicer than RayAnne’s best lace demi-bra and thong that she only wears on third dates.

  Her sister-in-law is tall, beautiful, and weirdly smart in all the ways RayAnne isn’t. Terribly accomplished and professional, she is also endlessly and genuinely amused by the entire Dahl family, doling out warm indulgences for even their most asinine behaviors. “You guys are something else” is often her take. She adores them as unconditionally as she does her unruly litter of two. “Wow,” she will say, giggling. “Nobody has to guess what anyone in this family is thinking!” Her parents were born in the Faroe Islands, where to smile showing teeth or to frown enlisting an eyebrow is considered losing it. Ingrid’s veneer is equally composed, but not at all chilly—when she breaks reserve, it is to cry, “You guys!”