“Yeah, sinner that I am.”
“So that’s why you’ve been visiting with my stepbrother? And Greg Steadman?”
“He’s my mentor.”
“Unbelievable.”
“What? Why? Can’t a guy like me get saved?”
Jess relaxed. “No, it isn’t that. What’s unbelievable is what I was going to confess to you.”
“Shoot.”
“Krispin, I had to tell you I couldn’t see you anymore because…” Should she confess it? But if he’s saved, what’s the problem?
“Because you’re attracted to me?”
“Right,” she admitted.
“I avoided you for that very reason. And I’m still not sure that you and I should see a lot of each other. I still have a long ways to grow as a Christian. I’m not sure we should get too involved at this point in time.”
Jess looked at the compass. It was her only navigator at this time of day. She set out on her heading, glanced at the clock, and worked her way down the western shoreline. She had to concentrate on where she was going. If she gave in to her emotions, she’d get distracted by their conversation and lose her bearings, and they’d be out far longer than they should be.
“Jess?”
“Sorry. I’m not sure what to say. I think we need to get to know one another better.”
“I agree. Being friends is a good place to start.” The wind and chop of the water grew with intensity as they left the confines of the harbor. The hull bounced hard on the water. Jess steadied her sea legs and positioned for the impact.
Krispin slipped and grabbed the helm, keeping himself from falling.
“Sorry. I should have warned you.”
“No problem. Look, I’m not just attracted to you. Wait, that didn’t come out right. Hang on.” He paused. Jess held back a grin. She knew exactly what he was thinking, but it was too soon. Too soon for them to consider a life with one another and too soon for him as a new Christian to consider marriage.
“I’m not saying this right, but here it goes. I’m not just physically attracted to you. I’m attracted to you as a person—who you are, how you do things, the way you smile. The way you look at life. The way you treated me after I was so horribly rude to you. All of that and so much more. I even love the way you gently nibble your upper lip when you’re concentrating on something.”
“I do what?”
“You roll your upper lip slightly and press your lower lip against it, like so.”
She watched him do the very thing he just described. “I do not.”
Krispin chuckled. “Yes, you do. I’ve seen you. I’ll point it out next time.”
“Well, you have a few personality traits of your own, you know.”
“Oh really? Like what?”
The horizon was brightening behind them. “For example, you rub the back of your neck when you’re not sure what to say or do.”
Krispin pulled his hand down from the back of his neck.
“All right, I’ll give you that one.”
They bounced along with the waves for a couple of minutes, neither knowing what to say next. To admit I’m attracted to him before I really get to know him… Jess shook off the thought. “What are you going to do with yourself once you leave Squabbin Bay?”
“I don’t know. One thing is certain, I won’t be going into boat building. Greg and his son’s canoe is farther along than mine, and I had a two-month head start.”
“I enjoyed building mine with my dad, but only because I was building it with Dad. I do have a few skills that have helped me repair a thing or two around the house, though. I’m certain I wouldn’t have known what to do if I hadn’t built that kayak with Dad.”
“And I’m learning how to use power tools. Never used any before, not even in shop. The school budget was cut that year so all the guys who signed up for shop got to take an extra music or gym class. Or we could have taken home ec, but that was a sissy class in my neck of the woods.”
“Where’d you grow up?”
“Outside of Manchester, a small town called South Hooksett. The sun’s coming up.”
“Yeah, by the time I reach the first pot, the sun is cresting the horizon. See that bluff?” She pointed to the largest bluff jutting out from the shore farther up. “That’s Mom and Dad’s place.”
“Nice location.”
“Yeah. Dena rented it from the previous owner, but when he decided to put it on the market, she bought it and had Dad put the addition on. One thing led to another and boom—they got married.”
“You seem happy with your stepmother.”
“Very. She’s the mother I never had. I visited with my bio-mom earlier this summer; it was the first time since Dena and Dad married. It was odd. I don’t have any real connection to her. I mean, there are things in my temperament that I realize I got from her genes, but the most we’ll ever have in common is an occasional friendship where we connect every now and again. I don’t fit in her world. Truthfully, I never fit in her world at all.”
“My folks are still married, but we’re not very close. I love them, but they aren’t the kind of people who make great friendships with others. They tend to be lost in themselves. Even when we were small children, they seemed to leave us behind and go off with one another. Eating meals together was done in silence. They never asked questions. I envy the relationship you have with your family. I’d never have known you weren’t Dena’s daughter by the way you all respond to one another.”
“I had a great relationship with my dad. He spoiled me rotten. Fortunately, he worked hard for the little money he had or he would have gone overboard with expensive gifts I didn’t need. Instead, he gave of himself by being the dad at every school event, going out with the Girl Scout troop events. Trust me, he was the only father at those events, except the father-daughter banquets. Scouting always brings out the mothers. Even Boy Scouts have den mothers. My dad was the first man, and probably the last, to attend such functions. And the girls were horrible to him. They’d giggle and tease him. He’d pitch his tent on the other side of the campground just to get some sleep at night. Anyway, Dad took me everywhere and did everything with me. When I was sixteen, I wished he’d go away. Thankfully he didn’t, and I’m a better person because of it.”
“I like your dad. He tells it like it is.”
“Yeah.” She slowed the engine and shifted it to neutral. “Here we go.”
“What can I do?”
“Nothing, just watch.”
“Okay.” He crossed his arms and stood with his legs apart. Jess smiled. He’d gotten a handle on his sea legs.
“Seriously, watch me so you can see what I’m doing.”
“Okay.”
She fished the buoy out. “First, I hook the rope with this gaff hook. Then I place the line into this pulley. With the push of a button, it reels in the pot. I had Dad buy these, and I love them. I don’t have to haul up each pot by hand.”
The winch hummed, and the rope spooled up. “From this point”—the pot hung above the water—“I pull the pot over here and slide it on this table, like so.”
“How many pots do you have?”
“Only two hundred.”
“But you’ve got six lobsters in there.”
“Not all the pots will have lobsters. See this one?” She held a mother lobster upside down, her eggs fully coating her tail. “She goes back. Those black circles are eggs.”
“Awesome.”
“You haven’t been around sea or country life much, have you?”
“Nope. We lived in South Hooksett, but my folks had us in Manchester schools. By the time I was ten, I was in a private school. Country life is something I know little about.”
“All right. But this is country on the sea, and people who grow up on the shore are different than plain old country folk.”
“Hmm, I have a lot to learn.”
“You betcha. Now for the nasty part.” Jess flipped open the bucket of chum.
�
�Gross! What is that?”
“Rotting fish.”
“Double gross. What are you doing?”
“Lobsters are bottom feeders, scavengers. They eat what they can find on the bottom of the ocean. Generally, that’s dead fish.”
“Yuck. I knew I didn’t care for lobster for a reason.”
She laughed.
Jess reached her hand into the chum bucket, and Krispin leaned over the side of the boat and nearly lost his breakfast—no wait, supper. He hadn’t eaten this morning. The smell was the most foul he’d ever encountered.
“The smellier, the better.”
She placed the chum in a bag of what appeared to be cheese-cloth-type material and tied it down on a spike in front of the net where the lobsters were housed.
“You do this every day?”
“Just about.”
“Man, how can you stand it?”
“You get used to it.”
Not on your life. “Isn’t there fake bait or something you could use?”
“Nope. Real stuff. You can’t fool a lobster.”
She lifted a panel in the center of the boat. Water lapped against the hull. “What’s that? Are we sinking?”
“A holding tank. We sealed off a section of the boat hull and vented it to the ocean. The lobsters stay alive even if we can’t unload them right away. Most don’t do that, but one winter Dad and I had nothing better to do, so we made it out of fiberglass and wood.”
Krispin eased in for a better look. He had to admit, he was still timid around the water. But for Jess, he’d do anything. Well, anything but touch that awful chum. Thankfully, she wore gloves. He shuddered just thinking about that smell.
“Once the pot is ready, we toss it back in and move on to the next one.”
“You do this a couple hundred times?”
“No, only one hundred, then tomorrow the other half.”
“I’m amazed. That’s a lot of work for a little return.”
“Maybe. But it is honest work, and unlike yourself, a lot of people like lobster.”
“True. Supply and demand.”
“Ayup,” she said in her Down-Eastern accent. “You said you went into computer programming because you liked numbers.”
“Yeah. Then as I got older, I found ways to make those numbers cash numbers. I liked that even better.”
“Okay, wrap your head around this. If I catch an average of a 150 to 200 lobsters every day, that’s 6 times a week, and each lobster pulled in an average of $12 a piece wholesale, how much can I earn in a year?” She paused. “Oh, and figure in for only 40 weeks.”
“Okay. At 150 lobsters per day, six days a week, that’s 900 a week and 36,000 a year. Earning $12 per lobster, that’s $1,800 per day, for a grand total of $432,000 a year.” He whistled. “I thought you were poor, relatively speaking.”
“I said I didn’t earn much. Here’s the thing: We don’t average that much per sale. For the bigger orders, we can get as little as $6 for a pound-and-a-half lobster. Some online businesses are selling their lobsters for a premium price, but they’re buying them from the fisherman for a lot less. That’s the reason I started the co-op: to try and get a better price for our product without going through the roof so that a typical lobster dinner doesn’t cost what it costs in New York City.”
“We’d order them from a caterer for our corporate parties. Lobster isn’t cheap.”
Jess continued to pull up pot after pot.
“Basically, you’re saying you have a lot more earning potential than you’re currently doing.”
“Yes. But it’s not only about the profit. It’s also about making it a more steady income.”
“Why only forty weeks?”
“We don’t lobster in the really bad winter months. Even with foul-weather gear, you freeze out here. Commercial fishermen go all year, but they can be out on the sea for a month and bring in a hefty salary. But that isn’t the kind of a life I want to live. Have you seen some of those programs about those dangerous jobs? Lobstering is one of them, for the commercial fishermen.”
“I can imagine.” Krispin was enjoying the warmth of the sun’s rays as it came up over the horizon. Jess fascinated him. How could she do this day after day and still like it? “Jess, do you honestly enjoy doing this?”
Jess reached into the bucket and pulled out another brown, bloody, chunky handful of rotting fish. Krispin held on to his stomach. Lord, help me get over that smell.
“Yeah, it’s crazy. I know. A woman who likes lobstering. I like being out on the water. Four years of college and little time on the ocean showed me how much I missed it. But when I moved to Boston and started working in the city, the commute wasn’t quite as early as when I get up for lobstering, but it was early enough. Still dark in the morning when I’d leave, I’d smell diesel and road grime. Here I smell the ocean, feel the wind on my face, roll with the waves… . It’s more peaceful.”
“Yeah, but the smell?” Krispin held his nose and waved off the stench of decaying fish.
The lilt of Jess’s laughter caused him to relax. “I know. I said the same to Dad, year after year. Trust me, Randi thinks it’s odd, too.
“So,” Jess continued, “tell me more about your newfound faith.”
Thirteen
“I’m still putting the pieces together,” Krispin said. “I believe in God and that He has a perfect plan for me. Jesus and His need to come to earth and die for my sins is more real to me than it was the day I asked Him into my heart. But I’m still not sure of my purpose in this world. Before I found the Lord, my life wasn’t adding up. I’d done all you were supposed to do, and then some, and still I wasn’t satisfied. In programming that’s a good thing, because you constantly have to rewrite and build new and more powerful components to the software. But for life, it left me feeling empty and alone. Truthfully, I don’t feel that much different. There’s a calmness inside me. No, it’s more like a contentment, a sense of peace that everything will work out fine.”
Jess watched as Krispin’s face turned a light shade of green. “Are you all right?”
“I will be, I hope,” he muttered.
“Okay, the key is to not think about it. The chum is simply what is needed to catch lobsters—the bait.”
“I’ve never been one for fishing.”
Jess fastened the bait bag around the spike in the center of the pot. “How do you feel about fishing for men?”
Krispin chuckled. “I’m getting more comfortable with the idea. I don’t want to be one of those guys who tells everyone that they need to be saved. I mean, it’s true they need to know Jesus and accept Him as their Savior, but—I don’t know, I’ve never been the salesman type. I let others in the company do that. I was more involved with the day-to-day numbers and code to write the software.”
“So what made Jesus real for you?” Jess closed the pot and plopped it back in the water.
She went to the helm and switched gears; the boat’s propellers churned the waters off the stern. “Hang on, we’re heading back in. Come, sit up here next to me. You won’t be as cold, and hopefully the smell will remain behind us.”
Krispin navigated to the seat next to hers.
“So are you satisfied now?”
“I’m confused more than anything. I know I’ll go back to work eventually. I’m too young to retire, and what I made off of the sale will hold me for a while but not the rest of my life. I liked work, just not the stress of the partnership. I’m the kind of guy you can lock in a room with a computer, and I’d be happy for days. But the past few years, I’ve dealt with the clients more, and I discovered I liked having a social life. A few years back, when nerds were cool, I suppose that’s when I started changing from the quiet geek to the rude, crude, and socially unacceptable guy I was when you first met me.”
Jess smiled. He didn’t seem the same man at all. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but he seemed almost depressed, and certainly not as confident as he had been. “Krispin, who is the
real you? I mean, when you were a kid, what were you like around other children?”
“I never really had childhood friends. School was a snap for me. I was bored. So I read or worked on math problems. I was doing algebra by the fourth grade. You know, I’ve never really fit. At work I was popular because of what I offered the company. College was a bore. I didn’t have to work hard to get the grades, so I started to party all the time, and that’s back when geeks were popular with the girls.” He paused for a moment.
The hull of the boat jumped and banged against the waves. Jess glanced back at the compass heading.
“Since I became a Christian, I don’t seem to fit in anywhere again. I feel kind of like the young school boy in the private academy, in my room, enjoying my study, but not enjoying my life.”
Jess reached over and placed her ungloved hand on his arm. “You need to start enjoying life.”
“Yeah, but I…well, I feel so guilty. The things I found pleasure in before don’t even interest me now.”
“Ah, okay. Let’s correct that. Why don’t you meet me for an evening kayak ride in the harbor? You can use Dad’s.”
A slow smile eased up his handsome cheeks. Lord, if this man is who you’ve planned for me, keep him around. If he’s not, move him soon. I don’t think my heart can take it.
“All right. Can you come back to my place for dinner?”
Jess paused and wondered if she had the strength to visit and not give in to moving their relationship too quickly forward.
As if reading her mind, he offered, “You can invite your folks or anyone else to join us. I don’t mind.”
“No. It’ll be all right. Let’s just promise ourselves we won’t move too quickly, too soon.”
The small lines that ran across his forehead when he thought intently on things furrowed. Slowly he nodded his head. “Yes, let’s keep each other accountable that way.”
❧
Krispin feared he shouldn’t have revealed so much of his confusion. Father, go before us and help us. Help me determine what is right and holy in our relationship, he prayed.
He still had many of the same questions he had before he asked Jesus to come into his life. The difference was he was content with not knowing. But he was a babe in the woods when it came to understanding how to relate to others on a personal level. It was one thing to be the handsome guy pursuing a new conquest, but to be an honorable man in pursuit of a wife…that was totally new to him. He’d avoided marriage in his former lifestyle and made his aversion to it clear to the women around him. Now, he still felt shame for his past. How could Jess ever love him with that hanging over him?
Suited For Love Page 11
