Indigo

by Gina Linko

  “Yeah, and they can drink beer, enjoy themselves, fish with someone who knows what they’re doing, who does all the real work of it. It’s a real load of shit. Hell, I even gut and clean their catch for them at the end for a fee. You’d be surprised how much people will pay when they don’t want to deal with a little mess.”

  “So you came to help out Dodge? That’s awfully nice of you.”

  Rennick got an embarrassed look on his face, his eyes cast down. “That’s not entirely true. I mean, yes, Dodge had a heart attack last spring, then Lila went into the home. It got real bad, real quick, but when Dad said that Dodge couldn’t keep the charter going, it was just going to kill him. I could see it. I mean, I’m not exaggerating. It would do him in. So I volunteered.”

  I quelled the urge to reach out and grab Rennick’s hand as we walked across the gravel parking lot. We were nearly to the bait shack. “You showed him kindness,” I said, almost in a whisper.

  Rennick stopped, turned toward me. “Corrine, it makes me sound like a saint. But the truth is, Dodge gets me. I needed a change. It worked both ways. My father and I don’t relate.” He didn’t continue.

  I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything.

  “The stories at school make me sound better, cooler. Sorry to disappoint.” He said this with a laugh, but I could hear a bit of a real question in there.

  “Don’t say that. Don’t even think that,” I said. “Bad boys are highly overrated.” Even as I said it, I realized that this hinted at something between us. Was I overstepping the boundaries?

  At first, Rennick didn’t seem to notice. He only took keys out of his pocket and laughed. But I saw something lighten in the way he held his shoulders, no longer in defense. And then the soft upturn at the corners of his mouth. He liked that I had said it. Had he been hiding behind this bad-boy story?

  The pieces of his real story. His reasons for coming here. I wanted to know the whole story, but I didn’t want to pry. I could tell the feelings here, they ran deep. This meant a lot to him, and my reaction did too. While I watched Rennick fumble for the right key to the bait shop, I realized this was a moment I would revisit many, many times. An important moment. Something very much at the core of Rennick had just been approached. And I wanted to do right by that, to hold it with me, keep it in my heart. Even more than the pictures on the wall of his garage, this was him.

  My heart knows him. The words hit me out of nowhere again when Rennick opened the bait shop door. I pushed them away. But they stayed there, on the outskirts of my thoughts. Where was that phrase from, anyway?

  Rennick flipped on the lights. “Why don’t you fill up a cooler?” he said. “Grab a few Cokes and stuff. I’ll get the rods and night crawlers.”

  “We’re going fishing?”

  He turned around then, caught me with a dazzling smile. “Nobody will be looking for you out on the water.” I must’ve looked unsure. “Is that okay, Corrine?”

  I nodded. I was so grateful for the distraction. For everything. And for the chance to be completely alone with Rennick for a few more hours. But was it a sin in a port city like this to admit that you’d never been fishing before?

  We took the small motorboat a few miles down the coastline to a marshy inlet where Rennick said we could catch redfish or just sit and be. I liked the way he tilted his face up to the sky when he said that. I liked the intimacy it insinuated.

  The sun was at its fiery noon peak in the sky. So I wore a sloppy white old-man fishing hat from the bait shop to protect my pale skin, and I was happy for the cover it gave me. I could glance out from under it and watch Rennick as he steered the boat, and then as he set up our gear. He moved deftly. Confidently. He felt at home here.

  When he killed the motor, he sat still for a long time, and then he pointed out an egret on the shore. It was a beautiful white bird, tall and fragile-looking.

  “Dodge swears that an egret once flew down and stole the hat right off his head while he was fishing. He swears it was because he can sit still and be more patient than any other fisherman in the world. I think he was asleep.” Rennick laughed, his eyes crinkling up in that adorable way, and the sound of it echoed in the mangrove trees around us. The egret stretched its wings into a broad expanse, and once again settled into position.

  Rennick reached for the fishing poles. He handed me one, made of some sort of extremely light metal with a large shiny reel on the end. I wasn’t a moron, I could figure out what was supposed to be done here. But how exactly did one get the line out into the water?

  Now Rennick was opening up his own little cooler, much like the one I had packed full of Cokes and water. “Dug these up myself in the backyard with Bouncer.” He opened up a little Styrofoam container that was packed full of black dirt and fat writhing worms.

  Not wanting to look like an amateur, I picked one right up, let it slide around in my hand for a moment, dangled it in front of my face, watching it squirm, trying not to worry about the worm, trying not to think of the crawdad, everything.

  “I need to put a hook on the end of your line first,” Rennick said. He bent down to his tackle box, rocking the boat a little bit, and looked up at me from under the fringe of his lashes. “You ever been fishing, Corrine?”

  “In theory.”

  It was a stupid answer, I realized this immediately. I just meant that I had seen people do it. But Rennick began to howl with laughter. “In theory?” He held on to his stomach, and he laughed, and the boat rocked on the water in time with his guffaws. I threw my worm at him, and it hit him right on the cheek and then dropped to the bottom of the boat. Rennick swatted at it, then laughed some more. I wanted to dissolve into a puddle of liquid dorkiness right there.

  When I couldn’t help it anymore, I began to laugh with him, and that’s when I reached over the edge of the boat and splashed him, just a friendly little splash. And then he did the same to me.

  The water felt cool and clean on this hot day. After a few rounds of splashing, Rennick stood up in the rocking boat and secured our fishing poles. He pulled his shirt above his head, still laughing. I tried not to gawk. I tried. But oh, his torso, it was beautiful. Thin and ropy. Defined muscles. His abs tanned and golden from the sun. “Stand up,” he told me.

  “No way,” I told him.

  “Don’t make me carry you,” he threatened. “You started this.” He pointed at me, smiling. And that’s when he flipped his sandals off and just jumped in. I stood up and watched him over the side, the boat rolling with the motion of his jump.

  “It feels so good,” he said, surfacing, shaking his hair. “Here, give me a hand up.”

  I didn’t even hesitate. I offered him my hand to help him into the boat, and just as it was sinking in that I had offered my hand, I realized that Rennick had me. He didn’t want into the boat.

  And he pulled me in. I laughed just as I realized how gullible I was, and then I was tumbling headfirst into the water.

  It slid over my skin, crisp and cold, and it was clean, practically clear blue. I stayed under longer than I needed to, just to feel it against me, and opened my eyes. I could see him across from me, and his eyes were open too. I smiled. He smiled.

  And that’s when it clicked on.

  It scared me, startled me. So when Rennick reached for my hand again, I didn’t grab on. I shook my head and swam away, feeling the water move around me, feeling each one of my old swimmer’s strokes cutting into the force of the water.

  He caught up to me quickly, and when I stopped swimming we broke the surface. I treaded water, and I could see we were a good distance from the boat. “Let’s race,” I told him.

  It had been months since I’d trained, but I told myself it was like riding a bike. He squinted in a challenge, and then we both dove under. But I was off like a shot. I had always been good right out of the gate. Always took my lead that way.

  When I slapped the bow of the boat with my hand, Rennick was right on my heels, but I had beat him. Fair and squ
are.

  I gave him my best triumphant smile.

  “I am not slow,” he said, disbelieving, shaking the water from his hair.

  “I’m just faster,” I told him, gloating.

  “You are full of surprises,” he said. He had a bead of water right at the tip of his nose, and I wanted so badly to touch it, wipe it away. But I didn’t.

  Rennick pulled himself up onto the rope ladder ahead of me, and when he offered me his hand, I didn’t take it. Just a quick shake of my head. If he noticed, he didn’t say anything.

  We spent the rest of the afternoon and into the twilight with Rennick teaching me how to cast the line, how to bait with ballyhoo, how to take a hook out of a caught fish. It was all exciting and fun, and quite high up there on my list of favorite distractions. My favorite being Rennick with his shirt off. Second being his eyelashes.

  I loved watching him cast the line, maneuvering the pole just so as he reeled in a catch. The muscles in his arms flexed, and he held his mouth in this perfect pout of concentration. It was obviously all so second nature to him. He threw back all of the fish we caught, dismissing them as not big enough. He got a little self-conscious while he was throwing back the last one, a pretty large sunfish. He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye.

  What was it that he thought he was apologizing for? Could he really feel as though I would judge him for not being macho enough or something? I tried to picture what kind of home life could have nurtured that in him. I pictured a young Rennick, my Fourth of July Rennick, and my heart hurt for him. And I was just so thankful for Dodge. For what he meant to Rennick.

  I caught my first fish, a catfish the size of a snow boot. “This is the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen!” I said, staring at the nasty thing, its glassy eyes staring right back at me. It was slippery and wet, with thick, slimy whiskers. It bucked in my hands, still moving its mouth, looking for water.

  Rennick took it from me, unhooked it, held it in both of his hands, and, of course, shoved it close to my face, making smooching noises. “He just wants one kiss, Corrine.” The catfish whiskers tickled my cheek, and I laughed, pushing it away. Rennick tossed it back in the water with a laugh.

  As the afternoon wore on and the sun became too much, Rennick turned the motor on and steered us into a thick shady patch near the shore. We sat in the quiet little hideout of kudzu and mangrove trees, eating weird little snacks that Rennick had packed, like corn nuts and celery stalks that had seen better days.

  It was a fun afternoon. A beautiful day of distraction. Even when the motor wouldn’t start when we were ready to call it a day, Rennick just grabbed the two oars from the cargo space and started to row. I offered over and over to help him, but he wouldn’t hear of it. And I tried not to wallow in the romance of the gesture—but I did. I stared at Rennick’s silhouette against the pink sunset on the water. I watched him through the haze of twilight, with the heady, sleepy feeling of a long day in the sun.

  But really, in the forefront of my mind all day was the big question: Was I going to trust that my hands carried the power to heal rather than the power to kill? Did I really believe it?

  And that question had been there when Rennick’s hands held on to my fishing pole, showing me how to keep just the right tension, how to slowly reel in my line. His hands were close to mine, only a sliver away, a breath. But he didn’t touch me. Didn’t push. Didn’t ask. Not yet.

  In my heart, I thanked him for not bringing it up yet. He knew it was there. Between us. Around us. But I had to ignore it for a while. I had to. Because these were questions that just had to simmer.

  My phone buzzed in my pocket as we walked back to the Jeep. “It’s my mom,” I told him.

  “I can take you back,” he said, but then shot me a look, raised his eyebrows. “But I’m good to stay out.”

  “Yeah?” I said. Were we feeling each other out?

  “Yeah,” he said, smiling as he opened the passenger door for me.

  “I’m hungry,” I said.

  “Where would you like to go?”

  “Anywhere with air-conditioning.”

  The restaurant looked a little questionable from the outside, a bit tattered, weather-beaten, but when we got inside, it was charming, with candlelit tables and quiet music, not fancy, just nice. Clammy Joe’s, the place was called. Rennick filled in for people here once in a while, when he wasn’t busy with Dodge. The staff greeted him by name, and the pretty blond hostess gave me a smile when she showed us to our booth.

  The place smelled of seafood—fresh and succulent seafood, like the Rawlingses’ place. My stomach growled. We sat in a corner booth. A cup of crayons was on the table so you could draw on the brown paper tablecloth. In the middle of the paper, a circle was cut out, exposing a hole in the table about six inches wide. Rennick saw me eyeing it.

  “It’s the garbage can,” he explained. I gave him a funny look. “For all the shells. You really are from Chicago,” he joked. He smiled warmly at me, and I settled in. The place gave off a homey vibe. I couldn’t really explain it, but in that second, when I looked up at Rennick again, I saw his aura in the dim light—that’s what it had to be—and I saw the reds, the oranges, and purple, a thick wavy line of purple, especially near his head.

  “What is it?” he asked, looking up from his menu. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “Nothing,” I said, checking out the menu. “What does purple mean in an aura?”

  “Feeling. Connection. Love, maybe. Why?”

  “No reason,” I said, and blushed. The heat rose in my neck, into my earlobes. Rennick. Purple. I tried not to think about what he was seeing in my aura. “So how long’ve you been helping out here?”

  “A year or so. Since I moved in with Dodge.” He paused. “Thanks for spending the day with me.”

  I nodded, smiled. “Thank you.” He watched me as we talked, his eyes never looking away from me. He studied me and it made me feel self-conscious and pained but also wonderful and worthy. I realized this was why I hadn’t known who Rennick was at the Shack that first day he looked at me; it was because he never looked at anyone. Never really looked. Not at school. Not here in the restaurant. No one. His focus was only on what was in front of him, and at school that was usually the worn paperback in his hand or the sketchpad on his lap. He never looked at people. Except for me.

  I held on to this truth, and I watched it. The pretty hostess with fresh silverware. No eye contact. The people laughing one booth over. Nothing.

  But here he was just staring at me. I realized I was mimicking his body language. My elbows were on the table, me leaning toward him over the hole in the middle.

  I watched the way his mouth moved, always with a curve up at the ends. The shadows from the lone candle on the table played on his face and lit his deep blue eyes. He was an optimist, the swift, purposeful way he talked with his hands. His demeanor, it gave him away. And I could see that in how he moved, how he dealt with people, his easy nature.

  “It must be easy to make friends, to see people for what they really are. The auras.” It came out sounding flippant.

  He recoiled a little, sat back in his seat. “I bet it’s harder because of the auras.”

  “Really?” I couldn’t figure that one out. “How can that be?”

  He shook his head, leaned in toward me. “I don’t want to sound …” He searched for the right word, rubbed his palm across his jaw. “I don’t want to sound judgmental, but there are very few people who seem … interesting.”

  “Is that so? What’s wrong with most people?” I leaned in even closer.

  “There are lots of problems,” Rennick started, ticking them off on one hand. “Green. Lots of green. Jealousy. Self-involvement. And yellow. Things. Too much worry about things, material stuff, wealth. Half the time all I see is a bunch of green and yellow. And then there’s the other problem.”

  “What’s that?” I said, mesmerized by the way he spoke, the lines of his face, the slope of his nose,
the shadow of a beard on his jawline.

  “The absence of aura.”

  “Why? How?”

  “My theory is, because too many people live on the surface, never delve in deep. I think it goes along with yellow. The yellow fades to nothing. Materials matter and then … people aren’t really living anymore. No aura.”

  He sat up straight then, looked the tiniest bit embarrassed. I noticed that Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, or at least a Muzak version of it, was playing over the restaurant speakers. I had always loved this song. It sounded so difficult, so bitter, with the notes trying to eke out just a little hope.

  I took all this in as our waiter came up. “Good evening, miss,” he said. “Rennick, the usual?”

  “Nah, I’ll have the crab legs, Tim,” Rennick told him. “Caesar salad.”

  “Scallops,” I said. I wanted to order the crab legs too, but I had a feeling Rennick was going to want to pay, and they were expensive.

  “And to drink?” the waiter asked.

  “I’ll have a Coke,” I answered. I had missed this. Being out. Living. The thrill of a date. I had missed all of these normal things, although tonight didn’t feel completely normal. I had never, ever known—or even really dreamed about—the instant attraction toward another person, both physically and emotionally, like I felt with Rennick. He was the bass to my treble clef, and even as I thought of that stupid, cheesy analogy, part of me wanted to poke myself in the eye with my fork—but I liked it anyway. It made sense.

  “Root beer,” Rennick answered.

  When the waiter left, I said, “I could stay here all night.” I hadn’t even meant to say it, but it was true. And I smiled then, deciding to be brave. “So what colors are in my aura? What made it interesting to you?”

  Rennick squinted, leaned away from me. “I’ll sound like a stalker.”

  “I’m glad you stalked me,” I said.

  “Your aura is really beautiful. I mean …” He rubbed at his jaw. “Sometimes it’s more about the intensity than the specific colors. Yours is just powerful.” I rolled my eyes. “No,” he insisted, “that’s the truth. For a long time, I stopped … expecting more. Kinda was losing hope in people. I had lost it in myself.” His voice was serious, his face gone dark.