“I'm not much of a fisherman myself. My dad used to take me when I was small. I don't remember much about it. I do remember seeing some fishing stuff in the barn though."
After changing clothes, they rode the golf cart to the barn. Tim guessed that he would have to dig worms and handle the squirmy things, but Sandra surprised him by showing no fear or dislike at all to the dirty necessity. There were dozens of rods, reels, hooks, lures, floats and other equipment available. They selected the four best units, a tackle box that seemed fully stocked and two lawn chairs. Tim put the gear in the back of the golf cart along with the cooler full of diet colas Sandra packed before leaving the house. They decided to try their luck in the big pond, assuming that the pier extending to the middle of the pond was a good indication Uncle Pete preferred this fishing hole.
They carried the gear to the end of the pier and Tim, trying now to remember, showed Sandra how to tie on a hook, clamp a sinker on the line, snap on a float, and impale an earthworm on the hook as bait.
She prepared two rigs and, for the first time in her life, tried casting. The line sailed out promisingly for twenty feet, then abruptly stopped causing the hook, weight and float to jerk backwards and into the water only a few feet from the pier. As they both laughed, she played out the tangled line from the reel and wound in the excess, but decided to leave the float where it was and try casting with her second rod. This time the float landed thirty feet away.
She turned to draw up her lawn chair when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw the first float disappear beneath the water. Squealing, she exclaimed, “What do I do now?” but at the same time she threw down one rod and picked up the other just as it began sliding towards the edge of the pier. She felt the pull. She could not hear Tim's shouted instructions. She reeled in as fast as she could. A one pound crappie broke water. She yanked the line causing the fighting fish to fly out of the pond and land on the pier.
Tim was at her side. “Let me show you how to take him off the hook,” he said.
Ignoring him she picked up the slippery fish in her left hand and quickly worked the hook out of its mouth with her right. Sandra had become a fisherwoman.
Tim filled a bucket with pond water and Sandra eased the fish into it. They watched it circle the bucket twice, then stop and tread water. It seemed to be looking at them.
“What kind is it?” she asked.
“I think my dad used to call anything that looked like that a brim. He..."
Sandra brushed by him and grabbed the second rod, which was nearly off the pier. All slack was gone from the line. She tried to reel in, but the weight on the other end wasn't as yielding as before.
“Work him. Work him."
Sandra learned to pull back on the rod and reel in as she lowered it. Presently the fish broke water and in seconds, she could see it near the surface of the water, desperately trying to escape but inevitably being inched towards her.
“I think that's a bass of some kind,” Tim said as they watched the new prize try to find a way out of the bucket. “That thing must weigh two pounds or more."
During the next hour, Tim caught three hand-sized crappies, but Sandra hauled in an even dozen and two more bass. They released the smaller fish to make room in the bucket for the larger ones. Then, just as quickly as the fish had started biting, they quit.
“Now this is the kind of fishing I remember,” Tim said settling into his lawn chair. “You sit and hope, but nothing happens."
Sandra lay flat on the pier in order to reach the water and wash her hands. She found a way to hook the handles of the rods in the flooring of the pier, keeping any hungry fish from yanking the gear into the water. She pulled two diet colas from the cooler, gave one to Tim, and stretched out in her own lawn chair. For fifteen minutes they watched the floats bobbing on tiny waves.
“How do you fish with one of these artificial lures?” she asked.
“Dad used to try that. I don't think he ever caught anything with artificial bait, though. I believe you just remove the hook and float and tie on a lure. Then you cast the thing out and reel it in. The fish are supposed to bite the moving lure."
Sandra thought that would be better than just sitting there, so she reeled in one line, tied on a shiny lure from the tackle box, and made her first cast. The whirling disk with three hooks returned empty. She tried again.
“Tim, I know it has become a sore subject, but could we talk a little about future plans?"
“I'm sorry I gave you grief about that, Sandy. I..."
“I've given it a lot of thought. I want to talk about it."
“Okay."
“I haven't come up with anything, so I tried to figure out what your plan is. You haven't actually told me, but it seems to me you are a little like Silas Marner."
“Me?” he said, and then laughed. “If I remember the story right, maybe I am. Silas was a pathetic creature when all he had was his gold. His life had meaning only after the orphan girl came into his life and he then had a worthwhile reason for earning money. Sandy, right now, I have the gold, but I have nothing worthwhile to do with it. The wealth I inherited doesn't feel right because I didn't do anything to earn it. I'm afraid I am as far away from having a satisfactory plan as you are."
Sandra's heartbeat seemed instantly to slow down to a crawl. Could I have missed the meaning of George Eliot's story? she wondered. Is it possible the orphan was Marner's real treasure?
“I started reading a magazine article at the doctor's office on how to create the perfect lifetime living plan,” she said. “I bought a copy of the magazine while I was in Charlotte and I thoroughly studied it. It contained tests, and exercises. The results were supposed to fit into a final analysis, but it didn't make any sense."
“What did the author say are the basics of a good plan?” he asked, checking the bait on a hook and casting it back into the water.
“Purpose, structure and community,” she replied, pleased that she could remember without consulting her notes. She cast again. Her arm was getting tired.
“Okay, but what did he say about each category?"
“Well, he said everybody needs at least one purpose in life. It has to be something that he or she feels passionate about, and something that will give personal pleasure in achieving. He said there is a difference between purpose and goals. A purpose is ongoing. Goals are short term objectives towards achieving the purpose."
“Sounds reasonable. What did he say about structure?"
“According to him, everybody needs structure in their lives. That's why so many people like working for a factory or corporation. The business sets the structure and the individual patterns life around the structure provided. The author says it is much better for the individual to design his or her own structure. I suppose structure is another way of describing a personal daily schedule."
“Now he's talking my language,” Tim joked.
“I didn't get much out of his discussion of community,” Sandra continued, pleased that he was taking her research seriously. “He seemed to be talking about a social life. He says that people who work for corporations often find their social lives in the society of the company. Others find it in their churches or clubs. Some people are loners, and he says all loners are miserable, whether they admit it or not."
“What did the exercises say your purpose should be?” Tim asked.
“Nothing. I mean nothing that made any sense. I followed the directions and filled out the forms, but there just were no clear results."
“Bummer."
“Yeah. All that work and I was back right where I started.” She put a hook back on the line and baited it. Casting was too much work.
“What about structure?"
“I couldn't do much about structure until I knew what my purpose was."
“Did I tell you I went to church Sunday?"
“Yes,” she replied, disappointed that he was changing the subject. She had hoped he would help her define her purpose.
&nb
sp; “I didn't tell you about the sermon did I?"
“I don't think so.” She nudged her floats, hoping the slight movement would attract a hungry fish.
“There was a visiting preacher. His name was Mack McGee I think. I liked him. The music was good too. If he was going to preach every Sunday, I might start going to church regularly again. He doesn't preach like most of the ministers I have heard."
“Is there a point to this?” she asked, still miffed that he had changed the subject.
“Well, yes. It might help both of us with defining our purpose in life."
He had her full attention. He hadn't changed the subject after all. “What did he say? I'm all ears."
“Actually you aren't. You have small, graceful ears that cry out to be kissed.” He smiled warmly at her.
“What did the man say?” she asked, striking a pose and patting her foot in mock impatience.
“He said that he thinks God talks to him by opening some doors while closing others. Makes sense to me."
The concept of God talking to Sandra was not one in which she placed any confidence. She jiggled her line again.
“What I am thinking, Sandy, is that maybe both of us should just go on living for a while, but keep our eyes peeled for the open doors. We have both probably walked past many open doors in our lives without ever looking inside. We probably didn't even notice there were any doors, and certainly didn't bother to see whether or not the doors were open."
She squealed again. Her float furthermost from the pier dived beneath the water. She jerked on the rod and worked for five minutes before landing the biggest bass she had ever seen, even in a fish market.
With the sun close to the western horizon, they released the remaining fish except for the big bass. Together they figured out how to clean and filet it. That night's fish dinner was delicious, and after they washed and put away the dishes, Tim happily settled into a recliner to watch the evening's sitcoms on TV.
Sandra's mind kept returning to Silas Marner and the possibility that she misunderstood the author's meaning. She wondered who the author was whose advice she may have mistaken and was trying to follow. “I've got to pee,” she said, leaving the den; but instead of the bathroom, she went to the library.
She found the biography that would forever influence her life in volume 9 of the Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia.
ELIOT, George (1819-80), pseudonym of Mary Ann Evans, English novelist, whose books, with their profound feeling and accurate portrayals of simple lives, give her a place in the first rank of 19th-century English writers. Her fame was international, and her work greatly influenced the development of French naturalism.
George Eliot was born Nov. 22, 1819, in Chilvers Coton, Warwickshire, the daughter of an estate agent. She was educated at a local school in Coventry. At the age of 17, after the death of her mother and the marriage of her elder sister, she was called home to care for her father. From that time on, she was self-taught. A strict religious training, received at the insistence of her father, dominated Eliot's youth. In 1841 she began to read rationalist works, which influenced her to rebel against dogmatic religion, and she remained a rationalist throughout her life. Her first literary attempt, at which she worked for two years (1844-46), was a translation of Das Leben Jesu (The Living Jesus, 1835-36) by the German Theologian David Strauss. In 1851, after traveling for two years in Europe, she returned to England and wrote a book review for the Westminster Review. She subsequently became assistant editor of that publication. Through her work on the Review she met many of the leading literary figures of the period, including Harriet Martineau, John Stewart Mill, James Froude, Herbert Spencer, and George Lewes. Her meeting with Lewes, a philosopher, scientist, and critic, was one of the most significant events of her life. They fell in love and decided to live together, although Lewes was married and a divorce was not possible. Nevertheless, Eliot looked upon her subsequent long and happy relationship with Lewes as a marriage.
Eliot continued to write reviews, articles for periodicals, and translations from the German. Then, with encouragement from Lewes, she began to write fiction in 1856. Her first story, “The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton,” appeared in Blackwood's Magazine in January 1857. It was followed by two other stories in the same year, and all three were collected in book form as Scenes from Clerical Life (1858). The author signed herself George Eliot and kept her true identity secret for many years.
Eliot's best-known works are Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), and Silas Marner (1861). These novels deal with the Warwickshire countryside and are based, to a great extent, on her own life. Travels in Italy inspired her next novel, Romola, a historical romance about the Italian preacher and reformer Girolamo Savonarola and 15th-century Florence. She began writing the book in 1861, and it appeared in 1863, after being serialized in The Cornhill Magazine. Following the completion of Romola, she wrote two outstanding novels, Felix Holt, the Radical (1866), concerned with English politics, and Middlemarch (1862), dealing with English middle-class life in a provincial town. Daniel Deronda (1876) is a novel attacking anti-Semitism, and The Impressions of Theophrastus Such (1879) is a collection of essays. Her poetry, which is considered to have much less merit than her prose, includes The Spanish Gypsy (1868), a drama in blank verse; Agatha (1869); and The Legend of Jubal and Other Poems (1874).
During the period in which she wrote her major works, Eliot was always encouraged and protected by Lewes. He prevented her even from seeing unfavorable reviews of her books. After his death in 1878 she became a recluse and stopped writing. In May 1880 she married John Cross (1840-1924), an American banker, who had long been a friend of both Lewes and herself, but she died in London on December 22.
Sandra found her yellow legal pad and pen and returned to the library table. She reread the encyclopedia article and carefully made notes.
+ Mary Ann Evans
+ Nov. 22—my birthday
+ Daughter of estate agent—real estate salesman? Anything like a used car salesman?
+ She was self-taught—I can do that
+ Rationalist works—Look up
+ Rebelled against dogmatic religion—I'm not religious. Do I qualify?
+ Traveled two years in Europe—I traveled longer than that in three or four states
+ Wrote book reviews—Can I do that?
+ Harriet Martineau, John Stuart Mill, James Froude, Herbert Spencer, George Lewes—Look up
+ Mary Ann and Lewes lived together but were not married—Tim and I live together and are not married
+ Eliot looked upon her long and happy relationship with Lewes as a marriage—Why not?
+ With encouragement from Lewes she began to write fiction—Would Tim encourage me?
+ Scenes from Clerical Life, Adam Bede, Mill on the Floss, Romola, Felix Holt the Radical, Middlemarch, Daniel Deronda—Read!!!!!
+ Lewes always encouraged and protected Eliot—Tim?
Sandra, emotionally drained and at the same time charged, knew she could not sleep when bedtime arrived. After getting the copy of Middlemarch from the library, she propped up her pillow and settled in to read. Tim moved closer. Without thought, she began to scratch his head, a service he quickly discovered he liked and which immediately became routine bedtime procedure.
Tim didn't snore, but he breathed loudly. Sandra always knew he was asleep when that manly sound became smooth and even. He was gone within minutes; a smile firmly fixed on his face. Damn, she thought. I don't even have to screw him to make him happy.
She opened the book and frowned. It was a lengthy work and the print was tiny. I'll never wade through this, she thought; but she thumbed through a few pages and found that the chapters were short. She began to read. All right, she thought happily—a romance novel.
She read for an hour. Her eyelids grew heavier. One more chapter, she allowed herself. As she approached the end of the chapter, drawing closer and closer to sleep, she sensed she had just read something important.
She backed up, forcing herself to concentrate.
“That's it,” she shouted.
“Huh,” said Tim, lifting his head and trying to accustom his eyes to the light of her reading lamp.
“Oh, I'm sorry I woke you, but listen to this Dude. ‘...starting a long way off the true point, and proceeding by loops and zigzags, we now and then arrive just where we ought to be.’”
“That's nice, Dudette,” Tim said without comprehension, running his left hand up her stomach, under the book, cupping her left breast and tweaking the flaccid nipple.
“Don't you see, Tim. All my life I've been looping and zigzagging, but now maybe, just maybe, I've arrived."
“That's nice, Dudette.” He slid lower in the bed, moved over her, parted her legs and began sucking and licking her navel, then lower, then lower still. Both hands were roughly enjoying her breasts.
She closed the book. Good night, Mary Ann. My Lewes is lapping at my door. She chuckled and made a mental note to use that line if she ever wrote a novel.
“What's funny?” he mumbled.
“You tickled me, Dude.” She moved his head tenderly to the desired spot.
* * * *
“Tim, do you remember the passage from Middlemarch I read to you last night?"
He swallowed the oversize bite of fried egg he was chewing and washed it down with a slug of orange juice. “I remember waking up hungry and you feeding me,” he replied with a wicked grin.
“No, before that."
“I'm afraid not."
She quoted the passage, pleased that she could remember it word for word without having made any conscious effort to memorize it. “Don't you see. She's talking about me. I have been wandering through life aimlessly—no purpose—but all those loops and zigzags have put me here with you. Isn't it possible I have arrived, without trying, just where I ought to be?"
“Yeah. Well, maybe.” The tone of his voice indicated he was humoring her.
“Isn't this just what your preacher was talking about? Maybe this is my open door,” she said testily.
“I don't think this is exactly what the preacher had in mind,” Tim replied; but later he realized it was exactly what the preacher was talking about.
Sintown Chronicles I: Behind Closed Doors Page 12
