Page 6 of Fishing for Keeps

"She runs," I say, amazed, gesturing to the old boat.

"She sings," he corrects, patting the motor. "Carburetor was gummed up and the fuel line was older than both of us. Gus kept everything else perfect." He hands me a coffee. "Okay, Rookie. Rule one of fishing: it starts before you want to be awake."

"I already hate rule one."

"Rule two: the coffee helps."

It does. So does the way the sun comes up over the tree line while he shows me how to hold a rod like it's not going to bite me. He stands behind me on the dock, adjusts my grip, and walks me through a cast—load the rod, snap the wrist, let it fly.

My first cast lands four feet away with a humiliating plip.

My second cast catches the dock post.

My third cast catches Trent's hat and sends it sailing into the cove, and he watches it float away with the solemn expression of a man at a sea burial.

"That hat had three good years left," he says.

"I'll design you a better one."

"You can't design a fishing hat, city girl."

"I can design anything. Give me that rod."

And that's how it goes. Every morning, coffee and casting off Grandpa's dock, then out in the Penny to learn the lake. Trent knows every cove and channel like other people know their own kitchens, and he narrates all of it—where the bass hold in the drowned timber off Abner's Point, where Forrest takes his clients to fish, which channel marker went missing in the spring floods.

He's loud and cheerful and never stops talking, and somewhere in there I realize the talking is a kind of generosity. He hands you the whole town, story by story, until you feel like you belong to it.

On the fourth morning, my cast unrolls in a clean arc and drops the lure right beside a sunken log, easy as breathing.

Trent goes quiet for the first time in recorded history.

"What?" I say. "Was that wrong?"

"That was perfect." He's looking at me strangely. "That was a fisherman's cast."

The pride that blooms in my chest is completely out of proportion. "Grandpa used to say I was a natural."

"Gus didn't say things he didn't mean." Trent leans against the console. "He talked about you, you know. Every summer. Josie-girl's designing logos for real companies now. Josie-girl works too hard. Josie-girl's coming next summer. He couldn’t wait for summer to arrive."

The leak springs before I can stop it. I turn my face toward the water. He really couldn’t wait. He died before summer arrived.

"Hey." His voice gentles, all the performance gone out of it. "You okay?"

"I kept saying next summer." My voice cracks on it. "I always meant it. I just—after my parents split, coming here got complicated, and then it got easier not to, and I thought there'd be time."

"Josie." He waits until I look at him. "He didn't put your name on that form to make you feel guilty. He put it there because he was sure you’d make it this summer, and he wanted to spend time with you.”

I wipe my eyes with the back of my wrist. "You can't just say things like that."

"Just did." He picks up his rod, and mercifully, gives me a minute by making it about fish. "Now. Rule eleven. See that spoon lure in Gus's box, the copper one polished up like a new penny?"

"He called it the Penny," I say. "Same as the boat. He used to tell me the boat was named after the lure. Then the next summer he'd swear the lure was named after the boat. The story changed every year."

"Sounds like Gus." Trent grins. "That lure's famous, you know. Man caught half the lake on it. You're saving it for derby day."

"Is that strategy or superstition?"

"Rookie," he says, "in fishing, there's no difference."