Darcey Steinke - Up Through the Water

“Who's that?” Emily asked.

“Lila,” he said. “She wanted to see you up close.”

Lila walked a step behind Emily and Eddie across the gravel parking lot, up the wooden stairs, and into the small room. There was hardly enough space for the three of them to stand in front of the rows of fish on ice. The place was deserted and Lila felt a little creepy under the silent surveillance of so many dead eyes.

Eddie stood a few yards away and kicked at a muddy box near the far wall. Lila fingered the fish, grabbed the tails, and twisted them, checking for firmness with her index finger. She could tell from the way Emily stayed near the door and folded her arms heavily in front of her that she didn't like the headless fish, or even the shimmering whole ones.

Lila stared at her and Emily seemed to sense it; she straightened her shoulders, tipped up her chin, and let her eyes become distant. A few months ago Lila had seen Emily shopping at the community store, barefoot and in tattered jeans; she bought only four things — a gallon of red wine, a tall white candle, bath bubbles, and some condoms.

Emily read the cardboard price list and commented on how shrimp were particularly cheap this week. “I've heard you were the fastest header on the island,” she said to Lila.

“I didn't know that,” Eddie said.

Lila could tell by the eager tone in his voice that this impressed him.

She blushed; it was a fact she'd always been proud of, but picturing herself among the other island women, hair up, sitting on her milking stool, and twisting handfuls of shrimp heads off until her fingers were raw, seemed embarrassing to her now.

“Pruitt's usually in the back,” Lila said, and she walked past Emily out the screen door and around to where he was slicing a shark into steaks. The sun was hot. Emily had probably meant to be flattering, but Lila felt uncomfortable because she couldn't be sure. Pruitt's white apron was bloody, and there were even specks of blood in his hair. She watched him cut through the spine, then into the softer muscle of the fish. “You got customers,” Lila told him.

“First ones,” Pruitt said. “Thought I might get to sit around all day till my dad started me on this.”

He motioned to the sprawl of silver skin and wet bones. She watched the white shrimper Last Chance sway in the water near the market. While he hosed off his hands, she counted the shark heads in a brown bag, then pressed a finger into a puddle of blood on the filleting board. Lila smelled the blood and then wiped it off on the wood boards. She remembered how her grandmother had told her that drinking the blood of animals passed their powers on to you. She watched Pruitt dry his hands on some newspaper. He was her age, but because he was so silent and lanky, Lila thought of him as younger.

She followed him through the maze of packing coolers in the back way. “Pruitt was gutting a shark in the back,” Lila said. She paused to see if they would grimace or cringe. Emily concentrated on the fish, pretending not to hear, but Eddie scowled at her and averted his eyes, and Lila felt guilty for trying to shock them.

Emily pointed, “How about that one?”

Pruitt picked the trout up, weighed it, and threw it on the butcher block. He asked if she wanted it cleaned. Emily shook her head. He slid the trout into a clear bag, so its face pressed against the plastic.

Emily paid, and there was something in the gentle way she took the bag with both hands that gave Lila the feeling she wasn't going to cook the trout at all.

In early July the ferry at dusk is never crowded. Most crossers stay in the sleepy comfort of their cars listening to the last hints of Norfolk radio and letting the lurch of the boat lull them. Really it's only lovers on long weekends that go out into the windy confusion to lean against the bow's rail. They listen to the rigging clang and the crack and pull of the flags and watch water heave up in the wake of the ferry. Their sweatshirts puff up like blowfish. Against the darkening foreground they see the tipped wingspans and shiny beaks of the hundreds of gulls that swoop and circle, following the boat in hopes of handfuls of white bread or crackers. Lovers in July look ahead to the lights of the island. Somehow only they know that the power of air is all and they must come wordless into the sing of wind and water.

E mily Pulled her T-shirt off in one smooth movement, her hair fell back to her shoulders, her bikini-top triangles of rose macramé shook slightly, and the shells tied to the back strings tinkled like wind chimes. The white shirt she held blew out like a flag as the cruiser bumped over the water. Birdflower's clean brown hair was gathered in a ponytail and tucked into a pale lavender T-shirt with maroon mermaids singing on the front. She watched his lips move, but because of the boat's engine, she couldn't make out the words.

They were sitting on cushions along the far wall of the boat, watching the island melt to water. Before them were the fishing chairs, bolted swivel seats. In the front, Michael steered behind the splattered Plexiglas window of the cabin. Near him, David tipped a beer to his lips; the can touched the rim of his baseball cap. She saw how Birdflower looked at the brass bead held by a leather string around her neck and the smooth sheen of her hair. His eyes lingered on the swell of her breasts. Water spray dotted their faces. He leaned over and cupped a hand to her ear. “I'll catch you something,” he said.

Emily looked ahead of the boat and imagined the Gulf Stream. “Like the ocean has a light blue racing stripe,” Birdflower had said. She thought it was like a sunbeam, coming up from Florida and the Gulf of Mexico, illuminating fish in the sea's dark room.

The last time she'd been fishing was with Eddie, when he was ten, at sunset; she remembered how excited he'd been, casting, wading out barefoot in his rolled-up jeans. She had sat in a lawn chair on the sand and watched his tanned back moving in the surf. Now he wouldn't want to fish. He was busy with Lila.

Birdflower got a beer from the cooler near the bait bundles and the longer cooler for fish. The beer popped, fizzed; he took a sip and handed it to Emily. Michael steered with one hand and pointed. “There's the Gulf,” he said. He wore the thick fisherman sunglasses that wrapped around his face, protecting even his peripheral vision from the sun. The engine kicked and sputtered and the boat made a lazy arc in the water.

Birdflower moved to help with the anchor. Michael winked at Emily. “You just sit there and look pretty,” he said.

She smiled. She liked being the only woman among men. It set the curves of her body off like the stems of flowers against a hard wall. The fishing rods bent like willows.

Birdflower stood near her and slipped a hand to her waist. He had on bright surfing pants that Emily thought were too young for him. The stiff, starched cotton brushed against her thigh.

Birdflower undid the squid pieces packed in butcher paper. They were purple with white spots and shaped like broccoli stems. He baited her hook, his hands moving as if each finger had a small brain at the tip. Once last season she crept behind the sand dunes. It was strange: water up to Birdflower's thighs, an old onion sack filled with clams over his shoulder. He was mindless, looking up often into the sun, blinking when it flashed in his eyes. The warm water must have aroused him because she saw the way he fiddled with his bathing suit, how he eventually dropped the rake and held himself in both hands. She remembered the angles: flat water to the horizon, thick strip of sky, and his body heaving back in diagonal to them.