There was no acoustic configuration, Zadie decided, that would improve the sound coming out of that oboe.Can I just skip the part of being a parent where my kid is learning an instrument?she thought. That, or she would have to invest in some noise-canceling headphones.
“Okay, okay.” Myron caved. “Carry on.”
Hazel impatiently resumed her solo. Halfway through a shaky first measure of Pachelbel’s Canon in D, the instrument started to make a gurgling sound. “Oops, forgot to dump it.” Hazel unscrewed the bell of the oboe, releasing a dribble of spit onto the rug.
Myron winced apologetically to Zadie and Joel. “Do you guys want to go fishing?”
Zadie had never been fishing before, and she didn’t have a burning desire to learn, either. Joel, on the other hand, already had the hat, which perfectly complemented the waders Myron let him borrow. Zadie was wearing a pair that had once belonged to Myron’s wife. They were slightly more flattering than Joel’s, but not by much.
“That’s a good look on you,” Joel teased as Zadie joined him on the Van Houtens’ front porch.
“Yeah, my mom was always telling me I looked good in rubber, but I didn’t believe her.”
Joel put his hand to his chin in a thinking pose. “I mean, it’sgood.There’s something missing, though…” He felt around inside his pockets, fished out a pair of aviators, and placed them on Zadie’s face. As an added flourish, he flipped up the tinted clip-on lenses. “There.”
“I feel like a retired baseball coach.”
Even with the door closed, the melody of “Clair de Lune” as performed by a terminally ill goose drifted out of the house.
Joel shifted his weight awkwardly. “So you want to explain to me why you were so freaked out about Finn this morning?”
The question caught Zadie off guard. “Oh. Yeah, sorry about that,” she stumbled. “I know I overreacted.”
“What did you think was going to happen to her?”
Zadie wanted to tell him how scared she’d been the first timeFinn had gone catatonic; how her sister would run off without warning; the panic that would set in as she called her name and got no response. She wanted to tell him about the distant look she sometimes saw in her sister’s eyes, like there was a mist floating in them; that she’d seen her mother’s eyes look that way, too. She wanted to tell him everything, and she almost did before Myron bustled out the front door carrying three fishing poles and a large tackle box. “You guys ready?”
The creek was knee-high and so clear Zadie could actually see rocks rippling on the bottom. A fish passed by her leg, lazily swishing its tail back and forth like it was fanning itself on a muggy afternoon, which it was. The temperature had climbed steadily since that morning, as had the humidity. As she swatted a fly buzzing past her ear, she felt like she was back in Texas. All that was missing were the cattle.
“Put your thumb on top like this, and keep your rod in line with your forearm,” Myron instructed. Zadie copied his form, trying her best to keep her forearm straight.
“Good,” he said approvingly. “Now, on the back cast, you want to think about drawing a straight path with the rod, not an arc. You want to pull back smooth, stop and pause, then just before the line straightens out behind you, you cast. Watch me.” Myron whipped his line behind his body, the bright yellow fly sailing across the blue sky. Then he snapped the line back, reversing the fly’s trajectory and landing it gracefully in the water downstream. “Now you try,” he said, circling to the other side of her so she would have room to cast.
“Uhh, okay.” Zadie ran through the steps in her head, but despite her best attempt, the fly landed only a few feet in front of her. “Well, I suck at this.”
Myron smiled. “You cast a second too late. Reel it in and try again.”
It took Zadie several more tries before she made an acceptable cast, but it was still nowhere near as good as Joel’s. His first cast elicited a long whistle from Myron. “You’re a natural.”
“Thanks!” Joel grinned proudly, catching Zadie’s eye as he did so. Zadie looked away but could still feel his eyes on her.
Myron stepped to the side, cast his line out, and the three of them stood there quietly, listening to the gentle gurgling of the creek and waiting patiently for a tug on the other end of their lines. Zadie finally started to understand the appeal of fishing. It was an excuse to do absolutely nothing besides stare out at a body of water, which was, if she really thought about it, exactly what she did at the beach. “Do your kids like to fish?”
“Not even a little.” Myron chuckled. “I was hoping at least one of them would be into it, but Rowan feels bad for the fish, Hazel thinks they’re slimy and refuses to touch them, and the one time I took Juniper out, she spent the whole day looking for turtles. I guess none of them got the fishing gene.”
“Our mom used to make us go camping.”
“I take it you weren’t so keen on it?”
“I would come down with a lot of mysterious last-minute illnesses.”
“Ah, yes. Hazel once told me she thought she had scurvy the night before a recital.”
“Oh, I had that once before a spelling bee.”
“Must have been going around.” Myron chuckled again. “Was it just you girls and your mom?”
“Yeah. Our dads were never really part of the picture. Mom didn’t really trust a lot of other people.”