9.
F ISH
My monitor vibrated against my wrist, and I glanced down to find my tank at 15%. When I looked to my right, it didn’t take long to find Magda. Her brightly-colored dive suit made her stand out against the coral around her. Her alarm must have gone off, too, because she speared one last fish and then started swimming my way.
I did a quick calculation of our depth and dive time and signaled to Magda that we didn’t need to take any decompression time. We swam toward the boat, and I broke the surface just seconds before Magda came up a few feet away.
We hooked our trash nets and catch tubes on the same cleats I used to tie the boat to the dock and then climbed up onto the dive platform to take off our gear.
“I’ve probably got another one in me if you want to go back down,” Magda said once she had her mask off.
“I’m exhausted, but if you want to take another, I’ll wait here for you.”
Magda thought about it for a few seconds before she shook her head. “Let’s just mark this spot to start tomorrow. I saw a cluster to the north that is probably going to be a gold mine.”
“Sounds good,” I said as I stood up and used the gate to walk onto the deck. “Thirsty?”
“Yes! I brought a new flavor of kombucha for you to try. Let’s have some of that.”
“When are you going to realize that I’m never going to like that hippie shit you’re always trying to get me to drink?”
“You’ve got the palate of a frat boy, Bub,” Magda said in exasperation. “There are plenty of drinks to choose from in this world that aren’t carbonated beverages, energy drinks, black coffee, or beer.”
“I drink water too!”
“Swishing it around in your mouth while you rinse after brushing is not considered drinking,” Magda chided.
“You enjoy your sadness liquid while I have an orange-flavored water.”
“Orange Fanta is not orange-flavored water.”
“You keep telling me that, but I still disagree,” I argued as I walked into the galley to get our drinks. By the time I came back out onto the deck, Magda had her dive suit unzipped and pulled down to her hips. I handed her one of the bottles of swamp water she insisted she enjoyed along with a tube of sunscreen before I took a few sips of my drink and then set it aside to strip off my own dive suit. “What’s your guess on our take for today?”
“I filled my tube on all three dives, but I found some whoppers a few minutes ago that I’m sure are at least two pounds each.”
“Let’s check ‘em out,” I said before I took another sip of my soda.
“Let me get my camera set up first,” Magda ordered as she hurried to the cockpit to retrieve her bag.
“How is that going, anyway?” I asked.
“You’ve got quite a following,” Magda teased. When I rolled my eyes, she said, “Hey, if it takes you getting shirtless for me to get views, I’m more than willing to pimp you out.”
“Thanks,” I grumbled before I opened the cooler we used to ice down our catch every day. “Set up your camera so we can be done. I’m ready to get back to land and see what sort of craziness Bubbe and Dodie have gotten into today.”
“You ain’t gotta lie, Bub. You want to see Cat.”
“What makes you say that?” I asked.
“Rumor has it that she slept with you on the boat last night.”
“You’ve really got to stop gossiping with my sisters. They’re going to corrupt you, if they haven’t already.”
“Consider me one hundred percent corrupted,” Magda said as she slipped on her shades and looked down at her camera. “I’m ready when you are.”
“Why don’t you let me hold the camera while you show off our haul?” I asked.
“I have no desire to put myself in the spotlight and have strangers ogling me and sending more DMs asking for feet pics.”
“What?”
“Every time I’m on camera, I get weird messages. That’s why you’re the main face on my channel.”
“What kind of weird messages? What are the screen names? What did they say?”
“Down, boy! It’s nothing I can’t handle, and I’d rather you not go to prison for killing some internet troll with a foot fetish.”
“What makes you think I’d go to prison?” When Magda gave me a bored look, I just laughed but made a mental note to call up one of my club brothers to check out these keyboard warriors and possibly break some of their fingers. Or maybe their faces.
“I can see you planning, Bub,” Magda warned.
“Planning what? I’m an innocent victim of the system, and now you’re pigeonholing me into the mindset of a criminal.”
“Lying will put you on the bus straight to hell.”
“Honey, at this point, I’m not going to take a bus to hell. I’m going to slide down a fire pole directly into Satan’s living room where he’ll be waiting for me with an ice cold beer and some garlic Parmesan wings.”
Magda rolled her eyes and pushed a button on her camera before she motioned toward me so I could get started documenting our haul. I put on a glove and sorted through the lionfish we’d brought up and found the largest of our catch to hold up for the camera as I explained how I knew whether the fish was a male or a female and the statistics on how dangerous lionfish were for the environment.
When I was finished talking, Magda turned off the camera and helped me gather up our supplies. We set off for the marina where our contact was waiting to buy our haul while we chatted about the classes she was taking at the local junior college and her plans for summer. When she mentioned that she’d started seeing a young man she met in one of her labs, I tried to stop myself from asking too many questions, but when she started complaining about how dumb he really was, I calmed down.
One thing I couldn’t stand was stupid, and I guess my daughter had inherited that trait from me.
It took a little less than an hour to have our haul weighed and get paid out and then less than twenty minutes for us to get back to the dock behind Bubbe’s. Magda was bouncing with excitement at the thought of her plans for tonight. Before I kissed her goodbye, I made her promise to call me if she needed anything, but most especially if she decided to drink and could use a ride home. Once she assured me that she would, she kissed me on the cheek and took off, leaving me to clean up and store our hunting supplies.
I knew Bubbe was home when I heard the Hounds of Hell yapping from inside the sun porch and thought about avoiding that situation altogether until I smelled something cooking on the grill. I had never been one to resist good food, and I knew the only way I was going to get it was by mooching off my grandmother, which she fully expected, or driving into town only to wait for a table at a decent restaurant.
What I found when I came around the corner was enough to make a grown man cry - right after he squirted ammonia into his eyes to erase the horror he’d just witnessed. I spun around to rush back to my boat and heard laughter off to the side, so I glanced up at the balcony outside of Cat’s bedroom.
She was standing there with Mackenzie on her hip, laughing so hard that she had to grip the rails to stay upright. Without thinking, I veered that direction and took the stairs two at a time until I was standing next to her.
Mackenzie threw herself in my direction, and I swept her up into my arms before I kissed her forehead and whispered, “Hi, Macaroni! How’s my girl?” I heard a loud squeal from inside and turned in time to watch Charlotte running as fast as her fat little legs would go. I bent forward and picked her up for a greeting before I said, “My little Lottie-Bug.”
“How do you do that?” Cat asked.
“Do what? Get past the mind numbing ick I was just faced with? Beer. That’s my only solution.”
Cat started laughing and took Charlotte out of my arms and set her on her feet between us and then watched her toddle back into the room where she’d been playing before. “How do you make them love you more than they love me?”
“They’ll never love me more than you, Abbie-Cat. I’m just the squishy, amusing guy with facial hair they can pull on. You’re the mom with all the good food and even better kisses who is a great snuggler and worries about them every second of every day.”
“That was sweet,” Cat whispered before she smiled at me.
“It’s true. I’m just the fun guy who they rightly believe is their own personal jungle gym.”
“Well, mushroom . . .”
“That was cheesy and very beneath you,” I grumbled.
“I couldn’t help myself,” Cat giggled. “What brought you to witness this fresh visual hellscape this evening?”
“I thought I’d mooch some food off of Bubbe until I realized she was having a dinner party.”
“Is that what’s going on over there?” Cat asked in confusion. She shuddered before she asked, “Do you think the person who invented that particular men’s swimsuit is burning in hell yet?”
“That’s not a swimsuit, Abbie-Cat. That’s a banana hammock.” Cat swallowed hard as she ran her hand over her mouth, most likely fighting nausea. I couldn’t help but add, “I appreciate the sturdiness of the fabric, though. It must take some work to get balls that saggy tucked in and secure.”
“Oh, stop, Chai. No more.”
“It was a bold fashion choice to go with that particular color, but if he wants to wrap his package in neon, who am I to judge?”
“There was a man here earlier, and I caught him with his hand on my grandmother’s ass when he thought I wasn’t looking.”
“Good for her! I bet it was Sid. I’ve heard it said that he’s pretty handsy, although Bubbe and Dodie insist he’s harmless without the aid of a little blue pill or two.”
“Stop it!” Cat ordered. “They invited me over for dinner, but . . .”
“Probably not the place to take the girls. Bubbe doesn’t even let her demon dogs attend her cookouts anymore. She locks them up when she has parties because they once mistook a certain brightly-colored thing for a chew toy and ended up hurting some poor old man.”
Cat gagged before she said, “I was going to see if you wanted to come to town with us and have dinner, but now I’m not talking to you.”
“You’re gonna have to work on that weak stomach, Abbie-Cat. It looks like your Grammy has embraced the Florida retirement lifestyle with gusto and is enjoying the hell out of herself.”
“She’s a grandmother !”
“I didn’t say it was pleasant for you, honey, but it’s happening . . . whether you like it or not.”
It didn’t take long for Cat to get the girls and herself ready. When we walked out front and I made my way to the Gator I’d tricked out for Bubbe, Cat asked, “Can we take your truck?”
“Sure,” I said as I veered that direction. The girls’ car seats were still in the back, so I settled Mackenzie in hers while Cat strapped Charlotte in. I already had the truck started with a nice cool breeze coming from the vents by the time Cat climbed into the passenger seat.
“Oh my God! That’s wonderful,” Cat moaned as she leaned forward until her face was mere inches from the vent. “When we first got here, I promised myself I wouldn’t be getting into a moving vehicle anytime soon, but now I think I want to live right here in this seat.”
“Not fond of the humidity, I take it.”
“I tried walking around in my bra and panties this afternoon, but I was still too hot.”
“That is something I would give up everything I own to see.”
“It wasn’t pleasant, Chai. I had no idea my legs could sweat. Did you know they could do that? When I got out of the shower earlier - my third one of the day, mind you, I put deodorant behind my knees.” I burst out laughing and Cat glared at me. “Is it always like this?”
“Honey, it’s winter right now. The weather is really mild.”
“That’s it. I’m moving to Alaska. It’s not swampy and humid there, and there’s no chance I’ll get chased by alligators.”
“Actually, it’s pretty humid in Alaska, and you might not get chased by a gator, but you could get eaten by a bear.”
“Don’t shit on my dreams, Chai. It’s rude.”
“Have you cooled down enough to help me decide where we’re going for dinner, or are you content to just sit here in the driveway and let the AC turn you into a popsicle?”
“Can I do that while we decide what to eat?”
“I suppose,” I said with a grin as I turned in my seat to watch her enjoy the AC. I almost swallowed my tongue when she pulled the neck of her shirt down so the air could blow across her chest. When she muttered “fuck it” and leaned back to lift the hem of her shirt up to her chin, I got lightheaded.
After several minutes of basking in the cold air, Cat looked over at me as she leaned back against her seat with a sigh and said, “We can go whenever you’re ready.”
“I could sit here for days just watching you.”
“I get it. Laugh at the foreigner as she tries to acclimate.”
“That has nothing to do with it. I was listening to those moans you were making and wondering if that’s what you might have sounded like if we hadn’t been interrupted last night.”
“Oh.”
“Is it?”
“Is it what?”
“What you sound like when you’re turned on.”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m going to make it my mission to find out.”
“You do that, Fish, but will you feed me first?”
“Honey, I’ll give you anything you want.”
Cat might not realize it yet, but I meant that in every way you could spin it.
I wanted her in all ways - mind, body, and soul.
◆◆◆
“Every time I watch you interact with the girls, it amazes me.”
I looked up and found Cat watching me but shifted my attention when Mackenzie squealed because I wasn’t shoveling food into her mouth fast enough.
“It’s not hard to do, you know. They’re adorable little giggle machines. How could anyone resist?”
“Charlotte barely remembers her father, and Mackenzie hasn’t even met him.”
I looked back over at Cat in confusion and asked, “He never met Macaroni?”
“I left him a year ago, and Charlotte was only three months old. I had no idea I was pregnant with Mackenzie until I was already in my first location of protective custody.”
“How long were you there?”
“By the time I had Mackenzie, just a few days after Charlotte’s first birthday, we had already been in three different locations. I called my father to ask him for help, and he assured me he’d find a way. Next thing I knew, a strange man showed up and whisked us away in the middle of the night.”
“Ajax is definitely strange,” I replied with a bark of laughter.
“When Ajax took us away, Charlotte was fifteen months old and Mackenzie was three months old.”
“That explains why Scumbag never met her,” I said before I spooned another bite of frozen yogurt from the container and held it out toward Mackenzie. Charlotte was enjoying her own bowl, or at least what managed to make it into her mouth, and since I wasn’t really one for wild toppings or additions, I had volunteered to share my plain vanilla with Mackenzie so Cat could put whatever she wanted on hers. “Now he’ll never get the chance. Are you okay with that?”
“I would go to the ends of the earth to keep them away from him.”
“No need to run anymore, Abbie-Cat. I’m not going to let anyone hurt them . . . or you. I promise.”
“He might send someone after me. He probably already has. They could be watching us right now,” Cat said worriedly as she looked around the square.
“Out of all the people who are sitting within my line of sight, I can assure you that none of them are nefarious assassins out to do you harm. That’s not to say that they’re all good people, but they’re not here to bother you.”
“How do you know?”
I chuckled before I said, “This might sound bad, but predators recognize other predators even when they’re hiding in plain sight.”
“Are you a predator?”
“In the grand scheme of things, I guess you could consider me one, but I prefer to use my . . . skills . . . for good instead of evil.”
“Skills?”
“I can and will protect you and our children just like I will always protect my sisters and their children.”
“Our children?”
“It might be moving a little fast to say that in the collective sense, but yeah.”
“Warp speed, don’t you think?”
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this crazy life, it’s that you should shoot for the moon just in case you’ve got a chance, and when you have a mission in mind, it should be your sole focus until you accomplish it. Once you do, you should hold on tight to make sure it never slips away.”
“That’s oddly prophetic but didn’t really answer my question.”
“You’re the moon, the sun, and the stars, Abbie-Cat. Once I get you in my arms, I’ll never let you go.”