Chapter 44
Hey, Shakespeare, any plans this afternoon?” Tommy texted Harper one sizzling summer Monday in late June.
Harper had been stuck on a scene in her book when she felt her phone buzz. She perked up when she saw it was from Tommy.
“No plans. Trying not to melt. What’s up?” she asked. Play it cool, she told herself. Don’t be too eager.
“The Sin Bin is super quiet. Hamilton said he’d watch the bar for me. Good day for fishing. Want to come?”
She was thinking through her reply when she saw his three dots flashing.
“You don’t have any ethical concerns about fishing, right?”
“Fishing’s fine. Not as cute as Bambi.”
“Tastes better than venison, too. Cool. Pick you up in thirty. Bring Pippi. Mom made us some snacks. She said she’ll grill up anything we catch.”
Harper sent a thumbs-up, saved her document one more time, and closed her laptop.
“Well, looks like we’re going fishing.” Pippi’s ears perked up at the word “going,” and she hopped onto the tote bag that Harper used to carry her.
“Yes, that’s right. You get to go, too.” Pippi’s separation anxiety was surpassed only by Harper’s.
They’d become so close, and Harper hated leaving her home.
Harper smiled at the unexpected chance to get outside, to try something new, and to do it all with Tommy.
She realized she thought about him quite a bit and often wondered if they’d ever be more than friends.
He was great to hang out with. He was well-read, kind, and funny.
He was a responsible adult, not living off a dream or a trust fund.
He wasn’t trying to be an influencer—he even had his own business and had told her about opening another on the family farm.
She just didn’t know if this was friend zone or . . . more. And what was the point, really, if in a few months she was going back to New York anyway?
When she’d told Mary and Dot how she was feeling, Mary told her to snap out of it.
“Not everything has to be so deep, Harper! Let yourself have some fun for a change. You’re a gorgeous, talented, whip-smart young woman and he likes you. So, let him!”
Harper pulled on khaki shorts, a royal-blue V-neck tank, and her baby blue canvas sneakers.
Her legs were pale as she sunburned easily and stayed out of the sun. And she hated the smell of self-tanner, so she never used it. Plus, the time she’d tried applying it in college, she’d ended up with orange hands for a week.
“You’re supposed to use latex gloves to protect your hands, Harp!” Dot had tried to help but even bleach couldn’t remove the stains.
“Rookie mistake. Next time call a pro.” Mary had showed off her perfectly bronze legs to make her point. For a week, Harper had kept her hands in her pockets any time she went out in public.
Harper stood in front of the entryway mirror, posed with her pale legs, and took a selfie. She sent it to Mary and Dot.
“Does this say ‘Yes, I’ll go fishing with you but don’t get any ideas’?”
“Why wouldn’t you want him to have ideas?” Mary responded immediately.
“I don’t want to come off as too interested.”
“But you are interested!” Dot said.
“Just tell me—should I look more sophisticated?”
“To go fishing? No. If anything, wear shorter shorts and just a sports bra.” Mary wasn’t helping.
“I think your outfit is perfect. You don’t want to be too dressed up. Just go have fun!” Dot was trying to build Harper’s confidence.
“And don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Mary said.
“Don’t worry. It’s not like that.”
Dot jumped in. “He’s taking an afternoon off to bring you along for his favorite thing.”
“Hopefully fishing isn’t his favorite thing.” Mary added a winking emoji.
“You two are so helpful. What would I do without you?” Harper’s sarcasm showed through their screens.
“Have fun and tell us everything later!” Dot said. Mary sent her signature xoxo.
In the end, Harper decided she’d stick with the outfit she’d already put on. Her anxiety was already off the charts and changing again might put her over the edge and have her cancel on the entire afternoon.
Looking around the bench with Mary and Dot’s summer gear, she threw sunscreen and bug spray into her backpack.
Her hair frizzed terribly in the humidity and it was hard to get all the stragglers into a red silk scrunchie.
She pulled a floppy sun hat with a string to hold it in place down over her head.
She looked at herself in the mirror one last time. She turned from side to side to get a sense of how she looked.
“Not so bad, eh, Pip?” she said, grabbing her sunglasses.
A horn honked and she raised onto her tiptoes to peek out the window.
Tommy arrived in his old, black F-150 pickup that pulled a fourteen-foot Lund with an outboard motor.
“If my brother could see me now,” she thought, “he’d make me pay for some carbon offsets for riding in such a gas guzzler or forever be labeled a hypocrite. ”
Tommy popped out of his side and came around to open her door. She didn’t recall any guy ever doing that for her. Though, to be fair, most of the guys she dated didn’t drive. They were city kids who charged rides to their parents’ Uber accounts.
Her stomach did a little flip, a feeling she’d not had since her breakup.
“Hello!” she called, waving to Tommy. She climbed into the pickup, settled Pippi on her lap, and buckled her seatbelt. Tommy made sure she was fully in her seat before he gently closed her door.
“You look great!” Tommy said through the open window, and for a moment, Harper believed him.
ONCE THEY WERE on the water and Tommy had found a spot he liked to drop anchor, he grabbed the tackle box and handed Harper a fishing pole.
“So, how do I do this?”
“Well, first you need some bait.”
“Please don’t tell me you actually use . . .”
“Some of these.” He pulled out a small bowl and took the lid off.
“Tommy! That’s so gross!” she said as she spied night crawlers writhing around in some muck.
“Might be gross to you, but it’s lunch for them.” He pointed to the fish below the surface of the pond.
She tried not to gag.
“I’ll do it for you, don’t worry.” He took her line and starting baiting the hook.
She turned her head around and tried not to look.
After the worm was on the hook, Tommy wiped his hands with a cloth and then came behind her on the boat.
“Now let’s get these little suckers in the water,” he said, putting his hands over hers and showing her how to cast a line. She was glad when the squiggling night crawler was out of her sight.
He repeated the routine for himself, and they both sat down and looked around the lake. The water was clear that day, the sun a bright blue with some puffy white clouds for decoration, and the treelined shore hugged the narrow sandy beaches.
“This is like being in a postcard,” Harper said, grateful for the breeze that cooled her skin.
“One of my favorite spots,” Tommy said. He reached into the cooler and brought out some flavored seltzers.
“A cocktail, madame?” he asked, faking a British accent.
“Don’t mind if I do.” She tried to mirror his attempt. “Have you thought of everything, Mr. Darcy?” She surprised herself with a flirtatious tone.
“Hope so, Miss Bennet. Because it’s a long way back to the truck,” he said.
That he was well-versed in Jane Austen made her smile. She thought of Kai and how he only looked at hot chicks on Snapchat or surfers catching double overheads.
They sat for a while in comfortable silence until Harper wondered what was next. Pippi was fast asleep on her back, all four paws in the air, not a care in the world.
“So, now what do we do?” she asked Tommy.
“Now we wait.”
“For how long?”
“Until they bite.”
“How long until they bite?”
“Until they’re hungry.”
“Oh.”
“Yep. So now we just wait . . .”
“But . . .”
“Quietly.”
Oh.
“But when will we . . .”
“The fish decide.”
Double oh.
Harper had no choice but to sit and wait. There was never a nibble on her line. After a while, she fell into a quiet meditation and came up with a few ideas for her plotline. Pippi curled up on the seat between them, alternating between looking around and snoozing.
At one point Harper also felt sleepy, but then she realized that she wasn’t tired.
She was just relaxed. She wasn’t used to this feeling of being chill and carefree.
In New York, she always felt like she needed to move.
There was so much to do and see. And so many people to keep up with and compete against. There was constant movement, and she loved that racy feeling.
Fishing was so boring, but maybe slowing down was good for her.
She pictured herself taking a rod down to the East River where the old-timers fished on weekends, just hanging with them, listening to their stories, and then bringing back her catch to gut and clean her fish with a big, sharp knife and cook in her tiny kitchen, her roommates gagging at the smell.
Except so far on this first voyage into the world of fishing, there was one little problem. They’d not had even a nibble on either of their lines.
The sun started to make its way to the exit, and Tommy said he was sorry they hadn’t caught anything.
“Ready to go?” he asked.
“No. I’d rather wait.”
“For what?”
“Until they’re hungry.”
“But now I’m hungry.”
“How can we leave without a fish?”
“That’s the best part about fishing. There’s always tomorrow,” he said, as he packed up.
“So that’s it—we just leave?”
“We live to fish another day.”
“Whatever happened to beginner’s luck?” she asked. “I was looking forward to, like, a filet o’ something . . .”
“How about I make it up to you and take you to the Ugly Walleye for dinner?”
“That sounds . . . horrible.”
“The uglier the walleye, the better the taste. I promise—it’s good.” Tommy put their poles away, started up the engine, and got them back to shore.
AT DINNER, THEY sat outside on the patio. A local jazz trio entertained the diners, and Tommy and Harper ate their fill of walleye, lemon mashed potatoes, and corn on the cob. They hand-fed Pippi little bites off their plates as they chatted easily about growing up.
“Name your favorite board game,” he said.
“Great question. I loved Clue, but my brother always wanted to play Monopoly. You?”
“We had an old game of Life at my grandparents’ house, and they loved to play that with us. That was probably my favorite. I kind of liked Operation, too.”
“Oh, that one gave me a lot of anxiety. My hands are shaking just thinking about those tweezers.” She shook her head at the memory.
“You’re cute even when you’re anxious,” he said.
“You really think so?” She blinked.
“I do.”
As the sun started to set, Tommy went inside to pay the bill, and Harper decided to check her phone. She opened Instagram and did a double take. Two-timing Kai had liked the selfie she’d posted of herself and Pippi at the lake. She hadn’t had any communication with him in months.
“The nerve!” she said. But she was curious why he’d like that photo. Why now? Was he lonely after getting dumped again? Or was he just bored? Or did he miss her?
She thought about DM’ing to ask how he was, and why he’d liked her picture. But a different feeling came over her. She realized he’d probably liked it because she looked happy. And she felt happy.
Kai did not make her feel happy. But Tommy did.
So, instead of responding to the like, Harper clicked on his name.
Her finger hovered over the mute button.
“Mute stories and posts?” She hesitated.
Then she did the right thing and hit “unfollow.” And just like that, she was free of Kai.
She looked over the water and imagined him receding until he was almost out of sight.
“Bye!” she said.
“Who are you talking to?” Tommy had just returned.
“Oh, no one. Absolutely no one.”
“Ready to go?”
“Ready.”
Harper picked up Pippi and they made their way to Tommy’s truck.
Before opening her door, he looked her in the eyes and said, “You’re one of a kind, Harper Lee Adler.”
“Is that a good thing?” She thought that’s what he meant, but still she searched his eyes for interest.
“It’s a very good thing.” He reached out and gently bopped her nose, then brought his lips to hers. A gentle warmth flooded her body. Feeling brave, she put one arm around him and held onto Pippi’s leash with the other. He put his hand in her hair.
“My hair is so . . .” she said, through the kiss, embarrassed by the frizz.
“Beautiful,” he said. “Your hair is beautiful.” They kissed for several moments, enough that Pippi finally barked at them, as if to say, “What about me?”
Tommy pulled back reluctantly and said, “Let’s get you home.”
As Harper buckled in and looked back at the lake, the stars coming out in the sky, the band’s music still reaching them in the still night, she had a strange feeling.
For the first time in her life, somewhere besides the city felt like home.
In fact, for Harper, on that warm summer night, Manhattan had never felt so far away.