“What? You’re not promoting ‘dialoguing’ and ‘collective creativity’ and ‘thought leadership’?” My voice felt as derisive as it sounded. “Karen wraps threats in buzzwords. There’s not much else there, not for me at least.”
Nathan didn’t comment.
“That was inappropriate of me. I’m still angry about a lot of stuff she’s doing.”
Nathan looked at me. “Not at all. We aren’t at WATT. In fact, WATT is no longer a client of mine. We are two friends talking about my fishing and your work.” He winked.
“Yes, but you know a lot about my work.”
“I also know you’ll figure it out. You’re good at your job, Mary.”
I gestured to the rod, ready to change the subject. He was slowly pulling in the line. The fly fluttered across the surface of the water. “So you grew up doing this?”
“My grandparents had a place in northern Minnesota. It was a tiny cabin on a lake with no indoor plumbing, and it was heaven. I used to spend as much time there as I could during the summers. Granddad wasn’t a talkative guy, but every now and then, after hours of silence, he’d reveal these great quiet truths. I should’ve written them down because I’ve forgotten most of them.”
“What’s one you remember?”
Nathan cast again. “He said that how people treat you is only 10 percent about you and 90 percent about them, so you need to be careful how you react and how you judge. You never know someone’s story.”
“Clearly a numbers guy. I like him.”
“An engineer at 3M for forty-three years. Definitely a numbers guy.” Nathan gave me more than a passing glance this time. “You would have loved him and he you.”
A fish saved me from a reply. Nathan immediately yanked his rod tip up and started pulling line in with his free hand.
“How can I help?”
He tilted his head to the soft turf beside me. “Can you get that net over the side without ruining your dress?”
“It’d be my second. There was a muddy hem issue yesterday.” I envisioned poor Sonia as I dropped my rod and grabbed the net. I pulled my skirt over my knees so as not to get it too dirty and knelt on the grass.
I scooped the net in a few times before emerging with an iridescent fish. It flipped and flopped, forcing me to wiggle the net to keep it inside.
“Here.” Nathan pulled me and the net up. He patted his hands against the wet sides of the net, then unhooked the fish. “About a thirteen-inch brown trout; what a little beauty.”
“Why’d you do that?”
“Fish are covered with a film. Dry hands will ruin it and hurt the fish, so you wet them in the water or on the net first.” He held up his “little beauty.”
“Now I feel bad; I didn’t know they needed that viscous coating. I used to wipe it off as a kid.”
“Ugh . . . Really?”
“We ate the fish,” I whined, sounding like a five-year-old. “It hardly mattered.”
“This one we’ll release, if you don’t mind.” Nathan smiled and dipped his hands and the fish under the water. He pumped it beneath the surface like winding up a Matchbox car and let it go.
“Too small to eat anyway,” I quipped, then retreated to the bench behind us. His pack of gum lay on top of his coat. I took a piece.
“Are you giving up?”
“I’m not very good at it and, you’re right, this dress makes it awkward. I’ll try it again someday, in my own clothes. Right now, I’d rather sit here and admire you while you fish.”
As the words left my mouth, I realized that, like a true aficionado, I’d just appropriated an Austen line. Mr. Bingley’s sister Caroline was a wonderful model for fawning adoration. She’d practically salivated over Darcy, and he was only writing a letter.
I sat and Nathan fished. The silence was light and lovely until I realized it wasn’t silence at all. The stream gurgled, birds chirped, something called in the distance. It was downright noisy—and perfect. I closed my eyes to enjoy every sound . . . and then opened them to watch Nathan, like a good and proper Caroline Bingley. He still faced the river and cast with ease. But there was a rhythmic quality to his motions, as if he wasn’t paying attention to what was in front of him. His shoulders lifted up then seemed to stiffen and broaden as they dropped back. I’d seen the gesture before. Nathan had made a decision.
“Mary?” He called and let my name linger in question, but he didn’t turn.
“Yes.”
“You know Isabel calls me TCG. She has nicknames for everyone. Have I heard about you?”
“I thought you knew.” I closed my eyes. I felt almost swamped with relief that he didn’t. But then . . . how fair was that? “SK.”
I expected him to take time and converge the girl with the nickname. He didn’t. “Will you translate it for me?”
“I can tell you when it started.”
He slanted a look my way.
“When we were about ten, my mom took us to Dallas to the American Girl store and we each got to pick out a doll. Isabel’s dad sent along the money to fund our expedition, so Mom said she could pick first. She chose Kit Kittredge.”
“Who?”
“She’s this spunky blonde from 1934, saves her family from the Depression and is a genuinely adorable heroine. Isabel beelined straight to her. She then spent the next hour cajoling me into picking Ruthie, Kit’s best friend.”
“Who you didn’t want?”
I shrugged, which he couldn’t see. “Not exactly. There was nothing wrong with Ruthie. She’s quiet, cute, loyal, and all good things, but it was more complicated than that, at least it felt that way even then. Isabel and I . . . It doesn’t matter. I bought Ruthie.”
I envisioned Ruthie, with her long, dark hair and her fine coat of dust, sitting in her box at the top of the hallway closet. “She’s probably a collector’s item now. The company doesn’t even make the sidekick dolls anymore.”
I froze.
“That’s it, isn’t it? SK. Sidekick.”
I shrugged again. This time he saw it. He turned back to the stream.
Einstein was right about the space-time continuum. Massive objects, or statements, or revelations, can cause a bending—a disruption. I sat in such a distortion now. I could physically feel him lining up WATT’s Mary with Isabel’s SK. I looked down the path—it seemed to tunnel away into the distance. Another distortion—that path hadn’t seemed so long before. It wasn’t a viable escape route.
“I’m sorry about your mom.”
“What? . . . Oh . . . Thank you.”
“You never told me. I mean you you. This is confusing, isn’t it?”
I took a quick breath and shifted the conversation. “So how’d you meet Isabel?”
Nathan studied me. “Did you ever mention me to her? Not that you would, but . . . Did you?”
I begged my face not to flush and my eyes to stay steady. “When you started at WATT I must have. You kinda flipped my world, work world that is, a little upside down.”
“I did, didn’t I?” His mouth lifted in a half smile. “I think everyone was terrified of all those interviews and me shadowing everyone. Only Moira took it in stride.”
“She would. But back to Isabel?” I wanted to know.
“We met at the Sahara Lounge last March. She was with Tiffany. Brad, her fiancé, and I have known each other for years.” He faced me. “I told her what I did and where I worked that first night, Mary.”