Raymundo “Ray” Mendez, 53, has built custom fishing rods out of his cinder block garage in Corpus Christi for 19 years. He’s stubborn to a fault, still sleeps on the left side of his king bed eight years after his wife passed from ovarian cancer, and has turned down every blind date his older sister has shoved his way, convinced any new romantic connection would be a slap to the memory of the woman he married at 24. He only showed up to the annual Nueces Bay Fish Fry to drop off the $1,200 custom inshore rod he’d donated to the youth fishing raffle, the smell of fried catfish and hushpuppies hanging thick in the humid coastal air, fully planning to grab one cold Shiner Bock and bolt before anyone could corner him about coming out to the bar later.
The zydeco band cranked up a cover of “Jambalaya” just as he turned to leave, and he stumbled a step, sloshing half an inch of beer down the front of a stranger’s faded work jeans. He started to stammer an apology, then looked up. She was in rubber boots caked with marsh mud, a frayed wildlife department hoodie tied around her waist, sun freckles spilling across her nose and cheekbones, and she was laughing so hard her shoulders shook, no irritation at all. “Relax,” she said, swiping a napkin off the nearby picnic table and handing it to him first, even though she was the one soaked. “I’ve had worse than beer spilled on me this week. Had a juvenile pelican barf a whole mullet down my shirt Tuesday.”
Their fingers brushed when he took the napkin, and he felt a jolt shoot up his forearm, warm and sharp, the kind of spark he’d convinced himself he’d never feel again. He hated himself for it immediately, his gut twisting with a sharp, hot shame, but he couldn’t look away from her eyes, hazel, flecked with gold, crinkled at the corners from smiling. She introduced herself as Lena, the new coastal wildlife biologist the county had hired six months prior, said she’d heard about his rods from the guys who ran the bait shop down the road. The band was loud enough that she had to lean in to hear him talk, her shoulder pressed firm to his bicep for ten, 15 seconds at a time, and she never pulled away, even when the song ended and the noise died down for a minute.
She pointed to the thin, pale scar snaking up his left forearm, asked how he got it. He told her about the 120-pound marlin that had ripped the rod out of his hands when he was 28, how he’d dove off the back of his 17-foot Boston Whaler after it, his wife screaming at him from the deck, how the rod’s guide had sliced his arm open when he caught up to it 50 yards out. Lena snort-laughed so loud a couple standing nearby turned to look. “That’s the dumbest macho bullshit I’ve ever heard,” she said, but she was grinning, holding his gaze longer than polite, her thumb brushing the edge of the scar for half a second before she pulled her hand back.
Ray’s head was spinning. Half of him was screaming that he needed to leave, that he was being disrespectful, that every person at the fish fry who knew his wife was watching them and judging him. The other half was hyper aware of the way she smelled, like coconut sunscreen and saltwater and the cedar chips she kept in her field bag, the way her jeans fit just tight enough to show the curve of her hip when she shifted her weight, the way she kept tucking a strand of dark blonde hair behind her ear and glancing down at his mouth when he talked. He hadn’t felt this light, this seen, in almost a decade, and the guilt tangled up with the desire so tight he could barely breathe.
She mentioned she was heading out at dawn the next morning to survey seagrass regrowth in the back bay, that her intern had bailed last minute because of a stomach bug, that she needed someone who knew the shallow channels well enough not to run her skiff aground. “You’re the only guy I’ve met around here who spends more time on that bay than I do,” she said, biting her lower lip just a little, like she was nervous he’d say no. He almost made up an excuse, almost said he had a custom rod he needed to finish for a client from San Antonio that was due at the end of the week, but then he looked at her, and the words died in his throat. “Yeah,” he said, before he could overthink it. “I’m free.”
They exchanged numbers, her fingers brushing his palm again when she handed him her phone to type his contact info in, that same warm jolt shooting up his arm. He left 10 minutes later, waving when she called after him to bring extra coffee. He drove home with the windows down, old George Strait playing low on the radio, the salt wind blowing through his hair. He didn’t feel guilty, not even a little, for the first time in eight years, like he’d been holding his breath since the day his wife died and just finally exhaled.
He walked in his front door, kicked off his boots, and grabbed his old leather-bound channel map off the shelf by the door, the one he’d marked up with every hidden flat and shallow cut he’d found over 30 years on the bay. He snapped a photo of the page marked for the north end of the seagrass beds, typed a note that the hidden cove a half mile west was the best spot to stop for sunrise, and hit send.
