Though I was actually proud of going to work with him, I couldn’t stop worrying about the salmon runs. Each time I reminded him, he said, “Okay. I’ll think about it,” or “Stop asking, will you?” Then he went back to speaking with customers or giving commands.
By that night, I was starving. On the couch, I huddled in my jacket, trying to read Mystery of the Fat Cat, wishing I had enough friends to form a gang or that I lived someplace with interesting creatures like rats and cockroaches. My stomach clenched and gurgled, and I pictured myself sinking my teeth into Helen’s arm, like a famished rodent. I never used to worry about food. I feared I might cry, and this made me angrier. I threw down the book and went outside.
Misting rain drifted over the lot, gauzy halos shining around the hanging colored bulbs. No one stood near the trailer, the music turned low, Perry Como crooning softly as if from far away. Pine needles covered the asphalt, and I walked into a row of trees, hundreds tied in twine and leaned against two-by-four supports. Voices reached me, rising and falling, like the ocean from a distance. The corridor of trees became so gloomy that I froze, my senses overpowered by the smell of pine sap.
“André …,” I called. My voice broke, and I swallowed and tried to make my throat work. “André!” I shouted. Footsteps scuffed past beyond the trees and stopped.
“Hey, André!” a man barked. “Your kid’s looking for you.”
The footsteps scuffed off, and I pictured big rubber boots on indifferent feet, dragging through pine needles.
“Where?” my father shouted.
“Just over here,” the man said. “Over there.”
My father called my name, sounding tired. His silhouette appeared at the end of the corridor, his sou’wester gleaming faintly. He didn’t drag his feet but stepped quietly until he stood before me, his eyes lost beneath the rubber brim.
“What is it?”
“I’m hungry,” I said, trying to keep my voice under control, though it sounded whiny and on the verge of tears.
“It’s late. You should’ve told me before.” He spoke slowly, holding back his anger, and I forced myself to answer calmly.
“I didn’t know. I just realized.”
Hazing rain gathered on my face as I tried to read his expression.
“Come on,” he said. “I’ll order you a pizza.”
I followed him back between the trees, and in the space before the trailer, with the colored lights and chrome coffeemaker, the music and the blue tarpaulin tied up above the door, he shouted, “Helen, order Deni a pizza.”
“What kind does he want?” she called through the slit in the sliding window.
“Whatever. He’ll eat anything.”
He tried to smile and said, “Why don’t we get your room set up?”
We went inside, down the narrow hall of fake-wood paneling, to a flimsy door. A mattress lay on the floor, an upside-down plastic milk crate next to it, a lamp on top. He flicked the space heater on, and its front began to glow red. The air smelled of burned dust.
“Is this okay?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“You can read in here. Helen will bring your pizza. Then you can sleep.”
“Okay,” I told him, concentrating on keeping my voice steady.
He stared down, not into my eyes, but just seeing, as if I were something he’d found on the roadside. Then he forced a big smile.
“Goddamn it!” he said with the exaggerated enthusiasm he used when he flashed money or bought employees beer. “We should decorate your room, shouldn’t we?”
In the closet, on a shelf, he found a battered magazine. He opened it, and a long piece of paper, with the picture of a woman, folded out from the middle.
“Why is that page so long?” I asked, and took an easy breath, feeling that he might be normal again, that we were about to do something fun, and that if I were patient, there’d be another chance to ask about going salmon fishing.
“It’s called the centerfold,” he said and pulled the page free, the paper popping off the staples. There was a nail in the wall, and he pressed it through the top of the centerfold and stepped back.
A dark-haired woman wore only a long blue shirt. It was open in the front, and her nipples stared out from the white skin of her breasts. There were shelves behind her with old, serious-looking books.
“Do you like it?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “Is she in a library?”
He leaned close, furrowing his brow. “I guess so.”
“It’s strange that she’s in a library, isn’t it?”
“Well, I never thought about it …”
“What books do you think she’s reading?”
One lay on the floor, next to a blue sandal that had fallen off her foot.
“I don’t know. Anyway, she can keep you company tonight.”
“Can I take her home and put her up in my room?”
“Ah …” He lifted a hand and scratched his beard. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
I understood. My mother wouldn’t like it. This would definitely have to be a secret too. So I hesitated and then asked, “Do you think we can go salmon fishing for my birthday?”
He stared down. “You don’t give up, do you?”
“It’s because I really wanna go. It’s important.”
“Okay,” he said. “Okay. We’ll go salmon fishing.”
“You promise?”
“Yeah, I promise. Look, I have to get back to work. Helen will bring your pizza.”
After he’d left, I stared at the centerfold, wishing I had a library like the naked woman’s. The books appeared expensive, with covers as thick as those on encyclopedias, but when I tried to make out the names on the spines, I couldn’t read a single one.
✴
THE NIGHT BEFORE our fishing trip, I could hardly fall asleep. Then, as soon as I did, my father was waking me. My brother and I huddled into our clothes in the cold room, and we followed
