Hemingway's Girl (3 page)

Mariella smiled and felt a surge of love for the girls. She moved Lulu’s arm onto
the mattress, pulled the threadbare sheet up over both of them, and kissed them each
on the head. She considered crawling into bed with them, but instead returned to the
front room to try to catch a little sleep on the couch before heading down to the
dock before they all woke the next morning.

In spite of her exhaustion, Mariella made it to the dock as the sun rose, warming
the sky pink and orange like the inside of a shell. The soft lap of the waves against
the pilings soothed her nerves, and she shook off the previous night’s loss. The dark
forms of the fishermen and their boats already out to sea dotted the horizon, and
just arriving at the docks were the tourists and wealthy sailors readying their boats
for pleasure cruises.

The sound of an engine turning over and sputtering out broke the stillness. Mariella
looked just down the pier to see a man in a crisp white sweater and khaki pants trying
to dismantle his boat’s engine, while his passengers, two elegant women wearing brightly
colored silk kerchiefs on their hair, and another impeccably dressed gentleman, looked
on in helpless confusion. The man reached into the engine and jerked back his hand,
cursing from the burn.

Mariella could see from the sweat on his brow and his troubled smile that he was embarrassed.
She walked over to the boat.

“Sir,” she said.

One of the women noticed her first, and ran her eyes over Mariella’s hand-me-down
men’s clothing with distaste. She turned her back to Mariella and pretended she hadn’t
heard. Mariella felt her cheeks burn with shame, followed by anger, and was about
to walk away when the other woman noticed her and smiled kindly.

“May I help you?” she said.

“I might actually be able to help you,” said Mariella, “if you let me take a look.”

The man working on the engine stepped to the edge of the boat.

“You know a thing or two about boats?” he said, wiping his clean, smooth hands on
a towel.

“Yes, sir.”

“Good,” he said, “because I was about to dismantle the whole thing and make a real
ass of myself. Come on up.”

Mariella climbed onto the boat, noting the wine and water chilling in the ice bucket,
the neatly folded blankets on the plush leather seats, and the oversized picnic basket,
no doubt full of fruits and cheeses for a late-morning snack. She ignored the rumbling
in her stomach, and her pride, and stepped over to the engine.

It didn’t take long for her to see the culprit of the engine troubles—a can was tangled
and shredded through it, sucked through machinery a little too powerful for its own
good. She knew she couldn’t get the can out with her bare hands because of the temperature,
but she was able to use a screwdriver and wire cutters from the man’s toolbox to disentangle
it.

The small party watched in silence while she worked. Though the air still held the
pleasant cool of morning, Mariella felt her shirt cling to the sweat on her back.
She could feel their eyes on her and wished she’d taken more care with her appearance
that morning. She hoped her solution would do the trick.

When she finished, she directed the man to start the boat. He turned the key and the
engine started up and settled into a gentle hum. To her pleasure, the group applauded.
She nodded and made a move to climb off the boat when the man stopped her and slipped
a bill in her hand. She thanked him and climbed onto the dock, where she unwound the
lines for them.

As they pulled out of the harbor and into open water, she looked down at the bill
and gasped. Ten dollars! It was more than what she’d lost the night before.

She said a silent prayer of thanks, suddenly feeling in her heart that her father
was with her.

The glare of the sun on the water told her the fishermen would soon return. Her father’s
friend Mark Bishop often let her deliver some of his catch to buyers for a small share
of the proceeds, and sent her home with good cuts of meat for her family. She stood
in front of one of the restaurants and watched the water for Mark.

“Hermosa!”
Nicolas Oliva called from the second floor of his restaurant, where he lived with
his wife and six children.

“Hola!”
called Mariella.

“You’re early!”

“Just trying to keep out of trouble.”

“You’d better. I got my eye on you!”

Nicolas disappeared from the window. Inside the house, one of the kids shrieked, her
giggles blending with the deeper rumbling of Nicolas’s laughter. An image of her own
father flashed through her mind, and a hollow spot formed under her breastbone. She
turned away.

Mariella rolled up the sleeves of her father’s old work shirt and wiped the sweat
from her forehead. She lit the cigarette she stole from Mark’s boat stand, adding
it to the mental tally she knew she owed him. Through the smoke, she smelled a terrible
odor, worse than rotting fish. She looked around the top of the pier but couldn’t
see anything. Then she looked under it. Something was caught in an old net by the
pilings. It looked like a shoe. She grabbed a nearby fishing pole and poked at it
to pick it up, but when she did she saw that it was the body of a man.

Mariella froze in shock. He was badly bloated and facedown. She worried that he was
a friend, but she didn’t recognize his clothes. The smell rose in waves, and she covered
her mouth to stifle a gag. She threw the cigarette over the side of the pier and ran
to get help.

“Shame you had to see that, missy,” said Deputy Bowler. “Fool was probably drunk and
fell in.”

Bowler was there that day, three months earlier, when they’d found her father’s boat
beating against rocks on the coast near the southernmost point of the island. Hal’s
body had already been loaded into the coroner’s truck by the time the family got word.
When Mariella arrived at the scene, the deputy held her back and wouldn’t answer her
questions or let her see Hal. She still hated Bowler.

All her mother would say after her whispered, tearful meetings with police was that
Hal had died of a heart attack and his boat was destroyed. Mariella thought his recent
drinking and depression over money troubles must have contributed to his stress and
pushed him over the edge, but she still had a hard time accepting it, and the loss
of the boat.

Their plans for the future, their dreams of a long row of shiny boats to haul rich
tourists on gulf excursions and sunset cruises, their ideas of making a living off
the water while helping impart its beauty to the travelers: all gone.

Mariella shook her head, dispersing her dark thoughts. It was time to work, not mourn.
Someone had to provide for them all.

“Who was he?” asked Mark Bishop.

“Dunno. No one reported him missing.”

As the body was loaded into the truck, Mariella felt a wave of grief at the unwelcome
reminder of that terrible day just a few months ago. She wished she remembered her
dad as the robust man he’d been, not as a lifeless face in a casket. She clenched
her jaw, dug her nails into her palms, and blinked away her tears.

Mark put his hand on Mariella’s shoulder. “Come on; I got a decent catch.”

They walked to Mark’s boat and she helped him unload the
snapper into the iced carts so he could take them to the restaurant owners and barter
his way to a few lousy bucks. Mark seemed to sense her need for silence. She liked
him because he didn’t feel he had to fill the quiet, and because he’d cried at her
dad’s funeral. She was glad for the simple, monotonous task of filling the carts,
because she hoped it would take her mind off her father and the dead man no one cried
for or demanded to see.

Mariella hadn’t forgiven herself for not going with her dad that morning. Hal would
usually wake before daylight and open her door a crack to let her know he was leaving
soon. In that time, Mariella would decide to either stay home to help with her sisters
or to join him. Most often, she’d slip on Hal’s hand-me-down fishing clothes, pull
her long black hair into a ponytail, and make their coffee. They’d walk through town
in the hush of early morning, meeting other fishermen along the way and exchanging
silent nods of greeting. Until the sun rose over the water, they never said a word.
That time was sacred.

Before long, Mark returned and didn’t have much for her. Just twenty cents and a fish
for dinner. Mariella thanked him, sliced up her snapper at the stand, wrapped it in
old newspaper, and rinsed her hands in a bucket of seawater. She slipped another cigarette
into her pocket and was moving west down the pier when she heard her name.

“Mariella?”

She turned to see Chuck Thompson, the owner of the hardware store, a man who gave
her odd jobs for small pay, standing on his boat with Ernest Hemingway, sunburned
and smiling. His dark hair was disheveled from the wind, and his white teeth flashed
beneath his mustache. She felt a jolt go through her and couldn’t help but smile—until
she realized what a mess she was, with fish blood on her father’s old shirt, rank
fish smell on her hands, and dirty, wet hair. She reached up to smooth it away from
her face, hoping they wouldn’t notice her burning with embarrassment.

“Hi, Mr. Thompson. Mr. Hemingway.”

“Call him Papa,” said Chuck.

“Papa,” said Mariella.

“You look like you’ve been working hard,” said Papa. His eyes traveled over her, and
when they met hers she felt the jolt again, in spite of her shame over her appearance.

“Still a beauty,” said Chuck.

“Come see what we brought in,” said Hemingway.

Mariella stepped over a big roll of rope and walked to the edge of the boat. Hemingway
reached down to her and she took his hand as he helped her on board. His hand was
big and hot, and she felt a current of electricity run up her arm. She hopped down
on the deck and saw, lying there, a gigantic marlin.

“Damn near took my arms off,” he said, “but she yielded in the end.”

“It’s beautiful,” said Mariella. Then she felt stupid for calling a big dead fish
beautiful, but it was. Its nose was pointed and fierce, but its eyes were big and
sad. Its silver-gray skin shone. She ran her hand down its side.

“It is beautiful,” he said. “Do you ever go out?”

“Used to, with my dad.”

“Ever see a marlin like this?”

She had, but she lied. “No.”

“You’ll come out with me sometime, huh?”

He winked at her. Was he flirting? Mariella felt her heart race.

“Sure,” she said. “I’ll teach you a thing or two.”

He threw back his head and roared with laughter.

Mariella climbed back onto the pier and started home. She pulled the cigarette out
of her pocket, lit it, and turned to wave at the men, but they were already tending
to the fish.