Storytellers: The Summer Knows
I handed my first book off to my editor on Monday. It finally feels real that my debut novel is really being published. After decades of writing and learning about writing, I have finally reached my goal of publication. I am not in it to make money. I have the writer’s yearning to see my words out in the world. I am one of those writers who would be happy if my story reached just one person. Storytellers shape the world. We are historians, anthropologists, and prophets. We are seekers of the human spirit. Like tapestry weavers, we thread different fibers of authentic experience into something new. Although my novel is not a factual account of my childhood or life, it still holds many threads of my experiences. Here is my favorite excerpt from the book, which reminds me of my childhood, growing up on the coast of Southern Florida.
The Summer Knows
The mangroves' roots jabbed through the sand, blackened fingers reaching for the water's edge. The little bait fish darted in the shallows, playing hide and seek in the roots. The water was clear, but a few feet out where the sand dipped sharply, the water turned coppery black, full of tannins from the dead mangrove leaves. Undeterred by the lurking specter of gators, Adrienne stepped into the water, her courage evident in her unwavering stride. Nothing could pass her keen senses without detection. The mudfish gulped at the air on the mucky banks, and the ballyhoo skimmed the water's surface. The egret tiptoed through the brambles.
With practiced ease, she nestled a few folds of her net between her teeth, freeing her hands to tame the rest of its wild expanse. Standing sideways to the water, her left eye on the black pool, she sought the tell-tale shimmer of the school of baitfish, a shudder on the surface. When she found her mark, she hurled the net out over the dark water. It fanned out into a disc before settling on the surface with a thwap! She hurried to pull it in, bringing the metal weights together like puckered lips to keep the fish inside. When the net reached the shore, hundreds of silvery bodies franticly danced in its clutches. She quickly tossed them into her bait bucket, her hands swiftly moving to catch each one. She didn’t lose one fish.
When her bucket brimmed with shimmering bait, she traded its weight for the lightness of her bamboo pole and threaded the hook with a small ball of wadded-up bread. Wading through the clear shallows, she found her spot, a small bowl of deeper water where the blue crabs congregated, searching for food. She let the dough ball sink into the pit, and the crabs scuttled over to inspect the bit of bread. Adrienne held her breath and listened to the pulse of her heart. When one of the crabs latched on, she yanked the line, and the crab popped out of the water, still clutching the ball. Adrienne grabbed the crab from its backside with her free hand so it couldn’t pinch her and stuffed it into a burlap sack hanging from her shoulder. She refreshed the hook with a new dough ball and persisted in her casting, not ceasing until each crab from the bowl had been consigned to her bag.
With her quota of bait secured and blue crabs destined for lunch, she surrendered to the embrace of the wet sand where the mudfish perched on her feet. She fed them bits of the bread they took from her hands. Piercing through the leaves, the sun made everything a kaleidoscope of light and shadow. Adrienne let her eyelids fall, immersing herself in the quiet, intense warmth of the late morning. It was here she was connected to all things as if she could lie back and be absorbed into the sand and the water. What bliss to evaporate into all things alive and green, she daydreamed.
An unexpected ripple to her left shattered her serenity, compelling her eyes to flicker open. She sat up, her clothes wet from the damp sand, her arms sugared with the refined grains. She spied a red ribbed fin cut out of the water for a moment, and the thrill of the hunt was on. A snapper, too large for the shallows, had followed the baitfish and stranded itself in the mucky bay, the mangrove roots acting as a makeshift prison cell. Adrienne crept through the water, making little wake or sound. The fish was too disoriented to notice her come upon it. She put her arms into the tannin-soaked pool as if she was about to hug it. Its cool, smooth scales slipped across the tips of her fingers. And gently encircled it with her hands, bringing the tired thing out of the water. There was a calm acceptance of its fate in its eyes, an underwater surrender mirrored back at her.
She brought its gasping face close to her face, smelling the sweet, fishy scent of the snapper. Its eyes pulsed as it spied on her, its beauty not lost. For a suspended heartbeat, she was entranced by the mosaic of red and white scales, their luster unmarred by the struggle. Then, she laid it on the sand and swiftly slit its belly, the entrails spilling out, throwing these to the baitfish, who furiously frothed to claim a morsel in the bait bucket. The snapper went in the big ice chest by the live wells up by the market before Adrienne turned to the marina.