FICTION

By Steven Lang

She was short and thick, with dry, blood­shot eyes and skin as white as the belly of a fish. Even when she was crying—which was often—tears rarely came. She’d rub the backs of her hands into her eyes until they red­dened, and if she ever did tear up it wouldn’t last long. She did this a lot, this dry-eyed crying and eye rubbing. But who would­n’t if they had that super­nat­ur­al fish-belly white skin? Out of joy, if nothing else, so daz­zling was that skin. And her belly! Like no belly I’d ever seen, except for the belly of some­thing hooked at the end of a line of ten-pound test: a rock-salt white, like the glimmer you see when you’re reeling in a crappie as it swerves through the water in sewing-needle stitch­es, the sun blind­ing you while the sparkling belly cuts back and forth, back and forth. Barb’s belly was like that.

Her name, when I first heard it, made me think of a fish­hook. So much like a crappie she was, both in name and in belly, that even now I envi­sion her mouth pulled to one side, the metal shank and eye of a huge fish­hook pro­trud­ing from pursed lips, her belly befud­dling me in my attempt to pry the hook loose.

Our first meeting had been pre­arranged. We were to meet in an ice fishing house on Lake Mille Lacs in central Min­neso­ta. The direc­tions given to me by email were: Drive onto the ice at Goose Landing, go one mile due west (use a compass if you have to), and stop at the yellow ice­house marked “Ol’ Yeller.” Noon, this Sunday, (Valentine’s Day). Don’t bring anything—we’ve got you.

            I arrived early. The empty, unlocked ice­house was colder inside than out, but a small wood­stove waited in a corner. Thick, insu­lat­ed car­pet­ing covered the walls from floor to ceiling. A hole in the ice beckoned—it must have been cut just recently—but there wasn’t any tackle that I could see. Fishing would have to come later. I removed my buck­skin chop­pers and pulled out my new phone. Lake Mille Lacs is over two hundred square miles and an hour from any­where, yet recep­tion was good. Sur­pris­ing­ly good. I sat on a small bench, put my phone down, and took note of a lone Sty­ro­foam cooler. Nothing about the cooler sug­gest­ed it was off limits, so I lifted the top. Inside was a six-pack of canned beer. I removed a can and popped it open. Ice cold, but not frozen. I took a sip. Bubbles of carbon dioxide danced between my teeth. I had to ask myself: Who drives a mile onto a frozen lake and sits in an ice­house drink­ing beer alone on a winter after­noon that might be better spent in any number of dif­fer­ent ways? Me, that’s who. Me and prob­a­bly ten thou­sand other dudes across this god­for­sak­en state.

That was when she walked into the ice­house, grabbed a can of beer for herself (after eye­balling mine) and told me her name. Which I already knew: Barb. Almost right away she showed me her belly. She simply lifted up her shirt, and there it was, so per­fect­ly white, so blind­ing­ly, eerily fish-like that I lost my mind right there and put my hand straight out to touch it. As soon as I did, she dropped her shirt imme­di­ate­ly, or almost imme­di­ate­ly, but actu­al­ly too late, because now my hand was under­neath her shirt and things were not looking ter­ri­bly good. But before I could pull my hand away, she pulled her shirt back up again. When for the second time I saw her smooth, white, eggshell-of-a-belly (so perfect, so round, like a glass of milk), I pulled my hand away in defense of my own sanity. Finally, she spoke: “Put it back.”

“My hand?”

“Yes.”

“If I do, are you going to pull your shirt down again?”

“Prob­a­bly not. Your hands are nice and warm. Well, at least that hand is.”

She looked at my right hand, the one that wasn’t holding a cold can of beer inside a cold ice­house on a cold, clear Feb­ru­ary day on Lake Mille Lacs, where it was five below zero and fore­cast to get even colder. Now, because of all that, I felt that pos­sess­ing a warm hand was pretty sen­sa­tion­al. I was glad she remarked on it, and I told her so. Then I put my hand back on her belly. But right away she lowered her shirt again.

“Why did you do that?” I pulled back my hand.

“Because I don’t love you,” she said.

I took another sip of beer. “Well, we just met. Just this very minute. So that’s fine. That’s normal.”

“Normal? Normal is out the window. Think about it. You fell in love with me right away.”

I thought about it, and by God if she wasn’t right.

“You might as well admit it.” She stared at me and threat­ened to pull her shirt up again. She said nothing else, but gripped her shirt while taking a quick sip of beer, then another, and another, which was a nice way of saying, “Don’t take too long.”

I just wanted to think for a few more sips, and then I’d say some­thing. But by the fifth and final sip, which was more of a chug, she crushed the can, and my time was up.

“Okay, fine. I fell in love with you right away,” I admit­ted. “But so what?”

It was a test of some sort, that’s what. And maybe that’s why Maggie and Jim were not there yet. And maybe that’s why they had asked me to come up from Min­neapo­lis in the first place, to meet Barb as a test, and to sup­pos­ed­ly fish, drink beer, and enjoy the lake ice. And, while I was indeed plan­ning on doing those things, there was this short, pale, gor­geous­ly-bellied woman staring at me (and yes, I was in love with her, but so what?) inside an ice­house in the middle of a big frozen lake. Why did she have to go and show me her coconut-meat-like belly? Like a mush­room in a chil­dren’s book. Like a rising loaf of sour­dough. Like looking out through the port­hole of a dark sub­ma­rine and seeing, perhaps for the first time, the lumi­nous white belly of the Whale-of-Life. But this was no ordi­nary lumi­nous white belly of the Whale-of-Life. I real­ized right then that Barb’s belly was more than I could have ever hoped for. There was absolute­ly no point in denying it.

“Okay, here.” She pulled her shirt up again. A little farther this time, for empha­sis. This caused me to take a half step toward her. It must have been the half step that crossed the line this time, because right away she shoved the crushed beer can into my chest and dropped her shirt.

“Stop,” she said.

I stopped. “Okay, but I’d appre­ci­ate it if you would just keep your shirt down all the way.”

“That’s fine.”

I didn’t know exactly what fine meant, but it was obvi­ous­ly fine, so I thanked her. She opened the lid of the cooler, pulled out two more cans of beer, and offered me one. “Here, drink this.” I took it with my left hand, the cold Min­neso­ta hand that she didn’t know about yet. And she prob­a­bly never would, I figured, because just then she began to cry. The crying was dry, and soon her eyes were blood­shot red. Red like two lit cherry bombs. Red like gun­pow­der, if gun­pow­der were red. Red like two smoke alarms, the old-fash­ioned kind, both ringing at once. I don’t know why on earth I loved her so much, so soon, but I did.

“Do you like winter?” I asked.

“No, I hate it. But I hate summer more.” She looked down at her buck­skin chop­pers, iden­ti­cal to my own. “I hardly go outside in the summer. I would get sun­burned right away, and I refuse to burn.”

“That’s prob­a­bly smart, con­sid­er­ing your…skin tone.”

“You should stay out of the sun, too, with that bald head of yours.”

My stock­ing cap covered my entire head and fore­head, so Maggie and Jim must have tipped her off. I backed up. She sniffed a dry sniff, then opened her can of beer. I did the same. I was impressed she could pop it open with chop­pers on, and I might have com­pli­ment­ed her, but she was still trying to cry. I took another step back and hit my heel on the bench. My phone slid down and landed on the ice, stop­ping right at the edge of the fishing hole. Over the edge, actu­al­ly, but a thin sheet of new ice had formed, saving it from falling in. It was going to be okay. I just had to go over and pick it up.

“No, don’t.”
I looked back at her. “But, it’s my new phone.”

“Leave it,” she said. “Just look right here.” She pointed at her belly.

“It’s brand new.”

“Do you see this?” She pulled her shirt up again and exposed her downy-white belly, like a bale of cotton, like a sheet of fine parch­ment, like a sundial at noon.

“Yes, I see it.”

“Now, con­cen­trate.”

I looked at the light ema­nat­ing from her belly. It was the kind of white light you die into when you die of old age, in hospice, sur­round­ed by the very best doctors and all your impor­tant loved ones after a greatly suc­cess­ful and impos­si­bly ful­fill­ing life.

“I said con­cen­trate.”

“I am concentrating.”

“You’re just staring.”

As I focused on her belly, trying to con­cen­trate but not stare, the wind blew the ice­house door open, reveal­ing a crisp white page of frozen lake. Light rup­tured the space between us and I stood impo­tent before her and her white, white belly which she held exposed.

“Take a step,” she said, “toward me.”

Voices echoed from across the ice. I took a step.

“Your phone is about to fall into the water. It’s sliding as I speak. But! Don’t turn around. Just look right here, at me, and every­thing will be absolute­ly fine.”

I was about to ask her what she meant by fine this time when she began to cry again. That was when I heard my phone plop into the water. But I didn’t turn. Instead, I kept looking at her belly, vellum-white, scrip­ture-pure. Her player-piano-scroll-of-a-belly. Her wedding-cake-frost­ing belly. Her bleached-linen-pil­low­case belly. She began to tremble. Her belly shook, and she dropped her shirt again. She set the beer can down and put her chop­pers up to her cheeks. I believed this was all I would ever again see of that belly, even if she stood there forever trying to cry, even if I stood there forever waiting for her. I also believed her tears would never come, but I was wrong, because at last her eyes began to glisten with saline. Soon, huge droplets fell from her eyes, onto her cheeks, and onto the smooth buck­skin of her chop­pers, turning them dark in streaks. She pulled them off and threw them into the fishing hole.

The ice­house door blew closed again, slam­ming loudly, and she reacted with a shriek. This, I thought, is all my fault. But now she was looking behind me, toward the hole in the ice. I turned around, and there was my phone.

“It just popped back up,” she said. “By itself.” She pointed. “Check if it still works.”

I reached for my phone. It was wet, cold, dead. I dried it on my jeans and warmed it under­neath my arm. I rubbed it on my nose for luck. When I pressed and held the power button it vibrat­ed and came to life. A second later it rang. I looked at the caller ID: an unknown local number. I turned to Barb.

“You’d better answer that,” she said.

Yes. Of course. Answer it. I pressed the blink­ing green receiv­er icon, twice, because it didn’t work the first time. “Hello?”

It was Maggie. She said she was using Barb’s dad’s phone. Of course it was Barb’s dad’s phone. It was Barb’s dad’s ice­house. And Barb’s dad’s beer. And Barb’s dad’s daugh­ter, Barb, herself, was here. And Maggie and Jim were Barb’s friends, and my friends too, and they were going back to Barb’s dad’s cabin to get more of Barb’s dad’s beer. Had we found each other? Did we need anything? 

“Yes,” I said. “Bring back an extra pair of choppers.”

Will do. The call ended. I put the phone in my back pocket. Barb had been rubbing her eyes the entire time, and once again her tears were failing her. She looked at her wet chop­pers float­ing in the fishing hole like two tiny lifeboats.

“I can tell you’re glad you came,” she said. “Am I Right?”

How unre­mark­able I must seem to her, I thought. How unwor­thy, how undig­ni­fied, how un-crappie-like, how un-bellied. “No,” I said. “You’re not right.”

“Sure, okay.”

The crying ended. We went on to have a boring con­ver­sa­tion, the usual kind, about where we worked, where we had gone to school, how each of us had met Maggie and Jim, whether we actu­al­ly liked ice fishing or merely the idea of it. Finally, we heard the sound of a car pulling up to the ice­house. That was when she said, “I need you to do some­thing for me.”

“What?” I asked, in a voice that betrayed I’d do prac­ti­cal­ly any­thing at all.

“When you tell this story someday, I need you to lie.” She clicked her heels togeth­er and crossed her arms. “I need you to say that when we first met, we just shook hands and talked. I never showed you my belly and you never touched it. Your phone never fell into the water, and it never popped back up on its own. I need you to forget all that. And I need you—need you—to say we didn’t fall in love right away. Instead, we fell in love later, over time, like normal. Do you think you can do that?” She pulled up her shirt one last time, giving me one last hyp­not­ic glimpse, like the last frame at the end of the last movie ever made. “Well?”

I thought for a moment, and simply nodded. Though I con­tin­ued to nod, I sensed she did not believe me. She lowered her shirt, and with it her expec­ta­tions. As Maggie and Jim opened the door, I looked back at the hole in the ice. Her chop­pers were gone.

This story orig­i­nal­ly appeared in Stonecoast Review Issue 19. Support local book­sellers and inde­pen­dent pub­lish­ers by order­ing a print copy of the mag­a­zine.

Photo by Fed­eri­co Burgalassi.