Fishing With RayAnne Read Online Free PDF

bad language. She doesn’t respond, just chews a cuticle while he takes a breath—she can tell he’s been smoking by the rattle.
    “Fish or cut bait, Ray. Stand your ground with those dykes; stick to your guns.”
    She holds the phone away and blinks at it before replying, “How do you know . . . ?” There are only two for-sure lesbians, and they happen to be the most reasonable of the lot. Still.
    A vehicle pulls into one of the reserved spots a few cars away—an old Jeep Wagoneer with wood-grained doors. Like Cassi’s car, it is so misplaced among the Volvos and Priuses that RayAnne unconsciously thrums the Sesame Street tune over her steering wheel: one of these things is not like the others. She leans to get a better look at the driver to see if it’s someone to avoid but doesn’t recognize him. Hardly the public television type anyway. She’s about to turn away when he pushes his sunglasses up into shaggy dark hair to lean over and lock the passenger side door.
    Manual locks? She absently wonders how old a car would have to be. He’s good looking enough. Eyes the color of . . . what’s the color, not corn-fed blue . . . “Oh. Corn flower .”
    “Corn-what?” Big Rick asks.
    “Nothing.”
    “Cuz if you’re thinking corn-holer, that’s a male gay, not a lezbo.”
    “Dad!” When she yelps, the guy looks up again and RayAnne finds herself suddenly eye-to-eye with him, albeit six car windows removed. While she might normally look away, she only blinks in response (like a cow, she later thinks), taking in the creases that sidle his mouth like charming parentheses. He has the tousled appearance of someone who gets out of bed at noon—like a musician. She sighs, Big Rick’s voice bringing her around. “. . . Cuz they’re all the same when you flip ’em upside down anyway.”
    “ Jeezus , Dad. I gotta go. Say hello to Rah . . . Ri—”
    “Rita.”
    “Well, you can’t expect me to keep them straight after five.”
    “ Six. It’s easy. Just remember B-A-D-G-E-R. Bernadette, Anne, Delia, Grace, Ellen, Rita .”
    “Nice. Hey, you called me, did you want something?”
    The guy is out of the Wagoneer now, headed her way. He’s wearing low-heeled boots and well-fitting jeans.
    “Nah, just thought you could use some advice.”
    “You bet. If I do, Dad, you’ll be the first person I ask.”
    He is approaching now and will pass her windshield in a second. His jaw is solid but not jutty like Leno’s, more a modified Dudley Do-Right with a shallower divot. What her brother Kyle calls “ass-chin.”
    “I’m good. Listen, I gotta go.”
    “Right. Keep your knockers up, Ray-Ban.”
    “Sure thing, Big Rick.” As her father hangs up she actually does adjust her posture, straightening as if thwacked by a nun.
    Approaching, the guy slows ever so minutely in front of her car. When he looks straight at her, she realizes the phone’s still glued to her cheek. As he passes, the parentheses of his dimples deepen as if he might be fighting a grin. If he really smiled, those dimples would crease into the most alluring ditches—the sort a girl might gladly fall into. Knowing such a smile might liquefy her, RayAnne sighs because it hardly matters, since he’s too good looking. Plus he carries some sort of instrument case, so of course he is a musician. In her experience, the only bigger pains than sponsors are musicians. As he passes, she whispers, “Buh bye . . .”
    The second he’s out of sight, RayAnne pulls down the visor to look in the mirror. She loathes, loathes her coloring, always pinking up at the slightest thing, like now, as if a glass of Malbec has been hurled at her. She can thank her mother for her Irish skin and her father for the boxer’s jaw, and right now is doubly annoyed at Big Rick for planting the mnemonic seed that will doubtless make her think of her mother Bernadette as the B in his BADGER.
    RayAnne frowns, scrutinizing. She has distinct traits from both parents—not