Page 1 of Oceansong
One
Nick bolted toward Angie asthough the docks were burning behind him.
“Angela! Hey, come here!”
Angie cringed at the sound of her full name. Figures the jerk called herAngeladespite repeating to him over and over how she hated it. She’d only been home two weeks and already she felt like throttling him.
Nick was drawing closer.
Too tired to deal with him now, Angie lowered her head and turned the corner around the warehouse, blending into the evening crowd as they left the docks for the day, and lost him.
One last task to finish.
Stretching her fatigued legs, she walked to the dock’s edge to wait for the last fishing ship to arrive. She smiled as a cool breeze swiped her nape. She spied the forty-foot-long boat approaching, in awe at how its modest size so easily sliced through the thick waves.
Summers in Creston, her southwest Alaska hometown, were always her favorite time of year. Late May brought highs only reaching the upper forties, and the cold invigorated her and awakened her senses.
Beneath the deck’s wooden planks, the Bering Sea’s gentle lapping waves created a hypnotizingsplish-splash, splish-splash, carrying balmy, aromatic salt air into her nostrils.
So refreshing and calming.
The ship docked, jolting her from the moment of calm. Angie helped the sailors and fishermen moor it, grabbing ropes thrown to her and tying a round turn and two and a half hitches knot around bollard posts.
She itched to go home, doff her heavy boots and baggy pants, hit the shooting range for an hour, grab dinner with Bàba, and take a long, hot bathat her childhood home where she lived for the summer.
Workdays were long and physical. They weren’t doing her energy levels any favors. She was such a worn out twenty-four-year-old.
A group of fishermen stepped off the boat, dragging their trawler behind them. A red-bearded fisherman addressed her as he walked past. “Hey lady, help us sift through this? We’re running behind, and we still have to take weight and record everything.” Then under his breath: “Dying for a hot shower. I smell like stale shit.”
Angie chuckled. Had she been out at sea for three straight weeks, she’d feel the same.
She hesitated before answering. There was no need for her to stay. Yet, going through the catch would give her practice identifying fish. As an extra bonus, Nick would have to keep waiting. That didn’t bother her one bit. “Sure.” She followed them to the weigh station.
“How much today?” the red-bearded fisherman asked.
Angie half-listened to their rambling as she pulled out a pen and clipped a piece of paper to her clipboard.
“Half as much as yesterday,” his colleague replied.
“Same as the last two weeks, then. I don’t like this at all.” The red-bearded fisherman stroked his chin. “Where the hell are all the fish lately?”
Jotting the weight down, Angie frowned.
Not good. Less fish meant business would suffer, and so would her job. Then there was that issue of her tiny, self-sustaining fishing village not receiving their daily fish supply and not having enough to eat.
She would have to investigate.
A shiny, sea glass-studded bracelet fell from the trawler.
Rosie, her young niece, would love this deep-sea treasure, as she liked to call them. Angie’s gaze lingered on the bracelet before palming it. “Mind if I keep this?”
The red-bearded fisherman nodded without glancing at her.
Once they no longer needed her assistance, Angie said goodbye, fish report in hand, and scribbled down her daily duties to hand to Bàba.
Before she reached Bàba’s office, Nick Richelieu called out again, a raucous “There you are!” followed by a “Goddamn, woman! You’re hard to track down.”
“And yet, you managed anyway,” she spoke through clenched teeth.
