“A call came in for you while you were out, and I forgot to give you the message,” Eloise said. She held out a pink slip, and Eddie’s heart seized like an engine block without any oil. He needed an antacid, but they were in the console of his car-another reason he needed to leave. He feared the message was from Nadia, even though Eddie had made it clear she was never to call the office phone. Or it was Kenny Kasper. Maybe Barbie was right, and Kenny Kasper wasn’t really Kenny Kasper; maybe he was Special Agent Kasper from the FBI.

Eloise made the announcement before Eddie could snatch up the slip and read it. “The police chief called,” she said. “He wants you to go fishing with him tomorrow morning.”


Eddie felt as excited as a girl who has been asked on her first date. The Chief had mentioned something about fishing, but men threw out offers like that all the time and never followed up. The Chief had actually gone to the trouble of seeking Eddie out.

Eddie called the Chief back. They decided to meet on the North Wharf at five thirty the next morning and stay out until one or two in the afternoon. The Chief would bring sandwiches and beer and the rods. All Eddie had to do was show up.

Eddie raced home to tell Grace and both girls the news. Both girls were home for dinner.

“I’m fishing with the police chief in the morning,” Eddie said.

“Cool,” Allegra said.

Hope shrugged and nibbled a piece of asparagus from between her fingers, a habit Eddie found unseemly but that was sanctioned by Grace, who said Grandmother Sabine used to eat her asparagus that way.

Grace said, “Don’t forget that I’m going out Thursday night.”

“You are?” Eddie said.

“The Sunset Soiree, remember?” Grace said. “Garden club?”

“Right,” Eddie said. He didn’t exactly remember, but anything involving the garden club meant he was mercifully excused. “I just think it was nice of the Chief to invite me fishing. Of all people.”

“You hate to fish,” Hope said.

“No, I don’t,” Eddie said. “Not really.”

“Maybe it will be like that scene in The Sopranos,” Allegra said, “where they invite the guy fishing because they want to kill him, then throw him overboard.”

Eddie pushed his plate away. He had been enjoying his steak, mashed potatoes, and asparagus right up until Allegra said that. Indeed, the invitation was so unlikely that a part of Eddie believed it might be a planned sting. He would drink only one beer, he decided. He would take one when it was offered and nurse it all damn day; that way, he would be sure not to say anything stupid.


He awoke at four o’clock without help of an alarm; he was keyed up with nerves and excitement. He wore khaki shorts and white tennis shoes and a long-sleeved T-shirt from Santos Rubbish Removal, and he donned his Panama hat because he didn’t feel like himself without it. He bought a coffee from the Hub as soon as it opened, then stopped by his office to use the john and check his voice mails. He had been so addled by the fishing invitation that he had forgotten to call Nadia and tell her about Kasper Snacks that night.

He had time now. He wasn’t due on the wharf for thirty minutes. But he couldn’t start his day by calling Nadia and then segue right into fishing with the police chief. He would call Nadia later, he decided. He had to. The fishing invitation, while magical in its way, had not made Eddie’s financial problems go away.


The Chief had brought along his son, Eric, who was a student at Cornell’s medical school, to serve as first mate. The men all shook hands, and then they strolled down the creaking dock as the sun came up behind them, spangling the water gold and silver. There were other men climbing onto other boats and getting things ready-ropes, engines, ice chests, poles and reels and lines-but the dock was serene and picturesque to Eddie. It was another world, life on the water, apart from the hustle and bustle and commerce and traffic and errands and meals and shopping and cell-phone conversations on land.

The Chief’s boat was called The Castaways-this was a reference to Greg and Tess MacAvoy and Addison Wheeler and some of the Chief’s other friends, but Eddie didn’t want to broach the topic. He needed to grapple with the fact that he didn’t know the first thing about fishing. He had been fishing a couple of years earlier with clients, but that had been a drinking trip more than a fishing trip; there had been twelve guys and three mates on that boat, and Eddie had cast only twice, holding the rod for all of six or seven minutes.

The night before, Eddie had googled how to cast, and he watched an instructional video on YouTube-pull back the bale, hold the line with index finger, gently bring pole over right shoulder, then cast, and when the line hit its arc, let the line go. Then replace bale and reel in.

Anyone could do it.

Eddie said, “What can I do to help?”

The Chief handed him the cooler. “Stick this in the galley, would you? Eric and I will take care of getting the lines set. We’re going to troll on our way out, see if we can catch some bass off the bottom.”

Eddie carried the cooler to the galley. At least he knew the galley was the kitchen. He was so nervous about his lack of experience that he opened the cooler and plucked a Stella out of the ice. Eddie’s favorite. He flipped the top off, then wondered if he was being rude. Would Grandmother Sabine find him rude? Yes, undoubtedly. Eddie realized he should have waited for the beer to be offered, but, sorry, he couldn’t wait. He needed something to take the edge off right now.

He said to the Chief, “Hope you don’t mind, but I opened one of your beers.”

The Chief waved a hand. “Help yourself.” He and Eric were moving around the boat with skilled, precise movements, getting this thing ready and that thing ready. The Chief dealt mostly with the motor and the computer screen and the ropes and the hatches, while Eric handled the rods. There were big rods in holders and smaller rods that Eric was stringing with deft fingers.

The Chief finally started the engine, and Eric unlooped the ropes from the dock and stood out on the bow as the Chief backed the boat out of its slip. Eddie sat on the cushioned bench in front of the console and thought what a crime it was that he had lived on this island for so long and hadn’t learned a single thing about the sea.


Forty minutes later, they were fishing the cross rip off the tip of Great Point. The lighthouse was rosy in the soft morning light. Great Point marked the far north of Nantucket; it was pristine in its natural beauty, and yet Eddie hadn’t driven up the beach in years and years, since the girls were small. The water was the bluest Eddie had ever seen. It was amazing, this water, and there weren’t any other boats fishing the rip that morning. In the very far distance, Eddie could make out the faint smudge of Monomoy Point on Cape Cod. Seagulls sang out, circling overhead.

Eric and the Chief checked the fish finder and decided to anchor and cast some lines. They had been trolling since they left the harbor, but they hadn’t had any bites. The Chief dropped the anchor, and Eddie headed into the galley for a second beer, despite his vow to himself.

Eric said, “Eddie, you ready to throw a line?”

Eddie took a deep breath. Was he ready to throw a line? He stepped out onto the deck, set his beer bottle in one of the holders, and accepted the rod, which had a neon-orange lure shimmying like a showgirl on the end, from Eric.

“I’m ready,” Eddie said.

He held the rod over the side of the boat so that the lure dangled a few feet from the surface of the water. The sea was calm; gentle waves slapped the bow.

Eric said, “Would you like me to cast that for you?”

Eddie was just about to say, Yes, please! with a sigh of massive relief, when the Chief barked out, “Eddie can cast his own line, can’t you, Eddie?”

“Oh,” Eddie said. “Sure thing.” He looked at the reel and tried to play the video again in his mind. Something had to be moved one way or the other while he held the line. It was the bale, he remembered, and he flipped it over. He was to bring the rod gently back over his right shoulder and then fling the line way out into the water. At the arc, he was to let his finger go. There would be a satisfying whizzing noise, the sound of a skilled angler who had cast lines thousands of times and not merely looked it up online twelve hours earlier. Eddie was not a skilled angler, but he had always been good at faking it-faking it had been his surest strategy for success-and so he brought the rod back over his shoulder and flung the line. Out it went in a beautiful arc with the exact fluid motion he had dreamed he was capable of.

“Good cast!” the Chief called out.

Eddie beamed. He had never been prone to sentimentality, but he wished his father could have seen him. Edward Pancik from Purchase Street in New Bedford could cast a deep-sea fishing line with the best of them.

“Now, reel it in!” Eric said.

Yes, yes, Eddie had forgotten that part. He wasn’t sure how he expected to catch anything without reeling the line in.


The day only got better when Eddie caught his first fish. An insistent tug when he started to reel in his line told him there was definitely a FISH ON. He was on light tackle, which worked to Eddie’s advantage, as Eddie was left handed and his forearms proved to be stronger than he thought. Still, he had to fight the bugger, bending toward the water when he reeled in and easing up when the fish wanted to run; then, when the fish got tired, Eddie would reel in again. Eddie wanted to say he had the natural instincts for this, but, in fact, Eric was standing at his side, coaching him when to reel in and when to relax. Once Eddie got the fish close enough to the boat-when he could see the iridescent scales shining from just beneath the surface, Eric instructed Eddie to pull up gently while Eric leaned down with the gaff, speared the fish, and brought it aboard.

It was a striped bass, a beauty of a fish, shining and muscular as it twisted in the sun.

The Chief was delighted. “That’s good eating,” he said. “Grace will be happy with you tonight, bringing home dinner.”

Grace would be happy, Eddie thought. She loved freshly caught fish. But then he thought she might not even believe he had caught it.

“Would you take a picture of me and this beast?” Eddie said. He handed his phone to the Chief and grabbed the tail of the fish, which was still struggling for its life. But at that second, his phone started to ring.

“Call for you,” the Chief said. “Should I…?” He was staring at the screen with an inscrutable expression.

“I can’t believe you get reception out here,” Eric said. “That’s the thing I like best about fishing. No phones.”

Eddie did his best not to snatch the phone out of the Chief’s hand. It might be Nadia, or possibly one of the other girls. He should have shut off his phone before he got on the boat.

Eddie accepted the phone, then saw that the caller was Madeline.

“Jesus,” he said. He declined the call and closed his eyes for a second, trying to maintain his peace of mind. If he started thinking about business and money and his loan to Madeline and Trevor, his day would be ruined.

I caught a thirty-seven-inch striped bass, he thought. I caught dinner.

He gave the Chief a weak smile. “I should have left my phone on shore.”

“Maybe,” the Chief said.


The phone call from Madeline did not affect Eddie’s fishing karma-he immediately caught two bluefish. Then the Chief caught a striped bass a little smaller than Eddie’s, then Eric caught a false albacore, which was exciting because they were elusive. They pulled anchor and motored for the six-can buoy, where they stayed for nearly an hour without a bite.

“This is beat,” Eric said. His voice was impatient, and Eddie was surprised. Weren’t all anglers blessed with an infinite capacity for waiting it out? Eddie feared that Eric would want to give up and go home, and that was the last thing Eddie wanted. He could stay out on this boat forever.

Beer number three, then beer number four. Then Eddie stood up and took a leak off the stern. He had a buzz going; some food was probably in order.

As if reading his mind, the Chief said, “Let’s motor over toward Sankaty Head and have some lunch and try our luck there.”

“Good idea,” Eddie said. He flipped the top off a fifth beer and settled back on the cushioned bench, basking in the sun. He had caught dinner. He loved that idea.


He must have dozed off, because he woke up a while later as both the Chief and Eric were reeling in fish. Two striped bass-and the one on the Chief’s line put Eddie’s to shame. Eddie stood up to see if he could help, but he was afraid he would only be in the way, so he sat back down again, then realized he had to pee again, so he went back to the stern, and by the time he returned, both fish were up on the deck, and Eric was cutting them off the line.