Two Thin Dimes (6 page)

Jamaica's hands flew up and she covered the lower half of her face. “Oh my God! Uh-un, are those what I think they are?”

Tameer smiled and nodded. “Yeah, they're fishing poles.”

“But you brought two of them,” Jamaica told him.

“Yeah, one for me, and one for you.”

“But I don't fish,” Jamaica said flatly.

“Why not?”

Jamaica turned and began pacing, as her hands flew through the air. “Because they have restaurants that kindly get out and retrieve them for you.”

Tameer unloaded the fishing poles from the trunk, and placed them on the ground next to the white Styrofoam ice chest. “Well, we are going to retrieve some for ourselves.”

Jamaica stopped pacing. “You speak French, I see.”

“Huh?”

“You said ‘oui,' so I assumed that you were speaking French. Unless of course, you are royalty, or, you have a hamster in you pocket.” Jamaica turned and smiled at Tameer with a polite defiance. “Because if you meant ‘we', as in you and me, then you are sadly mistaken.”

Tameer continued unloading the trunk, ignoring her ravings. His ignoring her, only angered her more.

“Did you hear me?” Jamaica shouted. Her tiny fist pounded the air defiantly. “I do not fish!”

Tameer continued unloading the trunk in silence, until finally, he removed his last piece of equipment. He closed the trunk of his small car, and lifted several pieces of fishing equipment from the ground. With his hands full, he turned to her.

“Jamaica, could you grab that tray, and that tackle box for me?” he asked politely.

“Could I grab that for you?” she shouted.

Tameer nodded. “Yeah. Please?”

Jamaica's hand flew into the air, where she placed her palm in front of his face. “Wait a minute, Tameer, let me explain something to you. This is supposed to be a date. I am not supposed to carry things, I am not supposed to push cars, I am not supposed to hold greasy jumper thingys, and I am not supposed to eat food that comes from underneath a heat lamp!”

Before she completed her sentence, Tameer had turned away. He walked down a small, worn, dirt path which led to a grassy knoll just off the lake, leaving Jamaica all alone. Her loneliness caused her to scream.

“Tameer!”

Tameer ignored her calls as he continued walking along the banks of the lake. It infuriated her even more. Alone, the silence of the lake soon became eerie, causing her to examine her surroundings. Quickly, Jamaica lifted the plastic tray and tattered, gray, metal tackle box, and rushed along the path after her date. She continued to call to him along the way.

“Tameer!”

Soon, Jamaica reached the clearing at the end of the dirt path, which allowed Tameer to once again become visible. He had set up a pair of folding chairs on a mound next to the bank of the lake, and had quietly begun sorting his equipment.

“I suppose you think that this is funny?” Jamaica shouted furiously. “I suppose this is your idea of a joke!”

Tameer motioned toward a spot on the ground between the two folding chairs. “Set the worms down there.”

“Worms? Aaaaaah!” Jamaica dropped the tray of worms and the old rusting tackle box, spilling the contents of both. Tameer laughed.

With the smile still on his face, Tameer knelled down and began gathering the long, brown, wriggling creatures back into their container.

“You pig! You uncivilized pig!” Jamaica shouted. She was beyond furious. “How dare you have me carry worms! How dare you!”

“They won't hurt you. Besides, they were all in a tray.”

“What kind of person are you?” She wiped her hands on the top of her pants legs. “How dare you treat me like this! Carry this, carry that, put it here, set it there, and you walk off and leave me!”

“You were insulting me.”

“You deserved to be insulted!” She spun and began pacing. “You do not take a woman on a fishing date! You just don't!”

He stared up at her from his knees. “Have you ever been fishing before?”

She was insulted. “Of course not!”

“Then how do you know you won't like it?” Tameer rose and dusted off his pants leg. “Look around you.”

Tameer lifted his arms into the air and spun around slowly. “It's quiet, it's peaceful, it's natural, it's beautiful.”

“Uuuuuugghh!” Jamaica screamed, and then pointed her finger in his face. “Look, nature boy, I don't fish! I hate fish, I hate trees, I hate squirrels, I hate the lake, I hate butterflies, and wildlife, and I'm really starting to not like you!”

Once again, Tameer picked up his fishing pole and walked away. “Fine, then you can stay here! I'll find a nice quiet spot somewhere else!”

“Tameer!” she shouted. “Tameer! Don't you dare ignore me!”

Tameer continued along the path.

“Nobody ignores me! How dare you! How dare you! You pig!” Jamaica lifted a rock and threw it at him, missing him by several yards. “You pig! You uncivilized pig!”

Tameer disappeared into the trees.

Jamaica was furious. She began pacing back and forth near the colorful fabric and metal folding chairs. She stomped forcefully with each of her steps.

How dare he
, she fumed.
He is an ogre, an oaf, a viking! He is an absolute nobody! And nobodies can't treat somebodies like they are just anybodies! Especially if that somebody happens to be me, Jamaica Tiera Rochelle! Who in the hell did he think he is? Men fall all over themselves just to get an autograph! And this…this collegiate nature boy has the nerve to ignore the legendary Jamaica Tiera Rochelle!

Jamaica kicked a rock into the lake, causing it to skip several times across the peaceful surface of the water, rippling it.
Had I ever been fishing,
she thought.
Fishing! The nerve of him! I…I…I…I…Shit!

Tameer had found the perfect spot. He had set himself up on top of a large boulder next to the lake, where he was able to fish quietly and enjoy the coolness of the whistling breeze. It was the rustling and crunching of the dried fallen leaves that alerted him to her presence. He smiled when he saw the fishing rod in her hand.

“I overreacted,” she said softly. “I'm sorry.”

Without acknowledging her, Tameer turned his attention back toward the lake, where his red-and-white fishing bob had begun to dip below the surface of the water.

“I'm trying to apologize, could you at least talk to me?” Jamaica said softly.

Tameer turned to face her. “My dad used to tell me that if you can't say anything nice to a person, then don't say anything at all.”

Jamaica let out a half-smile. “Sounds like some good advice.”

“Yeah,” Tameer sneered. “My old man was full of knowledge.”

“You sound sarcastic,” Jamaica told him. “Is that aimed at me, or at your old man?”

“Both.”

“I know what I did, what did he do?” Jamaica eased herself onto the boulder, seating herself next to him.

Tameer turned and stared at her once again. “You're a real Jekyll and Hyde, aren't you?”

Jamaica laughed. “I'm sorry.”

Tameer turned back toward the lake. “Apology accepted.”

Jamaica extended her hand to him. “Friends?”

“Let's just say it's a truce.”

Jamaica slapped Tameer across his shoulder. “That's not nice!”

Together they laughed.

“Oooooh, oooooh, I got a bite!” Tameer clasped his reel tight, and readied himself to wind in his catch. Jamaica's interest was piqued.

“Really? You caught one?” Jamaica's eyes watched intensely as the brightly colored bob dipped forcefully below the surface of the water.

“Yeah, c'mere.” Tameer motioned for Jamaica to come closer. She did.

Tameer rose from the boulder, allowing her to slide over to the center of the massive rock, and then he sat back down behind her. He spread his legs so that she was now seated between them.

“Here, give me your hands,” he told her.

Tameer took Jamaica's tiny hands and correctly placed them around the padded grip of the fishing pole. The butt of the pole was placed against her right inner thigh, while her right hand was placed on the reel. Looking over her shoulder, with his hands over hers, Tameer slowly began to reel in their catch.

“We got him, Jai. He's hooked real good.”

Jamaica became excited. “Really?”

“Yeah.” Tameer nodded. “He should be coming out of the water real soon.”

Together they reeled.

“Here he comes!”

At first sight, Jamaica screamed. Then came a joyful whoop. “All right! My first fish!”

“You did real good!” Tameer told her in between their laughter.

She turned and stared at him over her shoulder. “How do we do it again? That was fun!”

“Well, first we have to take this one off, and put it inside of the ice chest. Then we'll have to bait the hook with another worm.”

Tameer stood and removed the ten-inch bass from the hook. Displaying some of his athletic prowess, he leaped from the top of the boulder onto the ground, and placed the fish inside of their Styrofoam ice chest.

Jamaica waved the empty fishing line in front of him. “You do the worm for me.”

Tameer nodded and smiled. “Yeah, this time. But next time, I'll show you how to do it. Deal?”

Jamaica hesitated for several moments, and then relented. “Deal.”

Peering out over the lake, Tameer removed his T-shirt, revealing his chiseled upper body, and bulging muscles. Jamaica blushed.

“Tameer, I'm sorry,” she told him. “You know, about how I acted.”

He nodded. “It's okay.”

“I just had a bad experience with fish.” One big, black, slimy one in particular, she didn't say out loud.

“Yeah?” Tameer lifted an eyebrow. “I thought you hadn't been fishing before?”

“I hadn't,” she answered, adjusting her position on the hard rock. She could feel the jaggedness of the boulder against her derierre. “Actually, it's sort of like a recurring nightmare. I have this dream where this big, shiny, black-and-white fish keeps licking me in the face.”

Tameer laughed.

Jamaica folded her arms. “It's not funny! And you know what scares me? The more it licks me, the more I scream, and the more I scream, the more the crowd applauds.”

“I thought that I had some weird dreams,” Tameer told her. He leaped back onto the boulder and positioned himself just behind her. “Are you ready?”

“Yeah.” Jamaica rose and maneuvered herself until once again she was seated between his legs. She leaned her head back against his muscular bare chest, as he wrapped his arms around her to grab the fishing pole.

“Okay, we're going to cast the line,” he said.

Tameer carefully maneuvered the pole around his shoulder, and then sharply whipped it forward, sending the tightly wound line far into the blue-green waters of the lake.

“Wee, this is fun!” Jamaica shouted. She turned her head toward him. “So, who taught you how to fish?”

“My dad, when I was younger,” Tameer told her.

“Yeah? Seems like you two are close.”

“We were.” Tameer nodded sadly. “But mostly we fight now.”

“Why?” she asked.

“My mother left when I was a kid,” Tameer explained. “My father turned to the bottle, and over the years, he's gotten deeper and deeper into it.”

“That's awful,” Jamaica told him. She turned and faced the lake again. “Me, I remember only a few things about my father. He went away when I was young, and even when he was with us, he was a workaholic.”

“So, what happened to him?” Tameer asked.

Jamaica leaned her head back against his chest once again, and closed her eyes. “Well, I haven't told this to anyone before, and I can't believe that I'm even telling you.”

She opened her eyes and exhaled. “He's in prison. He was an investor, and he supposedly laundered money, and sold a lot of bad bonds.”

“Wow, that's heavy,” Tameer said softly. “So, you haven't heard from him in a while?”

“All of the pictures that I have of him are old,” Jamaica said sadly. “My mother tells everyone that he died in an airplane crash.”

“Why?”

“She wants to protect us, and protect her good name.”

“Do you know where he is?” Tameer asked.

Jamaica nodded. “Sure.”

“You ever thought about going to see him”

Jamaica smiled again, and shook her head. “In my wildest dreams. I…I really wouldn't even know where to start, or what to say. Besides…”