Free Caribou Island by David Vann Page B

shaking her head.
    So I heard something behind me, heavy splashing, and I turn to see this huge brown bear. A grizzly. The kind that eat people. Crashing through the water at me, and then it stopped. And I realized the salmon was on my back hidden from the bear now, like I was trying to keep food away from it.
    What did you do?
    I’ll tell you the rest later, Jim said.
    Monique punched his arm. She had good reach from across the table. Fucker, she said quietly, so no one would hear.
    In Alaska, you have to earn your stories, he said and grinned.
    We’ll see about that.
    We have an hour before the cruise, he said, checking his watch.
    Let’s go shopping. I’d like a pair of heels, and maybe a tie. She had a wicked smile when she said this, and Jim thought he might faint.
    He paid and they left, walked along the waterfront looking for a shop, and Monique found a pair of black pumps she was happy with. You like? she asked.
    Sure, he said. Kind of sexy with jeans. Unexpected.
    I won’t be wearing them with jeans.
    Then it was time to look for a tie. They had only twenty minutes until the cruise, but they found a place that had ties with salmon and halibut and king crab and fishing boats and also a few more conservative ties. Monique went for a simple dark blue silk.
    We’ll have to run for the cruise, Jim said.
    Do they have a cruise later today? Monique asked.
    So they rebooked for four o’clock, which gave them two hours. Walking back to the room, Monique took Jim’s hand. They didn’t say anything. Jim afraid to speak, afraid he’d somehow ruin this.
    Take a quick shower first, Monique said, so Jim did as he was told. When he emerged in a towel, she looked him over. You have a muffin top, she said.
    A muffin top?
    Just the beginnings of one. She smiled. Don’t feel hurt.
    But what’s a muffin top?
    That little pouch on your belly, for hanging over your belt. It comes down at that weird angle.
    Hm, he said.
    It’s all right, she said. I’ve never been with a muffin top, but I’ll adjust.
    Then Monique went into the shower, and Jim lay back on the bed feeling old and disgusting. A muffin top. If you had any self-respect at all, he told himself out loud, you’d walk out of here right now. He opened his towel, and his limp little penis lying there just seemed like another target for mockery. She was going to tease him and laugh at him. That was all.
    Jim groaned and decided to get under the covers. He’d hide himself. He threw the towel over a chair and settled in, used both of the pillows.
    Monique turned the water off, and there was a long wait. Jim thinking of Rhoda, feeling guilty, because here he was, about to cheat. It was inevitable now. Everything until this moment could be passed off, perhaps, but not after this moment.
    And then Monique appeared, walking toward him slowly in her tie and heels, nothing else.
    She was very tall, especially in the heels, and she had that slim definition only youth can have, the soft lines of her ribs and collar bone, belly and thighs. Her hair still wet, her face angular.
    I shaved for you, she said.
    She was entirely smooth. She came to the side of the bed, turned around slowly, bent over in her heels, her tie hanging down, her young breasts, and looked at him from between her legs.
    No more teasing, she said. Now you can have whatever you want.

Mark invited Carl on the boat. This was out of pity, since Carl was moping around without Monique. She had taken off somewhere.
    So Carl, plastic bag of bagels and veggie-burger patties in hand, shivering in his raingear, waited at 3:30 a.m. under a dull yellow light at the end of the Pacific Salmon Fisheries pier. He looked at boats anchored in pairs in the channel of the Kenai River. The boats and water were twenty feet below him, the river lined by mud banks. He was supposed to get to Mark’s boat and climb aboard. Mark and the owner had come the evening before and slept out there. But Mark had omitted the part about how Carl