Johnny Winchester: River Hunter (12 page)

The struggle was more difficult for Johnny, mostly
because throwing himself into his work meant angling more, which resulted in
even more hours of waiting.  And thinking.  The trip to Ecuador had
not gone well.  They had missed a connecting flight, having to wait a
number of hours for the next one, and, even though the production company said
everything was set up for them, several of the plans fell through.  Their
time was completely taken up with finding transportation and setting up
interviews with the people they wanted to talk to.  Therefore, it was
several days before he was even able to email Suzi, but he proudly told himself
that he was sticking with his plan.

The response from Suzi was two days in coming; the
longest two days of his life, he hadn’t been sure she would answer at
all.  The response brought up the dichotomous emotions, so he squelched
the hope and, well, love, and told himself he had a plan and would carry it
out.  Suzi was right: he would get back to his obsession with fishing and
any other feelings would fall away.

Putting all his energy into his work, Johnny was able to
set aside all other feelings, keeping his emails to Suzi casual.  Before
long, however, the emotions crept back, taking over his mind and his
focus.  Though the crew was getting enough quality shots, they were
concerned about Johnny.  They, too, had come close to a bloody death, but
he seemed to have taken it worse than any of them.  Sam and Chip, who had
worked with him longer than the others, tried to talk to him, but he insisted
he was fine.  Still, they were worried and often discussed what, if
anything, they should do. 

On a day when Johnny’s mind was particularly far away,
Chip and Sam stood together on the river’s bank, watching.

“What do you think is wrong with Johnny?” Sam asked.

“I think it’s a woman,” Chip answered.

“A woman! Are you kidding? Johnny is fishing through and
through.  Morning, noon, and night, all day, every day.  There’s no
way a woman could do this to him.  You know how obsessed he is, how
totally driven he always is.”

The two men fell silent, watching Johnny reel in his
line, check his bait, then cast again, over and over as though he had no idea
how long it had been since he’d checked it before.  The bait wasn’t even
in the water long enough to be taken, but he didn’t seem to notice.  Or
care.

“What do you think is wrong with him?” Sam asked again.

“I think it’s a woman,” Chip repeated.

“Yeah,” Sam agreed.  “I think it’s a woman. Suzi?”

“Suzi.”

With that realization, all of Johnny’s behavior started
to make sense.  As the two men thought about it, talked it over, it became
perfectly clear.  In the end, they decided to leave it all alone unless,
and until, the quality of Johnny’s worked suffered.

But it didn’t suffer and within a few days, he had
caught the elusive El Pez Poco Loco.  It was caught, laid across Johnny’s
knees, filmed, talked about, and finally released.  The whole crew was
pleased with the final result and Pete called their success into the production
company, who said they would see if they could move up the next trip. 
However, when Johnny heard that, he said, in no uncertain terms, that he did
not want the trip moved up; he needed a break, and this was his chance to take
one.  Pete, the company, and Johnny went back and forth, but Johnny stood
firm.  Somewhere in the countless hours in Ecuador, he had decided to find
out once and for all. 

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The snow came early in Pleasant Valley, blanketing the
gently rolling hills overnight, then the sun rose in a clear sky, making for
the perfect winter day.  Suzi’s work space sat in the corner of her living
room, next to the big picture window that looked out onto the front yard. 
Putting the finishing touches on a project, as she sat back in her chair to
wait for her
computer
to complete the instructions
she’d given it, she noticed a green SUV crawling up the snow-packed road. 
There were only two houses past hers, so she watched the vehicle with
curiosity.  By the time it approached her driveway, it was obvious that it
was a Land Rover and, not knowing anyone who had a Land Rover, she expected it
to go on by.  Slowing, the SUV turned into her driveway and made its way
to the front of the house.  From her vantage point, she could not see the
driver, nor could she see the driver’s side of the vehicle once it pulled up to
the covered porch.  She was up and heading for the door when the doorbell
rang.

Opening the door, there stood a tall man in a dark blue
parka, just pulling the hood back from his head.  It was Johnny.

“Hello!” he greeted her.  “I hope I’m not
disturbing you.”

“Not at all.  Please come in.”  She moved
aside, motioning towards the entryway.

Stomping the snow off his boots, he stepped inside,
removed his jacket and worked on the laces of his boots.  Suzi took the
jacket, hanging it in the closet, and, when the boots were shed, led Johnny to
the living room and they both sat.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.  “We don’t
exactly have a lot of fish here!”

“We finished in Ecuador, ahead of schedule, since our
trip to China was cut short.  The next shoot isn’t for another three weeks
and it was a shorter trip to come to the states than to go back to the UK, so I
thought I’d wander over and see how you are.  You look good.”

“I’m doing well.  Even the scars are pretty much
faded,” she fingered the scar on her forehead absentmindedly.  “As much as
they’re going to, anyway.  How are you doing?”

“Well.  I’m doing well.  It took a little time
for all of us to get over our capture in Tibet.  We’ve had a number of
discussions about what to avoid next season!”

“Let me get you a cup of tea,” she said.  “I don’t
have any coffee.”

“Tea will be fine,” he responded.

“Milk and sugar?”

He smiled.  “Please.”

Following Suzi into the kitchen, Johnny sat at the
breakfast table and, when the tea was ready, she joined him.

“When did you get in?” she asked.

“Last night.  Fortunately, I was ahead of the
storm.”

“Where are you staying?”

“At the Best Eastern.”

“That’s a decent place.  We don’t have much to
offer hotel-wise in Pleasant Valley.”

“Compared to a tiny tent and hard ground, it’s quite
luxurious.”

“I guess
it’s
all relative!”

The two caught up and chatted cheerfully, they were,
whether they would have admitted it at the time or not, very glad to see one
another.  Johnny was invited to stay for dinner, an invitation he happily
accepted, and after he insisted on doing the dishes, they sat again over tea
and talked the evening away.   Johnny had three weeks until his next
trip and he would stay, as he put it, as long as she would tolerate him.

The next day, he returned, this time with bags of
groceries and his laptop.  Putting away the groceries, he then made lunch
for the two of them, and when Suzi headed back to her desk to work, he got out
his laptop, setting it on the dining table, doing work of his own.  As
dinnertime approached, he rose, put a casserole together, and put it in the
oven.  It was ready when Suzi quit for the day, all she had to do was sit
at the table and eat.  She could get used to this.

And get used to it, she did.  They fell into a
casual, easy routine.  Suzi warned, on more than one occasion, that there
was little to do in Pleasant Valley, but that never became a problem. 
Johnny found and completed projects around the house, made most of the meals,
and spread out his gear in the garage, reorganizing and sorting for the next
trip.  Suzi worked and, with all the extra help around the house, she was
able to relax as she hadn’t in years.  And the two of them talked, for
hours on end.  Two mature, intelligent, no-nonsense adults who carelessly,
even recklessly, allowed themselves to fall into denial, to act as though there
were no barriers to their relationship, no issues affecting either of them.

But as the days of Johnny’s visit slipped by, the denial
began to erode and, by the end of the second week, the tension had built up
again.  Suzi’s mixed feelings were back, those that had haunted her all
along, that she had fought against so valiantly, and she couldn’t believe she
had simply chosen to forget it all.  Johnny, aware that time was getting
short, that he would soon have to do what he’d come here to do or lose the
opportunity, was one minute hopeful, the next despairing.  But through all
the confusion, the mixed emotions, the one thing that was clear was that he
never wanted to leave Suzi’s side again.

Facing his fear, he decided to make an especially nice
dinner and broach the subject.  Dessert would be a molten chocolate cake
he would serve warm with ice cream; he figured that for Suzi, it would be the
equivalent of plying her with alcohol.   The upcoming conversation
was one he never, ever expected to have and he ran through it in his head a
million times, each rendition sounding incomplete, unconvincing, or outright
goofy and not befitting a grown man.  He would be putting it all on the
line, avowing his love for a woman who probably didn’t care that much for him,
no matter how she acted.  She was probably being nice, indulging him,
knowing it was temporary and, though she seemed to be enjoying herself, she had
no long-term intentions.  Regardless, he had to know.

Suzi could, of course, tell that something was wrong as
soon as Johnny arrived.  He was nervous, uncharacteristically quiet,
fidgety
.  There was little conversation at lunch and
she had great difficulty focusing on work all afternoon.  Though she
interacted with her computer as though all was well, she wasn’t getting much
done.  She was wondering why, with another week before he had to leave,
Johnny was so troubled; perhaps the mounting tension was more than he could deal
with and he was leaving.  She’d often wondered why he had come to visit,
considering the most likely scenario to be that it was some sort of trial to
determine what his feelings really were; he must have decided.  As the
aroma of a several course dinner wafted through the house, the decision must
have been to leave, to break off the relationship over a nice dinner. 
Typical.

She’d danced these steps before and she didn’t much like
it.  Angry at herself for allowing denial to creep into her mind, for allowing
this man, no matter how attractive he seemed, into her life.  Deciding to
tell him that it had been great fun, she would thank him for all he’d done for
her and tell him they both should just get back to their lives.

 Dinner was mostly quiet, neither seemed inclined
to talk, and it all seemed so very awkward.  They had been so comfortable
together, had such fun together, and they both wished they could just go on in
the denial they had adopted, without the entanglement of emotions, without the
infringement of reality.  Before Suzi was half finished with her
delectable molten chocolate cake (home made by the way), Johnny embarked on a
conversation he thought he’d never have.  It was the most dangerous and
fearsome thing he’d ever done.

“There’s something I’d like to talk to you about,” he
said, seriously.

Darn.  He’d spoken first and now had the upper
hand.  It would look like sour grapes if she stated her decision
now.  Putting down her fork, the chocolate molten cake was no longer
appetizing, she braced herself against his next words.

“I’m sure I’m not going to be very good at this, I’ve
never done it before, so please bear with me.”

Interesting start.  She nodded.

“I’m not really sure where to start.  I guess I’ll
start with my observations of relationships.  It seems like men, when
they’re single, do whatever they want and then when they meet the ‘right one,’
they have to give up some of it to put time into the relationship.  Or
maybe it’s something the lass doesn’t like for whatever reason.  Before
long, a year or two as I see it, the man starts to resent the wife for
activities he gave up.  It’s like a man wants both, so he gives up one to
get married and then wants to pick it up again; like, if they play it right,
they can have both.

“On the other hand, I’ve seen women decide that they can
accept whatever it is they don’t like about their ‘right one,’ then after
they’re married, she resents him because he won’t give it up.  Like they
want both, too, and expect to change the chap after marriage.

“I always thought that was unfair on both sides. 
People make decisions and they need to live with them.  When I was twenty
years old, I made the decision to give my life to fishing.  I loved it and
I didn’t want anything to get in the way of that.  I also felt that if one
was going to get married and have a family, nothing should get in the way of
that, either.  So fishing and family just weren’t going to mix for me.”

Suzi just looked at him, not exactly slack-jawed, but
her lips were parted with consternation.  He needn’t explain all this, it
was clear what he had chosen; all he had to do was say he was going to stay
with it.

 “And I have loved my life.  I’ve done some
pretty crummy jobs to support my fishing, but I’ve traveled and I’ve met all
sorts of people, seen all sorts of cultures, caught fish I never would have
known existed.  And I have never looked back.”

There it was.  Reinforcing his decision, he was
saying goodbye.  For good this time.  Her emotions ran wild: anger at
the injustice, hurt at the betrayal, the deep pain of rejection, and the
searing despair over a sense of hope that it might still turn out right. 
Why on earth had she let herself fall for this man?  Fall, yes, in love;
she admitted it to herself.  Now all that was left was the pain of getting
over a relationship.  She was too old for this.  She steeled herself
for his next words.