"Bass mostly. Got into it when I came back from chasing tarpon on the coast. I was a fly angler before. Outside Magazine profiled me after I won the tournament at Boca Grand when I was twenty-three. Pivoted to freshwater when I moved home. Tarpon means travel, and I was done with that. Bass keeps me close. I do charters, tour groups, weddings, fishing lessons for kids, pretty much whatever's on the water." A pause. "You know what bass are, right?"
Her eyes roll around in their sockets. "I'm pretty familiar with fish, yes. I've been swimming in the Gulf and in Florida's springs probably as long as you've been fishing. I'm thirty years old."
I chuckle. "Thought so. Stupid question, my bad. Ah, an older woman."
Her eyes narrow. "How old are you?"
"Twenty-nine."
She presses her hand to her chest. "You had me worried there for a minute."
I chuckle and take a sip of my soda.
"So, what's your secret to getting the fish to bite?"
Grinning, I lean in. "You have to show the fly to the fish."
She frowns. "Okay..."
"Without the fish actually seeing it."
Her expression relaxes into a smile. "Oh, is this like a Zen riddle?"
"Exactly. What about you? Why did you decide to do this?" I wave my hand around the bar, which smells like the sawdust of two-by-fours.
"I've been thinking about this idea for a long time. Since I was a kid."
I shut the folder. "Can I take this with me? I'd like time to read it." And look up all the business terms online. I'm a fisherman, not a businessman. Maybe Max can help with some of this.
"Sure, that's a copy I made for you."
She's frighteningly prepared, and I'm not. "Tell me about how you got the idea for this."
She turns in her bar stool to face me full on. I force myself to focus on her face. Just her face.
"Well, my father ran a Greek restaurant in Hernando County, and I grew up watching him. I became a waitress at sixteen, but my true love was swimming. I was on the swim team, and when I turned twenty, I became a Weeki Wachee mermaid. I got a two-year business degree, hoping I could take over my father's restaurant someday. But that didn't happen." Her shoulders droop.
"How come?"
"My father passed and the restaurant closed."
"I'm sorry." I reach to squeeze her arm but am not sure I should. Instead, I settle for an awkward, brief pat.
"Thanks. I guess things all worked out because I'm here."
"How did you get from there to here, though? It's a few hours away, and from the looks of things, you were established as a mermaid up there. From what I saw online, anyway."
A little smile creeps onto her face. She knows I've been checking her out online. "I loved being a mermaid. But I was getting older. Mermaids are usually in their twenties. And some other things happened. Then I inherited some money when my aunt died and thought this would be as good a place as any to start over."
I sense that she's holding back part of her story. "Wouldn't it have been better to open a bar up there, especially with all the tourists going to the park for the mermaid shows?"
She rubs her lips together. "I felt like the mermaid scene was saturated up there. And I wanted to get away for personal reasons."
Oh, now we're getting somewhere. "A guy, I assume."
She straightens her spine and looks over my shoulder. "Yes."
"You break his heart?" From the little I know about her, I imagine she's broken a lot of hearts.
