Read Online The Implosion of Aggie Winchester by Lara Zielin - Free Book Online Page A

clubs in our division getting together to fish. It was competitive, sure, but it was also catch and release, meaning we had to throw back anything we snagged. Plus, we could only count smallmouth bass tomorrow, not largemouth, so everything would be on a smaller scale. Still, my dad acted like there was $50,000 on the line at every fishing event.
    “You’re really exceptional at fishing, Ag,” my dad said after a second. “I don’t know if you realize that.”
    I kept my eyes on the window. We were driving on Main Street in the heart of St. Davis’s downtown. We passed Lucy’s Food Mart and then the Loon Tavern. A sign in the window advertised pitchers of Leinenkugel’s beer for three dollars.
    My dad turned his head. “I’m not just flattering you. I don’t think any of the Bass Masters had a clue you’d turn out to be such a natural on the water. A lot of them are really impressed.”
    Now there was a word I never thought the Bass Masters would use about me: impressed . I figured they all pretty much disliked me on account of how a) I was a girl and girls had never joined their club before, and b) black clothes and dark lipstick weren’t exactly the norm around St. Davis.
    “They said that?”
    “Edgar Chilson absolutely did. He said you have what it takes to turn pro.”
    Bass fishing for a living. That might be kind of awesome, actually.
    I’d never say it out loud, but sometimes I had fantasies about living underwater in the cold silence, just like the bass—silt for a carpet, weeds for wallpaper. There were moments when I could see the bass so clearly, even if the water was cloudy, that it was almost like I was one of them. If I caught a fish, I could look at its pulsing gills, its sucking mouth, and think for a second I’d willed it into biting the hook. It had heard my call in the cold fathoms of the lake.
    “You do well on the water this year, it could open up some doors to other tournaments,” my dad said, pulling up to Al’s Hardware. “Maybe even the kind that lead to the pros. I’ll look into it with you, if you want.”
    “Cool,” I said. My voice disguised the way my heart was pounding. I couldn’t think of anything I’d ever had a natural talent at before. The sensation of actually being good at something was totally new—and I didn’t hate it. Not one bit.
    We stepped across the damp parking lot to Al’s. The breeze had cooled now that the sun had almost set. I shivered, thinking how cold it would be on the water the next morning.
    “Hold up a sec,” my dad said. He pointed across the parking lot, past the First Trust Bank, to a big, empty field. “That over there will be Dr. Richardson’s new clinic. I’m helping design it. And at least twenty percent of it will be made out of recycled materials.”
    I couldn’t really hate on the way my dad was trying to make new buildings around town green and Earth-friendly. “That’s awesome,” I said. I squinted into the distance. Beyond the field was Lake St. Davis and then it was pretty much rolling hills and more fields until you hit the next town, where we’d heard they just built a Home Depot. My dad said it wouldn’t be long before St. Davis would be getting a Home Depot, too, which he figured would put Al’s Hardware out of business.
    Al nodded to us when we walked in, the end of his long white beard resting against his chest. “Aisle six is the new stuff,” he said.
    “Thanks, Al,” my dad replied. Before we walked away, I noticed Al had a plastic bucket on his counter with a paper sign that said PROM DONATIONS. I couldn’t remember seeing those buckets in stores in the past, which meant that either prom was spiraling out of control and they needed more money to cover it, or that no one was buying the fifty-dollar tickets. Based on the fact that I’d seen plenty of students pulling out their wallets this week, I was going with the “prom is out of control” option.
    The wet soles of our shoes squeaked as we made