Melissa had long brown hair that curled from a recent perm she’d convinced a friend to give her—a hairdo in a box she’d bought at the drugstore on sale, buy one get one free. She couldn’t afford a salon. Couldn’t afford food, for that matter, which was why she was fishing. She’d saved up for the perm and it had turned out less frizzy than she’d feared. Her friend who had applied all the chemicals said she almost looked pretty.

Green eyes and an easy smile hid some of the pain beneath the layers of her life. Those who noticed her, who lingered on the picture or studied her in class, thought she was looking for something she hadn’t found. And it was true—Melissa was on a search. You could see it in her eyes, though she wouldn’t have been able to pinpoint exactly what she was looking for.

Her bobber settled and she watched it move on the undulating surface, the wind picking up. When Kelly reeled her line in, Melissa frowned and said, “Stop doing that every ten seconds. The goal is to catch a fish, not scare them away.”

“You reeled yours in. Why can’t I?”

“Just leave it in the water.”

“I think something took my bait,” Kelly said. She finished reeling and lifted the rod and the hook swung empty. “See. Told you. Put another minnow on for me.”

Melissa shook her head. “Bait your own hook, Barbie.”

“I can do it, but I don’t like the smell. It never bothers you.” Kelly dropped the rod and lay on a flat rock with her hands behind her head, staring at the clouds. The ones overhead were white and rounded, like vanilla ice cream in a cone. Others to the south were darker, a chocolaty-gray, and they seemed to be moving toward them.

“When you get out in the big bad world, you’re going to wish you knew how to do things like this,” Melissa said, picking up Kelly’s rod. She baited the hook and cast the line to the right in a good spot, knowing this wasn’t for Kelly, it was for her. She needed a fish or two to take home.

“What’s baiting a hook going to do for me in the big bad world? Tell me that.”

“It’s not about baiting your hook. It’s about being able to do something on your own instead of needing others. If you can’t bait your own hook, you won’t last long out there.”

“Is that your philosophy of life?”

“That’s the truth. Period.”

Kelly studied the cloud formations as Melissa felt a strike on her line. She set the hook and reeled in an eighteen-inch crappie, holding it up with a thumb through the gill.

“Look how shiny he is. Like a silver dollar.”

“How do you know it’s not a she?”