Fishing With RayAnne (17 page)

“On board today is Helga Knutson, also known as the Bra Viking, whose Minneapolis shop Valkyries has women queueing up for months to get a custom fitting.”

In a video visit to the store, viewers pass under crossed broadaxes wielded by two plus-size mannequins wearing sinew-stitched leather tunics, chainmail leggings, and hammered pewter D-cup bras. All that’s missing are horned helmets. Cassi, who had accompanied the crew that day, had been crestfallen to learn the leggings were for display only.

The shop’s lighting is also medieval, the wattage ranging from tea candle to oil lamp in the inner sanctum of the fitting rooms. Helga’s customers walk in looking nondescript—the sort of women you barely notice in line at the pharmacy or in Target. But what a difference a bra makes. Emerging from their final fit, harried soccer moms and midlevel managers seem transformed, wearing the custom bras for which they’ve shelled out hundreds and waited six months for. They appear taller, more about them uplifted than just their breasts, and walk with assurance. As the crescendo of Wagner’s symphony serenades them out the door, these women look ready to pillage something, perhaps conquer a Norman.

This all absorbs Big Rick’s attention until he realizes that, for all his patience, he’s not going to see an actual fitting, just chitchat between Helga and RayAnne—no chance of a nipple.

After the pledge break, she leaves him alone to watch the second segment, ostensibly to make popcorn, but actually she’d rather avoid listening to any comments he might make regarding her interview with the organizer of a marriage-equality event called the Big Gay Walk. Cassi has been able to sneak in social issues that hover near the no-fly zone for WYOY by cleverly concentrating on the lighter aspects and cute quotients, handpicking edited footage—in this case, children parading their dogs in rainbow costumes, with a charming clip of redheaded sisters holding dolls dressed to match, spinning their costumes for the camera, declaring, “Our daddies made them!” The camera operator focused on other families with two mommies that look like any other busy mothers; edited out are shots of mullet-haired lesbians draped on each other and drag queens waltzing past in heels with bulges in their fishnets.

Back in the living room, RayAnne hands over a bowl of popcorn and muses, “We’ll see gay marriage legal in every state, Dad, just watch.”

“Texas? Louisiana?” Big Rick grunts. “When hell freezes over.”

By the time she settles back down on the carpet, the final guest is already in the boat.

“Kathleen Carter has worked as a marine mammal trainer at such amazing aquariums as the Shedd in Chicago and the Monterey in California. After her first marriage ended, she realized that the training she did by day with seals and dolphins might be adapted to her human relationships.”

Kathleen is a round, pleasant-looking woman with apple cheeks. “The basic premise is soooo simple, RayAnne. You just turn away from bad behavior—ignore it—and reward what you perceive as good behavior.”

“But how?”

“With positive reinforcement!”

The boat rises and falls in the swells. Neither is holding a pole; it’s too choppy—they each just hang on to their bench seats or the gunnels.

“Okay.” RayAnne bobs, thinking of Ky. “Say your child is throwing a fit on the floor of Walmart because you won’t buy him Skittles?”

“Easy. That child should get nothing. And here’s the important part—besides no Skittles, he should get no acknowledgement of his ploy. The less reaction on your part, the more successful you’ll be. The child will eventually see you’re not going to give in to your own anger or frustration—the very buttons they are trying to push.”

While this soaks in, RayAnne nods and holds up a copy of
Very Good!
“In your book, one of the chapters is titled ‘Exude Indifference’; might that be perceived as a little . . . um, cold?”

“Think
detached
, RayAnne. Sometimes cold is the best defense we’ve got.”

“Where do most people go wrong in relationships?”

“That’s easy. They bargain—as if it’s a good idea to cut deals with a crying child or irrational partner in the midst of a tantrum or argument.” Kathleen turns to the camera to wag a finger directly at viewers. “Do not bargain!”

“Right. You don’t actually use the term ‘behavior modification,’ but it’s implied.” A strand of RayAnne’s hair escapes to lash her face and stick to her lip. “You claim you can train a partner or child from the beginning?”

“Absolutely.”

“But how about in preexisting relationships, like with siblings, or . . . parents?”

“Now that is a bit more difficult. You’re born into the dynamic of multiple sets of behaviors, what we know as
family
. Not hopeless, but not easy.”

“No kidding.” RayAnne touches the feed going into her ear and turns to the second camera like a train switching tracks. “More with Kathleen after a short break to thank one of tonight’s fine underwriters, Lefty’s Bait.”

RayAnne is dismayed to see herself grinning so stupidly on camera. She’d been thinking of Hal. She looks to her father to see if he’s noticed. He hasn’t.

Kathleen’s wrap-up focuses on getting behaviors under control and standing your ground. “And next time your child is
very good
, offer nonmaterial rewards, such as a trip to the park, playing a game, watching a film, or just having some one-on-one time alone. And if it’s a partner—anything from a date to a favorite meal, or, well, a favorite position.”

RayAnne presses her back to the couch. As is so often the case when taping, she’s so consumed by the mental gymnastics of forming the next question while processing the answer to the previous one, it’s hard to tell how well or badly a show is going until after the fact, when it’s committed to digital and too late. This episode isn’t half bad.

With the swell of a wave lifting the
Penelope
, RayAnne asks a final question: “Kathleen, which is easier to train, a difficult partner, or a dolphin?”

“A dolphin, of course.”

Big Rick gives her shoulder a little nudge with his foot. “Nice one.” As credits begin to roll, he stretches and reaches for the remote.

“Hold on, Dad. The best part’s coming.”

It had been Cassi’s idea to run outtakes at the end of each show. So far this season, flubs have included a wind-borne Post-it note plastering itself over RayAnne’s eye like a pirate’s patch, a cameraman valiantly fighting a battle with his balance before tipping off the dock, RayAnne laughing so hard she doubles over and hits her forehead on the steering wheel, and a long shot of Penelope at speed with a guest’s hat blown from her head to skip along the wake behind like an errant wheel.

The outtake chosen for this show is a confused heron. Just behind the final credits, a heron clumsily lands on Penelope’s foredeck. It struts across, talons clicking like high heels while RayAnne and Helga the Bra Viking watch, mouths agape. When they burst into laughter, the bird gives them a look, then launches from the boat, pulling along its chopstick legs. The final outtake is of Penelope rising and falling in the swells, RayAnne, alone in the stern, facing the camera as it steadies and tests focus. The swells are high enough that RayAnne’s head goes up and down, in and out of frame, and her voice is heard, mimicking the Verizon guy, drolly repeating, “Can you see me now? Can you see me now?”

A really good show, and she’s made it through a day with Big Rick with no fits, sulking, or growling. All in all, a pretty decent day.

Not that it’s over.

As soon as Big Rick is asleep, his snore ruffling through the ceiling grate, RayAnne is fastened like a moth to her laptop, trolling for activities in hopes of filling every moment of the next day.

Kathleen Carter was right, of course: the notion of rewards for good behavior makes ultimate sense. She looks for something, anything Big Rick might enjoy—a car show, a river cruise, a Segway tour of the Mill District. The microbrewery tour is not an option for obvious reasons, and the Walker Museum is just a bad idea—modern art and Big Rick do not mix: “This Motherwell joker’s got nothing on my grandsons—at least they can color in the lines.”

There are sheep dog trials, which RayAnne would like to see herself, but unfortunately they are too far in the opposite direction of Ky’s suburb, where they will be heading for supper.

A Twins baseball game seems like a safe bet. Of course there will be Budweiser, but a few beers never make her father quite as stupid as Scotch or brandy does, neither of which are available at the stadium as far as she knows. Because it’s so last minute, she can’t get great tickets, but it’s about the game, not the view, so she presses the “Buy” button.

At midnight she drags herself up the stairs. Pleasantly worn out from the yard work and lightheaded from holding her breath much of the day, she sleeps like the dead.

In the morning she leaves the baseball ticket printout next to Big Rick’s coffee and watches his face when he sees it, pleased that he’s pleased. After a drawn-out brunch over the Sunday
Strib
, they head for Toys “R” Us so he can buy gifts for the twins. Leaving the store, she makes a mental note to remind Kyle he can thank her for nixing Guitar Hero and steering their father toward the pair of walkie-talkies.

Traffic to the stadium is the usual snarl, with Big Rick growing testier by the minute. It occurs to RayAnne that by this point, he probably physically needs a drink. Still, he should be able to maintain for the next half an hour until he has a beer in his hand. No sooner are they seated in the nosebleed section—the best seats RayAnne could get—than he buys two Miller Lites from the roving vendor, one ostensibly for her, which she knows he assumes she will not drink, so he can then down it himself. She makes an exception and manages to chug it despite the taste, winking at his dismay. “My father’s daughter, right?”

At the start of the second inning, Big Rick spots an old acquaintance while scanning the stadium with his binoculars. He hands them over, pointing to the window of a private box. “Over there, down two levels. You remember Al Faring.”

Al Faring was a client back when Big Rick was at the top of the pro-guide roster—fishing guide for hire by the moneyed—usually to exclusive fly-in posts in Canada or ranches near streams in the triumvirate of trout states: Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming.

Just as RayAnne adjusts focus on the binoculars to make out Al Faring, her father practically pulls her up from her seat. “Hell, he’s got a box. We don’t have to sit up here in the trailer park.”

On the way down, he tells her all about how rich Al Faring is, how his family owns half of Saint Paul, how they might be good people for RayAnne to meet. “Yeah, Dad, I know. I’ve met them more than a few times.”

When they reach the door of the box suite, she hangs back, certain Big Rick will make an ass of himself. Sure enough, when Mr. Faring opens the door, there is barely a glimmer of recognition on his face. His wife, Jeanette, comes to the door, graciously containing her annoyance, until she looks past Big Rick to where RayAnne is hoping to be absorbed into the wall.

“Rick Dahl. And, look, here’s his daughter, RayAnne! RayAnne, come here this minute. Why, all the gals in my book club are watching your show!”

“They are?”

They are urged inside, Big Rick pretending to object, saying he only stopped by to say hello even as he’s stepping inside and pulling RayAnne by an elbow. The box is sleek as a Hotel W suite, with a bank of plush swivel chairs overlooking the field, two flat screens for instant replay, and its own bar, of course. RayAnne sags.

Jeanette Faring pulls her to a love seat. “
Talk
about coincidences, my friend Donna—she’s on our committee for the Children’s Diabetes Gala—anyway she’s just back from Sedona on a trip with your mother. Oh, she didn’t call it a hot-flash tour . . . but a whatsit . . . ?”

“Blood-Tide Quest?”

“Yes! Your mother! Oh, Donna absolutely adored her.”

RayAnne nods.

Jeanette flutters her heavily ringed fingers. “I’ve signed up for one of her trips. One north, at some sacred Native American place . . . Saca-something.”

“Sacajawea Springs.”