When I first spied George’s waders they were tossed over a cooler in his bathroom. “Is he a surfer?” I wondered as I went through my morning routine. But the arms of the suit were missing, and what was up with the weird booties? Rather than appear ignorant, I didn’t ask. Besides, George said he liked mystery and how things are discovered over time. I didn’t have his patience. But asking about stuff you find in a guy’s bathroom made me uncomfortable.

It didn’t take long to discover that the funny looking frogman suit was his fly-fishing outfit. When I saw him a few days later standing thigh-deep in the sound just behind the Bodie Island Lighthouse, he didn’t look funny, or froglike. I beheld a dignified form. The tapered cigar gently locked between his teeth made him look like an English gentleman from a Dorothy Sayers novel communing in a private club.

Holding the fly rod just so, he cast back and forward, back and forward, hypnotizing me with a slender rod and long length of line. Flipping his wrist to and fro, the line lassoed, arced through the clear blue sky then jetted slow motion over the weed-choked water. An egret watched from across the sound, alone, as seemed every man who lined the opposite shore.

Anglers were spread like dice casually tossed across a playing board. Some waist-deep, some nearly chest-deep and a couple stood at the end of a dock luring fish to their bait. George was the only one fly-fishing. Two men drifted in a boat in front of him. Side by side they cast into the tea-colored drink, conversation passing easily between them. They took turns glancing in George’s direction. Fascinated, I couldn’t take my eyes from him either. An occasional puff curled from his nose, pushing smoke through the humidity. His concentration was fathomless.

The line and rod, an extension of his body, responded as he moved with the discipline that marks great choreography. The sight of this contemplative soul dressed in the tailored outfit…ummmm, I was lost to him.

A fish! If I were a fish I could swim between his legs, startling him. Playfully I’d tease as new lovers do, my chase mimicking the rhythm of his cast. Back and forth. Back and forth.

Clouds of dusky mud broke through the still, cool water as his booted feet moved enough to cause an upwelling.

“Do you want to try it?” he asked suddenly, a smile turning up his doe eyes just a fraction.

“Yes,” I said with a shake of my head. “But I want to do it by myself.”

Fly Photos by Alejandro Briones; Courtesy of David Rohde, Riomar Fly Fishing Services

The day before, George had demonstrated how to run the line through the guides. That same evening I watched as he tied a fly using orange bucktail, black “fish” hair and a wee hook. “This is what you’ll be using tomorrow,” he said. His hands trembled slightly, yet he had complete control when fitting together the minuscule parts. He reached into his cache, a tackle box filled with spools wrapped tightly with brilliantly colored thread — red, green, silver, copper and gold — and lifted the tray. Hidden underneath were pelts of deer and fox. I felt uneasy at the sight of them but was fascinated enough to shyly stroke the fur.

Excavating a rectangular box that fit perfectly in his hands, George raised the lid to reveal a series of salt- and freshwater flies he’d tied. Lying faithfully in neat rows they appeared as gems in a jeweler’s case. He chose a few to lift from their resting place, explaining their function. I oohed and aahed over his creations.

That evening we lay on the couch just barely touching. Scenes from a fly-fishing movie rolled across the television screen. The river and the rocks it swept over seduced me. A song floated into my head as the film balanced human conflict with casting on the river. “And ol’ man river, he just keeps rollin’ along.”

George and I bumped up against each other. I put my head in his lap. Then I sat up straight. As with our sleeping, he moved when I did, and I moved when he did, as if to accommodate our restlessness. “Can we go there someday...to the river?” I asked. “Yes,” he said.

Early the next morning I found myself standing in oversized waders in brackish water trying to remember everything George had shown me the afternoon before in his driveway. “Ten and two, ten and two,” I thought over and over. Move the rod from the ten o’clock position to the two o’clock position.

George stood to the left of me, far enough away not to hook me as he cast. My back was to him, but I heard the magic beat. Ten and two. Ten and two. And then the release. I kept the sound in my head as I tried to imitate his earlier demonstration. Above, my line undulated. “Am I doing that?” I wondered. “That looks a little like what George did yesterday.” But what about letting go? That’s the scary part. Then I heard him again, behind me. Ten and two. Ten and two. I tried to coordinate the right thumb and forefinger with the action of the left ones. Which one controls the line? Which one lets go? That transition is tricky. So I comforted myself with the ten and two for a while. What could be wrong with that? I savored it like those first conversations before George and I fell in love. As with his careful instructions, those talks were getting us ready for the long haul.

Ten and two. I never want to let go of the rhythm of the first days or the way I felt when he called and simply said, “This is George.”

“Yes, I know,” I thought. Yet each time I heard his voice it felt new and exciting.

I wasn’t ready to move on to the next step. I just wanted to feel the line soaring through the air, unconcerned with the catching.