I watched Vanessa load up her crays on the carrier boat. Hers were bigger and fatter than ours, or, in fact, any of the other crates of lobsters.
“Are those the same lobsters as ours?” I asked her, lifting up a crate of ordinary-sized ones.
“Sort of,” she said. “Mine are what yours would grow up to be, if you left them in the water another 20 years.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes, these guys live up to 30 years. I just have a knack for catching the old-timers.” She winked and lifted another crate of the monsters. They made ours look undersized, though I knew every one of ours wasn’t. I’d measured the bastards myself.
I figured she wouldn’t tell me, but I asked anyway. “So, what’s your secret?”
“Everyone asks that.” She laughed and looked at me for a moment, as if she were sizing me up, before she spoke again. “I tie a pink ribbon to every pot. The old ones like pink.”
I laughed. “You can’t be serious.”
She shrugged. “Here, you try it.” She pulled a pink ribbon out of her pocket. “You tie that in a bow at the top of the pot and see what happens.”
I took the ribbon and tucked it into my shorts pocket. “I bet it doesn’t do anything.”
“What will you bet me?” she asked mischievously.
I thought for a moment. I could think of a hundred things I wanted from her, but not much I could offer her. Dinner sounded good, if only I could cook something halfway decent. “A six-pack of beer,” I said finally.
“Done,” she replied instantly. “I bet you a six-pack of beer that you get at least one old-timer in the pot you tie that ribbon to.”
“And if there’s none, or they’re all normal sized?” I asked.
“Then I owe you beer.” She laughed. “Make sure you have a spare six-pack in the fridge.” She headed back to her camp.
“You make sure my beer’s chilled, too,” I called after her.
She just laughed and kept going.