An Ordinary Drowning, Book One of The Mermaid's Pendant (13 page)

After
he’d set anchor at the site, Captain Joe came around and helped them bait their
rods with frozen chum, then demonstrated the appropriate way to hold a deep-sea
rod and reel: the end of the rod placed under the left armpit while the right
hand reeled in the line. Zoë, who was left-handed and used to reversing all
instructions, slid her rod under her right armpit and waited for something to
bite. It didn’t take long. John immediately felt a tug on his line, but just as
quickly he lost the jack without setting a hook. In the process, he himself was
hooked. For a while, he wasn’t aware of Zoë’s efforts to handle her own tackle;
it wasn’t until he heard Captain Joe’s sharp intake of breath and a muttered
“take it easy” next to him that he realized that Zoë had managed to snag
something big. When he turned to watch, his own rod loose in his hands, he
discovered that Zoë had found a rather unorthodox method for setting a hook:
she now held her rod between her thighs.

It
turned out to be an extremely effective means for catching a twenty-pound amberjack.
Zoë was able to choke up on the rod past the reel, gaining better leverage, and
use her entire body weight to fight her fish. John was so entranced by her
performance that he nearly lost his own rod overboard when another jack hooked
onto his line. Together, they fought their individual catches, John simply
trying to keep his line from crossing Zoë’s, Zoë bent on bringing her fish to
the surface to see it. His jack eventually got away, but not until after Zoë
had hauled in her amazing catch.

Dripping
and red-faced with exhaustion, she turned to John while Captain Joe, his foot
on the line next to the jack, cut the still-quivering fish free.

“He put
up a fight but in the end I was tougher.”

Tamarind hovered
just under the surface of the water, watching John
standing on the boat above her. She recognized the old man who stood behind and
to the side of John—she’d tailed his boat countless times through the waters to
the south and west of Culebra. When she’d first happened upon his boat, she grew
excited at the prospect of observing a human outside of the forbidden shores of
Culebra, but her excitement quickly evaporated. Many times he dropped anchor
miles out from the harbor and sat on his deck alone, drinking something. Under
his white hat, his face resembled the warped and weathered texture of an old
tree branch that had drifted far from land, preserved from natural decay by the
salt air. Even from a safe distance in the water, Tamarind could see that his
eyes captured no light from the water’s surface. She no longer studied him for
clues about humans. She satisfied herself with racing his boat instead.

Today he
walked between John and five other humans, each holding a long stick with a
glittering lure hanging from it and into a cloud of large silver amberjacks.
Dead Branch, as she thought of the old man, stopped behind the woman nearest
John and touched her forearm. The woman didn’t acknowledged Dead Branch’s
presence, engrossed instead in flinging the lure away from the boat. Once, her
lure caught around John’s and she scowled at him.

As if
it’s his fault!

For a
while, Tamarind refrained from swimming closer to the fish as she usually did
if she found humans trying to catch them. Stupid as they were, fish of all
kinds reacted to diverse stimuli, from sight and pheromones to vibration and
water pressure. They probably swarmed the water around the boat because one of
their comrades had already been caught and they scented a meal. Yet if she swam
at their periphery, they would scatter, ignoring the lure. She didn’t do this.
Instead, she wrapped the seal glamour around her and waited to see how this
sport would progress.

One of
the fish abruptly swerved and swallowed John’s lure. He gave a shout and pulled
up on the stick he held. Dead Branch and the woman near John, whom Tamarind had
dubbed Black Urchin, both moved closer. The amberjack zipped away from the boat
and Tamarind saw John struggle to maintain a hold on his stick. Black Urchin
leaned closer and gestured to John, perhaps giving him advice. The frown on his
face deepened, whether from the advice or the battle, Tamarind couldn’t be
sure. She flipped her tail and headed for the fish, trying to corral it so that
she could lull it into submission with her humming, but after zigzagging against
John’s line in the time that it took her to change direction, the amberjack
broke free. As she expected, it wandered a bit before sensing one of its cohort
and rejoining the school.

Dead
Branch and Black Urchin stood side by side now. The old man spoke into her ear
and she nodded, but John seemed absorbed in fiddling with the base of his
stick. He hooked another glittering lure onto a line and concentrated on
launching this new lure over the side of the boat. Tamarind no longer waited.

Switching
her glamour to mirror the water around her, she headed toward the school. The
amberjacks dispersed, but they didn’t swim far. The smell of squid and their
dead comrade permeated the water in which the innocuous lures undulated.
Tamarind hummed a bit and rolled, gathering up scent particles in the palm of
her hands and rippling these diaphanous globes through the swells and away from
the fishers. The amberjacks darted a hundred different directions as the globes
burst their scents in new underwater pockets. Tamarind laughed and tugged on
the nearest piece of squid. Someone at the top tugged back.

Humming
and swaying on the currents, Tamarind yanked at every flashing lure within
fifty feet of the boat. Several times she broke the lures off with enough line
to tie them onto a necklace for herself. Then she had an idea. Swimming toward
a small group of amberjacks, she hummed to keep them from leaving their safe
haven. She grabbed one, which rested in her grasp without twitching, and raced
back to the boat. It took her a moment, but she finally identified Black
Urchin’s lure. She hummed some more and brought the amberjack closer to the
wicked barb. It opened its mouth docilely and swallowed. Tamarind clutched onto
the fish and sped toward the open ocean. The line followed her for several long
moments before Black Urchin managed to stop her run. That’s when Tamarind
swerved, diving deep and rolling right.

Laughing
again, she zipped and dodged with the amberjack, which continued to lie calmly
in her hands. Black Urchin struggled to slow her down, but Tamarind, who often
played games with dolphins, could have swum all day if she’d wanted to do so.
After a few dozen passes, she swam back to the boat, letting Black Urchin reel
in her line bit by bit. When she’d gotten close enough to see John wrestling
with his own amberjack, she gave one last tug on the fish in her hands and then
let go. She could have broken the line at the last maneuver, but just knowing
this satisfied her. Let Black Urchin think that she’d won.

Rolling
toward John’s line, Tamarind saw that it floated free without amberjack or
lure. She looked around, but the school had moved on. Tucking her arms to her
side, she glided to the surface where she watched Black Urchin and Dead Branch
grappling with the still-quivering amberjack. The woman’s wet face shone, but
she exuded triumph. When Tamarind looked towards John’s face, she saw
admiration and something else. Something she couldn’t name, but it made her
uneasy nevertheless.

***

On the
trip back to shore, an animated Zoë talked with Captain Joe, asking numerous
questions about bait, tackle, the difference between amberjacks and the showier
sport fish—marlin, shark, mahi mahi. If John hadn’t known better, he would
believe that Zoë had softened her stance on eating any flesh, whether from a
fowl, a fish, or a four-legged mammal. Scowling, he noticed how patiently
Captain Joe answered her questions, how the old man offered her a soda without
saying a word to the others. He saw Captain Joe’s admiring glances at Zoë’s full
breasts, her damp tank top clinging to them.

The
old goat. Like he has any hope of catching his own quivering trophy
. His jealousy surprised and
confused him. His anger, unfocused as it was, flared. He closed his eyes and
breathed. Until this moment, he hadn’t understood how volatile his emotions had
grown on the Island of the Snake. He wasn’t sure he liked feeling so out of
control.

John
swiveled around in his chair and watched the bow of the boat as they neared
Culebra. His eye caught a glimpse of something in the water near their boat,
something dark, which disappeared just as he turned his head for a better look.
Perhaps it was a harbor porpoise, or a seal—maybe even a small whale. Whatever
it had been, it was larger than the amberjack that Zoë had hauled on board and
had disappeared under the boat with incredible speed. He thought about asking
Captain Joe what it might have been but then changed his mind when he saw that
the other man was still engrossed in conversation with Zoë.

They got
back into port about twelve-thirty. John waited while Zoë posed on-board for
the requisite photo documenting her catch, and then he had to wait further
while she got advice from Captain Joe about where to take the twenty-pounder to
have it cleaned, filleted, flash frozen, and shipped. It wasn’t right, she
said, to waste something that other people would eat, startling John again.
After eating a late lunch at the Dockside, they split up so that Zoë could shop
in some of the little artisan boutiques that exist in the smallest tourist
area, those tenacious barnacles hanging onto an uncertain livelihood derived
from the whims of sporadic shoppers. John had already bought souvenirs—some
earrings for Cassie, a hair clip for his mom, a fountain pen carved from
driftwood for his dad, and a t-shirt for Stefan who was chauffeuring him to and
from the airport. So he headed to Señorita’s and drank several Medallas in a
dark corner instead.

“
Hola
,
gringo
.” Raimunda had found him. She sat down at the table across from
him. “Buy me a beer?” After the bright morning out to sea, the shadows of the
restaurant turned her white blouse and brilliant-orange skirt lurid.

John
nodded and raised his hand to flag down his waitress. After she left, he looked
at Raimunda. “I’m afraid that this is the last beer I can buy you.”

“Why?”
She leaned forward to grab his hands where they lay on the table. The neck of
her blouse hung open to reveal bare breasts like an offering. “Is today your
last day on this fair island?”

“Almost.
But that’s not why. Remember my girlfriend? She’s here now and she’s not good
with sharing.” For the first time since falling under Raimunda’s spell, John’s
lust churned with disgust. He felt sick. His head throbbed. Images of Zoë
practicing crescent kicks merged with her triumphant smile after catching her
trophy and the randy leer on Captain Joe’s face.

Raimunda
accepted the Medalla from the waitress and lifted it high, sucking half of it
down in a single drink. She wiped the corners of her mouth with a delicate
thumb and forefinger.

“Too
bad,” she said at last. “But all good things must end.”

She
leaned back and slung her right arm over the back of the chair before raising
her feet to the chair next to John. Her skirt fell away to reveal her legs,
brown and slender.

“I am a
tolerant woman.” She smiled. “If your girlfriend should bore you, I would be
happy to meet you at Playa Melones for a private goodbye.”

John
smiled but refrained from caressing the calf that skimmed his left thigh. A
wave of nausea swept through him at the thought.

“I must
decline out of concern for your safety. And mine, I’m afraid.” He tried to
smile and grimaced instead. “My girlfriend has spent years learning how to kick
the shit out of any bastard who tries to hurt her. I’ve already earned a
serious ass-kicking as it is.”

“Ah.”
Raimunda toyed with the label on her beer bottle. “Perhaps she’s not the best
woman for you, my friend.”

John
scowled and gulped too big a mouthful of beer. Choking a little on the
effervescence, he felt tears prick the corners of his eyes. For the first time
since he’d nearly drowned in the canal, he felt his environment shrink around
him. Señorita’s pastel-pink, green, and yellow walls loomed over him. Sweat
slicked his palms, his shirt stuck to his armpits, and his face grew hot.

Raimunda
squinted at him but said nothing. She swilled the remnants of her beer without
taking her eyes off of him. After what seemed like half an hour but must have
only been a minute, the walls receded and the breeze from the overhead fan
dried John. A chill streaked up and down his spine and faded away. John leaned
his forehead into his left hand, which was propped up by his elbow on the
tabletop.

“You
must be careful when you drink your beer.”

“Yes.
No. I mean, that was more than a careless swig. I felt like the walls had
shrunk around me so much that I was suffocating. I couldn’t breathe for a
moment.”

“Your
girlfriend must have quite some hold on you, my friend.” How had he never
noticed how feral her grin seemed? Her teeth, small and sharp, gleamed in the
dull restaurant.

John
closed his eyes, willing her to go away. She didn’t.

“Look,
you don’t know me. I’d rather not discuss my girlfriend with you.”

Raimunda
pulled her feet down from the chair and leaned forward until her face came
within inches of his, still propped in his hand.