Real Mermaids Don't Wear Toe Rings (3 page)

“Hey, Jade?” He called out holding two packages of maxi pads.

I shook my head violently to stop Dad from talking, but from where he stood, I doubted he could see I was talking to a boy. A mildly annoying, but nonetheless cute boy.

“Do you want wings or no wings?”

It was official.

This was shaping up to be the Most. Embarrassing. Day. Ever.

I
STARED OUT THE WINDOW
, holding my throbbing head, as Dad wound the car along the main part of town, past the bank and thrift store. A few people window- shopped along Main Street, some pushing their way through the glass doors of Bridget’s Diner, trying to beat the dinner rush. Though, “rush” was a bit of a stretch for our laid-back, oceanside town.

Dad drummed his thumbs on the steering wheel to the beat of the country music whining on the local radio station. We’d dropped Cori off a few minutes before, after the madness of the mall, and now Dad was trying to sell me on ordering Chef Chan for dinner but my whole body ached and my headache had been upgraded to a migraine thanks to a really annoying ring now developing in my ears.

“Sorry, Dad. I’m just not that into kung pao chicken tonight,” I called over the music. “I just want to get home and crash.”

The universe must have been conspiring against me because before we could cross the drawbridge at the canal,
we caught a red light and a metal barrier swung down to block our way. A cabin cruiser sat in the boat lock below the bridge, waiting to sail through to Talisman Lake after making its way up the canal from the ocean. Warning bells clanged and the bridge drew open. I winced at the sound.

“Just great.” I rested my forehead against the cool glass of the passenger-side window, wishing the day would just hurry up and be over.

“Might as well get comfortable.” Dad put the car in park and rolled down his window to call out to Shaky Eddie in the boat lock’s control tower. “Hiya, Eddie! Busy this week, eh?”

Eddie nodded and waved while he puffed on his cigarette, then he turned his attention back to the controls. Port Toulouse was famous for its mile-long water canal built between the ocean and the lake. It was Eddie’s job to lead boats up the canal and into the boat lock, which acted like a holding tank. Depending on the tides, Eddie usually had to adjust the water level inside the lock to compensate for the difference between the ocean and the lake levels before boats could sail onward.

He’d let the Martins’ sailboat through just a few days before, no doubt. I smiled, imagining the homecoming Eddie had given his grandsons, Luke and Trey, after so many months away.

The thought turned sour as I considered the impression I must have left on Luke at Dooley’s. The guy probably thought I was a bigger dork than ever. But why the
heck should it matter what he thought? At least he got his stitches out after a week. I was the one who was stuck with the “Scissor Lips” handle all through junior high.

“Well, have a good one!” Dad called out, rolling up his window. He turned to me, smiling, but must have sensed my desperation because he lowered the volume on the radio.

“Thank you,” I muttered and rested my feet on the dashboard, trying to get comfy while we waited for the boat to pass through the lock.

“No problem, kiddo.” Dad smiled. “Hey, how about we get some fries and ‘wings’ from Bridget’s.” He finger-quoted the wings part and winked. I know he was just trying to make up for the Dooley’s episode, so I played along.

“You know, Dad? Geek humor is really tough to pull off.”

“Thank you.”

“That wasn’t an endorsement.” I rubbed my temples.

“Aw, come on, Jade.” He gave my knee a little slap. “Where do you think you get your biting wit?”

“Well, if I’m supposed to get my sense of humor from you, what did I inherit from Mom?”

Mom. Maybe it was because my nerve endings were so raw, but for some reason she kept coming up over and over that day.

“Thank goodness you’re more like her than me,” he said quietly. “And the older you get, the more of her I see in you.”

I glanced down and rubbed a chocolate stain from the
front of my shirt. “Yeah, right. Mom was tall and gorgeous. I don’t look anything like her.”

“Well…” Dad seemed to consider what to say next. “You’d be surprised how alike you both are. Take your feet, for instance. Here, show me your foot.” He reached out his hand.

“No way!” I backhanded his arm.

“Come on. You’ll see what I mean.”

I eyed him and slid off one of my shoes.

Dad raised an eyebrow when he spotted the silver band around my pinkie toe. “What’s this?”

“Um…a toe ring?” It’s not like it was some big secret or anything.

“I guess I should be thankful it’s not impaling your belly button.”

“Don’t worry; belly rings aren’t really my thing. I prefer tattoos,” I joked.

Dad ignored me and took my foot into his hand. I yanked it back. I’m beyond ticklish.

“I’m not trying to tickle you. I just want to show you something.” He pulled my third and fourth toe apart. “See how these toes are webbed part way up? That’s just like Michaela.”

I pulled my shoe back on and muttered. “Great. I could have inherited Mom’s flawless complexion, but instead, I got her weird feet.”

Dad’s forehead furrowed. “I always loved that about your mom.”

A familiar blur gathered up in the corners of my eyes.

“Sorry, it’s not that.” I pulled my knees to my chest and let the tears I’d forced back earlier come streaming out.

“Ah, come here.” Dad pulled me into a hug and rested his chin on top of my head.

I thought of the Michaela bathing suit and the fact that I just got my first period and the Mother’s Day cards on the floor of the drugstore. Dad was doing his best, but shouldn’t it be Mom there, getting me through this?

“It’s just, well, for some reason, I really miss her today.” My voice hiccupped the words into his shirt.

“I really miss her too,” Dad rubbed my shoulder. “Weird feet and all.”

Finally, the bells stopped clanging as the bridge lowered back into place. The barrier lifted to let us through. I stared at the cabin cruiser, now well on its way down the lake, as the car’s tires thundered across the bridge’s metal grating. After a few more minutes, we arrived home. I trudged up the walkway and dumped my stuff in the front hall once we got inside.

“I almost forgot.” Dad fished something from the Dooley’s bag while I kicked off my shoes. “I also got you some Epsom salt.”

“What for?”

“Well…” He looked at me sheepishly. “A couple of Google links said that it’s good for PMS symptoms since the magnesium sulfate draws toxins from the body, relaxes muscles, and sedates the nervous system.”

I went to my happy place during that last bit of Dad’s explanation. Still, a bath sounded like a good idea. I imagined soaking in the big claw foot tub upstairs. It would be a relief to get out of those yucky clothes and yucky underwear, and put the yucky day behind me.

“Okay,” I said. “That’s actually the best idea I’ve heard all day.”

“Here.” Dad put the Epsom salt back and passed the stuffed Dooley’s bag to me. His face was kind and sweet. “Sorry I went a bit overboard at the drugstore, but I swear, it feels like I was taking the training wheels off your bike just last week. This is kind of uncharted territory for me.”

“Me too,” I whispered. I gave him a quick peck on the cheek and headed upstairs.

I locked the bathroom door behind me, tossed the Dooley’s bag on the counter and turned on the water in the bath. The Epsom salt fizzed as the crystals met the stream of water. I found a spot for the leftover salt in the bathroom’s linen closet. A plastic bottle toppled over at the back of the shelf. I pulled it out.

Peachtree Pro-vitamin. Mom’s old shampoo.

The scent overwhelmed me when I clicked open the lid. I drank in the smell and closed my eyes. It was almost like Mom was there, holding me in a hug, her long hair in my face. Could she see me, wherever she was? Did she know how I was feeling, what I was thinking, just then? Did she know how much I missed her?

The sound of the flowing water pulled me from my thoughts. I snapped the lid shut and placed the bottle back on the shelf.

I stripped down to my underwear then wiped the steam from the bathroom mirror and took inventory.

Boobs? If I squished my arms together, I could almost convince myself I had cleavage.

Armpit check? Time to shave.

Other than that though, the same copper curls, squinty green eyes, and chubby cheeks met my gaze in the mirror. Same old Jade. Shouldn’t I look different? Feel different? I was becoming a “woman” after all, wasn’t I?

It took a while to fill the massive, old-fashioned tub, but I waited until it was a deep steaming pool before squeaking the tap closed. Then, it occurred to me. What would happen when I lowered myself into the water? Should I take a shower instead?

Think. Think.

I knew they’d covered this in Health Ed when they crammed all the girls into the school library and showed us those hideously embarrassing movies while the boys went outside to play flag football. But that was four years before and while 99% of those girls were sure to have gone through this already, I was left to wonder. It’s not like I could just call up Cori (I still hadn’t fessed up to the Lie) and I really didn’t want Dad to fire up the search engine on this one.

I shrugged out of my underwear and eased myself into
the tub. The water wrapped its warmth around me, giving my whole body a feeling of weightlessness.

I waited.

Nothing.

I rested my head against the back of the tub, relieved and left feeling just a teensy bit stupid. But how was I supposed to know what would happen? Who tells you these things?

Then the harsh reality hit me.

Moms tell you these things.

In that moment, soaking in my Epsom salt bath, I missed Mom more than ever. A girl only gets her first period once in her life and I hated not knowing what to expect. I hated not knowing what to do.

And most of all, even though a wave of shame ran through me for letting the thought even enter my mind, I hated Mom for not being there and for leaving me to figure it all out.

I couldn’t remember the exact moment I dozed off, but after crying until my eyes stung, the warm bath lulled me into one long, sleepy head nod.

I dreamt I was floating in the ocean, looking up at a cloudless sky, surrounded by long, white strands of silk. Purple and white jellyfish swayed in the current around me. But instead of being afraid of getting stung, their waving tentacles soothed me into a dreamy haze.

Was this my version of those goofy panty liner
commercials? I remembered thinking. No, this was different. It was peaceful and warm with no fields of daisies in sight.

My thoughts floated, suspended around me but close enough to touch. The silk danced in the water in curls, brushing up against my skin. I let the strips of fabric wrap around and around my arms and legs until I was enveloped in a cocoon of warmth.

I tried to remember a time when I’d felt so peaceful with the clear blue sky above and the motion of the waves all around but the bits of each thought were just beyond my reach. I closed my eyes and gave in to the soothing hum of the moment.

Then, something tugged the cloth from below.

The silk unwound from around me, sending me into a dizzying spin. I managed to free my arms and flailed in the water, but something kept pulling at the cloth, forcing me underwater. Water pushed its way down into my lungs. My legs stayed bound tightly and in my dreamlike state, I remembered thinking, if only I could free them, I might stand a chance of saving myself before being dragged to the bottom of the ocean…

A knocking sound broke the spell.

“Jade?” Dad’s voice worked through my dream. “You okay, honey?”

I awoke, coughing and thrashing in the water around me, still confused by the images swirling in my mind.

The cloth, the sky, the ocean.

The bathroom, cold water—I was in the tub.

Rubbing my eyes, blinking away the sting, trying to get out, shocked by what I saw breaking through the surface of the water.

Then, I was yelling for Dad, he was crashing through the door.

And I had a tail. A shimmering, scale-covered, slimy, wet tail.

Freak-of-nature suddenly took on a whole new meaning.

T
HE ONLY THING MORE
unbelievable than the fact that my lower body now looked like a yellow-finned tuna was the idea that Dad might actually know something about it. I hammered him with questions as he drained the water from the tub.

“What the heck do you mean, you were always afraid something like this might happen to me? What do you know about this?”

Dad made a few attempts at words as he draped a towel around me and lifted me from the bathtub. Not an easy task since I was now slipperier than a wriggly trout.

This couldn’t be real, could it? No. It was a joke. It had to be.

“Oh, I get it!” I laughed out loud. “This is for that ten bucks I wheedled out of you when you were on the phone with work, isn’t it? Ha-ha, good one, Dad. How’d you get this thing on without waking me up?” I pushed at the tail, trying to see where it connected but the transition from skin to scales was seamless.

“This isn’t a joke,” Dad said in a low voice as he sat me down on my bed.

I squeezed my eyes shut to try to keep the room from spinning. Of course it wasn’t a joke. Dad had been locked on the other side of the bathroom door when it happened. Still, I couldn’t get myself to believe any of it.

“Are you telling me this thing is actually
attached
to my body?!” I gasped. The reality of what was happening made my stomach lurch. Dad must have noticed because he shoved the wastepaper basket in front of me just in time for me to toss my cookies.

“Oh, Jade. Are you okay?” Dad fussed over me. He tucked my hair behind my ear and handed me tissues to wipe my mouth.

I collapsed against the pillows again and tried to catch my breath. “No. I am not okay. This is NOT okay!”

“Let’s just get you comfortable…” Like what a nurse would say to some poor patient in a hospital ward. This was wrong. Seriously wrong.

“I don’t need to get comfortable! I need to get this thing off!” I shook the tail through the air, but it stayed stuck. I was crying by then—crazy, wailing, wounded harp seal kind of cries.

“Shh, shh…I’m so sorry, Jade. I’m just not sure how to explain this.” Dad draped a sweater around my shaking frame and covered the tail with a blanket.

“Try me!” I searched his tortured face. He sat in the chair next to my bed and ran his hand through his hair. Typical Dad stress signal.

“There is something I haven’t told you because I wasn’t sure I’d ever have to.” He rested his elbows on his knees, lacing and unlacing his fingers. “Your mom and I…”

“What about Mom?” The sound of her name had me bracing my hands against the mattress.

Dad squeezed his eyes shut. “Just let me gather my thoughts, will you, Jade? This isn’t an easy thing to explain.”

“And you think being covered in fish scales is
easy?
” My face screwed up in an involuntary sob.

“Oh, sweetie.”

“I’m sorry.” I wiped my nose with the sleeve of the sweater. “I’m just…” I struggled to catch my breath “…a little freaked out here.”

That was the understatement of the year.

“No, no. Don’t be sorry.” Dad stood and paced the room, letting out a huge, noisy breath. “Don’t ever be sorry about this.” He waved his hand toward the lump under the blanket where my legs used to be.

“What exactly
is
this?” I slapped the blanket, sending a sting through my thigh. Ah! Not my thigh. Not anymore!

Dad cleared his throat. “Your mom and I always planned on telling you. But after she…” He drew in a breath and blinked a few times before continuing. “After Michaela drowned, I wondered if the secret would die along with her.”

“What secret?” I fought to keep the edge out of my voice, but the scales on the tail began to prickle. A lot. Was searing scale pain normal? I wondered. Then again, could anything about having a tail be considered
normal?

Dad sat and took my hand in his. “Jade…”

“Yes?”

He took a deep breath. “Michaela…your mom…she was a mermaid.”

I looked at him for a full ten seconds before my brain caught up with his words.

“A…a wha?”

“A Pesco-sapien. Part fish, part aquatic humanoid.”

Of all the times to pull the science card on me. I closed my eyes and shook my head in disbelief.

“I know what a mermaid is! But Mom was a person. A human. She walked upright. She had legs! What the heck do you mean—a mermaid?” None of it came even close to registering. That afternoon, my biggest problem had been trying to find a bathing suit that fit and getting my first period. Now, the complexity of my life seemed to get jacked up by a few hundred decimal points.

“Well, technically I guess I should say she
used
to be a mermaid.” He squeezed my hand. “Ah, Jade, I know none of this makes sense. I didn’t understand it either, when I first met Micci.”

“Then I’m…” I couldn’t quite finish the sentence before being sent down another spiral of disbelief.

“It seems so.” Dad let out a desperate sigh and leaned heavily against the back of the chair.

“But how is that even possible?” Then I looked at him seriously. “Please tell me Mom was human when you met
her.” I had enough to try to wrap my head around without imagining the obvious.

Dad let out a little laugh.

“We met about a year after she was washed ashore during Hurricane Jade.”

“I was named after a hurricane?” I could believe almost anything now.

He nodded. “From what Micci told me, she was knocked unconscious and washed ashore during the storm. By the time she made it back to the ocean, she’d pulmo-morphed.”

I closed my eyes and shook my head.

“Speak English!” I shifted in the bed, trying to get comfortable, but the scales went from prickling to burning and my whole lower body was a furnace of heat.

“Her gills and lungs had changed too much from breathing air. It made it harder for her to survive underwater.”

I brought my hands to my face and shook my head. “This is unbelievable.”

“There was this group of mer-people called the Mermish Council, I think, who had just taken over the government,” Dad continued. “They were really cracking down on mersecurity and they worried your mom may lose consciousness some day, since her underwater breathing had become so compromised. They couldn’t risk her getting washed up on shore again and being discovered, so they allowed her to become human.”

“They kicked her out of the ocean?” Thoughts swam
around in my head, like the white flecks in a just-shaken snow globe.

“I’m a bit unclear on the details.” Dad took off his glasses. He began to clean them with a handkerchief from his pocket and shook his head as he rubbed. “Your mom didn’t like to talk about it much; I suspect it may have been some sort of Mermish Code of Silence. What I
do
know is that the transformation from mermaid to human was very long and difficult for her.”

“But how can a human…and a mermaid even…?”

He put his glasses back on. “There was obviously a stray branch on the evolutionary tree.”

“But I can’t live like this! What about school? My friends?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Then we have to find this Mermish Committee or Council or whatever and fix this! We can fix this, can’t we?”

Dad stood and stared out the window. That’s when I realized, he didn’t know that either.

The heat from the tail wafted up from beneath the blankets and filled the air around me, making it hard to breathe. Or maybe my lungs had changed when I slipped underwater in the bathtub, just like Mom’s had when she got washed ashore. Did I now have gills I didn’t know about?

“Something’s wrong.” I pulled back the blankets to let the heat escape. The scales on the tail glowed like the orangey-red shade of a blazing sunset.

“What is it?” Dad turned and read my tortured expression. He ran to my side.

“Ah!” A rush of adrenaline shot through my body, putting all of my cells on red alert. Searing pain pierced through the tail as one by one, the scales shifted and morphed into a shiny film.

“It looks like the scales are turning back into skin,” Dad whispered.

“It hurts!” I pulled myself up on my elbows. As each scale morphed into skin, it left a stab of pain in its place. I gasped for breath, as the throbbing took over. A crease deepened along the length of the tail.

“What can I do? Jade, just tell me…”

“Make it stop!” I looked up into Dad’s face, tears blurring my eyes.

“I’m not sure what to do…” Dad’s face crumpled as he arranged and rearranged the pillows around me. Finally, he gave up and pulled me into his arms. “Just breathe, honey, breathe.”

My whole body wracked with pain as the tip of the tail split. I collapsed against Dad’s chest but couldn’t tear my eyes away from what was happening. The separation made its way up the deepening crease, dividing the tail in two. The scales had merged into a solid surface and now shone pink like the color of sunburned skin.

“I think you’re changing back!” Dad rocked me back and forth and stroked my hair. But nothing could distract me from the unbelievable agony.

“Look!” Horror and relief swept over me as the tips of the tail fin curled onto themselves and divided into ten
bits, reforming my toes. Jolts of energy spread through the two divided sections of the tail, shaping my feet, my knees, my thighs, and finally, my hips and torso.

“It’s okay, honey. Breathe,” Dad whispered into my hair.

I gave in to the agony and moaned as the last bits of my former mermaid self dissolved into my skin. In moments, the change was complete.

I fell back against my pillows, exhausted. Goose bumps rose along my damp skin.

“You’re human again,” Dad whispered. He pulled the wet towels and blankets onto the floor and draped Gran’s afghan over me.

“How?” I tried to pull the clues of what just happened together, but nothing made sense. “Why now? Why today?”

“Maybe…” Dad paused “…I don’t know.”

For once in his life, he didn’t seem to have an answer. No amount of science or reason could explain what had just happened.

“What if it happens again?” The tears returned. One part relief, one part fear, one part wishing Mom were there to help me understand what had just happened. I needed to keep talking, to try to make sense of it all.

“Shh, shh.” Dad stroked my hair. We sat there for a long moment. He kept his arm around me as I gave myself over to the numbing exhaustion. Soon, my eyes grew heavy and my breathing deepened.

“Why don’t you get into your pajamas and get some
sleep?” he suggested. “We can talk more about this in the morning. I promise.”

I popped awake and wiped the drool from the side of my mouth. Nice.

“Okay-um.” I slurred the word. Then I remembered. I’d have to go sort things out in the bathroom before collapsing.

“I just need to make a pit stop,” I said mechanically. It seemed strange to be thinking so practically after what had just happened but at that point my mind and body went into autopilot.

I swung my legs (my legs!) over to the side of the bed and braced a hand on the headboard to stand. My whole body shook as my feet met the floor, filling me with worry. Could I actually walk?

“Do you need help?” Dad asked.

“Yes,” I whispered, barely finding my voice. I leaned heavily against him, my legs still stinging from the transformation.

Dad draped the afghan over my shoulders and helped me as I hobbled to the bathroom. “Thank goodness you’re back to normal.” His voice was heavy with relief.

I managed a smile before shutting the door of the bathroom.

Normal. I braced my hands against the vanity and stared at my reflection in the mirror.

I had a feeling there was no way I would ever feel normal again.