The Mermaid's Secret (13 page)

“There you are!” Sammy says, running toward me. She throws her arms around my neck.

I swallow a hard lump of crust.

“Where have you been?”

“It happened again,” I tell her. I can see the doubt in her eyes. “I know what you're thinking, but it wasn't a concussion. I shot the barrel and turned into a mermaid. I lost track of time and couldn't find my way back, so I slept in a shipwreck out at Wolf Rocks. Which was terrifying, by the way.”

“Like, for real? Because if you feel like you're not getting enough attention, I understand. We can go out to the Schooner Wharf and let some boys buy us drinks. Always makes me feel better.”

“I became a mermaid,” I say, my voice sure and steady.

“As in fish tail, flowing hair, scallop-shell bra, the whole thing?”

I raise a Girl Scout salute—not that I was ever a Girl Scout, or that Sammy would even know what the Girl Scout salute is, but it gets the point across.

“Holy shit,” Sammy says. She collapses into the papasan chair.

“I know. It's crazy. I don't understand it, but it's true.” I take another bite of pizza. “Oh, and there's no scallop shells. I don't really know where my bikinis go. I might have to stock up on some cheap ones down at Kmart. I want you to see what it's like out there, Sammy. You have to come with me.”

There's a knock at the door.

Sammy jumps. “I called Sheriff,” she blurts out.

“What? Why?”

“I didn't hear from you. You came by the restaurant with that Count Dracula voice and that ‘I need you to know where I'm going' business. I was worried. Like,
really
worried.”

If Sammy was worried, Sheriff must be a basket case.

“Should I let him in?” Sammy asks.

“I don't think we have any choice.”

Sammy opens the door and Sheriff walks in. Dark circles under his eyes. A slouch in his shoulders. I think about the morning they found Kay. The early call from the station. Sheriff on the phone. The color draining from his face. His eyes like saucers. Mom asking what happened. The phone propped against his shoulder as he holstered his gun.

Sheriff looks at me, and his face does a weird twitchy thing. I'm not sure whether he's going to laugh or cry.

“Thank God,” he says, crossing the living room. He hugs me so hard I can't breathe. “Are you okay?” There's a crackle of anxiety I know all too well.

I nod, because I don't trust my voice.

He hugs me again, my head pressed into his chest. I can hear his heart fluttering. I can feel the tension in his muscles.

“Are you injured? Did anyone hurt you?”

“No one hurt me.”

“What happened?” The fatherly tenderness in his voice is fading and the I-need-answers-right-now cop voice is taking its place.

As I think about the fresh hell I must have put him through these last few hours, the guilt rises up, catching in my throat. “Nothing happened. I'm fine.” I want to tell him about the wave, and the swimming, and the seal, and the oysters, and sleeping in a forgotten shipwreck under the sea. The thrill, the fear, the magic of it.

“Where were you?” he demands.

“I…” I look to Sammy for help. She shrugs. Not going to touch this with a ten-foot pole. “I fell asleep on the beach after I went surfing.”

“Which beach?”

“I don't know.”

“You don't
know
?” His voice is full of daggers. He rubs his temples. “Do you want to know what's been running through my mind? Do you know what you've put me through? What you put Sammy through?”

“Just tell him,” Sammy says, poking me.

He glares at her. “Tell me what?”

I look at my father, who is a shell of the man he once was. When I was little, I thought my father was the strongest man on earth; everyone did. My friends were in awe and fear of him. Even his name—Sheriff—summed up his purpose in the world. The way he walked, the way he spoke, everything about him reflected the pride of a man who protects others.

Now, there's no one left to save. Except for me.

“Well?” he says.

I'm all he has left.
I
need to protect
him
. I need to lie.

“Nipon,” I say. “It was at Nipon.”

“You spent the night at Nipon Beach?” he yells.

I jump.

“Are you crazy? You slept in a place that you know is crawling with junkies and drug dealers and God knows what else? Do you have any idea how many arrests I've made at Nipon Beach?”

“I mean North Beach. It wasn't Nipon. It was North Beach. I had a beer and I didn't want to drive home, so I sat down for a few minutes. Next thing you know, I was asleep.”

He blades his stance. A defensive posture. “You were drinking.” It's a statement, not a question.

“No. I mean, yes. Just one beer, though. I was tired.” I feel like I'm digging a hole for myself, a shovelful with each lie.

“So you're telling me you had one beer and then proceeded to fall asleep on the beach, all night,
in the rain
?”

And the hole gets deeper.

“Dad, can you just drop it?” The word
Dad
floats out there like a piece of driftwood.

He grabs my arms, turns them over, looking for needle marks. He has flipped the switch from Dad to cop. “Were you doing drugs?”

“No!” I pull my arms back and cross them over my chest.

“Who were you with?”

“I was alone.”

“Baloney.”

Nothing I say will help, so I just stand there in my ratty, borrowed shirt.

“Aren't you supposed to be at work right now?” Sheriff asks.

I shrug.

“Is that a yes? Is that a no?”

“I'm sure Harold found someone to cover for me.”

“This is so disappointing.” He shakes his head. “You're so disappointing.”

“I know.”

“You have responsibilities. You have a job to answer for. You have people who rely on you. When are you going to learn that?”

“I get it, okay?” I feel like I'm in fourth grade all over again, sitting outside the principal's office, waiting for my punishment.

“You don't get it. You never get it. You're an adult now, but you're acting like a child. You don't follow rules, Jess. You don't take responsibility for yourself.”

“Neither do you,” I snap.

He glares at me. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“It means you need to stop worrying about me and take a look at yourself.” I choke back the dry lump in my throat. “You had responsibilities. Kay was your responsibility. Mom was, too. But you let both of them get away.” I wish I could take it back, but my words have an unstoppable energy to them. They spin through the room like a blizzard.

A knobby vein on his temple throbs. His inhales sharply. The muscles in his neck quiver. His eyes gloss over and he looks like he's about to cry.

And then he slaps me across the face.

I'm so startled I can't speak. I put a hand to my cheek and feel the blood rising to my skin. Salty residue makes even the slightest touch feel like sandpaper.

He looks as shocked as I feel. “Jess, I'm…” He steps close. He steps back. He steps close again. “I'm sorry,” he mutters. “I'm … so sorry.”

I can't look him in the eyes. My heart thrums in my ears. I feel a pain cross my chest.

The thing is, it's not the slap. I can get past that. I probably deserved that.

It's
him
. It's his sadness. It's the pity I feel for him. He's my father. He's the strongest man on earth. Not the weepy, broken man in front of me. I'm not supposed to pity him.

I look down at the floor. At the frayed edge of the Oriental rug. At my bare toes covered in dust from the gravel road at Lobster Cove. There's motion in the room, and I think Sheriff might be reaching for me, but I still can't bring myself to look up until I hear the door close.

“Dude,” Sammy says. “That was intense. You okay?”

I nod. I think about my mother on her spirit journey, leaving Sheriff and me behind. I wonder if she worries about him? About me? I wonder how long she needs to wander to lose the sorrow inside of her? I wonder if I could get rid of my sorrows that way.

“Why didn't you just tell him that you're a mermaid?” Sammy strokes my hair, which has gotten so gnarled and kinky that I'll have to run through a whole bottle of conditioner to get it straight.

“Because he needs me to be his little girl,” I say.

 

E
LEVEN

I sleep for most of the day. I'm not usually one of those people who can crash on demand. Naps have never been my thing. The thwack of rolled newspapers hitting cobblestone on the morning paper delivery is enough to startle me out of bed. But today I'm a snoozing champion. I don't even get up when Lady Victoria starts belting out show tunes from her balcony.

I guess I've never been tired enough.

When I wake up and see that it's already four o'clock, I feel confused.
A.M.
or
P.M.
? My skin is tight with salt residue. The sting of the slap is gone, but my face is creased with pillow marks. I look out the window. The sun is shining. Must be
P.M.

The fishing boats will just be getting in for the day. I think of Sheriff's words. I need to take responsibility. I need to grow up. I have a job. I have people who rely on me.

One of those people is Harold Stantos. As much as I hate to admit it, I need him. I need the tips, the reliable work. Time for me to do some damage control with Harold.

*   *   *

The door to Slack Tide is propped wide, an afternoon breeze drifting in. Harold is at the counter, scrawling in his ledger. He keeps track of everything—fishing conditions, pounds of fish caught, tackle rented, tackle lost or damaged, numbers of hamburgers and sodas sold, debits, credits. He should have been an accountant rather than a fisherman.

Harold likes to tell about his rise from poor immigrant to successful business owner as though it were a fairy tale. But the truth is, there's more to his story. He came to Ne'Hwas by accident. Back in Greece, he married his childhood sweetheart when they were both very young, and he promised her that he would strike it rich in America one day. His new wife had a cousin who owned a Greek restaurant in Hyannis Port, so the newlyweds bought their tickets to Boston and left everything they knew.

The restaurant turned out to be a simple little sausage cart, without a dolma or a cube of feta in sight. And the cousin had no need or desire to hire his cousin's husband for a job he was perfectly capable of doing by himself.

Harold, after trying his hand at a number of unsuccessful enterprises, decided it was time to put America behind him. With two young children in tow, he bought a sixteen-foot ketch he found through an ad in the paper. The seller even threw in a captain's hat for free, which, to hear Harold tell it, made him look like a full-bird admiral. Harold wasn't much of a sailor, but he was full of confidence. And he was Greek. Greeks know the water better than anyone, or so he believed. He packed up his wife and two young sons and all their belongings, sold their car, and shoved off.

Mykonos was his destination.

Thirty-two days later, he pulled into a mooring in Ne'Hwas. What's normally a day-and-a-half sail turned into a wretched disaster, in which Harold's wife began to seriously question his competence as both a sailor and a man. She stepped off the tiny boat, a child in each arm, and walked straight down Spinnaker Street to city hall to file divorce papers.

Harold stayed. Deep down, I think he has always regretted the path his life led him down.

Harold's eyes are cold when he sees me. “The galley girl is here at last. Only eight hours late for work.”

I approach him cautiously, like you would a feral cat trapped in an alley. “I'm sorry, Harold. I really am. I should have been here. It's a long story.”

He doesn't look up.

“Do you have any candy bars that need to be stocked? Any lures that need pricing?”

He looks down. Continues writing. Keeps up the silent treatment. I wish he would just yell at me and get it over with, but it's as though he takes some sick pleasure in making me beg.

“Look, I'm sorry I wasn't here this morning. It was out of my control.”

“I don't need excuses. I need boys who can fish and girls I can count on to run the galley.”

“And what's up with that? Why aren't girls allowed to fish and…” I stop myself. I breathe deeply and put on an appropriately contrite face. I need this job, I remind myself. “It won't happen again. I swear.”

“I need workers I can count on, you understand this?”

“I'll do inventory to make up for today,” I say.

He taps his pencil. “Summer is short. I have only two months to make my numbers for the year.”

“I know.”

Down the pier, I can see Matthew hosing down the deck of the
Dauntless
. Tony is at the fillet table, cutting up the last of the customers' catches.

“One day of summer costs me two weeks of winter.” He taps his pen against the book. “You kids today. You don't appreciate the value of hard work. You know I came here with nothing but twenty dollars in my pocket.”

“And a dream.” I smile and force a laugh. Ugh, the story of Harold making good again. I want to tell him to stop being so melodramatic. I want to tell him I'm one of his best employees and he needs to cut me some slack. I want to tell him that I spent the night under the sea, in a place no other human has been, breathing water, swimming with the grace and speed of a goddess. What I actually say is, “I'll be here early tomorrow. I'll even clean the storage shed.”

“Be here early. Be here late. It's no matter.”

“Huh?”

He looks me in the eye. “You're fired.”