The Summer of Chasing Mermaids (4 page)

Cannon Beach was a great place for a day trip—they'd taken me up there a few weeks ago to see Haystack Rock from
The Goonies
. It had its own charms, but the town was overrun with tourists, a place whose original heartbeat was so deeply buried under the money it was no more than a faint throb. I couldn't imagine the Cove turning into that, or Lemon and Kirby being okay there.

Mr. Kane narrowed his eyes at his wife and set his highball on the table, harder than he needed to. “If what Wes says is true, Meredith, we'd make a killing. We could buy a beach house anywhere.”

“But I like it
here
,” Sebastian said. “All the best mermaid watching is here.”

Mrs. Kane ruffled his hair.

“We come here every summer, Dad,” Christian said. “But . . . you know what? Whatever.”

For a moment no one spoke. It seemed like Mr. Kane might be backing down, looking out for his family.

Then the mayor's eyes darkened. “What's wrong, Kane? Afraid your boy can't out-pirate mine? Is he into mermaids too? I hear that's inherited from the father's side.”

Mr. Kane's jaw ticked, the gesture almost identical to Christian's, but whatever response hovered on his tongue stayed put.

I looked at Sebastian, his sweet face unmarred by the mayor's jab.

As ever, my heart thrummed with the unsaids trapped inside.

Christian sighed. “You really are a douche bag, Katz.”

The mayor laughed, but Christian wasn't being funny.

After a tense beat the mayor drained his drink, then got up and headed for the kitchen. He returned with the half-empty bottle of scotch, poured himself a refill. He stretched across the table and filled Mr. Kane's glass too.

Mr. Kane grabbed the drink. “I think we both know my son could swab the deck with yours, Wes.”

The mayor only smiled. “This mean you're putting your money where your mouth is, friend?”

“Noah and I have sailed that race together every year for the last three,” Christian said. “Now you're pitting us against each other? Forget the Vega. Without Noah, I don't even have a teammate.”

“A little competition would do you boys some good,” the mayor said. “Plenty of willing sailors at the Cove this summer.”

I felt Lemon's eyes on me, but I refused to meet them. I knew what she was thinking—I could feel the impressions forming, drifting across the space between us.

She looked away, probably talking herself out of it, pushing an unbidden thought aside.

But not before it reached me.

My hand was curled on my thigh, and I looked down and read the message on my palm, smudged now with clamminess.

Something I can do for you?

Inside I felt an idea take root, bloom.

I'd been sailing my entire life.

But not anymore.

I was probably better than a lot of the sailors here, maybe even better than Christian and Noah.

But I couldn't go out there again.

I crushed my fingers against my palm, made a fist.

“All right, Katz,” Mr. Kane said. It was like Christian wasn't even there. “We're in.” He rose, stretched across the table for the handshake. “Your boy's finally got some competition this year.”

It was a strange mix, Mr. Kane's vibe. On one hand, he treated his eldest with little more than contempt. But the mayor got under his skin in a different way, a way that made him react fast. He bet on Christian, talked him up at the risk of losing his home. Lemon's home.

“We'll see who brings the competition.” The mayor downed his drink, lifted the empty glass toward Christian. “Let the piracy begin, Chris.”

“It's Christian.” Christian's voice was sour as he rose from the table, but he didn't say no, didn't back down from his father's bet.

Outside, the clouds that had been threatening all night made good on their promise.

Lightning pierced the sky.

Rain lashed the windows.

From the first moment Mayor Katzenberg had said the word “wager,” it couldn't have been more than ten minutes. A blip, really, but a blip that left a chill in the house untouched by the earlier ­celebratory warmth. Silently I helped Lemon and Kirby carry the remaining dishes to the sink, and then I slipped into the shade beneath the sea glass tree, my favorite sculpture in the gallery.

Built along the north-facing windows in a dark corner, the tree was made from driftwood, bone-white branches that jutted out from a tall trunk. Tiny pieces of sea glass in blue, green, brown, and
white hung from invisible wires like leaves that never fell.

The jewel-colored bits clicked together softly as Christian exited through the deck door, leaving his birthday party guests behind.

I pressed my forehead to the window and tracked him down the staircases, down to the sand below. He walked along the shore, past his house, unconcerned about the rain and the blue-white electricity streaking across the horizon.

I imagined his footsteps in the wet sand.

Dark, fading. Dark, fading. Dark, fading.

He disappeared in the mist.

My throat tightened, a feeling like tears rising, but they didn't spill. They never spilled anymore; I always stopped them. Crying never brought anything back from the dead. It only felt like the ocean trying to drown you from the inside out.

The men were back to talking investments, oblivious, but as I watched the lightning gather and spill on the horizon, I knew their bet had set things in motion. Irreversible, impossible things. Dangerous things.

I also knew how to patch up an old boat. I knew how to sail.

But inside my head, the only place that could still hear my words, the echo said no. It said that I shouldn't be thinking about the Kane family, the sticky web of it. I needed to keep my head down, help Lemon at the gift shop.

Not try to save the house from these dangerous, destructive forces. From men more powerful than the ocean.

I needed to collect sea glass. Keep my room clean. Do the dishes without being asked. Write poems and lyrics that no one would ever read, pretend I'd one day be able to sing again.

But maybe . . .

You're too afraid,
the echo taunted.
You're a fool to even think it.

I closed my eyes.

There was a time, not so long ago, I'd take a stage before hundreds of people. Grab my sister's hand, move the crowd without a second thought. Now, everything in me felt frozen and stiff, the stage bravery no more than a memory.

Natalie would've known what to do. She would've told me the truth. Held my hand, caught my tears when I let them fall, even if she'd been the one to put them there.

But she was gone.

I was gone.

Behind me, someone flicked on an overhead light, and I opened my eyes, catching my reflection in the glass. For an instant, a heartbeat, a breath, I thought it was my twin sister.

I pressed my hand to the window, and her fingertips met mine exactly. We spoke in unison.

Oh, gyal. What am I supposed to do without you?

Chapter 5

“Some say it's the
entrance to hell,” Lemon said, “but you shouldn't worry too much. It's probably just a legend.”

Water surged against the rocks near Thor's Well, white froth ­sizzling in the wave's retreat. It was the morning after, and I'd awoken with the realization that it hadn't been a dream. That my boat was no longer mine and the house that had stood so firmly before the sea could be reclaimed just as easily.

And now I found myself in Cape Perpetua at church. Lemon's version, anyway.

Hell?
I mouthed. It was the first time I'd accepted Lemon's weekly invitation, but it was starting to make sense why Kirby always turned her down. The sun hadn't even risen yet; the sea was cold and gray, and the jagged black rocks around us looked blue in the soft light.

“Think of it as a sacred doorway. The entrance to the underneath,
the realm below the sea.” Lemon tucked her auburn mane into a ­headscarf and yanked on the knot. “Ready?”

I glanced at my naked feet. Not wearing hiking boots to traverse volcanic rock was a recipe for injury, but on the drive up Lemon had insisted that the best way to connect with the earth was to feel it beneath your bare skin, sharp edges and all. She held out a steadying hand.

I pictured Granna and Dad at Sunday services. Natalie probably still went with them too. The remembered scent of frankincense filled my nose.

I longed for a hymnal and a smooth, firm pew, but, as the saying goes: When in Rome . . .

I grabbed Lemon's hand, held on tight.

At least at Lemon's church I didn't have to wear a dress. Granna would probably give me the evil eye if she saw. The thought made me smile.

I took a tentative step. Then another.

This stretch of Pacific coast was edged with jagged rock, leftovers from an ancient eruption, and somewhere in the middle lay the hole called Thor's Well. It was a craggy, bottomless pit into which waves crashed and poured, presumably sucked back out to sea. There was a paved pathway from the Cape Perpetua visitor center and a platform that offered a decent view, but at low tide like this, you could walk out on the rocks and get close to the well itself, depending on your risk tolerance.

Even with my death grip on Lemon's hand, when it came to tempting the temper of the sea, my risk tolerance was at an all-time low. I swallowed the urge to vomit.

Lemon led us to a flat spot in the rocks, still a safe distance from the well, and together we knelt down. Cold water soaked my pants, chilled my legs. With her hands spread flat at her sides, Lemon pressed her forehead to the exposed rock and whispered devotionals to the sea. Even at low tide the surf was restless; I couldn't hear Lemon's words, but likely she was thanking the Pacific for its gifts, for its beauty.

Acknowledging its power in the face of our infinite human ­fumbling. Our smallness.

I wrapped myself in a tight hug, fought off a shiver.

The water calmed around us. We sat in companionable silence, watching the first orange rays of sunlight poke through the mist, and I stretched out my fingers to catch them.

It still had the power to shock me, the lack of warmth here. My skin prickled with goose bumps.

“So, last night,” Lemon said, finished with her morning prayers. No matter how delicate the situation, she entered conversations like she entered a room, suddenly and intentionally, and I braced myself for whatever was coming. “It was probably a bit much for you, meeting so many people at once. Strong personalities.”

I scooched closer and shook my head, salt water soaking my clothes anew. Sure, I'd shaken too many hands, forced too many smiles, witnessed more of the Kane family tension than I'd wanted to. But it
was a party, stuffed with people, and no one had really tried to talk to me. They'd looked at, but not questioned, the scar. They'd taken in the kinky hair, the dark skin that seemed so rare in coastal Oregon, and possibly wondered about where I'd come from, but no one voiced it. Not even when they looked at me again and again like an exhibit, each time anew. Not cruel, perhaps, but invasive. Invasive enough that I always waited for the questions, and when they didn't come, I shrank a little more inside.

I didn't have the word for it, but when it came to meeting the good people of Atargatis Cove, last night was closer to the
opposite
of “a bit much.”

In Tobago, everyone knew everything, and whatever they didn't know they made up. Neighbors thought nothing of telling Granna she was “gettin' on in size,” or that it was long past time for Dad to “find himself a new woman.” Carnival before last, Natalie and I had gotten pretty wild, relishing our first time in a masquerade band in Trinidad unsupervised—Natalie linked up with some guy from San Fernando, giving him a hard wine, boomsie in the air and her hands on the ground, losing her mind as Machel Montano sang his hit, “Advantage.” Natalie was taking advantage all right. As for me, I was doing the same with my last boyfriend, Julien, who was loving his wild, free Elyse. News of our partying had reached Granna before the sun rose.

After this year's Carnival, before I'd even been released from the hospital in Port of Spain, neighbors had sent cards full of advice on how I couldn't let this setback bring me down, how I was still a
beautiful girl with lots of prospects. How fate altered our course, and it wasn't for us to question things or to linger too long in anger.

Anger, they'd warned, was an invitation for the devil.

And what were my new plans, they wanted to know?

I used to hate it, all their macoin'—being nosey. But now I couldn't decide which was worse—having neighbors spy on me, counsel me like they knew the workings of my heart? Or having them look right through me?

There, I was a celebrity.

Here, I felt invisible. Intriguing, maybe. Different. But ultimately unknowable.

I thought that's what I'd wanted when I left Tobago. To be left alone, to hunt sea glass in the mornings and write my poems at night, dreaming of the past. To hide out on a rickety old boat that wasn't mine, unseen.

But after last night, after seeing all that shared history, closeness and rivalry and dysfunction alike, I wasn't so sure.

I was a ghost still tethered to her body, and I didn't know how to move on. I didn't know how to explain all that to Lemon, either, especially without a voice. I held her gaze and let my eyes speak for themselves, but when she didn't question me further, my attention drifted back out to sea.

A rogue wave lashed the rocks before us, spraying us with mist. I put on my bravest face, not wanting to worry her. When Lemon finally spoke again, she had to raise her voice to outshout Mother Nature.

“Your granna called last night,” she said, licking sea mist from her lips. “You were asleep. I told her about the situation with the house. She thinks you should return home, that this whole regatta business might complicate things.”

I shook my head. Lemon was the one who'd invited me to the States, who'd convinced Dad and Granna it would do me good to get off the island, away from the constant reminders of everything that could no longer be. It was like she'd sensed my ache across the oceans, and I knew she could still sense it now. That she understood I needed time. Space. Distance.

From the moment she'd sent the ticket, I promised myself that I'd earn my place here. Do what I could to help at the gallery, even when she'd tried to insist that I relax. As long as Lemon would have me—as long as she had a place for me and I could continue to help out—I had no plans to return to Tobago.

Besides, there was a chance Christian could pull this off. Kirby had told me that when Christian and Noah raced together, they'd won every time, three years running.

“That's what I told her,” Lemon said. “Your dad, too. He knows as well as I do that you're not going anywhere until—and unless—you're good and ready. I don't care what those cocky old fools do with our house.”

Lemon looked out across the Pacific, the horizon endless and gray despite the rising sun.

“I grew up with those boys,” she said. “Wes and Andy. Ever since
they were kids, they've been pissing in each other's shoes. Sometimes I think the only reason Andy left the Cove was to prove he was better than Wes. When Wes ran for mayor, Andy sent campaign contributions, even though there wasn't an opposing candidate. He just wanted Wes to know how much throwaway money he had.” Lemon shook her head. “Either of them would save a baby from a burning building, but bet your ass they'd be sure the other one heard about it after.”

I tugged on her jacket to get her attention. When she looked at me, I mouthed carefully,
Why bet houses? Why not just sell?

“Andy didn't show up here wanting to sell,” she said. “Unfortunately, bets are his weakness, and Wes knows how to use it against him. He set the hook; Andy bit. Walking away would've made him look weak, especially after that jab Wes took at the boys.”

I thought again of Sebastian, the excitement in his eyes when he'd started telling me about Atargatis, and Christian, his body strung tight in his father's presence.

I thought of the Vega, all the work it needed. How I
knew
that it needed all that work, not just because it looked like a wreck on the outside, but because I knew boats.

I closed my eyes, drifted into a memory at the resort, Natalie and I taking Bella Garcia out on our own Vega. Bella was one of our ­regulars, sailed like a pro. She was also famous, one of the most popular soca artists in T&T. Earlier this year she'd taken the coveted Queen of the Bands title at Carnival.

Natalie and I had been there.

On the stage.

Holding her hands when they'd announced her big win.

It was
our
big win too. The moment that was supposed to launch our entire future together . . .

“Those two,” Lemon said, pulling me back to the present. “That's what happens when you see yourself through someone else's mirror, Elyse. You build your dreams for them, ignoring your own heart. One day you wake up and wonder how the fire went out.” She squeezed my leg. “Promise me you'll never do that.”

Lemon looked out on the sea, gurgling and churning again, and I suddenly realized why she didn't move to Tobago with Dad and Granna when she got pregnant with Kirby—unexpectedly—after a weekend of no-strings-attached Carnival revelry. My sisters told me that Granna had tried to insist, but Lemon was an artist, an old soul. She knew what it was to feel that fire burning inside her, that passion, and for her it was wholly connected to this place, the Pacific Northwest, Atargatis Cove. Staying in Tobago with my family might've made her life easier, more convenient.

But it would've extinguished her fire.

I wanted to ask her if that's why she took me in this summer, if she thought it might help me find my own fire, light it up again. But a fresh wave rose and crashed against the rocks, spraying us with salt water, and in my momentary fear I let the moment pass.

“I don't know what to make of this regatta bet,” Lemon said. Her eyes held mine again, serious, and for a minute I thought she might
ask me if I'd think about helping Christian. Even just getting the boat patched up. But when she cupped my chin with her palm, a smile softened her face. “But it's not for you to worry. You'll always have a place with me and Kirby, for as long as you want it. Even if we have to move and close the gallery. Even if we end up in a tent on the beach. You're a joy, Elyse, and you're always welcome. Never, ever doubt that this is your home too.”

Home.

Each of my older sisters left home after high school, one after the other. Juliette was first, gone to Barcelona, ancient city on the sea. By day she studied at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, and when the moon rose, she walked the shores, watched the city glimmering like a jewel. Martine followed the tea leaves through China and India, learning how to plant and harvest, dry and blend, make a “proper cuppa,” as she said. Gabrielle was eager to explore the islands, sticking her toes in all the sands of the Caribbean—Jamaica, Barbados, Honduras—but she missed our homeland, and eventually returned to open a dive shop near the cocoa estate. Hazel was the last to leave, following her dreams to Greenland, that vast white fist on the globe, where with her ­camera she perched on the tips of the tallest icebergs, photographing God's most impossible creations.

Natalie was still home, still waiting for me, but the rest were explorers. Adventurers. Dreamers.

Maybe our island looked different from the shores of Spain, from behind the thick crowds of the Far East, from a ship sailing on the
Caribbean Sea, from the edge of the Arctic. But for them, it would always be home, no matter how far they'd traveled, how many adventures they'd embarked upon.

Port of Spain, Trinidad, was only fifty miles from our resort—much closer than the other continents across which my sisters had traversed. But looking out at the islands from that hospital window in the city, when my twin sister and a doctor who looked not much older than me said I'd never sing again? That was the day I lost my home.

I didn't want that for Lemon and Kirby. Even if what Mayor Katzenberg had said was true—that Lemon could keep on renting, just from a new landlord—I knew it would change. That the rent would double, at least. That the house wouldn't be the same, wouldn't feel like hers. That the face of the entire town would change. Lemon was taking it all in stride, but she faced the possibility of losing the home she loved, shutting down the gallery she'd worked so hard to build, relocating to a strange new place.

And I had the skills and the time to do something to help her keep it.

Despite my fears, how could I
not
try?

As if to answer, the sea threw an icy wave our way, fully dousing us both. Lemon squealed, and inside, I shrank and shriveled.