The Summer of Chasing Mermaids (9 page)

“Want to talk about it?” he asked.

I saw his eyes on my scar, knew what he was asking.

He was the first.

It was nothing like I'd imagined, that question. And now that it was there, an opportunity to tell my story, I couldn't find the words. Just like I couldn't find the words to explain why, even from safe distances, the ocean could still sneak up on me, bring my darkest nightmares to life.

Christian didn't force it. “The first time I was on a boat,” he said, “I was five or six. Dad chartered a sailboat, nothing fancy, but he wanted to take me and Mom out on the water. Mom made us all wear life jackets, even though he'd insisted there was nothing to worry about, since we weren't going out far. But Mom didn't back down.”

Smart thinking,
I mouthed. The ocean was unpredictable. Our resort guests were required to wear life jackets at all times, even when we were just parked at the dock.

“Hour into the trip,” he said, “the sky turned black, black, black. Storm rolled in faster than anything I'd ever seen—we're talking minutes. Waves hit us from all sides. Raining so hard we couldn't
tell whether the water was coming from above or below.”

I shivered just imagining it. It sounded a lot like the night I was born. The kind of stormy sea that had taken my mother.

“I remember thinking I was going to drown,” he said. “Like, I
knew
it. But I didn't scream. I just held on to the rails until my hands turned white, puked all over my life jacket. I couldn't move.”

Another wave crept up, tickled our feet. Christian guided us closer to the dunes, still walking seaside.

“Gotta hand it to the old man,” he said. “Mom was freaking out, but from what I remember, Dad kept it together. Got the sails under control, navigated us back to the marina. Your aunt was there at the docks—said she was about one minute away from calling the coast guard. We all went to the Black Pearl for hot soup. Mom was still crying. I didn't talk for three days.”

I smiled up at him.
You? Silent?

He nudged me with his elbow. “Yeah. The only time in recorded history.” He took a deep breath of salty air, looked out again at the restless ocean. “It was almost three years before I got in another boat. I couldn't explain it then, but when I think about it now, it's like . . . like I'd gotten away with something that day. Escaped death, or whatever.” He laughed nervously again, ran a hand through his hair as though he was embarrassed. As though I'd think it was silly.

But I shocked him instead, stopped in the sand and pulled him into a hug. It was quick, but tight, real. It seemed like we both needed it.

We climbed the dune stairs that led to the houses, and just before
I turned for Lemon's place, he tugged on my hand. “Feel like meeting up at Shipwreck later? Reggae night, like I was saying. Pretty decent music. Dancing, if you're into it.”

Still warm from the hug, I flashed him a smile.
A date?

He smirked. “What if it is?”

Despite the flutter in my chest, I folded my arms and gave him a look that I hoped conveyed an approximation of . . .
hell no
.

“Why not?” he said, laughing.

I reached for the notebook in my pocket, but I'd left it at home this morning. I came up with a Sharpie, no paper.

Christian held out his palm. “Go ahead. Tell me.”

I yanked the cap off the Sharpie, grabbed his hand and held it flat. It was warm, steady as I wrote.

Gracie, Brenda, Calla? Hands full.

Just before he pulled away, I added another word along the edge of his palm.

Loverboy.

“You don't hold back, do you?” he said.

I matched his teasing smile, but inside, my heart dropped.

Words were one thing, letters on the page. On the walls. On the skin.

But he was so, so wrong. Without a pen, without a surface on which to let the letters run, I held back everything.

“I've known Brenda forever,” he said. “Her parents have a cottage down shore. She's always bringing friends to the beach. Last summer, she brought her two cousins, and . . .” Christian smiled, lost in a memory, then shook his head. “Anyway, a bunch of us go—Cove summer tradition. Noah and Vanessa. Sometimes Kirby, especially if she knows Noah will be there. I won't say it's awesome, but it doesn't suck.”

Whatever his motives, Christian's invitation was sincere.

Just as Kirby's had been when she'd mentioned it last night.

But after all the excitement these last two days, I needed to be alone. Me and my words and all the things trapped in my heart.

Held back.

Sorry,
I mouthed.
I don't dance.

Chapter 10

March.

Our first day together on the boat, Christian asked how long it'd been since I'd been sailing, and that was it. My last time on the open sea. But it was also the last time I'd let the music infiltrate my limbs, the last I'd felt my dance steps sync with the soulful, upbeat rhythms of Bella Garcia. She'd always been our favorite, mine and Natalie's. That last time, that last dance, my twin and I had stood side by side on one of the resort boats, singing and laughing, timing our moves with the currents of the Caribbean Sea. The stars glittered overhead, as if they'd shown up and turned on their eternal spotlights just for a better glimpse of the soon-to-be-famous d'Abreau sisters.

The day before, after accepting her Queen of the Bands crown, Bella had introduced us to her manager exactly that way:
These are the soon-to-be-famous d'Abreau sisters.

Now, standing alone on the cold shores of the Pacific, I was in the dark; no stars shone through the Oregon haze. Lemon was deep in creative thought in her studio. Kirby, Christian, Vanessa, and Noah were at the club with all the other kids summering at the Cove. I'd no one to coordinate with but the waves, no audience but the last gull of the night, bobbing on the surface.

I looked for Atargatis but saw no one. Heard nothing but the sea.

I slipped the earbuds in—both of them this time—and sucked in the salty air.

One song. Only one.

I'd erased all the others long ago, but this one I couldn't bring myself to forget. I'd hidden it, voted it down to the bottom so it would never turn up in a shuffle. But I couldn't delete it. It was like my own personal lighthouse; just knowing it was there was enough to give me a tiny sliver of light.

Dancing, if you're into it . . .

Like the gull diving beneath the waves, I waded through Lemon's new-age playlists, all the wood flutes and whale calls and songs about fairies, and finally found it.

“Work Ya Way Back” by Bella Garcia. Just seeing her name on my iPod again was almost enough to fillet my heart. But it felt good, too, that old pull. Although I was tired from cleaning the boat, my legs ­tingled with anticipation, muscles warming like they'd been waiting for this night all along.

Like all our favorite soca stuff, “Work Ya Way Back” never failed
to lift us from a foul mood, never failed to inspire a head swerve or a good old wine—a twist-and-roll from the waist, the hips, the very soul. The song was about the obvious—shaking your boomsie, working the crowd—but it had another meaning too. It was about dancing through the darkest and most lonely nights we faced. It was about getting up again, fighting your way back from even the scariest, lowest places the human soul could go.

In all my years of listening to this song, it had never once failed to lift my spirits, to chase away the darkness.

I'd been afraid to listen to it for so long. Afraid it wouldn't work.

Now, with my thumb hovering over the screen, I hoped it would still have the same effect on me.

Flame. Ashes. Phoenix. Flame.

I tapped play, cranked the volume.

Closed my eyes.

Dug my bare toes into the cold, damp sand.

And finally I let the familiar beat seep through my ears, calling to a deep place inside.

A smile twitched at the corners of my mouth. My hips swayed. The music took hold. And for the first time in too many months, I danced.

You can't have me, Atargatis.

Chapter 11

“How much is this?”
A woman in a giant straw hat picked up one of Lemon's best-selling sun catchers, a delicate wire-wrought snowflake tipped with pieces of blue and white sea glass.

Nine,
I mouthed. My brain automatically converted it to Trinidadian dollars. Fifty-four. I shook my head to stop the endless calculating, smiled again at the customer.

Kirby was cutting back on her library hours to fill in at Mermaid Tears, but this morning she'd been called back to the stacks over a Harry Potter emergency, by which I assume she meant there was dark magic at work, and Lemon was on a rare-book hunt in Florence, Oregon, a mission also dark and magical.

So I found myself on newly familiar ground, miming my way through customer interactions at the shop, wishing someone would bring me a scone and a latte from the Black Pearl.

“Nineteen dollars?” The woman held the ornament to the light. “Is this even
real
sea glass?”

Yes,
I mouthed. I'd harvested it myself.
And it's fifty-four. Sorry. Nine.

The tide was rolling in outside, waves shifting from a distant
hiss
to a closer
hush
. The air felt heavy, damper than it had last night. Storm warning. The woman seemed immobilized with indecision.

“Sorry.” She squinted at my lips. “I can't seem to . . . What?”

I grabbed my Sharpie and the crab sticky-note pad.

$9 or IX or NINE. + tax.

She probably thought I was crazy. I dropped the Sharpie, reapplied my neutral, nonthreatening smile.

“Okay. I'll take it,” the woman said.

I wrapped it in tissue, bagged it. She set an American twenty on the counter and took off without collecting her change. I stuffed it into the jar I'd started on my first day behind the counter, when I realized just how many people would rather leave without their due than try to make conversation with a mute.

That's sixty dollars back home,
my brain rattled off.

I slipped out from behind the register to straighten the shelves. I'd just finished rearranging everything the woman had unsettled when the bells over the door chimed, followed by a cold blast.

Mayor Katzenberg took up all the space in the doorway. “Waves are really whipping up out there.”

I was pretty certain he wasn't here for the sun catchers. I ducked behind the counter, hoping he'd state his business quickly and be gone.

His presence put me on edge.

“Good afternoon, Miss d'Abreau,” he said, finally acknowledging my name. A step up from the Solstice-party caterer, at least. “Don't suppose your aunt is around?”

When I shook my head, he approached the counter, leaned in close. I could smell the cheap gel in his slicked-back hair, like Windex and rubbing alcohol.

“That's all right,” he said. “This concerns you, actually. Got a minute?”

I looked around. There were no other customers on the premises. No one watching but the mermaid dash ornaments, a shelf of fish-tailed girls in seashell-and-coconut bras who tittered with every footstep.

Minutes, unfortunately, I had.

“Noah tells me you've volunteered as first mate in the regatta with Chris,” he said.

Christian,
I mouthed.

“Sorry, didn't catch that.” He lowered his eyes to my lips.

I waved him off. He wouldn't listen, anyway.

“Miss d'Abreau—Elyse—I'm not sure how they do things down under, or . . . Africa? You know, I don't think I've ever really
thought about Trinidad and Tobago.” He laughed as if it was funny, this knowledge gap. “Where exactly are you on the map?”

I grabbed the Sharpie.

West Indies.

I started to write about our proximity to Venezuela, since that narrowed it down for people unfamiliar with the islands, but he was already moving on.

“India, right. Like I said, I'm not sure how things go on over there, but here at the Cove? We've never had a . . . a girl . . . woman . . .” He assessed me, searching for the right word. “We've never had a female in the race before. It's unprecedented.”

I waited, not sure what I was supposed to say.

“I'm not trying to be discouraging,” he said. “I just think you might be more suited for—rather, more comfortable—with something like the mermaid parade. Or you could help your aunt sell her arts and crafts at the street festival.” He looked around the shop, came back to me with a condescending frown that matched his tone. “Leave this regatta business to the boys.”

Va-
john
-a thing
, I thought. I suddenly wished for Vanessa, that she'd roll in with her “feminist killjoy” T-shirts and a bullhorn and say all the things I couldn't. When the chimes on the door announced a new customer, I thought maybe I'd conjured her, that she'd somehow heard my plea.

But it was Christian.

“Well, if it isn't the king of the Cove,” Christian said. “Slow day at the office, Mayor?”

The man laughed. “Plenty enough to keep me busy these days. You'd be surprised how much paperwork rezoning entails.”

Christian cocked his head, narrowed his eyes. It was unnerving, the kind of look that could make criminals confess to crimes they'd only
thought
about committing. “Is that why you're down at Mermaid Tears, harassing my first mate?”

The mayor's smile slipped. “You know, Chris—”

“Christian.”

“Yes. I was just telling Elyse here . . . frankly, kids, I'm not sure it's even legal to have a female first mate. We'd have to consult the rule book, but as far as I know, regatta's a man's race.”

Christian's jaw ticked, just like it had with his father the night of the party. “Damn. Must've hit my head on the way out of that time machine. 1850, are we? I might need some new clothes. Elyse, you sew, right? Don't all girls sew?”

“Very funny, son.” The mayor's laugh was choppy, a machine gun in the glass store. I felt useless in its path. “I think we both know I'm the most progressive mayor this town has ever had.” Mayor Katzenberg gave me a once-over as he cleared his throat. “But the regatta is a physically demanding event, requiring hours of hard labor, strategic thinking, and a strong stomach. You know that, Chris. Christian.”

“You think my first mate can't handle herself out there?” Christian said.

The mayor didn't respond.

“You're underestimating her,” Christian said.

“Be that as it may, the Pirate Regatta is a long-held tradition at the Cove. I don't think its advisable to, ah, rock the boat. Forgive the pun.”
Rat-a-tat-tat,
went his laugh. I wrapped my arms around my chest to keep from jumping out of my skin. Lemon had said Wes Katzenberg would save a baby from a burning building, but as I watched him now, the way he looked at me and Christian with smarmy contempt, I figured he probably
ate
babies.

“Careful, Mayor,” Christian said. “One might think you're trying to enforce sexist policies. For a man in public office . . . well there's something that could get into ugly legal territory.”

“Trust me, I'm all for equal rights.” The mayor winked at me like we were in on some secret. “Just trying to spare you some grief.”

Christian waited, giving me a chance to respond. To defend myself. To put this man in his place. The words hovered on my tongue. I wanted to send the mayor away. To tell him that people who found it necessary to say things like “trust me, I'm all for equal rights” generally weren't.

But of course I couldn't. Wouldn't. I hated myself in that moment, hated how I'd let myself shrink before this man, the bloated self-­proclaimed king whose presence made my skin crawl.

My sisters would be ashamed. None of them would ever let someone treat them like they were less than. Like they didn't ­matter, didn't belong, didn't have or deserve a voice. Granna and Dad instilled that lesson from a young age, reinforcing it often.

Everything was different for me now, and I wondered again if this would be my life, me letting everyone else talk for me, talk over me, talk around me.

Not so long ago I'd been convinced that losing my voice was the worst thing that could ever happen to me, the worst tragedy. But since then I'd been losing my whole self, everything I stood for, believed in, felt. Everything I ever wanted to be. Everything I ever was.

“I'm not sure the people will accept a woman sailor,” the mayor said.

Christian didn't wait another beat.

Inside, I shriveled and burned.

“Eh, you're probably right.” Christian slapped a hand on the mayor's back, hard. “Guess it's a good thing the people aren't sailing in my boat. Hey, I think Noah's looking for you.”

The mayor narrowed his eyes.

“Try the docks,” Christian said. “
Never Flounder
was giving him trouble, and his first mate was MIA.”

“First mate?” The mayor's brow furrowed, his over-gelled hair firmly in place above it. “I wasn't aware he'd found someone.”

Christian smiled, devilish. “That would explain the whole MIA thing.”

Like the blustery wind he blew in on, the mayor disappeared in a huff. The temperature inside Mermaid Tears rose a few degrees in his absence, and I let out a frustrated breath.

Crumbling under the mayor's chest-beating was one thing. The fact that Christian was star witness made it utterly mortifying, especially after he'd stood up for me.

“He's gonna be a pain in our ass from now until race day,” Christian said, pointing at the space the mayor had formerly occupied. “Now that he knows we're partners, he's got you in his sights.” He scrubbed a hand over his mouth, shaking his head. “It's only gonna get worse, Elyse. He wants my parents to sell the houses more than anything.”

I nodded.

“You hear what I'm saying?”

I raised an eyebrow.

“My own father can't even say no to this guy, and look where that got us,” Christian said. When he looked at me again, his eyes were fiery, intense.

I grabbed my sticky notes, scratched out my response. Ink and paper were the only place where my voice didn't falter, didn't betray the real me.

Stop trying to get rid of me, Kane. I said I'm in, I'm in.

I handed over the note, watched the tension in his jaw loosen as he read it.

He was relieved.

I was buoyed.

His eyes met mine again. “Do you think we could—”

“I'm back, I'm back!” Lemon crashed through the doorway with an armload of books, all of them wrapped in her rainbow-colored shawl.
Christian rushed to the door, scooped the heavy tomes from her arms.

He set them on the counter, and Lemon spread them out to dry. They looked old, yellowed, and musty.

“Herbology,” she said, tapping the first, a cracked black-leather volume etched with a silver tree. “The others are mostly folklore, but still instructional. Took months for the bookstore to track them down, but boy, was it worth it. This one,” she said, pointing at a book with a golden fish on the cover, “contains some of the world's oldest poetry and symbolism about the sea.”

Lemon could hardly contain her excitement as she told us about the poems she'd already looked at, how she was newly inspired for her next sculpture series and needed only to find more sea glass.

I gave her a wary smile, my insides tightening again when I thought about how much the Cove meant to her, how hard it would be for her to make a life somewhere else.

“Thanks again for filling in today, hon.” Lemon winked at me and turned to Christian. “And thank
you
for lending me your first mate. She's all yours.”

Christian only smiled, his eyes lingering on me a moment before shifting back to Lemon. “I'm actually here on an important mission. Mermaid stamps? Sebastian said you'd know what that meant.”

“Oh, of course!” Lemon scooted around the counter, pulled out a small paper bag from a shelf beneath the register. “I threw in an extra glitter-ink pad for him too. I know how he loves glitter.”

“Who doesn't?” Christian said.

Lemon rang him up, dropped a few pieces of candy from her pocket into the bag. When Christian reached across the counter to take it, their eyes locked. Something passed between them.

Christian sighed as he tucked Sebastian's bag into his sweatshirt pocket. “I don't want Dad to sell, either, Ursula.”

It was soft and sad, the way his brow curved over his left eye, and I imagined running my thumb over it. It straightened when his eyes met mine again. “I'll do my best.”

I wrote on my palm, held it up so they could read it.

We'll do OUR best.

And there it was, so fleeting I almost missed it.

Christian Kane's real, unguarded smile.