Why I Let My Hair Grow Out (16 page)

“I used to fancy a bit of Asian mysticism, to tell you the truth,” he said, as his hand slowly made its way north across my tummy. “The I Ching. Reading tea leaves. Numerology was a particular favorite; it appeals to the engineer in me.” He took one of my earlobes gently in his teeth, and his fingertips wandered up another inch, and for all the euros in Ireland I could not have told you my own name at that moment.

“Let's do you,” he said, and for a moment I misunderstood. “Date of birth?

“June third,” I whispered. The weight and warmth of his hand on my skin was making my heart race, the earth spin—

“Ah, a Gemini,” he said. “That means there's two of you, but we knew that already! June third. So we've got six and three, now add in the year—”

“Nineteen-ninety-one,” I purred, without thinking. Believe me, there was no thinking at all going on at that moment.

Colin's hand froze in place exactly where it was.

“Bloody
hell,
girl, are you sixteen years old?”

“Colin, don't be mad, please—”

He sat up and moved about two feet away from me, but it might as well have been a mile.

“
Why
for fek's sake would you lie about a thing like that?”

“I didn't want you to think I was a kid!”

“But you
are
a bloody kid, aren't you?” Colin was yelling at me like he'd caught me sticking gum under the table. “What sort of bloke do you take me for? I'm not a bloody child molester.”

It was like someone had suddenly turned a glaringly bright light on us, but of course no one had. We were alone and the night was as dark as ever. “Why is eighteen so different from sixteen?” I asked stubbornly.

“Because it just bloody is, all right? And me buying you drinks in the pub! They should haul me off in irons.”

I didn't say anything, and Colin realized I was crying.

“Now, now, there, there. I'm not mad at you.”

“Yes, you are.” I sniffed.

“Well, yes I am! But I'll get over it.” He had his hands on his knees, trying to be completely stern with me and not entirely succeeding. “Just tell me—what were you thinking, Morgan—do you think this sorta thing is a joke? Or are you some type of psychopath that I should know about?”

“No,” I said, laughing a little through my tears. “I only lied because I like you and I wanted to—I wanted you to—”

“Right.” He rubbed his head with both hands till his hair stood up at crazy angles. “Listen to me now; this is important. It's when you like people that you should be most willin' to tell 'em the truth about yourself.”

Easy for him to say. “Does this mean you're not attracted to me anymore?”

“Not attracted to you?” Colin sputtered. “Are you insane? I'm practically baying at the moon, here—I'd eat you up like a bowl of pudding if I could! Get up.”

He leapt to his feet and grabbed my wrist.

“Hey!” I protested, as he started dragging me across the sand to the water. “What are you doing?”

“We're going swimming.”

“But I still have my clothes on!”

“And you shall keep them on, young lady!”

“But I didn't bring anything else to—Colin! No, it's freezing!” A wave had swirled around our ankles, and the water was so cold it made me jump.

He looked at me with a helpless expression. “That's why we're going swimming. Now
in
!”

 
Once We Were completely Wet the icy Water turned bearable, then comfortable, until we were diving and splashing and chasing each other underwater like dolphins. It was dark enough that I would lose track of where the surface was while I was swimming below. The only way back was to relax and let the salt water lift me till I bobbed up to the air, and the moonlight and stars reappeared.

“Have you cooled off yet, you underage temptress? You teenage siren?” Colin said, blowing water out of his nose.

“Yes,” I said. “I've completely lost interest in you. Colin who? Some old man I met on vacation.”

“Good. Because when we get back to the inn”—he panted, as the water dripped down his face—“I'm booking you on a tour two summers from now—”

“No way!” I cried, splashing him. “Not another bike tour!”

“Two summers from now, when you're eighteen,” he went on, splashing me right back. “And I promise you, it'll be the best vacation of your—”

“Shark attack!” I yelled, diving underneath and kicking hard toward him, my hands reaching out to grab his leg. He moved, but too slowly, and we tumbled and turned under the water. I let go of him and relaxed so I could rise to the surface again. I felt myself floating up and opened my eyes.

It wasn't starlight or moonlight, but there was some kind of light, and it was getting closer. And I was still underwater. I felt a gentle pulling sensation behind me, as if I'd gotten tangled in a long mass of seaweed. I shook my head to get loose of it, but I couldn't.

The light got closer still. I knew I should be panicking, running out of air, scrambling to find the surface. But I wasn't. I was fine.

I spun around to see if I could find Colin. Instead I saw my own hair, floating like an amber cloud around my head.

“Welcome, Morganne, to the land of the merrows,” said a gentle, melodious voice. The murk of the water in front of me got brighter and brighter until I saw a woman's face suddenly appear, greenish and beautiful and emanating light.

There were so many questions I could ask.
Where's Colin? Why am I not running out of air? Who the fek are you, green water woman?
But instead I said:

“What's a merrow?”

“I think you call us ‘mermaids.' ” She smiled. Her teeth were whorled like seashells. “I can show you where the little girl is. But you have to come with me.
Now
.”

The merrow kicked her fishy feet and swam off, and without hesitation I followed her out to sea, leaving Colin and the shore far, far behind.

sixteen

i Went to ireland on vacation and all i got Was this
lousy pair of gills.

Okay, not very original. How about this:

There. My new motto. I could have a T-shirt made at the mall when I got home.

I swam after the merrow, deeper into the ocean. Erin was out there somewhere, and this is how I was going to get her back.

I hadn't breathed the air in hours, it felt like.

Just go with it.

 
i Wish i could describe a technicolor disney kingdom of happy animated water creatures singing rhymed ditties to a Jamaican beat.
Little Fekkin' Mermaid
was one of Tammy's all-time favorite movies, and the fact that she had to watch it at full volume seven times a day for an entire year was one of the formative events leading to my hatred of the open-plan-house school of suburban architecture.

“Just put the TV in her roooooommmmm!!!!” I'd screamed at my mother.

“You know we don't believe in kids having TVs in their rooms,” she'd replied, sweetly ignoring my tantrum. “It has a lot of negative effects.” Her and her parenting magazines.

“But now we ALL have the TV in our room!” I yelled back. “This house is one big room and Tammy gets to watch the TV and I'm suffering the negative effects! Get it?”

My mom sighed.

“You were a little girl once too, Morgan. I wish you could be more understanding.”

If I ever get home to tell Tammy about this, I'll lie,
I thought, as I swam through the cold murk pursuing a naked green woman who might be leading me to my doom. I'd tell Tammy it was exactly like a Disney movie. There were beautiful animated girls with seashell combs in their hair, and the fish were cracking jokes like Nemo, and we would all periodically break into big dance numbers while singing peppy songs.

That would make her so happy.

 
We'd swum at least halfway to connecticut, it felt like, when the merrow turned and gestured to me with her long webbed fingers.

She gestured downward.

To the ocean floor.

I thought of Leonardo DiCaprio in
Titanic
, dead at the bottom of the sea. I thought of the exhibit at the Museum of Natural History, where the titans of the deep fight to the death, the giant squid versus the killer whale. My money was always on the squid. It just looked meaner.

What would I have to do to get Erin back?

Down we dove.

 
every scrap Of science class that i could muster back into memory was telling me I should be dead, suffocated, smooshed by the water pressure or getting the bends. Or did that only happen on the way up?

But instead we swam down, down, me following the shimmering green light of the merrow through the relentless darkness of the sea. After what felt like miles of descent a massive cliff loomed in front of us, its huge bulk suddenly visible in the ghostly merrow-light. How high the cliff was and how far we were from the ocean floor I couldn't say, but there was a cliff and we headed toward it.

The merrow looked back to see if I was still there. When she saw me she smiled. Then she gave an extra kick (she didn't have a fish tail like a Disney mermaid, by the way—just long and very powerful-looking legs, green of course, and flattish webbed feet), and zipped over to the cliff. There, she pulled away a gently pulsing curtain of seaweed to reveal what looked like the entrance to a cave. She gestured for me to go inside.

Tammy would not have been disappointed. Through the narrow cave entrance in the cliff lay an entire world—a dry and sunny one. The dark ocean water remained outside, held back by some invisible force like the walls of the Red Sea in
The Ten Commandments
(which my parents used to make us watch every Easter, not for any religious reason but so Tammy and I would appreciate how far movie special effects have come since then).

Stepping through the cave entrance was like stepping out of a cold shower and finding myself under a warm sunlamp. Where did the light come from? Where did the
air
come from? Important questions, but I had a more important one to ask.

“Okay, we're here,” I said to my green guide. “Where's the little girl?”

The merrow flashed her gnarly-toothed smile at me once more. For the first time I noticed that she wasn't completely naked, though the private parts of her definitely were (like all boobs, hers had been highly flotational while we were swimming, but now that they weren't suspended by seawater I could see that flotational was their permanent position—a bit unnatural, but how natural can you expect green boobs to look?). On her head, the merrow was wearing a little red hat, made out of—of all things—feathers.

“You'll have to speak to the king,” she said, with some effort. Those teeth needed work. “Here he comes.”

She bowed down low, letting her long mossy hair trail on the ground. In my sopping princess outfit I felt like an overdressed contestant in a wet T-shirt contest, but at least I wasn't naked.

This was not much comfort, though, because the king
was
naked. So were the other fifty merrow-people who showed up with him. Apparently I was at the underwater merrow nudist colony. This wouldn't have been so bad if they were all lovely green people like my barnacle-toothed escort, but the guy merrows were hideous, like a genetic cross between an ugly human being and a grouper.

The naked fish-king stood there looking at me, and I finally composed myself enough to give a little curtsey. That seemed to satisfy his royal ego enough for the conversation to begin.

“Bring out the girl!” he proclaimed, in a very kinglike fashion.

Two green women brought Erin forward. I was relieved to see that she was still wearing her dress. When she saw me she grinned, but I shushed her with a look before she had a chance to start carrying on like an overexcited kid. I had a feeling the merrows weren't going to just hand her over.

“Now tell me, Half-Goddess from the Land Beyond the Edge of the Sea!” said the king. “Have the terms of the enchantment been fulfilled?”

“Absolutely,” I said. I had no idea what he was talking about, but if he thought I was some kind of enchantment-fulfilling half-goddess, I could totally work with that.

“How was the enchantment fulfilled?” asked the king.

I'd have to bluff, but I wasn't worried. When it comes to BS I knew I had a talent. We're talking about someone who made it all the way through Mrs. McKinney's chemistry class without ever figuring out what the periodic table was. With a B-minus average, thank you.

“It just was,” I answered, the picture of confidence. “That's all you need to know.”

There was a general whispering and hubbub, and the king's chief flunky (even naked, you could tell which one he was) whispered something in the royal ear.

“Apparently you would not be here unless the terms of the enchantment had been fulfilled,” the king explained, sounding disappointed. “But in order to release the girl, we do need the pertinent details. There are forms to fill out and such. Unless there has been some mistake? Can someone repeat the enchantment, please?”

One of the king's lesser flunkies unfurled a long scroll (poor guy had to carry it everywhere, I guess, what with no pockets available in his merrow birthday suit). He read:

 
“Ring any bells?” the king asked darkly. I could see he was getting antsy.

I concentrated hard on the riddle. “Well,” I said, “there was this earring, from Harry Winston? And it was lost in the dirt and everyone was looking for it but for some reason I was the one to find it. Does that help?”