Mermaid (7 page)

People around him ordered more drinks and Food, talked and laughed and enjoyed each other’s company. He was even invited to join another table, the people seeming concerned that he was alone and not having any fun. He declined. He knew that only the day before he, too, would have preferred to have been part of a laughing group. Yet now, somehow, it didn’t appeal to him. His gaze kept straying from his watch to the dimly lit tank, where the fish were now the main attraction, knowing that the next forty-five minutes were likely to be the longest he had ever spent.

When the drum roll came again and the houselights dimmed as the tank was illuminated, he held his breath, waiting. This time she didn’t (come seductively from behind a curtain of seaweed. Instead she burst forth in a cloud of bubbles from a cave in the rocks that he hadn’t noticed before, her tail swirling, her arms stroking strongly, and she rose directly to the top of the tank.

Looking up, he could see that she had come out of the water, and as many others tried to do, he made a dash for the stairs. Being tall, his long strides carried him quickly to the mezzanine floor, but he was too late to find a place near the rail.

Still, over the heads of others he could see her. Sitting on a rock that projected from the water near the center of the tank, she stretched out an arm and filled a peach-colored shell with the clear, fresh water, which came streaming down from a crag high above her small island. Filling it again and again, she rinsed her shoulders then her hair, trickling the water through its sleek pale gold. She drank deeply from the shell’s lip before letting it fall, tumbling through the depths toward the bottom while she combed her long hair, now and then lifting her tail from the water and splashing her delighted audience. When a customer stood and withdrew a glittering piece of jewelry from his pocket, tossing it toward the mermaid, she caught it expertly and blew the donor a kiss. The audience exploded with applause, then she dove beneath the surface once more, and the applause rose to nearly deafen Mark as he made his way back down the stairs.

Once more at the lower level of her liquid stage, he saw her emerge from a group of coral fans and approach the glass to greet yet another grateful customer with an intangible touch of her fingertips to his lips. She reached out and caught another trinket dropped from somewhere above, smiled, and rose lazily to the surface, where he was certain she would blow a kiss to the bestower of the bejeweled bracelet she now wore around her right wrist.

Something inside him snapped, and he stood there, fighting fury as he watched her act come to an end. It was her last show of the evening, and he was certain he detected weariness in her wave just before she ducked into a crevice in the rocks and disappeared from view. At once, before the crowd had risen from their chairs, he turned on his heel to stride from the club.

He was sure he would never come back.

It was stupid. It was jealously. It was the most primitive emotion he had ever experienced, but lie hated having his mermaid accept baubles from other men. Oh, hell, he was out of his mind! She wasn’t his. He didn’t want her to be his!

He got into his car, slammed the door, and leaned on the wheel. He shouldn’t have come to the Pearldiver’s Club. It wasn’t his kind of place. He started the car and put it in gear, pulling out of the parking lot so fast, the tires squealed.

“Pearldiver’s Club,” he said scathingly to himself. “What a hokey name. What a stupid concept.”

All those fantasizing, panting men gawking at Jillian, pressing their hands and faces to the tank’s walls, pretending they could feel her touch through the glass. He had touched her skin with his own. He remembered its silk. He didn’t have to fantasize. It was there, imprinted on his brain, indelible and burning.

He hated the remembered sensation even while he yearned for it again. He slowed, stopped at the side of the road for several minutes to think. Then he made an illegal U-turn, heading back the way he had come.

Jillian had seen Mark. She was certain of it. In spite of being without her contact lenses, she was positive he had been there. As she showered the salt from her tired, aching body, she wondered why there was no note from him in her dressing room. Wasn’t that the way it was done? She knew it was. It had happened before, only all the other notes had been addressed simply to “The Mermaid,” as if it was too much trouble for the man to find out her name. She’d often thought that perhaps the men who asked her for dates didn’t want to spoil the fantasy by allowing her an identity other than Mermaid. Many of them had offered her money for personal appearances at stag parties or pool parties. A few even had offered her money for more than just that. It hurt her to feel that so many of her audience thought of her as nothing but a commodity. But maybe it went with the territory, and as long as she didn’t feel like one herself, what other people thought hardly mattered.

Except for Ken Bristol, the congressional candidate, she had made it a point of refusing all and guy offers. For one thing, she was much too tired alter three shows on weeknights and four on Fridays and Saturdays to even consider going anywhere with anyone for any reason at all. She had agreed to the candidate’s request because it had not come in the form of a note in her dressing I room, but as a formal business proposition to her through her boss.

Yet in spite of her refusal to have a late dinner with Mark Forsythe, when she’d seen his distinctive, salt-and-pepper hair and tanned face in the crowd around the mezzanine, she had expected him to repeat his invitation. And she knew if he had, she would have accepted. No one ate dinner at two o’clock in the morning, however, a cup of coffee and some scrambled eggs would have been nice.

She sighed and hopped out of the shower, wrapping herself in a towel, and remembered that he hadn’t taken his robe with him when he’d left her mother’s house. It was now draped over the back of a chair in her bedroom. She blew her hair dry, dressed in jeans and a warm sweater, pulled on socks and sneakers, and grabbed up her purse.

Letting herself out the back door into the brightly lighted parking lot, keys already in her hand, she unlocked her car, locked the door behind her as she closed it, and then started the engine. As she pulled out onto the street, she yawned.

Because of the publicity stunt that morning, she’d been up for nearly twenty hours and hadn’t been able to sleep in as she usually did after her late stints at the club. She was thankful it was Sunday and no students would be coming. When she got up, if she wasn’t too tired, she could take Amber on a long-promised picnic and get to bed again by nine. Sleep, she thought. Blessed sleep. There never seemed to be enough time for it, and she found herself yawning too frequently. Maybe she was just bored. Nightclub work, as well as it paid, certainly wasn’t very mentally stimulating.

However, she definitely was feeling exhausted enough to be paranoid, she decided several minutes later, when, having made the three customary turns that would lead her home, she saw the same set of headlights behind her. They were exactly the same distance behind her as they had been when she first noticed them as she’d left the club’s parking lot.

No matter. She was nearly home and would be safe inside in another thirty seconds. As she turned into the narrow driveway, the other car caught up to her. She shut off her headlights, keeping her doors closed and locked and watched the other vehicle slow to a crawl then stop across the street by the fence that surrounded a small park.

It was a large white car. An Oldsmobile, she thought, and this year’s model. Not the kind of car normally driven by someone from her neighborhood, but the kind any of the club’s customers might have driven—and a lot of other people as well. Had one of the customers followed her, or was it simply a coincidence that she had noticed it behind her as soon as she’d pulled out of the I parking lot?

Quietly she opened her door and closed it, heading for the front porch. Of course she hadn’t been followed. The other car had come the same way for reasons that had nothing to do with her. They were probably a couple of kids looking for a quiet place to do a little making out.

She smiled as she crossed the veranda and glanced across the street again. Yes, that was it. The headlights of the white car went off, but no one got out. She wondered for a moment what kind of parents would lend a kid a car of that caliber and not enforce a much earlier curfew.

Then, just as she unlocked the front door, a truck came around the corner, its headlights illuminating both sides of the road, and she couldn’t help stealing another look at the car across the street. She froze as did the occupant who was luring at her, and even over the distance, now that her contacts were firmly in place, she recognized him at once.

Mark Forsythe! Her heart lurched inside her chest and she stared for another second or two, wondering why?

Suddenly she had to know, but before she could even start across the street, he put the car in gear, turned on the lights, and was gone, leaving only the imprint of bright red taillights flashing green on her retinas as she closed her eyes.

It was a normal Monday, Jillian thought, if Mondays were supposed to be blue. She hugged Amber to make her feel better, wishing she had someone to hug her and make her feel better too. Why she felt so down was a mystery to her.

It wasn’t as though she had expected Mark to call or show up on Sunday. It wasn’t that she was really disappointed that he hadn’t made any attempt to talk to her after following her home on Saturday night. It was just...Darn it, she didn’t know what it was, but she’d better get over it before she had to be back at work, smiling, cheerful, performing for a club full of guests who wouldn’t expect a down-in-the-mouth mermaid.

By Tuesday she was fine and did her three shows with full enthusiasm and energy. It was in the water, under the water, that she felt best. There she was aware of no awkwardness, no lack of grace. There, she knew she was, to her audience, beautiful. She wondered if, when he had watched her last Saturday night, he had thought her beautiful.

As she showered and changed after work, she wondered if he had been in the audience. She had gazed as best she could into the crowd on the mezzanine, but unless he’d been fairly near the front, she knew she’d never have spotted him. Yet as she pulled out of the parking lot, a car followed her home, pausing half a block away as she got out of her car, went up onto the porch, and unlocked the door. When she opened it again quickly after entering to peek out, the car was gone.

It hadn’t been a green Mercedes nor had it been a white Oldsmobile. It had been a taxi, and it was here on Wednesday night, too, following her home like a faithful shepherd. She watched for the headlights again on Thursday, saw them following her and smiled, but when they turned into the driveway behind her, she realized that her taxi driver escort was not with her that night.

Mark was, in the Mercedes.

She opened her door and got out as he did the same, and they stood looking at each other in the dim light of the yellow bulb over the front door of the house.

“You followed me,” she said softly, the statement clearly a question. “Last Saturday too. And you’ve had me followed home by a taxi ever since.”

He nodded. “It’s so late when you leave work. Do you always drive home alone?”

“Of course.” She seemed surprised he would think otherwise.

“It’s a dangerous practice, Mermaid. Cars can break down.”

“Not mine,” she said. “It may not look like much on the outside, but I’m careful to keep it well maintained.” That was something she was always very careful of; women who worked late at night, and traveled home alone had to be confident that I their cars weren’t prone to breakdowns.

It wasn’t, however, good enough for him. “A tire could go flat.”

“I’ve known how to change a tire since I was sixteen years old. My dad wouldn’t let me get my license until I could.”

“And what happens if some creep comes along when you’re out of the car changing that tire?”

She smiled at the vehemence in his tone. It was touching. Nobody—nobody but her mother—worried about her. “If I’m changing a tire, I’m likely to have a lug wrench in my hand or at least nearby. But thank you for caring.”

He didn’t speak, just lifted a hand and brushed her hair back from her face, lightly stroking the healing cut on her temple. He remembered his first sight of her, the elation he’d felt as he gathered her up and held her out of the cold water, the magic, their kiss. He ached to repeat it but...

“You were—are—so beautiful, Jillian. Every man there tonight wanted you.” She knew that meant he had been there, and her heart beat high in her throat even while she felt ill with disappointment. He was one of those men. One of the customers. One of the fantasizers. Only...wasn’t it best for him to go on seeing her as a mystical being rather than a real woman, when the reality was so much less?

“I hated them all for their thoughts,” he confessed. “Even though I was sharing their thoughts. What are you doing to me, Mermaid? With your magic, with your beauty? I’m supposed to be in town, but I hired someone to stay with Chris and drove up after work because I had to see you again.”

She wondered if he was going to kiss her again, and if he did, what would it be like? She remembered the way his lips had felt—hard, almost bruising in their urgency—and deep inside her something grew hot and liquid. But fear rose up as she thought of trying to cope with the kind of relationship Mark Forsythe probably had in mind. Oh, who was she kidding? When she thought about a relationship with him, what he had in mind was exactly what she did too. But it wasn’t to be.

But oh, how she wished it were otherwise.

“I had to see you again,” he went on, breaking into her thoughts. “I had to see if you were real or I had only imagined you and your incredible Beauty.”

“It’s not real. It’s only an act,” she whispered. “A fantasy I create for my audience. And only there in my tank am I beautiful.”

She wasn’t asking for compliments. She knew her own limitations. She had a nice nose and mouth and an ordinary pair of eyebrows, but her eyelashes were much too pale. When she wasn’t working she wore mascara, but even the most waterproof product she could find couldn’t withstand the test she put it to each night, so she didn’t wear it at work. She knew that without it, other than when she was in her mystical mermaid environment, her eyes looked almost lashless, unfinished, plain.