The Mermaid's Secret (25 page)

That's a pretty emasculating thing for a guy to admit. But Matthew isn't like any other guy I know. He's not afraid to show his vulnerable side. If anyone is going to go through that barrel and join me on the other side, I want it to be Matthew. Not Jay Delgado.

I run back to the truck, strip down to my bikini, and grab my board. I run down the beach and into the breaking waves.

“Be careful,” Matthew screams.

But I don't need to be careful. I am of the sea.

I paddle like a rocket. I paddle like my life depends on it. I paddle like someone who doesn't want her secrets exposed. Even when I duck dive, I keep my momentum forward, kicking under the water, throttling ahead. By the time I make it past the break, I'm not even breathing hard. I am a shark in a human suit.

Past the break, I turn so I'm parallel to shore and paddle toward the face of Tutatquin Point, my arms pulling a steady rhythm through the water. Wind whips in my ears and the spray stings my eyes, but nothing slows me down. My board slices through water like a powerboat. In no time, I'm all the way at Tutatquin, past the sandbar. I stop to get a land bearing: tallest spruce and parallel to the last outcrop. This is the sweet spot; this where Jay should be. But he's nowhere in sight.

I scan the water for him.
“Jay! Where are you? Jay Delgado!”
My view of shore is swallowed up every time I dip into a trough. As I rise up onto the peaks I look west to east, east to west. At the edge of the boneyard, a smear of yellow against the blue-black waves catches my eye. Jay's board. A frothing mass of white water tosses the board into the rocks. But no Jay.

For a second, I panic. He must have caught a barrel. He grabbed one of these heavy waves, locked in, and rode into mermaidville. Ditched his board in the wash as his body went through the terrific transformation to cold-blooded.

Then I notice a speck in the field of whitewash. A head. Jay is in the boneyard. His head goes under and resurfaces, his arms clawing at the surface. He goes under again with the next wave. A minute later, his head breaks the surface and his struggles to keep it up.

He's not transforming into a merman.

He's drowning.

And a different type of panic sets in.

I lie flat and start paddling toward him. If Jay dies out here, it's on me. Maybe no one else would see it that way. They'd blame it on his own arrogance. But I would know better.

As much as I despise the guy, I'm not a monster.

“Hold on. I'm coming.”

I race toward him. A wave crashes behind me, sending an avalanche of white water my way. I need to bail out or I'm going to get a facial against the rocks below.

I sit up and pull hard on the rails of my board, against the force of water behind me, putting on the brakes. It works. The churning mass of white passes without dragging me into its trail. I lie back down and paddle straight for Jay.

His head goes under one last time and doesn't come up. I unleash, roll off my board, and dive. Under water, I can see his body as a dark shadow against the blue water. I swim to him, grab him by the arm, and pull him up to the surface. My board is ten feet away. I can't tell if Jay's unconscious, dead, or alive. I loop an arm across his chest and swim with him to my board.

“Jay. Jay!”

He doesn't respond. I shimmy my board beneath him and lay on top of him to paddle us in. But with an extra hundred and eighty pounds on my board, there's not enough lift for both of us. I have to slide off and push the board from behind while holding his weight on the center of the board. A wave topples Jay off. He starts to go under. I grab him again and lift him back on the board.

Kicking through the boneyard is a struggle. I slash my knees on a rock. We get swept sideways in a swirling eddy. Finally, I get us in to waist-deep water, where I can stand and push Jay to shore.

Freddie and Matthew run toward us and spring into action.

Together, we lift the board, with Jay on top of it, over the rocks to the stand of knotty pines on shore. Out of the howling wind, in the quiet of trees, I can hear how hard the three of us are breathing; Matthew and Freddie from running all the way down from Nipon Beach, me from swimming. How Jay isn't.

“Lay him down,” Matthew says.

Blood runs from gashes on Jay's shoulder, above his eye, and other places I can't see. Freddie checks for a pulse.

“Ambulance is on the way,” Matthew says.

“He's not breathing,” Freddie says. He kneels in the sand and starts mouth-to-mouth.

Matthew and I stand back and watch. Adrenaline is coursing through my body, and I can smell it in the air.

I feel Matthew's gaze turn from Jay to me.

Gently, he takes my hand. “Are you okay?”

I nod. “I'm fine.”

Matthew's eyes are like saucers. “How did you do that?”

I shrug. Freddie presses the butt of his palms into Jay's chest, coaxing it to beat. “One and two and three and four and five and six…” Versed, like every Ne'Hwas native, in the language of drowning victims.

“What, exactly, did you want to show me today?” Matthew whispers.

“Matthew, I…” I want to tell him, but not like this. I need him to
see
.

Water spurts out of Jay's mouth.

“Help me roll him on his side,” Freddie says.

We drop to our knees and roll Jay onto his side. He coughs out seawater and blood. The relief I feel is as solid as the carpet of pine needles below us.

“What happened?” Jay asks, as Freddie helps him sit up.

“Jess saved you,” Matthew says. “You would have drowned.”

Jay looks at me. “But how did you…” His words drift off.

“You could have died, Jay. And worse, someone else could have died trying to rescue you. You're lucky to be alive right now,” Matthew says.

“But I saw Jess do it the other day. She nailed a barrel right out there. She disappeared.”

“No,” Freddie says. “Your eyes were playing tricks on you. It happens out on the water. Tutatquin is unsurfable.”

Jay leans forward, cradling his head in his hands. Matthew takes off his shirt and wraps it around the gash on Jay's shoulder. “But how did you make it out? Those are twenty-foot sets. I couldn't even get out the back…”

“Just say ‘Thank you,' man.” Freddie says. “And maybe next time Jess is in the lineup, you should show her some respect.”

“Yeah. Well.” A pained look crosses Jay's face. “Thanks.”

*   *   *

“You saved his life,” Matthew says, for the millionth time since we left the beach.

We're at Binky's Wicked Chowda, a local hole-in-the-wall with great chowder and cheap beer. Matthew insisted on getting me a big meal after my “ordeal.” He's told me over and over how brave I am, what a badass. “I've never seen anyone move through waves like that.”

Our waitress comes over and asks if we need extra oyster crackers for our chowder.

“No thanks,” I say.

“She's a hero,” Matthew tells the waitress.

“Please don't.” I look at him, a frown tugging at my face.

“She's the bravest person I've ever seen,” he says, and the waitress giggles and tells us what an adorable couple we are, before walking away.

“You are a badass, Creary.”

“Just stop. Please.”

“What's the matter?”

“I didn't jump in to save Jay, all right? It wasn't supposed to happen like this. I just wanted to take you surfing. I wanted you to see for yourself.”

“I saw for myself,” he says, a little injured. “I get it. You're incredibly strong. More than any athlete I've ever seen. Maybe you're some kind of physical anomaly. Whatever it is, it looks good on you. It's what made you go after Spencer. And Trip Sinclair. Some people have to talk their shit out; you let your strength do the talking. You're amazing.” He leans toward me and whispers, “It's kind of a turn-on.”

“No. That's not it at all.” I poke at my soggy chowder bread bowl. “I went in after Jay to protect my barrel.”

“Your barrel?” He laughs.

“If Jay had managed to make it out past the break, and surf that barrel at Tutatquin, he'd be … he'd be…”

“He'd be what?” Matthew is losing his patience.

I bury my face in my hands and rub my forehead, my skin tight with salt. I can't tell him the truth. I can't. Even if he believes me (which is seriously, seriously doubtful, as in there's no way in hell that he's going to believe me), he'll think I'm a freak. A mutant. An animal. Who can love a freak? I'll lose him. Just like I've lost everyone else. Kay's gone. My mom's gone. Yes, gone. I said it. The spirit journey is just one of those things people say to postpone the truth. She's gone. Her heart got broken so she left. Sheriff's gone, too, in his own way. I have no one.

“I'm not a freak,” I blurt out.

Matthew sighs. “I didn't say you were. You did a good thing today. I'm proud of you. You should be proud of yourself.”

“
No!
I didn't do a good thing. I thought Jay would find my wave.”

“Why can't you take credit for this? If you didn't risk your life saving Jay Delgado, he would be dead.”

I stand up. “You don't understand! If Jay had caught that wave, he'd be flagging down the six o'clock news right now. Or trying to sell his story to some tabloid. Or getting his own reality TV show. Because right now he would be a merman, or whatever the dude equivalent of a mermaid is called.”

I move over to Matthew's chair and kneel in front of him. “I'm a mermaid, Matthew. That's what I wanted to show you today. I found a barrel, and it turned me into a mermaid. All summer long I've been going through the barrel and becoming a fish. I swear to you. I'm not on drugs. And I'm not a hero.”

I lean into him. “I'm a mermaid, Matthew. A mermaid.”

I look into his eyes, but they are vacant.

I keep talking. “You can come with me. All you have to do is ride that barrel at Tutatquin.”

“I don't know what to say.”

I reach for his hand. “Say you'll come with me. Please.” Tears are sliding down my cheeks and my face is hot and I can't control my breathing. I hiccup. “I want you to be part of it. I want you to come with me. In six days I'm leaving to be in that world forever. And I want you to come with me. Please. Please. Please.” People are staring at us, and this is all wrong, wrong, wrong.

“Why would you say all this?” Matthew looks around, aware of the scene I'm making.

I feel so exhausted, I might collapse. “Come with me. You'll see. We can make it work.”

“This is getting weird. You're being weird.”

I look him in the eye. “Tell me you believe me.”

He pauses. “You know what I believe? I believe that every time you do something irrational, like the night you practically assaulted Trip Sinclair at the Rongo, or the day you jumped off my boat in the middle of the ocean, you have this little story that excuses you from your actions. Every time you do something wild, you say it's because you're a mermaid. But it's a fantasy. It's not real.

“Even now, when you do something incredible like risking your life to save Jay Delgado, who you hate, you use this fantasy to make it seem like you're tougher than you really are. It lets you off the hook. It lets you keep your hard exterior. You don't want people to think that you're soft.

“I believe what this is”—he circles his finger—“is you pushing away anyone who tries to get close to you. I believe this is your way of delaying your life from happening. You don't want to move on. That's what I believe.”

I reach for his hand. “No. That's not it.”

He pulls it away. My hand dangles in the air, grasping for nothing.

He stands up. “I love you, Creary. But I'm not going to let you off the hook like this. When you're ready to commit to something, or someone, give me a call.”

He walks out, paying the bill on the way.

 

T
WENTY-TWO

My bed feels empty without Matthew in it. It's still dark out, and I roll over and pull the blanket over my head.

I thought I could make Matthew understand what I am. In my pea brain, I thought he would actually want to go there with me. What was I thinking? He doesn't even believe me. He thinks I'm just inventing another excuse to run away from my life. In a way, maybe he's right.

I wake up a few hours later and decide to blow off work today. Matthew doesn't want to see me, and I refuse to spend my precious few human days cleaning grease traps and mopping up after seasick frat boys. I will lie in bed and wallow in self-pity instead.

All the wallowing makes me hungry. I tiptoe down to the kitchen, careful not to wake Sammy and Spencer. I don't want another confrontation. I don't want to apologize. I want to be what I am.

A mermaid.

A hunter.

Someone who attacks when she hears threatening noises in the middle of the night. Someone who protects her turf. Someone who cannot control the animal forces inside of her.

I rifle through the fridge, then the freezer. It's slim pickings—milk, frozen waffles, a Styrofoam container of cold french fries from the Lobster Corral. A box of Cap'n Crunch in the cabinet. I need real food.

I crave meat.

And not just a waterman's steak from Kotoki-Pun Diner. I need something raw and writhing in my hands. I need to hunt.

*   *   *

First, I make a quick pit stop at Lobster Cove. The marina is bustling. Fishing is done for the day and lobstermen are loading their catches onto trucks. Housewives gather on the docks to buy lobsters and scallops from the fishermen. Selling directly to customers is against the trade laws in Maine, but everyone turns a blind eye.

While they exchange dollars for dinner, I slip down the dock to the
Jennie B
and toss my bag onto the deck. I've packed a towel and dry clothes for my transition to human.