The Mermaid's Secret (7 page)

“I turned into a mermaid,” I blurt out, wiping marinara sauce off my chin.

“Huh?”

I explain the whole thing to her as best I can, from the barrel at Tutatquin Point to the great white shark chasing me. As the story pours out of me, I have the sensation that someone else is telling it. Nothing that extraordinary could happen to me.

“Right,” Sammy says. “I think you must have hit your head on the rocks. Do you have a concussion? Let me see.” She feels my head for lumps.

“I didn't hit my head,” I say. “Although, come to think of it, I did bang it pretty good against the ceiling of the cave. But that was after I'd already transformed.”

She checks my eyes to see if my pupils are dilated. “Are you drowsy and lethargic? Are you dizzy? Do you have ringing in your ears? Do you feel nauseous? Do you have pain when you urinate?”

“Pain when I urinate? What kind of head injury causes that?”

She looks flustered. “I don't know. I get all those symptoms confused. Should we get you to the hospital?”

One thing about living on Ne'Hwas is that everyone knows basic first aid. It's a requirement, starting in fifth grade. So is passing a swim test. Some schools teach art or music or Spanish. But if you live on Ne'Hwas, treating near-drowning victims or swimming out of a riptide are as important as math and spelling.

So we all know about head trauma. We know there's a period called the lucid interval, when you seem totally fine, and then
bam!
, you drop dead from a hematoma or edema. No warning. No second chance.

“I didn't bang my head. It was real.” The shark, the tail, the scrape on my knee, which is still tender to the touch.

Sammy digs into my hair, looking for bumps and blood. I pull away.

“Did anyone see you … turn into a mermaid?”

“You don't believe me.” My teeth are suddenly chattering. I pull the blanket tight.

“I'm just asking,” she says. “It seems a little far-fetched. Even for you.”

“Jay and Tyler were there. Freddie and Josh Collins, too. But I was all the way down at Tutatquin Point. They couldn't have seen.”

“Jess,” Sammy says. She's talking to me the way you talk to a child, or a foreigner. “Tutatquin Point? The boneyard? Really? There's no way you caught a barrel there. It's not that I don't believe you. It's just that … well, I think you're confused.”

But I don't feel confused. I'm completely clearheaded. Everything I see is saturated in color. The bright blue and pink of the tapestry on the wall is more vibrant than ever, the scent of the vanilla candle melted onto the windowsill is stronger. The sounds of the lobster boat riggings at White's Wharf behind the apartment are sharper. I feel alive. Outside, the moon is a great ball of white light. It didn't fall out of the sky. I became a mermaid and the world didn't implode.

At least, I
think
I became a mermaid. Even now, as I try to recall the details of what happened, the images fade away. Under water everything was a blur, and now my memory of it is slipping into the blue haze.

“Maybe I can do it again.” I say. “Yes. That's it. I'll go again. You can come with me. I'll show you. I'll catch another barrel.”

“Jess.”

“You'll see what happens. It's weird, Sammy, but it's beautiful. My tail captures the full spectrum of light. You'll see how fast I can swim. Maybe you can become a mermaid, too.”

“Jess.”

“We could go now.” I grab her wrist. “What if it's gone tomorrow?”

“What if what's gone?”

“The barrel. The … magic.”

Sammy ignores me. She runs the shower and pulls me into the bathroom, “Get in. We can talk about this later all you want, but right now you've got to get ready.” She takes the blanket from me, closes the curtain, instructs me on which conditioners will get the knots out of my hair and which will get rid of that god-awful smell.

She slides the curtain aside and pokes her head in. “Do you see spots? Spots are bad. Like, brain damage bad.”

“I didn't bang my head.”

“Maybe we should go to the hospital, just in case. Skip the party. Oh, and, by the way, everyone's going to be at the Rongo for your birthday. It was supposed to be a surprise.”

I pull the shower curtain closed. “Today is full of surprises.”

*   *   *

Any plans for jumping out and yelling “Happy Birthday” evaporated hours ago, along with everyone's sobriety. It's 11:36
P.M.
on the Budweiser clock with the missing neon
w
. No one even notices when Sammy and I walk into the bar.

“The birthday girl is here!” Sammy yells, but the music is loud, the bar is packed, and the moment for orchestrating a grand entrance has long passed.

“Son of a bitch,” Sammy says. “I had a whole thing planned. The lights were supposed to go off and the candles were going to be lit, and we were going to sing to you. I wanted this to be special.”

“It's okay. I'm still feeling a little woozy. You know,” I say, “from before.”

“But there's cake.”

“Honestly, I'm fine without making my birthday into a production.” I need time to process what happened to me.

“Well, I'm not! You need to have fun. When's the last time you had fun? You need to get back into the swing of things.”

She sounds genuinely bummed and a little perturbed that no one is cooperating with her plan to make this My Special Day. I put an arm around her. “It's better this way. We can ease our way in.” “Easing in” pretty much sums up my whole reentry-into-society process anyway. After we lost Kay, I didn't want to be around people.

Sammy grabs my hand and leads me to where the Slack Tide crew has a tiny patch of oak bar carved out.

“Look who's here,” Sal says, eyes half-mast. “About time. Been waiting for you,” he says. He puts an arm around me and one around Sammy. A girl on each side—yeah, that's Sal.

Ben (another Slack Tide captain), Jacqueline (galley girl), Tony (first mate), and Ian and Stefan (deckhands) give me hugs, and all insist on buying me drinks.

“How was the surf?” Matthew asks.

I turn toward his voice. “It was…” Magical. Terrifying. Something out of a dream. It was a dream. “I caught a barrel.”

“No way.” His black eyelashes curl at the ends. “I've never caught a barrel. What was it like?”

“Gorgeous.” Somehow my word choice embarrasses me. “And weird,” I add quickly.

“I always knew you were a better surfer than me,” Matthew says.

“I am not,” I object. “You're the one who taught me to surf.”

“And the student surpasses the teacher,” he says. This feels more like flirting than any other conversation I've ever had with Matthew. And, well, I have to admit I like it.

The chatter rises around us. Heavy metal blasts out of the speakers. Somewhere, a glass breaks. I want to tell Matthew that the barrel led me to a magical portal where I transformed into a mermaid, or at least, I think I did, even though Sammy thinks it was a concussion. Instead I opt for: “Thanks for covering for me. Was Harold mad?”

“No. I told him you were downtown passing out Slack Tide flyers to drum up business. He liked your initiative. Thought you probably saved him a bundle on advertising.”

I smile. “Maybe I'll get a raise.”

“Doubt it.” He smiles. He tilts his head to the side. “There's something different about you.”

Is it that obvious? Do I have scales stuck in my hair? “What do you mean?”

“I don't know. Maybe it's that you're actually smiling,” he says.

“Who's ready for a drink?” Sammy screeches.

Next thing I know everyone's yelling, “Shot, shot, shot,” and a row of tequila shots appears on the bar. I throw one back, a harsh burn shooting down my throat. I wince and stifle a gag. Someone hands me a slice of lime. I suck on it to wash away the flavor of the tequila, which is inexplicably replaced by the briny bite of seawater on my tongue. Suddenly I'm swaying in the current and I'm a mermaid. The glaring white teeth of the shark are in front of me.

I shut my eyes tightly. What if Sammy's right? What if I did get a concussion? I wouldn't be the first person to blame their behavior on a head injury.

There's more chanting. “Shot, shot, shot,” and another round materializes before me.

“This is how we do birthdays around here,” Tony says. He lifts me up so I'm looking over the tops of sun-bleached heads.

“Shot, shot, shot.”

Someone hands me a shot glass. They won't leave me alone until I imbibe, so I slam the tequila and Tony lets me down and everything is a blur. It's summer and it's a party, and it's a party all summer long on Ne'Hwas.

Sal starts to sing “Happy Birthday,” but it's so loud in the bar, no one can hear, so Tony starts the song all over, and they're all wonderfully drunk and singing and swaying, and everybody is off-key. Then someone hands me a drink. I take a sip. It tastes like soda, but I'm pretty sure it's a Long Island Iced Tea, and for a flash of a second I think about how much it will suck tomorrow to be hungover and working on a fishing boat, with the rocking motion and the cloud of diesel filling my lungs.

But it's my birthday. So I take the drink.

Ian and Stefan are beside me now. Brothers from Norway, they are Nordic giants, and the best deckhands of any fishing party boat on the island. They tower over me. They tower over everyone. I can't hear what they're saying, but I'm tired of asking, “What'd you say?” so I just smile and drink my drink and they laugh and talk like we're carrying on an actual conversation.

Sammy is telling me about the latest drama between her and Spencer, but I can't follow. There's too much noise and the tequila is working its way through my body to my brain. My senses are garbled. My hearing shuts down, but my sense of smell is on overdrive. I can pinpoint the location of Jacqueline's perfume on the left collar of her shirt. Notes of fig and oak moss. I can smell Stefan's laundry detergent on his T-shirt, which was washed today. Ian's breath is a mix of onions, french fries, and Jägermeister.

I feel like I've gone from zero to drunk in five minutes. I have to lean against the bar. Suddenly there's a cake in front of me, with a forest of candles. Tony tries to light them, but he drops the match into a shot glass, igniting it instantly. “Whoa, check it out,” he says. He tips over the glass and sends a streak of blue flame down the bar. The bartender smothers the fire with a dishtowel, tells Tony to go away, and lights the candles himself. The lights are dimmed and the cake burns bright. People I don't even know are hugging me and offering to buy me drinks.

I lean forward and blow out the candles. There's more hugging and toasting and everyone's talking at once and it all becomes a ringing in my head. The air is choked with smells. Cigarettes. Pool cue chalk. Sweat.

There's a smell in the air that steals my attention. It's a man's smell, intense and steeped in my memory. My brain tries to make sense of it, amid all the other, familiar scents in the room.

Before my mind can catch up with what's happening, my body is moving across the room toward the scent. It's like blood in the water.

Then I see him.

Trip Sinclair.

He's standing at the pool table, halfheartedly playing pool, wholeheartedly flirting with the flock of townie girls around him. He's dressed in khaki shorts, a preppy polo shirt, and a preppy Yale baseball cap. Even his name is preppy. In one of those truly aristocratic traditions, he's called Trip as the third of a namesake. It's really William Bennett Sinclair III.

I can't stop moving toward him. My eyes won't blink.

He looks right at me.

Those blue eyes are on me, searching. Recognition follows. His face changes. He smiles at me.

He smiles at me.

How can he smile at me? He has one of those faces that's fixed in a permanent smile, as if everything in his world were always A-OK, hunky-dory, put there for his satisfaction. Kay loved his smile. She said it made her feel like every day of the week was a Friday.

I wonder if he was smiling behind the wheel of the boat before he crashed it? I wonder if he was smiling when he climbed out of the sea and left my sister for dead?

I want to wipe the smile off his face.

He raises his glass to me. A toast. Like we're old buddies at a high school reunion.

My nostrils flare. Rage builds inside of me that feels too big to contain. I start to sweat. My hands tremble.

His buddy says something and Trip laughs, and I can feel my heart beating like a jackhammer. I am losing control of my body.

I'm vaguely aware that the floor is sticky beneath my flip-flops and that someone behind me is saying my name. But I can't stop myself; something inside me needs to get near Trip, to see into his eyes, to see what's in his soul. As Sheriff would say, see what I see.

As I cross the bar toward him, my sense of smell tunes in to Trip. He gives off a million little scents. Wax. Chrome. Canvas. Sweat. Alcohol. Anxiety. My body is moving without me. I am so close, I can feel the soft cotton of his polo shirt against my skin. I can hear his heart beating.

Suddenly I am being pulled away. Matthew has me by the arm, and he's leading me out the door. “What are you doing, Creary?” he keeps asking.

Before I know it, we are outside in the parking lot and my whole body is shaking.

“Are you okay?” Matthew asks.

“I can't believe he showed up on this island again.” I wobble a little, trying to stand straight. I feel drunk and angry. The world starts to spin.

“Maybe you should call it a night,” Matthew says.

“Why's he here? After two years? Why'd he come back? What makes him think he can just walk back into our lives like nothing ever happened?”