The Mermaid's Secret (9 page)

Once the cabin is clean, and the breakfast orders are done, and the galley is prepped for lunch, I step out to the back deck. I climb the steps to the upper deck, away from everyone. It's the only quiet place, since passengers aren't allowed here while the boat is under way.

Billows of diesel smoke circle in the updraft. I breathe the heavy air into my lungs. Seagulls chase after the boat, steely eyes peeled and watching the bait table.

I try to remember the feeling of breathing water. I close my eyes and imagine swimming through the sea, the effortless movement of my tail. It was so peaceful, so calm, so beautiful. So real. I try to envision the brilliant show of bioluminescence that enveloped me as I swam to shore, the pink and purple reflections in my scales.

I want to believe. I want to believe that I became a magical creature who doesn't just clean up after seasick frat boys and fetch coffee for her coworkers.

Below me, I watch the way the steel hull cuts through the water, breaking it into prisms off the stern. If I look at it just right, rainbows appear in the mist.

Was it only yesterday that I was under these waves, swimming faster than any human can, going places never explored before?

I think about the picture of my seventeen-year-old self on the winner's podium, standing tall, proud to be the best at something. I believed I could do anything, then. I felt invincible.

I look down at the dark blue water. What lies beneath? Dogfish and cod and haddock and wolf fish, whales bigger than any living thing on earth, and creatures so small and otherworldly they light up like fireworks in the dark of night. Great white sharks.

Do I belong down there, with those creatures? Was it just a concussion or was it real? Was it a dream? Or am I special? I used to feel special, once upon a time. All I ever feel now is loss. The things that were. The people I loved.

I need to remember the feeling of winning. Of being a champion. Of being happy. I need to believe in myself again. The sea chose me yesterday. I need to believe that it will choose me again.

“All-in,” I whisper. I kick off my shoes, step over the railing, and dive.

Down, down, down I dive. The sea will remember me. I will breathe water and grow a fish tail, like I did before. I will transform into that magical creature I was yesterday.

The pressure in my ears forces me to slow my descent. I pinch my nose and blow. Any second now, I will find out if it was all a dream.

I swim deeper, the cold water hitting me like a sledgehammer.

Behind me I reach to feel my tail, but instead I find feet and legs. I take a few more tentative strokes downward, then stop and wait.

The transformation is not happening. I'm still human. And I'm dangerously close to becoming a drowned human. I need air. The surface seems like it's a million miles away. My lungs are screaming. I swim straight up toward the sunlight, kicking hard against the weight of water.

*   *   *

I'm in the wheelhouse with Matthew, dressed in a Slack Tide T-shirt from the ship store and a pair of board shorts Tony found in the bottom of his gear bag. I have to roll the waistband down so they won't slide off me.

“What happened exactly? I need to write this up in the log,” Matthew says, his tone no longer playful.

I squeeze water out of my hair. “I slipped.”

“You slipped?”

“Yeah, I slipped.” Under Matthew's gaze, I feel as transparent as Scotch tape.

His jaw is tight. “Did you slip over the rail or under it?”

“Over,” I say.

Matthew puts a hand at my waist at the point where the railing would hit me if I were standing against it. “Must have been a big slip.”

I look out the window at the water, the endless energy of waves, the sun rippling against them making dark shadows and light peaks.

“I have to get down to the galley. It's lunchtime.”

“This is more important. I should document what happened. You can't start jumping off boats in the middle of the ocean. As captain, I'm responsible for your safety.”

Responsible for my safety. That's Matthew for you. Only a responsible person would save a newspaper article about a coworker and give it to her years later as a gift. Why was he holding on to it? Is he trying to tell me something? Does he think of me as more than just a coworker? A friend?

“I get it. I need to be more careful.”

“You could have seriously injured yourself.”

“It was a mistake.”

“I know you're a free spirit and you like to do your own thing, and you don't always follow the rules, but I'm responsible for you out here.”

I want to curl up and die. “I had too much to drink last night. That's all.”

On the dashboard, the fish finder blinks with pixels of life under the sea.

“So,” he pauses. “Going overboard has nothing to do with Trip Sinclair being back on the island.”

I exhale. I'm actually relieved. As much as it kills me that Trip is back on Ne'Hwas, carrying on with his privileged life, I'm glad Matthew suspects Trip is the sole reason for my stunt. It sounds a lot more rational than trying to prove that I'm a half-human, half-fish creature that only exists in myths. “No, it doesn't.”

“Then you're not having a psychotic break?”

“No.”

“Good.” He looks away. I notice a scar just beneath his eye, shaped like a crescent. It looks like it was put there long ago. By a stray fishing hook? A jammed winch? A gale wind? Given Matthew's years at sea, his face should be etched in scars.

I turn to leave, but linger at the doorway. “Hey Matthew, can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Why did you give me that old newspaper clipping? Why did you save it all these years?”

“I don't know.” He looks down, embarrassed. “I thought you'd want it. You know, remind you what a cool, badass surfer you once were. Maybe it was wrong.”

“It wasn't wrong. I really appreciate it.”

Way off to the starboard side, a fish jumps into the air. In a flash, I see the rigid points of its fin, the great mass of its body. A bluefin tuna. And I wish I could be there, too.

 

E
IGHT

After work, I go home, take a shower and wash the salt water out of my hair, scrubbing away any reminders of my stunt aboard the
Dauntless
today. I'm not a mermaid. I'm just a galley girl on a fishing boat, with a really active imagination.
Accept it,
I tell myself.

But I didn't imagine Trip Sinclair in the flesh at the Rongo, strutting around like nothing ever happened. Sheriff needs to know: Trip Sinclair is back on island.

Sheriff's truck is in the driveway when I get to his house. His house.
My
house?
Our
house? How old do you have to be before you no longer consider your parents' house “home”? When does home become the thing that
you
decide it is? I only moved out a year and a half ago, at the ripe age of twenty-one, but I don't think of it as home anymore. My apartment—with its stained furniture and cracked plaster, with the bathtub that's filled by Sammy's shampoo collection—that's home.

I don't visit as much as I should. In fact, seeing Sheriff twice in two days will probably send him into a coronary. He'll think I'm here to ask for money. Which I'm not.

I'm here to ask for much more than that.

As I walk up the porch, I can see him hunched over bills at the kitchen table. That's where he'd sit every Friday, to catch up on police reports or pay bills, when we were growing up. He used to give me and Kay the deposit slips from the back of the checkbook to play with. We felt so grown-up, so important, to have those little blue booklets in our possession.

“Hi, Sheriff,” I say, letting myself in. The screen door squeaks shut behind me.

“Jess. What a pleasant surprise.” He shuffles his paperwork into a neat stack and slides it to the side. A moment later his face is tangled with concern. “Everything all right?”

“Does something have to be wrong for me to come see you? Can't I just swing by to say hello?” The cop in him is always just below the surface, ready for the worst, prepared to spring into action.

He sighs. “Of course you can swing by. Have you eaten?”

I plop into a chair. “I'm not really in the mood for a ham sandwich.”

“I think there's steaks in the freezer.” He gets up, walks to the fridge.

“Did you put them there?” I ask, raising an eyebrow.

He pretends to think about for a minute. “Um, no.”

“Did Mom?”

He doesn't look at me. “Yes. I suppose Barbara is the one who bought them.”

“Then they've been there too long.”

“They're frozen.”

“Shelf life of six months, tops,” I say.

He straightens the pictures stuck to the fridge with smiley-face magnets. There's one of me, Kay, and Mom at the beach. One of Kay in a graduation cap and gown. One of Sheriff getting a civil service award from the city marshal, which was so long ago he didn't have a single gray hair in the picture. All ancient history.

“The steaks are fine,” Sheriff says.

“They'll have freezer burn.”

He touches the bridge of his nose. “Are we going to argue about expiration dates?”

The question hangs in the air. We both know this fight isn't about steaks going bad, but about what's been left behind. It's about my mother walking out on us, leaving a freezer full of uneaten food, cutting us out of her life without any warning. It's about Kay. It's about him and me struggling to preserve the family we have left. And failing at it.

He opens the fridge and I can see that all he has inside is a six-pack of Pepsi, a jar of mayo, a carton of milk, and some soy sauce. It's like peeking into a bachelor's refrigerator. I know there are packages of sliced ham and cheese from the deli in the meat drawer, because that's the extent of his culinary skill. My mom is the cook.

He pulls out two Pepsis and sits back down, gives one to me. The aluminum is cold in my hand. “Let's not fight. I'm glad you're here. How was your birthday party?”

“It was white trash meets tequila.”

I take a sip of my Pepsi and study my father for signs of depression. I know what to look for—anger or irritability, loss of energy, weight loss, reckless behavior, loss of interest in daily activities. I read a bunch of Web sites on depression, but it's hard to tell. It builds and creeps up on you. In my mind, I picture depression as the game Jenga, which we used to play with my mom on winter nights. Each small catastrophe is a wooden block taken out of your stack and piled on top, the stack getting more and more wobbly as the blocks get higher. Sheriff has so many holes in his stack that it's always on the verge of toppling over.

“It's important to celebrate milestones, Jess. We can't forget that,” he says.

“Tony set the bar on fire,” I say cheerfully.

He sips his soda. “Sounds like a good thing I wasn't there.”

I twirl my hair, an old habit I developed as a kid, whenever I was hiding something. There were years when my hair was so knotted from the twisting that I had dreadlocks in the downy underlayers of hair around my neck.

I remember being in fourth grade and twisting my hair as I sat on the wooden bench outside the principal's office, mud all the way up my legs, dripping on the checkered floor. My parents were called in for a meeting after I had snuck off during a field trip to the old lobster cannery. The lobster cannery was converted into a Native American educational center sometime in the 1980s, and since there isn't much in the way of culture on Ne'Hwas, it's a field trip hot spot for elementary schools, scouting troops, and senior citizen clubs.

We were there to learn Passamaquoddy history, but all they talked about was how canning lobsters was big business back before shipping was dependable, and how the local Native American families were hired to work at the lobster cannery, since their ancestors had been fishing the area for lobster for hundreds of years and were pretty much experts in anything that had to do with fishing or hunting. The tour guide showed us a birch bark canoe that had been made by some other Native American tribe on the mainland, and told us how important canoes were as a form of transportation for the Passamaquoddy. I raised my hand and told her I was Passamaquoddy and never canoed anywhere, and that I preferred to ride around in the back of my father's pickup truck when I needed to get someplace. She scowled and told me to hold all my questions until the end of the tour. Then she pulled a spear out of a closet and explained how the native people had fished for pollock with nothing but spears for hundreds of years. When I pointed out the Bass Pro Shops logo on the handle and made the other kids laugh, she told me I was a very disruptive young lady. The tour drudged on and I kept my mouth shut, even though there were a bunch of other so-called artifacts that had nothing to do with actual Passamaquoddy culture, like the whale skeleton hanging from the rafters.

The old lady giving the tour wasn't even Passamaquoddy. The whole thing was such a sham. Here I was, the only actual Native American in the whole place, and I had to listen to some bogus stories about a cannery that no one in my family had ever set foot in.

After a while, they marched us through the gift shop, where we could buy plastic toy lobsters made in Taiwan, Tootsie Rolls, and rock candy.

By the time we got to the part of the tour where they herded us into a windowless rec room and taught us how to weave sweetgrass baskets, I'd had enough.

I snuck out.

It was low tide, so I left the Native American educational center, walked down the beach to the mudflats, and went clamming. I used my hands to dig, and found a broken planter to use as a bucket. It was full of clams by the time they discovered I was missing. The teachers spent hours searching for me. “Tainted the cultural experience for the entire class,” the principal said.