by D. M. George
“Pigs, all of them.” Parthenope’s face softened.
“What’s the most piggish thing a man’s ever done to you?”
Parthenope flinched.
Without waiting for an answer, Perla continued, “One afternoon, I came home from an interview…” She pictured her ex-husband, Gordon, sitting on the recliner in his gym clothes, drinking a protein shake straight out of the blender, a basketball game blaring on the TV. “My phone pinged. It was an email saying I hadn’t gotten the job. I started ranting about ageism, but my husband wasn’t listening. He never took his eyes off the TV. So I snatched the remote and hit Mute. Guess what he said to me then? ‘News flash: you’re old and you look it.’”
“So what?” Parthenope said.
“So what? He’d never criticized my appearance before—something had changed. It was the beginning of the end of our marriage.”
“Did you kill him?”
Perla stared at her a moment and laughed. “I sure wanted to, but no. I just thanked him for his encouragement and for being such a dick.”
Parthenope raised both eyebrows quizzically. Perla made a vulgar pantomime to clarify her meaning.
“Oh, you mean a pizzle.”
“Okay, pizzle.” Perla continued, “And so he says, ‘Sorry, that’s just the way it is, my dear. A man’s as old as he acts, but a woman’s as old as she looks.’ I was stunned. He’d never talked to me like that. A month later, he filed for divorce.”
“Lucky you. You’re free.”
“Free? More like invisible.”
“So am I.”
“What do you mean? You’re stunning.” Perla helped herself to more limoncello.
“No, just teats and hair.” Parthenope spread out her arms to each side.
Perla sprayed limoncello with an explosive laugh. “Teats? Really?” A word only farmers used. “I wish I were beautiful.”
Parthenope shrugged. “Be careful what you wish for.”
They passed the bottle in companionable silence, and Perla contemplated how unimaginable the scene would have been a week ago. There she was, floating off Capri, sharing cocktails with a beautiful stranger who had an uncanny ability to peer into her soul. Warmth and relaxation flowed through her bloodstream. Maybe it was time to lose the granite tampon of propriety she’d worn for so long and just have fun. Perla repositioned herself on the raft and rested her chin on crossed arms. She continued talking about her divorce, the youth-obsessed land she came from, and her quest to become a travel writer.
“By the way, you’ve got some sharp-lookin’ teeth…” Perla strained to enunciate.
Parthenope dropped her hand underwater, plucked a barnacle off the rock, and tossed it into her mouth. She bit down with a loud crack and spit out the pieces of shell like a teenager eating sunflower seeds—and somehow managed to look regal doing it.
Parthenope held out a barnacle, which retracted its foot in terror. “Want one?”
“Pass the bottle please.”
“I’m immortal.” Parthenope’s head swayed.
“I’m drunk.”
“I’m serious.”
“Seeeriously? Like, no wrinkles forever?”
“I’m seriously serious,” drawled Parthenope.
A man-hating, barnacle-eating immortal? What is it about me? Perla wondered. All her life she’d felt like a weirdo magnet. Complete strangers routinely confessed their most intimate details to her, things she’d never even ask her best friend about. Or they shared outlandish fantasies as easily as talking about the weather. Did she have boundary issues? Did she invite inappropriateness?
Admittedly, drinking with a stranger in an isolated place wasn’t the brightest idea. But on the other hand, she was pleasantly buzzed and enjoying Parthenope’s snarky company. In the past she might have left, but what did it matter if Parthenope was a nutcase? Since her own life had hit rock bottom, who was she to judge?
The distant whine of a boat motor grew louder. It came speeding toward them, close to the shore from the west, the direction that allowed a partial view into the cove. Damn. They’d been spotted.
“Hmmm. Some men are coming our way,” Perla said. “You’re naked and we’re both drunk… This won’t end well. You need to hide.”
But Parthenope was passed out, slumped forward like a child asleep in her high chair. Thick strands of hair floated around her like rusty kelp.
“Hold still and don’t make a sound,” Perla said. She climbed onto the rock and propped the air mattress against Parthenope before sitting down and leaning gently against it.
The boat was a rubberized raft—official-looking. The two men’s serious expressions indicated they didn’t want to party. Their shirts had a red-and-green emblem superimposed on an anchor. Italian Coast Guard?
“Buongiorno,” said the younger of the two men, shutting off the motor as they neared the rock. “We’re searching for a missing woman.” His eyes lingered on the empty liquor bottle. “She was last seen about a mile from here several hours ago.”
“A swimmer was attacked and, umm… mutilated,” said the older man with a duck lip and weak chin. The two exchanged a grimace. “By a shark… or something. A witness claims he and a red-haired woman vanished underwater at the same time, but the woman remains unaccounted for. She was topless, if that helps jog your memory.”
“Sharks? Here?” Perla had never considered the possibility. And why the hell was Parthenope the man hater swimming with a guy?
“Have you seen anyone who fits that description?”
Perla rubbed her cheek, pretending to think. “Did she have really pale skin?”
“Yes,” the first man replied. “Red hair and white skin.”
“I do remember seeing a woman who fits that description. She was leaving the beach at the end of the harbor,” she said, pointing her finger backward over her head, “walking toward town.”
The air mattress snorted and wiggled.
“What did you say?” the older man asked.
Perla spread her arms wider over the mattress, snuffled loudly, hawked a wad of phlegm, and ejected it dramatically over her left shoulder—a perfect imitation of her late father, who had suffered from allergies all his life. She smiled innocently.
“Just stay out of the water,” the man said, swallowing hard. He promptly restarted his engine and buzzed out of the cove.
Once the men were out of sight, Perla lifted the air mattress and shook Parthenope’s arm. “Wake up! There’s a shark in the area and we need to get ashore!”
Parthenope strained to open her eyes. “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”
“Who do you think you are? Lady Orca?” Perla snapped, losing her patience.
Parthenope giggled.
“I don’t know what you were doing with that man this morning, but you came really close to getting injured or killed. Did you see what it was?” It had taken Perla years to swim in the ocean after watching the movie Jaws, and the old fear sank its teeth into her again. “We have to go. Now! Get up!” Perla jumped about. “Are you coming or not?”
“No.”
Enough crazy talk. Perla was no longer amused. “Suit yourself. I’m going.” She climbed on top of the rock behind Parthenope, extended her arms for balance, and surveyed the cove. If she jumped boulder to boulder, she could reach the shore without swimming. That would be the easy part though. She deliberated the serpentine shoreline wending its treacherous way back to Marina Grande. Giant swiss-cheese-like holes, rock gardens of car-size boulders, and sheer walls awaited her.
Perla tightened the drawstrings on her water shoes, the ones Gordon had always mocked as old ladyish. Good thing she’d ignored him; the trek back would be impossible barefoot. Perla crouched and calculated the distance to the next rock. She swung her arms and hurled herself into the air on the count of three. Touchdown! She landed like Catwoman on a rooftop.
Perla’s momentary confidence fled when she saw dark shapes in the water between her and the next rock. Were they sh
adows or sharks? She bent closer for a better look, forgetting she was drunk. Her foot slipped and her arms flapped. The moment she hit the water, she imagined herself as one of those poor doomed seals, clamped in the teeth of breaching great whites showing off for Shark Week photographers. She scrambled onto the next rock like a rabid sand crab and lunged for shore.
Dry land at last! Perla checked her limbs to see if they were still attached. They were. She chastised herself for drinking so much limoncello. Her father had always preached moderation, but it was a lesson she’d never quite learned. And now the horizon tilted. Hazards and traps lined up before her like a miniature golf course—only she was the ball. Perla took a deep breath. I can do this, she told herself.
For nearly half an hour, Perla baby-stepped, crawled, climbed, and rock-hugged her way back to the gravelly beach in Marina Grande. Her towel and bag remained where she’d left them, much to her relief. She flopped down and covered her eyes with her forearm. Fear, exhaustion, and alcohol had drained her strength. Perla cursed and stood up again. Parthenope was drunk, naked, and vulnerable. She couldn’t just walk away, especially not after having imbibed with her.
Perla recalled passing a kayak-rental kiosk on the esplanade. She sprinted to the counter and paid for a two-seater with the euro coins she’d budgeted for lunch. Muscle memory kicked in once she pushed off the dock and gripped the paddle. Kayaking was one of the outdoor sports she and Gordon had enjoyed each summer. In less than ten minutes, she reached Parthenope’s cove.
Parthenope hadn’t moved from her crevice and there was no blood in the water—a good sign.
“Wake up!” Perla shouted, pulling her kayak alongside the rock.
“Are those men gone?” Parthenope raised her head and yawned, her mouth like a bear trap.
“Yes, but you need to get in the kayak now. It’s not safe to stay here.”
“Nothing’s going to happen to me. This is where I live.” After a long, thoughtful pause, Parthenope asked in a gentle voice, “Did you really come back to protect me?”
“Friends don’t let friends get eaten by sharks. Let’s go.” Perla held out her hand.
Parthenope blinked several times. “People do things to me but never for me.”
“Great. Now get in or I’m leaving. If something happens to you, it’s your own fault.”
Parthenope sat up, unlatched her necklace, and dropped it into Perla’s palm. “I want you to have this. It will protect you and provide what you need.”
Perla’s eyes widened when she touched the exquisitely carved cameo. The polished gold chain slid soft and heavy over her fingers. If only she could keep it. An image of her father came to mind. When he wasn’t spitting, he always debated the moral high ground of any given situation, whether she asked for his guidance or not. It was a practice he continued from beyond the grave. His tinny voice scolded: One cannot accept reward for doing what is right.
The cameo tingled against her skin like static electricity.
“You don’t believe anything I’ve told you today.” Parthenope sighed.
“It doesn’t matter. This afternoon has been the most excitement I’ve had in… Well, decades.”
“Nobody believes me”—Parthenope shrugged her lithe shoulders and refused the cameo in Perla’s extended hand—“at first…”
She vanished underwater in a heartbeat, sucking her long hair down with her. A few seconds later, the sea exploded next to the kayak. Parthenope breached the surface like a spinner dolphin, spiraling into the air at least twelve feet. At the apex of her jump, she faced Perla, back arched, arms outstretched Christlike, and let loose a wicked cackle. She hung in the air for an inexplicably long time, giving Perla an eyeful of the scaled tail that started low on her hips and ended in spectacularly long, diaphanous fins. The fins flowed like a chiffon train over the place where her feet should have been.
Perla screamed, dropped the cameo into her lap, and paddled faster than she’d ever paddled before. Mermaid? Impossible! But here she was, porpoising alongside the kayak, laughing her high-pitched, staccato laugh.
Parthenope stopped outside the mouth of the cove and waved goodbye. “You’ll be back to see me!” she shouted.
Luca and the Cats
Perla returned the kayak and caught the next ferry to Sorrento. Before it was out of the harbor, she bolted for the bathroom, hand over her mouth. Limoncello, bile, and bits of partially digested biscotti sloshed back and forth in the sticky toilet. When the nausea had passed, she splashed cold water on her face and returned to her seat. Her belly was empty but still churned with fear.
What had actually happened in that cove? She knew what she’d seen, but what she’d seen didn’t exist, so was she crazy or drunk or both? Images of pointy teeth spun in her head. Parthenope was the shark!
I’m crazy, drunk, and stupid, she thought. After all, isn’t that what mermaids do? Lure people into the water and eat them? Had their conversation gone sideways, Parthenope might have eaten her for lunch instead of barnacles. She buried her face in her hands and relived those final moments of terror.
What scared her most was not a killer mermaid—Parthenope had let her live, befriended her even—it was loss of sanity. Schizophrenia swung through her family tree; had it finally grabbed her branch? Was she becoming her crazy cousin Olivet, who talked incessantly about her out-of-body experiences, remote viewing powers, and posse of guardian angels?
The sun had begun its western descent when Perla exited the ferry in Marina Piccola, Sorrento’s main harbor. She plodded back to her hotel, exhausted from the day’s drama, dreaming of a long, hot shower.
She unlocked the door and sighed. Everything in her room appeared just as she’d left it: the unmade bed, the full trash container, the damp towels. What a dump—she’d never have chosen this place if Airbnb had offered anything she could afford closer to the harbor. She fished some Tylenol out of her toiletry bag. Damn, she was out of bottled water. A glass tumbler sat on the edge of the bathroom sink. She held it up to the light, turned on the faucet, and drank water from her cupped hand instead.
The bed pulled at Perla like a magnet, but her need to bathe was stronger. She tossed away her sundress, peeled down her bicycle shorts, and dropped them on the checkered tile floor. As the elasticized swim shirt stretched over her head, she felt the cameo she’d zipped in the pocket. She vaguely remembered finding it in her lap after her mad dash to escape Parthenope.
Perla removed the pendant and ran her finger over its gold rim. She studied the image of Parthenope’s delicately carved face. Had it just winked at her? Holding it gave her a measure of solace. If the cameo was real, Parthenope was real as well. But a second opinion wouldn’t hurt.
Perla whipped on her soiled dress and bounded down the stairs to the lobby. There were no other guests around, and the girl at the front desk was texting. Perla slapped the cameo down on the counter in front of her.
“How do you like my cameo?” she said, not knowing if the clerk spoke English.
The girl raised her head, glanced at the cameo, and ran her finger over the carving. “Bellissimo,” she murmured and turned back to her phone.
Satisfied she wasn’t hallucinating, Perla went back upstairs, locked the cameo in her room safe, showered, and fell into bed. Maybe when she awoke, the day’s events would turn out to have been nothing more than a bad dream.
Thirty minutes later, her grumbling stomach roused her from a deep, refreshing sleep. She kicked off the sheets and put on her old Levi’s 501s and her favorite Kliban Cat T-shirt, a vintage original she’d bought on eBay. The cartoon on the front showed a guitar-playing cat sitting on a stool, singing about how he loved to bite the heads off little mousies and nibble on their tiny feet. There was probably some deep psychological reason she loved it so much, but she didn’t care. One of the very few upsides to growing old is that you can wear anything you want—you’re invisible anyway.
Invisible. Washed out like the threadbare bedspread and the faded drap
es of her hotel room. She stood in front of the dresser mirror and numbly ran a brush through her hair. Leaning in, she touched the fine lines on her face. Funny, she’d never given them a thought when she was married. Gordon hadn’t married her for her looks after all. Their shared love of outdoor sports was what made the marriage work. He liked that she was more tomboy than beauty queen. Those were the good times. He’d taught her to surf, mountain bike, and snowboard. She’d introduced him to river rafting and abalone diving. Sex was like a sport too—always a vigorous workout. Granted, Gordon was not a soul mate like her first husband, her college sweetheart and father of her twenty-eight-year-old daughter, but their marriage had been amicable and solid.
Or so she’d thought. Just two months after they separated, he moved in with a woman eighteen years her junior. Replaced in the blink of an eye. What a fool. Why had she been so blind?
Helplessness was not her style, never had been, but somehow she’d found herself with no job, no husband, and adrift in a world where inner beauty has no currency. The little devil on her shoulder whispered into her ear, “You’re a hag. No man wants to have sex with you. Why bother putting on makeup? It’s just lipstick on a pig.” Perla hated the voice because it was her own. Deep down, she was as guilty as the employers who wouldn’t hire her and the husband who left her. She too believed that her age, and her aging appearance, negated her whole being.
To hell with Gordon; she needed food. Perla picked up her purse and sweatshirt and left the hotel to hunt for dinner. Her Rick Steves guidebook recommended a family-run trattoria on the waterfront in Sorrento’s second harbor, also named Marina Grande like the one in Capri. She had blind faith in the man; he’d probably eaten at every restaurant in Italy.
The path to the harbor wended its way from spectacular cliff-top views of the Bay of Naples, down a cobblestone alley too narrow for cars. Perla passed between tall, ancient apartment buildings, some connected overhead by archways. Walls crowded out the sky and made the alley feel like a tunnel. The air resonated with the echoes of past lives and events. Each stride seemed to take her back in time. A wisp of worry chilled her skin—what if she turned the wrong corner and found herself in a previous century?