Beware the Mermaids

by Carrie Talick

  Nancy Niemi Hadley wasn’t born a fussy baby, nor had she been a child prone to anxiety or panic. She had been a happy and confident girl growing up in a small suburb of sunny Ventura, California, in the late 1970s. At the tender age of twelve, not fully understanding that women were limited to professions like teacher, nurse, and secretary in those days, Nancy dreamed a little bigger and thought of being a travel correspondent like Martha Gellhorn, globe-trotting around the world, writing about war, and challenging the likes of Hemingway. Her days were filled with ideas and dreams that she would sketch out while she munched on Doritos and read Nancy Drew mysteries.

  Then a sudden disturbance came slithering in to destroy her idyllic childhood. Just like all trauma, she didn’t see it coming.

  She was the only child of blue-collar parents of Finnish descent, who were steeped in the belief that hard work cleansed the soul and that being a good Lutheran would absolve all sins, no matter how grave the transgression. Nancy’s mother, Grace, was a petite spitfire of a woman, with flaxen hair and lilting eyes, which always gave the impression that she was in a state of understanding or mild sympathy. She never wore lipstick, but her full lips were a pale pink that played against her luminous peaches-and-cream skin. Naturally buoyant, Grace either hummed or whistled throughout the day as she moved around the house. When she breezed by Nancy, she smelled like a mixture of lavender, lemons, and Ivory soap. Grace taught Nancy how to cook, how to read, and how to iron pillowcases, a skill Nancy deemed entirely useless.

  “Why am I ironing pillowcases?” Nancy protested.

  “How do you expect to take care of a husband and a household if you don’t learn the basics?”

  “I plan on having staff for this.” Nancy slaved on dramatically.

  “Until then, soldier on, Cinderella.” Grace’s hands were the only thing that betrayed her age, bearing wrinkles, cuts, and scars from her daily chores and cooking. But in every other way, Nancy’s mom seemed young, vibrant, and happy.

  Her father, Karl, was blessed with a head of blond curls, piercing blue eyes, and a dimpled smile that her mother found irresistible. Simple transgressions that would cause Grace to raise her voice—pipe ashes carelessly dumped in a coffee cup, crumpled underwear in the bathroom—were instantly forgotten when Karl flashed her that smile.

  Karl adored his bright and precocious daughter, Nancy. He was the only one in the world who called her Nan, an endearment she loved. He tried to make her laugh, even in church, which got them both in trouble. He worked as an aircraft training specialist and would often go out of town for weeks at a time. He’d come back with exotic gifts for Nancy: a tiny ship in a bottle from Maine, peach-flavored jelly beans from Atlanta, sand dollars from the beaches of Sanibel, Florida. But it was the hug he gave her when he came home, the smell of his cherry tobacco, and his larger-than-life presence that Nancy really treasured. Every time he rushed through their front door, he would take her mother by the hand, spin her around, and kiss her on the neck. Nancy was never happier than when it was the three of them together again.

  That’s why that day felt like a flash flood of black, icy water, rushing fast and hard to loosen her foundation. She was on her way home from seventh grade on a blustery November afternoon, the waves wild and crashing on the distant shores of Ventura beach as the sky darkened overhead. As she strolled along the sidewalk, pondering how she and her dad were going to construct a bridge out of Popsicle sticks for her school project, two black birds squawked from their positions on the fence as if sounding a warning. She looked up and saw her mother burst out of the front door and look down the street, panic in her pale-blue eyes, cheeks stained with tears. When she saw Nancy, Grace tried to compose herself. But it was hard to hide raw emotion. Nancy took one wary step up to the porch, not knowing what was going on. She peered into the house and saw shards of broken glass, a coffee table overturned, a lamp broken.

  “Mom, what’s going on? Where’s Dad?”

  Her mother grabbed her and averted her view into the house. She said, “Honey, I need you to go over to the Largents’ house until I come to get you, okay?”

  Nancy detected a wild fear in her mother’s voice, and it unnerved her. Her heart fluttered and a shiver ran up her back. “Mom, what’s happened? Is Dad okay?”

  Her mother knelt down, looked her in the eyes, and forcefully said, “Go to the Largents’. I’ll come over there later.” Nancy’s stomach churned; the world in front of her tilted.

  It wasn’t long before she knew the truth. Her father had arrived home drunk and announced he was leaving them. He raged inside the house, blaming Grace for his own betrayal, his fury—thinly masking his shame—eventually turning physical. Thankfully, he hadn’t raised his hand to Grace but rather the lamp and coffee table, which took the full brunt of his anger before he stormed out and threw her the keys to their only car. Karl, Nancy’s father, in the grips of what she learned later was a full-blown midlife crisis, had abandoned her beautiful mother for a seventeen-year-old girl who worked at the Camarillo train station. They were moving to Miami, he said. The girl was pregnant, he said. Don’t contact him, he said.

  “He means you, right? He’s just leaving you. He didn’t mean me. We’re supposed to build our bridge tonight, and he …” Nancy, for the first time in her life, felt the unfamiliar shifting sands of dread deep within her. She looked up at Grace’s anguished expression.

  “Mom? He’ll come back for me, won’t he? He won’t leave me. He loves me. Even if he doesn’t love you!” She needed to separate the two ideas. She couldn’t be left by her dad, the one who called her Nan and made her laugh and had taught her how to throw a softball. Daughters weren’t the same as wives.

  She felt her mom’s arms gently cradle her.

  “No!” Nancy broke away from her. “I’m not going to let you do this!” Nancy took off running in the direction she thought her dad would go, to the train station, and she heard her mother calling after her. Her heart was beating out of her chest as she sprinted, tears streaming back into her hair. She got to the fence where she could see the train platform, but it was empty.

  The dark clouds opened, and it began to rain. Nancy collapsed against the fence and sank down in the long grass and felt the cold drops of water mix with her hot tears. As the rain came down, she started to pray, not to God, but to her dad. “Please, Daddy, come back. Please don’t leave me.”

  Nancy heard the voice of her father calling her name. She turned with a start from her position in the long grass. The rain had subsided, and it had gotten dark while she sat against the fence. A beam of light blinded her at first, and she called out, “Dad?”

  “Nancy, thank god.” It wasn’t her dad but Hank Gentry, a local police officer living in the neighborhood, who approached her. He helped her up, but she was still disoriented. “Dad? Is my dad with you, Mr. Gentry?”

  At first Gentry didn’t say anything, and then he finally uttered, “Let’s get you home, girl.”

  As the months went by, Nancy remained certain that her dad would contact her. She checked the mailbox every day in case he sent a letter, and some evenings she would sit by the phone in the kitchen, waiting for it to ring, until her eyes grew heavy and her mother gently ushered her to bed. But the calls and the letters never came. Nancy’s heart broke in a place that never healed.

  When she finally accepted that her father was gone, when some of her own blinding pain subsided, she had room to understand her mother’s pain as well. While Nancy had lost a father, her mom had lost her husband, and any security that he offered went with him. Nancy realized that Grace’s heart must be broken too. That night, when her mom tucked her in bed, Nancy reached out and held her hand, the first gesture of love toward her mother since her dad had left them. Grace looked into her daughter’s eyes and let Nancy cry. She fell asleep by Nancy’s side, and they stayed there until morning.

  As if being abandoned weren’t humiliating and painful enough, her mother was unable to pay their bills, and six
months later they were evicted from the only home Nancy had known.

  On a blustery February morning, two apologetic police officers stood on the porch, one nervously playing with his hat while Nancy and her mother carried out their belongings in suitcases and trash bags. Grace chirped at Nancy to hurry with the rest of her things. Nancy thought her mother marched like a tiny little warrior, her head held high, past the officers. When one of them offered to help, she waved him away and lugged the large suitcase past the officer and not so accidentally hit him in the groin. He grimaced in pain as she heaved the bag out and into the trunk of her car with the strength of Thor. Grace never looked back at the officers, unwilling to entertain their sympathy. She drove away from Ventura without shedding a tear, her gaze determined and straight ahead.

  “At least I got you, baby girl. And a full tank of gas. That’s all I need.”

  Grace was giving off resilient energy, but Nancy heard the uncertainty in her voice when it cracked on the last word.

  Nancy’s panic rose in her chest, like the wings of a bird beating against a cage, but she didn’t let it show. She wouldn’t burden her mother further. “You’ll always have me.”

  Grace just nodded and drove toward the ocean. They stopped at a vista point somewhere north of Malibu. As they stared out at the Pacific, Nancy saw her mother weaken and rest her forehead gently on the steering wheel. She had never seen her mother break down before, and it was like an emotional earthquake, a cataclysmic upheaval of everything that made her feel safe. Her family destroyed, her home gone, her mom broken. When Grace finally looked at her, she appeared wilted, her strength drained. Nancy was twelve years old and called upon to console her mother, who had just lost everything. She held her mom’s hand and said, “It’s going to be okay.”

  Nancy learned three things that day, staring out at the Pacific. There’s no guarantee that everything is going to be okay. Most things are out of your control. And safety is more important than happiness.

  Old damage had a way of flaring up when you least expected it. Like hemorrhoids or hot flashes. It could take you out at the knees.

  Forty-five years later, that dread was back. And the lessons still rang true. Nancy sat in her car for a long while and stared out at the vast expanse of ocean from a cliff in Palos Verdes. The same unending, bottomless anxiety thrumming throughout her veins, she trembled as she gripped and regripped the wheel. Her breath was uneven, and she couldn’t slow her reeling mind.

  What now?

  And then an answer came as if delivered by the grace of Grace.

  She pointed the car back toward Redondo Beach and found herself on Ruthie’s doorstep.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ME HEARTIES

  Ruthie Davenport lived in a small beach bungalow with a charming front porch and a yard full of tomato plants, lavender, and milkweed. Butterflies and bumblebees floated happily around the blossoms in her small garden, which was a rather peaceful setting, given all the tumult about to happen inside. A 911 text had been sent to Nancy’s posse of girlfriends, and they were all beginning to arrive.

  Lois came in through the small front gate. Ruthie’s candles were already lit, incense burned, and Joni Mitchell emanated from the vintage Marantz stereo, singing about the last time she’d seen Richard. Otis, Ruthie’s ratty but adorable pug-terrier mix rescue dog, was wriggling around on his back, playing with his favorite stuffed dinosaur toy, when he heard the click of the gate. He instantly jumped up and got out one bark before he saw Lois. He wagged his tail in a dog-joy frenzy and rushed to greet her.

  “Hiya, boy!” Lois took out a stash of turkey jerky and slipped a few pieces to the little dog. Otis scarfed it down and then began to lick Lois’s face in gratitude as she bent down to pet him, her soft, permed mop of blond hair holding up her sunglasses. Lois murmured, “Who’s your favorite auntie?”

  “That would be Judy,” said Judy, who had appeared near the front door. “I brought him bacon treats.”

  “Stepping it up, I see. Devious.” Lois smiled at Judy.

  Ruthie came out onto the porch and looked down at her dog, who was still licking his chops. “Don’t feed him jerky. He’ll get the shits,” she scolded.

  “Never,” Lois said guiltily as she hid the baggie. Ruthie stood on the porch, wearing purple leggings and a black oversized flowing shirt. Her shiny auburn hair stuck out like star points from her bun, held by a hair clip, her gold bangle bracelets rattling as she dangled two clean wineglasses in front of her.

  “Get in here, I’m parched! Nancy is on her way over. Apparently, there’s news. Bad news.” Ruthie looked at her girls with raised eyebrows as they entered the house.

  Ruthie’s cottage was one large open room with French doors that had been swept open to let in the evening breeze. The room faced west, and soft pink clouds floated by as pelicans lazed on the breeze overhead. The kitchen was the heart of the house, with an island made for entertaining. Four sea grass barstools surrounded it, and in the center three short, squat sandalwood candles glowed brightly. The house was cozy and tasteful, full of Balinese and Brazilian trinkets from Ruthie’s travels, original art on canvas, and framed photos of all four of them in different stages of their lives, dating back to high school.

  “What do you think is going on? Roger, maybe?” Judy asked.

  “It involves Roger, of course. That cad has done something awful, I’m sure of it. It’s in his genes, I swear. Men go through menopause too. But instead of hormone replacement therapy and brittle hair, they get Maseratis and mistresses,” Ruthie said.

  “Only sounds fair, then, that we get margaritas and manservants,” Lois added. “Hey, do you have any antacids?” She got up to investigate. Otis followed the lady with the turkey jerky.

  Judy, notoriously indecisive, hauled a huge grocery bag onto the kitchen counter filled with all manner of snacks.

  “Judy, did you buy Trader Joe’s out of cheese?” Ruthie asked.

  “I just couldn’t decide. Besides, I have some news of my own. But we’ll wait until we see what’s going on with Nancy.”

  Ruthie raised her eyebrows and let out a whistle. “The blender is going to be busy tonight.”

  The girls took up their usual tasks with an unspoken ease and efficiency. Lois opened various cheeses, Ruthie opened the tequila, Judy opened jars of pickles and olives. Otis served as a canine Swiffer lapping up any tidbits of cheese that dropped. The energy was more than friendship. It was a safe zone—unlike family, with its obligations and burdens of blood relatives. Nor was it weighed down by complications that came along with lovers or husbands. What they shared was love, in the deepest, most trusting way, because it was chosen. The blender whirred to life.

  Just then, Otis let out a happy bark, which meant Nancy was at the gate. Ruthie and Judy rushed to the porch, joined almost instantly by Lois, who was munching on antacids. Before them stood Nancy, slightly shaking, eyes weary, seemingly frozen at the gate.

  “Roger,” was all Nancy could muster in her weakened state.

  “Let’s get you in the house and get some booze in you before you collapse.”

  Judy and Lois took Nancy by the elbows, led her into Ruthie’s house, and deposited her in a deep-seated chair in the living room. Ruthie came over and was hovering over her, fighting the urge to check her vitals, when Nancy finally spoke.

  “I, along with three horrified charity ladies, walked onto Bucephalus and caught Roger boffing Claire Sanford.”

  Judy gasped. “Good God!”

  Ruthie smirked and said, “The snarky redhead?”

  Lois produced a blended margarita with salt on the rim and handed it to Nancy just in time. Judy, Lois, and Ruthie all stood there for a moment and didn’t say another word. Nancy took a good long sip of the frozen concoction and then threw her head back and groaned.

  Ruthie finally broke the silence. “Putz.”

  Nancy nodded and let her first tear of frustration fall.

  Lois went to get the pitcher of margar
itas.

  “Claire Sanford …” Ruthie pondered aloud. “I thought she had her sights set on that old fart Stanley Rosenthal and his mattress empire.”

  “You didn’t hear? Stanley keeled over during a two-hour tennis match with Larry Valone,” Judy said.

  “Valone … is he the car dealer with the hair plugs who always wears a puka shell necklace?” Ruthie asked.

  “I believe that’s him,” Judy confirmed.

  “I went on a date with Larry once. He tried to sell me a used Mazda with low miles during the appetizer course.”

  “Who died?” Lois asked, as she returned with margaritas for all.

  “Stanley Rosenthal.”

  “How did he croak?” Lois asked.

  “Heart attack. Apparently, Larry and Stan got into a fight over whether a serve was in or out during a tiebreak to win their tennis match. Stan’s last words were, ‘As I live and breathe, that serve was out, you lying gigolo huckster!’ ”

  “Not the noblest of last words,” Lois said.

  The women finally took their seats in the living room as Otis eagerly ran between everyone’s legs, hoping someone would drop a cracker or some prosciutto. Lois discreetly slipped the little dog a cheese curd, which he happily gobbled up before opting to sit next to her in hopes that his good fortune of cheese curds would continue. Nancy was nearly done with her frozen margarita.

  “I should have seen this coming.”

  “How?” Judy asked.

  “The beer can race. I ignored his orders because the wind shifted, and I knew we could take advantage of it. You all know how Roger likes to punish me when my rightness causes us to win the race?”

  “A topic we shall take up at another time, but yes,” Ruthie said.