Diary of a Radical Mermaid

by Deborah Smith

  At any rate, don’t pay any attention to Tula.

  On my blog-announcement day she was dressed in one of those coy, retro, Lily Pulitzer shifts, looking like a cartoon daisy with breasts. Only Tula could pull off a look like that with a straight face. Leaning on one of the polished display counters at her shop, she crossed one perfectly tanned webbed foot over the other perfectly tanned webbed foot — both feet clad in strappy little yellow sandals with tiny ruby anklets — and she eyed me as if I’d lost my mind.

  “What do you intend to write about in this on-line diary, Juna Lee? All you do is shop and chase Eurotrash and throw parties.”

  “Why, those credentials alone qualify me to write a trashy gossip column pretending to be social commentary. I could be a columnist for Vanity Fair.” (Always hit Tula where her ads live.) “I have a masters in writing from some university. I forget the name.”

  Tula sniffed. “You got your degree by seducing professors.”

  “I like shortcuts. But I am a writer.”

  “So what are you going to write about in this computer diary?”

  “Our people.”

  Tula straightened ominously. “Please tell me that by ‘our people’ you mean servants, employees, maids, butlers. A sort of Upstairs, Downstairs blog?”

  “I mean mer-people, and you know it.”

  Tula rushed from behind the counter, scattering several of her large, slit-eyed, champion Persians. Her shop is large and elegant, filled with twinkling pink-crystal chandeliers and soft Impressionist paintings. The Monet was a gift to her great-grandmother from the artist himself. The Persians sleep on a Louis XIV divan on cashmere throws.

  “Writing about us is an invasion of privacy!” she bellowed. “And a sacrilege! And very rude! Wasn’t the Trump incident enough trouble for you?”

  “Oh, for godssake, I’m not writing about you personally,” I lied. “I’m just aiming for a little water-to-land detente, you know, a little understanding between the haves and the have-nots, webbing-wise—”

  “It’s forbidden! Against the rules! Dangerous!”

  I put hand on hip and pouted. “Oh? Because the Council says so? The Council makes recommendations, Tula, not laws.”

  The Council, you see, is the Mer equivalent of the United Nations, only without diplomatic immunity and free parking passes. It governs merfolk everywhere, slapping hands when need be, sending very unpleasant people to scold the mullet-heads and rakehells of our secretive society, and, in general, making pompous, pain-in-the-ass pronouncements about Mer decorum and relations with Landers. I suppose without it some of our greedier, more maniacal Mers would run amok and take over the world, but aside from preventing a few loony Mers from killing off all the Landers and establishing worldwide domination, I don’t see why the Council is so tight-assed. Tight-toed. Whatever.

  “I’m just having a little literary fun in the interest of public relations,” I said. “Besides, most Landers will assume my blog is fiction. Maybe I’ll become the Danielle Steele of Mer lore. Publish books. Have movies made. Be interviewed by Barbara Walters. Her great-great-grandmother was a Mer, you know. There are a few webbed toes hidden in that woman’s family closet. I think her tongue’s webbed, too. That explains a lot.”

  Tula groaned and shook her head. “Why don’t you do something useful, instead? Like take up water polo.”

  “I tried. The horse keeps drowning.”

  “Very funny.”

  “I want to write about our people. It’ll be fun. And harmless. You’ll see.”

  “I predict the Council will send someone to string you up by your webbing until you behave.”

  “The Council has far more important items on its agenda than little old me and my blog. They’re obsessed with UniWorld Oil trying to take over the planet. My little blog is a trifle.”

  Tula sighed and looked unconvinced. “I don’t like the smell of this fish, Juna Lee. You’ve gotten yourself into trouble, before, but this time —”

  “Oh, shut up and sell me something pretty.” I smiled, went over to a counter, then cooed in delight. “That little diamond tennis bracelet with the platinum setting will do. Put it on my account.”

  Tula rolled her azure eyes (and no, it would not be accurate, nor interesting, to call them simply ‘blue’). Anyway, rolled her azure eyes and went behind the counter to fetch my bracelet. “You don’t even play tennis,” she said. “Out of the water, you’re as graceful as a beached whale.”

  “Kiss my blubber,” I replied with great drama, then took my bracelet and marched out.

  Lilith

  Chapter 3

  Of course, it didn’t take long for word about my diary to reach Lilith. About two nanoseconds, to be precise. You don’t want Lilith mad at you. Picture Katherine Hepburn in her prime, with webbed toes, two yards of wavy auburn hair, and a Southern accent that could melt a martini olive. That’s my great-aunt.

  As I’ve said, she’s seventy but that doesn’t mean a thing in Mer terms. You wouldn’t peg her at more than forty — and that’s sans any nipping and tucking. She rules the Bonavendier clan and all its subsidiaries, which are spread far and wide. More than a thousand Mers revere Sainte’s Point Island as the Mer equivalent of Buckingham Palace, the Statue of Liberty, and Hyannis Port all rolled into one. (Jackie Kennedy had the most discreet Mer family background, by the way. No surprise. Such style. Such intelligence, such class!)

  Lilith called me back from a shopping trip in Atlanta on a sultry afternoon decorated with puffy Gulf Stream clouds and warm spring waves. I left my car in Bellemeade and swam across to Sainte’s Point. It’s an easy swim from Bellemeade, no more than a mile, give or take a small shark or two. The local dolphins chirped at me like disgusted sisters. Dolphins are so full of themselves. “Oh, puh-leeeze, it’s only a blog,” I chirped back.

  After I dried off, wound my red hair up in a hefty braid, and donned a sweet silk sheath with darling little hand-painted Moroccan sandals, I made my way up the stone walkway from the island’s docks and boat house. There had been a good deal of hubbub at Sainte’s Point lately, what with the elaborate wedding of Ali to Griffin Randolph in the works, but there was a lull in the prenuptial preparations that day. At the sight of me, the household staff — two plump, angelic brothers and a sister — clutched their hearts and staggered about in feigned horror.

  Annoying little Tanglewoods. They were only Landers, but generations of their family’s spellbound service to the Bonavendiers had given them a Mer-like capacity for appalled attitudes and prissy social judgment. “Just a blog,” I flung at them, and hurried by.

  In her elegant, sun-filled office, Lilith looked up from an exquisite Russian czarina desk Napoleon shipped home to Josephine during that foolish little trek toward Moscow. Josephine was one of us, by the way. Such a naive child, though understandably caught up in owning lovely jewels and gilded etageres. How foolish to fall in love with a Lander in general and a midget megalomaniac in particular.

  My great-aunt frowned at me. I gulped. Lilith looked frighteningly at home behind an empress’s desk.

  “I hear from Tula,” she said, “that you’re writing some kind of computerized journal about us, for the whole world to read.”

  I sank down on an overstuffed French divan with all the drama of a wounded artiste. Me, that is, not the divan. “Go ahead and scold me. Tell me I’ll be in trouble with the Council again.” I swooned on the divan with the back of one hand against my forehead. “Never mind that I’m a serious writer and scholarly Mer historian, not to mention the daughter of your third cousin once removed —”

  “If only you’d channel your melodrama into an acting career, Juna Lee.” She smiled, all shrewd eyes and cool mouth, catlike. “You could be the host of one of those reality shows. I have the perfect name for it. All Wet.”

  I wound a long necklace of pearls into a faux noose around my throat. “So you’ll let me hang in the court of public opinion? You refuse to help me?”

  “On the co
ntrary.”

  I dropped my pearls and lurched upright on the divan. “Really?”

  “Yes. I approve of your blog.”

  “You approve of my blog?”

  “Yes. And I’ll even allow you to post excerpts from my history of Mers.”

  I squealed and applauded. “This is wonderful.”

  “It’s not for your benefit. It’s for all of us. The world is becoming a very small place, Juna Lee. The oceans are shrinking.”

  “You mean . . . metaphorically? Because I thought we had that whole shrinking ocean thing all taken care of with global warming.”

  Lilith sighed at my frivolity. “There has always been a delicate balance between us and the immense Lander population. That balance is becoming more fragile as our worlds merge. Humans in a disconnected world, lost to themselves and each other, encased in vast waters or dry cities, while the planet slowly spins out of control toward a frightening future of sterile and regimented loneliness. I’m seeking to draw the faithful together and create a social revolution of sorts, a quiet return to the water in spirit as well as form. Landers share the waters with us, they always have. They are part of us. And we are part of them.”

  “Only much better dressed.”

  Lilith arched a brow. I was hopeless, yes. “Go and write your computer journal, your blog. Try to spread the good word about us, Juna Lee. See what you stir up and who swims to the surface because of it. You may find a good deal of trouble, but not from the powers that be. I’ll speak to the Council on your behalf.”

  I was stunned. This was much better news than I’d dared hope. I leapt to my feet. “You’ll intervene with the Council? Let’s celebrate! I’ll make a gallon of martinis! And a second gallon for you!”

  My career as a Mer blogger had been launched.

  Crossing Jordan

  Chapter 4

  I hurried to take advantage of my new status as a journalist. My first interview: Jordan Brighton. I headed up the coast in my lovely little yacht, The Delicious. Destination: the very rich enclave of Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. Land of fine beaches, multiple golf courses, excellent shopping, exquisite resorts, and Jordan, the most alluring hellion since Rhett Butler (who, by the way, exhibited many of the qualities of your average Mer playboy). I decided I’d wear something expensive, seductive, but very, very strict.

  The oversexed dog fish began singing to me even before Hilton Head’s beaches, villas, and piney coastline came into view. Singing is a low hum, sometimes wordless but emotional, sometimes filled with images and messages. Who needs a cell phone when you’ve got a real psychic network?

  There’s a reason the vast majority of Mer people fall into the Singer caste. We sing. We sing to communicate without speaking, we sing to subtly control Landers (who can be maneuvered like remote-controlled toy cars, if one is in the mood). We sing to find loved ones over great distances, and we sing under water (sonar, remember — it’s a very useful little tool when you’re ping-ping-pinging along some dark, deeply submerged Mediterranean ruin looking for priceless trinkets).

  Anyway, singing can be practical. Singing can be soothing. Singing can be a warning. And singing can be a seduction.

  Bingo.

  The horndog fish was toying with me. Warming me all over with a low-pitched hum. If I gave it a voice, it would be a bass flute, deep and reedy, like a warm breath on my bare stomach. Standing on the deck of my yacht with my head thrown back in the wind, I swayed and clutched the rail.

  Stop that you outrageous jerk stop stop or I will hurt you, I screeched into his head. High pitched, lots of vibrato. Designed to pierce the psychic eardrum.

  His hum filled with a long, low, deep laugh, but he stopped.

  When I reached his villa I found him in his bizarre pool. Its one of those faux rock creations, woodsy and natural with a huge waterfall pouring over boulders, as if someone merely plucked an Olympic-sized pond from high in the Rockies and set it down on the other side of the continent. Jordan Brighton likes contrasts. There he was in the hot, sandy, moss-draped forest world of coastal South Carolina, surrounded by palm trees and hibiscus, and what did he do? He built himself a Rocky Mountain log villa and a mountain pond.

  Lander envy, I say to myself. How sad. His lungs would puff up like a blow fish if he tried to live in real mountains.

  I heard that, he sings back.

  There he was, lounging on the bottom of his silly pool with a high-tech, deep-water, submersible camera weighing him down. One of his experimental toys. I frowned at him. When Mers are underwater they don’t get that strangled, hamster-cheeked expression all Landers wear when they’re holding their breath. Mers are perfectly comfortable and look at ease. So he looked very handsome underwater.

  Planning to tour the Titanic again? I asked with psychic sarcasm.

  How boring, he answered. If you’ve seen one famous wreck, you’ve seen them all. He smiled up at me. Brilliant white teeth enhanced by deep blue chlorine. He was dressed in relatively demure black trunks — naked would have been a rude provocation, and a Speedo would just be gilding the lily — so he’d opted for classic and coy.

  My heart twisted. I hated him. I loved him. I was terrified of his effect on me. All the usual suspects.

  He surfaced with all the sensuous movement of a lazy squid. When his dark-haired head broke the pool’s surface he quipped, “You heard me calling, all the way down at Sainte’s Point. Couldn’t resist. As usual.”

  “Couldn’t resist? It was my choice to come here today. It’s been five years since that debacle at Cannes. If I couldn’t resist, I’d have strangled you long ago.”

  Cannes. The famed place, the famed film festival. He and I had gone there together, enjoying what I can fairly admit was the happiest time of my entire Mer life thus far. He’d anchored his yacht off the French coast and we filled it with the most glamorous party people in the world, both Landers and Mer. Mers love the movie star life — I could name names of more than a few superstars who are Mers — so we were there to party hearty with the webbed crowd. And we were there to make love to each other in the warm French waters. Which we did — wildly, wonderfully, and constantly.

  Everything was perfect until we had a misunderstanding as to the exact degree of our committed romance. I was. He wasn’t. Committed, that is.

  “Cannes?” Jordan said now, reading my thoughts. He loved to pretend he was a careless man, but underneath those still waters he was a boiling volcano-Mer. Which is why I couldn’t forget him, but also why I kept trying. “Cannes,” he repeated darkly, with just the right touch of evil humor. “Ah, yes. Now I remember. When you left me because you were afraid you weren’t good enough for me.”

  I formed a large and exhausted expression, sighing out a tidal wave of boredom. “What a pathetic joke. I gave up more for you than any sane woman would. Cannes. Ah, yes. I remember. Cannes. When you turned two skanky Lander actresses into your personal bedroom pets.”

  “Cannes,” Jordan repeated. “When you assumed the worst and wouldn’t listen to reason. When I realized you were looking for excuses to desert me.”

  “When I found thong underwear on the private sun deck of your suite. And it wasn’t mine.”

  “Considering the parties you and I threw, a person could find almost anything on my sun deck. With none of the evidence remotely incriminating me.”

  “Oh? You wanted that underwear there. I sensed it.”

  Jordan began to grow taller, thicker, and madder, at least in personality. A remarkable illusion, really. He towered over me like a Tolkien orc. (Tolkien, by the way? A Mer, on his father’s side.)

  “Cannes,” Jordan said. “When you were terrified I’d want other women enough to be unfaithful to you, and so you used that as an excuse to—“

  “Stop. Can the Cannes debate. We’re over. Done with. Whether you’ll ever admit it or not, you were unfaithful to me, at least in spirit.”

  He groaned. “You make me wish I could order a lobotomy.”

 
“Mine or yours?”

  “Juna Lee—”

  “Stop this conversation. I’ll put my psychic fingers in my ears at this point and sing la la la la la, if you bother to continue.”

  “If you don’t want to talk to me, why did you come here?”

  “I came to interview you for my blog. Because you’re a perfect example of an arrogant, clueless merman. The pride of faithless dogfish everywhere.”

  Jordan’s expression turned black. I watched in awe as he mutated into the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Psychically speaking, I shrank down to the size of Minnie Mouse but trembled with excitement. A woman craves domination. Oh, not the true kind. Just the take-me-you-beast-but-then-do-what-I-tell-you kind.

  Just as I thought he was about to chase me around the pool, a cell phone rang. He snatched it from a pool bench. I sighed with relief and disappointment. Saved by one his business calls. “Yes? Make it quick. All right. The plane’s been chartered? Good.” He snapped the phone shut and dropped it back on the bench, then stood for a moment, frowning and gazing into thin air.

  Jordan was ignoring me. Impossible. Nothing except the most worrisome trouble could distract him from moi. I froze. “Wait a . . . you’re hiding something. What? Hmmm. Ah hah. I sense it. You’re leaving for Scotland tonight.” A black tide hit me. “Oh, my God. You’re involved in something dangerous in Scotland.”

  Jordan groaned at my intuitions. “Juna Lee—”

  “Don’t ‘Juna Lee’ me. What kind of trouble are you in?”

  “I’m not in any trouble.”

  “I didn’t fall off the tuna boat yesterday. I sense something about Scotland and McEvers kin and desperation. Something very peculiar and extraordinary. Murder. Jordan! Have you killed someone?”