Lovesick Little

by Leslie Phelan

  Arielle watched the disc spin towards her, casually, and with her arms at her side. Gabriel and Demetra started shouting “Catch it! Catch it!” all the while thinking there was no way she was going to catch it . . . until it whizzed by her head and she turned to catch it in her teeth!

  “Oh my God!” laughed Demetra in disbelief as Arielle turned and spun, sending it perfectly back into Gabriel’s hands. “That was stellar! She’s ready to play!”

  The game was intense but the three of them beat Lucia, Cliff and Ava by a long shot, although no one really bothered to keep track of the score. Throughout it, Arielle threw the disc perfectly and with style, effortlessly mastering backhand tosses, low-throws and routinely leaping several feet into the air to catch high tosses on the spin. She was so good at it that the family had to presume that there were Frisbees wherever it was she came from but of course, there was no way to know for sure. In any event, they could all agree that she was the best Frisbee player they had ever seen.

  “Alright family, I’m kind of wiped after my exertions here; I’m off to bed,” yawned Gabriel, kissing his mom on the cheek. He looked out to the horizon before heading inside and kept his gaze fixed on it for a moment, as if taking a mental snapshot to see him through the many days of greyness and rain that were routine to the Western coast. Arielle had been noticing how everyone always seemed to do that before walking away from the picturesque shoreline; it was nice how a pretty sunset never seemed to get old to anyone. “Red sky at night, sailor’s delight!” he said as he walked towards the house.

  The next morning, the O’Faolains sat down to a quick breakfast before driving to meet the Von der Klaasens at their boat slip. They all dressed in shorts and t-shirts, Lucia in her big straw sun hat and Ava in her black bikini and oversize sunglasses that showed her off but hid her at the very same time. It was a warm, bright morning; Gabriel’s sailor’s almanac prognosis had been bang-on.

  “Has anyone seen Arielle yet this morning?” asked Lucia as she dished out portions of scrambled egg onto six plates.

  “She’s awake, I heard her rustling around her room as I walked by,” said Demetra. “Shall I fetch her?”

  “If she’s not down in five,” answered Lucia, halving and sectioning three large grapefruits. “You know Martin will be raring to go and will not want to wait!”

  “Aaaaaaariiieeelllllllle!” called Demetra in a singsong voice, doing her best siren impression as she buttered a stack of toast points. She rolled her tongue operatically as she called “It’s time for brrrrreaakfast!” The family giggled when they heard a mild thump from upstairs, followed by more frantic shuffling. After ten more minutes had gone by and everyone else was almost finished their breakfast, Arielle came down the stairs.

  They all looked at her strangely. “Ummm, I don’t think you’ll be needing your rain gear today,” said Gabriel as he took in the sight of her, amused by the inappropriateness of her dressing for the sunny, bluebird weather. Oddly, she wore head-to-toe rubber, from the big blue gumboots on her feet to the yellow rain coat to the waterproof bucket hat on her head.

  “We’re going on a yacht ride to the mainland,” said Ava through her lenses, big as black saucers. “Why are you dressed for the Maid of the Mist?”

  Arielle shrugged and sat down to her breakfast, her jacket and boots squeaking as she moved. She knew she looked ridiculous but cared not, for she would be on a boat this day, and the boat would be in the water, and she couldn’t allow a single splash hit her legs. No one could see it under her pants, but she had secretly covered her legs in clear plastic wrap for added protection from potential splashes.

  Once everyone was done eating, they left their dishes in the sink and headed out to the driveway. “Last chance for anyone who might want to put on something more practical,” said Ava, pausing a second before punching the house’s security code into the pin pad. Arielle just smiled at her and curtsied in her raincoat as she passed her on her way out the door. “No takers? How embarrassing.”

  Ava and Demetra rode with the parents and Arielle sat shotgun in Gabriel’s Jeep. She loved riding in the car next to him; she always felt like his woman when she sat to his right, like his wife sitting beside him, first mate to his captain. Also, she had come to love how sometimes, when he reached for the gearshift, his hand sometimes accidentally brushed her thigh. She now lived for such moments.

  When they pulled into the marina, they parked their cars in the lot and boarded the pristine new yacht. Everything sparkled, and every surface on the vessel was perfect, smooth, unblemished. How different it looked from the only other boats Arielle had ever been inside of, half-buried at the bottom of the sea like the skeletons of boats past, scattered in pieces across a sandy floor.

  After about three smooth hours of touring, they arrived at the pick-up spot by the ferry docks. They were still just tying off when they felt the wooden docks bounce the way they do when someone is running across them. When Gabriel looked up from his knot, he had to blink to make sure he wasn’t seeing things; at first glance, he thought he saw the girl from the beach standing in front of him. Then he realized all at once, that Erica IS Erica!

  “NO WAY,” he said, shocked and elated. “It’s you!”

  “It’s me!” she said knowingly, equally elated, thrilled to see that he was still as handsome as she remembered him from the previous summer.

  “You knew?!” he said, so excited that he was finding it difficult to formulate sentences using more than two words at a time.

  “Sorry I didn’t say anything last summer, but I didn’t want to ruin the surprise!” she said.

  “You knew!” he said incredulously, yet in the affirmative. “And you’re here!”

  Ava, coming down from her spot on the bow where she had been lying out catching rays, stepped in to interrupt as she was finding their hyper-flirtatious banter quite unbearable. “Yes, Gabriel, this is your old friend Erica,” she said, “the little girl I caught you playing ‘cats’ with under the kitchen table when you both were five, eating liver pate and lapping up milk from a bowl on the floor.”

  “Ava! So nice to see you again, you grew up lovely!” said Erica happily.

  “You as well, Erica, looking swell!” she replied in a quasimocking tone. Ava never believed in laying it on thick with compliments and so she never gave any, and was always uncomfortable when someone paid her one. “It’s nice to see you grew out of that baby fat, and into those tree trunks,” she said, glancing down at Erica’s legs. Erica and Gabriel glanced into each other’s eyes then burst out laughing together, the way they always did when they were younger and Ava tried to get their goats. They, as a team, had learned quickly that responding to her tongue-incheek jabs with nothing but good humor was the only way to disarm her. After about a minute of reciprocal chuckling, Gabriel came up for air and said, “No seriously, that was Ava’s idea of a compliment and you should really take it as such.” Finally, Ava cracked a smile and said genuinely to Erica, “I’m glad to see you’re well; it’s been too long.” Then she hugged her tightly, but only for a second.

  “Thank you, you too,” responded Erica without averting her eyes from Gabriel’s gaze; the way the sun reflected off the gold dots in his dark irises seemed to make time stand still and all the world quiet. They seemed to be sparkling just for her.

  Gabriel looked at her glossy, bee-stung lips and remembered how soft and warm they had been when she pressed them to his. Memories of play dates with her when they were kids began to blend with the memories of that day on the beach. How sneakily she had surprised him with that kiss, how craftily she had ambushed his mouth with hers. He knew that he had never surrendered like that before in his life. He hadn’t forgotten about her, even for a day. And she had been counting the minutes until she would see him again.

  Lucia came up from below laughing at something Veronica said about her husband, carrying a vodka martini that was dirty and wet and wearing a briny wet spot on her white one-piece swimsuit. “Erica! Darl
ing! How wonderful to see you again!” she said, wrapping the girl up in a gregarious tipsy hug, smelling heavily of manzanilla olives. When she pulled back for a second to get a good look at her, she blinked hard and opened her eyes wide. “You’re stunning!” she exclaimed.

  Erica blushed, grinned and looked down at her feet. No matter how many times she heard it, she never really believed it; she was more down-to-earth than vain as a result of her chubby youth and Gabriel already loved that about her. “She really is,” said Gabriel, concurring with his mother. Erica believed it when he said it, and it made her heart flutter.

  Veronica appeared at the top of the cabin steps, posing like Venus on the half shell and sporting a completely different outfit than the one she’d been in all morning but for the peach and gold Hermes scarf that stayed tied at the side of her neck. “Hi there, I’m Veronica,” she purred. “Welcome aboard The Seaward Empress.”

  “Hi, Mrs. Von der Klaasen! Thank you very much for taking your amazing new boat to come to pick me up, I’m so honored!” Erica reached out both hands to take hers.

  “Call me Veronica, and it’s nothing at all!” replied the wannabe doyenne with all the poise of a late Kennedy. “We’d have needed a reason to open this bitch up anyway,” she said as she patted the perfectly polished gold knob at the top of the wood-grain railing with one hand, and sloppily toasted her glass into the air with the other.

  “I actually saw people taking pictures as you guys cruised in; I think they were expecting the Beckhams or something. I’m so excited to be going to Tofino! I haven’t been back since last summer, and I miss it dearly after, like, a week away!”

  “A year? My, my . . .” said Veronica. “I’m sure you’ll find it’s changed considerably since then. Perhaps my son Reginald could show you around to where all the young people congregate. Couldn’t you, Reginald?” she said over her shoulder down to the cabin below where her son was playing Halo, wired in with his headset on, yelling at a kid somewhere in Mongolia. Reginald, in his infinite unimpressiveness, grunted without even looking up. Veronica smiled sheepishly and made a mental note to ‘accidentally’ spill sangria on his game console.

  “Erica, this is my baby sister, Meaty,” said Gabriel, eager to get Erica acquainted and get all the introductions out of the way.

  “Yes, Demetra! I remember Lucia telling me what your name would be when you were just a bump on her stomach. Why do you let them call you ‘Meaty’?”

  Demetra laughed. “Everyone loves to tease me, saying I was the meatiest baby ever. You know, the other, other white meat. The name just stuck. It doesn’t distress me.”

  “Yeah, I was a meaty one too at one point . . .” started Erica, but trailed off when she noticed the pretty fair-haired girl in the raincoat walk up daintily behind Gabriel, lacing her little white fingers around the crook of his elbow. She caught a glimpse of the girl’s face before she buried it childishly into his arm. Her heart sank; she was sure it was his girlfriend, and that she had come too late.

  “Hi, I’m Erica,” she said, trying her best to sound happy to meet her. The little mermaid just looked up sweetly with her piercing blue eyes, and dropped into a curtsy without letting go of Gabriel.

  “Erica, this is Arielle. She stays with us,” he said, like it was the most natural thing in the world. Erica acknowledged her with a nod and said she was pleased to make her acquaintance just as Cliff came up from tying off and signing in The Seaward Empress with the harbour master.

  “Uncle Cliff!” she said as she jumped up into his arms, inhaling a big breath of him, “You still smell exactly the same!”

  “I get the same after shave every Christmas!” he responded excitedly. “You’re even lovelier than I remember you, Erica. Your parents would be so proud.”

  “Thanks, Clifford!” she said, tears welling up in her eyes. Her reunion with the O’Faolains was so perfect, and going exactly the way she had been imagining it would. Except for that blonde girl who appeared to be very into her own lifelong crush . . .

  She decided to waste no time finding out who and what she was, so she reached her hand out to shake Arielle’s in order to finish legitimately meeting her. But the girl just stared at her outstretched hand without stirring, then once again buried her face into Gabriel’s arm like a shy child.

  “Okay then! Leave me hanging; we don’t have to shake,” she said, shrinking and feeling a little snubbed.

  “You’ll have to excuse our Arielle, she hasn’t been acquainted with such uncommon and esoteric customs as hand-shaking,” said Ava sarcastically.

  “Ariel? Like The Little Mermaid?” said Erica, realizing after a second that perhaps the tone she had just then taken could’ve been seen as mocking by the quiet, diminutive girl in front of her. “I mean, it’s just that I don’t know anyone else named Ariel,” she went on. “It’s pretty though,” she offered. Smiling generously, she looked into Arielle’s eyes for any sign that she understood and accepted what she was saying, but her dreamy expression was so otherworldly, it seemed impossible that anyone could ever pin her focus down long enough to have a conversation with her. She stammered. “And . . . and this is your girlfriend, Gabriel?” she asked cautiously, bracing herself as if she was about to take a bullet.

  “No, no!” he said, much to her relief. “This is my . . . she’s my . . . this is Arielle!”

  Demetra cleared her throat. “OUR Arielle!” she said.

  “Yes,” he continued. “She is mute, and she stays with us. She’s not my girlfriend, she’s my extra special buddy.” Demetra cleared her throat again, this time elbowing her brother in the hip. “ONE of my most extra special buddies!” he said, correcting himself to include his baby sister.

  “Amazing!” said Erica, unable now to contain her relief. “So how do we know her name is Arielle if she can’t speak to tell us so?” Gabriel suggested they grab a table at the dockside restaurant and they could fill her in on everything over lunch. Everyone agreed it was the best idea.

  Once everyone was seated comfortably with a drink in front of them, Gabriel began to explain. “Arielle is just a nickname we gave her on account of the fact that we have no idea where she came from except that it must’ve been by way of the Pacific. Right Arielle?”

  Arielle just smiled at Gabriel and batted her eyelashes. She had gotten really good at non-committal smiles, saying neither yes nor no with her vague yet cheerful expressions.

  Ava piped in, “Tell her the whole story, Gabe! ‘Arielle’ as she is so-called, was found by my brother one morning passed out naked in the sand with nothing to cover her nips n’ box but her abnormally large mass of white-yellow hair, seaweed, and that jumbo prehistoric fossil necklace.”

  Erica smiled cheekily. “Did you have to slap her to wake her up?” “No!” replied Gabriel, mock-defensively. “I gave her my shirt, picked her up carefully and carried her inside so we could send for a doctor!”

  Erica giggled. “I guess everyone’s got their own way!” she said. “So you named her ‘Arielle’ because she washed up in front of your place like a beached mermaid?”

  “Ascended from the bluest depths, she was,” said Gabriel. “Yes, that is the working theory, at least according to young Meaty.”

  “Damn skippy,” responded Demetra with a nod. “And of course, as always, you’re all invited to formulate your own hypotheses regarding the origins of our mute and mysterious houseguest.”

  Erica laughed, tickled by the clever nine-year old sitting in front of her. “Your theory works for me!” she said. “There are certainly worse things to be called than Arielle.”

  “Slut,” said Ava.

  “Excuse me?” said Erica, caught off guard.

  “I wasn’t calling you a slut; I’m sharing with everyone the worst thing I’ve been called.”

  “Ava!” blurted Lucia, shocked. Her daughter never seemed to have much of a sense of propriety.

  “Oh,” said Erica, relieved. “Do I dare ask why they called you a slut?”

&nbs
p; “A silly high school rumor gone awry. When I refused to dignify it with a response, the high school bitch tabloids had a field day fabricating all kinds of stories about my supposedly lewd exploits. Lies spread the way herpes do in incestuous mountain towns where there’s nothing to do but snowboard, huff gasoline, and bang each other raw.”

  “Ava! Yuck,” said Cliff in his most authoritative, fatherly tone.

  “Ugh, take this away,” said Reginald loudly over his shoulder to the passing waiter, not even waiting to be asked if the rare, sixtyfive dollar filet mignon was to his liking before giving Ava the hairy eyeball, muttering “Wait ‘til I bring up yeast infections just as they drop your creme brulee.”

  “Well I’m sorry I’m so distasteful and inappropriate to you all.” said Ava, sneering.

  “So are we!” said Reginald without looking up, pulling his PSP game out of his breast pocket.

  “That sucks. I don’t ever want to go to high school,” said Demetra. “Girls are bitches.”

  “Not to worry, little sis - I got even with that gossip mill of a hen party.”

  “What did you do?” asked Erica, Demetra, Lucia and Veronica, all in unison. Women love stories about social revenge. Lucia cringed a little.

  “I banged all their boyfriends purple,” she answered. Everyone’s jaws dropped. All was silent.

  “Ava!” muttered Lucia, more shocked than ever.

  “I did, mom! I banged them all. And I’d do it again,” she said, crossing her arms proudly over her chest. All fell silent once more.

  “Well that was a tad gauche,” said Veronica, pulling a small tube of antibacterial gel from her purse and squeezing some into her hands. “I hope you stopped in at a clinic after your rampage.”

  “Here, here,” said Gabriel, intervening before Ava took the conversation to new depths of depravity, just to offend Veronica further. He wasn’t sure about his sister’s methods, but nonetheless respected her style of swift, non-violent retribution.