Lovesick Little

by Leslie Phelan

  When she awoke several hours later, the rain had stopped and the sun had come out. Erica and Gabriel were no longer outside her window, and it appeared to be a brand new day. Then, just as she stood to stretch, she began to hear the unmistakable song of her sisters so she quickly threw on her scuffed rubber boots and ran out to the rock pile they had swum up to the last time.

  She skipped across the rocks and crouched down to greet her sisters. They were all dying to know how it was all going.

  “Has he asked you to be his wife yet?” asked her eldest sister. Sadly, the little one shook her head ‘no.’

  “Has he kissed you on the lips yet?” the second one inquired, but that too was met with a disappointing ‘no.’ It was clear that things had not been progressing in their sister’s favor.

  The third sister’s eyes narrowed at Arielle’s sad, defeated face. “So that’s it?” she asked, unimpressed. “You gave your voice to the witch and left us all behind for one chance at real love, and already you’ve given up?” Arielle lowered her eyes in shame. She knew she stood to lose everything if she did not win his heart, but what could she do now? He was falling more in love with another girl with every heartbeat.

  “You mustn’t give up yet! Make him yours!” said the fourth. “Just be sure to always be prettier than her!”

  The fifth chimed in. “You must be lovelier than her, too! You must capture his attention!”

  “Shower him with affection!” said the fourth. “Make him crave your kiss!”

  “It’s all in your hands, sister,” warned the third. “It is time to get in their way!” The little one considered the implications. She wondered how she’d get in their way . . .

  “Be grateful the witch only took your voice,” said the eldest, sternly. “Now, use the rest of your charms to win him! Make him know that you’re the one for him!”

  The two-legged mermaid stood up with a fresh resolve. She would not give up just yet! She decided she would do whatever it took, follow him anywhere she had to, and do anything at all to get closer to him and take him back from Erica.

  “The eels said that your fins can grow back. Is that true?” asked the third sister. Arielle nodded. “Then won’t you jump in? Come play with us!” Arielle took a step back and shook her head, for as much as she was tempted to jump in, she knew it would be far too risky to try and dry her tail off without being seen. “Come live for three hundred years under the sea with your family!” said the second, reaching for the ankles of her boots. But Arielle quickly stepped out of her reach and bid them all good-bye to run back up to the house. It was time to begin to hatch some love schemes.

  When she got back into the house, Arielle collected an armload of women’s magazines from the coffee table and stole them away to her room. As she flipped through them, she ripped out pages of her favorite looks and laid them out across the rug, deciding that her first task would be to update and personalize her wardrobe because he’d never want her for his love so long as everything she wore reminded him of Dagmara. Once she’d collected enough ideas, she took a pair of scissors, a needle and some thread and she went to work altering and improving upon the pieces she’d been wearing. Having no money for new clothes and not wanting to be given anything more from the already generous family, the crafty girl commenced her re-vamping project and re-created some of the sexy styles she was seeing in all the magazines.

  By the time she was finished wildly snipping, sewing, rebuttoning and tying knots in things, she had six new outfits, all hotter and more grown-up than anything she was working with before. Modeling them for herself and feeling satisfied with her work, she examined herself in a long mirror to see where else she could make improvements. All the women in the magazines seemed to have the same dark, lush eyelashes and next to the mascara ads, her own light blonde lashes looked nonexistent. Magazine girls had all sorts of colours painted onto their faces, so she decided her next step would be to try makeup.

  In Lucia’s bathroom drawers, Arielle discovered a wide array of lipsticks and eye shadows, so she began to experiment with looks and colours. Once her lips were a glossy fuchsia and her eyes were lined and smoky, she decided she looked ready for the great reacquisition. She knew she would have to be sneaky and would possibly have to be cruel, but desperate times, she felt, called for desperate measures, and she had never even heard of times as desperate as those of her current experience.

  When she got downstairs in her new-old clothes, she found the kitchen floors covered in drop-sheets and the wall moldings lined with green masking tape. On the one end, Lucia was painting a big orca whale. On the other end, Cliff was painting a shark.

  “Good morning, Arielle!” they said in unison before laughing at their old married folk synchronization. Arielle smiled brightly, liking very much the direction the kitchen decor was taking. “Do you want to help us paint?” asked Lucia as she dipped her brush into her colorful palette. “We’re doing an underwater scene; paint any creature you like!” Having nothing better to do until Gabriel would finally re-emerge, Arielle picked up a paintbrush and helped herself to some paints from a big plastic tub full of colours. She sat for a moment in front of the bare space across the middle, then when she knew what she would be painting, went to work recreating from memory the portrait of a sea-turtle she had once known. Lucia and Cliff were blown away by her amazingly detailed rendition.

  A mere few hours later, the wall was almost done and looked just like a window to an undersea menagerie. When Gabriel finally got up and came downstairs, he was shocked and surprised to see the wall.

  “What prompted this giant indoor mural?” he asked as he scratched his head and lumbered hungrily toward the fridge.

  “Well, your mother and I were just thinking how sweet it would have been if we had a million-dollar view to the North as well as to the South. So we got the idea to paint one for us! And since we already get stunning sunsets out the front, we thought it would be sweet to look under water out the back!” said Cliff.

  “How long have you guys been working on this?” asked Gabriel with a yawn. “It looks like you’re almost done!” “I did the orca, your father did the Great White, and the rest are

  by Arielle, painted as intricately as portraits of well-known friends.

  Look at the detail in the turtle, and the smile on that dolphin, and

  the impossibly perfect gelatinousness she captured in that jellyfish.

  Aren’t they amazing?” Gabriel smiled at Arielle proudly, ever amused by her little

  surprises. “Isn’t our little foundling just the most talented little

  thing?” he said as he walked over to her and rested his strong

  hands on her shoulders, softly rubbing them as she kneeled in front

  of the school of herring she was painting around a reef. She closed

  her eyes and enjoyed the feeling of his touch; moments like these

  had become so few and far between since Erica’s arrival. She

  needed his touch; it was the only thing she delighted in. Besides, of

  course, the surrealistically handsome sight of him and the gentle

  rasp of his voice. And the smell of him. Oh, the sweet smell of him.

  She breathed him in. Just then, Erica walked in from outside, breaking the spell as

  she always did. “Good morning, all!” she said perkily as she fingercombed her messy hair into a low ponytail. “Wow, great work

  guys!” she said as she stepped toward the mural, causing Gabriel to

  step aside so she could get a better look. Arielle quietly fumed over

  the shoulder rub sabotage and while she wondered what her first

  retaliation would be, Erica’s dewy face darkened to a shade of

  sickly green. “Eww, what’s that smell?” she asked as she covered

  her mouth. Lucia pointed at the wedge of blue cheese on the tray they had

  been snacking from. “No, not that,” replied Erica through cupped

  lips
, looking around. “Are there sardines in here?” Gabriel bit down on a cracker. “There are! Mom put ‘em on

  these crackers, you want?” At that very second, while the pungent

  smell of smoky canned fish filled her nostrils and the previous

  night’s poutine began creeping back up her throat, Erica had no

  choice but to flee the room, gagging uncontrollably and gasping for

  fresh air. Lucia and Cliff laughed and went back to their painting while

  Gabriel followed Erica out onto the patio. He closed the door

  behind him, lest the scent follow him out. “That was a close one!” she said as she fanned herself with her

  hand. “I’m sorry you had to see that; I have this thing about sardines . . . I can’t be within ten feet of them without puking my

  guts up.” “As you nearly just demonstrated!” he said. “That gag of yours

  could make a bulimic weep. What is it about sardines?” “Freshman year in student rez, these kids pulled a prank where

  they filled a bucket with gross stuff and leaned it against a guy’s

  door. Then they knocked on the door and ran away, leaving the

  bucket in such a way so that it spilled in when the guy opened it,”

  she explained. “They gave him a ‘leaner,’” he offered. “Yes!” she concurred. “Anyway it was filled with sour milk

  blended with canned sardines. You can imagine how that combo

  would reek. It took weeks before the odor even began to fade from

  the hallway. We had to plug our noses, hold our breath, and sprint

  through it to and from classes so we wouldn’t all yak. But that first

  night, before the cleaning ladies had a chance to Lysol the shit out

  of the carpets, the stinky hallway proved itself an impassable

  gauntlet for a crew of kids coming home from the bars. Five people

  puked in that hallway that night. I had never been so disgusted,

  and I haven’t been since. Ever since then, sardines equal puke for

  me. It’s the cross I bear.” “That’s hilarious!” he said, amused. “But since you’re such a

  puker, I feel I should let you know right now that I personally cannot see or smell puke without needing to puke myself. It’s a reflex, and so far, an infallible one. So I’ll be sure to Food Bank the

  club pack of sardines we have in the pantry!” “No, no,” said Erica, embarrassed. “You guys eat what you

  want; just warn me and I’ll stay away!” “Nonsense,” he replied. “We don’t even like them all that much.

  I think they were on super sale and we just eat them because we

  have so many. I doubt we’d miss them terribly.” “Well thank you, sir,” she said in her most seductive tone, “I

  still appreciate the sacrifice, however insignificant.” Unbeknownst to the two chatting and flirting on the porch,

  Arielle had been eavesdropping on them from inside an open

  window. Jealously watching the two, she began to wonder how she

  could use Erica’s sardine aversion to keep her away from Gabriel.

  On her way out of the kitchen, she stealthily swiped three cans

  from the pantry stack. Carrying them up to her room, she was

  struck with a wonderful, awful idea. She decided she would smear

  them all around Erica’s room so that she wouldn’t be able to stay

  there anymore and would therefore have to leave because there

  were no more bedrooms. Excitedly she waited for night to fall and

  for everyone to go to sleep so that she could sneak out and kick off

  her smear campaign. That night, the moon was fat and bright as she moved swiftly

  down to the boathouse. She peered in and could see that Erica was

  fast asleep, snoring with her mouth open, belly-down and lying like

  a starfish. Very carefully did the scheming little mermaid slip inside

  the door and close it gently behind her. It was time to be ruthless. She reached into the pocket of her robe and pulled out the first

  can. Muffling it with a t-shirt she found on the floor, Arielle cracked

  it open and used her fingers to mash it into an oily brown paste.

  When it was ready, she began generously dabbing the mushy

  sardines onto inconspicuous surfaces around the room. She dabbed

  a bit behind the headboard and in the corners of Erica’s pillowcases.

  She tucked a bit under the mattress and wiped her hands inside the

  duvet. She applied it under the tongues of all of Erica’s sneakers

  and into the pockets of her jackets, tops, and jeans before moving

  on to purses and bags, smearing it into fabric lining and inside

  zippered pockets. She even went so far as to dab it into the padding

  of all the bikini tops hanging on the bathroom doorknob, so that

  when the sardine smell ripened to full potential, not even Erica’s

  breasts would be safe from the stink. It would drive her crazy, then

  it would drive her away. Of this, young Arielle was sure. When all three cans were empty, she slipped back out the door

  and into the night. Stopping only to bury the cans in the sand, she

  dashed back to her bed to dream about the rude awakening to greet her rival come morning. She felt underhanded and vicious, but at this point, she had to be willing to play dirty if she was to ever reclaim her prince.

  When Erica awoke the next day, her room was bright and warm. She rolled over on her pillow, stretched and rubbed her eyes. It was a beautiful day outside and she looked forward to it. Then suddenly, in the middle of a great yawn, her face was assaulted with a repulsive smell. It was a fishy one she knew and hated . . . Sardines! But how?

  The stink was all around her, in her pillow that she buried her face in, and in the clothes she reached for to shield her nose and mouth. She gagged and ran into her bathroom, shut the door and turned on the shower. The bathroom was the only area Arielle hadn’t thought to attack, so Erica was able to stave off vomit urges by inhaling from her fragrant shampoo bottle. Once she was brave enough to emerge, she threw her robe on, plugged her nose, and ran for the door.

  Minutes later, she was back with Gabriel. He had laughed at her the whole way down, insisting she was paranoid but when he smelled it for himself, he couldn’t deny that something definitely smelled fishy in her room. Arielle watched mirthfully from her window while Gabriel went in and Erica stayed far back from the door with her hand over her mouth and nose.

  A few minutes later, Gabriel emerged with Erica’s bags in his hands. Arielle rejoiced, certain that he was helping her vacate her room and exit their lives. She began to prepare her fake-sad goodbye hug, until she noticed that he wasn’t carrying her bags to the driveway, but was carrying them into the main house!

  “Seriously, it’s no problem!” she overheard him tell Erica as he led her up the stairs and into his room.

  “But you don’t have to give up your bed;” she replied, “I am more than happy to take the couch.”

  “You may have my bed, Miss Erica,” he insisted like a perfect gentleman as he set her things down on his big wooden dresser. She picked up one of his pillows and sniffed it for fishy traces. Nothing but sweet-smelling Gabriel scent there.

  “Thank you,” she replied, graciously accepting. A jolt of excitement coursed through her and made the hair on her neck stand up. “I don’t mean to displace you, but I appreciate your generosity.”

  “What kind of host would I be?” he asked, smiling. His demeanor oozed next-level chivalry, the kind she hadn’t witnessed since her own late father. Arielle cringed, realizing as her plan backfired that she should have known better. She briefly considered doing to Gabriel’s room what she did to Erica’s but ultimately, she couldn’t run the risk of driving them both out. So it was back to square one for her, and back
to mentally concocting other ways by which to ruin their budding romance.

  Gabriel’s friend Rourke arrived early the next morning by way of the beach. He wore a tattered salmon Polo and ripped Bermuda shorts, the outfit he was last seen in the night of the ten parties, except torn up and covered in dirt from head to toe. Cliff, sitting on the patio with a mug of butter rum coffee, nudged his wife to look up from her magazine. It was Rourke all right, approaching with a dramatic hobble and looking like he had just crawled out of a grave. They both burst out laughing at the sight of him.

  “What happened?” asked Lucia. “What gutter did you just wake up in?”

  “Ya, which dirt mound had its way with you?” asked Cliff.

  “Thank you, I am fine Mr. and Mrs. O’Faolain,” he replied in his best brown-noser voice. “Might Gabriel be around today? I was hoping he wouldn’t mind a couch surfer for the next few days.”

  “Gabriel is inside making breakfast,” said Lucia, “but I’m afraid his couch might be spoken for at the moment.” Rourke’s face darkened; he had been laying claim to that couch for almost two decades, and had yet to meet a worthy challenger. “What do you mean?” he asked. “Gabriel said I could crash up there whenever!” “I’m afraid he has a lady friend staying with him right now,” said Cliff, rubbing it in ever so slightly. “So it might be a little crowded up there.”

  Rourke grinned. “I knew that boy would eventually break down,” he said as he pulled the cord to the outdoor shower and began to rinse himself off. Cliff and Lucia chuckled. “Yep, I’ve known all along that he’d give in to Arabella some day.” They briefly considered setting him straight, but decided not to ruin the surprise.

  As Rourke climbed the stairs, he could hear a girl’s voice singing Crimson & Clover from inside Gabriel’s room. It was a little off-key, but that’s what audio techs were for, and anyway, she sounded pretty enough. As he approached, he could see white bed sheets being lifted and tucked through the crack in the door.