by Joy Preble
Ethan drags me up onto the grass. “It wasn’t real,” he says to me over and over.
Tess just strokes my hair and tells me it will be okay.
“I don’t know what she wants from me. I don’t know how to help her.” I realize I’m not sure which woman I really mean.
So I do what I’ve wanted to do since I first saw Ethan this afternoon. I sit down in the grass, my wet denim skirt heavy against my legs, and cry.
THURSDAY, 6:12 pm
ETHAN
I know. I know.” Anne has repeated this over and over as we walk back to the car. “It wasn’t really her. It’s fake. It’s magic. I get it. But why would she do that?”
Anne settles herself in the front seat as Tess climbs into the back of the sedan. None of us has a towel, so Anne and I are both still soaked from the waist down. Pond water drips from us onto the seats and runs onto the carpet.
“If she wants me to help her with something—whatever it is—why scare the crap out of me? Why show me my mother’s face? What sense does that make, Ethan? No sense at all.” She shivers.
She isn’t crying anymore, but she wipes her nose with the back of her hand, dabs at her red eyes, then pulls down the visor and peers into the tiny mirror. “Wonderful. Now I can add looking like hell to my list of problems.”
“You look fine.” Tess leans forward between us and pats Anne on the shoulder. “But this is totally creepy. I mean, if it can make itself look like anyone, why pick your mother? No offense to her or anything, but if the rusalka wanted you to follow her into the water, why not make herself look like Ben? What’s the deal? Only you would get a mermaid with some mother complex. If I’m going to be haunted, I want to be haunted by someone hot. And male.”
“Thanks for the perspective.” Anne squeezes some more water out of her skirt. “Sorry,” she says to me. “Your car is going to smell like pond for a while.”
I ignore the obvious. The state of my car is the least of our worries right now. “We just need to sort this all out, Anne. We need to slow this all down, go somewhere, and talk. I need to know everything that’s been going on.” I hesitate for a second and then add, “And so do you.”
The words settle on all three of us as I jam the Mercedes into gear and pull out onto the street.
“Crap.” Anne digs her phone out from the pocket of her soaked skirt. Pond water dribbles out as she flips it open. “Even more wonderful.” She inspects the phone. “Yup. Dead. God, I hate my life right now. Seriously.”
She pokes me in the arm with her forefinger. “Maybe I don’t want to go talk this all out. You do realize that you’re back for—what? An hour? And already my life is crazy again. And don’t you dare say it’s my destiny or whatever. Getting haunted by some Russian mermaid is not my choice of destiny. And neither is destroying yet another cell phone.”
I smile at the last part. I remember how she’d used her phone as a makeshift weapon to help us escape from Viktor on the speeding, out-of-control El train.
“Oh, yeah,” Anne says. She jabs my arm again, harder. “This is really funny, right? I have to use my minimum wage salary to replace my phone. Hysterical.” She tosses her cell phone to Tess. “Dump that in my purse, would you? It’s back there on the floor. Hopefully not wet. I’ll see what I can do once it’s dried out.”
“Sure thing, boss. Maybe it’s fixable. My brother dropped his into the toilet two months ago at some frat party, and he’s still using it. But that’s Zach for you. Speaking of which, I’m meeting him at seven. We’re going to grab a burger somewhere and then go to the movies. You and Ben should come with.” She pauses for one beat too many for the next part to be sincere. “You too, Ethan. More the merrier. You could get to know Ben. Because Anne and Ben—”
“Tess,” Anne says. “Enough.”
“Just saying.” Tess edges up so her face is closer to mine. Her tone shifts from cheery to something a bit darker. “And here’s what else I’m saying. Whatever’s going on, Ethan, you need to figure it out. Isn’t that what you told me at the pool? That you were here to help? Well, so far, you’re not helping.”
“I said, enough,” Anne tells Tess once again. “This isn’t solving anything. Go to the movies with your brother. I’ll call you later.” She turns to me. “And you need to drive me home. We can talk on the way.”
“All right.” Tess scowls. “But don’t let Russian Magic Boy talk you into anything. Because the way I see it, you’ve got a dead phone, a boyfriend who got lured into the deep end, and a mermaid who wants you to think she’s your mother. Telling you to be careful is like the understatement of the year.”
“Do you remember the way to my house?” Anne asks after we’ve dropped Tess off at her car and I’ve taken her back to her Jetta, checking first to make sure that Mrs. Benson isn’t watching out the back door of the shop.
“Think I can find it.”
“Magic?”
“GPS.”
Water still dripping from both of us, we leave it at that.
THURSDAY, 6:45 pm
ANNE
My mother’s Volvo is in our driveway as I park the Jetta, and Ethan pulls up into a space on the street. We walk up to the house together. This is not good.
“Maybe I should just run in. I’ll change, make up some story about a cloudburst. I don’t know.” I wring another few drops of pond water out of my skirt. This is so not good. “I mean, you’re soaked too. What are you going to do? Sit around my kitchen in your boxers while your jeans dry?”
“No.” Ethan flushes slightly as he answers, and I feel some heat rise in my own face in response.
“Well, I didn’t mean that—”
“Anne.” My mother has walked out of the back door and is standing on our driveway, hands on her hips. She’s wearing black jeans, a white shirt, a snug-fitting denim jacket, and her black Nordstrom’s ankle boots.
My heart freezes in my chest. That’s actually what it feels like. It’s the same outfit—the one that the rusalka had on when she walked into the pond and made me feel that she was going in to drown.
“So,” my mother says. “What in the world were you thinking today? You had better have a very good reason for why you left in the middle of your shift. Do you have any idea how embarrassing it was for me to get that message from Amelia? I get you this job, and this is how thank me? By—um, and why exactly is your skirt plastered to you like that?”
This is what gets the fear to subside and gets my brain to decide that it’s actually Mom and not some supernatural something or other—her bitching at me. No crazy Russian rusalka would do that. I don’t think.
“I was—we were—walking by the pond. You know, the one near Aqua Creek?” I hurry into my explanation, hoping she won’t notice that I’m skipping the first question. If it was any other job, I probably wouldn’t have to explain. She wouldn’t even know I’d cut out. But it’s her store and her boss, and I get that she’s pissed. Even if she has no right to be, since she was supposed to be working too. “I guess the grass was wet,” I go on, “and when I went to feed some bread crumbs to the ducks—well, I slipped and fell in and then—”
“I pulled her out before she did any real damage to the mallard population.” Ethan finishes my sentence. I stare at him. Just a few seconds ago, he was actually blushing at the image of sitting in my kitchen in his underwear. Now he’s smooth-talking my mother like a pro.
My mother looks over at him, startled. I guess she’s been so busy griping at me that she hasn’t noticed that I’m not alone. She narrows her eyes. I can see the wheels turning in her mom brain. My mother might be depressed and on the verge of an eating disorder, but she is still my mother.
“You’re Ethan, right?” she says after the few beats of contemplation. “The boy whose father works for one of the oil companies?”
“You remember.” Ethan smiles and holds out his hand. “It’s wonderful to see you again, Mrs. Michaelson. Sorry I’m a bit soggy.”
Mom shakes his hand. I sh
ake my head. I’d forgotten that even though the world sees him as eighteen—or now nineteen, I guess, although I don’t even know his birthday—he’s been around a lot longer than that, at least when it comes to talking to parents. Who, of course, are a little closer to his real age.
“Ethan’s been in Europe, Mom. But he’s back now. He’s going to be majoring in Slavic Studies at NU.”
“Lovely,” my mother says. This is her standard response when she’s either not sure what to say or she’s busy thinking about something else—which is probably more likely right now.
“And I’m sorry about work. I don’t know—I just didn’t want to be there. I know it puts you in a bad position, but I—”
“Wasn’t there a—? Yes, there was. Amelia told me about it. I hadn’t heard last fall; I think that’s when I was in the hospital. But the other day, she mentioned something she’d heard from a friend of hers who lived in Moscow, I think. Or maybe it was Budapest.”
“Mom. Get to the point. Please,” I add since I’m already on pretty thin ice here.
“The Slavic Studies program at Northwestern. There was a terrible tragedy there, Amelia said. One of their best professors—his name starts with O: Olen or Olenowitz or something like that. No. Olensky. That’s it. Professor Olensky. She says he was murdered last fall, right on campus in his office. Can you believe that? I don’t know why it wasn’t shown on the news more. Or maybe we just missed it. Things were so crazy then. But Amelia says that’s what happened. It was a great loss for the program.” She turns to Ethan, whose face has drained of color. “Had you heard of him?”
Ethan’s silence lasts a number of long seconds. “I was acquainted with him, yes,” he says finally. It’s one of those moments that happens with him every once in a while—when the way he forms a sentence reminds me that he isn’t really an American college student. Usually, it makes me smile when I hear him do that. It’s sort of sweet, somehow. But right now, I’m not smiling.
But if there’s one thing my mother is familiar with, it’s grief. So it actually doesn’t surprise me when she chooses not to push the conversation further. She just pats Ethan on the arm and says, “You must have been very shocked when you heard. It’s hard to lose someone, especially when it’s unexpected. I’m sorry, Ethan. I apologize if I made you uncomfortable. That was thoughtless of me.”
Ethan swallows. “It wasn’t thoughtless at all. You had no idea that I would have known him. He was a great man, actually. A really wonderful professor. I’d heard him speak in Europe last summer. That’s how I got to know him. Um, well, the fellowship that I have—it’s named after him. I’ll be a teaching assistant under one of the adjunct professors.”
“Well.” My mother smiles at him. “You must be a wonderful student if you’re already accepted into an advanced program like that. Your parents must be very proud of you.”
I stand there praying that eventually Mom will run out of awkward things to say and give Ethan something he can respond to without mentioning, Professor Olensky? Sure, I was there when he died. And you know who killed him? Your great-great-grandfather, who happens to be the illegitimate son of Tsar Nicholas Romanov. And my parents? Well, even if they hadn’t been murdered by the Cossacks, they’d pretty much be dead now anyway since I’m over one hundred years old. Or something along those lines.
Luckily, none of this occurs. Unluckily, it’s because Ben chooses this moment to pull into my driveway in his Saturn two-seater convertible and honk the horn.
“Hey,” he says. He unfolds himself from the driver’s seat and hops out, looking tall, blond, and cute in dark-wash jeans, a gray polo shirt, and flip-flops and—compared to the rest of us—acting pretty darn calm, considering that a mermaid almost killed him earlier in the day. “I tried to call you, but your cell kept flipping to voicemail. Then I called your work, but Mrs. Benson said you’d left early, so I figured I’d find you here. And here you are.” He grins at me, then—because he’s one of the things in my world that my parents actually do know about, and he feels at home around them—strides over, pulls me into a hug, and kisses me. He even flicks his tongue against my lips a little for good measure. Next to us, Ethan clears his throat.
A few seconds after that, my father, home from his law office and with no place to park in our driveway, pulls up behind Ethan’s Mercedes and walks over to join us.
“What a day,” he says.
“Well.” My mother places her hand on my shoulder and pulls me back from Ben. “Now that your father is home, you can finish that little story you were telling me. I’m sure Dad will be fascinated.”
Oh, yeah. I’m sure he will.
THURSDAY, 10:12 pm
ANNE
I was going to wait until Saturday night, but I’m glad I didn’t.” Ben pats the silver, linked bracelet he’s just clasped around my wrist. A small silver disc engraved B&A dangles from one of the links. “It looks nice on you.”
He smiles his sweet Ben smile and waits for me to say something—probably something other than, I really, really like you, but I think maybe I’ve been going out with you for all the wrong reasons, and now this bracelet is making things worse.
We’re in Ben’s room, sitting on his bed, the bracelet box between us. There’s a card too, which he signed, Love, Ben. He’d even drawn a little heart.
“It’s beautiful, Ben. Really. Thank you.” Just to make my mixed messages even more mixed, I lean in and kiss him, which feels safe and familiar but doesn’t erase my thoughts of a certain, blue-eyed, annoying Russian.
Interestingly, Ethan seems to be in Ben’s head too.
“So tell me again.” Ben kisses me some more: tiny kisses down my neck that make me tingle straight to my toes. Ben is a great kisser. “How do you know Ethan? And why were you and Tess with him at the pond behind Aqua Creek?”
“Told you that. We went back to the pool. Tess left her cooler, and we went back to get it.”
“But you were supposed to be at work.”
“I know, but Tess was still so freaked about what had happened to you, and I was distracted, and I just didn’t want to sit there tagging jewelry all afternoon. So I wasn’t exactly honest with Mrs. Benson. She’ll get over it.” I’m not being honest with you either. And I have no idea if you’ll get over it if you ever find out.
“And Ethan?” Ben kisses my neck some more, but I can tell this is really bothering him, because normally, Ben is not a talker when we’re making out. He’s quite focused that way—especially at times like now, when we’re alone in the house. Ben’s parents—with whom he hasn’t shared the pool incident because he thinks it isn’t a big deal—went to a play in the city, and when they do that, they usually stay the night at their studio apartment off Lake Shore Drive, rather than driving all the way back out to the suburbs.
Tess thinks that this makes Ben the perfect boyfriend. He’s not only cute and athletic, but he’s rich and the youngest of four kids—the only one still living at home until he goes to college in the fall—and his parents pretty much leave him to do his own thing most of the time.
But right now, an interrupting parental unit would be just fine with me. As long as it wasn’t one of mine, that is.
My conversation with my own parents hadn’t gone any more smoothly than this back-and-forth dodging the truth with Ben. But how smooth can things go when you just can’t tell the truth? Or rather, when you could tell the truth, except then your family would think you’re crazy?
And maybe I am. Because what else other than crazy explains my attraction to Ethan? Ben is sweet and wonderful and perfect. He likes funny movies, and he’s smart enough to have gotten accepted into the business school at U of I, and when I let him, he rattles on about things like Keynesian economics and why the recession is probably going to last a little longer. He’s taken me out for Lou Malnati’s pizza and to a Cubs game, and next week—if I make it to next week—we’re going to the improv show downtown at Second City. He’s the first boy I’ve ever seriously thou
ght about having sex with—although right now, I’m glad we haven’t actually done the deed because that would only make things worse.
Ethan, on the other hand, pops in when there’s danger brewing. He brings craziness and mermaid attacks and witches and a princess I just couldn’t help. He’s absurdly good-looking, and when I saw the sadness on his face at my mother’s mention of Professor Olensky, my heart ached for him. What I feel for him is impossible to categorize, even though I keep trying. Mostly, it’s like he’s part of me—that whatever he is and whatever I am are just somehow more whole when we’re together.
You don’t have a relationship with him, I’ve told myself over and over these past months. You’re like his work partner or something. But that’s not how it feels. I’ve been lying my ass off about so many things lately. Maybe it’s time to stop lying to myself about how I feel—which, it seems, is not in love with Ben.
“Ethan’s Ethan. God, Ben. Don’t worry about it so much. You had a bad enough day. Let it be.”
Ben dips his hands under my tank top and runs them along my sides, edges me down on the navy and tan comforter. “You smell good,” he says. “Your hair smells like candy or something.”
His hands are familiar, and the weight of him feels good against me, but I sit up because being honest about at least one thing feels better.
Ben looks at me carefully. “Carter says he remembers this Ethan guy. From last year. I told him he had to be wrong. But he says he saw you and Tess with him at Northwestern. But that’s not what you told me.”
My heart skips a beat. Northwestern. Shit. Carter goes to Northwestern. Why hadn’t I remembered that? This is going from bad to worse. It’s bad enough that I ended up in a shouting match with my parents. Why don’t you ask Mom why she wasn’t at work either? Because you don’t want to know about that, do you? So don’t tell me what to do! I’m seventeen! If I want to screw up my job, it’s really none of your business! I’d screamed at my father before I’d stomped upstairs, changed into jeans and a black tank top, and walked out to Ben’s car without looking back. Ethan, of course, had already driven off, after telling me quietly but firmly yet again that he really needed to talk to me later.