Pearl’s face softened and her shoulders sagged. “I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking. I just wanted to be with you.” She turned her dark, fishy eyes up at Sasha and sniffed as she ran a bluish finger under her nose.
Guilt soured Sasha’s stomach. She resumed pacing. “You may have to play goldfish—”
Pearl made a strangled sound of protest.
“—just until spring. Can’t have you dying on me.” Sasha paused and tapped a finger to her lips. “This is going to take some planning.”
Pearl swam in small, nervous circles. “I need sea water. That chlorinated crap your kind drink and bathe in won’t do. And fish. I eat a lot of fish. A lot. What do you plan on doing about that?” Another sneeze escaped her, sending ripples across the water.
Sasha frowned and pressed a hand to her chest, fending off a shiver that had snuck up on her. She knew exactly what needed to be done. It wouldn’t be easy.
“We’ll make this work,” she said to Pearl. “Trust me.”
It was dark by the time Sasha made it to the hospital. Her clothes were still damp from all of Pearl’s splashing, and her breath billowed from her shivering lips, dissipating behind her like a ghostly tail. The ER entrance lights shone like a red beacon, inviting her in from the cold, but she spotted her mark at the last second and swore under her breath.
Natalie White was curled up on a bench just past the wheelchair ramp. Her wool trench coat wrapped her from chin to knees and was topped with a sparkly knit scarf that matched the kittens on her hospital scrubs. Her gloved hands cradled a giant mug printed with the hospital logo, and Sasha could smell the creamy hot chocolate as she approached.
When Sasha’s shadow fell over her, Natalie looked up with a start. Her blue eyes grew round, but she offered up a timid smile. “Hey, you.”
“Hi.” It was barely a whisper.
The last time Sasha had seen Natalie had been the day she’d almost drowned—the last day of her junior year, and Natalie’s senior year. Natalie was set for nursing school with a full scholarship. Sasha had dug deep and scrounged up every ounce of courage she possessed, determined to tell Natalie how she felt before the last bell.
I know you went to prom with Matt, she’d said, standing in front of the row of sinks in the girls locker room. Sasha turned away as Natalie pulled her sweaty tank top over her head. Her cheeks burned. But since you’re not dating him, she continued, I was thinking maybe—she never got to finish.
Ewwww! Sasha is putting the moves on Natalie! Christie Benton jumped out from behind one of the curtained shower stalls, as if she had been waiting there all along, ready to ruin everything. Her squealing echoed out to the far corners of the universe. Girls spilled into the locker room, laughing and pointing, while Sasha’s heart ached and burned like a stick of dynamite had gone off in her chest. She was ready to punch her way through the crowd, but thankfully, they stepped out of her way, as if she’d morphed into a leper.
Sasha, wait! Natalie called after her, but she didn’t give chase. Sasha wouldn’t have noticed if she had. She ran from the gym, from the school, past the clustered buildings that separated her from the rocky cliffs and the escape the sea offered.
“So.” Natalie took a sip of her cocoa. “What brings you to the hospital so late? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Sasha said, trying to work her way up to a more confident decibel. “But I need a favor.”
“What kind of favor?” Natalie looked skeptical, but she also looked a bit guilty, as if she wanted to apologize for what had happened and for not coming after her. That’s what Sasha was counting on.
“I have a friend visiting from out-of-state, but her wheelchair broke at the airport. She’s arriving in the morning, and I need to find a replacement for her.”
A sad smile tugged up one side of Natalie’s mouth. “By friend, do you mean—?”
“No. Maybe.” Sasha shrugged. “What do you care?”
Natalie’s bottom lip trembled. “I didn’t mean to pry.”
“Yeah.” Sasha scuffed her sneaker on the sidewalk and looked down. “Can you help me or not?”
Natalie swallowed and lowered her cocoa to her lap. “I don’t know. The hospital doesn’t just give out free wheelchairs.”
“She wouldn’t be taking it home with her. I could bring it back.”
“When?” Natalie asked.
Sasha winced at the question. “Spring? Maybe March?”
“Wow. Your friend is staying that long? Doesn’t she have school?”
A smug look crossed Natalie’s face, and Sasha felt her cheeks flare from the silent accusation. She thinks I’m lying to make her jealous.
“My friend has already graduated, and she’s on disability, obviously. So no job to worry about either.” Sasha clenched her fists in the pouch of her hoodie and cleared her throat. “Look, I can spend all the money I saved over the summer to buy her a new one, but I thought it’d be worth asking you first. If you can’t help me, you can’t help me. I’ll get over it. I’m good at that.” She turned to walk away, but Natalie’s hand shot out and grabbed her elbow.
“I didn’t say no, did I?” She pressed her lips together and sighed. “Let me see what I can do.”
A week went by without any word from Natalie. Pearl’s cold worsened. Her pale skin grew ashen, and her emerald scales faded and began flaking off. Sasha’s mind was so clouded by guilt, she hardly noticed that Thanksgiving was almost upon them.
A dirty taxi sloshed down the long driveway. The driver, a fat man with buggy sunglasses that looked out of place in the gloom of November, didn’t bother braking as he barreled past Sasha. Mud splattered her boots and the hem of her jeans. If her cousin’s smiling face hadn’t been pressed against the back window, she would have given a one-fingered salute—something she had perfected over the summer by teaching Pearl. The mermaid was already familiar with profanity, thanks to the sailors that frequented her territory.
By the time Sasha made it to the house, the driver had already retrieved Michele’s luggage from the trunk, chucking it into the soggy front yard. Michele handed him a fifty and told him to keep the change, to which she only received a grunt in reply.
As the taxi drove away, Michele flung her arms around Sasha’s neck and squeezed her tight, popping several vertebrae in the process. “It’s so good to see you! God, it’s been a million years, hasn’t it?”
Sasha smiled through the painful embrace, genuinely happy to see her. For the first time in days, the tension knotting her stomach fluttered away. Michele was halfway through a master’s degree in marine biology.
Though the thought of telling someone—anyone about Pearl terrified Sasha, the thought of losing her was even worse. There was also a bittersweet pinch in her heart. Sharing secrets was exciting, but some secrets were more special when kept. Sasha didn’t want to share Pearl, but she knew if she didn’t she could lose her forever. As much of a pain as Pearl had been lately, the looming threat of death rekindled Sasha’s affection for the snotty mermaid.
Sasha helped Michele carry her bags inside, where their grandmother waited in the kitchen. After another round of back-breaking hugs, the old woman spotted the muddy luggage and gasped.
“You girls better clean that off before you drag it through my house. I’ve already done my holiday cleaning, and I have too many pies to bake to bother with it a second time.”
“Yes, Gramma.” They answered at once.
Sasha went to the sink and wet a handful of paper towels. “How long are you staying?” she asked, trying to figure out how to work up to asking if she’d mind giving her fishy paramour a checkup.
“Through Christmas. I’ve already taken my finals, and I don’t have to be back until New Year’s Eve.” She joined Sasha at the sink and leaned in closer so their grandmother wouldn’t overhear. “I have a date,” she whispered, letting her golden hair brush over Sasha’s shoulder. She smelled like baby powder and candy canes, and Sasha vaguely wondered if she would ever get used
to Pearl’s fishy odor.
“Same guy you were pining over last semester?”
Michele elbowed her in the ribs. “You mean Jerky Jerkerson? Um, no. Try tall, dark, and professorly.”
Sasha gave her a surprised frown. “Isn’t that against the rules?”
“It’s okay as long as you’re not a student of theirs.” Michele shrugged. “And I’m not. Anymore.” She grinned and bit the tip of her tongue.
“Think you could take a look at my friend’s fish while you’re here?” The timing was all wrong, but Sasha couldn’t wait any longer. Michele blinked a few times in surprise, and her lips turned down slightly, as if she had been hoping Sasha’s question would be about her new love interest.
“Sure. I guess,” she said. “What breed is it?”
“Uh, it’s a rare breed. Some hybrid. I forget.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“It’s losing scales.” Sasha’s forehead crinkled. “I think it has a few other symptoms too.” She was pretty sure sneezing wasn’t a common fish malady. Best to leave that bit out for now.
“Yeah, okay.” Michele scrubbed at a spot of mud on one of her suitcases while Sasha tackled the other. “But I’m not a licensed vet or anything. I won’t be able to prescribe meds for your friend’s fish. All I can do is take a look and give you my best guess.”
“Deal.” Sasha threw away her wad of paper towels and hefted the suitcase off the kitchen counter.
“So when do we go see this friend?” Michele asked.
Their grandmother rounded the corner just in time. “What friend? Where are you girls going?”
Michele hugged the old woman again. “Sasha’s friend has a sick fish.”
“Does this friend have a name?” Gramma raised her brows hopefully.
Sasha blushed and her chest tightened. “Pearl.”
“Perhaps this Pearl would like to join us for Thanksgiving?” Gramma patted Sasha’s shoulder and smiled with a wink. She’d been a matron of the hippy generation, and Sasha never had to worry about discrimination from her. She received plenty of that from her so-called peers at school.
“Maybe.” Sasha nodded, her wheels suddenly turning again with a new plan.
After the luggage had been stowed away in the guest bedroom, Sasha and Michele bundled up and headed back outside, where the second surprise of the day waited on the front porch. A folded wheelchair was propped up against the dusty blue siding by the door. A red bow had been tied around one of the wheels, and attached to it was a snowflake printed notecard.
I hope you have a nice visit with your friend.
“Perfect.” Sasha grinned as she quickly tucked the note away in her pocket.
“What’s up with the wheelchair?” Michele cocked an eyebrow suspiciously.
“It’s for my friend.”
“The same one with the fish?” Michele asked.
“Yup.” Sasha smiled tightly. “It’s a long story. You’ll see when we get there.”
Michele didn’t look convinced. “Okay,” she answered slowly.
Sasha lifted the wheelchair and started down the porch stairs. When she reached the sidewalk, she paused and looked over her shoulder at the old barn that sat next to the house. “I need just a few more things before we go. Be right back.”
The city was full of holiday visitors. A light fog hung in the air and turned everything a dusty gray. A few Christmas lights and displays dotted the store windows, and the street vendors were out in full force with an assortment of sugary and savory treats. Charity bells rang on every corner.
“You didn’t tell me your friend lived a million miles away. I think I need a coffee,” Michele whined from the wheelchair. She’d lasted about a mile before begging Sasha to push her the rest of the way. The two five-gallon buckets Sasha had dug out of the barn rested in her lap, stacked inside of each other. “I still don’t know why we need all this,” she said, crinkling her nose down into the top bucket.
“It will all make sense, I promise.” Sasha grunted as she pushed her uphill. She was working up a sweat under her knit hat and the fur collar of her coat. A coffee shop caught her eye, and she sighed with relief. “I can totally grab you a coffee for your trouble,” she said, parking Michele at one of the tables under the building’s awning.
Sasha hurried inside, more to escape her cousin’s griping than the cold. She flexed her hands a few times, trying to relieve some of the aching in her fingers, as she breathed in the heavy aromas that filled the coffee shop. She looked up to find Natalie’s blue eyes waiting for her.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t get the chair to you sooner,” she said, rising up on her toes to look out the long front window to the patio beyond. “But I’m glad it’s going to good use.”
“Yeah, thanks,” Sasha said, resisting the urge to mumble through an explanation for her cousin and the buckets. Then she remembered that Natalie had never met Michele. “She’s never seen the ocean, so we’re going to gather some sea shells.”
“Oh.” Natalie’s smile was slow, like an afterthought. “That should be fun.”
“Next.” The barista interrupted their awkward conversation and Sasha stepped forward, eager to escape the pit of lies she kept digging herself into.
“Two mochas, each with a double shot,” she said. She thought about ordering a few pastries too, but changed her mind when she glanced back at Natalie and caught her looking out the window again. If she hurried, there was a good chance she could get out of there before Natalie emerged and tried to introduce herself to Michele.
Sasha paid for the drinks and looked back again in time to see Natalie turn around and blush, realizing she had been caught gawking. “So you really were trying to ask me out last year, weren’t you? I wasn’t sure—”
“It doesn’t matter. That’s ancient history.”
The barista handed over the coffees, and Sasha gave Natalie a tight smile. “Thanks again for the chair. See you around.”
“Yeah, no problem. See you around,” she echoed sadly.
Sasha cradled the drinks to her chest and squeezed past the growing line that stretched back to the front door. She almost dumped the coffee in Michele’s lap when she stumbled out onto the sidewalk.
“Christ, what’s wrong with you?” Michele reached for a cup, while Sasha gulped hers down so that she wouldn’t spill it on her cousin as she wheeled her away from the coffee shop as fast as she could.
“Who was that you were talking to in there?” Michele asked, taking quick sips in between bumps in the sidewalk. “She had you all flustered. I saw through the window. Your ears were lit up like Rudolph’s nose.”
“No one. Just a girl from school.” Sasha’s shoulders hunched forward and her voice came out soft and withdrawn. “We used to be friends, but she graduated last year.”
“So? You still live in the same town, apparently.”
“It’s a long story.”
“You’ve got a lot of those, don’t you?” Michele grinned up at her. “I told you. I’m here through Christmas. This is going to be a boring vacation if you plan on hording all the good gossip.”
Sasha snorted. “I have a feeling you’re going to take that back by the end of the day.”
They bumped along the sidewalks and dodged traffic until they finally came to the edge of town, where Sasha turned sharply into the rocky terrain leading down to the beach.
Michele’s brows drew closer together as they approached the cliffs. “Um, Sash, I don’t see any houses down here. Are you lost?”
“Nope.” Sasha sighed and pushed the wheelchair around a narrow path cut into the side of a low rift in the cliffs. The rock walls narrowed in on them until the chair was almost too wide to fit.
“Sasha,” Michele’s voice quaked. “I think I’d like to walk now. I don’t know where we’re going, but I don’t have a good feeling about this.”
“We’re almost there,” Sasha said. “And trust me, you’re going to want to sit down for this introduction.”
/>
The rift finally closed above them and formed a tight tunnel that quickly opened into the cave where Sasha and Pearl so often met for their secret trysts. Michele gaped at the glowing room. Her eyes crawled over the slick, sparkling walls, and then they froze on the pool in the center.
“Oh. My. God,” she whispered.
A scream echoed around them, followed by a raging series of splashes. Pearl’s twisted face emerged, and she bared her teeth at Sasha. “How could you?”
“I had to, Pearl!” Sasha screamed back, over the roar of waves Pearl was creating.
Michele put her feet down and backed the wheelchair up against the cave wall, staring at her cousin and the mermaid in disbelief. “Th-this is Pearl?”
Pearl shrieked again. “You told her my name?” She pushed herself up on a ledge and reached for the buckets in Michele’s lap. She pulled the bottom bucket free and hurled it across the room, where it bounced off the cave wall with a deafening clatter before splashing into the pool. “Did you think you were going to scoop me up in one of those and dump me in your bathtub?” she screamed and ripped at her tangled hair. A growl bubbled up from her throat, but it soon faded to sobs, and then a gasping cough.
Michele finally snapped out of her daze. “Is this the sick fish you were talking about?”
Pearl wheezed and turned her black eyes on Sasha. “I hate you.”
“I love you,” Sasha replied softly. “That’s why I brought her here. She’s a marine biologist. She can help.”
Michele lifted a finger. “I’m almost a marine biologist. And that doesn’t mean I know anything about treating sick mermaids—” Sasha gave her a pleading look. “But I’ll do my best. If you’ll let me,” she added, looking back to Pearl.
Pearl’s shoulders trembled as she swam closer to the ledge, bringing the bucket with her. “I’m sorry,” she said, timidly turning her eyes up at Sasha.
“Just let her take a look at you,” Sasha said, kneeling down to take Pearl’s hand.
Badass and the Beast: 10 Page 8