Swimming for Sunlight

by Allie Larkin

  “Their story is beautiful,” Luca said. I could hear a hint of hesitation in his voice. “Older women get pushed toward invisible, and I want to show women who are still in full color. I’ve watched my mom—Carla—struggle with being treated like she’s fading, when she’s earned the right to feel powerful with all those mountains she moves. So the mermaid show hits good marks for what my managers want, but it also hits the right places in my heart.”

  His words felt like an apology, or maybe a pitch. I didn’t have any enthusiasms to offer him beyond a smile that probably looked fake. I knew it wasn’t fair of me to feel betrayed when I hadn’t told him I was terrified of watching Nan and Bitsie swim. A reasonable person would assume I’d gotten over my fear of water by now. But I’d also had hope when it was clear I shouldn’t have. Luca didn’t come to Nan’s for me. He was looking for a new story.

  Bark slept soundly, worn out from the adventure, his head resting on Luca’s leg. I tried to check my purse discreetly, but the bag with the tampon had fallen to the bottom. I didn’t want to risk digging around when I couldn’t see clearly. I put my purse on my feet so it wouldn’t leak on the floor of Luca’s truck. Every time I tried to tell myself I was being ridiculous, the images of disaster amplified. I pictured blood pouring from my purse onto my feet. I pictured Nan tangled in her air hose, Luca capturing it all on film instead of helping her. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t imagine everything being okay.

  When we got back, Luca ran inside to ask Nan where he should put all the equipment. I threw the tampon in the garbage can in the garage. It hadn’t leaked in my purse at all.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  After we loaded all the road cases into the dining room, Nan and Luca left to meet Bitsie at the community center. Since a large enough tank would be hard to find, Luca came up with the idea of underwater cameras and big screens to project the action. They were hoping to charm the community center manager into letting them use the pool for free, since tickets from the show would fundraise for the center.

  Hannah and Woo Woo sent me measurements, so I needed to work on their costumes. I stole some of Isaac’s good coffee and made the closest approximation of a frappuccino I could manage with almond milk and maple syrup.

  And then Mo called. “Please, can you help? The unveiling is two weekends from now, and I’m totally behind.”

  “For a little bit,” I told her, “but I need to work on costumes.”

  “You help me,” Mo said, “and when we’re done, I’ll help you crank ’em out.”

  I knew it wasn’t a fair trade. Mo didn’t have patience for fine work the way I did. She was good with broad strokes. Large scale. What I did was slow and small and careful. But I said yes anyway, because it was Mo, and she needed me. And I needed the company.

  * * *

  I downed my coffee and changed my clothes, grabbing a pair of socks for those gross work boots. Bark followed me to the foyer. When I stepped into my flip-flops, he wagged his tail.

  “Do you want to come with me?” I asked.

  He reared up, waving his front legs in the air. I decided to go with it. Maybe the road trip and his time with Althea had made him brave. On the walk to Mo’s, he trotted slightly behind me, barely pulling on the leash. He even sniffed a mailbox post like a normal dog.

  * * *

  “Hey, how was it?” Mo asked, voice muffled by her welding mask.

  Bark was taken aback by her getup. But as soon as she lifted the mask, his legs stopped shaking. He pulled on the leash to bring us closer so he could say hi.

  “I lived.” I wasn’t sure if I wanted to talk about it. I didn’t want to hear that I was being silly.

  “Alone in a car with your dreamy man and ‘Oh, I lived,’ ” she said, scratching Bark’s head, leaving soot behind his ears. He was wiggly and happy for her attention.

  “I got my period yesterday. So, you know, awkward bathroom stuff.” I told her about Bark’s thievery.

  “Oh! Worst!” Mo said. She got us beers and we sat on an old wood pallet. “You can let him off leash. I don’t think there’s anything at his level he can get into.” She pointed to her eyes and pointed at Bark, like she was putting him on notice.

  The garage door was wide open. I wasn’t used to having Bark off leash in an open space, but I unclipped him because Mo seemed so sure it would be fine. I half expected him to run away from me, like this shot at a jailbreak was all he’d been waiting for. Instead, he walked around Mo’s garage sniffing things, then plopped down on the floor at my feet.

  “One time,” Mo said, “I was sort of seeing this guy in college, and he lived in an off-campus house. I flushed a tampon and he had to call Roto-Rooter. I wanted to disappear. And the Roto-Rooter guy was all, ‘If it doesn’t come off the roll or out of you . . .’ And I was like, ‘Well, it did come out of me,’ but I was way too embarrassed to defend myself.”

  I was shocked. Mo never seemed to get embarrassed by anything, but just telling the story made her face flush.

  “And, like, if guys had periods, all plumbing would be able to handle tampons. You know it’s true.”

  I laughed. “That sounds about right.”

  “But, that was in college. Luca is a man. I bet if you’d explained why you wanted to go to the gas station, he would have been happy to take you.”

  “Maybe,” I said, knowing she was probably right. “I might have added an obstacle that wasn’t really there.” Worrying about a tampon was so much easier than worrying about everything else.

  “So what’s really bothering you?” she asked.

  “Luca is staying.”

  “That’s great!”

  “To shoot a mermaid documentary.”

  “Whoa!”

  “Because they’re doing a reunion show at the community center.”

  I expected Mo to get excited about the idea of the show, but she didn’t. Her face fell.

  I looked away. Hot with shame. Eyes tearing. Bark came over to smell my cheek.

  “Oh, hon,” Mo said, wiping tears from my face with her hand. “Shit.” She used the sleeve of her t-shirt to wipe the spot on my cheek she’d touched, and waved her sooty fingers at me. “Sorry. Got most of it.” She wiped her hands on her shorts. “They’re not going to drown doing this show. One, I go to mermaid class sometimes—”

  “You do?”

  “Yeah,” Mo said. “It’s a hell of a workout. Those ladies are strong swimmers. And two, I know all the lifeguards over there. They’re awesome. And three, I’ll go to as many rehearsals as I can. And I’ll be at the show no matter what. Okay?”

  I nodded.

  We sat, shoulders touching, quiet.

  “Maybe it’ll all get better if you kiss that boy and tell him you love him,” Mo said, nudging me with her shoulder.

  “I think he’s only interested in my grandmother,” I said.

  Mo laughed.

  “You know what I mean. He came here for a new story. Not me.”

  “Couldn’t it be both? Or even that he came for you and found an excuse to stick around?”

  “Even if he did come for me—I can’t do that to him, Mo. He’s too—”

  “He’s too wonderful and I’m too shitty,” Mo said, raising her voice half an octave to mimic me. “Stop. Seriously. Stop. You’re good. I like you. I’ve liked you for most of my life now.”

  “I was gone for a lot of it.”

  “I didn’t get stupid when you got married,” she said, smiling. “I still liked you.” Bark sniffed Mo’s shoulder and pushed his head into her hand for a scratch.

  “But Luca’s been through so much,” I said.

  “So have you.”

  “Yeah, but there’s something broken in me.”

  “The people who don’t have broken parts aren’t interesting,” Mo said. “You’re hurt and you hide it until you can’t. It’s okay. You’re just human.”

  “It’s not okay.”

  “I’ve seen you at your worst,” she said. “
It’s not so bad.”

  I remembered the time I had a panic attack when her uncle came to visit and took us to SeaWorld. I screamed at her in the bathroom. Leave me alone. Leave me alone. Echoing in the cinder block walls. It was a big deal for her to get to take a trip like that. To have the attention of her uncle. And instead of leaving me, she sat on the floor of the bathroom with her hand under the stall door, waiting for me to hold it.

  “You always made me feel like it was safe to show you the messy stuff,” Mo said. Her voice cracked. “So don’t you dare tell me you’re no good for anyone because you fall apart sometimes.”

  I thought about fifth grade when we’d finally scored invites to Ashley Marshall’s sleepover. We both declined because Mo still wet the bed. Sometimes I washed her sheets at Nan’s when she smuggled them to our house in a backpack so her grandmother wouldn’t worry about her. Maybe she wouldn’t have been able to tell another friend.

  Mo kicked her boot against the pavement. “The thing that makes me sad—You’re friends with me, so I don’t know why you feel like you have to be perfect.”

  “Because my mom left,” I said, surprised by how close the answer was to the surface. “I wasn’t good enough to save my dad, and my mom left me, and if I wasn’t careful, Nan would too.”

  “Nan wouldn’t,” Mo said. “I won’t either.”

  I took a sip of beer. She held the bottom of the bottle up, so I had to gulp. When she finally let go she said, “Do it!”

  I stared at her.

  “For me,” she said.

  I let out the loudest, longest burp ever.

  Mo fell on her side, laughing and kicking her legs. “Hysterical!”

  Bark licked her face until she was gasping for air.

  * * *

  Mo and I worked for three hours, but we got more done than we had on all the other nights put together. We’d developed a flow to our work. I knew how to read her gestures, to anticipate what she needed and have a tool at the ready.

  When Mo said, “Alright, I’m getting bleary-eyed,” Morty looked done to me. He was mammoth and serene. She’d captured the grace that made manatees so easily mistaken for mermaids by sea-worn sailors.

  “I can get this done in about ten to twelve hours,” she said. I think she read the panic on my face, because she quickly added, “Solo work. You helped me finish all the heavy lifting stuff. I have to work on the patina at the welds, tweak things here and there. And then I’m all yours for costumes!”

  “Thanks,” I said, hoping she couldn’t read that panic too.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Bark lagged behind me on the walk home, sniffing spots on the ground for as long as I’d let him. Once we turned the corner, he decided to take the lead, pulling on the leash like we’d never make it home if he didn’t apply force.

  Two blocks from Nan’s, there was movement in the bushes by the sidewalk. Bark froze. I did too, imagining a person lying in wait behind the gardenias. I could almost feel a hand over my mouth. A handkerchief doused with chloroform, like a bad guy from a Nancy Drew novel would use. Only real. And worse. I started to run, but Bark wouldn’t budge.

  “Come on,” I hissed, tugging at Bark’s leash.

  His legs shook. He growled. The hair on his back stood up. I was terrified.

  And then a cat darted from the shadows. I laughed even though my heart was still pounding.

  Bark was not amused. He lunged toward the cat, but when the cat turned to look at him, he darted in the opposite direction, ripping his leash from my hands. He took off down the street.

  I chased after him, kicking off my flip-flops so I could run faster. “Bark! Bark!” I yelled, bare feet smacking against the pavement. It was late. Rude to yell. I didn’t care. It was Bark and I needed to get him back. A car could come at any minute.

  I couldn’t keep up with him. I tripped on an uneven seam in the sidewalk and cracked my toenail, blood gushing. When I crouched on the sidewalk, gasping in pain, Bark snuck back. Stealthy. Silent. He licked my cheek. Sniffed the blood on the concrete, looked at me, worried.

  “I’m okay,” I said, petting his head, grabbing his leash.

  We walked back toward Nan’s. I only found one flip-flop. When we got to where the cat had been, Bark’s legs started to shake. Again, he wouldn’t budge.

  I picked him up, trying to get his weight balanced in my arms. His legs flailed. His body slipped. I had to keep hiking him up, straining the muscles in my back. I waddled home.

  “Good lord,” Nan said, opening the door. She must have seen us coming. “Have you been to war?”

  I put Bark down in the foyer. His legs splayed out like Bambi on ice, as if he’d never walked on tile before. He scrambled to my bedroom.

  “Fuck cats,” I said, and hopped to the bathroom to bandage my foot, trying not to bleed all over the floor.

  * * *

  Once I cleaned up, I went to comfort Bark. He was already sprawled across my bed, feet paddling furiously as he chased the cat in his sleep. Maybe in his dreams he got to be the fierce dog he wished he were.

  I ventured to the living room.

  Luca had camera equipment spread across the coffee table.

  “I heard you had an incident,” he said, smiling.

  “Sort of.” My toe was throbbing.

  “Want to see this?” He hooked the camera up to the TV, pressed a button, and there was Nan on the screen.

  Bitsie’s voice in the background says, “She’s ready for her close-up, Mr. DeMille!” Nan laughs, looks up at the camera, eyes bright. Elegance in her posture.

  “So,” Luca asks off camera. “How did you become a mermaid?”

  “There was an ad,” Nan says. “In the back of the newspaper. My father read it out loud to my mother at breakfast one day, because he thought it was a joke. ‘Girls Wanted for Mermaid Show. Strong Swimmers Only.’ I stole the paper when he left for work. I couldn’t use the phone to call without my mother overhearing, so I walked all the way to the address on the listing. Miles and miles. The warehouse was in a bad part of town. As soon I got there, a man took one look at me and said auditions were the next day. Two o’clock sharp, in the parking lot. So I had to walk all the way back again. My feet were so sore.”

  The camera cuts to Bitsie. “I had a friend from high school, Meryl Stephenson, and she told me about it. She wanted me to go with her so she didn’t get kidnapped or whatever they told us happened to girls back then. I was such a scrawny little thing,” Bitsie says. “Not like I could have helped if anyone was going to try anything funny. But Meryl was the pretty one, and that seemed to need some sort of protecting. She looked like a Breck Shampoo girl, but she was a terrible swimmer. She thought she was so beautiful it wouldn’t even matter. And I think we both thought I was too funny looking to get the job.” She smiles, and her warmth, the red hair, her tanned skin, lines in her face, all come together to make her absolutely stunning. “So we got there, and they had this big tank set up in the parking lot. I mean—it was big for what you’d expect for a parking lot, but it was small for someone to actually get in. Like a long tube. We had to go down to the bottom, grab a rock they’d thrown, and come back up. Then we had to stay under and breathe air from a hose. That was the test. Meryl panicked. She couldn’t do it, and she was so embarrassed that she wanted us to go home before I’d even had a turn. She didn’t want to leave me there alone, but she didn’t want to stay. And then I heard, ‘I’ll stay until you’re done. We can walk together.’ I looked over, and there she was.” Bitsie’s eyes sparkle. She ducks out of frame. Luca pulls the camera back so we see her reach to grab Nan’s hand. Nan squeezes back.

  “The other love of my life,” Bitsie says.

  I didn’t even realize my eyes had filled with tears until one splashed on my cheek.

  “I know,” Luca said, laughing. His eyes were shiny. “I think if you listen closely, you can hear me gasp.”

  “It’s gorgeous,” I said, suddenly thankful for the chance to see this
and hear stories they wouldn’t think to tell me otherwise. As much as I was afraid, I wanted to know everything Luca would learn. I wanted to see Nan and Bitsie from his point of view. “Thank you.”

  Luca reached over and squeezed my hand.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  All of a sudden the mermaid reunion was a show and a documentary, and there was a firm timeline in place, and the pressure to get the costumes done was crushing me. For a photo shoot, I could use binder clips and safety pins to adjust fit. In a show, it all had to work. And whatever I did would be on film. Mistakes would last forever. Plus, I had no experience designing for water. Not many people did. After a ton of searching, I found an online forum for people who work and play as mermaids. It was a gold mine of tips about tail caulk, sequins, and waterproof makeup.

  When I told Isaac what I was up against, he helped me between our tailoring appointments, but after a few days of frantic sewing, he told me he was giving me time off until the show.

  “I don’t want to leave you in the lurch,” I said.

  “What lurch? I can do this,” he said with a look that let me know he meant it.

  He lent me his extra serger so I could finish seams faster, and promised to keep sewing for me whenever it was slow at the shop. Even with all of that, I knew I was in trouble.

  When I tried to talk to Nan about it she said, “You’re so talented. You always make it work!” Like it was absurd for me to be concerned.

  Bitsie offered to help, but I worried her help would make more work. Mo was busy with Morty. Luca was busy filming. The person I needed most was Bunny.

  I thought when I started sewing in Bunny’s room I’d hit the bottom of the grief I would feel. But now the way I needed her cut so close to my core that it was an entirely new entity. Sometimes, when I was up late, sewing sequins on tops, I tried to talk to her in my head, hoping she’d arrive with words of comfort, or an answer to a question. But I couldn’t summon her the way I had before. It felt like talking to myself, and I didn’t have anything good to say.