“Lucky, I guess.” She held her breath until he changed subjects.
“Well, it’s a good thing you found me. I had no idea how to find you and I’m getting set to meet my research boat in an hour. I wanted to say good bye before I left.”
“Is your girlfriend gone?” For some reason, her voice burned her on the way out.
John squinted and hefted his backpack up onto his shoulder. “My girlfriend?” He sounded startled.
Tamarind plucked some pebbles from the sidewalk and tossed them across the street. “I saw her walking with you a couple of days ago.”
“Ah. Well.” He cleared his throat and looked away. “She’s not my girlfriend. Not anymore.”
“Hmm.” Tamarind kept her eyes down on the perfect legs that she projected, but she wanted to hum in ecstasy. She’d read him right after all; he was happy to see her. Almost as good, she’d been right about Black Urchin, and Ana had been wrong.
“Hey, I volunteered both of us to help with the sea turtles. The ranger seemed really happy to have extra volunteers.” He paused for a moment. “Why are you sitting on the sidewalk anyway? Do you want to wait at the pier with me until my mates show up?”
“Maybe.” Her heartbeat picked up again. “Maybe not. I think it’s too hot here and I need a swim.”
“C’mon, we’ll go into the liquor store and get some cold drinks.”
“Okay.”
He waited for her to get up and together they walked around the corner to the plaza and on to the liquor store in the corner. He smelled strange, not dusty with the natural scent of his body in the sun. Out of the corner of her eye, she studied his profile. No coarse hairs darkened the smooth skin of his cheeks and his hair lay coiled neatly in a dark ponytail on his upper back. His skin had darkened so that he looked like a native of Culebra. Her glance drifted down to his feet, visible within the straps of his sandals, and up his legs again. Fine dark hair softened their angles. A strong urge to stroke those curves, to press her fingertips into the hollow around his knee and down the ridge of shin, filled her.
She realized that John had said something. “What?”
“Let’s stop in this shop here before we get drinks.”
She looked up at the sign over the entranceway. A woman with a tail instead of legs floated on an unnatural blue sea. Tamarind recognized the markings next to her as letters—some of them appeared in the written version of the name that she’d adopted.
“What’s in here?”
John, in the act of opening the door, looked at her. “You’ve never been inside this shop?”
Several strands of hair blew into her face as a breeze off the harbor rushed past her and into the open door. She pulled at them to clear her vision. “No. Should I have?”
“I guess not. It’s a gift shop for tourists after all.”
He held the door and waved her in. She held her head up and stepped inside, blinking in the dimmer light. Her diving membrane slid over her eyes where it stayed, momentarily beyond her ability to control it.
“Do you like this?” John held up a vivid blue item.
Tamarind turned away from him and headed toward a display of shells, blinking to raise the membrane. It stayed in place.
“Is something wrong?” John stood behind her so close she could feel heat rising from his torso, and his breath tickled the hair on her neck. “I didn’t mean to offend you. I just wanted to get you a gift.”
Tamarind began humming and clicking and turned away from him to head to the t-shirt rack. Despite her unsteady heartbeat, she knew that she had to calm down in order to raise the membrane. She had no ready excuse for John if he glimpsed the thin blue layer over her eyes. Near the t-shirt rack she saw the dark eye coverings that many people on Culebra wore and grabbed a pair to try on just as John halted behind her again.
“Tamarind.”
She twirled around and looked at him through the dark layer.
“We don’t have to look around. We can go on over and get something to drink.”
“It’s okay. I just had a little trouble seeing when we first came in, that’s all.”
John nodded, but a shadow remained around his eyes. He followed her as she walked through the racks but didn’t say anything more about what they saw hanging there.
“How about this one?” A woman with hair the color of the sand on Playa Flamenco and skin nearly as brown as a tamarind pod stood next to the rack holding the same vivid blue piece that John had spotted. “It would look lovely next to that mass of wavy hair of yours.”
Tamarind continued humming, low inside herself to keep her mental grasp on her glamour, and turned to face the woman. The color of the material captured the brilliance of the afternoon sky around Culebra. She reached out and traced a fingertip against it. It was smooth, soft.
“The dressing room’s over there.” The woman pointed to a door in the corner. When Tamarind didn’t move, she lifted the hanger off of the rack and held out the item to her.
Tamarind noticed that the woman wore clothing that resembled the blue material in texture if not color. So she accepted the item and walked to the dressing room. Once inside she looked more closely at the shape of the clothing. It appeared to be identical to what the woman wore. She took the eyewear off, grateful that John wouldn’t see the diving membrane, which still covered her eyes. She concentrated for a moment until the image of the t-shirt and shorts that she’d borrowed from John disappeared. Then she pulled the blue material over her head and stepped out of the dressing room.
“Wow! Don’t you look fabulous! That dress looks like it was cut to your figure! I must be doing something right because you’re the second woman in two days to put one of my pieces on who looks absolutely amazing.”
“We’ll take it.” John pulled his wallet out of his backpack.
Tamarind turned to go back to the dressing room to change.
“No, leave it on.”
“Yeah, you must wear that around for me,” the woman said. “I’ll give you a bag for your other things. And I’ll give you the same discount I gave the other woman.”
“Oh, and add in the sunglasses, too. Just don’t put them on yet. The blue in the dress really draws out the blue of your eyes.”
Tamarind gasped and felt her temples. She’d left the sunglasses in the dressing room.
John looked at her while the woman ran his credit card. “You look amazing.” His eyes never left her face.
A bouncy hum filled her upper chest before she could stop it and she found herself trilling a string of clicks with her tongue. She looked away from John. The diving membrane slid behind her eyelids, but she let her hair cover her face anyway.
“Here’s a bag.”
Tamarind snatched it from the woman’s hand and rushed into the dressing room. For a moment the small space suffocated her and then she reminded herself how to breathe air. She picked the sunglasses up from the bench where she’d left them and returned to the shop. John waited for her by the door, chatting with the woman.
“Thanks for the tip,” he said as Tamarind joined them. “Ready to go get something to drink?”
“Sure.”
They left the shop and continued down the sidewalk toward the liquor store. The heat radiated from the concrete and reflected back at them from the glass storefronts. Tamarind felt her pulse throb in her left temple and a sharp pain pierced her left eye. She had never felt so dry in her life, not even when she sunned herself on a nearby cay. When they stood in front of the coolers in the liquor store at last, she opened the door and let the cold air wash over her. The pain in her eye disappeared, but her body cried out for water.
“What’ll you have?” John held a bottle of something dark in his hand.
“Water.” She plucked a bottle out and opened it.
John laughed and went to pay for their drinks. While he stood in front of the register, she tipped the water up and let half the bottle flow down her throat without taking a breath.
“Wha
t are you drinking?”
“Coke.”
“Can I try some?”
“You’ve never had Coke before? I thought it was the drink of millions. Here.” He handed her the bottle and she tipped it up as she’d done with the water. The Coke burned its way down her throat and left a sharp pain in her upper chest. She coughed and choked.
“Hey, take it easy, okay?” John snatched the Coke from her hand and patted her bare upper back. Even in her distress, his fingertips raised starfish bumps.
Air pressure rolled its way from her chest to her throat, much as it had done when she was young and she’d surfaced too quickly from a great depth. She opened her mouth to cry out and a tremendous ripping sound emitted. For the first time since she’d come on land to look for John, she felt all right.
John looked at her, his eyes wide. Then he threw his head back and laughed the deep laugh that she loved, until he panted. His cap fell off his head, but he didn’t seem to notice; he just put his thumb and his forefinger in the inside corners of his eyes and stretched the lower half of his face. Gradually, his breathing slowed to normal and his eyes cleared. He grinned at her, then bent down and retrieved his cap off the floor.
“Holy crap, girl! That was mighty impressive. If fishing doesn’t pan out for you, you might want to challenge some frat boys to belching contests.”
“It doesn’t do that to you?” Her heartbeat tapped against her ribcage.
“Well, sure, if I tip it back like you just did. But I’ve had a little more experience with carbonation, I guess. Just sip it slowly.”
He handed her the bottle again and this time she only took a mouthful. It fizzed inside her mouth as bubbles popped against her palate, but after she swallowed the pressure remained normal. On impulse, she tipped the bottle up again. The pressure rose a bit in her chest. Grinning, she parted her lips and urged the trapped air up with her diaphragm. A smaller belch sounded.
John grinned but reached out for the Coke bottle. “All right, enough of that. C’mon, walk me to the marina.”
The walk from the liquor store tried her stamina, but the water she’d drunk kept the pains and parched sensation from returning. Once they arrived at the dock, she was close enough to draw on the power of the water to sustain her. John dropped his backpack and sat down on the dock’s edge. Tamarind sat next to him. Her lower half, dangling above the water in the harbor, sucked energy into itself.
“You look a lot better than you did a little while ago. I guess Coke revived you.”
Tamarind pulled the sunglasses out of her bag and put them on. “It’s like looking through Coke.”
“That’s one way to put it, I guess.” He said nothing for a moment. “I’m looking forward to coming back here in a couple of weeks and counting turtle eggs with you. I don’t know what I’m going to tell my thesis advisor, but I’m not ready to go back to Pittsburgh yet.”
“Is that why she’s not your girlfriend anymore?” She didn’t look at him. Instead, she bit her lip and swung her lower half back and forth.
“Partly.” He rushed on, his voice hurrying away from the subject. “Hey, listen, I’ve got something for you.” He bent toward his backpack and rummaged inside it. “Remember I took the ferry to Fajardo last week? Well, I drove to San Juan and while I was there I got these books for you.”
He held them out to her. She took them and looked at the drawings on the covers. They clearly depicted creatures of some sort, but while they had recognizable faces, arms, and legs, they looked like nothing that she’d seen, either underwater or on Culebra. The creatures reminded her a little of the outline of the woman with the fish’s tail on the sign over the shop.
“They’re all written by Dr. Seuss. Green Eggs and Ham, The Cat in the Hat, Horton Hears a Who, Red Fish Blue Fish. All the classics.”
She squirmed and frowned at him. “I told you I don’t know how to read.”
“I know. I’m going to teach you.”
Tamarind looked at the books with their brightly colored covers again. Her eyes stung behind the sunglasses.
“Did I say something wrong?” John sounded worried.
“No.” She tossed her head and squeezed her eyelids until the stinging stopped. “No. I can’t wait for you to teach me.”
There was a shout from fifty feet out in the harbor and John stood up. Suddenly, it was time for him to go. Tamarind shoved the books into her bag, ready to cloak herself as soon as John boarded and no longer noticed her. After the crew of the ship tied off and lowered the gangplank, John turned and ruffled her hair.
“Don’t stalk any other tourists while I’m gone.” He ascended the narrow bridge from the dock to the ship.
She didn’t change her aspect even though he never turned around to look at her again. Instead, she caressed his calves with her gaze and hugged the bag of books to her chest.
“I won’t,” she said to his retreating form.
***
Ana squatted on the shore at La Playa Tamarindo, peering at the stones, seaweed, and shells arranged there. Overhead, a darkening cloudbank obscured the morning sun and the ever-present chatter of birds had hushed to stillness; in moments, the season’s first rain pelted her and disturbed the outlines of her question before Mother Sea. This by itself was an omen, one that foretold that Father Sky would mediate the outcome. Even before she’d come to the beach this morning, Ana’s intuition had spoken to her about the violence of the upcoming season and the oracle had just confirmed her suspicions. The hurricanes that blew through the Caribbean every summer and fall would be especially numerous, and one would batter her little island late in the season after pummeling the islands further south.
While this prediction disturbed her, Ana wanted to know something entirely unrelated to the future weather. She wanted to know whether the mermaid would return and accept her conditions for help, and if so, how she would fare during the transformation. This latter was a question that she wouldn’t have dared to ask in her youth, but she was growing more tired—and lonelier than she would have thought possible—and she was willing to risk Mother Sea’s ire by asking it. When she’d first returned to Culebra and taken up her role as healer and diviner, she’d been reluctant to aid the occasional mermaid who called upon her; as the years passed, she began to realize that a time would come when she’d no longer be able to carry out her duties. Now, she feared that each opportunity to help a mermaid become human might also be her last to find a protégée.
Ana rearranged the artifacts on the shore before her, adding a few shells here, removing a few stones there. She asked Mother Sea what the mermaid’s immediate fate would be and waited, scarcely breathing. After several moments, seawater fingered her code.
Rubbing between her brows, she sighed and sat back on her haunches. The unequivocal oracle had shown that the mermaid would return and accept the conditions of her metamorphosis; and, blessed be the Creator, she would not only survive but would indeed have put off her tail. This was as much as she could hope to learn today and she would not be allowed to ask any more questions regarding the mermaid for at least one cycle of the moon. But it wasn’t enough to satisfy her, to assure her that all would turn out as she wished. It occurred to her that she could get at some of what she wanted to know by asking a question about the man who had captured the mermaid’s heart.
She leaned forward onto her knees, eagerly rearranging her artifacts while the rain fell.
Mother, will this human take the mermaid away with him after the rains end?
The waves, which lapped at her arrangement even as she placed the items, surged and obliterated all but a few of them. Satisfied, Ana picked up the remaining shells and stones and placed them within a small canvas sack. The oracle had suggested that John would leave the island alone, but she had seen her own hand in it and knew that this wasn’t a certainty, only a probability. She must take every opportunity to ensure that what the oracle said came to pass.
Nine
Tamarind watched from the
security of mangrove roots along the northern edge of the Luís Peña Canal as the old woman stooped over a section of beach, frowning at some detritus there. This was not the first time that the old woman had spent long moments contemplating seaweed and shells, yet Tamarind still had no insight into what she was doing. After a few moments, the old woman leaned forward and rearranged some of the items around her and then Mother Sea flowed forward, the foamy edge of Her waves caressing them. All at once, Tamarind understood that the old woman was communicating with Mother Sea. Mer people, living in symbiosis with Mother Sea, did not speak with Her. She embraced them, gave them refuge, provided power for them to draw upon to protect themselves, both underwater and on shore. She never spoke to them.
The old woman leaned forward a second time, moving bits of shell, seaweed, and stone. This time, Mother Sea rushed forward before she’d finished, sucking most of her items into the canal. Instead of appearing angry or upset, she appeared relieved. She gathered the remaining stones and shells and tucked them into a small bag, then rose and turned away from the shore.
Tamarind waited a moment. She had only to walk on borrowed power to the old woman’s house. What if reality is less wonderful than my vague fantasies? Will I wish I hadn’t risked so much for so little?
Closing her eyes and lifting her chin, she sent her thoughts out to the water around her to transform her tail into a pair of human legs; she would store some energy within her mind, doling it out along the short walk to the old woman’s house. She swam until her new feet reached the bottom of the canal, then stood up and walked from the clinging grip of Mother Sea. As she walked, the rain tapered off and stopped altogether; by the time she reached the edge of La Playa Tamarindo, the sun shone overhead.
When Tamarind arrived at the old woman’s squat cinderblock house, she was sitting in the doorway smoking a clove cigarette. Her good eye sparkled, alive in her shriveled features. She didn’t smile. Tamarind’s stomach churned and her glamour wavered. She came closer to the old woman, transfixed. Even though the sun was bright, she felt cold. For the first time that she could remember, the hum that always waited inside her core had fled, leaving her empty.
An Ordinary Drowning, Book One of The Mermaid's Pendant Page 11