When We Believed in Mermaids

by O'Neal, Barbara

  Other shelves offer more insight. Aldous Huxley and Pearl Buck, along with the local beloved, Katherine Mansfield. Poetry and Maori culture and history, a lot of intriguing titles I want to explore. I touch them, one at a time, to settle their titles in my memory.

  At the end of the third shelf is a collection of books with bright, often tattered covers, and I pull one out to see what it is. A mermaid graces the cover, her hair draped demurely over her shoulder, and I hastily put it back. The next is also a book about mermaids, and I shove it back just as fast but not fast enough.

  I was eight and Kit six, and we wanted to be mermaids for Halloween. Nothing else would do, no matter how many times our mother said it was impossible to have a tail and also walk around the neighborhoods of Santa Cruz, where we would go trick-or-treating. She found skirts of turquoise taffeta, painted our faces, and—the crowning touch—carefully painted mermaid scales on our arms and legs.

  Years later, Kit and I sat side by side in a tattoo parlor, each of us offering our inner left arm to the artists, who meticulously applied mermaid scales.

  I hold out my arm, brush my fingers over that tattoo, still sharp and beautiful after all these years, a testament to the quality of the work. BIG SISTER, it reads over the scales. Hers is LITTLE SISTER, though we laughed about it at the time, since she towered over me by then, nearly six feet to my five three.

  No. The pain I keep shoved down deep in a cavern leaks out.

  Just no.

  More than a decade of practice gives me the tools to quash the memories. I have a million errands to run before the children get out of school, and unlike my own mother, I like being there for them. I wonder if Sarah has fared better today. As I turn to go, I spy a row of Agatha Christie and grin, nabbing one at random. A person can never go wrong with Christie.

  The timer on my phone goes off, startling me. I’ve been here for three hours, lost in the past. I collect my things, making sure to double-check the locks and that I’ve left no lights on.

  On the way out, I change my mind and turn on the light in the study, a beacon in the darkness. A sign that the house is not deserted. It makes me anxious that everyone knows Helen died and the house is empty. To both my and Simon’s surprise, there is no alarm system, a fact that is being rectified next week.

  I let myself out into the overwhelming heat of early afternoon. The full weight of sunshine slams the top of my head, and I have to consciously take a deep breath in the wet, wet air. As I lock the door behind me, a wash of dread runs the length of my neck.

  Mermaids and fountain pens. Across the screen of my memory, Kit and Dylan sat at the scarred, solid table that occupied one corner of the house kitchen, bent over wide-ruled paper, practicing letters with tails—g, p, q. I wrote a line of Zs, capital and small, like Zorro.

  A ripple of warning moves through me. I raise my head to look around, feeling my ghosts gather and whisper. My father, my mother, Dylan. My sister.

  I thought I could walk away. That I would get used to missing her. I never have.

  On the way back down the hill, I wonder what would happen if the truth of my life came out. The thought of all I could lose sucks the air out of my lungs, and I have to turn up the radio and start singing to avoid having a panic attack.

  “Get a hold of yourself,” I say aloud.

  Josie Bianci is dead. I intend for her to stay that way.

  Chapter Five

  Kit

  Leaving the site of the nightclub fire, I look around at the other businesses in the area. It’s clearly a popular spot—T-shirt and sandwich shops interspersed with restaurants and hotel entrances. Maybe Josie has been to one of them. Maybe somebody will remember her.

  I cross the street and peer into each window I pass, but nothing particularly leaps out. She could have been anywhere, doing anything.

  A little aimlessly, I walk up one block and down the next, looking for something, anything, that suggests my sister. But there is pretty much everything—a high-end jewelry store, a boutique selling tiny couture dresses, a two-story bookstore packed to the brim. It makes me feel slightly breathless to imagine asking about Josie in any of them, and I can’t make my feet stop.

  Until the window of a stationery shop halts me, lures me inside with a display of ink in jeweled-looking bottles. At this point, I have more pens and ink than I could possibly use in three lifetimes, but that’s not the point. The store has a display of Krishna inks, small-batch inks in swirling, shimmering colors. I have a weakness for shimmery ink, though I have stopped using it for prescriptions and stick with a Very Serious, fast-drying black for those.

  The rest of the time, I lean toward the flashy two-tone inks. I’ve never seen this brand before, and I stand there playing with the colors for quite some time. A Goldfish Gold is amazing, but I never seem to use orange or yellow inks. One called Sea and Storm attracts me, and the nonshimmery but still gorgeous turquoise called Monsoon Sky. It reminds me of another turquoise ink I had at ten or eleven, during the first crazy wave of passion when Dylan, Josie, and I discovered the art of calligraphy. Which of us started? It’s hard to remember now, where and how it began, only that we all fell in love with it, writing mannerly notes, leaving them in elegant handwriting for our parents or each other. Dylan loved Chinese calligraphy, practicing the characters for crisis and love and ocean that he found in a library book.

  I carry the ink to the counter, intending to then go look at pens, but my stomach growls, reminding me that all I’ve had to eat are two bananas and two apples.

  I force myself to ask the girl behind the counter, “Have you worked here long?”

  “A year or so.” She smiles, wrapping my ink in tissue paper.

  I’m about to ask if she might remember someone, my sister, that is, with her distinctive scar, but my face goes hot as I consider it. Instead, I simply pay and carry my package out with me, cursing myself as I go.

  How will I find her if I never look for her?

  My feet carry me back up the hill, and I shop in a grocery store tucked into the basement of another building, picking up a bottle of wine and fresh bread, more fruit and a half dozen eggs, and a chunk of cheese, which all fit into my pack. I don’t intend to cook for myself much, since all these restaurants deserve sampling, but it’s good to have a few things on hand.

  Wandering into a little alleyway, I find a row of eateries with tables and chairs set out in the gathering twilight. An Italian spot catches my eye. “One, please,” I say to the host. “May I sit outside?”

  “Of course, of course. Right this way.”

  He settles me between a chubby young couple and a sharply dressed businessman who gets up the minute I sit down, chattering irritably into his phone as he hurries away. The Italian host tsks, shaking his head as he clears the table and wipes it down.

  “Everyone is so busy,” he says, and his voice reminds me, suddenly and acutely, of my father, whose deep voice was laced with his Italian accent until the day he died. “You want wine?” he asks. “I think you like red wine. Am I right?”

  “Yes, as it happens. Bring me something you love.”

  “My pleasure.”

  I realize I don’t have my phone to keep me company. Weird. It’s hard to remember the last time that even happened. Years, probably. Instead, I read every word of the small menu, even though I decided on the gnocchi almost the moment I saw it. Leaning back, I think how much my father would have loved this place, the tidy white tablecloths and flowers in tiny blue vases. I finger the carnation. Real, not fake, and I lift the bottle to inhale the bright, peppery scent.

  The man returns with my wine, presenting it with a flourish. He has a thick mustache and twinkling eyes. “See if you like this one.”

  Dutifully, I swirl and inhale and taste. He’s served it properly, in a glass with a wide bowl, and the notes are rich on the nose. On my tongue, it’s deep and fruity but without heavy tannins. “Mm,” I say. “Yes. Thank you.”

  He gives me a little bow. A
lock of his hair tumbles free and falls in his eyes. “And for dinner?”

  “Antipasti,” I say, realizing now that I’ve stopped moving that I’m gut-empty. “And the gnocchi.”

  “Good, good.”

  The wine gives me something to occupy my hands, and I lean back, watching the parade of humanity passing before me. A lot of businesspeople who have stopped for a post-work drink, the women in heels, the men in stylish suits. An open-fronted bar is crowded with young professionals eyeing each other. No one seems to smoke.

  Tourists too are wandering up and down the alleyway. I can spot them by their comfortable shoes and sunburns and the exhaustion with which they peruse the menus. Again, a tumble of languages and accents and cultures.

  The host seats a man next to me at the vacated table. To preserve our privacy, I keep my eyes forward, but I hear him order wine in a Spanish accent.

  The waiter brings me my antipasti. It’s a generous serving of fresh mozzarella, wet and gleaming; curls of salami and prosciutto; a tumble of olives and fresh tiny tomatoes and flatbread. “Beautiful,” I breathe.

  I tuck in and am transported to childhood, when one of my afternoon chores was to portion out mozzarella and poke toothpicks into the various charcuterie that was served for happy hour, along with Harvey Wallbangers and White Russians and the endless, endless Long Island Iced Teas, my mother’s favorite.

  “I don’t mean to bother you,” the man next to me says. “Are you also a tourist?”

  Engaged with a particularly stunning slice of prosciutto, I take a moment to savor it, then wash it down with a tiny sip of wine. I look at him. He’s a tall man with thick dark hair and the shadow of an unshaven beard on his jaw. A well-thumbed paperback sits on the table next to him, and I think, When did I stop carrying books around with me? “Yes. You too?”

  He gives a nod. “Visiting a friend, but he had work to do tonight, so he abandoned me.” He lifts his glass. Next to the book is a bottle of wine. “Cheers.”

  “Cheers.” I lift my glass but use my body to tell him I don’t really want to engage.

  Not that he listens. “I would have gone across the way there, to sample their tapas, but I saw you again and had to stop here instead.”

  “Again?”

  “This morning. You arrived from the airport, I think.”

  His voice is sonorous, vibrant, a musical instrument. I let myself take another long look at his face. Strong features—Roman nose, almost too aggressive to be attractive, large dark eyes. “Yes,” I admit. “But I still don’t remember.”

  He touches his chest, hand over his heart. “You have forgotten me already.” He tsks, then tilts his head with a smile. “At the elevator.”

  The moment pops back into my head. “Oh yeah. The de nada guy.”

  He laughs. The sound is robust, full of life. I sip my wine, assessing. It wouldn’t be so terrible to have a roll in the hay. It’s been a while.

  “My name is Kit,” I say.

  “Javier.”

  I pick up the antipasti plate and offer it to him. “The salami is very good.”

  He gestures toward the seat across from him. “Would you like to join me?”

  “No, thank you. If we each stay where we are, we can both watch the street.”

  “Ah.” He helps himself to a mozzarella and a salami and deposits them on his bread plate. “I see your point.”

  “We might as well be at the same table anyway,” I say, indicating the narrow space between our chairs. He’s close enough that I can smell his cologne, something vaguely spicy.

  “What brings you to New Zealand?” he asks.

  A shrug. I’m going to have to come up with a way to answer this question. It’s a long way to fly for no reason at all. “It’s not like anywhere else, is it?”

  “No.” He sips his wine, and in profile his face is quite powerful. Beautiful. Maybe he’s ticking a few too many of my No Way rules.

  We’ll see. “How about you?”

  His shrug is somehow sad, and that ticks another box. No tortured men. They always want saving, and given my childhood filled with broken people, it’s an impulse I have to constantly fight. “My old friend invited me. It seemed time for a change. Perhaps I will move here.”

  “Really?” I eat some cheese, break some flatbread, offer the plate to him again. “From where?”

  “Madrid.”

  “That’s a big change.”

  He nods, smooths his hands together, palm to palm. “I’m weary of politics.”

  I snort laugh and have to cover my mouth. “Yeah. It’s been a weird few years.”

  “Decades.”

  “Yeah.”

  We watch the people walk by. Couples in love, old marrieds, the happy-hour crowd heading home. My body is soft and quiet for the first time in ages. Maybe I’d needed to get away more than I knew. My hand reaches automatically for the ghost of the phone that isn’t there, and I open my palm on the table instead. “What are you reading?”

  He holds it up to show me. One Hundred Years of Solitude. It’s in Spanish, of course. “I’ve read it many times, but I love to read it again.”

  I nod. Literary too, which isn’t on my No Way list, but it speaks to a great mind, and that is.

  “Have you read it?” he asks.

  “No.” I surprise myself by adding, “My sister was the literary one.”

  “You don’t like to read?”

  “I do. I just don’t read important books. That was her thing—all the great poets and writers and playwrights.”

  “I see.” A little quirk of his lips. “You could not share?”

  The wine is loosening me now. “No. I’m the scientific one. She was the creative one.”

  “Was?”

  “She died,” I say, even if I don’t know if that’s true anymore.

  “I’m sorry.”

  The waiter brings my gnocchi then, delicately arranged and tossed with parsley and Parmesan. I feel my father sit down across the table and fold his arms. His wrists are hairy beneath his shirtsleeves, the cuff links he always wore. I take a small bite. “Oh, that’s very good,” I say, and my father nods.

  “Good, good,” the waiter says.

  “Will you bring me another glass of wine?”

  “Oh, no, no,” Javier protests, his hands illustrating his words, flying into the air. “Allow me to share. I will never drink it all myself.”

  “Never?” I say.

  “Well, perhaps. I’d rather share.”

  I nod. The waiter smiles, as if it’s his doing. “I will be right back with your dinner, sir.”

  The fragrance of garlic rises from the plate, and I take another bite. “This was one of my father’s specialties,” I offer, and it’s out before I realize I’m going to say it. “Gnocchi with peas and mushrooms. I used to roll them out for him.”

  “Was he Italian, your father?” He leans over to pour wine into my now empty glass.

  “Sicilian.”

  “Your mother too?”

  I glance at him. “You’re quite forward.”

  “Not ordinarily.”

  “Why now?”

  He leans closer, and I see by the glitter in his eye that he’s going to say something bold. “Because my heart stopped when I saw you sitting here.”

  I laugh, pleased by this extravagance.

  “You think I am joking,” he says. “But I swear it is true.”

  “I am not the type of woman who stops men’s hearts, but thank you.”

  “You have not met the right men.”

  I pause, fork hanging from my hand, elbow on the table. Behind him, the sky is nearly dark, and the laughter around us has grown more robust. The shape of his mouth makes my skin rustle, and he has that elusive air that makes me think he will be very good in bed. “Maybe I haven’t.”

  He grins at this, and an outrageous dimple breaks in his cheek. He has to lean back to allow the waiter to deliver his food. It’s a steaming plate of prawns and crayfish in risott
o. A good eater’s choice, as my father would have said. He had no patience with picky eaters, the vegetarians who were already dotting the landscape, the ones who didn’t eat fish or beef or particular vegetables. Eat it as it is, he would say with a sniff, or don’t eat. Only Dylan was allowed to be choosy. He hated capers and pickles and olives, avocado with a passion, and would rather have starved than eat egg whites or clams. In some way, he filled my father’s desire for a son, and for a long time he doted on Dylan.

  Until he didn’t.

  “Did your father cook for you often?” my companion asks.

  “Not for me, exactly. He cooked for his restaurant. We grew up in there, eating whatever the special of the day was.”

  “That seems like an interesting childhood. Did you like it?”

  “Sometimes.” It’s easy to talk to this stranger, someone who will not remember a month from now what I said. I empty my glass and hold it out to him. He splashes in a heavy measure of wine. “Not always. It could be a little exhausting, and my parents were always wrapped up in that rather than their children.” Delicately, I balance a perfectly shaped gnocchi on my fork. “How did you grow up?”

  He touches his lips with his napkin. “In the city. My mother taught school, and my father was a . . .” He frowns, his fingers rubbing together as if to pull the word from the air. “A clerk, you know, for the government.” His face brightens. “Bureaucrat.”

  “You only?”

  “No, no. Four of us. Three boys and a girl. I am second oldest.”

  The one who needs attention, like me. Aloud, I say, “The oldest always gets everything.”

  He inclines his head slightly, disagreeing. “Perhaps. My sister is the oldest, and she is not a demanding sort. She’s very quiet, afraid of the world.”

  It’s my turn to be bold; the wine has loosened my inhibitions. We’re two strangers on holiday, and I don’t have my phone to amuse me. “Why?”

  His face shutters, and he looks down. He shakes his head.

  “Sorry,” I say. “Too far.”

  “No, no.” He reaches across the small space and touches my forearm. “She was kidnapped when she was small, so small that no one knows what happened to her. She was not the same after that.”