When We Believed in Mermaids

by O'Neal, Barbara

  “Yes.”

  I get off on my floor to shower and change, and he continues on. In the hallway leading to my door, I’m alone for the first time all day, and suddenly everything feels like a dream.

  I slam back into my body all at once, and it feels sad and exhausting, and all my problems are piled up, waiting for me. The question of why my sister faked her own death, where she is, the strangely clear recognition now that I’m at a distance that I’m no longer happy in the ER. I wonder how Hobo is doing without me. I wonder if I should call my mom again, but it was only this morning that we talked.

  It feels like so much longer.

  I climb in the luxurious shower, washing away seawater and blood and rain from my body and my hair. The shampoo smells of tangerines. I close my eyes and work up the suds, enjoying the fragrance—

  I’m back on the ferry, pressed against the railing as Javier kisses me, and I’m transported, his lush mouth, his exquisite skill, his way of holding my head so gently—

  I snap my eyes open. Is this a good idea? Really?

  Through the glass of the shower, I see my blurry reflection in the steamy mirror. I think of my admission that I haven’t had much happiness, and it suddenly seems ridiculous. What am I waiting for?

  Maybe for once in my life I might like to get a glimmering of what that feels like. It seems that he might know how to access it, where to find it. If I can grasp a day or two of happiness, why not?

  A soft voice of warning tries to tell me he’s dangerous to my equilibrium. I shush it, eager for once to enjoy something a little reckless. It’s only for a few days. Nothing too deep can take root in such a short time, surely.

  So I dry my hair and leave it in loose curls and wear simple clothes that he can take off when it’s time, and I go upstairs.

  He’s several floors above me, on a floor with fewer apartments. I stand before his door and pause for a moment, touching my stomach. Music plays quietly, and I hear the clank of a pan or dish. A scent of browning onions fills the air.

  What am I doing? He is a lot more . . . everything . . . than I ordinarily let myself get mixed up in. I don’t date suitable men. Not the surgeon who pursued me for more than six months before he finally realized I really meant it. Not the fit colonel who came in with a snapped wrist and charmed me with his chocolaty eyes.

  The men I sleep with—and let’s be clear that I am standing in this hallway with sex on my mind—are like the surfer from last summer, or the bartender at the restaurant I like to have dinner in a few times a month, or even the robust coworker of my mother’s, dark-skinned and charming and getting a bit long in the tooth for his dream of breaking into the music business.

  If I compare Javier to Chris, the surfer, they’re not even the same species. Javier is a grown-up, a man so comfortable with himself that he makes moving in the world look easy. Every inch of my skin wants his hands. My ears want that sonorous voice. My mouth wants his lips.

  And my belly, it reminds me, wants food. I raise my hand and knock. He opens the door and, with a flourish of a tea towel, invites me in.

  “I was afraid you might change your mind,” he says.

  I think of how long I stood in front of the door. “You promised me food. I very rarely turn that down.”

  He brushes my hair over my shoulder, touches the side of my neck. “Is it the food you came for?”

  I look up at him. Shake my head.

  A smile edges his mouth, and with one hand, he brushes my cheek. “Good. Please sit down. Let me pour you a glass of wine.”

  I wander more deeply into the apartment. This one is at least double the size of mine, with a separate bedroom and a proper, glitzy kitchen made all of aqua glass and stainless steel. The styles are different from what I’m used to. The taste of Aucklanders. His unit sits on the corner, and a balcony stretches from one set of glass doors in the living room around the corner to the bedroom, all overlooking the city center and the harbor beyond. “I love this building. It’s so . . . extravagant, isn’t it? I feel pampered.”

  “You can see the building on postcards and coffee cups.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.” He brings me a generous glass of white wine. “A local vintage. See if you like it.”

  “Thanks.” I sip gingerly, aware that I’m teetering on the shores of a lake made of exhaustion and sexual tension and jet lag, but the wine is like a breeze, sharp and clean, not too sweet. “Fantastic.”

  “Good.” He heads back to the kitchen. He’s changed clothes from earlier, and his hair is damp at the ends. He wears a pair of jeans with a Henley in heathered blue. The fabric lies easily over his skin, tastefully clinging to his torso.

  “What are you cooking?”

  “So simple, tortilla española. Do you know it?”

  I shake my head.

  His sleeves are tugged up on his forearms, and the cup towel is over his shoulder as he tilts a wide skillet and shakes the potatoes and onions within. The potatoes are slightly crisped on the outside, the onions translucent, and my stomach growls as he salts the mix, then scoops it into a bowl with raw whipped eggs. “This is everywhere in Madrid, like sandwiches in the States.”

  “Are there a lot of sandwiches? I don’t know that I ever noticed.”

  He makes a noise. “So many sandwiches! Every place has sandwiches! Turkey sandwiches, hamburgers, grilled cheese, and submarines.”

  I laugh. “Just subs. The submarine would be the boat that goes underwater.”

  “Yes.” His grin is quick, crinkles the sun lines on his face. “Subs. I like them. With ham and salami and all those vegetables.”

  “Me too. I like hamburgers too. Cheeseburgers, especially, the sloppier the better.”

  “Cheeseburgers are excellent.” He scrapes the pan and adds a fresh layer of oil, adroitly turning the pan side to side to spread it evenly. He holds his hand a few inches above the burner to test the heat and then settles the pan back down, pours in the egg and potato mix. “This is where the danger is,” he says with some seriousness. “We must be very patient, let the eggs cook slowly.”

  We both watch the eggs, watch the edges and then the middle dry slightly, and when the texture arrives at some particular level, he picks up the pan and, with a deft gesture, flips the flat omelet into the air and catches it to brown on the other side. Leaning on the counter, he gives me one raised brow and a sideways smile. “Are you impressed?”

  I laugh at my words coming back to me. “Yes. I am very impressed.”

  When the eggs finish, we sit side by side on the couch—“There is a table, but look where it is, against the wall, so cramped”—looking out to the view of the harbor. The eggs are perfect, the potatoes and the onions and all of it blending into a homey, satisfying meal.

  We both fall to eating like hungry puppies. “So good,” I manage. “I need to add this to my short list of things to cook after work.” I take a sip of wine. “Except that I never seem to remember to buy eggs.”

  His plate is empty. “Do you want some more?”

  “Yes. If it isn’t too piggy.”

  He laughs and fills my plate again, sitting with me. We watch the lights across the harbor. The music has shifted to soft Spanish guitar, a sound that almost has a color, a pale, early green that winds around the room, sprouting flowers. I think of him on the stage, bending in to sing a love song.

  “Surely,” he says after a moment, “there are market deliveries for a busy woman such as yourself. I myself would starve without them.”

  I shrug. “I just always tell myself I’m going to shop, and then I pop in and buy cat food and milk and forget everything else.”

  I’ve made short work even of the second plate, and I don’t know if it’s just anticipation or genuine hunger, but I dab my lips carefully. He takes my plate and sets it atop his on the coffee table and now moves closer, brushing my hair away from my neck.

  “Tell me about your cat.”

  “His name is Hobo,” I say, closin
g my eyes as his mouth falls on the bend between neck and shoulder.

  “I like cats,” he says quietly.

  “He’s black. A feral I rescued.” I turn toward him, settling my hands on his face so that I can kiss him properly. His jaw is exquisitely smooth, much smoother than it was on the ferry. I stroke the clean skin. “You shaved.”

  “Yes,” he murmurs, and kisses me back. As it was on the ferry, we kiss for a long time, and I marvel that only kissing can fill so much need.

  Then he stands and offers his hand, and I follow him to the bedroom. I take off my shirt and help him with his, and then my bra is gone, and our skin slides together as we kiss again and again, with increasing heat, my breath hurried and ragged as he slides his hands beneath the soft waist of my pants and helps me get out of them. I reach for his jeans, but he says, “Allow me.”

  And then we’re on the bed, naked, and I’m so hungry I almost want to bite him. So I do bite him, his shoulder. The size of his body excites me. His tongue excites me. His mouth, his teeth nipping me, his hands gripping me so hard. It’s a very physical, almost rough joining, and I’m glad of it, glad of the slamming energy, glad of the feeling of him in me, his urgency, and my own powerful grip. I wrap my legs hard around him, and we move, and move, and move. My voice is guttural, our skin slick, and we tumble over and lie there together in the dark, panting.

  “Oh my God,” I whisper against his ear, sucking the lobe into my mouth.

  “Mm,” he agrees, and raises his head. For a long moment, he looks at me; then very gently he kisses me. “So lovely.”

  And then we’re side by side, my body tucked up against his, which I ordinarily don’t like but feels good when I am so far from home, so far out of my depth. His body is bigger than mine at every point, and it makes me feel safe and sheltered, and because I’m so tired, I fall into a deep and dreamless sleep, far, far, far away.

  Again the dream arrives.

  I’m sitting on a rock in the cove, with Cinder beside me. We’re staring out to the restless ocean, and in the distance, Dylan is riding his surfboard, not even wearing a wet suit, only his yellow-and-red board shorts. He’s happy, really happy, and that’s why I don’t want to warn him that the wave is breaking up.

  And then it throws him, and he disappears into the sea. Cinder barks and barks and barks, but Dylan doesn’t surface. The water goes still, and there is nothing to see but silvery water all the way to the horizon.

  I jerk awake, glad of the weight of Javier anchoring me. My heart is racing, and I have to take a deep breath. Calm down. Calm down. Just a dream.

  “Are you all right?” Javier asks.

  “Yes. Just a weird dream.” My bladder insists on attention, so I toss back the covers and pad naked into the bathroom. My teeth are disgusting from the wine, so I squeeze a little of his toothpaste onto a finger and rub my teeth; then I swish it around in my mouth and pad back to the bedroom. Now that I’m up, I probably should really return to my apartment, but Javier tosses back the covers, and I slide in, happy for a glimpse of his bare hip, his navel. His hair is tousled and wild, and it makes me smile as I settle in next to him. One arm falls around me. I fall too into the quiet comfort of him next to me.

  It’s dawn when I awaken again. Buttery light spreads across the water beyond the windows, splashes into the high-rises around us. Within, Javier is sleeping next to me, his arms flung out in front of him, his face in repose. Beneath the sheet, he is naked, and I lift it up to look. It’s a gorgeous body.

  “Do you like it?” he says in a soft voice.

  “Quite a bit,” I say. I glance at him but don’t lower the sheet, instead making a show of staring. It stirs me, and I can tell it’s stirring him too. I smile and drop the sheet. “Good morning.”

  He narrows his eyes. “Are you cheerful in the mornings?”

  “Not usually. I can be downright surly. How about you?”

  “I have been working nights a very long time, and in Madrid that can be very late indeed.”

  “You haven’t told me what you do,” I say.

  He lifts up the sheet, looks at my body, and makes a soft ooof before he moves closer. He tosses the sheet away from us with irritation and goes back to his task. I let him, enjoying the tilt of his back, long and muscular as he examines me.

  “Your body is a wilderness,” he says softly, and brushes his fingers over my ribs, my belly, slides between my thighs, kisses my belly button, continues down my leg. His buttocks, strong and high, are in my reach, and as he explores my curves, I shape my palm around his and slide down the back of his thighs, dipping between his legs to hear his rumbling. I laugh softly, and he rises up on his knees, offering himself.

  I reach for him. “Full-frontal nudity. I like it.”

  And now, we make love more playfully, taking time to stop and admire and ask with a glance or a sound if this or that, that or that, is the best thing. He lingers over my body, stroking and kissing, and as I imagined, his mouth is everywhere, all over me, and I return the exploration, and then we’re falling into each other as the sun slides into the room through glass doors.

  Lying against him in the puddles of sunshine, thoroughly and deeply sated, I realize what I never understood about grown-up men is how much more they would have learned about women’s bodies on their journey.

  Or perhaps it’s only Javier himself, who raises his head and leans on his elbow, brushing my hair out of my face with one hand, carefully tucking it behind my ears. An ache hits my chest at that, but I don’t move. Light cascades over his powerful nose and backlights his hair, and there are marks on his shoulder from my biting him. I touch one spot. “Sorry about that. I got carried away.”

  He blinks slowly, moves his thigh against mine. “I don’t mind. It will warn the women away.”

  “Do they come at you in droves?” I ask with some amusement.

  “Not so much as when I was a little younger, but yes, still a lot.”

  I give him a frown. “Are you being serious right now?”

  He lifts one index finger and rolls sideways to pick up his phone, opens an app, and then shows me the screen. On it is an album cover and a photo of a man bending over his guitar. A woman in the shadows stares at him. The title of the album is in Spanish, but I can read the name, Javier Velez, and I recognize those hands. “This is the work that keeps you up late?”

  He nods almost sadly.

  I look around the enormous suite of rooms, recognition dawning. This is a very expensive suite. “Are you famous?”

  “Not here.” He leans on his hand, splendidly naked, and I wonder if anyone from the office buildings is looking in, seeing his well-shaped behind.

  I grin. “Are you famous somewhere?”

  “Perhaps a little. In the Latin world, they know my songs.”

  The idea sinks in slowly, and rather than making me nervous, it eases my worry. If he’s some big star, then I’m a distraction for him just as he is a distraction for me. “I suppose I will have to listen to more than one song next time.”

  He dips a finger over my navel, draws a circle around it. “Will you come tonight?”

  I rise up, pushing him backward and spreading my body over the top of his like icing on a cake, my hands on his arms. “I might have to shop for something nicer to wear.”

  He lets himself be frosted with me, his eyes shining, his lips ever so faintly tilted into a smile. “I like the red dress.”

  I kiss his neck. “I’ll find another red dress.” I crawl up to kiss him, long and slow, enjoying the plumpness of his lips, the scent of his skin. “You smell better than any man I’ve ever met.”

  “Do I?”

  Burying my face into his neck, I inhale deeply. “Like the ocean and dew and . . . something.” I try to figure it out, something spicy, but I can’t pull it in, and then we are switched, he icing the cake of my body, his hands in my hair.

  “That is very sexy,” he whispers, and bends into my neck, inhales, and sucks my skin there, once, t
hen again, and again, and again. And somehow we are making love again, slowly, tumbling one more time into each other, into pleasure.

  A little later, I’m wrapped in a sheet, and he’s wearing a pair of boxer briefs. We’re drinking coffee he made in a French press and eating flaky pastries he produced from somewhere, along with little green fruits I thought were limes at first. “Feijoa,” he said, and sliced one open to reveal a medieval cross of seeds within a soft fruit like a kiwi. It tastes powdery and sweet, a little like a pear.

  “Delicious.”

  He scoops the fruit out of the skin with a small spoon, nodding. With a finger, he strokes the discreet tattoo on my inner arm, mermaid scales with little sister written along the outside edge. Josie has a matching one. “Will you tell me about your sister?”

  I look out toward the harbor, where a sailboat is a crisp white triangle gliding toward the sea. “It’s hard to talk about her.”

  He’s silent, giving me space to move forward or not. But I am soft and wide open from making love, my carapace dissolved for the moment in a tsunami of touch. I take a breath. “She was—is—two years older than me. I adored her when we were kids. My parents were not”—I sigh—“all that great at parenthood, so until Dylan arrived, Josie took care of me.”

  He gives me a nod.

  I sip my coffee, holding the cup between my hands. “She was a happy kid, honestly. Mischievous but never bad. She didn’t like school, but she didn’t get in trouble that I remember. And then . . .” I shrug.

  “Then?”

  “She changed. It’s hard to remember, exactly, but she started getting in trouble, stealing sips of drinks from customers, particularly the men, and then as we got a little older, she stole beers out of the bar and things like that.”

  His fingers move on my ankle. “Your parents did nothing?”

  “I don’t know if they even noticed.” My stomach burns a little, and I rub it, straightening my back. Amazing how much it still stresses me out. “They were fighting, very passionate fights, yelling, throwing things, all that, and they just didn’t pay any attention to what was going on with Josie.”