by Elle Tyler
“She’ll come,” I assured. “Keep your eyes on the water tonight. Topolina won’t be far. She loves the fireworks.”
The little girl ran away, and as soon as she found her family on the beach, I watched her arms flail as she told her mom about my story, and then she grabbed her little brother and they both stared at the ocean, waiting for the most beautiful mermaid in the world. Waiting, like me, for my topolina.
And in the darkness that night, long after the fireworks, long after the beach cleared and as the soft waves rolled, I swore I saw beauty staring back at me. It was like theater night, when I carried her warmth home on my arm. Her ghost still lingered beside me.
***
When I returned to Red Pine, I went to visit Pearl the following Sunday, but all I found was a woman face down in the dirt with a basket full of ripe tomatoes at her side. Heart failure was the name of her murderer. “No, nothing ever happens by coincidence,” I told the sky that night.
Nothing at all.
DANCE ME TO THE END
Part Six
BIRTHDAY WISHES
29.
IT WAS LATE WHEN I arrived in New York. My parents’ house was dark, but when I stepped inside, my father was still awake. He had an old radio taken apart on the kitchen table and a lamp missing a shade guiding his attempt to put it back together.
I smiled at him. “Why the hell are you messing with that thing, Pop?”
He glanced at me as he tinkered. “A good puzzle keeps the mind sharp. Sit. I’ll make you coffee as soon as I figure out where this piece goes.”
“I can’t.” Because I was about to burst at the seams. “I only came to buy the Chevy off you.”
He put down the screwdriver and stared at me. “I’m not selling the Chevy.”
“I’m picking up Everly Anne. Today is her twenty-first birthday.”
He scooted away from the table and stood. “I’ll get you the title.”
I laughed. “That was way easier than I imagined. I almost feel as though I’m taking advantage of you, Pop. I should have come earlier, while you were still lucid.”
“I’m lucid,” he declared, staring me straight in the eye. “Have been for almost a year.”
“Is that true?”
“Yes.” He nodded. “And your Everly Anne is why. So I’ll get you the title. Excuse me.”
On the way out the door, he handed me the keys and the title and said, “Take care of her. A lot of history in that classic.”
I turned and gave him a solid hug. “And more to be made, Pop.”
He patted my back and let me go.
***
Did you ever steal something so minor, it shouldn’t really matter that you took it without asking, but still, you felt completely guilty about it? When I knocked on Everly’s front door, I wanted to feel liberated. I wanted to see her swing that goddamn front door open and smile victoriously. But when it happened, it wasn’t like that at all. Brighton greeted me—and by greeted, I mean he opened the door and stared daggers at me until Everly slid past him, and then he watched from the stoop as I loaded her things into the Chevy. I felt like that damn thief as I looked up at him, except I was stealing something big.
I shut the passenger door for her and then walked around the Chevy to meet him at the bottom of the steps. His eyes were only on her, where she sat in the car.
“I’ll take care of her,” I promised. “I should thank you for always doing that, Dr. Brighton.”
His eyes flicked to me, dark as heated coals. “Don’t give me your damn pleasantries now.”
He turned on his heel and slammed the door behind him, cutting off all lights to the house, leaving me in the dark.
Before I turned over the ignition, I looked at her. It was like a dream.
I took her hand into mine. “Good birthday, Everly Anne?”
Finally she looked at me, and as if she had suddenly remembered my words, she smiled, bringing life into her eyes and giving her all to me, so I could see her shine bright.
“Good birthday, Callum Andrew.”
“It’s about to get much better,” I promised.
She smiled again, but this time there was fire behind her eyes as she looked at me. “I can’t believe you came back for me.”
“I never left,” I replied, brushing her cheek with my fingers.
She pushed forward and wrapped her arms firmly around my neck, burying her face into my shoulder.
“I have a surprise for you,” I said.
“You do?”
I soothed her back with my hands. “It’s your birthday. Of course I do.”
***
As we drove, we didn’t recount the blank space between graduation and now. Time sewed us back together as if it were sorry for ever having torn us apart. Nothing had changed. She still laughed beautifully.
It wasn’t the Fourth of July, but I drove her to Montauk. We arrived after dark, and the house was completely empty. I flipped on the lights and set her things in the living room. There was a building conflict inside of me as I looked at her, surrounded by privacy, memories, and silence. I carried her to the kitchen counter and set her down.
“When you were nineteen, I wanted to kiss you here that morning. Did you know that?”
She pressed her forehead against mine. “When I was nineteen, I wanted you to kiss me here that morning. Did you know that?”
“Can I kiss you now that you’re twenty-one?”
“Do you still love my short dresses?”
I wound my arms around her waist and slid her flush to my chest. “I still love you.”
“Nothing you could give me that’s better than that on my birthday, Callum Andrew.”
“Not even a kiss?”
“Well...” She scraped her fingers along the back of my head. “Maybe that.”
***
“What’s with all the balloons?” she asked as we walked along the beach.
The little girl, Shannon from the Fourth, beamed, “It’s for Topolina!”
Shannon’s mother Petra smiled at me. “We did our best. Hope this is okay.”
I nodded. “You did perfect. Thank you.” I looked at Everly. “This is my girlfriend, Everly Anne.”
“Nice to meet you, I’ve heard so much—”
I cut her off by asking Shannon, “Have you spotted anything yet?”
“Nope! But I’m keeping watch for her!”
“Who?” Everly glanced at me, her eyes confused.
“A mermaid named Topolina,” I replied. “She’s become very popular around these parts since the Fourth of July. Hey, Shannon, isn’t that right?”
“Yes!” The little girl jumped. “And she is the most beautiful mermaid with a heart of gold and eyes like emeralds! She loves rubies! Do you love rubies?” She waved to the balloons.
“Rubies?” Everly glanced at me, smiling. “Oh, is that what the balloons are—treasure?”
I leaned in to her ear. “The treasure is right beside me.”
But Shannon kept on going. “Yes! We set rubies on the shore and try to get her to come out of the water! Last year, we saw her after the fireworks! Me and my brother Jeremy saw her tail!”
“Well, God bless America.” Everly laughed. “I’m so sorry I missed that. I would love to see a mermaid.”
I watched Everly. “With eyes like emeralds and a heart of gold.”
“That would be something to behold,” she said, looking at me.
“She sure is, Everly Anne.” I caressed her cheek. “She sure is.”
Shannon interrupted as Jeremy came over. “I heard she likes pirates! She won’t be friends with anyone who isn’t a pirate!”
Jeremy didn’t like that. “No! No! She has a castle under the water and her hair changes colors!”
“What does that have to do with pirates?”
A third child came into the mix. “She has a big ship with a glittery flag! I saw it last year!”
I leaned into the group. “Don’t forget she is a skilled biscu
it maker.”
They lit up. “Yes! Sea biscuits for the prisoners! And cupcakes with seaweed for the bad kids who don’t leave her rubies!”
Everly shook her head at me but laughed. “What have you done, Callum Andrew?”
“You wanted me to make up a story about you, so I did.”
“Did you miss the part about after I die?”
I kissed her shoulder. “Now where’s the fun in that?”
***
“Where’s my boat, Callum Andrew?” she asked as we climbed the stairs. “You didn’t send it out to sea yet, did you?”
“It’s still here,” I assured. “Want to swing?”
“It’s the only reason I’m asking.” She smiled at me but then turned away. “You have that look again.”
I encircled her waist with my arms as we walked down the hall and kissed her neck. “You have that beautiful thing again.”
Very little swinging had happened in the boat on that Fourth of July.
Every inch of me wanted to relive exploring Everly Anne as if I had never had the pleasure before. We lay face to face, remembering each other with the tips of our fingers and soft presses of our lips. That first day I saw her in third year came rushing back as a strange nervousness crept into my touch. There was no control over my hands; they trembled with need. On her hip, as I pulled her against me. Under the limp fabric of her dress, as I slid my palm along her bare thigh. The unfastening of buttons that kept my mouth from her breasts.
She was oddly braver.
Her hands slid north and south all at once, eager and bold, leaving me partially unable to decide where my desire craved her most. She unbuttoned my shirt twice as quickly and didn’t tremble as her fingers mapped a line from the lull between my ribcage straight down to the seam of my pants.
“Everly,” I whispered.
“Touch me,” she pleaded, her hand sliding over mine that covered her cheek. She drew me down to her breast until my hand was fully cupped around her bare softness.
And then our dance synchronized into a harmony of feverish need. Exploration revealed the secrets of her skin through sighs of my name. The pulse point under her ear was the most musical note that filled the room while we tested and tried innocently. We undressed more gracefully than I had remembered with the women I’d slept with before, perhaps because everything with Everly was deliberate.
The curve of her waist and hips deserved feather-traced caresses as her dress fell away. I kissed her from the pulse in her neck down to a freckle on her ankle and all the spaces that lived between.
And if it were as simple as needing something physical to fulfill ourselves, this moment would have been as fleeting as the ocean’s drift, but the more we were treated with touch, the closer we were brought to the face of verity—to the power of this unyielding truth that lived in both of us. Brighton and rules were escapable, but death and love were not, and here we were, running full force in both directions.
Her voice shook like a traitor to her brave hands. “I love you,” she admitted, her voice so shy. As if I hadn’t already known. “I love you.”
“I love you, topolina.” I kissed those words across her throat, down to her ribs until she believed me, legs parted and inviting as I slid between.
My eyes pressed close with a curse. “I didn’t bring you here for this. We can stop. I don’t... I don’t have anything here, Everly.”
“I don’t want anything else,” she confessed. “Just you.”
My forehead fell against hers. “That goddamn word. No.”
“You,” she amended with a pull of her scissor-locked legs around my back. I shifted myself forward, feeling her ready beneath me, so warm and welcoming. My lips kissed between her breasts, and that was when her heart told me to back up. She raced under me, labored breaths that spoke the truth, not simple anticipation. The heat of my naked body pressed against hers would have been appreciated by another woman, but to Everly, it was only trouble on the rise. I had to listen to her beyond her sighs and breathing.
Everly traced her fingers along the muscles of my shoulders, speaking to me in tight grasps and halting palms. It was the first time I’d ever slipped off the edge with someone else holding on to me. And nothing in the world could ever outbid that kind of nirvana.
In the clutches of euphoria, I lost hold of my discipline and fell against her, heated skin to skin. She clung to my neck and panted as I drowned in the intensity of an orgasm unlike anything I had ever experienced, every fiber in my body pulsed and sparked beneath the surface, my heart pounding out a rhythm that sang from my lips into her ear an infinite string of I love yous.
“Callum Andrew,” she begged, palms pushing on my chest.
I fell back to reality and rolled swiftly away, a foot of space safely between us as we lay on our sides face to face, just as we began. My fingers swept wayward strands of hair from her face and traced her cheek until she cooled and caught her breath. She rolled into my touch and then slid closer. Her flushed lips quickly became inundated with amorous kisses.
I fell asleep with her heart pressed against mine.
***
I awoke with her calling my name in a panic.
My eyes barely opened. “What’s wrong, peach?”
She stood next to the bed wrapped in my robe. “There’s blood.”
My body perked up, but then I sighed heavily. “It was your first time.”
“I know how it works,” she scoffed. “But how do I know it’s only that?”
I looked up at her as I rolled to my side. “You think I impaled a major organ or something?” I lifted her robe, but she smacked my hand away. “Are you still bleeding, topolina?”
“No.”
“Then you’re fine. And no longer a virgin. Come back to bed.”
“But how do you know I’m fine?” she insisted.
“A piece of paper was once given to me certifying that I am allowed to have an opinion that carries weight when it comes to matters of human health.” Didn’t like that answer. “And I love you and would never impale your major organs with my major organ.”
Her face soured. “Where’s the romantic man who left me ‘rubies’ on the beach earlier? I want his opinion.”
I reached for her. “Come to me.” She let me spoon her against me under the covers, where I kissed her bare shoulder and held her tight. “I’m not here to freak out about every little thing that happens to you. If you wanted that life, you would have stayed with your dad. I’m not worried because I’m being logical, not because I don’t love you or worry about you. But I refuse to make you fear love. And I doubly refuse to enforce the paranoia your dad instilled into your mind.”
“I’m not paranoid,” she whispered.
I smiled against her shoulder. “You are a little bit.”
“How would you feel if you were me and saw blood but couldn’t feel an injury? You wouldn’t be scared?”
“Are you scared?” I brushed her aside and kissed her spine. “Is that why you’re upset with me?”
“I’m...” She rolled over to look at me. “I only know one life.”
“I don’t believe that. You know why?” She shook her head no. “Because Marta told me about your little biscuit-making adventure, and how you were able to cook without hurting yourself. So I started thinking about that and wondered what else you had dreamed about doing but never had the chance.” I traced her forehead with my finger. “Inside of here, Everly Anne, you have lived a completely different life than what others have ever seen, haven’t you? Your made-up world where a mother is a book of lessons and kind gestures live inside of mundane, black-and-white moments where some people only see coffee and tokens. The gospel you feel outside of church because, to you, everything is a blessing. Right?”
She smiled from her eyes. “There he is.”
I kissed her. “He has something else for you, too.”
I found my jeans on the floor and dug out my wallet, pulling out a newspaper clipping Pearl had given
me. Back in bed, I handed it to Everly.
“Happy birthday, topolina.”
I slid closer as she unfolded the paper and wrapped one leg around her as I leaned my lips to her bare shoulder. We shared a kiss before she began to read. “I love you,” I whispered across her lips and then tucked a single kiss behind her ear. “Thank you for staying strong for me.”
She rested against me as she examined the article in her hands. I drew my fingers down the picture until I found a woman with familiar blonde hair and a noticeable bump.
“That was you.” I kissed the back of her head. “That’s how you looked with your mother—Merriam Brighton from Webster, Georgia.”
She was silent save for her breath exhaling in disbelief. I let her read the article.
The headline read:
GEORGIA PEACH SOCIETY GIVES SWEET
THINGS FOR THOSE IN NEED
“See,” I said softly. “You’ve always been a peach.”
She kept her eyes on the article. “How did you find this?”
“I’ve made a few friends in Red Pine.”
“I look like her,” Everly marveled. “I really do look like her.” Her thumb blotted over Brighton’s face where he stood next to his pregnant wife. “No wonder.”
“What?”
“That’s why he doesn’t love me. I remind him of her. And I’m the reason she’s dead.”
I wrapped my arms around her shoulders. “Don’t be sad. Don’t let Timothy take this from you. You have a right to know about your mom.”
“I know, and I’m not sad. I just understand.” She admired the picture again. “They looked happy. He... He looked happy.”
“Of course he was happy—you were safe.”
Everly turned to me. “Thank you.” Her eyes were sincere.
I tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear. “I love you.”
“You have no idea.”
She slept with the article tucked beneath her pillow. We couldn’t hold each other and savor during the night, but there was something charming about finding her hand clutched on my arm as we slept, her toes pressed to my leg, and a need to have my face buried in the bouquet of her hair.