An Ordinary Drowning, Book One of The Mermaid's Pendant (15 page)

“Yes.”

“There
is a way to put off your tail. But it’s dangerous and painful, not to be done
on a whim. Your father won’t let you do it if he finds out.”

“He’s
not going to find out.”

The old woman
sucked on her clove cigarette again. Its scented smoke obscured her withered
face, but Tamarind felt the sting of her barbed gaze.

“You’ll
put your tail off, but you don’t really understand what it’ll cost you.” She
paused but went on again before Tamarind could say anything. “It’s a terrible
transformation, young one. You may die or worse—you may live but be horribly
disfigured, neither mermaid nor human. Are you ready for that?”

A chill
tickled Tamarind’s chest, but she nodded.

“It
won’t be enough, you know. It takes more than legs. You’ve got to learn how to
walk among humans. Are you really willing to give up all that being a mermaid
means? For some man?”

“Yes.”

The old
woman threw the cigarette stub on the ground and pressed it into the earth with
a calloused sole. “I don’t think you’ve got it in you to make it as a human.”

There
was a long silence. Laughing gulls mocked them from the fringe of mangrove
trees along the nearby coastline. Tamarind studied the birds.

“You
won’t help me then?”

The old
woman sighed and then turned back to her bundle. “I’ve warned you, but you’re
the one who has to choose, not me. I’ll help you, but my help doesn’t come
without a price.”

“What do
you want? Cone snails? Jellyfish? Sea anemone? ”

“Ha!
Those are hardly enough for my help. No. You’ve got to be my servant and work
off the debt until the rainy season ends.”

Before
Tamarind could accept these terms, the old woman spoke one last time.

“And
your legs disappear, too, unless you mate with this human. That’s why I want
you to search your heart to make sure he’s worth all you’re risking. If so,
return to me after the first rain.”

***

Tamarind
wandered as far inland as the power she drew from the sea allowed her. With
each step, the air around her threatened to suck moisture from her core and out
through her pores. Each breath she drew seared her throat and lungs. After only
a few dozen steps her head ached and her thoughts swam inside her head. She
collapsed on the sidewalk under a
flamboyan
tree, wondering how she ever
thought that she could sustain herself long enough to find John. Culebra might
be a small island for a mermaid to swim around, but it might as well be a trip
to the other side of the world for her to cross by land.

She
looked up into staring eyes in the
flamboyan
tree behind her. In the
space between two breaths, she switched to her cloaking glamour. When her heart
calmed down a bit, she realized that the eyes and face belonged to a painted
figure. The resemblance to
mer
art left at particular underwater meeting
places reassured her. While she rested, she examined the distinctive dot
pattern and wide mouth, the sightless eyes. Just as she began to hum to
herself—a low, even hum devoid of clicking—she realized that someone had passed
her on the sidewalk on the way to the plaza. She turned her head in time to see
John pause and look around him, his eyebrows drawn together under a cap. When
his gaze swept past her and moved around to the other side of the street, she
switched aspects again.

“John.”

He
jumped. “Good grief, Tamarind! How in the world do you keep sneaking up on me
like that?” He sounded annoyed. And something else that she wasn’t sure about.

“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.

“What
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.