Swim to Me (14 page)

H
AD SHE GIVEN
it a second thought, Delores might have remembered that the middle of April held meaning for her. But the way things were, she barely had time to attend to her own schedule. Since his success, Sommers had become feverish with ideas: he added goldfish to the bathtub and backup music appropriate to the day's forecast (“Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head” during most of March, then “Here Comes the Sun” when the skies finally cleared), and he devised a rating scale for the weather ranging from one to five tails (really bad weather, one mermaid tail; perfect weather, five).

All of these additions were a headache for the crew, but had little consequence for Delores—until Sommers had his latest epiphany. The viewers would phone in the details of their upcoming special occasions, and Delores would work them into her forecast. So every night, instead of just talking about scattered clouds and north-east
winds, she'd have to recite all kinds of names and numbers: “Bartow's Enid and Larry Swigert can expect isolated showers and eighty-nine percent humidity for their twenty-fifth anniversary bar-beque tomorrow night. But the skies will brighten early Saturday morning, when the thermometer will hit sixty-eight degrees with light humidity, just in time for Ronnie Frankel's bar mitzvah at Beth David Synagogue.”

“Scriptwriting isn't in our contract,” Thelma announced to Sommers. “We need to renegotiate our fees.”

“You don't understand, do you? We are making television history,” he shot back. “We are reaching out to our audience. We're saying, ‘Hey you out there in the butt-hole of nowhere, you are just as important as we are. Your lives are our lives and we are one big, happy family.' They hear Delores Taurus mention their names on television, or maybe their friends' names or their first cousins'. Then they tune in again the next night to see if she names someone else they know. It's personal. Personal, that's the name of the game! They all feel as if she knows them.” He nipped at his college ring. “It's genius. Pure genius, if I do say so myself. So tell me, Miss F., do you have a big birthday or special anniversary coming up? I could get your name on the air. I have some pull, you know.” He closed his eyes, shrugged his shoulders, and gave a little laugh, as if once again his keen wit had snuck up on him.

Thelma put her hands on her sacrum and stuck out her stomach the way women who are late in their pregnancy do. “Let me make myself clear,” she said. “I honestly don't care if you're reaching out to the moon. A deal is a deal, and our deal didn't call for my girl to have to memorize half the Tampa phone book. And yes, I do have a special day coming up. Tomorrow marks the three-month anniversary of the first time I shook your bony little hand and found myself knee-high in all your horse manure. You play your cards
wrong, Mr. S., and tomorrow could also be the day we celebrate the last time Delores Taurus sits her pretty little fanny down in your precious little studio.”

Thelma waited for Sommers to go back at her. In truth, she loved sparring with him. It was the closest she'd ever come to opening up to a man. Her jousts with him felt physical: a jab, a punch in the gut, a split lip. Often when they were finished, she felt spent and faintly satisfied. Mostly, men didn't interest her one way or the other. All that strutting and preening and cock-a-doodle-dooing didn't amount to a hill of beans when it came down to it. She'd never understood what all the fuss was about. But this shouting at a man, saying the crudest, meanest things she could think of, this had heat and fire and juice and all those semidisgusting words that women used when they talked about men.

Few people had laid claim to Thelma's loyalty. Sure, her girls felt an obligation to her while they were in her service, but it was such a tenuous connection that she could count on one hand how many even remembered to send her a Christmas card after they were gone. But not since Newton Perry handpicked her to be one of the Aquabelles had the line ever extended the other way. Oh, she would have gladly given Mr. Perry all the loyalty in China but for the fact that he chose Ann Blyth and not her for the role of the mermaid in
Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid.
He cast his vote for the “prettier girl with the slimmer, more pleasing physique, and the sweeter aspect.”

Words like that can scorch a young girl's heart forever and reconfigure her frame of mind. From then on, Thelma covered up, never exposing her body to anyone's judgment again. And if she wasn't sweet enough, well, there were things other than a sultry pout and pretty doe eyes that a girl could use to her advantage. Thelma was organized and could get things done. Maybe people didn't take to
her naturally, but once they understood that she knew what was what and could bring out the best in their theatrical and aquatic skills, they usually came around. For all these years she'd managed Weeki Wachee, reporting to no one except for a man named Don McKeene, the accountant employed by the owners. But he was strictly a bean counter, a flabby man with a curious bluish tongue. As far as Thelma knew, he never even watched a performance; he cared only about the bottom line. Thelma was the one who gave Weeki Wachee its pizzaz—as Sommers would say, its sizzle.

Thelma hoarded her sense of loyalty and obligation to others, as if giving it would weaken her. Besides, no one had ever asked for it. So there it sat like an earthworm cut in half, groping and reaching blindly for the piece that would make it whole again. She saw in Sommers the other half of that worm, not that he'd given any indication that he felt the same way. Through some concoction of indebtedness for dragging her into the real world and a sense that her success was bound up with his, she took all those years of unspent gratitude and dumped it at his pointed, little tasseled shoes. It didn't change the intensity with which she and Sommers fought their battles. It was just that Thelma liked being a part of the WGUP local news team, and she liked making the girl one of them, too. Delores Taurus reminded Thelma of her younger self, before Ann Blyth had come along, when she had thought that everything was possible and nothing could keep her from becoming the most famous mermaid in the world.

One evening, just after the WGUP driver dropped Delores off at Weeki Wachee, Thelma called her from her office. Adrienne answered and mouthed to Delores, “It's Thelma.” Exhausted from having performed two shows and doing the weather that night, Delores made shushing motions with her hands. “I'm not here,” she whispered, certain that Thelma was calling her to clean the tank. “You don't know where I am.”

Adrienne said she hadn't seen Delores all day.

“Should she reappear any time soon,” said Thelma, “I have some news that might interest her. Enrich her, actually.”

Ten minutes later, Delores was seated across from Thelma Foote in her office. Thelma had hiked herself up so that she was sitting on her desk with her hands folded and her feet swaying back and forth. Her Keds thumping against the desk sounded like a bouncing rubber ball. The more she talked, the faster they bounced.

“The bangs are really working for you. The kewpie doll thing you do with your eyes, it's fetching, but you've got to remember to blink. Otherwise you run the risk of looking terrified. Also, when you say someone's name, stare into the camera and pretend that you're talking just to them. A little smile would make it even more personal. Personal, that's the word they like to use. The station thinks you're doing good work. Mr. Sommers—an effective man,
don't you think?—would like to give you an increase in salary now that you're having to do all that yakking about people's birthdays and christenings and whatnot. So in addition to what you're making here, you're going to clear another eighty-five dollars a week from WGUP. A nice hunk of change, I'd say. This could be big.”

Delores knew that there was more money at stake than eighty-five dollars a week. She knew that Thelma Foote was getting some of it, and that because she was a girl—well, barely a girl, a cartoon figure was more like it—she was probably making a whole lot less than everyone else on the show, just as Otto had said. She was beginning to realize how much Thelma Foote depended on her, how much Weeki Wachee depended on her. Even WGUP had gotten better ratings since she'd been on the air. Maybe this was a good time to ask for more money, make some demands. Hers was the only name on the marquee outside. That's why ticket sales were up.

Thelma was still kicking the desk and talking about how if Delores played her cards right, there was no telling what could be next. She didn't seem to hear the phone ring, even though it was right next to her thigh. After about eight rings, Delores stared at it as if she might pick it up herself.

“Oh, all right already,” said Thelma, annoyed by the interruption. “Yes,” she said, shouting abruptly into the receiver. Delores was close enough to Thelma and the phone so that she could hear the person on the other end: not so much the words as the cadence. It was a woman, and she had a voice that slid up and down like a kazoo. Something about it was familiar.

A smile sprawled across Thelma's face. “Well, how are you? Good. I'm fine and dandy, too. Oh yes, a fashion convention. Sounds very interesting. Son of a gun, she's sitting right here! Yes, life sure is full of surprises.”

Of course. It was her mother. She was on her way to Boca Raton
for that fashion accessories meeting and she was coming through Weeki Wachee to see her.

“Vice versa, Mrs. Walker,” said Thelma rising to her feet. “No, no. The pleasure is all
mine.
Hold on please.”

Thelma passed the phone down to Delores.

“Hi, Mom.”

There it was again: “Hay-llo”

She and Westie would get to the Best Western late that night. They agreed to meet at the motel for breakfast at eight the next morning. “Right, it is hunky-dory. See you tomorrow.” Delores put down the phone, then looked up at Thelma wide-eyed. “She's on the road, some fashion show. She'll stop by here tomorrow. She's looking forward to meeting you.”

“Oh brother,” said Thelma, “can I not wait to meet her.”

The next morning, at eight a.m. sharp, as planned, Delores sat in the lobby of the Best Western, waiting for her mother and Westie.

After not seeing one another for almost a year, Delores and Gail Walker stared at one another for what must have been a full sixty seconds before one of them uttered the other's name. Only Westie, a real toddler now with plump cheeks, sandy hair, and a gap between his two front teeth, looked familiar. Mother and daughter were glamorized makeovers of themselves. Delores was tan and resplendent with success, and her mother, once sallow with disappointment, looked as if she'd been given a fresh coat of paint. She'd colored and cut her hair. The pockets under her eyes were gone, and her eyes were bright with expectation and a little mascara. Delores could see from her red bell-bottoms and patent-leather red high-heeled boots that she still had her hand in the fashion closet.

And, of course, there was the way she talked.

“Well, here we all are again.” She turned to little Westie who hadn't said a word yet. “Westie, this is where you were conceptualized.”

“Mom, don't you mean conceived?” asked Delores.

“Whatever. The point is, Westie, this is where you started, where your life began. And now look, here we all are.” Her voice went flat again. “Well, not all exactly, but you and me and your sister. That's close enough.”

At two and a half, Westie wasn't a baby any more. Delores recognized the stuffed dolphin she'd sent him nearly six months earlier. It was gray and nubby and had clearly been put through the washing machine many times. He held it to his chest and stared at Delores reproachfully, as if she might try to take it away from him.

Delores knelt before him; he leaned into his mother's legs. He didn't recognize her. He had no idea she was his sister, the one who sent him all those postcards and who kept a plastic bag stuffed with cash just for him.

“Hey, Westie, hey little man,” she said, taking his hand between her thumb and forefinger. “Do you want to come and see some mermaids? And some turtles and maybe even a dolphin?” She wagged the tail on his raggedy stuffed animal and he pulled it away from her.

“He calls it Dorph,” said her mother. “I tried to tell him that it was a dolphin, but he insists on calling it Dorph.”

Delores continued in a tiny voice. “I have an idea. Maybe Dorph has a sister. How about you, me, Dorph, and Mommy go to the park and see if we can find her?”

“Westie, that's a fun idea, isn't it?” said her mother. “Dorph would like that, too. C'mon, let's go.” They each took his hand to walk across the highway, but he pushed Delores away. When they
got to the park, the first thing they saw was the sign with her name on it. She wished Westie could read. Her mother walked past the sign without noticing, until Delores nodded toward it. Her mother stared at the chunky black metal letters advertising her daughter's name.

“Oh, there you are,” she said, running her fingers over the
D
and
E
. “How nice.”

That's when her mother understood: People don't go putting people's names on signs unless they're a real somebody. Her daughter had become a somebody. She thought about Avalon and how she and Delores, young as they were, had already surpassed her with their accomplishments. She was thirty-five years old, nearly thirty-six. That was old enough to have polluted her life with failure, but maybe young enough to become somebody, too.

Westie cuddled Dorph and stared at the sculpture of the two mermaids just beyond them. Delores looked over where Westie was staring; it was the same obelisk that her father had tried to duplicate when he thrust her up in the air for that famous picture more than two years before. She thought back to the odd trio that was her family then. She would have never believed that she would actually miss her mother's self-pity and whininess. She forgot about her father's bad temper and remembered the strength in his arms and his loopy Alfred E. Neuman smile. She wondered if he knew of her success. If he did, would it even matter?