The Mermaid's Mirror (2 page)

Lena's dad pulled at the cuffs of his white oxford shirt, as if to make sure they covered his tattoos. His blond hair curled over the collar of his shirt.

He's probably going to get one of those stockbroker haircuts now,
thought Lena.
Sad.

They stepped onto the elevator, and a woman in a crisp business suit stepped on behind them, fingers flying on her cell phone. She punched the elevator button for 27.

As the doors whooshed shut, her father said to Lena, "Push the button for twenty-nine."

"Really?" said Lena. "Twenty-nine?"

He nodded, beaming. "Practically in the clouds."

The woman glanced at Lena's dad, her gaze lingering. She closed her cell phone.

Lena was used to women ogling her dad. Her mom called him a computer nerd trapped in the body of a hot guy.

Reaching for the 29 button, Lena said, "Wow, Dad. Practically the penthouse. Or do they just want to keep you far away from the general public?" She pressed the button. A moment later, her stomach dropped as the elevator shot up. She reached out to grasp the handrail at the back of the elevator. "Why is it ... so fast?" she asked, feeling as if she couldn't catch her breath.

"This express elevator only goes between the sixteenth and the thirtieth floors," said her father. He grinned, his blue eyes shining. "Fast, huh? Did you leave your stomach on the first floor? Lena?"

She closed her eyes and held tighter to the handrail.
Almost there,
she told herself.
Just hold on.

"Lena? What's wrong?"

She couldn't answer. There was a growing pressure in her ears.

"Selena." She felt her father's hand on her arm.

"Are you okay?" shrilled the woman.

The elevator halted with a ding, and the doors opened at 27.

Lena clung to the handrail, trying to catch her breath.

The woman moved toward the exit, looking concerned. "Do you want to get off?" She held the doors open.

Lena shook her head.

The woman took her hand away, and the doors slid shut.

"Honey, what's going on?" asked her dad.

The elevator rose, and the pressure in Lena's ears ballooned.

Ding.
29.

Lena stumbled out. The floor seemed to tilt under her feet. She opened her mouth in a yawning motion to clear the pressure in her ears. "Nothing," she said finally. "I just felt weird for a second."

"You did? Are you okay?"

"Yeah. I'm fine." She shrugged away from his hand. "Let's just go see your new office, okay?"

He studied her for another moment, then nodded. "Okay. Then we'll get an early lunch. Did you eat this morning?"

"Dad, I eat every morning." Hadn't he
seen
her sitting at the breakfast table, eating the same English muffin and yogurt she always ate? No, he'd been too buzzed about visiting the office. And of course Cole was yammering on about football, and Mom was muttering about caterers (she was an events planner), so Dad had been distracted, to say the least.

They reached a pair of heavy glass doors, with two ws etched on them, and stepped into the reception area. A gray-haired man was speaking to the receptionist and turned to glance at them.

"Brian." The man approached, hand outstretched. "You made it. Good."

Lena's father shook the man's hand. "Don. Good morning," he said, his voice deepening into what Lena thought of as Dad's I'm-Being-Serious-Now voice. "This is my daughter, Lena. Lena, this is Mr. Wolinsky."

Wolinsky and Wellman Consultants.
Must be one of the bosses,
she thought. "Nice to meet you, Mr. Wolinsky."

"Call me Don, please." He smiled. "We're all looking forward to working with your father."

She smiled, too. "Great."

"This is Karen," continued Don, indicating the receptionist.

"Nice to meet you, Lena," she said. "What lovely hair! You have your father's blond hair."

"Thanks."

"In ten years I probably won't have any of it left," her father said, chuckling. "I'll have to look at Lena to remind myself what it looked like."

Lena cringed.

Karen laughed. She held up a bowl of M&M's. "I always offer candy to the kids when they visit, but I guess you're not a kid anymore, are you? Let me see—are you fourteen? Or fifteen?"

"I turn sixteen next week," said Lena. She took a couple of M&M's. "Thank you."

"Oh!" said Karen. "You're so petite, I guessed too young." She winked. "When you're my age, you'll appreciate that."

The three adults shared a slightly-too-hearty laugh, and Lena smiled, putting the M&M's in her mouth so she wouldn't have to respond.

"Well," said the Boss Guy. "Shall we give Lena the grand tour?" He turned to lead them down the hall.

The guy
—Don,
Lena reminded herself—introduced Lena to the other people in the office, most of whom had already met her father. Lena thought it was the politest group of people she had ever met, everyone smiling and saying nice things about her dad.

"Let's take a look at the view from my office," said Don.

Lena followed them into a spacious corner office, dominated by a floor-to-ceiling window that curved around the edge of the building.

"Come look, Lena," said her dad. "Isn't this something?"

She stood next to him, the glass of the window so crystal clear that it seemed as if they were standing at the edge of the twenty-ninth floor with
no
window in front of them ... nothing to keep them from falling. She took a breath and looked down. Cars and taxis, buses, and bicycles flowed up and down the streets, advancing and stopping in a traffic dance. People moved along the sidewalks, colorful and distant. There was a grassy park across the street, ringed with trees and flowers. A bubbling fountain was the centerpiece of the park, with a bunch of little kids running around it in circles. San Francisco Bay glinted in the distance.

Lena's face grew warm, and a light sweat broke out on her forehead. It felt like the building was swaying, as if in a heavy wind. But the flag on the flagpole across the street hung slack.

She lifted a hand, as if to hold on to something. But there was nothing there. She focused on the park across the street to regain her perspective. The water in the fountain sparkled and splashed, sparkled and splashed. As she watched, suddenly she felt like she might plummet out the window, not falling straight down, but sailing through empty air like a bird, against all laws of gravity, until she crashed into that bubbling fountain.

The pressure in her ears returned, along with a roaring sound.

Lena opened her mouth, trying to take in more air. The back of her neck felt hot, and she thought,
Oh, no—I'm going to throw up in front of my dad's new boss!

She fell forward against the glass, which was suddenly hard and reassuring under her palms.

Darkness swam into her eyes, and the last thing she heard was her father calling her name from far away.

"Absolutely. Yes. You're right." Lena's dad, his voice brittle, talked on the phone while Lena stared out the window of the car. Her mind kept replaying the moment when she woke up in that guy's office with a bunch of scared faces looking down at her. She would never forget it, no matter how long she lived. That Karen woman had wanted to call 911!
Errgh.
She leaned her head against the side window.

"We'll be home in less than an hour," said her dad. "Okay. Here she is." He handed the phone to Lena.

"Hi, Mom."

"Hi, sweetie."

The sound of her mom's voice caused a lump to form in Lena's throat. "I don't want to go to the hospital."

"I know, sweetie. Dad and I talked about it, and we decided it's probably not necessary, but I'm going to call Dr. Feldman."

"Mom, I'm fine!"

"Of course you are. You probably just had a little attack of vertigo, but I still want to talk to Dr. Feldman."

Lena sighed, even though she knew her mom was right.

"See you in a little while."

"Okay, bye." Lena closed the cell phone and handed it back to her dad.

He plugged it into the charger and started the car. "Sorry about the shopping, Leen, but—"

"I don't care," said Lena. Her dad was supposed to take her shopping after the visit to his new office, but now they were going straight home. Which was fine with Lena. She didn't exactly want to start passing out all over San Francisco.

Her dad drove out of the city and headed south on Highway l.

They passed a big green highway sign:

Santa Cruz,
thought Lena.
There's a bunch of surf schools there. It's only forty-five minutes away. Dad's been asking what I want for my birthday...

She looked at him hunched over the steering wheel, his expression taut, and decided that now was not the time to bring up surfing.

***

Her mom did her best to act calm and unworried when Lena got home, but her being home in the middle of the day was proof enough that things were not normal.

"What did Dr. Feldman say?" asked Lena.

Mom kissed her forehead, and Lena knew she was checking for fever. "Her nurse said to make sure you ate something, and to call back if it happened again. Apparently fainting can happen sometimes during puberty. We might want to take you in for a blood test to make sure you're not anemic."

"I'm fine," said Lena, for what felt like the twentieth time. "I just got dizzy. It was so embarrassing!" She cringed all over again at the memory of waking up surrounded by strangers. "At least I didn't puke in front of Dad's new boss."

"Oh, honey!" said her mom. "No one cared about that. They were just worried about you fainting."

Lena's father said, "Yeah, well, you should have seen the Oriental rug in that corner office. I was glad she didn't puke, too!"

"Brian!"

Her dad put his arm around Mom's shoulder. "Kidding, honey."

Cole came crashing down the stairs into the living room. When he saw their parents hugging, he threw his arms around both of them. "Group hug!" he yelled.

Mom held out an arm to Lena. "Come on, you know the drill."

Lena moved into the family circle, putting one arm around her mom, and reaching out with the other to rumple Cole's hair.

He ducked out from under her hand. At six years old, he was starting to resist rumpling. He turned his bright blue eyes—so much like Dad's—up to Lena and asked, "Want to play catch with me?"

"Maybe later, Coley," she said. She heard that question from her brother at least once a day—she and her parents rotated shifts of playing catch with him.

"Okay," he said. "Tell me when you're ready?"

"Sure."

He bounded out of the room and headed back upstairs.

"Have you had lunch?" asked her mom. "Yes," said Lena. "Dad and I stopped at Pink Cottage on our way home."

"You stopped at the Pink Cottage and didn't get me scones?" said her mom, mock-aghast.

Lena left her parents to discuss the lack of scones, calling over her shoulder, "I'll be in my room."

She climbed the stairs and went into her room, closing her door. She logged in to her IM. Pem was online.

Sea_girl:
Hey.
PemberLoca:
Lena! Ur home early.
Sea_girl:
Yeah.
PemberLoca:
How come back so soon?
Sea_girl:
Umm...
PemberLoca:
??
Sea_girl:
This weird fainting thing happened.
PemberLoca:
Wha??!!
Sea_girl:
Yeah. Felt rly weird, then I fell over.
PemberLoca:
OMG scary! Were u with ur dad?
Sea_girl:
Yeah, his new work.
We were by this huge window way up high n I guess I got dizzy.
PemberLoca:
Going to doctor?
Sea_girl:
Prolly.
PemberLoca:
Too freaky! U ok, bff?
Sea_girl:
Yes! Just a one-time thing.

Lena lifted her hands from the keyboard, suddenly chilled.
Just a one-time thing.
That's what she'd told herself about the sleepwalking.