Mermaid Read online

At this point, Nick doesn't believe me. Maybe if these kids hear what I've heard, he will.

  We settle on an admission charge of fifty cents. I let the kids--all six of them--file into the backyard. There are four boys and identical twin girls.

  "Shit," the tallest boy says. "What a rip-off. It's just a pool."

  "Bummer," one girl mutters.

  Another kid grabs her arm. "Maybe we should toss Jenna in."

  They shout and shuffle, and finally the first boy I spoke with tosses his baseball cap into the center of the pool. It floats, and then bubbles appear at the edges, and then steam rises from the bill. A moment later, it vanishes.

  "Did it sink?" Jenna asks, peering over the edge.

  "That was sick," another boy says. He looks down at his phone, where he's videoed the evidence. "I'm selling this to TMZ."

  "No, wait," I say, but they have already run off.

  I lock the gate behind them and go into the house. I call Nick's cell phone. "Please," I say, "come home."

  Something in my voice must make him think I'm losing it, because he doesn't even put up a fight. As I hang up, I remember what the pool said last night. I search my cabinets and kitchen drawers for sweets, but all I can find are raisins and an old box of Baci chocolate-covered cherries. I toss the raisins one by one into the center of the pool, but nothing happens. I throw the candy in all at once. The cherries sink faster than the raisins, but all of them are gone before they hit the bottom. A fine, cool mist rises from the surface. It's violet and cerise, goldenrod, indigo. It's the most beautiful rainbow.

  I didn't tell Nick for six weeks; I knew the words would change everything. So instead I pretended I did not have to swallow them down a dozen times a day. I went to work and grocery-shopped and cooked dinner and picked up my dry cleaning and went to bed early, letting his messages go to voice mail. Nick brought me flowers and took me out to dinner, sure that I was giving him the silent treatment for a reason. In reality, I just didn't know what to say.

  One day, I was in the penguin enclosure, scrubbing shit off the rocks while the slippery little guys dove and waddled around me in their faux formalwear. I shivered in the water, oblivious to the crowds taking pictures as I worked. Then I heard Frank's voice, asking me to bring 568 to the infirmary. I had no idea what the vets were going to do to that penguin, but then it wasn't my job to ask. It was my job to sort through the constantly moving mass of a hundred penguins and find this needle in the haystack.

  "Over there," Frank yelled from dry ground, pointing to one little guy on a rock. He had something tangled around his neck; that was probably the issue.

  Penguins, it should be noted, do not stand still.

  "Here, buddy," I murmured in a sweet singsong as he flapped his wings at me. "I am absolutely not stalking you right now . . ."

  I grabbed him with both hands, tucking him under my arm like a football. That's when I realized that the cord around his neck was a ribbon, and that tied to it was a diamond solitaire ring.

  "Marry me?" Nick said. He was suddenly in the penguin enclosure, wearing a wet suit, and there were a hundred people clapping.

  "I'm pregnant," I blurted out.

  To his credit, Nick did not skip a beat. "I've always hated long engagements," he said, and he kissed me.

  I give a five-dollar bill to a kid who is hanging around, hoping to see the pool, and ask him to get me a package of Hershey's bars at the Handimart. I want something I can use to show Nick, when he gets home for lunch, that I am not making this up.

  The first thing Nick says when he sees the pool is, "What did you do with the reef?" As if I would be able to move a five-hundred-pound hunk of fake coral by myself.

  I tell him the pool ate it. That it's hungry.

  Nick unbuttons the collar of his shirt. "Hope," he says, "do you even hear yourself?"

  I throw a chocolate bar into the pool.

  Nick tries to catch it before it hits the water, yelling about the level of acidity. But I've thrown it too far and the chocolate sinks. We both watch that rainbow glow. "See?" I say.

  Nick grips the back of a lounge chair as if he is about to fall down.

  Greens, the pool sighs.

  "I'm going to find some vegetables," I say.

  "Don't be ridiculous," Nick says. "There's a scientific explanation."

  "Really?" I ask. "Like what?"

  "Like you're imagining things."

  "Did you see fish in this pool yesterday?"

  "Yes, but--"

  "Are you imagining things, too?"

  Well. He comes up short there.

  "Hope, I have to go back to work. Just promise me you won't . . . do anything. All right?"

  I nod.

  But after Nick leaves, I take the station wagon to the supermarket and back up to the loading dock. A teenage clerk tells me I can't park there. "Lady," he says, "what do you think you're doing?"

  "I need an awful lot of vegetables, and I was hoping you could load them for me," I say, stepping out of the car.

  The boy grins as soon as he sees my face. "Hey! Is this for your pool? My little brother told me he saw your pool eat a baseball cap this morning." He opens the hatch of my station wagon. "Just wait here."

  A moment later, he reappears with a big man sporting a greasy comb-over. "No kidding, Owen," the man says. "This is the chick with the monster pool?" He sizes me up. "You want yesterday's stuff? I'll give it to you for half price."

  "Half price? Weren't you going to just throw it out?"

  He winks at me. "You got me, girlie," he says. "Owen, load her up."

  Peacock flounder are brown, with vibrant blue rings and spots all over. They have a deep V between their eyes, as if they're constantly consumed with thought. They can change color to blend in with the bottom of the sea.

  Here is my favorite fact: as peacock-flounder larvae mature, their bodies mellow into circles. Their right eye migrates to the left side of their body through a slit left behind by the separation of the dorsal fin from the cranium.

  During this time, they are both asymmetrical and blind.

  Once, when I was a mermaid, the air hose cut out during one of my solo performances. It was a Saturday in February, and the park was packed with tourists. I put the bubbler up to my mouth to breathe in, but there was no air flowing from the oxygen tank. I smiled, tiny bubbles floating from my nostrils. I waved to a little girl who had pink sneakers.

  I could have swum to the surface. No one would have thought twice about me aborting the act in the middle, due to a technical malfunction. But instead, I let go of the hose and let it trail behind me while I sank. I curled my tail beneath me and I shrank to the bottom corner of the glass enclosure, my hair a festive cloud around my face.

  I held my breath until my lungs were on fire.

  Until I couldn't see anything but white.

  I imagined myself, as clear as the Florida sky, unfurling in that tank, lying on the sandy bottom, fast asleep. A princess in a glass box.

  Instead, Audra--who was on duty next--saw the air hose floating and dove into the tank and yanked me to the surface, pounding on my chest until I spit up all the water I had swallowed.

  There are two vans in my driveway. One says Brookville Labs on the side, and the other has a drawing of Jesus. As I park, a nun with a face as wrinkled as linen steps up and presses her palm to the window. I unroll it. "God bless you, Mrs. Payne," she says.

  She is joined by a striking young priest with green eyes and jet-black hair. I am so busy staring at his dimples that I don't hear what he's saying.

  "It's too good to believe," the nun says.

  "I'm sorry?" I say. "What is?"

  "God," the priest replies. "Right here in your backyard. Your neighbor, Margaret LaFoye, saw the face of the Lord reflected in the pool from her bedroom window." He reaches for my hand. "I'm Father Laborteaux," he says. "We're from Saint Margaret's on Mooney Street. And I have a van full of the Sisters of Mercy, who'd love to pray in your backyard . . ."