03 The Fate Of The Muse - Marina's Tales (16 page)

Just then a loud voice rang out in the room,
getting everyone’s attention.

“Hey! BACK OFF BUD!” yelled Shayla.

Irina was squirming to get away from an
overly amorous photographer’s assistant, who withdrew his hand from
her rear end when everyone stopped to stare. One look at Shayla’s
blazing eyes sent him slithering away.

“I think Shayla can take care of herself,”
said Evie with amusement.

Shayla came up to us, a little contrite,
“Sorry about that… but these French dudes really skeeve me out! I
mean, they’re good looking and all, but some of them can’t keep
their hands to themselves!”

“Shayla, my dear,” said Evie with an arched
eyebrow, “Wait until you meet the Italians.”

Evie and I sat up late that night, sipping
herbal tea and talking about how we’d handle the council meeting.
When I told her that I’d been out surfing with my mermaid sisters
she was predictably alarmed. When I told her what I’d discovered
when Lorelei took me out to see Nerissa she nearly choked on her
tea.

“A baby mermaid?” she exclaimed in shock,
“Peter’s baby?”

“Maybe he had something to do with it,” I
scowled, “But she’s nothing at all like him. She’s as wild and
innocent as all the rest of them.”

We sat and speculated about what had
happened, and what it meant about our own ancestry, always coming
to only one conclusion. Mermaids and muses were the same thing, one
born at sea, another born on land.

“It must be in our X chromosomes,” I
said.

“There are some mysteries that even science
cannot explain,” said Evie.

I told her what the mermaids thought about
being “blessed”, and what they told me about my mother. Evie agreed
that if my mother had indeed spent time underwater during her
pregnancy with me, it might account for my ability to transform and
communicate with them.

“How do you know that you can’t do it too?” I
asked her.

“I certainly couldn’t make heads nor tails of
the sounds they made,” she said thoughtfully. “And I know for
certain that other muses have tried unsuccessfully to transform.
Swimming with mermaids seems to be quite the popular fantasy.”

“It does have its charms,” I agreed.

I didn’t mention my increased capacity for
telepathy; something told me that Evie had heard enough for the
time being. She seemed edgy to me, and it was so unlike her that it
unnerved me.

“Aunt Evie, doesn’t it make you feel like
you’re cheating? Helping people the way you do?”

Her crystal blue eyes met mine, “Not at all,
sweetheart. I thought I explained that you don’t
make
people
talented… you merely enhance them– free them from self-doubt.”

“I don’t get it. What about the bad
things?”

“I’m not sure how to put it,” she sighed, “I
suppose you reveal what is truly there. Something about us allows
people to express their honest selves.”

Yeah, I thought, and the congressman just
“expressed” himself right off a cliff. I thought about Peter’s gun
finding its way into my hands. No, she had to be wrong, there was
more at play here than just giving someone a little ego boost. I
wondered about seeing Stella’s spirit and communicating
telepathically with the mermaids, deciding again, that these things
were best kept to myself.

“Have you ever tried to help someone who has
no particular talent?” I asked.

Evie looked at me tolerantly, “Marina my
dear, everyone has a special talent… Most people just aren’t aware
of it, or they suppress it out of a fear of failure. It’s a real
pity that so few people in this world know what they’re actually
capable of.”

I could see the truth in what she said, but
there was something else that bothered me.

“Aunt Evie, how can you tell if someone
really loves you? I mean,
really loves you
, and isn’t just
attracted to… it?”

She laughed, “What difference does it
make?”

“What about Harold?” I kept pressing, asking
about her late husband even though I knew it made her
uncomfortable, “He was different… right?”

“Yes… yes, I suppose he was.”

“How?” I demanded, “What made him different?
How did you know he loved you?”

She pressed her lips together, “Harold was a
wise choice for me. He protected me when I truly needed help…” She
sighed, “That’s what I want for you– Don’t you see? It’s the safety
and protection that wealth can afford you. You can let your guard
down, and be free to do all the great things that you were destined
to do.”

I was irritated at her mention of money,
“What did you need protection from?”

“Nowadays, they call them stalkers,” she
shuddered, “I had someone quite obsessed with me who was getting to
be a bit of a hazard.”

“What did Harold do?”

“He took care of it,” she said with finality.
Evie got up to leave, clearly done talking for the evening. She
suggested that I turn in as well and get a good night’s sleep. I
wasn’t so sure that I could.

Just before she rounded the corner for her
room she paused, facing away from me, “Marina…”

“Yes?”

She hesitated, and then spoke, “They say no
to you… that’s how you can tell… they say no.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

MUSEUM

The wave dropped off like a cliff, a fifty
foot wall of the deepest, richest blue I’d ever seen. I flew down
the face of it in a trancelike state, aware that at any moment the
lip could curl down onto my shoulders; crushing me under a wave of
heavy rolling thunder. A perfect tube of water opened up in front
of me like I knew it would, and I entered, not even needing to
crouch inside the massive cylinder of turquoise. The song it was
singing rang down my spine and straight through every bone in my
body
.

I started awake in a luxurious bed, squeezing
my eyes shut and trying with all my might to return to the dream
that was already receding from my consciousness, maddeningly
drifting away from me. I flopped back down, not wanting to start
the day quite yet. I wrapped myself back up in the silky smooth
sheets, thinking about surfing, trying not to think about
Ethan.

I’d stayed up half the night, trying to
recall an instance where he’d said no to me. He’d refused to take
me surfing, but that was mostly work related, so it probably didn’t
count. I knit my brow together, trying to remember a time where
Ethan had denied me something I’d truly wanted. I recalled what
he’d told Cruz about going to prom. “Whatever she wants” were his
exact words. I never thought that getting my way would ever make me
feel so sad.

I dressed, moving mechanically, and finally
shuffled out to the lounge to find that room service had
thoughtfully brought us a stack of French and English papers
alongside our breakfast. They included all the fashion trade
journals, still reeking of chemicals from the fresh ink. Glossy
photos detailed the ups and downs of the week’s extravagant shows,
and Evie and I were both pleased and amused at the enormous amount
of press that Shayla got.

“Le surfer Americain!” One headline screamed,
and Evie translated the article that described Shayla’s athletic
prowess, calling her “La belle surfer fille”, and praising her bold
style and endless legs. We both basked in the satisfaction that
Shayla’s success brought, a feeling I was learning to recognize as
more than just typical goodwill.

Evie turned to me with a smile, “A supermodel
is born.” My vision of Shayla’s bright future had come to pass. The
front desk called, announcing her arrival, and Evie instructed them
to send her up “tout suite”.

Shayla bounded into the room, flooding it
with incandescent happiness, “Did you see the papers? Did you
see?”

“Yes dear,” beamed Evie, greeting her with a
kiss on each cheek. “And we’re
so
looking forward to your
performance this evening!”

The three of us sat down to coffee and
croissants, listening to Shayla tell us about her adventures in
Parisan nightclubbing. She asked me to come and see her new
apartment and I looked to Evie.

“As long as you’re back in time for the
show,” she smiled indulgently, “Unless you’d like to join me at the
spa for a rubdown.”

I declined the massage and followed Shayla
out to the street, watching her in wonder as she put her thumb and
index finger in her mouth and produced a loud whistle, summoning a
taxi that seemed to materialize from out of nowhere. She scrambled
in like she’d been hailing cabs her whole life, beckoning me to
follow. She told the driver her address and leaned back in the
seat.

“You sure have the whole taxicab thing down,”
I said with a grin.

“They’re alright,” she replied, leaning over
to whisper in my ear, “Most of them could sure use a shower,
though.”

When we got to our destination we took a
narrow winding staircase up to a tiny third floor apartment.
Walking in, the first thing I saw was a long girl sprawled out on a
short couch, fast asleep.

“Welcome to my shack,” Shayla whispered,
“Tiffany got in kinda late.” She motioned for me to follow her to
the tiny kitchen area, where a mess of cups and bottles filled a
small counter with a miniature washing machine whirring away
underneath. An assortment of lingerie was hanging to dry on a
makeshift clothesline strung over the sink. The kitchen table stood
in the corner, piled high with fashion magazines and newspapers.
The whole place reeked with the pungent incense of overflowing
ashtrays.

I followed Shayla down a narrow hall where
she proudly showed me her room, waking up another sleeping model in
the process.

“They’re not really morning people,” she
laughed. “Hey! We have all day before the show… Let’s go climb the
Eiffel tower or something!”

“I have an idea,” I said with a smile, “Let’s
go see some art.”

We pulled up at the Louvre, stepping out into
the vast paved courtyard on a beautiful blue sky day. I couldn’t
help wishing that Ethan was there with me.

“Whoa! Check it out!” Shayla cried when she
saw the pyramid, its diamond shaped panes of glass sparkling in the
sun.

“That’s where we go inside,” I told her.

We walked around to look at the fountains
before entering the glass pyramid and boarding an elevator going
down to the galleries. We wandered among the paintings, sculptures
and antiquities, stopping to pause at the feet of the Venus de
Milo.

“Recognize her?” I asked.

“Nope,” said Shayla, “What happened to her
arms?”

I shrugged, and we continued on our tour,
weaving through the crowds of tourists gaping in awe at some of the
more popular exhibits. We approached a spectacular marble statue of
Diana the huntress alongside a stag, weapon in hand.

“She looks like she could kick some butt,”
Shayla said respectfully.

“I believe she did,” I said, “She was the
goddess of the hunt and the moon.” I remembered that she also had
the power to talk to animals, and I studied the statue a little
closer. Could she have actually existed? The things I’d seen in the
past few months made nothing seem out of the realm of
possibility.

“Come see,” I said, motioning to a crowd
gathered around a small exhibit off to the side, “Look.” It was the
Mona Lisa, set in a special concrete container, protected by two
sheets of bullet-proof glass.

Shayla was tall enough to see over most of
the people, and announced in a loud voice, “Oh yeah, I’ve totally
seen
that
one before.”

Several people turned to glare at her
disapprovingly, and she stuck her tongue out at them.

I smiled at Shayla’s complete lack of
self-consciousness as we continued to weave our way through the
endless galleries. She had no expectations, and voiced her opinions
about anything that struck her fancy, freely and innocently.
Sometimes she reminded me of Lorelei in her naivety, and then she
would randomly blurt out something so wise and insightful it was
almost shocking.

I was also amused at all the attention we
were receiving from the opposite sex. Shayla was always an
attractive girl, but the new-found poise she radiated made her
seemingly irresistible. She held her head up, and walked with a
confident stride that had both the Frenchmen and the tourists
taking notice.

“That dude over there is checking you out,”
she said, tipping her head at a man who stood nearby. Unlike most
of the others, he turned away when our eyes met, becoming seemingly
engrossed in a painting.

I rolled my eyes at her, “I think it’s you
they’re all noticing.”

“Marina!” she called me over to a painting,
pointing, “Look– it’s you!”

I craned my neck to look up at the huge
canvas, six feet across and painted with a Renaissance version of
classical Greek mythology. There, hidden amongst the crowded images
of gods, goddesses and dancing nymphs was my own face looking back
at me.

Shayla laughed, “Says here some Italian dude
painted it… in 1497!”

I stepped closer, counting the dancing girls
in the center of the painting. There were nine. The information
alongside the painting described the gods Apollo, Venus, and
Vulcan. Mercury the messenger stood in the corner, his arm resting
lightly on Pegasus. The girls frolicking in the center were
identified as muses, and the hair on the back of my neck stood
up.

“A long lost relative?” Shayla teased me.

“Very funny,” I said, walking away slowly
with a few backwards glances.

We came upon another section of the museum
that housed the spectacular statue, “Winged Victory”. We had the
area all to ourselves for a few moments, and we stood back to
contemplate it in silence. It was magnificent, standing boldly in a
high ceilinged room, with oval windows set into archways that
bathed the chamber with a warm golden light.