Real Mermaids Don't Sell Seashells (5 page)

Once we returned to the hotel, I got
lots
of time to chill out when I tried to get ice from the ice machine one floor down and got stuck in the elevator on the way back up.

No joke. I was caught in an elevator in a hotel I'd nicknamed “the Asylum.” Truly a horror flick in the making.

The whole thing just shuddered to a stop with a groaning thud, and the lights even flickered to add to the mood. I was alone on the elevator (of course) so I tried using the red phone meant for emergencies but it was dead (naturally). I banged on the elevator door but I guessed I was between floors because no one answered. Honestly, all I needed was a boa constrictor to drop down from the ceiling and my untimely demise would be complete.

Thankfully, I had my cell phone with me since I'd been using it to take pictures. Even though Mom and Dad hadn't gotten me cell-phone service for our trip to the Bahamas, the hotel Wi-Fi was good enough to connect with Cori back in our hotel room via Video Gab.

“Where's that ice?” Cori asked when she answered. “It's boiling in here.”

Oh, yeah—did I mention? In addition to the obvious electrical issues, the Asylum was apparently not very fond of air conditioning.

“I'm stuck in the elevator!” I yelled, motioning to the mirrored walls around me to prove my point. It didn't help that the mirrors kept reflecting my image on and on into infinity, adding to the
Twilight
Zone
-ish tone of the moment.

“What?” Cori yelled. “Are you okay?”

I could see Dad's beet-red, sunburned face come into view of Cori's screen. “Jade! Where are you?”

“Get me out of here!” Thoughts of my airplane ride over the Atlantic Ocean buzzed through my head. What was worse, I wondered, spiraling downward into a watery grave or plunging to my death in an elevator shaft? “I'm stuck in the elevator and the service phone doesn't work. Can you call the front desk to let them know I'm trapped in here?”

“I'm on it!” Dad yelled.

“You want me to keep you company on the phone?” Cori asked.

“No. Save your battery,” I replied. Cori hadn't brought her phone charger. “Hopefully I'll be out of here in a few minutes.”

I hung up and leaned against the elevator, sliding down the wall and sitting on the floor, already regretting not staying on the phone with Cori when I had the chance. Then it occurred to me that if I could Video Gab with Cori via the Internet in the hotel, I could probably connect with Luke back home too.

I found Luke in my contacts list and pressed the Video Gab icon.

Meanwhile I could hear Cori yelling something down the elevator shaft that sounded like “on the brink.”

“What?” I yelled back while my phone's screen showed it was still connecting.

Cori yelled again about “squeezing a bra through the door,” and I wasn't sure I
wanted
to know what on earth she was talking about.

“I can't hear you!” I looked up to the ceiling and yelled back.

“Can you hear me now?” my phone called out.

“Oh, hello!” I said to the screen as the video feed kept loading. I wasn't sure it was going to connect until I saw Luke's smiling face staring back. Relief flooded through me. At least if I was going to fall to my death, the last image I'd see was of a super-cute mer-boy.

“Hey, how's it going, stranger?” Luke's smile lit up the screen, and his sandy curly hair fell over his hopelessly blue eyes. “I didn't think I'd be hearing from you. What's happening?”

“You'll never believe it but I'm stuck in an elevator so I thought I'd call,” I said.

“What?” Luke laughed out loud. “Is this a joke?”

“I wish,” I replied.

“So you're stuck in an elevator and hoping I'll come break you out of there?” I could see him smirking. “Not really my area of expertise. Now if you were stuck in an
underwater
elevator, maybe.”

I laughed, remembering our latest underwater adventures.

“Don't worry. My dad's got someone coming to rescue me,” I said.

I picked a piece of ice from the ice bucket and popped it in my mouth.

“Are you eating
ice
?” Luke asked with a laugh.

“It has come to this,” I replied. “Next thing you know I'll be eating the soles of my flip-flops.”

“What's it like down there in your tropical paradise, anyway?” Luke asked.

“Oh, you know—movie stars and moonlit walks on the beach,” I replied.

“Save me one of those,” Luke said.

“A movie star or a moonlit walk?” I asked.

“Whichever one ends up in a moonlit kiss,” he replied.

“Well, that could go either way, I suppose,” I teased. “What's happening back in Port Toulouse?”

“Nothing quite as exciting as what you've got going on down there, apparently. Trey and I got a few more leaf-raking jobs, which I hope we'll finish up by the time we catch our plane on Friday.” Luke and Trey mowed lawns in the summer, raked leaves in the fall, and shoveled snow in the winter for extra money. “That is if Trey can get his head on straight before then.”

“What's up with Trey? Does it have anything to do with Cori?” I asked. Maybe I could get a straight answer out of Luke because Cori wasn't talking.

“I'm not exactly sure. He's just been playing a lot of video games and eating cereal, which is pretty normal, except he keeps crashing on level one and he's been eating his cereal with a fork. I was thinking of messing with him and putting green food coloring in the milk. I doubt he'd notice.”

Another yell sounded from upstairs, this time it was Dad yelling something about “rappelling down the elevator shaft.”

“Don't do anything stupid!” I yelled up to the ceiling.

“I was just kidding,” Luke said with a laugh.

“Oh, sorry! I wasn't yelling at you. My dad's just having a nervous breakdown. Sounds like Trey's in need of an intervention too. Get the poor boy a spoon at least,” I joked.

“That would be the brotherly thing to do, but I'm not sure it would help. Things were pretty tense around here last night before you guys left. Trey texted something to Cori and she took it all wrong,” Luke said.

That's when my “friend gene” kicked in.

“Maybe Cori didn't exactly take it all wrong. Maybe Trey
actually
said something stupid,” I blurted out.

“What does it matter? It's really between the two of them,” Luke said.

“It matters because Cori is my friend!” I yelled louder than I intended.

Cori shouted from up above with a “You too, girl!”

“Maybe we shouldn't talk about it,” Luke said quietly.

“Maybe—” I began. But just then, the elevator jerked to a start. “Oh, I think I'm being rescued.”

“I'm glad you survived to live another day,” Luke joked, but I could tell our conversation had taken a turn for the weird.

“Too bad the ice didn't survive quite as well,” I replied, looking down at my bucket of slush.

•••

By the time I got back to our room, Cori was bopping off the walls, wanting to know every last detail of my elevator drama.

“It really wasn't that exciting. I think I was only in there for a grand total of twelve minutes,” I replied.

“I was trying to get a drink to you. Could you hear me? Did you see the straw I squeezed through the elevator doors?” Cori asked.

“
That's
what you were trying to do!” I said with a laugh. “I was Video Gabbing with Luke, and it sounded like you were on the ‘brink' of something and trying to squeeze your ‘bra' through the door.”

“
Drink
! And
straw
, not
bra
!” Cori said with a laugh. “And you were talking to Luke? Was Trey there?” A somber look crossed her face so I tried to keep things light.

“No, I think he was eating or something,” I replied, trying to figure out how Luke and my conversation had gotten so tense and convoluted. Was Luke that blind to the fact that his brother had been acting like an ignoramus toward Cori? Wasn't Cori supposed to be his girlfriend, not just another one of his skateboarding buddies?

“Oh,” Cori said quietly, staring at her phone. Then something must have occurred to her because she sprang to life. “Hey! I wanted to show you something.” She pulled up a video on her phone's screen.

“What on earth…?” I put a hand to my mouth. Gnashing teeth! Ripping flesh! The most terrifying thing I'd ever seen! “What
is
that?”

“A shark dive,” Cori said cheerily. “They have them here in the Bahamas. We should totally go.”

“Are you out of your mind?” I asked. The video showed the leader of the dive feeding the sharks unidentifiable chunks of meat while other divers looked on. The sharks snatched the fish out of the leader's chain-mailed hand. They even had a
Jaws
-like soundtrack to add to the effect. “People actually do this?”

“Yup. Isn't it awesome? I read on the website that it's almost a guarantee that we'd see some because Caribbean reef sharks and tiger sharks are really plentiful in the Bahamas.” Cori stared at the screen with a look of amazement on her face.

“I didn't need to know that,” I muttered.

“They even give you a video to keep at the end of your dive!” she added.

“I
really
don't see that as a selling feature,” I said.

“Oh, look at that guy!” Cori pointed to the screen. Just then, a shark as big as a submarine went straight for one of the cameramen, teeth gleaming, then zoomed off in the other direction at the last possible second.

“Turn it off. Turn it off!” I waved a hand across my face to try to un-see what I'd just seen.

“Honestly, Jade. As a mermaid, you would think you'd want to work on your shark skills.” Cori scowled as she hit Pause on the video. “Don't you want to do anything fun while we're here?”

“If by ‘fun' you mean putting my life in mortal peril, then no,” I replied, but I could tell Cori was bummed by my reaction. “Also, um. You'll waste all your phone battery downloading videos like that.”

A light tap sounded on the door joining our room with Mom and Dad's.

“Okay, I think I finally got your dad settled,” Mom said as she entered our room.

Dad's three umbrella drinks and the drama of my elevator rescue must have done him in because Mom had tucked him in to bed. We filled her in on everything that had happened at the Straw Market with Dillon and the cruise ship.

“Well, between that and the elevator, you've certainly had an eventful afternoon!” Mom said. “But it sounds like this Dillon boy is pretty convinced something is going on.”

“Rayelle's mom says he's constantly causing trouble around the market,” Cori chimed in. “Her mother caught him stealing once, and he was kicked out of the market for six months. He's on probation for now but it looks like he's up to his old tricks again.”

“Yes, but we all know how people can be quick to judge,” Mom said.

It made me think of the ladies back at Dooley's Drugstore and how they'd said those things about Mom and Dad. I hadn't told Mom about those ladies because I didn't want to upset her. Nothing should ruin their happy day. We'd worked so hard to get to where we were, having our family all back together. It was going to be amazing, going back to Port Toulouse after Mom and Dad made their marriage official, no matter what the rumor mill had to say.

“Jade,” Mom continued, “do you think there's something to this boy Dillon's story?”

“Maybe. I'm not saying it was an actual body, though,” I replied. “Officer Ensel is right—it's probably nothing. He said they'd call if they needed to ask more questions.”

“Did you at least manage to get a look around the market?” Mom asked.

“Yeah, but I didn't get any stuff for the wedding, so the whole trip was a bit of a bust,” I said. “How did you do with the planning here?”

“Well,” Mom said with a sigh. “The Alyssum already has five weddings booked for Saturday and Sunday so the only thing they can do is get us in for a sunset ceremony at the gazebo on the beach for Saturday evening.”

“Oh, that'll be pretty,” Cori said.

“They don't have any staff to help, though, so the actual planning is up to us,” Mom said, shuffling through the pile of papers and brochures she'd accumulated, trying to sort out the wedding reservations.

“When is everyone arriving?” I asked.

“Eddie and Bobbie are sailing down from Florida on her sailboat and should arrive on Thursday or Friday,” Mom said. Eddie was Luke and Trey's grandfather and apparently had made a bit of a love connection with Bobbie over the many hours of video chat they'd had while trying to come up with designs for a mer-to-human synthesizer, which Dad called the Merlin 3001. Bobbie lived in Florida and she had helped Luke turn into a mer-guy for the first time since he was a baby that past spring.