The Summer of Chasing Mermaids (14 page)

“Guys, my dad cares about this place,” Noah said. “Maybe it doesn't look like it, but he has a good heart. He's just also got a big, hard, stupid head. Which is presently shoved up his ass.”

Everyone laughed, but the lightheartedness died out fast.

“Besides,” Noah said, “it's not his decision. Everyone gets a vote. They don't have to follow his lead.”

“If they do,” Vanessa said, “this place will look a whole lot different come next Fourth of July.” She pronounced it like
Joo-lie,
and it made me smile. I wondered what they'd say about my accent if they could've heard it. I pictured them laughing, telling me to slow down, to say it again. They'd try to sound out the words, imitate the Trini rhythm, and I'd be laughing too. Loud and bold.

A chill crept in among us, and for a moment no one spoke. In the distance someone lit a few firecrackers, whistling into the night.

“I still can't believe our dads made that bet,” Noah said to Christian. “Dude, we always race together.” Noah stood, chucked a bottle cap into the fire. “It's bullshit, man. Bullshit.”

I'd never seen him get worked up before, not so much as lose his cool over a burnt sandwich or cranky customer at the Black Pearl.

I rose from my spot, put a hand on Noah's shoulder. I didn't know him well, but behind the counter at the Black Pearl, he'd become a constant for me, someone who knew how I liked my latte and had it ready the moment I set foot inside. In that way he'd given me a small sense of permanence, of belonging, and I'd always be grateful.

Noah pulled me into a friendly hug. “Just so you know, when Dad told me to try to scare you into quitting, I drew the line. I'm a lover, not a fighter.”

I smiled, squeezing tighter to tell him it was okay.

As I reclaimed my seat in the sand, Christian shot Noah a mock-threatening glare. “I think you're getting a little too friendly with the competition, lover.”

“Don't tell my old man,” Noah said. “I'll have to deny it, say I'm interrogating her.”

“You won't get anything out of her,” Christian said, nodding in my direction. “My girl here's a
vault
.”

“Your girl?” Noah raised his eyebrows. “When did that—”

“She's a girl.” Christian swigged his beer, sighed. “She's my first mate. Simple.”

“But you said—”

“Stow it, Katz.”

Noah held up his hands in surrender. “Sorry, dude. Just wish I knew where to find a first mate like that.”

“Okay, seriously?” Christian said. “We're sitting right here.”

Noah only laughed. “Just rilin' you up, bud. Wearing you down. My strategy's already working.”

“Think you can win with psychological warfare alone?” Christian asked.

“In the absence of a hot first mate, it's all I've got.”

Christian tipped his beer toward Kirby. “Why don't you ask Sleeping with the Enemy?”

Kirby gasped. “Christian!”

“Already did. She doesn't sail.” Noah leveled Kirby with an adoring gaze, and without being asked, he rose from the cooler, unzipped and shook off his hoodie, and draped it over Kirby's shoulders.

She smiled at him, shy and sweet. The two of them had stars in their eyes. It was practically a marriage proposal.

Vanessa pressed her hand to her heart. “What is it about young love and a bonfire on the beach?”

“Hey!” Brenda waved from across the fire. “We're cold over here, too, if anyone cares.”

Gracie gave an exaggerated shiver. “Is there anyone in, say, a Stanford sweatshirt? Anyone who might offer to keep a girl warm for the night?”

With his eyes still on mine, Christian said, “Yeah. I've got you ­covered, ladies.”

Everyone whooped and whistled. Christian handed me his beer and rose, dug out a blanket that was folded beneath the s'mores stuff.

“Heads up.” He tossed the blanket over the fire, straight into Brenda's lap.

The girls grumbled as they unfolded it and draped it over their legs.

“Dude,” Noah whispered as Christian reached over to reclaim his beer. “That's some cold shit, right there.”

Christian only shrugged.

Noah laughed, his eyes shifting from Christian to me, then back to Christian. “What I wanna know is, when are you two crazy kids getting matching sailor hats? Monogrammed, perhaps?”

Christian punched him in the arm, but they were both laughing.

“Shoot, I'm dry again,” Vanessa said. “Who needs a refill?” From the large jug she'd brought, she poured fresh Texas teas, passing cups to Brenda and Gracie, then to me and Kirby. “First, we get those matching mermaid costumes. Then hats.” She held up her cup in a cheer, clicking
it to mine and Kirby's, then to Brenda's and Gracie's. “Sisters before misters, right, girls? Don't make me say it again.”

“You guys are marching in the parade?” Brenda asked. “I was just trying to talk Gracie into it.”

Vanessa smiled at Gracie. “Oh, you have to, girl. Cove tradition.”

Christian narrowed his eyes at me as we drank, a smile tugging his lips. “You're marching in the parade?”

I couldn't tell whether he thought this was a good thing or utterly frivolous. His eyes settled on my mouth, waiting for an answer, but I said nothing.

Beyond the fire, the Pacific raged on.

“Are you?” Christian was still watching me, still waiting. But soon Noah was talking about the regatta again, apologizing in advance for any future piracy he might have to engage in to save his boat, and the moment passed. The girls had lit new sparklers in the fire, attracting a few stragglers from a smaller bonfire nearby. One of the newcomers immediately set to hitting on Vanessa. He was on a mission, and she was loving every minute of it.

Christian switched seats and put his arm around her protectively, and in the jokes and jibes that followed, I slipped away.

Chapter 17

“Figured I'd find you
here, Stowaway.”

I sat up as Christian stepped into the saloon, windblown and a little buzzed. I'd been camped out in my formerly favorite spot in the V-berth, and I wasn't expecting him; it had only been half an hour since I'd left the bonfire.

“Vanessa took off with that mouth-breather, and Noah's out there trolling for a first mate. Even Brenda and Gracie turned him down. Kirby's trying to help, but the whole thing was pretty pathetic.” He slumped onto the saloon bench, turned his gaze on me. His voice was soft. “I couldn't watch.”

I nodded. Christian rarely showed it, but I knew it hurt him, having to race against one of his best friends. Having to follow his father's orders just because his father—Noah's too—was the kind of man whose orders were simply followed, no room for discussion.

“That yours?” Christian's attention was captured by something on the table across from him. It was a white envelope, a ­typewritten label stuck on the front with a single directive:
FOR REGATTA EXPENSES
ONLY
.

I shook my head as he tore it open. Until now I hadn't even noticed it.

“Holy shit,” he said. After a pause so heavy it threatened to sink the boat, he said, “Elyse. There's fifteen hundred bucks in here.”

My mouth dropped open.
Nine thousand Trinidadian dollars
, my brain calculated.

“No note,” he said, double-checking the envelope. “Someone wants us to win. Bad. Ursula?”

Again I shook my head. Lemon hadn't had any big sculpture sales lately, and the store was more of a hobby than a real source of income. She seemed to do all right with the art and herbal cosmetics, and she'd been a saver all her life—something she tried to instill in me and Kirby any chance she got. But I was pretty sure she didn't have that kind of cash just lying around.

Besides, Lemon wasn't one for keeping secrets. She would've told me if she'd planned to give money for the cause.

“One of the girls, maybe? Brenda? Gracie?”

I shrugged. I hadn't seen them leave the fire tonight, so if it was one of them, they would've had to sneak onto the boat this afternoon, before the bonfire started. It was possible, but neither seemed like the kind of person who'd leave a gift like that without taking credit.

“This is . . . I mean, we could really use this. The boat needs electrical and cosmetic work, and we haven't even looked at the sails yet.” His words quickened with excitement, imagination already spending the cash. “It's not yours? For sure?”

I almost laughed.

“Jesus. This regatta gets shadier every year. Not that I'm about to look
that
gift horse in the mouth.” He counted the money once more, slipped it back into the envelope. After a beat he set it back on the table. “What are you up to in here, anyway? More poetry?”

I shifted over in the V-berth as he approached, making space to fit him.

He slid in next to me, and we both leaned back, looking at the walls and ceiling that held so many of my secrets. The heat I'd felt with him on the shore seeped again into the small nook, and outside, the Pacific churned and hissed, rocking us gently. There were no stars now, but the moon had found its way through the clouds, and pale silver light shone in the small window behind us.

Cozy. That's the word that came to me. Cozy and . . . safe.

Christian reached up and touched the first words I'd written on his boat, a poem called “Plan B.” It wasn't my best, but it was honest, exactly what I'd been feeling that night.

“This one,” he said, keeping his voice low, “says a lot.”

plan B

plan Battered and Broken

plan Boxed in

plan Bailed on and Back from the dead

plan Better luck next time

plan Balled up

plan Backtracked

plan Backhanded

plan Backward steps

plan Blackballed, Black-marked, and Blacklisted

plan B-side, Bye-Bye Baby

plan Belly up and Beat down

plan Bad days ahead and the Best are far Behind

“I take it crashing at the Cove wasn't part of your master plan?” He looked at me so he could capture my answer, something I suddenly realized he'd always done.

So many people glanced but never saw, their eyes skimming the surface, then settling on some other distraction, something easier to understand. I didn't blame them, really—often it was automatic, our brains wired to seek the path of least resistance. But with Christian, whenever we were together, whether it was working on the boat, breaking for lunch, inside Lemon's store, or anywhere else our paths crossed, he looked at me. He focused on my lips as I tried to form words, he repeated them to ensure he'd understood. He read the words I'd written for him in my notebook, on his hands, on mine. He noticed me.

He
saw
me.

This time, when I didn't answer, he reached across the sliver of space between us and grabbed my hand, squeezed. He traced my wrist with his thumb, a gesture that somehow managed to both frighten and soothe, barely navigating the line between friends and . . . ­something else.

I waited until his eyes met mine again, then I nodded toward him.
You?

“Plan B?” he said. “I never even had a plan A.”

Not college?

“That's not the issue.” His sigh was heavy with regret. He released my hand, rolled over on his side to face me fully. We were so close I could feel his breath on my skin, warm as the Caribbean air. He lowered his voice even more. “I'm about to sound like an ungrateful shit here, and I'm not. I love school—totally thankful I have the opportunity to go.”

So?

“I thought I was cool with the business track, like my dad, you know? He has all the connections, helped me get in, his buddies already promising to hook up a job after grad. But the more time I spend away from him, the more it seems like I'm just . . . going through the motions.” He sliced the air with his hand. “Following the path, like he always wanted.”

The tide was coming in; a wave caught us on the side, rocking the boat beneath us. When she settled again, I reached for the Sharpie in
my pocket. I uncapped it, pressed the tip to the ceiling. The words were a revision, a new last line on my old poem that only now needed to be said.

Christian watched as the letters appeared.

plan But what do YOU want, Christian Kane?

Christian stared at the words a long time, and when he finally looked at me again, his eyes were blank. Unreadable.

“No idea,” he whispered. “No one ever asked.”

I thumbed my chest.
I'm asking.
Gently, I tapped the words out against his heart.
What . . . do . . . you . . . want?

His eyes changed then, from blank and unreadable to a red-hot smolder, simultaneously vulnerable and certain. Behind the seashell necklace, my pulse pounded, blood rushing to my head. I was dizzy in the best kind of way, floating on the sea and the moonlight and all the unsaid things, the fragile silver hopes yet unspoken, yet ­unbroken.

Christian slipped his hand behind my neck, leaned in close, looked again in my eyes for an answer.

Yes.

Our lips brushed, gently as they had at our mermaid wedding, and the length of our bodies aligned, warmth seeking warmth.

I closed my eyes, welcomed the heat of his mouth as our kiss deepened, the heartbeat in my ears drowned by the Pacific's endless howl and a single word, whispering inside me again and again.

Safe.

Chapter 18

“How do you feel
about trees?” Christian asked the next morning. I'd just arrived at the docks, and he hopped off the boat wearing a grin that held both mischief and hope.
Please say yes,
it seemed to say. “We're taking the day off—”

“We're going explorin'.” Sebastian popped out of the saloon like a curly-haired gopher. He was laden with his explorer's gear. “I hope you brought your land legs, lady.”

Christian laughed. “What this presumptuous little beast means is, we're planning a hike near Devils Elbow. You up for an adventure?”

“What's a prumptious little beast?” Sebastian stretched out his arms for a lift off the boat.

Effortlessly Christian scooped him up, set him on the dock. “
You
are. That's what the dictionary said. Your picture was in there and everything.”

Sebastian giggled. To me, he said, “So, are you coming?”

Next to us, the boat bobbed in the water, creaking and clanking as always. It didn't seem like a day off was the most prudent course of action.

At my hesitation Christian said, “Relax, Stowaway. We're off boat duty today anyway. I've got an electrician coming in, courtesy of our mystery benefactor. Hired him from Coos Bay. Figured we could use someone who actually knows what he's doing. Cuts down on . . . ­electrocutions!”

He grabbed Sebastian, tickling him until the kid squealed with glee.

“Don't electrocute me!” Sebastian cried.

I'm in.
I gave them the trademark salute, and off we went, piling into Christian's truck and setting out for uncharted lands.

Just over an hour and twenty-five consecutive games of I Spy later, we reached Devils Elbow State Park, hidden from the shore in the Siuslaw National Forest. Sebastian was the first out of the truck, tumbling into the lot with boundless excitement, then bolting back to us with sudden urgency.

“I forgot something important!” Sebastian opened the passenger door, fished an envelope out of the glove compartment. He handed it to me, beaming. “I made this for you.”

It was a card, stamped with a mermaid in the center, colored and adorned with glittery starfish stickers and hand-drawn reeds in green and yellow. Inside, edged along the bottom with blue-green waves and encircled with a heart, he'd written a note:

Dear Elyse,

Thank you for being my new friend.

And liking mermaids.

And marrying my brother.

Your new friend,

Sebastian Kane

P.S. Are you a mermaid? Yes or No.

He scrutinized my face for the answer, but I only shrugged, offering a devious smile.

“I already know you are,” he said, and then he zoomed away, heading down the hiking trail for the dark, dank forest beyond.

Christian and I followed. It was a holiday weekend, and the parking lot was crowded, but most of the visitors headed down toward the beach trail and the Heceta Head Lighthouse. Christian and Sebastian preferred to go off the beaten path, and once we entered the forest, it wasn't long before we'd lost the masses.

With every step the trees grew more immense, the forest more dense. Enshrouded in mist, spruces stretched into the sky, impossibly tall and lush. Swaths of hanging moss draped the boughs, and tiny green clover crept up every trunk from the forest floor. The air was cool, scented with the endless cycle of decay and green growing things. Much like the rain forest reserve on Tobago, it felt ancient and sacred, an impossible otherworld where precious secrets drifted on every breeze and the most wondrous magic was real.

Ahead on the trail Sebastian turned around a bend. When the last of his golden curls vanished behind a cluster of trees, Christian stopped.

His arms slid around me as he backed me up against a tree, his eyes full of fire, bright in the hazy mist that surrounded us.

Everything in me turned hot and gooey. After last night I wanted to kiss him again. To keep kissing him. But he'd made no promises.

Neither had I.

“It's taken a lot of restraint on my part,” he said in a low growl, hot and close to my ear, “to wait this long.”

He kissed me, slow and soft, his lips tender and full, fingers twisting in my hair.

I let my knees go slack as Christian pressed against me, pinning me to the tree, holding me up.

It felt like a dream.

Farther down the path Sebastian's voice floated on the breeze, broke our kiss. “Come on, slowpokes!”

Christian sighed, still so close and warm. “Until the next bend in the road, then,” he said, holding out his hand.

I took it gladly, my body buzzing.

Once we had Sebastian in our sights again, a few dozen paces ahead, Christian said, “Thanks for coming with us today. Doesn't seem like it now, but this morning? Kid was a mess.”

I looked at him with concern.
What happened?

“Ah, usual bullshit.” He shook his head, tipped his face toward
the treetops. “You know how he's obsessed with mermaids, right? This morning he comes down with a bow in his hair and lipstick and one of Mom's old swimsuits, stuffed with . . . stuff.” Christian held his free hand in front of his chest. “Mom and I crack up, because it's adorable and hilarious. Dad just grunts, goes back to his iPad. But then Sebastian announces he's working on his costume for the mermaid parade.”

I nodded. Kirby and Vanessa were still pressing me to sign up.

“I figure, okay. Mermaids are his thing,” Christian said. “I tell him I'll take him down to Main Street as soon as registration's open.” Christian shook his head again, every gesture weighted with sadness and frustration. “Dad goes, ‘I don't think so. Boys
never
march in the mermaid parade,' yada yada. I fist-bump Sebastian anyway, tell him he'll be setting a new trend. Dad blows a gasket. The kid leaves the table with his dreams crushed, and the whole time, Mom doesn't say shit. He only stopped crying because I suggested the hike.”

His hand tightened around mine, tension radiating in waves. I squeezed him back, held on tighter, fury rising as I thought of Sebastian at breakfast the other day. I'd hated the way his father had dismissed him so coldly, so flippantly. I never knew my mother, but Dad always reminded us how much she loved us, how much she wanted her six baby girls. He and Granna had gotten into some pretty knockdown battles over the years—how much freedom we should have, how much responsibility, how to teach us to be independent but not ­stubborn—but they never treated us like an afterthought.
Like a burden. Like an interruption of their otherwise perfectly busy lives.

“My parents acted like nothing happened,” Christian said. “On our way out, Dad was all, ‘Have fun today, boys. Enjoy the great outdoors for us.' ”

Sebastian wasn't my child; he wasn't my brother. But I felt protective of him, of his innocence, his sweet intensity. I wanted to look out for him. To speak up for him when his own parents wouldn't.

I released Christian's hand, slipped the notebook and pen from my pocket. I wrote:

Not my business. But I'm saying it anyway.

“Wouldn't expect anything less,” he said.

Why do people have kids if that's how they're going to treat them?

Christian sighed. “Yeah. That's a sob story for another day.” With a soft smile Christian leaned close again, brushed my lips with a gentle kiss. “I'm—”

“Bombs away!” Sebastian stood on the path before us, hands ­covered in goop. Before either of us could react, he lobbed a giant mud ball, hitting Christian squarely on the side of his head. “Ten points!”

Sebastian vanished around the bend in a fit of devious giggles.

Next to me, Christian wiped mud from the corner of his mouth, his expression unreadable. It was the first time I'd seen him bested. I could barely hold back my laughter.

“Don't even laugh, Elyse, or I swear to God . . .” He turned on me, wrapping me in his arms. “You two conspiring against me?”

Before I could mouth a denial, his lips covered mine, smearing mud on my cheek, rubbing it in with extra enthusiasm. I finally squirmed out of his grasp, and together we took off in search of our little mud warmonger.

We found him hiding behind a tree, both hands locked and loaded. Christian and I dropped to the ground, narrowly escaping Sebastian's assault. Our victory was short-lived; we'd unknowingly crouched into a muddy trough, painting our pants with muck.

Christian gave me the side-eye. “You thinking what I'm thinking?”

Without hesitating, we scooped up as much mud as we could, then launched ourselves at Sebastian, tackling him to the ground. Soon the three of us were covered in mud and leaves and sticks and probably bugs. The Kane brothers rolled around next to me, both still trying to win, and I thought of my sisters, the trouble we'd get into on the farm when we were little, ducking through the trees as the workers shooed us away, making mud pies inside the discarded pods and pretending they were the latest and greatest chocolate creations from Tobago's world-renowned d'Abreau Cocoa Estates.

After the boys and I had soaked up all the mud in Oregon, we rinsed off as best we could at a water pump near the trail marker,
and climbed up onto a large, flat boulder for a lunch of string cheese, apples, baby carrots, and trail mix. Sebastian ate all of the M&M's.

“I was thinking,” Christian said. We were lying alone on the ­boulder with our eyes closed, drying out beneath a rare stretch of sunlight while Sebastian explored a grove up ahead. “That whole mud-wrestling thing? Maybe we could try it again later. Alone. Without clothes.”

I rolled over to face him, smacked his shoulder playfully.
Keep dreaming, dirty boy.

“Don't worry. I will.” He tugged my arm lightly, pulling me against his chest. We stayed like that for a year, or maybe just a few minutes, and he played with the tangled curls in my hair, stroked my cheek while I pressed my ear to his damp shirt and listened to the steady, even beat of his heart.

“Christian! Elyse!” Sebastian called from the grove, excited. “Hurry!”

“Bad timing, squirt,” Christian grumbled. But his smile was carefree and relaxed, and his body showed none of the tension I'd so often noticed when his parents were around.

We slid off the boulder and followed the sound of Sebastian's laughter, found him standing in the center of the grove. A single beam of sunlight penetrated the thick canopy above, and Sebastian was bathed in it, his arms stretched out in front of him.

On the chubby part of his forearm, two monarch butterflies perched, a pause on their journey through time.

Sebastian was trying to hold as still as possible, his face alight with wonder and pure, untarnished joy.

Time came to a standstill as Christian and I watched the ­monarchs in their tiny dance, lost in the music of Sebastian's laughter.

I tried desperately to grab on to the moment, to the feeling, to hold it in my heart. But beauty is by its very nature elusive, slippery.

A fragment, a flash.

Here and gone again.

The trees shuddered with my heart, and the clouds shifted, returning the forest to its misty gray.

The butterflies took flight.

One.

Then the other.

Sebastian remained still, his only word a whisper on the breeze. “Wow.”

When I looked over at Christian, his mouth was open. By this rare moment, he'd been so captured, he'd forgotten to cover with a joke, a smirk.

There were tears in his eyes. The ocean rose inside him, and I looked away, before it got me, too.