A Gentle Rain (26 page)

But she looked at me as if I was.

"Thank you for paying my medical bill," she said.

"Aw. You work for me. It's part ofmy employee-benefit package. That and all the popcorn you can eat on TV nights in the barn's rec room."

"Thank you, regardless."

"Aw. Yeah."

I settled on a stool beside her. She smelled like warm liniment and iodine. Not a bad aroma. She sat on the end of an exam table wearing nothing but the Mermaid Tail beach towel, still wrapped around her from armpits to kneecaps. A shaved spot near the crown of her head showed an inch of neat stitches. Her bare shoulders were pink and freckled and smooth, her face a little pale, her eyes big and worried and dark-blue, and her towel just low enough to show some cleavage. Her bare legs, dangling against a white paper cover, were the naked legs of a naked woman sitting on the side of a bed. At least, in my mind.

"I feel foolish," she said. "Being a mermaid's much harder than it appears. I'm a certified scuba diver, so the enterprise seemed so simple to me at first, but frolicking underwater with one's legs bound in a fake fish tail and attempting to choreograph every movement in sync with other performers, while regularly sucking oxygen from a bubbling tube, and listening to music through a waterproof ear bud, all the while, smiling. . . it's an astonishing talent. I'll never make light of the mermaid profession again. I failed. I panicked."

"Naw, I'm bad luck to you. First, Estrela dumps you because I spooked her, then I spook you and you take a nail to the head."

"You didn't spook me." She shifted slightly, holding the towel tight with one hand over her breasts. "I'm a bit shy, that's all."

"Don't worry. I didn't see anything."

"Yes, you did."

I exhaled. "Look, I'm tryii' to be a gentleman."

"I know. Thank you."

She gave me a soft little smile that made me think about the tattoo a lot harder. "Why are you shy?" I asked gruffly. "You're smart, you're strong, you're pretty. You got nothing to feel shy about. Except for sneakin' soy milk into the cream pitcher. Repeat after me: Milk don't come from beans. Milk comes from cows. Period. Other than that, you're battin' a thousand."

"I was an overweight child. Short, and fat. I was nearly eighteen years old before I shed the weight through vegetarian diets and extreme exercise. And I stuttered, as you know."

"Kids teased you?"

"Yes. I was teased mercilessly. I come from a . . . a family of overachievers, a family in which physical imperfection was regarded as a sign of character weakness. It was painful. So, perhaps, despite my current state of perfection-" a wry smile shifted her mouth-"I remain awkward under the gaze of handsome men."

"I wasn't always this good-lookin'. I had to grow into it."

"You were never shy?"

"I wasn't ever shy, but a lot of times I was ashamed. Maybe it's the same thing."

"Ashamed of what?"

"Bein' poor. And ... being part-Indian. God help me. But when I was a kid, Indians didn't own casinos and run for Congress. We were looked down on, treated like trash. I heard my mama called names for being a white woman married to an Indian. Pa was half-blood. Big and dark and quiet. Me and Joey could almost pass for white. Sometimes people thought we were Cuban, maybe. Not that bein' Cuban was so good, back then. Look, I don't think I've ever told anybody else this stuff. You keep it to yourself."

"Of course."

"And I was ashamed of Joey. Ashamed but crazy-protective about him, too. I don't know what I'd do without him. Aw, am I maluii' any sense?"

"Yes, you are. I understand your dilemmas. I do."

"Because you have kin who are touched. And because the stutter made you feel a little touched, yourself"

"Touched?"

"In the head. Turned finny. Whatever."

"Yes."

"Do you ever wonder why God put `em here, but at the same you're thinking, `God knows I need 'em?"'

"Yes."

"There's a cartoon. On a card. I saw it in a seashell shop somewhere. `Blessed are the cracked, for they let in the light."

She put her free hand to her throat. Her eyes gleamed with tears. A smear of dried blood and iodine made a brown sheen along her hairline. "I like that sentiment." Her towel slipped down a little. Maybe on purpose.

I saw just the top of a tiny tattoo inside the crease of her left breast. Couldn't see the design, just a thumb-sized hint. God, I wanted to see more. "You got nothing to be shy about showing off," I repeated, craning my head. "Trust me."

"I do trust you," she whispered. The towel slipped another inch.

The exam room's door popped open. Miriam stood there, gasping for air. She waved a cell phone. "Teegee called. The Times is sendin' a reporter to do a big story on our next show."

I sat back, weak in the knees and too strong in other parts. "Always good to get a piece in the Jacksonville Florida TimesUnion," I grunted.

Karen, with pink sprinides spreading over her frecldes, hitched up her towel and looked embarrassed. "Indeed. The Jacksonville Florida TimesUnion is an excellent regional newspaper."

Miriam shook her head wildly. "It's not the Jacksonville Florida TimesUnion that's coming. It's the New York Times."

"Let me just say," I told Sedge that night, from the head-throbbing confines of my daisy bed, "that I'm very impressed and awed by your Machiavellian power. The New York Times? One of the world's most prestigious newspapers. Bravo."

"They merely agreed to send one of their regional correspondents, my dear. And I can't guarantee the coverage will be positive. Only that there will be an article. Promise you won't go to any extremes for the performance. You could end up seriously injured."

"I'll try not to ram any more nails into my scalp. As long as Ben doesn't startle me ..."

"Ah hah, the intriguing Ben, again."

"Ah hah, yourself."

"My dear, are you certain your secretive efforts at charity would please him? Men tend to be a little defensive about women taking care of them and their friends. There have been some sad relationships within the Whittenbrook family. I recall your great aunt Etienne and her failed marriage to a third-rate German prince among them ..."

"This isn't charity. It's an investment."

"I doubt Ben wants to think you're buying shares in him."

"I don't want to buy him, Sedge. I want to possess him. One entails money. The other is far harder to accomplish."

"What are you hinting at, my dear? You're leaving the ranch at summer's end, agreed?"

"I ... don't know what I'm telling you. I have a gash in my head and ... I hear footsteps. Lily and Mac are coming to check on me again. Good night."

"They are happy with their life, my dear. They were happy before you came, and will be happy after you leave. Remember that. They are content. Please continue to remember all that."

"Trust me. I never forget it. Good night, Sedge."

"Good night, my dear mermaid."

Chapter 14

Kara

On a hot June night when screech owls giggled in the woods and moths the size of bats swooped in the yellow security lights, I painted my eyes and lips with waterproof cosmetics, pinned three feet of wavy, synthetic red hair over my healing scalp, wiggled into a sequined bra and twenty pounds of leg-binding, lavender, sequined latex with a tailfin of filmy lavender-and-gold fabric, and made my debut as a Kissme Woomee mermaid.

The gravel parking lot outside the submerged auditorium was filled with sedate sedans, sensible SUV's and handicapped-equipped minivans. Among the two-hundred people seated in the theater the average age was seventy, and the majority gender was male, by far. The whiff of loneliness, widowhood and eternal romance filled the air like poignant cologne. A great deal of gentlemanly whooping and applauding occurred as the audience anticipated the overture. There would be a lot of flirting at a cocktail party afterwards, beneath tents rented from the Fountain Springs Funeral Home.

"Hear that?" Miriam said in the ersatz dressing room, which was merely a brightly lit wooden cabana atop the auditorium with swim-up access via a large hole in the plank floor.

I listened to the muted rumble coming from the audience beneath us. "What is it?"

"The applause." Her eyes gleamed. "Listen close, when you're underwater. It's like a vibration. You can feel it. It's a tonic, hon. It keeps us perky. The audience, and we love them."

Yes. I thought about Lily and Mac. They were so excited about my show. The whole ranch crew was excited. They were all out there watching, with Joey and Ben.

"Here's to Karen, our new mermaid sister," Miriam said. She and the others held up cups of spring water. A kind of christening ceremony. "She'll need a new name. A stage name like ours. I'm Athena. Lula's name is Sirena."

One by one the other women rattled off liquid and dramatic monikers, some from romantic mermaid lore-Loreli, Aphrodite, Venus-and others born of sparkling Hollywood glamour-Ava, Marilyn, and Ariel, of course. When the circle came to Lily, who could not swim but had been granted honorary mer status, anyway, she said solemnly, "June."

June, the mermaid.

"Why, June?" I asked gently.

"Because that's when daisies start to bloom. And I love daisies."

Miriam poked me on one arm. "Tell us your mermaid name, Karen. Come on. Hurry up. We got a show to do." Everyone lifted their cups in anticipation. I took a breath. So many identities to juggle. Kara. Karen. Tolbert. Whittenbrook. And now this. "Atargatis," I announced.

They all stared at me.

"Atar-who?" Miriam said.

"Atargatis. A Semitic goddess worshipped by the Babylonians. She's the oldest known female deity figure portrayed with a fish tail. In a sense, the first mermaid of historical record."

Lula sighed. "Oh, hon. All that Babylonian stuff'll worry the Baptists. Dale'll be praying for you in church. How about we name you, uh, `Esther?' After Esther Williams." This brought nods and sloshing of cups.

I fro,,Anled. "The actress who starred in all those 1950s swimming musicals?"

"Uh huh. Esther. It's a good Bible name, too. You'll make the Baptists happy." She raised her cup. "I christen you-"

"No, I don't want to be Esther. No offense to Esther Williams, or to the Baptists, but I like the classic symbolism of Atargatis."

"Atar-who?" Miriam repeated darkly, and rolled her eyes. "Too late. We christen you-"

"Atar-who!" Lily interjected loudly. She scowled at the others. "If Karen wants to be Atar-who, she should be Atar-who. It doesn't matter what her name is, anyway. We love her."

Lula huffed. "Now, look, June-"

Miriam slapped a hand on her sequined hip. "It's nearly show time. Let's not debate it."

"Oh, all right." Lula looked at me fiendishly. "We christen you Atarwho."

I shook a finger. "No, no, not Atar-who, Atar-"

"Atar-who," everyone chorused. Then, laughing, they poured their cups on me.

Lily smiled with victory, not realizing she was the child who'd just let her brother name the new kitten `Pukey Smelly Butt' because she had no idea what the words meant. "Atar-who! I like it!"

The pleased expression on her face settled the issue for me. "All right, I'm happy to be `Atar-who, the mermaid,"' I agreed hoarsely, and gave her a hug.

Miriam was right. The alchemy of fantasy, of eternal youth and sensuality, shimmered through the water and electrified me. Perhaps Ponce de Leon really had explored these realms. Perhaps his fabled fountain of youth wasn't an elixir but an immersion. Many religions understand the powerful symbolism of bringing forth the sinner, re-birthed, from water.

Re-birthed. Born anew, into a new identity.

Atar-who, the mermaid.

When the music played in my earpiece and the theatrical underwater lights swept over me the first time, goose bumps rose on my arms, and I cried while smiling. Here's a revelation: Underwater, no one can see your tears. Silly though it may sound, I felt like a beauty queen, and, for the first time in my life, like a breathtaking Carnivale princess. I felt sexy. My birth mother had given me a name. My birth father watched me proudly in the stadium seats behind the Plexiglas wall. And so did Ben.