Fish Out of Water (3 page)

Fred was trying hard not to glare at the reporter from
Time
and having her usual degree of success. For the hundredth time, she questioned the king’s wisdom in making her the go-between between surface dwellers and Undersea Folk. The king’s argument—that she was the only half-and-half on the planet—had seemed so logical at the time . . . Clearly he had paid no attention to her poor interpersonal skills.
“Several countries are offering citizenship to the mermaids—”
“Undersea Folk.”
“—how do you feel about that?”
“I feel they don’t need land citizenship. They’ve got the run of the oceans. I also think it’s typical of humans to assume Undersea Folk would jump at the chance for
U.S.
citizenship. Because that’s where you’re going, right? It’s not altruistic in any way.
America
wants dibs on the finned.”
The reporter, a slender, balding man with warm brown eyes, smiled. “Interesting point.”
“Insulting point, actually. But have it your way.”
“So tell me about yourself—your mother’s human, and your father—”
“Next question.”
The reporter blinked. “I understand that some of the Undersea Folk don’t care for you because your father—”
“Next question.”
“Is it true that if you help a mermaid, you get a wish?”
She stared at him. He chuckled nervously under her gaze and added, “Or have I been watching too many movies?”
“It’s not true. If you help a mermaid, I get to punch you in the teeth. That’s the rule.”
“You’re an, ah, unusual diplomat.”
“Take that back!”
“All right, all right, you’re a lousy diplomat.”
“Thanks,” she said, mollified, thinking:
How did I end up here? Now? Doing this job? With these people?
“
So would you say the Undersea Folk are less—ah—warlike than humans?”
“Less warlike?” she asked blankly.
“There’s been some talk about the comparisons, and several Undersea Folk have made no secret of the fact that they don’t trust—what do they call us? Surface dwellers?”
“Can you blame them?”
“So you’re not denying it?”
She stifled a sigh. More Homo sapiens arrogance.
They’re not like us, but we’ll find a peg to jam them into anyway.
Ugh.
“Undersea Folk are like anyone else. There are saints, there are assholes, but most of them are somewhere in between. Like anyone else on the planet, you need to get to know one before you decide what kind of person they are. And like anyone else on the planet, you can’t say every member of the species acts or talks or thinks the same.” Duh. For a moment she’d thought she’d said it out loud. What she
had
said out loud was probably bad enough.
“Oh, this is dynamite,” the reporter enthused. “Do you mind if I change ‘assholes’ to ‘jerks’?”
“Censorship,” she observed. “Alive and well in the home of the free.”
Thick-skinned, like most journalists, he ignored that. “And we’ll be sending a photographer over to take your picture—say, two o’clock?”
Fred grimaced, which the reporter took as a strained smile of acquiescence.
“And say, how about a demonstration? Can you—I mean, we see the mer—the Undersea Folk with their tails, or with legs, but nobody’s ever seen them shift form. Maybe you could—”
“Do I
look
like a performing seal?”
“So, no.” He slapped his notebook shut. “Well, thanks for your time, Dr. Bimm.”
She grunted.
“Say, could I get your autograph for my little girl? She’s crazy about mermaids.”
Oh, Lord, this is punishment for all my sins.

Six

She was resting on the bottom of the pool when she saw Jonas appear, squatting beside the deep end. He looked wavy yet distinct, and he was wearing a pair of shorts so orange they hurt her eyes. He was gesturing impatiently to her.
She ignored him.
His gestures became more urgent.
She yawned and stretched her arms out over her head, a lazy flick of her tail propelling her halfway to the shallow end.
Now he was pointing both middle fingers at her, jabbing the air. She snorted, a stream of bubbles popping to the surface.
He leapt in, swam busily for a moment, then tried to grab her arm and haul her to the surface.
Oh, pal. Mistake.
Jonas must be really agitated, or he’d have remembered she was three times stronger and faster. She wriggled easily from his grip, spun him around, grabbed his ankle, and propelled him through the water with a healthy shove. He nearly brained himself on the steps leading into the shallow end, then bobbed halfway to the surface.
In fact, maybe he
did
brain himself, because he was floating facedown in the water.
Don’t fall for that one again.
He still wasn’t moving.
He gets you every time with this one.
Maybe she’d pushed it a little far with the rough-housing.
Moron
!
She agreed with her self-assessment, but nonetheless reached him in half a second, seized him by the shirt, and flipped him over. They both bobbed to the surface.
He opened his eyes and spat a stream of water at her forehead. “We were supposed to be at the caterer’s ten minutes ago.”
She let go of him in disgust and wiped her face. “Must have slipped my mind.”
“Sure. Now get your fishy butt out of this pool, get dressed, and haul ass to the car.”
“You don’t need me,” she whined. “You’re way better at this stuff than I am.”
“We’re the Team Supreme, dumbass. Now get going.”
“Shouldn’t you be shielding your eyes at the sight of my breathtaking nudeness?”
“Oh, like I haven’t seen your knockers every week since the second grade.”
She giggled in spite of herself. “I’m pretty sure I didn’t
have
knockers in the—”
“Out. Dress. Car. Caterer.”
“You know, I’m under a lot of pressure,” she grumbled, shifting from tail to legs and stomping up the shallow end steps to the patio. “I don’t need to take shit from Groomzilla.”
“You’ll be taking a smack in the mouth from Groomzilla if you don’t haul ass. Tail. Whatever.”
She laughed at him; she couldn’t help it. Jonas was never more hilarious than when he was pretending to be a badass.

Seven

“Well, how about this one?”
“If I have to jam one more piece of cake down my gullet, I’m going to vomit all over your baker.”
The baker, a cadaverously scrawny fellow Fred distrusted on sight (Did he never sample his own product? Why wasn’t there an ounce of fat on him?), grimaced but hauled out more slices on napkins.
They were seated practically
in
the front window at a small table set for two. A small, romantic table: silver candlesticks, snow-colored linen napkins, real china. Jonas, of course, was loving it. Fred, not so much.
“This is one of my favorites,” the baker said with quiet insistence.
“I can’t.”
Jonas remained undaunted and said, between chomps, “But it’s chocolate!”
Fred moaned. Chocolate with ganache filling. Vanilla sponge cake with raspberry filling. Carrot cake—blurgh! German cake with coconut cream filling. Strawberry cake with strawberry jam filling. Lemon chiffon with Meyer lemon curd filling. Angel food cake with no filling. Angel food cake with coconut filling. Red velvet cake with vanilla buttercream filling. Coconut cake with chocolate fondant. Marble cake with chocolate buttercream frosting. Orange cake with (yurgh!) marmalade filling. Orange poppy seed (double yurgh!) with no filling. Banana cake with coconut filling. Spice cake with (vomit) lemon poppy seed filling. Mocha cake with coffee buttercream filling.
“I can’t,” she said again, positive she’d put on five pounds in the last half hour.
“Well,
I
can’t decide between the lemon chiffon, the mocha, or the vanilla sponge cake.” Jonas chomped busily, then said, spraying the spotless tablecloth with crumbs, “Nope. Too rich.”
“Have all three, then,” she said crossly.
“We’re not
all
made of money, Madame Grouchy-pants,” he sniffed, unaware that he looked ridiculous with frosting on his chin.
“Jesus,
I’ll
pay for them, okay? Just pick. I’ll write you a check for ten grand right now if I can just leave.”
“You’re supposed to help me pick. That’s why you’re here.”
“And I thought I was here to clog my arteries and flop facedown into buttercream frosting during my heart attack.”
“We also have apple,” the scrawny baker added.
“Twenty grand,” Fred begged. “Anything. My checkbook’s right here.”
“Oh, all right, you can buy the cakes. But we still have to go see the caterer.”
“I
can’t
,” she cried. “You’re not listening: I will vomit. Puke. Yark. Blurgh. Spew. Shout at the floor. Whatever. I’ll do it. I’m so close to tilt right now, I could be a Vegas slot machine. I—”
“Say,” Skinny Baker said, “haven’t I seen you on TV?”
She fled.

Eight

Then—then! Not only is my best friend (and
worst enemy) marrying my boss, the wedding’s happening here. On Sanibel. And I have to help him pick out cakes and food and tuxes and flowers. All because he’s so hot to get hitched the damned wedding’s happening in two months. Two! Months! Like I don’t have enough things to worry about!
You have many trials, Little Rika.
Artur’s tone sounded right—sympathetic and warm—but he was having a terrible time hiding his smile. Much more so than, say, the average human: Artur had the typical dentition of full-blooded Undersea Folk, and had teeth to rival a great white.
They were a few miles out into the Gulf, swimming about thirty feet below the surface. Although Fred normally wasn’t a fan of ocean swimming, she couldn’t fault the more-or-less beautiful waters of the
Gulf of Mexico
. You just had to avoid the areas her mother’s people had cheerfully polluted the hell out of. And ignore the sneers of the occasional passing nurse shark.
She had fled the bakery and, since Jonas had driven, ran to the first beach she could find—and on Sanibel, they were plentiful. She was out of her clothes in seconds (how many outfits had she left scattered on various beaches around the world?) and into the water, flailing helplessly until she switched to her tail. Then she’d arrowed beneath the waves and put major distance between her and the shore, as quickly as she could.
The irony: if she was home, if she was in
Boston
, she would have retreated to her tiny apartment and barred the door for a week. But her rental down here was too big, too open, and didn’t feel like hers. She was too easily tracked down in the swimming pool. And here, in the ocean, she chanced running into Undersea Folk who hated her because of what her father had done before she was conceived, never mind born.
I am the unluckiest hybrid on the planet.
Oh, stop it,
she scolded herself, zipping past a school of snook that were busy trying to stay the hell out of her way. Their panicked thoughts raced across her brain like confetti:
big one eat no eat do not eat no big one
no eat!
Knock it off,
she sent back.
I’m stuffed; you don’t have to worry about a thing.
First off, she was the only hybrid on the planet (probably). Second, zillions had it worse. No money. No idea where their next meal was coming from. No way to breathe underwater without scuba gear. Next, she was at the top of the food chain—on both her mother’s
and
her father’s side. Unlike, say, anything else that swam in the ocean.
And finally, nobody twisted her arm to do any of this crap. She wasn’t a victim—far from it. She could have said no. It’s not like she didn’t know how.
Then why do I feel like everything’s spinning out of my control?
Well. There was the small fact that two years ago, only a handful of people knew she grew a tail when she swam. Two years ago, her love life was not at all complicated. (Nonexistent would be the more accurate term.) Jonas wasn’t dating Dr. Barb. The world of surface dwellers had no idea mermaids (as they insisted on referring to her father’s people) existed. Oh, and thousands of Undersea Folk hadn’t decided to hate her because of her shitheel dad.
I prob’ly just need a nap.
She darted past a few goliath grouper, slowing to watch them—she’d never seen that particular species outside an aquarium. She knew it was illegal to keep them if you caught them—the rule down here for goliath grouper was strictly catch and release. Pity. She’d heard grouper were delicious.
She was so absorbed in indulging her inner science geek she didn’t see the two Undersea Folk until they were swimming right above her.
Hi,
she sent cautiously.
Hello,
one of them sent back. It was a male, with a tail much longer, broader, and prettier than hers, all peacock blues and greens. His hair was also green, the color of mashed peridots; his eyes exactly matched. His shoulders were broad, tapering to a narrow waist, and she realized yet again that male Undersea Folk had no chest hair.
Did they shave, the better to be more aerodynamic? Naw. Just something else that set them apart from surface dwellers.
Hello, Fredrika Bimm,
the other one said, a female with a narrow, bright yellow tail. Her hair floated around her in a cloud—a literal cloud, as it was perfectly white.
Are you well?
Hallelujah. Undersea Folk who were going to wait to get to know her before hating her.
As can be expected, I s’pose,
she replied. The three of them circled one another.
I didn’t catch your names.
I am Keekenn,
the male said,
and this is my mate, Rashel.
Rochelle, Rochelle, Fred thought inanely. A young girl’s strange erotic journey from
Milan
to
Minsk
.
I’ve got to stop watching all those
Seinfeld
reruns.
What?
Rashel asked.
Nothing,
Fred sent back hastily.
Thinking about something else. Do you guys live around here?
Not at all. Our home is off the coast of
Greenland
. We came down here to show numbers to His Majesty the king.
Ah! The better to fool you with, my dear.
Pardon?
Keekenn asked.
You know. So the surface dwellers think you guys mostly live here. As opposed to being all over the world, and/or the
Black Sea
.
I have never seen a surface dweller up close before,
Rashel admitted, arching her arms over her head and zipping past Fred. There was a spray of blood and scales, and then the woman was chomping on the head of a grouper and offering the body to her mate. Fred, who was allergic to fish, managed not to vomit and pawed the scales away from her face.
I am most curious. Perhaps it will be an agreeable experience.
They’re not all bad,
Fred agreed.
Forgive my mate, she is in pup. Would you like some?
Fred’s hand shot up and she pinched her lips together to forestall the barf reflex.
No, no, I’ve already eaten. You guys knock yourselves out.
In pup? What the hell did that mean? Pregnant?
Hmm. Her inner science geek surged forward with a hundred questions and Fred ruthlessly stomped it. She debated mentioning that it was illegal to devour grouper, then decided that surface dweller fishing rules probably didn’t apply to your average pregnant mermaid.
I don’t s’pose you guys know where Artur is?
The two exchanged glances, and when Rashel answered it was quite cautiously:
He is several miles from here, in meet with the king. Can you not call him?
This wasn’t the time to explain that, as a half-and-half, her underwater telepathy was quite limited. Her range was poor, to be perfectly blunt. And out of the water, unlike pure-blooded Undersea Folk, she had no telepathy at all. That had been difficult for Artur to get used to. Apparently, it made her borderline retarded in the eyes of many of her father’s people. Hurdle number twenty-nine to vault before things ran smoothly.
I didn’t want to bother them,
she lied.
We did run into another friend of yours,
Rashel added.
Oh, yeah?
Indeed. We must be going, but you will see her very soon. It was agreeable to meet you.
Likewise.
Her? What friend would they know of who was a
her
?
Rashel and her husband swam away—not one for long good-byes were the Undersea Folk—leaving Fred momentarily alone. The presence of three predators had cleared the area of every single fish, and even a couple of sharks. She had no idea what to—
Ho, Fredrika Bimm!
She spun. And gaped.
Tennian?
Of course,
her blue-haired rival replied, sounding pleased.
Perhaps you were expecting my irritating brother?
No. That, Fred didn’t need.
Rival?
Where had
that
come from?
But Fred, a lousy liar, was even worse at lying to herself, and she knew perfectly well where that had come from.