The Sweetest Summer(116)
Evie. Naked. Everywhere.
“Whoops.” He overshot the Safe Haven’s front gate and had to bang a U-ie on Shoreline Road. “Sorry. Here we are.”
A painfully high screech rose from the backseat. “Look! The castle! It’s the mermaid’s castle!”
Eighteen years ago . . .
For maybe the first time in her life, Evie was up before her parents. She left a note so they wouldn’t freak out. “Went for a quick run. Will be back by seven, plenty of time to finish packing.”
She needed to move, feel the sea air in her lungs, sense the oxygen fueling her blood. She took off, headed to nowhere but inside her own thoughts. She wished she knew where Clancy lived, but it suddenly occurred to her that she didn’t have a clue. It was like she was waking from a dream, where nothing had existed but Clancy, the boy—and now that she was ready to leave she wanted to know more about his life. Talk about bad timing. She knew almost nothing about the guy except that he had a brother and a sister and his ancestor thought he’d married a mermaid.
Oh, and one other thing—she was completely, totally, crazy in love with him.
Evie ran, pushing herself to go harder, driven to beat the sadness out of her body. She didn’t want to leave here, but so what? She was only fourteen, and her parents would make her go back to Maine. Besides, she had high school and college ahead of her, and if everything went according to plan the next stop would be medical school, then residency . . . she had goals. Her life was well organized.
Then why, deep down inside her spirit, did she think she was supposed to be on Bayberry Island, with Clancy? Totally crazy of course. She would never tell anyone the thought had crossed her mind—not her mom, Amanda, or any of her friends. It would sound psycho coming from a girl like her, someone grown-ups liked to point to and say, “Now that’s a girl with her feet on the ground and her head on her shoulders.”
What did that even mean? It felt like she was being praised for not accidentally doing it the other way around. The expression made her sound as exciting as watching paint dry.
She cut through Fountain Square on her way back to the motel. The mermaid towered above everything, lit up by the first glow of sun. She watched the light brighten as it poured through the sailboat masts and over the brick warehouses at the water’s edge. All was still, strangely quiet. The island was just starting to wake up to the last day of festival week. For most tourists it was a sad day, the day they had to leave.
She listened closely, but the only sounds she heard were the tap of her own feet on the street, the rhythm of her breath, and the call of seabirds.
Cautiously, she raised her eyes to the Great Mermaid. Yeah, it was nuts, but it really felt like the statue knew she was there. But of course she didn’t. For more than a hundred years the metal mermaid had been gazing in one direction—right out to sea—and still was.
Evie slowed to a walk, deciding to begin her cooldown in the mermaid’s company. She approached the fountain with hands on hips, breath slowing down. She stretched her arms and waist, all the while examining her. For a big bronze statue, she sure looked lifelike. It didn’t take much imagination to see the way she would move through the rolling ocean, surface out of a wave only to dive down again. She would let her arms trail along her sides while she sliced through the sea with whips of her strong tail, her hair flowing behind her like a web of watery silk.
Evie stood directly below the mermaid. She experienced something so strange—a sudden rush that felt like her heart would burst open with love and gratitude—for Clancy, for the beauty of this place, for her family. Just for a second, everything normal and boring felt priceless.
Oh, man, she knew this didn’t make any sense but she did it anyway. “Dear mermaid, I need to talk to you. I know I’m not supposed to do this when I have a particular boy in my head, but I can’t help it. His name is Clancy. He lives here. You probably know him. Just please listen while I tell you why you should bend your rules for us.”