When We Believed in Mermaids(17)

“You can’t just sit there and watch,” I protest. “You have to swim.”

“Let’s swim, then,” he agrees, and slides back into the water himself, taking off without warning.

So we swim. Laps, mostly. I’m conscious of his skin, only an arm’s length away. I’m conscious of my own skin, swept by the water. And then, as always, I forget anyone else and the problems of the day and meld with the water, moving easily, rhythmically, the world forgotten. I don’t even remember learning to swim, any more than I remember learning to walk.

He stops before I do, hooking his elbows backward over the wall, his hair slicked back. I keep swimming, but then I’m worried he’ll leave before we have a chance to talk, which is backward from what I wanted last night. But maybe for once I’m going to go with what I actually feel instead of what I think I should.

When I lap back, I come up and pause. “Are you leaving?”

“Do you want me to?”

I shake my head.

“There is a spa pool over there,” he says, and points to a door going outside. “I will wait there if you like.”

“Yes, please.”

He doesn’t smile, and neither do I. I lean back into my stroke and do a few more laps before I give in to the lure of him and climb out, wrapping a big towel around my waist, which is ridiculous, because then I just take it off.

The spa pool is protected, but it is outside, with views of the office buildings around us. I drop my towel on the chair. “How is it?” I ask.

“Quite good.”

I step into the hot, swirling water and sink down, letting it cover me to my neck. He sits on a higher ledge, and I can’t help admiring his well-shaped arms, the black hair on his chest. He’s ever so slightly overweight, carrying the extra right over his belt line, which makes me like him more—the sign of a man who relishes life.

Or travels a lot, I think, remembering that he said he’d been on the road too much.

He doesn’t speak, only dabbles his hands over the water.

Fair enough. “Sorry I bolted last night,” I say.

His dark eyes rest on my face, and he lifts an eyebrow in question.

I can’t hold the eye contact and look down at my hands, floating in the blue water. I shake my head. “I don’t know.”

“Mm.”

“Look, it was stupid, and I’m sorry. Can we start fresh?”

He turns his lips down in consideration. “Okay.” Offers a hand. “My name is Javier.”

I laugh. “Not all the way at the beginning.”

“Did you like my song?”

“You have a beautiful voice.”

“Thank you.” He slides deeper into the water and lets his feet rise, the toes poking up into the air. It seems strangely revealing. “Perhaps one day you can hear more than one song.”

I give him a wry smile. “Maybe so.”

“How long will you be here in Auckland?”

“I’m not sure, really.” I take a breath and find myself telling the truth. “I’m sort of on a mission—to find someone.”

“Not a lover, I don’t think.” His toes disappear beneath the surface.

“No. Not at all. My sister.”

“Did she run away?”

I sigh. “It’s a very long story.”

“This is your sister who died?”

I forgot I told him that. “Yes.” I give the answer a shortness that conveys my unwillingness to add more.

He nods, his eyes fixed on my face as his hands swirl over the water, graceful, strong. Beautiful hands graced with square nails. “Will you look for her today?”

A trickle of water makes its way down his cheekbone, slides along his mouth. I want to put my open palms on his bare shoulders. “Yes. I found some leads. But I probably won’t be busy with it all day.”

He smiles at last, and beneath the water, his foot brushes mine. “What if I help you look, and then you come with me on a sightseeing tour?”

I think of not having to spend the day entirely by myself. “All right. I’d like that.”

“Do you want to know what we will see?”

With a smile, I shrug. “Whatever it is, I’ve never seen it before.”

His smile is generous, considering. “Nor I.”

Suddenly there is a sway, a splash, and I feel off-kilter. It’s not my imagination—Javier tilts toward me, a hand reaching behind me for the lip of the pool.

I lift my head, looking for things that could fall on us; then I’m clambering out of the spa and heading for open space. “Come on.”

“What—?”

The sway, not terrible but unmistakable, comes again. “Earthquake,” I say, and hold out my hand.

He wastes no time, and we hurry out to the open passageway that leads back to the pool. “Is it dangerous?”

“No.” I rest my hands on the wide stone ledge. Sunlight floods the area. “Very minor, but you don’t want to be under anything that could be shaken loose.”

He looks up, but there’s nothing above us, only sky. The sway is less remarkable here, out of the water, and soon it’s gone. “That’s that,” I say.

“How did you know it was an earthquake?”

“I live in northern California. They’re part of the landscape.”

“Have you ever experienced a big one?”

I think of the cove, scattered with the decayed ruins of what had once been Eden and our home. “Yes, unfortunately. The Loma Prieta in ’89.” Then add the way everyone remembers it, “San Francisco.”

“How old were you?”

“That’s an odd question.” He’s leaning one hip on the ledge, and his hair has begun to dry in swooping waves. “Twelve. Why?”

“Such a thing will leave a mark, no? More or less, depending on your age.”

It was, almost certainly, the worst day of my life, but being twelve had nothing to do with it. “Really. And what does my being twelve say?”

“That it was terrible. But your face says that.”

I touch my jaw, my mouth. “Does it?”

Finally he touches me, just his fingertips against my cheek, then away. “Yes.”

Things I don’t think about tumble out of their boxes—the rumbling, the sound of breaking glass, my urgent dive for the door. Lying flat on the ground in the open, counting seconds.

I swallow, then take one step closer and rest my palm on his chest. He doesn’t bend down to kiss me, as I had expected, but only presses his hand over mine, holds it there. “Life is capricious, no?”

I think of getting to my feet when the shaking stopped to find nothing left, the house in ruins. The absolute silence told me what I knew instantly. Still, I cried out my father’s name. Called until I had no voice left. Called until darkness fell.

I nod.

He is the first to step away. “Shall we go?”



I shower the pool from my skin and tame my hair with product, drawing it away from my face in the vain hope that it will behave for a few hours. To protect my skin from the harsh sun—New Zealand has some of the highest melanoma rates in the world—I bring a broad-brimmed hat. It’s too hot for long sleeves, so I’m wearing the sundress again, and I slather on heavy-duty sunscreen. Carrying a rattan bag, I head down to meet Javier in the lobby.

This time I’m the first to arrive, and I wait by a bank of windows overlooking the square. Young people, mostly students by the look of them, sit in the sunshine, reading or talking in clumps of two or three. The girls have a wide array of color in their hair—sometimes silvery with purple ends or ombre shades of watermelon or leaves. One girl has streaks in a rainbow array, and she wears oversize sunglasses and bright-red lipstick.

It seems like a long time ago that I felt that young, so dewy. If I ever did. At twenty, I was buried in textbooks, working two jobs to stay afloat. It didn’t leave a lot of time for lazing around in the sun. I’m piercingly envious for a moment.

“You look lovely,” Javier says nearby.

I swing the red skirt. “I only have the one.”

He touches his chest. “This is one of two.” It’s a soft gray button-up with very thin blue stripes. Expensive. “I cannot bear to bring more than a carry-on.”

“I’m not that efficient,” I admit as we head toward the elevators to go down to street level. Inside, I smell his cologne, a continental touch I’m unused to.

“I have become so over the years. Two good shirts, jeans, slacks, one pair of shoes, maybe a pair of sandals.”

The door slides open, and we head outdoors to the heavy day. I slide my sunglasses down my nose. “Whew. I’m not used to heat,” I say. “It’s not this hot in California, at least not by the ocean.”

“I like California,” he says. “The people are friendly.”

“You’ve been there?”

“Many times.” He’s dropped his own sunglasses over his eyes, very black aviators that give him a glamorous air. “It’s beautiful. Where do you live?”

“Santa Cruz.”

He frowns slightly.

“Just south of San Francisco?”

“Ah. So you stayed there, even after the earthquake.”

“I’ve never lived farther than sixty miles from the hospital where I was born. Native Californian.”

“Is your family there?”