When We Believed in Mermaids(22)

And as if he senses I’ve reached a wall, he turns the conversation. “Tell me, Kit—is it Katherine or something else? Were you like a fox kit, and your father gave you the nickname?” As he speaks, his gaze is focused intently on my face, as if whatever words drop from my mouth will be endlessly fascinating. I had a professor once who looked at me this way. She was a nun, and I knew her in my third year of undergrad. I bloomed in her presence. I’m blooming now.

“It was my father’s doing,” I admit. “He thought I looked like a kitten when I was born, and he nicknamed me. My mother still calls me Kitten sometimes, and Dylan used to as well. But everyone else calls me Kit. I was quite a tomboy.”

“Tomboy? I do not think I know this word.”

“Not very girlie. I didn’t like dolls or dresses.”

His hands are stacked, just the fingers, quiet. “What did you like?”

“Surfing. Swimming.” Something in my spine loosens, and I lean forward, smiling as I remember. “Searching for pirate treasure and mermaids.”

“Did you find them?” His voice is lower, his dark eyes very direct.

I look at his generous mouth, then back up. “Sometimes. Not very often.”

He nods very faintly. It’s his turn to look at my mouth. My shoulders, the square of skin showing in my dress. “So was it Katherine to start or Kitten?”

“Katherine. It was my father’s mother. And I, sadly, look just like her.”

“Sadly? Why do you say such a thing?”

I shrug, easing backward, away from that swirling thing growing in the air between us. “I don’t mind. But I was not my sister or my mother.”

He tsks. “I saw that photo of your sister. She looks small. Wispy.”

“Yes. Never mind this conversation. I didn’t mean—”

“I know.” He grins almost mischievously.

I laugh lightly. “You’re teasing me.”

“Perhaps just a little.”

“Now you. Tell me something. Why do you have your name?”

“The whole name is Javier Matias Gutierrez Velez de Santos.”

“Impressive.”

“I know.” He inclines his head, easing the arrogance. “My father is Matias, and my mother’s brother was Javier. He was killed by a jealous husband before I was born.”

I narrow my eyes. “Is that true?”

He raises his hands, palm out. “Swear. But I was never the boy who would be killed that way. I had big glasses, you know, thick.” His hands went to his eyes to illustrate the shape. “And I was a bit fat, and they called me cerdito ciego, little blind pig.”

Before he even finishes the sentence, I’m laughing, the pleasure coming from somewhere in my body that I’d forgotten. “I don’t know that I believe you.”

“I swear, it’s true. Every word.” He glances over his shoulder, leans closer. “Do you want to know the secret of my transformation?”

“Yes, please,” I whisper.

“I learned to play guitar.”

“And sing.”

He nods. “And sing. And then, it was like a magic spell. I could sing and play, and nobody called me the little blind pig anymore.”

“I believe that story. Your voice is beautiful.”

“Thank you.” His eyes glitter. “Usually it doesn’t send women running away.”

“No. I’m sure.”

He touches my arm. “Will you listen again sometime?”

That swirling thing expands, engulfs us, and we’re enclosed in a world of our own. His thumb rests on my inner arm, and I see that his irises are not as dark as they first seemed but lit with amber. “Yes,” I say quietly, sure I don’t mean it.

“Good.”



We make one last departure when the ferry stops at Rangitoto. Ordinarily it would just be a pickup, but another ferry has been waylaid, and this one is going to do double duty. We have to wait for an hour for everyone to come off the mountain. “You’re welcome to disembark and explore a bit, if y’like,” the steward says over the loudspeaker. “Be warned we’ll be leaving at sixteen hundred hours.”

Rather than sit in the hot sun, we opt to explore. I’m wearing walking sandals, and Javier is in jeans and good shoes, so we don’t go far, just up to the visitors’ center and a small lagoon where birds hop and twitter and gather. I hear long, fluid whistles and a squished little squawk, and around us are plants I’ve never seen. My mother would love it, and she’d probably be able to identify many of them. I’m drawn down a path shaded by tree ferns and land ferns and a pretty flowering tree. A bird overhead seems to be engaged in a long whistling conversation, and I grin, looking up to see if I can find him, but there are only more ferns and leaves and tropical-looking things.

My heart suddenly turns over. How remarkable that I’m standing here in this place. “It’s amazing!”

The rustle of wings alerts us, and Javier touches my arm, pointing to the bird who’s been making so much noise, black with a thick brown saddle over its shoulder. I admire it in wonder, mouthing Wow to Javier, who nods.

We wander back to the main dock area, where people, dusty and sunburned as they come down from hiking, are gathering for the trip back to the city. “Do you like to hike?” I ask Javier.

His lips turn down. “I don’t know. I do like walking. Do you hike?”

“I love it. Being outside like that, all day, just the trail and the birds and the trees. I live by the redwoods. They’re incredible trees.”

“Mm. Would you want to hike to that peak?” He points to the top of the volcano. It’s not an actual invitation but a query on preference.

I look to the top, shrug. “It would be fantastic.”

He nods, measures the height. “I might not care for that.”

And for the first time, there is something I’m not sure I like about him. No surfing, no hiking. I’m used to more vigorous men.

Then I remember the way he swam, with sure, strong strokes, and realize he’s fit enough. Perhaps people in Madrid are not as interested in climbing mountains and challenging waves as those in California.

We walk toward the pier and lean on the railing there. A gaggle of teenage boys, all part of some tour group, are jumping off tall concrete pilings to the water below, egging on the others.

“Did you see the trees across the street from the high-rise?” he asks.

“No.” It’s hard to look away from the boys and their dangerous game. I wonder who’s in charge, but it doesn’t really seem as if anyone is.

Chill, I tell my inner ER doc. Not everything is a disaster.

Javier, following me as I edge farther up the pier, says, “I walked there yesterday. It’s a little park or something, and the trees are old and full of character. As if they might walk around when no one is watching.”

I look over at him, snared by the fairy-tale image. “Really?”

Two boys are shouting, drawing our attention, and we watch as they scramble to a higher piling and leap off, yelling. I’m tapping my index finger on the railing that separates us from the water. Below us, the boys surface and laugh, and others are scrambling to the higher piling. Tourists and hikers laze against the railing, taking sips of water from bottles, smearing on sunscreen, eating.

A very tall boy with messy black hair dripping on his back gets to the top of the piling, joking and laughing with some of the others.

I see it before I see it—his foot sliding out from under him on the wet concrete, his body tilting, shifting, arms flying out—

And his head hits the edge of the concrete, visibly splitting right in front of me.

“Get out of the way!” I yell, and I’m kicking off my shoes and shedding my dress practically before the boy hits the water with an excruciating splat. I run to the end of the dock and dive toward the place he went in. The water is cold and murky, but late-afternoon sun illuminates the shape of his body. Another body is in the water with me, and we meet and yank, both of us swimming toward the surface. Blood from his head pours out in a dark cloud.

We break the surface. The other rescuer is another boy from the group, a strong swimmer. “Head for shore!” I yell, and we swim together, dragging the deadweight of the body between us toward the seawall, where others meet us and haul the injured boy upward.

“Help me up!” I cry. “I’m a doctor.”

And there are hands hauling me too, and I’m beside the boy, giving him mouth-to-mouth until he chokes and expels a gutful of water, but that doesn’t raise him to consciousness. His head is bleeding heavily. “Give me your shirt,” I order the other boy, and he tugs it off and hands it to me. Squeezing out the excess water, I press it to the cut, holding it there as I check his vitals and his pupils, but his eyes are so black it’s hard to tell. He needs a hospital, fast.

A man from the ferry appears with another guy in a uniform, maybe coast guard. “Thank you, miss,” he says. “That was amazing. We’ve got it.” Two forest-ranger types are running down the beach with a stretcher, and I see a boat with a cross on it. The crowd parts for the paramedics, because that must be what they are. I keep my hands on the cut, and one of them nods. “You’re a lifeguard?”