The Summer of Chasing Mermaids

  We’ll do OUR best.

  And there it was, so fleeting I almost missed it.

  Christian Kane’s real, unguarded smile.

  Chapter 12

  “Normally when I see a woman on all fours, I don’t interrupt.” Christian tossed his keys in the air, caught them right as I looked up from my crawl across the Queen’s aqua-blue deck. I fixed him with a mean glare. “But, summer of firsts,” he said. “Up for a hardware store run? Maybe get lunch from someplace other than Vanessa’s picnic basket? That’s not a euphemism. Seriously. There’s only so much flavored water and finger sandwiches a guy can take.”

  I stripped off my yellow gloves and protective mask, offering a relieved smile. We’d been scrubbing grime and barnacles for a week straight; close quarters with Christian on this dirty little vessel had given new meaning to the phrase “cabin fever.”

  There was a decent hardware store on Main Street, but Christian said that the owner of Nutz-n-Boltz, a small shop tucked among the pines in the northeast part of town, was an old friend.

  Right. Jessica Boltz was older than Christian by a decade, but that didn’t stop her from eyeing him with the same look I’d seen on the younger tourists at the Cove—battle weary, but always up for another fight.

  “Captain Kane.” She didn’t set down her magazine as we approached the counter, but the glint in her eyes told me she was watching our every move. “Been a while, sailor.”

  “Miss me, Jess?” Christian winked at her.

  “Eh,” she said with a shrug. “I could take you or leave you.” She finally dropped the magazine, and her grin widened. “Enough with the mushy reunion, Kane. What can I do you for?”

  Christian opened his mouth to say something crass, but Jess cut him off.

  “No, that wasn’t an offer.” Her words were for him, but her eyes were on me, assessing. “Hear you two are the team to beat this summer.”

  “Heard right. This is Elyse, first mate.”

  “Did you say first date?” she teased. “Because I’m pretty sure the Cove’s never seen a lady pirate at the helm.”

  “Don’t start, Jess,” Christian said. “We’re taking enough shit from Katzenberg.”

  “Lighten up, sailor.” She gave me a polite smile, her eyes flicking briefly over the scar behind my seashell necklace before turning back to Christian. “You’re not actually putting the Vega in the water this year?”

  Christian nodded.

  “Don’t get me wrong, Kane. You know that ol’ girl holds a special place in my heart.” She waited a beat too long before continuing. “But maybe you should put her out of her misery. Let Noah do his thing.”

  Christian leaned across the counter, tapped it twice. “If I let Noah do his thing, you may as well put up the For Sale sign here. Katzenberg has his way, you won’t even recognize the Cove next summer.”

  “You’re right,” she said. “I might actually get more than two customers a week. Imagine?”

  Christian’s jaw ticked again, but whatever was bothering him, he stowed it. It wasn’t the first time we’d encountered a proponent of the mayor’s initiative. Whether it was snippets of conversation drifting from the other boats at the marina or full-blown arguments at the Black Pearl, we’d heard it all. Yea or nay, no one was on the fence. The town really was, as Kirby and Lemon had told me, divided. It seemed Jessica thought the changes—however they’d resurface the face of the Cove—would be good for business.

  “Anyway.” Christian reached into his back pocket and pulled out a list, slid it across the counter. “Here’s what you can do me for.”

  She scanned the list, brow furrowing. “Afraid I’m out.”

  “You’re kidding,” Christian said. “Everything?”

  For the first time since we walked in, Jessica’s gaze dropped to the counter and stayed there. Absently she flipped a page in the magazine. “Had a run on sealants and gel coat last week. Lots of people patching up boats for the summer, I guess.”

  Christian turned to check out the shelves for himself.

  “Save yourself the trouble,” she said. “I know we’re out.”

  “How about I just take a peek?”

  “No!” she said, her confidence gone. “I mean . . . I’ve got it all on order. Might take a while, though.”

  Christian tugged the wallet from his back pocket, pulled out a shiny gold credit card and dropped it on the counter. “How long?”

  Jessica hesitated, which is what Christian wanted, but the trick didn’t work. “Three weeks, maybe?” she said. “A month? Try me again in August.”

  Christian grabbed the card and his list from the counter, stuffed them both into his wallet.

  When Jessica finally met his eyes again, her mouth was turned down, shoulders drooping. It was a slight change, but like the look that passed between them on arrival, it told me everything.

  She felt bad about something. And not just because she’d ­supposedly run out of sealant.

  In an apologetic tone she said, “Christian, I’m just . . . Did you try Big Mike’s?”

  “Should we?” he asked. “Or will Mike be out of everything I need too? Mind giving him a call and asking? You guys do stuff like that, right? Look out for all the good people of the Cove?”

  Jessica’s freckles paled behind the rosy heat rising in her cheeks.

  Christian smacked the counter with his palm and flashed a corporate kind of smile that would make his father proud. “Good seeing you again, Jess. Give the mayor my regards.”

  I didn’t hear whatever apologies she fumbled next. With his hand on my lower back, Christian ushered me out the door.

  At the far end of the parking lot two men were setting up surveying equipment. One of them adjusted a tripod while the other scanned the area, making notes on a clipboard.

  Christian leaned back against his pickup, arms crossed as he blew out an angry breath. “Katzenberg already got to her. Guess I should’ve seen it coming.”

  Why?

  “It’s in the rules,” Christian said. “The Pirate Regatta means legit pirate games. Cheating is encouraged, as long as it doesn’t cause a safety issue or do any permanent damage to the boats. No one ever screwed with me and Noah, but now that I’m on the wrong side of Team Katz, it’s a whole different shit storm. The mayor wants his kid to win, so he’ll bribe people like Jess and Big Mike to dock-block us—refuse to sell to us.”

  I looked again at the surveyors across the lot. The clipboard guy was pointing at something in the distance, the other one smiling and nodding.

  Kirby had said that Christian and Noah always won, but now they were competing against each other. The mayor was bribing local shops to fight us. P&D men were scurrying across the entire town like sand crabs. What chance did we have to win? To save the houses?

  Christian must’ve sensed my fear, my disappointment. He grabbed my shoulders, looked into my eyes without flinching. “Elyse, I promise you we’ll beat Noah. This is just a snag. Do you believe me?”

  When I didn’t respond, he ran his hands down my arms, grabbed my hands. “I need you to believe me,” he whispered. “We’re not going to lose.”

  He wouldn’t look away.

  Finally, I nodded.

  When he released my hands, I pulled out my notebook and scratched out a message.

  Jessica was lying when she said she didn’t have our stuff.

  “Bingo,” he said.

  I wrote again:

  So why didn’t we just buy it anyway? Could she refuse to sell? Is that legal?

  “We could’ve done that,” Christian explained. “But games like this are just understood. It’s pirate season, and Jess made it clear that she’s taken sides—Noah’s. I have to accept it, otherwise I’m the dick. A bad loser, you know?”

  But aren’t you & Jess friends? I mouthed.

  He smi
rked.

  I wrote another note, delivered it with a smirk of my own.

  You gave her the “grand tour” on the Vega, then you didn’t call again. Right?

  Christian’s eyebrows rose, playfulness returning to his smile. He reached out and closed the notebook in my hands. “Enough questions, Stowaway. Coos Bay should have what we need. Plus, there’s this place I want to show you.” With no further clues but a mischievous glint in his eyes, Christian thumped the roof of the truck. “Hop in.”

  Chapter 13

  “He took you for Indian food? Did he pay?” Kirby leaned against my bedroom doorframe later that night, hyped up after finding my lunch leftovers in the fridge. Spazzy as she was, her eyes were at half-mast, and her auburn locks were rimmed with frizz. She’d been pulling ­double duty ever since I signed on to the regatta, keeping up with emergencies at the library and at Mermaid Tears.

  I nodded from my computer desk, waved her in.

  “Seriously, what are you doing?” She kicked off her shoes and flopped onto the end of my bed. “A lunch date? With Christian?”

  Not a date.

  “Maybe not for you. But Elyse, Christian never pays. It’s his policy or whatever so he doesn’t set up any expectations.” Kirby barely took a breath. “So if he paid, that’s a really big deal. What do you think it means? Are you guys, like, hooking up?”

  She’d made air quotes around “hooking up,” whispering the words as though they were foul.

  I couldn’t hold back my smile. Kirby was so worried, it was bordering on ridiculous. She reminded me of my sister Hazel, who was only a year older than Natalie and me and took her responsibility as our elder very seriously.

  You’re so macocious, I mouthed, but Kirby wasn’t familiar with the word. A busybody, I tried again.

  “How do you say ‘concerned friend’ in Trini? Because that’s what I am. Vanessa got me worried,” she explained. “She said you guys weren’t at the boat when she went over there with the picnic basket, and you weren’t answering my texts. Which reminds me . . .” Kirby grabbed the cell from my desk. “I’m putting Vanessa’s number in here for you. Hey, this isn’t even turned on!” She shook her head, waited for the phone to blink to life. “Honestly, Elyse.”

  I’d been on the laptop when Kirby found me, so I pulled up the notepad app and typed out a quick summary of our day.

  The Coos Bay hardware store had what we needed, and after that, Christian had taken me to India’s Palace for lunch.

  “It’s not strictly Trinbagonian,” he’d said, “but I think you’ll like this place.”

  He was right on both counts—I did like it. And it wasn’t Trinbagonian. Not even close to the roti shops back home, to the fragrant feasts my friends’ parents had cooked. But he’d been so excited to take me there; he’d done research online, read about the Indian influence on our food back home. He’d hoped India’s Palace would bring me back to some of the best parts of the islands.

  He was so sweet, almost shy about it. I didn’t have the heart to tell him how different it was.

  Christian had insisted I order, thinking I had this insider’s ­knowledge. I was so touched by the gesture that I let him believe it, pointing out dishes on the menu like I knew what I was doing. I ordered enough food for a week—hence the leftovers in Lemon’s fridge.

  We had an amazing day.

  But the best part wasn’t the food, the spiciness, the cool mango lassi to wash it all down. It was the fact that Christian had been researching stuff about T&T, thinking of my home. The fact that he’d done something special, just for me.

  “But what did you guys talk about?” Kirby wanted to know. “I mean, you were gone a long time.” She tucked her legs up underneath her body, settling in for the gossip. For a minute it seemed like she’d forgotten her campaign against Christian—like he was just a regular cute boy, like she and I were just another pair of girlfriends talking about our crushes.

  It was . . . nice.

  Still typing, I told her a little bit about our conversation—how Christian had wanted to know all about the country, the history, what the food was like, how so many different kinds of people could come together on twin islands. I’d tried to keep up, responding in my notebook as quickly as I could, but each answer brought more questions. It was as if the cleaning masks we’d been wearing on the boat had stifled all the words, and once we’d gone out without them, the torrent unleashed.

  He was on his second helping of chicken vindaloo, still asking questions, before I’d even finished my samosa. When I jokingly pointed out the unfair advantage, he reached across the table, fingers brushing mine as he slid the Sharpie and notebook out of my grasp. He turned to a fresh page and scratched out a note, then passed it back silently.

  We’d gone on like that for another hour, asking questions and talking through written words alone. By the time our waiter had asked us to wrap it up, my stomach, my notebook, and the restaurant were near capacity. Hours had passed. Neither of us had realized how long we’d been sitting, talking, writing. We’d been lost in our own world, lost in hundreds of words. Both of our writing hands were inked and smudged, evidence of our questions and answers—his about Trinidad and Tobago. Mine about California and Oregon. Favorite foods. Movies. Funny stories from school.

  But none too deep about our families, about the scars they’d left.

  It was like we’d both sensed it, the boundaries of conversation. The too-real words that would pierce our hearts, pop this fragile bubble of new friendship with shards from the past that neither of us was ready to face.

  We’d gathered up our leftovers and driven back to the Cove in silence, as if neither of us wanted to break the spell we’d weaved on our long lunch break. Even after we’d parked the truck in the Kanes’ garage and walked back to Lemon’s house together, we’d exchanged only glances, shared only smiles.

  Outside the gift shop door downstairs, Christian had grabbed my free hand, turned it over.

  His skin was warm, rough from all the work we’d been doing on the Vega.

  With his teeth he’d uncapped the Sharpie I hadn’t seen him take from my pocket, and he wrote a final message on my palm.

  Sweet dreams.

  I peeked at it now, careful to keep it hidden from Kirby.

  That part of the story was all mine.

  “Sounds like you had a great day,” Kirby said, her smile warm and genuine. “I’m glad, Elyse. It shows. You look . . . I don’t know. Less depressed? Is that wrong to say?”

  I barked out a breathy laugh. She was right. Today had felt more like a vacation than any of my days in Oregon. I could still taste the tangy mango lassi, and my stomach was more than excited for a midnight raid on the fridge later—a thought which only reminded me of Christian, his surprising attentiveness today. I wasn’t ready to admit this to Kirby, but thinking of him fanned the spark inside me into an ember, red and glowing.

  Still . . . with the house on the line I couldn’t get sidetracked by fantasies about a boy whose main mission in life was making girls swoon. Kirby didn’t know Christian fully, and maybe she was unfair in her harsh judgments. But that didn’t mean she was entirely wrong. I’d seen the way girls looked at him, how he flirted. How it was obvious that some of them had gotten entangled with him in summers past. I had no interest in being one of those girls this time next summer, watching with envy whenever he brought someone home for the “grand tour.”

  I had to focus on the Queen, not her captain. That’s what I’d been doing on the computer when Kirby had started her playful ­interrogation.

  I updated her on the dock-block situation. After Christian dropped me off tonight, I’d spent the last two hours online, scouting out hardware and boating stores within a half-hour drive. Things worked out today, but the Vega would need a lot more work before she was seaworthy, and Coos Bay was too far to drive every time we needed a han
dful of bolts.

  We need a closer hardware store, I typed for Kirby. Not in the Cove, but not as far as CB. Any ideas?

  “You do realize the coast has about five billion state parks and campgrounds, and that most of them have their own marinas, right?” Kirby looked at me like it was the most obvious thing in the world. When I didn’t make the connection, she said, “The bigger marinas have their own supply stores with camping and sailing gear. Some of them even sell boats and parts on-site.”

  She nudged me over, smooshing onto the chair next to me. Her fingers flew over the keyboard, pulling up a map with all the parks and marinas in the area. From there we found the ones with supply stores or boat sale operations.

  In a rare moment of unrestrained joy, I flung my arms around her.

  “Wow,” she said. “If I’d known my Google fu was the way to your heart, I would’ve shown off my librarian-in-training skills long ago.”

  I sent the page to print on Lemon’s networked printer in the ­gallery, and off we went. Kirby beat me to it, swiped the paper from the output tray.

  “One condition,” she said, waving the page between us. I braced myself for another lecture about Christian, but Kirby only smiled. “In thanks for my services, you have to share those leftovers. I haven’t had Indian in forever!”

  I nodded toward the kitchen so we could start the late-night feast. But as Kirby set out clean plates and silverware, her smile slipped, and I froze. I recognized the look that had taken hold, ­rearranging her features.

  Fear.

  I tapped the countertop to get her attention. What’s up, gyal?

  “Noah doesn’t like this any more than Christian,” she said. Her gaze dropped to a water spot on the counter, and she dragged her ­finger through it as she talked. “I feel so bad for him. For both of them. And I’m trying to be super supportive for Noah, because I know how hard it’ll be for him if he loses and has to deal with his dad’s ­disappointment. Same as Christian, I guess. It’s just . . . it’s weird, you know? And Noah’s in the middle and I’m in the middle and I just . . .” She stopped playing with the water and met my eyes again, lowering her voice. “I like him, Elyse. I really, really, really like him.”