“Why not?”
“That’s a longer story, Dad.”
He stared straight ahead at the motel swimming pool, and I could guess where his thoughts were going.
Dad opened his mouth, then closed it. Then opened it again and asked, “If I dove into that pool, would I turn into a mermaid?”
“Merman,” Calder said, coming up behind me.
I spun around in my chair.
“And you don’t want to do that in chlorine. It’s a nasty business.”
7
NEGOTIATION
“You!” Dad exclaimed, rising from his chair. He recoiled in disgust, and a vein popped down the center of his forehead. “What are you doing here?” Dad threw out an arm as if to shield me from Calder, and the other father at the pool gathered his children closer to his lounge chair.
“I’m here to help Lily,” Calder said. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.”
“Help,” Dad sneered. “You weren’t much help when she was nearly drowned by that … that …” It looked like it was going to be a long time before Dad was comfortable with the word.
Calder ground his teeth and looked sideways at me. If that look was meant to remind me that he thought this conversation was a bad idea, and that he wasn’t pleased about being dragged into it, well, yeah, I figured that much out for myself, thank you.
“I know how you feel about me, Mr. Hancock,” Calder said. “You don’t have to like me, but you do have to believe Lily.”
When I turned to Dad to see his reaction, it looked as if he was trying to grind his knuckles into his forehead.
“And,” Calder added, “I would be negligent if I didn’t explain the rest before setting you loose on the world.”
“No,” Dad said, backtracking on whatever progress I’d made with him. “You can’t expect me to believe any of this.”
“I do, and you will,” Calder said, dropping his voice lower. “You owe it to your daughter for what she did for you last month.”
Dad’s face paled. He didn’t look at me when he said, “Do me a favor, Lil. Go to the lobby. Get me a coffee.”
Calder nodded at me and I stood up reluctantly, leaving them alone by the pool.
The shabby motel lobby featured several outdated arcade games and an electric fireplace. Beside the check-in counter there was a low table with a grimy coffeemaker and a stack of Styrofoam cups. I filled one and stirred in powdered cream before hustling back to the pool. I didn’t want to miss anything.
One of the little water-winged kids ran in front of me, and I had to stop short. Half the coffee sloshed onto the concrete deck, not to mention burning my wrist.
When I got back to the table, Dad had his fingers laced behind his neck and his head bent low over his knees. I could tell by his posture that he was done being angry and the truth had finally settled in.
Calder was already into his lesson. I pulled in close, irritated that he’d started without me. I set the coffee down in front of Dad, but he never touched it.
“Ideally, you’d stay here,” Calder said.
“But I have a job. I can’t lose my job.”
Calder nodded. “I understand obligations. If you have to go back, there’s no reason you can’t teach in the fall. When you feel the need to swim, do it as soon as it’s practical.”
“Practical,” Dad said, repeating the word like it was a bad joke. “What about this winter?”
“You’ll start to dry out. More than before. More quickly, too. But you do have some options. After the channel between Madeline Island and the mainland freezes, get wet however you can, whenever you can. A tub. A sink. It’s only a temporary fix, but no one will think anything of it. And then it’ll be spring again. Trust me.”
Trusting Calder looked like something my dad was going to struggle with for a while. “What about your sisters?” Dad asked, sitting up.
“Your sisters,” corrected Calder. “I’m not blood related to any of you. And you’re right—Maris and Pavati are going to be a problem. See, they think Lily is dead.”
Dad turned a strange shade of green. I started to protest, but Calder gave me a look that silenced me.
Dad pulled his chair in closer. “What does any of this have to do with Lily?”
“If they discover Lily is alive, they’ll still need retribution for our mother’s death. For all I know, they’ll want two lives. One for Mother. One for Tallulah. The only thing I can predict is that they’ll be unpredictable.”
“Lily, if you’re in any danger, I’m afraid Calder is right,” Dad said. “You’re going to have to stay in Minneapolis. We’ll make something up to tell your mom. Maybe you could get a job at the U for the summer.”
“Uh-uh,” I said. “No way. If you think I’m going to stay locked up in Mrs. Badzin’s guest room like some fairy-tale princess for the next ten weeks—”
“Actually,” Calder said, “now that I’m not compelled to stay up north, I was thinking of going back to the Bahamas early. I thought maybe you’d go with me, Lily.”
My mouth popped open, and for a second any thought about protecting Dad disappeared. The Bahamas with Calder? That could work.
“Wait,” Dad said. “What? No. Definitely not. Lily’s staying with her family.”
Calder shrugged. “That’s fine as long as you’re not going back to the lake. In fact, I don’t know why I didn’t think about this before, but given that you’re related to Maris, I bet she’ll be able to read your thoughts. If there’s any hint in your mind that Lily survived … I’m sorry,” Calder said, shaking his head. “I won’t allow it.”
“You won’t allow it?” Dad asked scornfully. “You don’t even know for sure that this Maris person can hear my thoughts.”
“You already told him that part?” I asked. “What else did I miss?”
Neither of them acknowledged my questions.
“The other option isn’t any better,” Calder said. “If she can’t hear you, your silent approach will mean only one thing to her: that you’ve come to avenge Lily’s death. Maris will understand that. She knows revenge. But how do you think that confrontation is going to end for you?”
“I told you,” Dad said. “I have no choice but to go back, and I can’t allow Lily to go anywhere with you.”
It didn’t seem like Calder was listening to my dad. He was staring down at the table, deep in thought. “I need Lily with me,” he said. “She’s the only thing keeping me …”
Calder hesitated and looked up at Dad. There was a lot more he needed to explain about what Dad’s new merman nature might mean. Neither of us knew what forty years of being landlocked would do to his psyche. Maybe Dad would never suffer emotionally, like other merpeople did. I took Calder’s second of hesitation and made my move.
“Then it’s settled,” I said. Mentally, I licked my finger and made a hash mark in the air. Score: Annoying mermen, zero. Mutant girl, one. “Dad’s going back to Bayfield. He won’t let me go to the Bahamas, and I refuse to stay in Minneapolis. You won’t go anywhere without me. We’re all going back to the lake!”
“This is insanity,” Dad muttered under his breath. “All of it. But Lily’s right, we’re going back. To the Hancocks’, that is. If you intend to join us, Calder, that will be your choice to make.”
Calder scowled at the table and after a few long seconds said, “If you refuse to listen to reason, then you’re not giving me much choice. But, Lily … I’m sorry, but if you insist on going, you have to do something for me.”
“Anything,” I said.
He looked up at me as if he didn’t believe I could do what he was asking. “You have to promise to stay out of the water and close to the house. That is nonnegotiable.”
Dad shook his head slowly, his neck bent toward the table. “Are there any more secrets I should know about? I’d like to get everything out in the open all at once.”
I looked at Calder, whose eyes sparkled with good humor that felt completely out of place. He said, “Maybe
now’s a good time to tell your dad about that tattoo.”
8
BAYFIELD
Shortly after we left the pool, Dad developed a sudden and alarming stomachache, so my parents ended up staying in Minneapolis an extra night, which gave me time to pack and say goodbye to Jules and her family.
The next morning, Calder asked if I’d ride with him on the trip north. But when Dad learned how Calder had come by the Buick, he made him put it back where he found it. Immediately.
There was a lot of protesting, bargaining, and attempts to justify the situation. It was actually hilarious. No matter how skilled Calder might think he was in the art of persuasion, he’d be the first guy in the history of the world to convince a dad that felony theft was a good idea.
“If you’re going to be part of this family,” Dad finally said, “there’ll be no more thievery.”
I’m not sure if he picked his words on purpose, but I could see what they meant to Calder, having no family of his own. Ultimately, Calder promised to try.
Unlike Dad, Mom was pleasantly surprised to hear about our meet-up with Calder. I thought she’d have more questions. I mean, it was all a little too serendipitous, wasn’t it? But Calder worked his charms on her better than he’d managed with Dad. No surprise that she was only too happy to have him ride with us up to Bayfield.
The only bad part about the trip was that the backseat was cramped with Sophie, Calder, and me squeezed together, and Dad had his rearview mirror focused on Calder, rather than the road.
Calder’s decision to come back with us had triggered a lovely father-daughter chat the night before. “We’ve got to set some ground rules,” Dad had said.
I hadn’t really cared too much what they were. For me, I was glad to obey as long as I wasn’t in exile anymore, and rules had never mattered much to Calder. I’d leave any rule breaking up to him.
A couple of hours out of the Twin Cities, towns made way for pine trees and the air temperature dropped. Calder rolled his window down all the way, and my hair whipped around my face until I was able to find an elastic band tucked under the floor mat. I looped my hair into a messy bun, exposing my neck. Calder’s fingers were quick to find it, and his fingers worked out the tension knots in my neck and shoulders. I caught my dad watching in the mirror.
To my left, Sophie scribbled on a crossword puzzle balanced on her knees; she sang aloud to whatever she was listening to on her MP3 player, off-key and perfect all at the same time. Some eighties hair band belted out a ballad from the front-seat speakers. Dad held the steering wheel in a white-knuckled death grip. Mom buried her nose in a book.
I reached down to the floor to pull MY SCRIBBLINGS from my backpack. As I did, my new beach-glass pendant fell to the outside of my shirt.
Calder lifted the pendant gently in his fingers. “Where’d you get this?” he asked. “I haven’t seen you wear it before.”
“It was a graduation present from my parents.”
His brow furrowed, and he turned the pendant over a few times before letting it fall against my chest. I could feel the heat of his fingers, absorbed in the glass, warming my skin.
Calder turned back to the window, throwing his left arm around my shoulders. Dad’s eyes were in the mirror again, but I didn’t care. I snuggled against Calder’s chest. The whole car was perfumed with patchouli.
Trees and convenience stores flew by the window in an amazing blur of shape and color, and in a few hours, the lake appeared like blue chips of paint through the dense tree line. Five minutes later, the trees fell apart, the road cut to the edge of the bank, and the wide expanse of blue welcomed us home. My voice rose above the car radio, “We’re here!”
Sophie yanked the earbuds from her ears and looked out Calder’s window. Dad and Calder kept their eyes straight ahead, but I guess they could smell the lake long before I saw it. We all inhaled, holding our collective breath before simultaneously exhaling. Something about the smell tugged at my heart, which beat madly beneath my pendant.
Pulling through town, past the bookstore, Big Mo’s Pizzeria, the IGA, and the Blue Moon Café, I felt a twinge of guilt at having left Mrs. Boyd in the lurch. I supposed by now she’d hired our replacement baristas. I slunk low in my seat in case she saw me as we passed.
Mom turned around and said, “Leaving a job is not a capital offense, Lily. My goodness, how did I raise a child with such an inflated sense of guilt? Quit worrying. We gave Mrs. Boyd your notice.”
“She probably hates me,” I moped.
“Oh, for crying out loud, she’s not mad at you.”
Calder looked quizzically at me and then at the café storefront. By the look on his face, it had never occurred to him we’d been irresponsible. He was probably used to taking off without notice. Clearly, he hadn’t given Mrs. Boyd a second thought.
We pulled north out of town, finding the driveway more easily than the day we first moved in. This time when we unpacked it wasn’t such an ordeal. Dad helped Mom into the house, and Calder grabbed my parents’ and Sophie’s suitcases at once.
I had somewhat more than the others, having moved most of my things back to Minneapolis. I carried my biggest suitcase up the porch steps, thankful for their welcoming lean under my feet. Seagulls squawked overhead, saying they remembered me. Or at least, that was the way I saw it. I was home. Even if Calder insisted I be landlocked, the proximity of the lake brought me a comfort I hadn’t realized I’d been missing.
Mom went into the kitchen to check the answering machine. “Sounds like the Pettits got your message, Jason. Martin’s offering to bring dinner over if we want. They’re such a nice family. Should I call them back?”
Calder followed me upstairs and dropped Sophie’s suitcase in her room. “Oh,” he said, sighing and closing his eyes. “That’s what it is.” He inhaled deeply, savoring the air.
“That’s what what is?” I asked. All I could smell were mothballs.
“Mother. She was here.”
“I think you’re imagining that.”
“No. It’s her. I smelled it before, back when I first moved Sophie’s things into this room. It didn’t make sense to me then, but her scent is in the paneling. She must have spent a lot of time in here.”
“It could have been Dad’s nursery, but if she was that close, why wouldn’t she have just taken him?”
The floorboards creaked in the hall, and I looked up in time to see the back of Dad’s shirt pull away.
“Let’s not talk about this now,” Calder said, and I could see there was still a lot of sadness there.
He took my suitcase from me and followed me into my room. Once inside, he said, “So, this is your room.” He trailed his hand along my patchy, homemade wallpaper. Before I’d left, I covered nearly half a wall with dead poet portraits, pages from Sonnets from the Portuguese, friends’ school photos, and magazine cutouts.
I opened the window to let in some fresh air while Calder yanked Robby Hache’s picture off the wall and slipped it into his pocket. He didn’t think I noticed, and I didn’t let on that I had. He could have it if he wanted.
When I came back to Calder’s side, he pulled me onto the bed with such force I bit my tongue and the box spring slipped off the frame, crashing onto the floor. “Geez, what are you doing? Do you want my dad to come running? I doubt this falls within his ground rules.”
His hand slipped behind my neck and held my face to his. My insides liquefied at his kiss, his fingers skimming the waist of my pants, his breath on my face, as he said, “I’ll be a safe distance away before his feet hit the stairs.”
“Yeah, okay” was all I managed to say. My fingers explored his face, the straight nose and square jaw, a slightly crooked tooth; I took a risk and stared straight into his eyes. Fascination, I thought. That was at least one thing I felt for Calder White. Pure and utter fascination. I couldn’t get enough.
“Besides, he has to know I’m perfect for you,” Calder said. “What other guy is going to put up with your mess
of a family?”
He had an excellent point there.
Ultimately, it wasn’t Dad’s feet that pulled Calder away from me. It was the sound of tires crunching on the gravel below my window. We both went to look down on the driveway.
“And here come the Pettits,” he said. “Their timing is always amazing.” I watched Calder closely. Mixed emotions played in his eyes: malice, gratitude, disgust, fear. Sure, Jack might have saved me, but he was also Tallulah’s murderer, and there was something else in Calder’s eyes, too. Jealousy?
“I hate that that bastard gets credit for saving you,” Calder said. “It should have been me.”
“You’re being stupid,” I said, resting my head on his shoulder.
“Doesn’t matter how stupid it is. I’ll never forgive myself.”
The Pettits climbed out of their van. Gabby had chopped ten inches off her hair, leaving it edgy and blunt. Jack was barely recognizable. His shirt hung crookedly across his sunken chest, and his overgrown hair stood out in odd angles around his face, as if he hadn’t showered in weeks. A black stubble covered his face. Mr. Pettit and an older-looking woman followed them.
Calder grimaced and turned away from the window with a growl low in his throat. “What is wrong with that Jack Pettit? I’ve never seen anyone put off colors like that. He looks putrid.”
Dad leaned in my doorway. “Jack came, too,” he said. “Maybe you should make yourself scarce, son.” Then his feet clomped down the stairs.
Calder blinked a few times and said, “Your dad’s probably right. I don’t think I could stomach being within six feet of him.”
“Good, because I kind of like the idea of you being trapped in my bedroom.”
He looked at the floor and said, “I’ve been trapped in worse.”
“I’m going to have to go down and be social.”
“Not too social,” he teased.
“No, not too,” I said.
I followed Dad downstairs. Mom greeted the Pettits in the doorway.
“This is so nice of you guys,” she said. “Jason! Martin’s here.”