I was going to see Leo again.
And that realization, more than anything else, was what made me get up, walk around the table, and give my mother a hug.
“I’m glad,” I told her. “I’m glad we’re keeping the house.” I was even okay with the idea of her spending time with Mr. Illingworth again. I really was.
Mom hugged me back, tight, tighter than she’d ever hugged me before. I wondered if Mom wished she could reverse time and hug Isadora in the same way. I was pretty sure they had never embraced over their unfinished low-country boils.
“The house still needs repairs, though,” Mom said, releasing me with a pat on the arm. “If we’re going to be spending summers here, we’re going to need Internet. And the study needs a new coat of paint and all that. But it will be nice. A fresh start.”
I nodded, listening to the ocean swish onto the shore and then recede. It struck me then how much the past—not just the past but history and family—was like the ocean tide. It was always the same ocean, but the waves made it fresh and new each time.
Mom and I spent the rest of the evening packing the belongings we’d brought with us to Selkie. There were also a few additions; when I showed Mom Isadora’s trunk, she grew teary-eyed again, both at the sight of her debutante gown and the letters. She decided to pack up everything, saying it would be best if we went over the letters together, at our own pace, at home in Riverdale. And the gown, she said, could use a good dry cleaning in the city. The same went for the dress I’d worn last night, and Mom said I was welcome to any of Isadora’s other dresses. “I bet you’d look very pretty in her style of clothes,” she’d said, regarding me affectionately, and I was pleased.
There was one more dress to deal with; as night fell, I walked CeeCee’s lavender dress and her charm bracelet over to her house. After all my intense talk with Mom, I was actually ready for a dose of CeeCee’s lightness. Althea, answering the door, told me that CeeCee was in her room and that the Coopers were out for the evening. Jacqueline, Althea informed me as she waved me upstairs, was out with a young man—Macon, I presumed.
I knocked on CeeCee’s door, but she must have not heard me over the music blaring inside, so I slowly turned the knob, hoping I wasn’t overstepping my bounds.
“Are you decent?” I asked, pretending to cover my eyes.
“Oh, my gosh!” CeeCee cried, spinning away from her mirror. “Miranda! Don’t come in!”
She was wearing a short, ruffled nightie, and nothing seemed strange—until I noticed that she had a strip of white paper stuck to her chin. I glanced at her vanity, at the small tub of hot wax and the tongue depressors that sat there.
“I—I get these little hairs on my chin sometimes,” CeeCee told me unnecessarily, her face flaming. “I’ve been meaning to get electrolysis, but—I—I should have locked the door.” Her hands were trembling as she ripped the cloth from her chin in one motion.
“CeeCee, it’s okay,” I said, biting down on my lip to keep from giggling at her dramatic reaction. “It’s not a big deal.”
“Miranda, you cannot tell anyone,” CeeCee told me fiercely, slamming her door as I laid her dress and bracelet down on the bed. “It would ruin me.”
I turned to face her; there was an angry red mark on her chin, and her eyes were full of shame. “What are you talking about?” I asked, shaking my head. “You’re not the first girl who’s had to wax her chin. I think it’s pretty common.”
“It’s embarrassing,” CeeCee sputtered. “It’s a problem I have—I totally got it from my dad’s side of the family—they’re all so hairy.” She shuddered, then walked over to her bed, clearing aside clothes and magazines so she could sit. She motioned for me to sit beside her. “I really wish you hadn’t seen me doing this,” she said quietly.
I was thrown by how different she seemed from the typically chipper CeeCee. I sat down next to her, studying her pretty face. “Why?” I asked. “I’m, like, the last person you should be ashamed in front of.” I glanced down at my feet, encased in Converse.
“Please.” CeeCee rolled her big blue eyes at me. “You’re perfect, Miranda. You’re always so—I don’t know—in control and stuff. It’s totally intimidating.”
I was blindsided by her words. “You’re joking, right?” I exclaimed. “That’s basically how I feel about you and your friends,” I admitted with a shrug. “You must not realize how you girls come off to other people.”
CeeCee smirked. “Virginia and Jackie? Give me a break. Gin has a total inferiority complex—why do you think she’s always desperate for boy attention? And Jackie’s getting better, but she had major eating issues for a while there. She was all roly-poly a few years ago, and she hates it when anyone brings that up.”
I felt like CeeCee was speaking a foreign language. “That’s crazy,” I told her, trying to process everything.
“This is all top-secret, of course,” CeeCee said quickly, giving me a piercing look.
“Of course,” I echoed, clasping my hands in my lap. CeeCee looked so forlorn that I could only think of one way to cheer her up. “I have a secret, too,” I said, glancing back down at my sneakers.
“Ooh, what?” CeeCee whispered, inching closer to me. I could already feel her brightening. “I won’t tell the girls, I swear.”
“Do you remember that guy in the marine center?” I said, smiling as I glanced back up at CeeCee. “The one who was giving the tour?”
“Sort of,” CeeCee said, looking confused. “He was cute?”
I nodded, feeling my smile widen and my heartbeat pick up. “We kind of, um, had, like, a thing.”
“Shut up!” CeeCee squealed, bouncing up and down on the bed. “How? When? Oh, my gosh—a local boy? That is so naughty of you, Miranda!” She gazed at me with something like admiration.
“Not really,” I laughed, blushing.
“Don’t worry,” CeeCee told me in a conspiratorial whisper. “Your secret’s safe with me.”
I wasn’t sure how sincere that promise was, but I didn’t really care. I didn’t want Leo to be a secret.
Except for what I had seen, or thought I had seen, underwater—that, I knew, would belong only between me and Leo.
I stood to go, and CeeCee gave me back my jeans and shirt from the other night, along with a quick hug. She’d, naturally, learned last night that Mom wasn’t selling The Mariner, so she said she couldn’t wait for us to hang out again soon.
“Oh, and I forgot!” CeeCee added as I was leaving. She reached out to touch my hair, beaming. “I really like your new look.”
I thanked CeeCee, realizing how comfortable I felt with my hair loose while wearing a standard outfit of vintage jeans and Converse. It was a nice balance.
Walking home from CeeCee’s house, my thoughts turned back to Leo. I wished he wasn’t out on his dad’s boat, that there was some way I could let him know the good news about my being able to return to Selkie. I knew I could call the marine center and leave a message for him, and I was sure he had to have e-mail or a cell phone. But, as always was the case when Leo was in his world and I was in mine, those two worlds seemed very hard to bridge.
The next morning, though, as Mom and I walked onto the hot, sun-soaked dock with our bags full of old letters and old dresses, I glanced around hopefully—first toward the fog of Fisherman’s Village, and then at the glimmering blue ahead. Deep down, I was sure that, in his half-magic way, Leo had to know what had transpired and would show up at the last minute on his father’s boat to tell me how glad he was. But I didn’t see him.
Back on Glaucus Way, The Mariner was locked up, Llewellyn Thorpe’s book was still on the shelf in the study, everything was in its place. Yet I felt unsettled, unsteady, as if I were already on the boat.
Mom joined the line of passengers waiting for the ferry—among them the little blond boy and his parents who’d made the trip over with me—but I stood still on the wooden slats. I shielded my eyes from the glare, imagining Leo on his father’s boat and hoping to
catch sight of a fishing trawler.
There was nothing.
Maybe Leo wasn’t really on a fishing trip, I thought, remembering our moment underwater. Maybe Selkie mermen needed to return to the ocean for a few days, as a kind of maintenance. I smiled, realizing that was the sort of detail Llewellyn Thorpe would have put in his book.
The ocean seemed so ordinary today, so itself—the swells and dips, the way it caressed the dock—that it was hard to believe in the unbelievable. I peered into its murky depths, trying to make sense of everything the water could contain.
When I glanced up again, there was a white speck on the horizon, and my heart sprang into my throat. But as the speck grew larger and larger, I realized it was Princess of the Deep. A sense of disappointment overwhelmed me, and for the first time since Leo and I had argued outside his house, I doubted him. I gave a sigh that made Mom glance at me over the tops of her sunglasses.
Letting out its familiar belch, the pretty ferry began to dock. The boat seemed much smaller to my eyes than it had a few weeks ago; had I grown? I wondered.
It seemed so strange that our time on Selkie was over for now, that in a few hours we’d be back to the firm reality of New York. And I’d be starting my internship, and maybe—maybe—thinking about calling Linda. But what I now knew about Mom, and what she knew about me, would follow us.
As the waiting passengers surged forward, Mom took my arm and steered me toward the gangplank. My throat welling with emotion, I glanced over my shoulder, still hoping to catch a glimpse of Leo’s golden hair.
“Come on, Miranda,” Mom said in her businesslike way. “Don’t dawdle.” The closer we got to the ferryboat—the closer to the mainland—the more she seemed to be returning to her old self, the accomplished surgeon.
Fighting tears, I stepped up to the gangplank and was fiercely studying my Converse when a gravelly male voice said, “We meet again, sweet pea.”
Even before I lifted my head, I knew that it was Sailor Hat. He looked unchanged, wearing the same clothes he had worn last time. His sailor hat, too, was at the same jaunty angle.
“It’s Miranda,” I told him brusquely, blinking back my tears. I did not want him to see me crying. It was safer to return to the old dance we had performed.
“Well, looks like you survived, Miranda,” Sailor Hat said, smiling at me as he tore my ticket in two.
On the one hand, I was not remotely in the mood for Sailor Hat’s ribbing. On the other hand, I now had a new appreciation for everything he had told me.
“I guess,” I said nonchalantly, but he was watching me in a quizzical way.
Maybe he knows, I realized with a rush of inspiration. He couldn’t have known exactly what had happened to me during my stay, but he might have had answers about Leo. About the sea serpents. About Henry Blue Williams.
“Miranda,” Mom said from behind me, giving me a gentle nudge. She was clearly aggravated that I was standing there exchanging pleasantries with this old man.
“No need to be sad,” Sailor Hat said as I finally walked past him and up the gangplank. “You want to know the true legend of Selkie Island?” he called after me.
I turned and looked at him. I nodded.
“The island stays with you,” he said. “Always. Even if you leave it behind. But one never really leaves Selkie behind. If you’ve been here once, you’ll be back.”
Mom had obviously heard him, and he’d obviously made an impression because she cleared her throat a few times, and, once he’d torn her ticket, she caught up to me and whispered, “Who is that guy?”
“I’m not sure,” I replied, smiling. I suddenly felt light, as light as a bird skimming the water.
Without conferring first, Mom and I seemed to agree that the upper level was where we wanted to be. We climbed the winding metal staircase, and we positioned ourselves by the railing. As the wind blew my curls across my face, I inhaled the salty air and held it in my lungs. Then I looked one more time down into the sea.
And I saw something.
A movement, a flash, a glimpse that was familiar. It could have been a dolphin. A turtle. Or a sea serpent. Or really anything at all. But the sight of it, like Sailor Hat’s words, made my spirits rise.
“See you soon,” I murmured. Then, touching a hand to my lips, I threw a kiss down to the water.
Mom watched me, wearing an understanding smile. “Thinking of someone?” she asked. When I nodded, looking up at her, she put her arm across my shoulder. “He’s a nice boy,” she said. “A very nice boy.”
“Thanks, Mom,” I said as the ferryboat honked its horn. “I think so, too.”
We slid away from the harbor, and my legs felt steady this time. I thought again of sailors—fearful, excited, half mad, their minds filled with krakens and mermaids. It was easy to go a little mad out on the ocean, I thought, with no specific chart or guide other than the sky. But madness could be lovely sometimes.
The ferryboat turned its great bulk, aiming its nose toward the opposite shore, but I spun around and watched Selkie Island: the trees and the houses and the boardwalk. I watched the land for as long as I could, until it disappeared behind its shawl of mist, and until I had it fixed in my mind—unchanged, mysterious, and beautiful.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My deepest thanks to those who have been my ports in the storm:
My magnificent editor and mentor, Abby McAden, for restoring my sanity when necessary. Morgan Matson, Cheryl Weisman, Becky Terhune, Sheila Marie Everett, and the whole fantastic team at Scholastic, for helping this book come together. Jaynie Saunders Tiller and Chad Tiller (for the mullygrubs); Joshua Gee (for believing in merfolk); Lisa Ann Sandell; Siobhan McGowan; Marni Meyer; Adah Nuchi; Robert Flax; Jennifer Clark; Elizabeth Harty; Martha Kelehan; Emily Smith; Nicole Weitzner; Jon Gemma; and especially Daniel Treiman, for the friendship, support, advice, and love (and a special thanks to those who have tried, with interesting results, to teach me how to swim).
Of course my family—my brilliant sister, brother-in-law, and nephew, and my patient and wise parents, for forever reading and listening and soothing.
And to the memory of Ann Reit, and most especially to Craig Walker, without whom none of this would have ever been possible. You will always be remembered and loved.
By Aimee Friedman
Sea Change
The Year My Sister Got Lucky
South Beach
French Kiss
Hollywood Hills
Breaking Up: A Fashion High Graphic Novel
A Novel Idea
Short Stories in
Mistletoe: Four Holiday Stories
21 Proms
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 by Aimee Friedman
All rights reserved. Published by Point, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC, POINT, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Friedman, Aimee.
Sea change / Aimee Friedman. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: When her estranged grandmother dies and leaves her mother the family home on Selkie Island, seventeen-year-old Miranda meets her mother on the Georgia island, where she discovers mysterious family secrets and another side to her logical, science-loving self.
ISBN-13: 978-0-439-92228-9 (alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-439-92228-3 (alk. paper)
[1. Islands—Fiction. 2. Secrets—Fiction. 3. Social classes—Fiction. 4. Southern states—Fiction. 5. Mermen—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.F89642Se 2009
[Fic]—dc22
2008046959
First edition, June 2009
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.
E-ISBN: 978-0-545-23198-5
Aimee Friedman, Sea Change
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