An Ordinary Drowning, Book One of The Mermaid's Pendant (8 page)

She
stopped backing away and came closer. She certainly had the eyes, though. Her
eyes mirrored the color of the sea. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I wanted to make
sure you’re all right.” Innocent concern turned her musical voice grave.

“All
right? Why wouldn’t I be all right?” Confusion and discomfort tangled his
voice. His thoughts were as opaque as the water around him, full of the sand
that he’d stirred up, shielding his nakedness only temporarily. He refused to
look down, to call her attention to it.

“The
last time I saw someone floating alone, she—well, she didn’t need any help.”
Something in her voice, some slight hitch, alerted him. He saw unhappiness
cloud her wonderful eyes.

“I take
it she’d drowned?” He asked this gently, as if the word might startle her into
darting away. She couldn’t go until he knew for certain if she were the one
that he’d been looking for, if she were the one who’d saved
him
from
drowning.

The
unhappiness surged into tears; she nodded but said nothing. He wanted to wipe
them away, but he didn’t dare touch her. He tried to console her with words
instead. “It wasn’t your fault, you know.”

Again
she nodded and the tears shone on her cheeks. He looked beyond her and then
over his shoulder to the beach. He saw no other kayak and he was sure that he
would have heard a water taxi or other boat.

Seeing
him searching, she looked away and said in slow words as though uncertain that
she should admit to such a fabulous tale, “I swam from the other side of the
cay.” She’d stopped crying. Her brief tears struck him as natural as a summer
shower.

“Really?
I was told no one swam alone around here.”

“I don’t
do it often. My father doesn’t like me to go far from my family.” Her
remarkable blue eyes, like stained glass, held his. An electric shock leapt
between them.

“Ah.” It
was his turn to look away. He knew that the water around him had cleared and he
was entirely at her mercy. He knew what she would see if he didn’t get a handle
on himself. He had to keep her talking, had to work up the courage to ask her
if she’d pulled him from the canal. “So you live around here?”

“Yes.”
Her eyes slid away again, fortunately not down. “My father’s a fisherman.”

So far so
good. Time for introductions.

“I’m
John.” When she said nothing, he continued, “Do you have a name?”

She bit
her lower lip, reminding him of his sister Cassie when she was in high school.
He wasn’t any good at guessing a woman’s age, except for some vague sense that
she was too young or too old, some rough guideline for the tenor of their
interactions. The lip biting signaled extreme youth. Surely too young to have
the breasts he’d seen. Too young to pull a grown man, thrashing and gasping, to
shore.

“Never
mind. I’m sure your parents wouldn’t want you to tell me your name.”

Her next
words confirmed his suspicions about her youth. “I don’t care what my father
wants and my mother’s dead.” Still she didn’t tell him her name. Instead, she
asked, “Where’re your pants?”

Heat
rose in John’s cheeks. He looked down, not to verify her statement but to hide
his embarrassment. Nothing like exposing himself to a pubescent girl. At least
he’d controlled himself in time—he didn’t have
that
on his conscience.
“I thought I was alone. I was sweaty after walking around.”

“Oh, so
it’s not your custom to swim naked?”

“Now
that you mention it, I’d like to get dressed.”

With as
much dignity as he could muster, he swam to the beach and stood up, walking
toward the rock where his clothes lay without turning to see if she’d followed.
He pulled his briefs and shorts on before looking over his shoulder. She
remained behind.

“Aren’t
you coming out?” Perhaps she feared him. They were alone, after all.

After a
moment, she swam closer and stood up. When she did, John understood why she’d
hesitated. Except for a pair of tan cargo shorts that looked a lot like his,
she wore nothing else. Heat flooded John’s face again.

“Here.”
He tossed her his t-shirt. She caught it and looked at it before looking back
at him. She didn’t seem nearly as disconcerted as he felt. “Please put it on.”

Shrugging,
she pulled the t-shirt over her head. Her hair left large dark patches on the
shoulders and the shirt clung to her wet breasts, negating the concealment of
the cloth and testing his theory about her age.
She’s too young
, he
repeated to himself.
Dangerously young
. Every aspect of her behavior
pointed to innocence and vulnerability. She walked over to the rock and sat
down and began to comb out the tangles in her hair with her fingers.

“And you
asked why I was naked? No wonder your father doesn’t want you to go too far
from your family.” John stopped, thinking. “Maybe you should get back to him.
I’d hate for him to show up and see you’re wearing my shirt.”

She
looked down. “He wouldn’t be happy, no.” She made no move to leave, however.

John
frowned at her. She seemed too slight to pull a flailing man out of the canal,
but he couldn’t help himself. Too young or too slight, everything else fit. He
had to ask.

“Did you
save me from drowning a couple of days ago?”

He
watched her toy with a strand of damp hair; her eyes followed the pelicans
walking stiff legged through the shallows not far from them.

“Yes, I
did,” she said at last without looking at him.

At her
words, a thrill sparked the tender of his curiosity and ignited some strong
emotion in him. He damped it down, as much to calm himself as to keep from
scaring her.
Go slowly
, he told himself.

“Please,
I’d really like to know your name.”

She
looked at him and he fell into the immense blue of her eyes. In that instant,
he recognized the face that he’d described to Tomás. Why had he ever doubted
it? “Tamarind. I’m Tamarind.”

“Like
the trees?” When she nodded, he thought,
How fitting. A water sprite with a
wood nymph’s name
. She really was the embodiment of a natural element. He
went on, “I’m sorry if I sounded rude a moment ago, Tamarind.”

She
cocked her head, looking for the world like an inquisitive bird. “Are you going
now, John?”

“No.” He
couldn’t say
I can’t go now that I know who saved my life. I need to know
more about you
. Instead, he said, “I brought lunch. Would you like some?”

“Lunch?”
She sounded perplexed.

“It’s
not much. Just some oranges and peanut butter sandwiches.” He retrieved his backpack
from the kayak and pulled out the food. She hadn’t moved from her perch. He held
up an orange in one hand and two peanut butter sandwiches in the other.

When
Tamarind said nothing, he came over and sat on the sand at her feet. She
watched him slide a sandwich out of its clear baggie and bite into it.

“Would
you like to try some?” he offered, holding out the other sandwich.

“Yes!” A
smile transformed her small face, which was tucked into a bed of drying hair
that already showed signs of wildness. John thought he saw bits of seaweed in
it as befitting a water sprite. Just like a sprite, she was small, perhaps only
as tall as his shoulder, and delicately built. She was definitely too young.
Maybe not even in high school.

Ignoring
the proffered sandwich, she leaned over and bit into John’s. After a few chews,
she started coughing and gagging.

“What?”
Fear clutched John’s chest. He leaned in and put his hand on her shoulder. “Are
you choking?”

In
response Tamarind began digging into her mouth. John watched her with mixed
astonishment and fascination. Bits of peanut butter and bread clung to its
corners and flecked her cheeks. She spit without turning her head away, her
tongue pushing the tenacious paste that had been her sandwich out of her mouth.
At last, she wiped the mush away with the back of her hand. She appeared
totally unaware that her actions could be perceived as curious at best,
disgusting at worst. John surprised himself by finding her lack of social
awareness appealing. Clearly she hadn’t been molded yet in the rough world of
adolescence.

“Mmmnuhh!”
She screwed her face up. “What
is
that?”

John’s
own sandwich lay forgotten in his lap. “All that because you’ve never tasted a peanut
butter sandwich before?”

Tamarind
tossed her head a little and the tangles of her hair fluttered around her face.
He wanted to brush it away, like a big brother taking care of his kid sister.
He’d fixed Cassie’s hair when she was little. “It clung to the inside of my
mouth, like a tongue crab.”

“Tongue
crab? What’s that?”

Tamarind’s
brow creased as she thought. “A tiny crab that crawls into a fish’s mouth. It
latches onto the fish’s tongue and drinks its blood. The tongue shrivels up and
falls off.” She caught his expression and laughed. It was a delightful gurgle.
“Don’t worry. The crab becomes the fish’s tongue.”

“I can
see you’re going to be a bundle of fascinating facts.” John smiled and put his
sandwich away.

Tamarind
didn’t seem to hear him. She dropped off the rock and waded out into the water.

“Hey,
I’m sorry. I don’t mind your stories,” he said, standing up.

She
waved a hand toward him. “I’ll be right back.”

He sat
and watched as she entered the water and began swimming what looked like the
butterfly but so fluidly and gracefully that she appeared to glide through the
water. She swam out about fifty yards and disappeared. He waited, his chest
tightening and his throat closing, but she popped to the surface before his
head began to pound. This time, when she swam back, she didn’t use her arms,
which she held in front of her as though she were a human torpedo. She managed
to get her feet beneath her and rose in one smooth movement, her hands cupped
together. For no reason, John thought of primordial life emerging from the
oceans. He kept his eyes on her face and avoided looking at her transparent
t-shirt.

Tamarind
approached him, her liquid blue eyes bringing some of the sea with them. She
held out her hands. John peered at them. At first, he thought that she’d
brought back a jellyfish, but then he realized that it was a mess of
translucent, worm-like creatures with little round white eyes with black
centers—like those wiggly eyes children used in crafts.

“Your
turn,” she said and held up one of the creatures pinched between forefinger and
thumb.

“Uh,
what is it?” John asked, stalling. The creatures were squirming.

“Baby
reef fish,” she said and popped a whole handful, like peanuts or popcorn, into
her mouth.

Could he
tell her that he didn’t eat fish? But he’d eaten beef last night. In for a
penny, in for a pound. Besides, she’d clearly never had peanut butter before
and
she
hadn’t hesitated. Maybe he could just spit his out, too? John
swallowed and reached for one of the larvae, grasping its slippery body. It
squirted from his grip and dropped in the sand.

Tamarind
laughed, leaned over, and dropped several into his mouth, as though he were a
seal. Or baby bird. He didn’t chew. He swallowed. It was like swallowing salty
noodles. Not so bad after all, but he’d pass on doing it again.

“Thanks.”
His voice came out as a croak.

She
finished eating the tiny fish from her palm, sucking the last three between her
lips. John shrugged; he’d watched enough cable television to know that people
of different cultures ate all kinds of things. Fish seemed rather benign in
comparison to insects. Or snakes.

She
lifted her face to the sky and smiled, an unself-consciously happy upturn that
rendered her eyes half moons of pleasure. Particles of food still outlined the
corners of her mouth and there was a smear of peanut butter in her hair, but
she was oblivious to them. Instead, she started humming a tune. John had never
heard anything like it before. The vibrations thrummed through her torso as if
her ribcage were a tuning fork. He heard variations in pitch emanating from her
throat, serving as a nice counterpoint to the bass of her body. She clicked her
tongue against her teeth at the same time. John sank his feet into the warm
sand of the beach and closed his eyes to listen. His spirit soared into the
cerulean above them. When she stopped, he dropped back into himself.

“Why’d
you stop?” He looked at her. Whatever she’d done, she’d gifted him with the
sweet blankness that he’d experienced on his bike ride.

“Do you
ever fly up with the birds?” she asked. In the space of a heartbeat, she went
on, “Do you ever go underwater, I mean, way underwater or do you only use one
of those tubes and stay near the surface?”

“I’m
trying to learn to dive, but—”

“Where’d
you come from? Is it far from here?”

“I’m
from Pittsburgh, which takes two short flights to get here. I—”

She
didn’t wait for more but leaped up. “It was very pleasant meeting you, John.
Thank you for the shirt. I hope to see you again.”