Updrift (15 page)

Kate examined the surface of her desk. “I’m not sure.” Shouldn’t she know the answer to this question?

“Well. You’ve been working pretty hard, I hear, and not just since you’ve come to us,” Janice continued.

Kate laughed nervously. “Who told you that?”

“I went to school with a friend of your family’s I believe, Carmen Blake? She’s had such nice things to say about you. And, also, I try to pay attention around here.” She smiled wryly. “I’ve got a proposition for you. We have to trim costs in the department, and I could offer you a month off, unpaid, if you’d like. I don’t want to lose you, however, so don’t feel obligated to accept.”

A temporary resignation. Kate couldn’t believe her good fortune. She eyed Janice tentatively, hoping she didn’t appear as eager as she was to say
yes
. “You’re sure I wouldn’t compromise my opportunities afterward?”

“You would not. We like for people to take editorial leave from time to time. It results in better writing. You haven’t been here long but we have Alan available to cover for you until he goes back to New York, and it could actually work well. Is this something you’d like to consider? We could start it this coming Monday, if you want.”

“I…” Kate struggled to think through her options, although she was already sure of what she wanted. And she was taking this leave no matter the career risk, although she didn’t want Janice to know what a fair-weather employee she’d become. “Yes. I would love to take you up on your offer. If you’re sure it’s no inconvenience, that is.”

Janice stood. “Perfect. It’s decided, then.” She grabbed her folder. “We’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

* * * *

Kate worked at an insane pace the rest of the week to have her projects in good shape for Alan. With Janice’s sponsorship, her coworkers accepted news of her leave graciously, any envy tempered by the fact the leave was unpaid. And for once, she felt no shame over her lack of social participation the past few years; having had nothing compelling her to spend her earnings—like spring breaks or shopping excursions with girlfriends—she’d saved enough to take this time off without worry.

Friday morning, she packed her car, deposited her monthly bills in the mailbox, and left for the office. At the end of the day, she thanked Janice again and told everyone she would see them in a month. She somehow kept from running out the door.

She had not warned her mother and John she was coming, and though she had time to call them on the road, she didn’t. Her unconfirmed suspicions regarding their efforts to preclude her relationship with Gabe left her wary. If this was her chance to find out why everyone had been so evasive these past four years, she would do absolutely nothing to jeopardize it. She ignored her phone and daydreamed her way through the five-hour drive home.

* * * *

She parked in the lot by the beach and removed her car keys. The night sky was thick with blackness, and she saw no one else—no other cars, no people, no signs of campers or hikers on the sand. Despite past warnings ringing in her head from parents, teachers, and officials not to wander the beach alone at night, she did not hesitate to leave her vehicle for the water.

No one was there.

She felt a crushing disappointment, even as she realized she and Gabe had not discussed a time to meet, just a place. And the night was so dark. She couldn’t see more than a few yards in front of her. She toed the very edge of the surf.

The weight of anticipation she’d been carrying all week caught up with her, sapping her strength so much her legs failed. She sank to her knees in the soft sand and closed her eyes to feel the wind on her face. She tried to determine what to do. Around her, the roar of the waves drowned out all other sounds, and the ebony sky stretched out limitlessly, its very size a powerful reminder of her own powerlessness.

She did not know how to find Gabe here.

All of the emotions she’d denied feeling the past four years enveloped her now, overwhelming her with their poignancy. She wondered if she should have tried harder to be with Gabe, if she should have fought against the wishes of their parents, acknowledging even as she had these thoughts, she would not have made herself oppose them. But she also realized nothing she’d been working toward would bring her lasting happiness, not recognition at work, not her aunt’s approval, not a portfolio of published articles. She saw with new clarity how the path she was on would not bring her more security or happiness, not to any real extent; how achievement would be no more the holy grail of fulfillment for her than it had been for Dana. As of this moment, the difference between her and her aunt was she knew this.

What she really wanted was to talk with Gabe. She needed to understand their separation through high school and college, to know why they were driven so hard, to look into his eyes and see again what she had first seen when they were seventeen. She felt she would be forever stuck if she could not know these things and know them now.

She stood up then, resolved. With a certainty she hadn’t felt since she was five, she recognized what mattered to her. She felt her own humanity as it had been given to her when she was born, not as a theoretical set of activities she’d developed along the way. She saw her approach to adult life up until now as a contrivance, one taking all her energy to maintain, her boulder to force uphill again and again, her disappointment in her progress predictable and repetitive as the boulder inevitably rolled back down. She was done carrying that boulder.

She stared out at the sea and yelled at the top of her lungs for Gabe. Some part of her knew she should be calling toward the beach but she could not shake her desire to stand where she stood and cry as she did. She saw a splash far out on the inky water, and she stopped shouting.

Time slowed to a standstill. She felt each second distinctly now, each beat of her heart an echoing, singular throb; each breath a slow-motion ordeal as she waited without an ounce of patience left in her. Her closed eyes welled with tears of sheer frustration. She felt the droplets grow during each microsecond of their formation, felt each small emission of hope and longing that filled them, until they burst forth in a slow rush of salt and heat, so heavy with import they crashed to the sand at her feet like breaking granite.

And then, at last, she was in his arms, his wet clothes saturating hers, his salty lips crushing her own, his breath tickling her face as he whispered her name between kisses. Any doubt she’d had about their feelings for each other evaporated. She felt the same sense of hypnotic bliss she always did when they touched and she thrilled to the knowledge, at last, they had enough time and freedom to be together, to fully commit themselves to whatever course they would travel. She touched Gabe’s face with longing and wonder.

“Are you really here? Is this really happening?”

Gabe held both of her hands in his and laughed softly. “Hold that thought. I have the feeling you’ll be asking that a lot over the next few hours.”

Kate stated, scanning his face for anxiety or worry, feeling nothing but contentment herself. “You have something to tell me.” She vaguely wondered why he’d been swimming fully clothed and so late at night…but she didn’t care, not really.

“Finally. Yes. Are your parents waiting for you?” She could see the thought pained him.

She dropped her gaze, unwilling to see his response to her answer. “They don’t know I’m home.” She hesitated to confess the next part. “I have a month’s leave from my job.” She knew she might be giving too much away by saying this, but then, this was Gabe, the reason she’d taken time off in the first place. She peeked at him to check his reaction.

He was stunned. “A
month
?” His expression was so severe, she shut her eyes again. But she took courage from her own conviction and straightened to regard him levelly, her confidence restored when she saw he was pleased. He wrapped one of his hands around her wrist. “We have time,” he murmured, the intensity of his gaze draining every thought and feeling out of her not centered on him. “I thought I was going to have to figure out a way to be by you after this weekend.”

“You still might.”

Gabe tilted his head to one side, his eyes and skin silvery in the moonlight, reminding her of his appearance during their swim as children. His whole demeanor, in fact, was more as she remembered those many years ago, too sweet to be antagonistic, but more challenging and wild than he was otherwise. She could feel the conflict between objectivity and defiance balancing within him.

His smile brimmed with secrets. “I’ve got to get you in the water. Will you come for a swim?” He let go of Kate’s waist to take her hand. His gaze was steady, intent. She knew in that moment she would go anywhere with him.

“Let’s go.”

He didn’t hesitate. Without realizing, she’d waded with him into the shallows. He wrapped his arms around her and twisted them into the waves.

She was especially looking for the young prince, and as the ship fell apart, she saw him sink down into the deep sea.
From “The Little Mermaid” by Hans Christian Andersen

Gabe had studied all the myths as a child. In the old stories about mermaids, irresistible sirens sang to hapless sailors and called them to their watery deaths. Traditional lore suggested the mermaids acted from a vain desire to prove their appeal—or from a capricious desire to demonstrate their predatory skills—and the attraction was supposedly all on the part of humans, but as Gabe well knew, the longing was intense on both sides. Their voices, promising love and adventure, and their exquisite beauty gave mermaids their magnetism. Humans drew their ocean counterparts to them with their perceived soulfulness. This soulfulness, expressed as a rich array of emotions humans unwittingly radiated, caused mermaids to sing in their best voices, to use their most fervent pleas to join them in the water.

Men and women were equally vulnerable to these calls, although in the early seafaring days, men succumbed because men traveled the seas. The widely accepted reports on how monstrous and unappealing male mermaids were—made, the community believed, by human men who wished to discredit their fishier romantic rivals—were nonsense. The stories were pure conjecture anyway, since few people had actually seen males of his species. Had everyone been knowledgeable and honest, they would have reported mermaids, as a race and individually, were lovely.

Gabe preferred the term siren, given how non-gender-inclusive the
maid
part of the word mermaid was. He certainly didn’t feel like a maid now, with a beautiful, bewitched and bewitching girl in his arms as he swam to Shaddox Island with her. He was elated and struggled to restrain his speed, which he had to, because Kate’s system wouldn’t withstand it. So he went slower than he preferred, kept her head against his chest, and maintained her slow heart rate and oxygen absorption. He brought her to the surface to breathe every ten minutes.

Even for him, though he’d played in the night water a thousand times before, the swim was magical. He delighted in the visual silence the darkness added, making the world around them all gentle grays and soft shadows. What he could see, Kate pressed close to him, was all the more singular and moving because there was little else to see.

And he reveled in the hundred quiet sensations he intuited from her, immersing himself in the vibrant abundance of feelings she emitted, experiencing her euphoria as his own. His longing intensified as he did this, and he hurried to tell her everything, and get them to their island.

I’ve brought you here so you can see what I am and know me here. I want to be with you, want us to be together always. When we give ourselves to each other, our bond will be life-long. This is how we marry. It is what I want more than I can say.

Her response to him was painfully sweet.
I have always wanted you, wanted this
.

He kissed her when he brought her to the surface for air. Moonlight reflected off the bubbles they released, silvery, graceful, and buoyant, spreading like a profusion of flowers strewn on a vertical path above them.

“I’ve waited so long for us,” he murmured when they broke the surface. “I’ve wanted to tell you things, to have you here with me. Do you see what I am? What’s happening?”

“You’re a fish. A mermaid.” He winced. “You’ve just, sort of, proposed to me, and it makes perfect, wonderful sense. My life, with you and your mermaid ways, finally makes sense to me. I can’t believe I get to be with you.” Her joy suffused him.

“
Mermaid
only applies to women, Kate.”

She tilted her head thoughtfully. “What do I call you?”

He let the terms
lover
and
husband
echo around them despite his silence. Aloud, he said, “I’m just Gabe for the time being. But technically, I’m a siren.”

“Okay, Gabe. My Gabe. Siren it is.” Contentment and love flowed from her like heat from the sun, which compounded their mutual longing into a cyclical, intensifying hunger. He leaned into her.

His voice was thick when he next spoke. “Kate. If we stop here, we may not make it to Shaddox Island.”

“You know, that’s completely fine with me.” She pressed herself against him.

He shuddered when he reached under her shirt to rest his hand at the curve of her waist, but then he stilled, his regret palpable. “We should wait until we get to the island. You’re less likely to drown, and it’s better if we hold off just a little longer anyway…” As he scanned her feelings, his conviction wavered.

“Wait for what?” she asked skeptically. “And, don’t forget the last time we had this conversation, mister. It was
four
years
ago.”

He found her chagrin comical, which gave him the emotional distance he needed to break her spell, at least break it enough so he could abandon his almost-seduction of her here. “That wasn’t my fault! And I’m only talking about a few hours, maybe a day.”

“But I get to stay right by you? Is that a promise?”