Swimming Without a Net Read online

  “Ha,” she said sourly. “And speaking of my presence, you want to explain why it was so hot-damn important for me to come to your meeting?”

  “Ah…yes. But later. Have you dined?”

  “I had some Pringles on one of the planes.”

  “I do not know what a Pringle is, but it sounds vile. Come.” He held out a large hand, and she took it. Her own paw was swallowed in an instant. She sensed rather than felt the crushing power held in check. She was strong, but Artur was a redheaded Superman. “We will eat.”

  “Don’t think I don’t know I’m getting the runaround on this Pelagic thing,” she warned him as he practically dragged her out the door. “I keep asking and people keep blowing me off.”

  Artur beamed at her. “We have grouper.”

  Ten

  Artur led her past the swimming pool to the main hut—the lodge, in other words—which had the largest bar she’d ever seen. The thing was the size of her living room, and at least twenty of the bottles were rum. And, like her home, it was set up as one big room…the bar led into the cocktail lounge, which led into the dining room, which led into the kitchen. All tastefully decorated with plastic dolls strung up in fishnets. Sort of an Alice in Wonderland meets CSI crime scene look.

  Supper had been set up buffet style and Fred didn’t hesitate to dig in. Thomas had warned there wasn’t a cook, but someone was sure doing a great job with the kitchen. She had been so hungry she’d forgotten she was hungry—funny how that happened sometimes—but the minute she had smelled the savory grilled vegetables she’d started drooling like a hyena.

  As she dished up salad and vegetables, the only other diners—Jonas and Thomas—raised hands in greeting. Jonas quit eating his grouper long enough to lope over to the bar, fix her a vodka sour, and lope back. He plunked the glass down in front of her and went back to shoveling in fish.

  “Thanks. Where is everybody?” she asked as she and Artur sat across from them. She glanced out the large windows and saw what she had seen when the van dropped them off: absolutely nothing and no one.

  “Mmmph,” Jonas replied.

  “Oh, they’re around here somewhere,” Thomas said with a calculated vagueness that didn’t fool Fred. No way would a mermaid geek not know where at least a few of the Undersea Folk were.

  “Eat your salad,” was Artur’s answer.

  If she hadn’t been so hungry, she’d have firmly plonked her fork on the table as a dramatic attention-getting device and refused to pick it up again until she had answers. As it was, she barely had enough time between forkfuls to mumble, “What’s going on? What are you guys hiding? Badly?”

  “Eat your asparagus,” Jonas replied.

  “Who’s hiding?” Thomas asked, looking guilty.

  Artur loudly cleared his throat, a noise that sounded like a cement truck going up a gravelly hill in low gear. “What do you bipeds call this?”

  “We call it strawberry pie,” Fred answered. “And seriously, this changing the subject thing…You guys are terrible at this.”

  “So, my new book debuted at number twenty-six on the USA Today list,” Thomas remarked, scraping his plate.

  “I assume you bring up such a thing to garner praise?” Artur asked.

  “Yeah, he’s garnering,” Jonas said, draining his rum and Coke. “That means a bunch of bipeds bought his tree-murdering book.”

  “Well, jeez, when you put it that way,” Thomas mumbled, crestfallen, and Fred snorted into her drink.

  “It’s a good thing,” Jonas finished, quoting one of his idols, Martha Stewart. He still maintained she’d been framed by the bigwigs at Enron to take the heat off themselves. “That’s part of the reason he was able to fix it so we’d have this whole resort to ourselves.”

  “Yes, and although my lord father gave thanks, I myself have not done so yet,” Artur pointed out. “We are not without funds, and if you do not mind being compensated in gold, we can—”

  Thomas started to demur, when Fred interrupted. “You’ve met the king?” she gasped. “I haven’t even met the king!”

  “Well, you should,” Thomas said, trying (and failing) not to sound smug. “He’s a great guy. Managed not to vomit at the thought of a disgusting surface dweller muddying up his Pelagic.”

  “What’s he look like?” Jonas asked.

  Thomas pointed his fork at the prince. “Picture Artur here in another thirty years.”

  “I do not think we count time the same way,” Artur said, pausing before demolishing his third piece of pie. “My lord father had sixty-two years when I was born.”

  Fred and the bipeds—err, her friends—gaped at the prince. “You—what? Seriously?” she asked.

  “We have discussed this before,” Artur said mildly, his princely aura dimmed by the glob of strawberry preserves on his upper lip. “Undersea Folk live longer and age slower.”

  “And are super strong and have gorgeous coloring and gravity is kind to them because they don’t need bras,” Jonas said in one breath. “At least, the two mer-maids I’ve seen—Fred and Tennian—sure don’t.”

  “Gosh, I’m all atwitter.” She chewed furiously on a broccoli head. “And speaking for Tennian, mutter, mumble, mumble.”

  “Hey, they can’t all be as charming and warmhearted as you,” Jonas said, leaning forward and spearing a baby carrot off her plate.

  “Are you talking about that gorgeous blue-haired girl?” Thomas asked, visibly surprised. “Don’t knock her, you horrible woman. She’s sweet.”

  “How can you tell? She never raises her voice. I don’t even think she has teeth. You know those people who are so quiet they make me nervous? I was actually wishing one of those was in my apartment at the time. She doesn’t talk!”

  “As opposed to some of my folk, who continually speak,” Artur teased. “And of course she has teeth. You should see her in a school of shrimp.”

  “Is today ‘shit on Fred and steal her food’ day?” she demanded. “Because nobody told me.”

  “My lord father is coming a-land tonight and would like to see you then,” Artur explained. “Right now he is dining with some council members.”

  “Hey, you got out of a state dinner,” Jonas pointed out.

  “Yes, and I have my biped friends and Little Rika to thank for it.”

  “Gee,” Thomas said, coughing into his napkin. “That gets me right here.”

  “I’m thinking about getting you right there,” Fred warned, waving her fork threateningly. “So where is everybody?”

  All three spoke in unison:

  “Eating.”

  “Sleeping.”

  “Exploring.”

  Fred sighed into the embarrassed silence. “Well? Which is it?”

  “Well, first they ate, and then they took naps…” Jonas was clearly making it up as he went along. “Then they, um, explored. Because there’s all kinds of stuff to explore here. In the Caymans.”

  “Undersea trenches and such,” Thomas added, trying to help Jonas.

  “You guys. It’s just so sad. I’m embarrassed for you, I really am.” She savagely chewed a final asparagus tip, swallowed, and added, “Fine, don’t tell me. But I’m gonna find out.” She shook her head and got up to get a slice of pie.

  Eleven

  After dinner, Artur and Jonas disappeared somewhere—it was still light, and Jonas wanted to get in some snorkeling while he could. So he took off in the direction of the equipment shed, while Artur went to check on his dad. Which left Thomas and Fred walking on the beach.

  “I’ve got to give this place credit,” Fred said, peering at the horizon. “Being here is like being trapped in the Discovery Channel.”

  “I assume you meant that in a nice way.”

  “Of course. What other way would I mean it?”

  “Hard to tell with you.”

  They walked in silence for a few seconds, until Fred couldn’t bear the quiet another moment and blurted, “I was really surprised to see you today.”

 
His teeth were a white flash in the near dark. “Excellent.”

  “Well, I was.”

  “Yeah, well. Think I was going to miss this? The Pelagic? And the chance to see you again?”

  She stopped walking and, after a moment, he noticed and came back to stand beside her. “You had a year to see me again,” she pointed out. “And you didn’t.”

  He shifted his feet in the sand, but didn’t break her gaze. “I had projects. Work to finish. I couldn’t just show up on your doorstep playing a guitar and serenading you until you agreed to go out with me.”

  Why not? She shook the odd and unworthy thought aside. “Yeah, but an e-mail? A postcard?”

  “We’re here now, Fred. Together.”

  She barked laughter. “Oh, sure. You, me, Jonas, Artur, and ten thousand mermaids. Not that any of them have bothered to come ashore. And don’t think I didn’t notice.”

  “It’s…complicated, Fred. It’s—”

  “Never mind. I just—”

  “What?”

  Missed you. Thought about you all the time. Wished you would have come sooner. But she could say none of those things to Thomas without also saying them to Artur. And that was the worst kind of unfair. “I just think it’s weird, how we’re all together again for this meeting,” she improvised.

  “Tell me about it. But I’ve been prepping for the meeting, and I’ve got something to show you. See that?” Thomas pointed to what appeared to be a float anchored several yards out. “You up for swimming out there?”

  “Up for it? I haven’t been wet in two days.” The double entendre made the color rush to her face and she ignored Thomas’s grin. “Not to mention, I’ll get out there five times faster than you will.”

  “Great.” Thomas was pulling his shirt over his head and kicking off his shoes. “Then I’ll see you out there.”

  “And we’re swimming out there why?” she called after him as he scampered into the surf.

  “Like I said, I’ve got something to show you!” he shouted over his shoulder, and then dived in.

  “Yeah, well. I’m a scientist. Chances are I’ve seen it already,” she muttered, but waded in after him, stripping off her clothes as she went and tossing them back toward the beach.

  Twelve

  She floundered clumsily in the surf for a few seconds until it was deep enough for her to shift to her tail-form. Then she was able to go from fighting the water to being part of it.

  At first she just stretched her muscles and gloried in being able to get some decent exercise for the first time in too long. Then, as the sand floor dropped away from her, she was able to take a good look around and really appreciate her surroundings.

  In just the short distance to the float, she saw at least forty different species of fish. It was astonishing. She was very much afraid she was swimming around like a tourist, with her eyes bulging and her mouth hanging open.

  And the water was delightful—warm and clear. She almost didn’t mind swimming in the ocean if it was like this. (Almost.) As opposed to back home, where the Atlantic was chilly and murky, and hid unpleasant surprises.

  Here she could see everything coming—sea turtles, manta rays, sharks, angelfish. She could hear their fish-chatter whispering in the back of her brain, a far cry from the hectoring nagging of the fish at the New England Aquarium, who often went on strike to get what they wanted.

  And the sand! It looked like sugar, pure and perfect and gorgeous. It was almost possible to believe they hadn’t wrecked the planet if there were still places like this left.

  She had passed Thomas almost at once and now circled the float, waiting for him. She stroked a sea turtle as it paddled past her. It snootily ignored her and paddled away.

  She laughed, causing a stream of bubbles, and nearly crashed into the underwater ladder when she saw the surprise.

  It was a small submarine, but unlike any sub she had ever seen. It was sleek and shiny, and had more windows per square foot than metal, or so it seemed at first glance.

  It was obviously brand-new; no barnacles, no clinging seaweed. So the bobbing rectangle above wasn’t a float; it was a marker for this little sub, and a way for people to climb down and—

  Thomas had finally reached her, gone up for a big breath, then swam back down. He motioned to her (she assumed…who else would he be gesturing to?), opened the air lock, and swam in. She was right behind him, consumed with curiosity and delight.

  He shut the air lock door, drained the water, and grinned at her. “Ready for the nickel tour?” he said, raising his voice to be heard over the pumps.

  “You’ve been busy the last few months,” she commented, trying to hide how impressed she was.

  “Well, duh. I don’t spend all my money on bookmarks and renting resorts, y’know. Come on.”

  She followed him in.

  Thirteen

  It wasn’t so much a submarine, Thomas explained, as an underwater RV, complete with tiny kitchen, shower, and bedroom. And it was far more comfortable than any submarine she’d ever seen. And…

  She took a deep, appreciative whiff. “Ah, that new car smell!” She covered her nudity with a towel and rubbed her hair with another one. “Just like you drove it off the lot!”

  “Yup.” It hadn’t taken him long to show her around the underwater RV, or URV (pronounced “Irv”), as he called it. Everything was miniaturized (even the bed…bigger than a twin, not quite as big as a double) and brand-spanking-new. And everything was state of the art. “I brought along a bunch of DVDs, the galley’s stocked, and as long as you don’t mind saltwater showers, the bathroom’s all yours.”

  “Thanks.”

  He shuffled his feet awkwardly, looking more like a sixteen-year-old than the formidable (and full-grown) Dr. Thomas Pearson. “I mean, I know you’ve got your hut on the beach, and you’ve got the run of the ocean, but if you ever want to, you know, get some space or retreat from a couple hundred Undersea Folk, you’re always welcome in the URV.”

  “Well. Thanks.” Fred wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that. It was a generous offer…unless it was all part of his plan to get into her pants, in which case it was vile and underhanded. So she should either give him a sisterly hug, or punch him in the face. What to do, what to do…

  She coughed. “How long did this take to make?”

  “Well, I had the plans for a few months—I designed them after I went to Scotland last year.”

  She remembered; it had been the last stop on his fellowship. They’d defeated the bad guy, both he and Artur had declared their love, and then both of them had left—Artur to go back to the Black Sea and do whatever it was princes did; Thomas to finish his fellowship.

  “When Artur got in touch, I had the URV built.” He lowered his voice, although the two of them were the only ones in the URV. “I was just waiting for an excuse, you know? I’ve been fantasizing about the URV since I was a kid.”

  Uh-huh. Not too disturbing. “He’s a marine biologist, he’s an M.D., he writes books, he’s rich, and he designs underwater love nests. Is there anything he can’t do?”

  “Well, I can’t talk about myself in the third person without creeping myself out, so knock it off.”

  “Wait a minute, wait a minute.” Fred frowned, thinking about it. “So this Pelagic…The Folk have known about it for at least a few months?”

  “Yeah, I guess. Well. The royal family did, anyway. Who knows when Artur and his dad told everybody else.”

  “Hmm.”

  “I’m just jazzed they even invited me, y’know?”

  “Yes. Can’t blame you for that one at all. I’m kind of jazzed myself.”

  “Like you wouldn’t be invited.”

  “Some half-breed loser who was raised by vicious, bloodthirsty bipeds?” She smiled grimly at his stricken expression. “Right, you and I know that’s not the case, but they don’t, and like I said, I’m glad to be invited. I s’pose.” She sought to change the subject, and so looked the URV up and down and al
l around. “I’ll bet you’ve got cameras set up all over the—”

  “Well, sure. Among other things, the URV is a portable television studio. Lights, sound, picture—it’s got—”

  “But you know Artur and his dad—not to mention the other eighty thousand Undersea Folk—aren’t going to let you put this footage on CNN.”

  “No,” Thomas admitted, “but I couldn’t pass up the chance to film, even if it just stays in my own library. Besides, it’s going to be helpful for my next book.”

  “The Mermaid and the Milkman?”

  “The Anatomy and Physiology of Homo Nautilus,” he retorted stiffly. “You gotta admit, with my background, I’m in a pretty good position to write that book.” It was true; Thomas was not only a Ph.D., he was an M.D. “And if they ‘come out’ to the world, so to speak, we’re going to have to know how to take care of them. My book could be in every hospital, every med school, every medical library in the world.”

  She didn’t even try to hold back her laughter. “Homo Nautilus?”

  “Also known as the Undersea Folk, and stop laughing, you rotten bitch.”

  With a mighty effort, she got herself under control. “Yeah, but what if they decide to stay put?”

  Thomas shrugged. “Then the manuscript stays on the shelf and my tapes stay in the URV and nobody has to know. I’ll respect their decision.”

  “You will unless you want Artur kicking your balls up into your throat.”

  “Like I’m scared of him,” he sneered. Fred had to admit he was entitled to his fearlessness; there had been a throw-down between the two of them last fall, and Thomas had held his own. A good trick, given that Artur was bigger, heavier, and probably three times as strong.

  Then he shrugged. “I’m looking on the bright side. If they do decide to come forward, I’m perfectly positioned. If they don’t, it was still a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Well worth the time.” He leered at her. “On several levels.”