Fish Out of Water Read online

  “That’s beautiful, Farrem,” Moon breathed.

  “I haven’t said yes yet, so calm down. And you!” She turned back to Artur, who was looking sulky as well as annoyed. “I can read you like a book, Artur. You’re thinking now that my dad has turned up alive and well, even more of the Undersea Folk won’t like me. It was one thing when everyone assumed he was dead. But him showing up . . . it might make marrying me a bit trickier, especially if the court of public opinion doesn’t come back in your favor.”

  “I would hope,” he replied stiffly, “I am not as shallow as that.”

  “Well, Artur, so would I.”

  “Fred!” Moon gasped.

  She turned. “Don’t you think you and Sam should—”

  And then, for the dozenth time (at least), her front door opened and Thomas was racing into the room. “Fred, Artur found out your father’s in town and he’s coming over here to—oh.” He screeched to a halt, narrowly avoiding slamming into the table. “You, uh, already know.”

  Fred was resting her forehead on the table. “I want all my keys back,” she said into the wood.

  Twenty-two

  An hour later, her parents had departed for their hotel, Artur had dived off the dock in a sulk, Farrem had retired upstairs, and Fred and Thomas were drinking the last of the beer.

  “What a day,” she moaned. “And it’s barely half over!”

  Thomas grinned at her. “A week with you is more exciting than a year anywhere else.”

  “Cut the shit,” she said morosely. “I’m in no mood for idle flattery.”

  “Who said it was idle?”

  “Idle is your middle name. I s’pose Tennian blabbed that Artur was coming.”

  “Tennian?” Thomas looked puzzled. “I haven’t seen her since dinner last night.”

  “What are you talking about? Aren’t you staying with her? Or she with you? Or however you guys worked out the details? Are you shacked up in the URV, or what?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You know what? Never mind, I don’t want to know.”

  Thomas was looking more and more mystified. “Fred, what the hell are you babbling about? Tennian and I are just friends.”

  “I don’t babble, and what the hell are you babbling about? You guys sailed off together last fall to live happily ever after.”

  Thomas laughed at her. “The hell we did! I mean, we went off together, but I went with her first strictly as her doctor—she was shot, you’ll recall.”

  “Well, she did board a pirate ship.”

  “True,” he admitted.

  “And you two were making goo-goo eyes at each other.”

  “No, we weren’t.”

  “I was there!”

  “I’m really fond of her, okay? I thought—think—she’s a fascinating individual. But I was never in love with her.”

  Fred tried to digest this, but he wouldn’t stop talking, so it was a lot to take in.

  “And don’t forget about the new book I’ve been working on.”

  “Love in the Time of Fish?”

  “The Anatomy and Physiology of Homo Nautilus.”

  “Oh,” Fred said. “That.” Luckily, this time she managed not to go off into gales of humiliating laughter when he told her.

  And he was still talking. “So far as I know, I’m the only doctor on the planet who’s treated surface dwellers and Undersea Folk. You should do it, too, Fred.”

  She was having major trouble tracking the conversation. “What?”

  “Write a book. You could write your life story—or at least, a book about the Undersea Folk. Or best of all, a book about the Undersea Folk through the eyes of the only hybrid on the planet. It’d sell in about two seconds. You’d be a bestselling author!”

  “I’ve got enough fame, thanks. But about you and Tennian—”

  “Well, like I said, Tennian’s been a big help with my book. And to pay me back for taking care of her, she showed me some unbelievable things.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  He ignored the jibe. “I mean, just knowing you, I thought I’d seen things, but she—” He shook his head. “You know, you really need to get over to the Black Sea and see all the underwater castles. Thanks to the URV, the pressure didn’t squash me like a caterpillar.”

  The URV—Underwater RV—was the submarine Thomas had had built eighteen months ago . . . it had allowed him to observe various Undersea Folk gatherings. It was also ridiculously comfortable, tricked out with a kitchen and a bedroom, among other things.

  “So you broke up?” Fred said through numb lips.

  “What, broke up? We were never dating.”

  Fred did her famous impersonation of a goldfish; her mouth popped open, then closed, then popped open again. Her thoughts, chaotic enough this week, were whirling.

  Stop the roller coaster, I want to get off!

  Why hadn’t he—why had she assumed—what did this mean for her relationship with Artur—why hadn’t she known this before Artur proposed—why had she so stupidly jumped to conclusions—why—why—why—?

  “Are you all right?” Thomas asked, polishing off the last beer. “You look a little green. Even for you.”

  “It’s just—it’s just that kind of week,” she managed, thinking, He must never, never know what I assumed, or what I hoped, or the effect his little announcement had on me. Never.

  If he really loved her, he wouldn’t keep going off on months-long trips. If he really loved her, he would have stayed in touch while he was in Scotland, the Black Sea, wherever.

  And that was fine . . . he had never promised her a damned thing.

  But it was clear to her now what her answer to Artur must be.

  Twenty-three

  Later that night, Fred sat quietly on the couch, pretending to read about herself in Time. Around her, the bustle of an impromptu dinner party went on. And on.

  Her mother and Sam had come back with groceries, and once again Thomas was manning the grill. Jonas had returned with a catalogue of tuxes, the one he’d chosen clearly marked. Black tuxedo, red cummerbund, yak-yak-yak. He’d also informed her she would be trying on bridesmaid dresses the next day at ten.

  And the hell marches on . . .

  Dr. Barb, Jonas’s fiancée and Barb’s (former?) boss at the New England Aquarium, was also at the house. She had arrived promptly at four, refused both a written and verbal resignation, then pretended she wasn’t dying for Fred to shift to her tail.

  Fred had given in, diving into the deep end of the pool and shifting to tail form more or less without thought. There was a method to her madness; she’d tried to resign yet again while Dr. Barb was fairly dazzled, and it hadn’t worked. Yet again.

  “Dr. Bimm, if I may—” Dr. Barb was always perfectly polite, even squatting beside a pool dressed in madras shorts and a white button-down, talking to a mermaid. “How do you breathe underwater? Do you have internal gills? And if so, do they—”

  “No. I just pull oxygen from the water through my cells. I hold my breath, of course, but I still get plenty of air, so to speak.”

  “But you don’t know for sure?”

  “Well, I’ve never seen a post on a fellow Undersea Folk, so I couldn’t say for sure . . .”

  “But, Dr. Bimm, you’re a marine biologist.”

  “Really? I forgot all about that. So that’s what that diploma is for . . .”

  “Surely you’re curious about your own . . . ah . . . unique physiology. Blood tests at the very least could . . .”

  “I didn’t want to call attention to myself in college. Or grad school. Or anywhere,” she said shortly, and that was the end of that. At least, Dr. Barb was too polite to bug her further.

  But Fred knew the real reason she, an alleged scientist, knew so little about her own body: she had been a freak all her life. She had no interest in running tests that confirmed her freakishness. She wanted to blend, not call attention to herself. (How annoying to find that hair dye never took; it
washed out the moment she grew her tail . . . thus, cursed with green freak hair.) Ignorance, at least in this one case, was bliss.

  Well. Cowardice, really. But dammit, she was fine with that. She’d had a loaded gun in her face, for Christ’s sake. She’d been shot, even. She was entitled to be a coward in the minor area of her extreme freakish appearance.

  Now, Dr. Barb and Jonas were snuggling at the dining-room table and tossing the salad. Or snuggling the salad and tossing each other; Fred was careful not to look too closely. The scenes she’d walked in on star-ring the two of them . . . yurrgh.

  And now what the hell was this? There was a funny sound reverberating through the house. Fred looked up from reading about herself (“That’s the dumbest question you’ve asked so far.”)

  and listened, puzzled. It sounded both familiar and strange at the same time. She’d heard that sound before in her life, but under which circumstances? So hauntingly familiar . . . it was on the tip of her tongue . . . it was . . . was . . .

  The doorbell!

  No wonder she couldn’t place the sound, she thought as she got up to answer it. Nobody ever used it! Most of them didn’t even knock.

  “Someone’s at the door!” Jonas yelled, showing Moon a picture of his tux.

  “I’ve got it,” she called back. She opened it and saw Tennian standing with another Undersea Folk. This new mermaid had such striking coloring, she made Tennian seem almost drab: waist-length, deep purple hair, and eyes the color of wet violets. Pale skin, almost milky—the complexion of an Irish milkmaid, with the faintest blush at her cheeks. She came up to Fred’s shoulder and was, without question, the most beautiful woman Fred had ever seen.

  “Whoa,” she managed before she could stop herself.

  “Good evening, Fredrika Bimm. This is my friend Wennd.”

  Wennd said nothing, merely bowed her head in greeting.

  “Well, hi. What brings you two here?”

  Wennd shot an anxious glance at Tennian, who said, “Wennd is really very curious about surface dwellers. But word of what happened to me has spread and she’s somewhat . . . apprehensive. I was hoping you would perhaps introduce her to your friends and family, who are really very nice surface dwellers and won’t shoot anyone.”

  “Probably,” Fred said. “You sure, Wennd? Haven’t you heard? I come from a short, undistinguished line of traitors.”

  Wennd’s gorgeous purple eyes widened. “That was your sire. Not you.”

  Fred knew, then, that Wennd was young. So damned hard to tell with these guys; she could have been twenty or fifty. She’d noticed the real grudge holders were the ones who had been around during her father’s disastrous attempt at a coup. But the younger generation . . . the ones who hadn’t had to fight, hadn’t had to choose sides . . .

  “Sure,” she said, stepping back. “Come on in. This place is crawling with unwanted g—uh, surface dwellers.”

  Twenty-four

  Fred led the two women into the main dining area. “Guys? Guys! Jonas, put that catalogue away before I make you eat it. Thomas, the grill can wait for ten seconds. Sam, we’re out of beer so stop looking.”

  “But you should take another look at the tux so when you try on—”

  “But the temp on the grill is just right, I need to put the burgers—”

  “How can you possibly be out of beer?”

  “Guys. Most of you already know Tennian. This is her friend Wennd. She thinks surface dwellers are dangerous sociopaths and I admit, I couldn’t think of much to say in our defense.”

  “I didn’t say that exactly,” Wennd almost whispered. Even her voice was beautiful, tinkly and sweet. Fred was ready to smack her. It was positively sickening when one person got every single fabulous attribute available. Probably a tomcat in the sack, too. “It’s quite nice to meet you all.”

  Jonas and Thomas managed to close their mouths long enough to shake her forearm, the traditional greeting for Undersea Folk. Moon gently bullied her into having a seat at the table, and Sam offered her a large glass of water . . . the beverage of choice for most Undersea Folk, who got terribly thirsty after being out of the water for any length of time.

  Out of all the men, he was the only one not staring at the beauty. This surprised Fred not at all. Sam had never, ever looked at another woman since he’d hooked up with Moon. It was touching, yet creepy.

  “So where are you from, Wennd, dear?” Moon asked.

  “I live in the Indian Ocean, mostly,” Wennd whispered.

  “Oh! That’s . . . er . . .”

  “Third largest ocean in the world, Mom,” Fred said. “North border, Asia.”

  “West border,” Thomas piped up, not to be outflanked, “Africa, bordered on the east by Indochina, the Sunda—”

  “—Islands and Australia,” Fred finished triumphantly. “How about that?”

  “Wow,” Jonas said. “It’s the Battle o’ the Geeks. I think I nodded off around Indochina.”

  “But I already know those things,” Wennd practically whispered. Fred felt like giving her a megaphone.

  “She was enlightening me, dear.” Moon laughed. “Geography was never my strong point.”

  “So what brings you here?” Jonas asked.

  Wennd looked around cautiously, then replied, “As you all seem to have the ear of the king or the prince, I will guess it is all right to confide. I was one of the citizens the king asked to come here.”

  “Right!” Thomas snapped his fingers. “To preserve the illusion that your headquarters are here, not the Black Sea.”

  “Yes, Dr. Pearson, that is correct.”

  “How’d you know my—”

  “Tennian described all of you.”

  “No doubt,” Fred muttered. A thought struck her: “The illusion is working great. You know, other than Artur and King Mekkam, I don’t think I’ve met anyone who lives in the Black Sea, where the real castles are.”

  “Well, who’s fault is that, Miss I Haven’t Made Up My Mind?” Jonas said. “You marry Artur and you’ll probably be there in forty-eight hours.”

  “Doubtful,” Fred said. “I can’t swim as fast as he can.”

  “Yeah, but you have frequent flyer miles.”

  Fred snickered. Good one.

  “You will join us for dinner,” Moon said, pretending it was a question. Wennd must have had a mom much like Moon, because she didn’t even try to demur.

  “Hello,” Dr. Barb said. She’d been gaping at the violet-haired mermaid during the entire discussion. “I’m Dr. Barbara Robinson. I run the New England Aquarium. May I ask a personal question about your species?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does your coloring run in your family? Or is it natural to, say, a country of Undersea Folk?”

  Wennd’s big eyes widened. “Do you mean, does my mother have purple hair, or does everyone who lives in the Indian Ocean have purple hair?”

  “Yes, it’s a matter of—”

  But Dr. Barb had to quit, because Wennd had burst into a loud, honking laugh. It was such a contrast to her shy demeanor and whispery voice, half the room flinched. She sounded like a Canadian goose chasing away a predator.

  “So . . . no?” Sam asked.

  Wennd was actually clutching her stomach and honking away.

  “Wennd,” Tennian said reproachfully. “Please don’t laugh at my friends.”

  “Why not?” Fred asked. “I do it all the time.”

  “I beg your pardon,” Wennd gasped. “I am so sorry. Truly. I just—does everyone in the American state of Florida have yellow hair and blue eyes? Because they are in proximity with each other?”

  “Point,” Jonas admitted. “Or assuming that if your mom is a redhead, everyone she’s related to would be, too.” Pause. Blond Jonas added, “My mom’s a redhead.”

  Thomas was spinning the spatula in his grip like it was a six-shooter. “Hamburger or hot dog?”

  “Just more water, if you please.” When Moon opened her mouth to bully Wennd into eating,
the mermaid added, “Tennian and I ran into a bull shark on the way here. I’m really not hungry at all.”

  “You two took on a bull? By yourselves?” Thomas looked horrified and Fred couldn’t blame the ignorant sap. He still didn’t comprehend how strong, fast, and predatory full-blooded Undersea Folk were. “Tell me it was a baby. Or an immature female. Or—”

  “It was a male, about—what? Six feet? Two hundred pounds?”

  Moon’s and Sam’s eyes were big with admiration; Jonas yawned. He’d seen Fred fight off a school of barracuda with no trouble at all when they were freshmen in high school (Moon had treated them to spring break in the Bahamas that March).

  “But Jesus! They’re so aggressive! Not to mention unpredictable. You do know that because they can tolerate shallows, and fresh water, that they’re probably more dangerous to humans than great whites?”

  “Thomas,” Tennian said gently, “we’re not human.”

  A short, embarrassed silence. Fred hid a smile and thought, More Homo sapiens arrogance. Or is it chauvinism?

  “You are kind to be so concerned for our welfare,” Wennd said, giving him a dazzling smile in which there were about a hundred razor-sharp teeth. At least, that’s what it looked like. “We were perfectly fine. Not so much as a scratch on either of us.”

  “That’s the stuff you should be telling Time and Us Weekly,” Jonas said. “ ‘Gorgeous mermaids eat giant shark and live to tell the tale.’ Get it? Tale?”

  “They’re too busy asking me about my freak hair,” Fred said irritably. “And do you really want PETA and Greenpeace weighing in? They’ll decide Undersea Folk are abusing natural resources and exploiting sharks and smoking kelp or what have you.”

  “You were right,” Wennd said to Tennian. “She is wise.”

  This time, everyone was laughing—except for Fred, who glared.

  “I just know a few things about fanatical surface dwellers,” Fred said defensively. “That’s all.”

  “So how did you arrive? Migrate? Whatever,” Thomas asked. “It’s not like the Indian Ocean is just a hop and a skip away from the Gulf.”