Fish Out of Water

by MaryJanice Davidson

  “Yes.” She sought desperately for a change of subject. “I’m guessing your fellowship is done.”

  “Oh, yeah. Scotland was the last stop—thank God! Did you know I make more money with one book than in two years of being a marine biologist?”

  “Great, Priscilla.”

  “Tennian and I have spent the last few months exploring the planet. She’s shown me things.” He shook his head and she could see the scientist behind his eyes scheming, scheming. “Things I never dreamed I’d see, not in a hundred lifetimes.”

  “Well,” Fred said stiffly. “How nice for you both.”

  “And like we’ve been saying, Artur could do the same.”

  “Probably.”

  Thomas sighed. “I’ll take the second bedroom on the left.”

  “That’d be peachy keen.”

  Oh, sure. Keen. Like an unwanted roommate. Like plague. Like famine.

  “I’m not sharing a bathroom with you!” she bawled as he vanished up the steps and down a hallway.

  Fourteen

  A night later, Fred was forced to play hostess. Not that she was having to do any of the actual work, thank God. Jonas had bought the food, Thomas had fired up the grill, and Tennian had shown up with her twin brother and a half dozen fresh lobster.

  “Ho, Fredrika Bimm! You recall my brother, Rennan?”

  “Vividly.” They shook hands gingerly. Rennan wasn’t nearly as friendly or open-minded as his sister and was wary of Fred because of her family history. He was a male version of Tennian, with the same blue hair and sapphire-colored eyes. But if he wasn’t civil, his sister would kick his ass. She’d done it before. “How’d Tennian drag you here, anyway?”

  “It was my honor to come,” he replied stiffly.

  “Aha! Word’s getting out that Artur proposed, I’m guessing. Tsk, tsk, Rennan . . . hedging your bets? How . . . courageous.”

  He scowled at her, then at his twin when she snickered.

  “Well, come on in. Thomas is in the back, trying to fry his eyebrows.”

  “Fry his—?”

  “Hi, Tennian!” Jonas managed not to leer; for a change, Tennian was fully clothed.

  Not for the first time, Fred wondered where Undersea Folk got their clothes. The Gap? A mall? An underwater mall? She knew they had gobs of money—every doubloon, antique, gold bar, or what-have-you since man first built ships and lost them to the sea was the property of the king and his people.

  “Glad you could make it,” Jonas was still yakking, “and—oh, my God, look at the size of those things!”

  Reasonably sure he meant the lobsters and not Tennian’s boobs, Fred relieved her of them and stuffed the wriggling creatures into her fridge. She couldn’t eat them, of course (her allergy had been a source of great hilarity to Tennian), but the others would love them.

  “I’ve noticed you don’t seem to mind vocalizing so much anymore.” This was more scientific curiosity than polite conversation; when they had first met, several months ago, Tennian would hardly say two words out of water, but was quite chatty with her telepathy.

  “I practiced with Thomas,” the girl replied, inspecting the tablecloth and cloth napkins and dining-room chairs.

  I’ll bet.

  “His Highness regrets,” Rennan said, watching his sister with a bemused expression, “he cannot join us for this meal. The good king his father required him to tend to some family business.”

  “Too bad,” Thomas said, sliding open the deck door and popping inside. “He’s gonna miss a spread. Hey, Tenn. Hi, Rennan.” He embraced Tennian and shook Rennan’s forearm, an Undersea Folk-style handshake. “Glad you could make it.”

  “Oh, I love looking at surface-dweller homes, and I had heard Fredrika was residing in quite a nice one.” Tennian flipped a dining-room chair upside down, examined it, and righted it. “And I see I heard correctly!”

  “She’s so adorable,” Jonas whispered to Fred. “I’m in love with someone else and I’m still having a hard time resisting her . . . Say, Tennian, could I take a look at your hair?”

  Tennian blinked. Fred lied, “Surface dweller custom. We also inspect each other for ticks,” so the smaller woman agreed.

  Jonas fussed with the woman’s long blue strands for a few moments. “Great body. Not too many split ends. What you need is some good conditioner and maybe some gel. I’ve got both in my rental car.”

  “Jonas is a scientist, like Fred and me,” Thomas explained.

  “Ha!” Fred sneered.

  “Only he works for a company that makes hair products. He helps think them up.”

  “I do not wish to put chemicals in my hair,” Tennian said soberly. “They would get into the seas. I do not wish to dirty the seas.”

  “How about a trim, at least?”

  “But I don’t—”

  “I’m taking grill orders,” Thomas interrupted. To Jonas: “Give it up.” To the group: “So who wants what?”

  Tennian and her brother were quite familiar with cooked food, as Undersea Folk frequently held banquets on various deserted islands. They both opted for steak and lobster. Fred decided on a burger and salad. Thomas and Jonas wanted lobster. So Fred found a large pot—hooray for furnished rentals!—and started the water boiling. Thomas disappeared back outside to start grilling.

  They sat around the dining-room table, enjoying the sea breeze and gossiping about current events. Unlike his sister, Rennan wasn’t keen on being pestered by tourists who wanted to see his tail. If not for his sister’s choice, he would have elected to remain hidden from the surface world. The king had given that choice to every one of his subjects, and several thousand of them (Fred had no idea of the exact number) remained off surface-dweller radar . . . literally.

  But many, like Tennian, had been curious too long to stay out of sight. And despite being shot by pirates, the smaller woman’s enthusiasm for all things surface remained undiminished.

  “Water’s boiling,” Jonas said, peeking into the pot.

  “Then drop ’em.”

  “Chickenshit,” he said, not unkindly.

  “Can’t stand the noise they make,” Fred admitted.

  “But I thought you couldn’t hear us or them outside the water,” Rennan said, then oof’d as his sister slammed an elbow into his side. “I wasn’t being rude,” he said, gingerly rubbing his ribs.

  “Yes, you were; we’re not supposed to tease her about that. She can’t help it if her lady mother is a surface dweller.”

  “I was only asking,” Rennan said, sounding wounded.

  “It’s okay, Tennian, don’t beat him up anymore. I’m not offended.”

  “Just offensive,” Jonas said cheerfully, extracting the wriggling, depressed crustaceans from the fridge.

  Fred was momentarily taken aback. No, she had no telepathy on land, couldn’t hear a mermaid or a goldfish. But purebreds could. What in the world did a lobster sound like to them as it was being plunged into boiling water? Dear God!

  “I meant the ‘eeeeeee’ noise when they hit the water. That’s what I can’t stand.”

  “That’s just the air being shoved out of their shells by the force and heat,” Jonas explained for the zillionth time. “They’re not actually, y’know, screaming. You’d think a marine biologist would know this stuff. Also: gross.”

  “Well,” Tennian began awkwardly, then glanced at her brother, who shrugged. “Well, they do. Ah. Scream. But for less than half a second. They don’t like going near the pot, but once they are—ah—inside, they are done.”

  The dinner party from hell, Fred thought, having no clue what was in store for her in the next half hour. That’s what this is.

  Twenty minutes later, they were all eating with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Tennian and Rennan made short work of their lobsters but took the steaks slower. Thomas was ravenous—he’d been gone all day; Fred had no idea where and was too proud to ask—and wolfed down his meal. Jonas ate methodically and neatly, peppering the twins with questions betwee
n bites. And Fred ignored her meat and picked at her salad.

  “I met the most charming young surface dweller this afternoon,” Tennian said, slurping the meat out of a lobster leg. She bit off the joint and chewed noisily for a few seconds. “She had perhaps . . . four seasons? Five?”

  “Years,” Thomas corrected her gently.

  “Of course. She had been caught in the riptide and I pulled her back to shore. Poor little one, so frightened! She petted my tail all the way back to shore. Her lady mother was very kind also.”

  “Well, jeez, I’d hope so,” Jonas said, used to Tennian’s habit of devouring shellfish, shells and all. “Good for you.”

  “They all seem very nice,” Tennian added. She bit through a lobster claw and extracted the meat, ignoring the melted butter Jonas had placed before her. She squeezed, and the claw shattered and pieces littered her plate. “Other than the ones who shot me, of course.”

  “Of course,” Thomas said, then caught Fred’s eye and they snickered together. “Nobody’s perfect, though.”

  “And if anybody’d know, it’d be those two,” Jonas teased. “In fact, I—”

  There was a sharp rapping at the front door. Fred groaned inwardly and got up. “Maybe Artur could make it after all.”

  The twins shook their heads in unison. “He would have told us on his way.”

  “God, I’d love to be telepathic,” Jonas was saying as Fred made her way to the door. “Way more efficient than flapping my gums all day long.”

  “Yes,” the twins said in unison.

  Another hard rap, and Fred pulled the door open. “All right, no need to knock it down.” She stared at the man. “Who the hell are you?”

  He was almost exactly her height—perhaps an inch taller. His hair was the exact color of hers, only it was shoulder-length. His eyes were also a vivid green, the color of the ocean in high summer. His face was smooth and unlined; he looked like he was in his mid-twenties.

  Fred wasn’t fooled; with that coloring he had to be Undersea Folk. And they aged beautifully. He could have been in his fifties, or barely drinking age.

  He was wearing jeans, tennis shoes, and a red polo shirt. His fingers were long and, as he stretched out his hand for her to shake, strong. He was lightly tanned, and really pretty good-looking.

  “Crashing the party?” She managed to extract her hand before he broke any bones.

  “Yes, several years too late, Fredrika. Do you not recognize me?”

  “Should I?”

  “Has your lady mother never described me?”

  Fred blinked.

  The hair.

  The eyes.

  Oh man oh man ohmanohmanohman.

  Her insides seemed to lock up and then slither to the bottom of her stomach. She felt her left eye twitch in a stress spasm. Oh, this was perfect. Icing on the wedding cake, so to speak. Christ.

  “Don’t even tell me.”

  “I’m—”

  “I said don’t tell me!”

  “—your father. My name is Farrem.”

  From behind, a baritone yowl from Rennan: “Traitor!”

  And also from behind, Tennian: “Get away from her right now, you filth!”

  A chair fell over and she could hear rapidly approaching footsteps. Tennian, with the height of a pygmy and the courage of a rabid ape, launching herself, no doubt.

  Fred turned, braced herself, and caught the woman by the elbows—barely. They both toppled backward, into Fred’s father, and out the door onto the sidewalk.

  Fifteen

  For a few minutes Fred felt like a character in a Bugs Bunny cartoon—everything was whirling fists and rolling around on the lawn and kicking feet. All that was missing was the cloud of dust and the darting stars.

  Finally, finally she was able to get to her feet and between her (groan) father and Tennian, making the time-out sign from football and instantly realizing neither of them probably knew what it meant.

  “Cut it out!” she shrieked, booting Tennian in the ankle and hooking an elbow into her father’s gut. It was like elbowing plywood.

  Tennian lunged and Fred backed up fast, forcing her father to back up as well. “You remove yourself from the lady’s property this moment or I shall—”

  Fred was shoved forward as her father first planted his feet and then started forward. It occurred to her that both of them had at least twice her strength. “I have a perfect right to see my daughter on land, you pious—”

  “I mean it, you guys. Not here, not on my front lawn; I’m getting dizzy and my damned dinner’s getting cold!”

  “But he is a most foul—”

  “I did not wish for this and I—”

  “Cut it out!”

  Sulky silence. Not to mention staring eyes . . . everyone else had piled out the front door to watch the fight. Jonas and Thomas seemed fascinated. Rennan looked horrified and amused at the same time; it was well known that his twin was the hard-ass.

  Fred sighed. Pushed her hair out of her eyes. Glared at them both. “You guys better come inside.”

  “I am grateful for your hos—”

  “But, Fredrika! He is a most loathsome—”

  “Tennian, he’s coming in. You can come in, too, or stay out here on the lawn. Or go jump in the ocean. But he’s coming in.”

  “So . . . he’s coming in?” Jonas was grinning, looking from father to daughter to father. “Hey there, Fred’s Dad. Nice to meetcha. You want a burger, a lobster, or a steak?”

  Sixteen

  Rennan and Tennian wouldn’t stay.

  “Oh, come on,” Jonas, ever the peacemaker, coaxed. “Look how much lobster’s left! Without you chewing on the things, all that shell is going to go to waste.”

  “We cannot remain under the roof with a traitor to the royal blood,” Tennian said stiffly, and Fred remembered that Artur was her cousin. She, probably more than the average Undersea Folk, took Fred’s father’s betrayal more personally than most. “I do not mean to give offense, Fredrika.”

  “Farewell,” her twin added, holding the door for his sister. “The food was very fine.”

  “Run along, children,” her father said. Fred had to admit, he seemed pretty unruffled at the snub. Almost . . . amused?

  She sort of liked him for it.

  The twins stomped out looking (Fred had to admit it) exactly like kids throwing a tantrum.

  “So!” Farrem said brightly, sitting down in Tennian’s chair. “Are you going to eat that lobster?”

  Seventeen

  “This is a little awkward—” Fred began, only to be interrupted by Jonas.

  “No, it’s cool! It’s so cool that you showed up now! My God . . . so . . . many . . . questions . . .” Jonas clutched his temples. “Let’s start with the big one. Does inherent grumpiness run in your side of the family? Because she sure didn’t get it from her mom. And do you take pleasure in looking as unattractive as you can at every opp—”

  Farrem laughed, an easy, deep sound. “I will gladly answer your questions, good sir, but perhaps introductions could come first?”

  “If you’re expecting your one and only daughter to remember protocol, you’re gonna have a long damn wait,” Thomas said, smiling a little. Fred wasn’t fooled. Thomas might look and sound casual, as if this were any other get-together, but she knew the scientist in him wanted to stick Farrem in a lab and run several hundred tests. And right now!

  “Am I?” Fred asked.

  “Are you what, my own?” Farrem bit off a lobster claw and crunched contentedly.

  “Your one and only daughter.”

  Farrem laughed. “As far as I know! Certainly you’re the most famous of my offspring, even if I had several dozen to keep track of. I saw you on the television box and thought, could that be the product of that delightful night on a Cape Cod beach? You must admit . . .” Crunch. Crunch. “. . . we look a great deal alike.”

  “Yeah, I was noticing that, too.” One thing about Undersea Folk . . . the only ones who share
d the same coloring were blood relatives, like Artur and the king, or Tennian and her brother. “Well, you asked about intros. This is my best friend, Jonas, and this is my colleague—”

  “Colleague?” Thomas cried with mock hurt. “Is that all we are to each other, you heartless harpy?”

  “—Dr. Thomas Pearson. Guys, this is—well—Farrem.” She wasn’t ready to call him “Dad.” Shit, her stepfather, Sam, had raised her (he’d married her mother, Moon, while she was knocked up with Fred) and she didn’t even call him Dad. “My, uh, biological father.”

  “It pleases me to meet such gentlemen over my daughter’s table.” Crunch. “Fredrika, tell me—how is your lady mother?”

  “Hot,” Jonas said.

  Fred glared. Jonas’s crush on her mother got more disturbing every year. When they were nine it wasn’t too creepy, but now . . . “Moon’s fine.” In fact, I’m going to have to make a phone call. Right now. “She thinks you’re dead.”

  Farrem’s smile dropped away like someone had snatched it. “To many of our folk, I am. Or as good as.”

  “So why are you here now?” Thomas asked.

  “Is it not obvious, Dr. Pearson? The king could banish me from his kingdom . . . but not from the surface. I confess I could scarce believe my eyes when I started seeing the news reports.”

  “You and most of the rest of the planet.”

  “Indeed! And now that my folk have begun making themselves known to surface dwellers . . .” Farrem shrugged and crunched into a claw. “It seemed an opportune time to reemerge.”

  “I’m sure the others will be thrilled,” Fred said dryly, remembering the reaction of the twins.

  “That,” Farrem said coolly, “is their problem and not mine. Besides, how could I stay away when every time I turned on the television box my own eyes were staring out at me?”

  Fred could feel herself start to blush, and fought it. Still. A nice thing for him to say. Gracious, even, because she was no beauty, and he was really handsome.