Mermaids in the Basement

by Michael Lee West

“I’m so happy for you both.” Honora patted his arm.

  “I don’t think there will be an us much longer.” Daddy sighed.

  “Why not?” asked Isabella.

  “Well, Joie doesn’t know it yet, but she’s falling in love with her neurosurgeon.” Daddy shrugged. “Any more French toast? And what’s in those chafing dishes?”

  “Sausage and grits,” said Gladys. “Grab a plate and join us.”

  “Don’t mind if I do.” He got up from the chair and walked over to the dolphin table, then glanced over his shoulder at Ferg. “Hey, you in the apron. How about fixing your future father-in-law a mimosa?”

  The speaker crackled, and the music changed to a Count Basie song, “Rusty Dusty Blues.”

  “Why don’t you stay and have supper with us tonight?” said Honora. “Renata and Ferg are leaving day after tomorrow for Ireland.”

  “Ah, Ireland,” Daddy said. “Haven’t been there in years.”

  “You ought to fly back with us,” said Ferg, handing my father the mimosa.

  “With y’all?” Daddy laughed, then raised his flute and sipped the drink.

  “Why not?” Ferg said. “You can show Renata the sights—she’s never seen Blarney Castle.”

  “Can we come, too?” Isabella laughed. “Come on, say yes. It’ll be like a family vacation.”

  “Put that thought right out of your mind,” said Honora. “That little island isn’t big enough for us. We’d drive Ferg crazy.”

  “No, you wouldn’t.” He laughed. “I come from a big, messy Scottish family. I’m a member of Clan Lauderdale. I’m used to big gatherings.”

  “See?” Isabella spread her arms. “I just hope we can even book a flight on this short notice. I won’t go unless I can sit in business class.”

  “I’m not going, period,” said Honora.

  “Humph, you don’t want to leave that dog,” said Gladys.

  “She can take him along,” said Isabella. “She can get a pet passport from the vet. Just stick him into a Vuitton bag—the dog, not the vet. Unless he’s cute. Oh, it’ll be a blast! I’ll hire a limousine to drive us around.”

  “Isabella,” Honora said, “it takes you two weeks to pack an overnight bag. You’ll never be ready by tomorrow.”

  “Then I won’t pack,” she said. “I’ll just buy what I need.”

  “What you need is a good, stiff drink,” said Honora.

  “Maybe not a drink,” said Isabella, “but something stiff would be divine.”

  “Come on, Gladys. Let’s give the others a little breathing room.” Honora grabbed Isabella’s hand and towed her into the house.

  After they left, I remembered the mermaid badge. I reached into my jean pocket, then slid it over to my father.

  Ferg leaned over my chair. “What is it?”

  “Some kind of badge,” I said, turning to my daddy. “What does it mean?”

  “Could be anything.” Daddy picked up the badge, then turned it over.

  He looked toward the bay. I couldn’t read his expression, but I got the feeling that he was coming to a decision. He turned the badge over and over, then glanced at Ferg. “Mind if I have a private word with my daughter?”

  “Certainly,” Ferg said, and started to go inside. He looked toward the house, where female voices drifted out. The music changed, and Shirley Ellis began singing “The Name Game.” From inside the house, Isabella sang, “Renata-botta-bo-botta-banana-nana-bo-notta-fee-fi-fo-dada, Renada!”

  “I wouldn’t go in there just yet,” said Daddy. “It’ll be like a minnow swimming into a shark tank. I’ll just take Renata-bo-botta for a walk over to the pier, if you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all, sir.” Ferg pulled out my chair, and my daddy took my hand and gently pulled me to my feet.

  Daddy looked over his shoulder, winking at Ferg. “Be right back, buddy.”

  “Yes, sir,” Ferg headed toward the house. “I think I’ll take on the shark tank—er, the ladies.”

  “Don’t let ’em bite,” Daddy called. “Open a bottle of Dom, and they just nibble.”

  We walked to the end of the pier and sat down. The bay resembled a bowl of dishwater, and dirty waves slapped against the pilings. We sat there, our shoulders touching. Then I said, “Are you going to Ireland with us?”

  “Would it shock you if I did?”

  I nodded.

  “I’m thinking about it,” Daddy said. “I want to keep my eye on Mr. Hollywood. And I wouldn’t mind meeting the notorious Esmé Vasquez.”

  “Is it really over between you and Joie?”

  “We’ll see what happens while I’m in Ireland.”

  “What about them?” I glanced back at the house. “Can you handle Honora and her coven?”

  “With one hand tied behind my back and both legs tied,” he said.

  “If you can pull that off, you ought to be bronzed.”

  “They’re easy.” He held the badge up to the light, and the aqua fabric turned a lighter shade.

  “Tell me about it, Daddy.”

  “I’ll try.” He tucked the badge into his shirt pocket, then smiled down at me. “I’ll try, baby girl.”

  Chapter 41

  LOUIE SAYS, IT’S THE CHAMPAGNE TALKING

  After Renata nearly drowned at the swimming school, she couldn’t look at water. It just broke my heart. See, I wanted her to be fearless, not scared of a damn thing. Mainly because I had this great big yellow streak running down my back. I spent that whole spring driving between New Orleans and Point Clear, helping my daughter overcome hydrophobia.

  First, I got her to sit on the edge of the swimming pool, dangling her feet into the shallow end. Another visit, I coaxed her down to the beach, and we built a sand castle a few feet away from the breakers. “Can’t make a decent castle without water,” I told her, handing her the pail. She shook her head. So I carried the pail to the water and filled it. “Didn’t even get wet,” I said.

  It took a few visits before she would fill the pail. Sometimes we’d walk along the beach and stand in the shallows, letting the waves break over our legs. Then I went to the French Quarter, and in a dusty old shop on Royal, I found a blue badge with a mermaid on it. The next weekend, I drove over to Point Clear, thinking I’d hit on a solution.

  First, I tried to persuade Renata to swim in Honora’s pool, but she screamed and kicked me. Hell, she even bit my thumb. Left a scar. She squirmed out of my arms and ran down to the beach, skipping along the sand. The small waves were green, edged with brown. Farther out, the water churned as gulls fed on baby shrimp. The light was hard and pure, solid as the wind. I remember she wore a pink polka dot suit with ruffles on her hind end. And her hair was banded into pigtails.

  I hurried after her, pausing at the bottom of the steps to watch the pelicans. It was unusual to see them this time of year. They wheeled along the dark line dividing sky and water, disappearing for an instant as they cut through a cloud, then emerged in a V pattern, each bird separate and yet together.

  Down at the water’s edge, Renata skipped barefoot, stopping now and then to pick up a limpet. I reached down and lifted her above my head. Then I tossed her into the air. When I caught her, she screeched and said, “Do it again, Daddy.”

  That got me to thinking. “Baby,” I said, “when I throw you into the air, aren’t you scared I’ll drop you?”

  “No, Daddy.” She shook her head. “You’ll always catch me.”

  “That’s because you trust me, right?”

  “Truss? Is that what Gladys does to the Thanksgiving turkey?”

  “No.” I explained the difference between truss and trust. Then I said, “Renata, can I talk to you like you’re a big girl?”

  She nodded.

  “This fear you’ve got,” I began, “we’ve got to make it go away.”

  “What fear, Daddy?”

  “The fear of water. I might know how to fix it.”

  “How, Daddy?”

  “Let’s me and you go into the water and p
lay toss-up. And maybe you’ll see that the water isn’t a scary place.”

  “It is scary, too. Let’s just stay right here, Daddy. I like the sand.”

  “I thought you were going to act like a big girl. And a big girl would go with me into the water.”

  “I’d rather be little.”

  “We’ll just wade out a little bit. I won’t go deep. It’ll be just like playing toss-up on the sand—”

  “No!”

  “I will catch you. Come on, now. Don’t be afraid.”

  Renata burst into tears, whipping her little head around, the pigtails trembling.

  “If you trust me to catch you on the beach, then you should trust me to catch you in the water. It’s the same thing, Renata.”

  “It’s not.” She balled up her fist and hit me in the chest. She looked so much like Shelby when she was mad.

  “I will catch you no matter what.” I scooped her into my arms, holding her legs still so she couldn’t kick. Then I started toward the water. She went limp, and crumpled over, dangling sideways out of my arms, gagging and coughing.

  “I can’t breathe! Daddy, put me down.”

  So I put her down, and she took off screeching for her mama and Honora. She pounded up the steps, over the pier, those pigtails twitching up and down.

  I sat there a long while, wondering how it all got so tangled. All I had to do was look at Shelby, and I’d get excited. If she blew in my ear, I’d just about lose consciousness. If only I’d tried harder to forgive her, but it was more than that thing with Kip. Their affair had exposed fears that I didn’t know I had.

  I didn’t know if craziness was in the genes; but even if it wasn’t, I knew that little fears had a tendency to pile up like trash on the beach. Pretty soon you can’t walk without stepping on something sharp. Next thing you know, you’re taking baby steps. You’re breathing, but you’re not alive.

  As I stared up at the sun, I watched the pelicans etch across the sky. I felt light-headed, as if my soul had left my body. It soared above the little beach, into the clouds, and was swept along by the Gulf Stream, all the way to Miami, veering over to Dolphin Stadium, where it hovered over the press box and watched the first day of spring practice.

  I knew that Honora and her witches had their own theories about my sudden marriage to Bitsy. The truth was, I’d fallen hard for her. I’d seen her around our hotel in Montego Bay, but I hadn’t really paid attention until she climbed onto the diving board. The sun was in my eyes, and for a minute, I thought she was Shelby—they had the same small-boned, dainty features.

  If we hadn’t been in Jamaica, we might not have rushed into marriage, but she was headed back to Tennessee, and I knew I’d never see her again. We went to dinner, and I explained about wines and cuts of meat, and the final days of Vietnam. Bitsy folded her hands and watched me with adoring eyes. And I knew she didn’t see any trace of the man who’d accidentally shot Judge Stevens, or who’d vomited in quail feathers. Bitsy saw me as a sophisticated tough guy, a hotshot cardiovascular surgeon who saved lives, a man who had the capacity to save her life, rescuing her from an intolerable situation in Crystal Falls, Tennessee.

  I didn’t want those good feelings to end, so I begged her to fly off to Las Vegas—just a few days of gambling, I told her. Then we’d take it from there. We checked into the MGM and went down to the casino to play blackjack. A skinny waitress took our orders, a piña colada for Bitsy, a Long Island iced tea for myself. Bitsy had never gambled, and I had fun explaining it.

  Whenever I touched her, I didn’t feel the jolt that I always felt with Shelby; but I felt something else. She needs me more than Shelby, I thought. But the truth was, I needed to see myself through her eyes.

  Next thing I knew, I was honeymooning in Las Vegas. I didn’t plan it; I just went gambling and woke up married. I had no recollection of having left that casino. The following morning, while Bitsy sang a Barry Manilow song in the shower, I drank black coffee and sobered up long enough to call Honora and break the news. Bitsy stepped out of the shower, her hair curling in wet ringlets.

  A while later I went back to the casino and told the gal to bring me a boilermaker. Then I strolled into the lobby and called Shelby. She burst into tears, then threw down the phone. When I finally returned to New Orleans, I stopped by her floating house to see Renata. “She’s at school,” Shelby said. She wore white shorts and a loose muslin blouse, and she stood against the wall, one foot tucked behind her leg, and she wouldn’t look at me. I didn’t blame her. I hated myself for what I’d done to her.

  “Well, I’ll stop by another time,” I said. I bent over to kiss her forehead, and at the same moment she looked up. Our lips grazed for just a second, but I felt an electrical jolt. My body was hot, almost thrumming. Spots whirled in front of my eyes. I stepped back, trying to catch my breath and hoping my erection wasn’t straining against my trousers. She’d felt it, too. She pressed against the wall, her chest rising and falling. Her nipples jutted against the muslin blouse. She lowered her eyelids, looking between my legs. My trousers formed a tent, and it bobbed in a rhythm that matched my pulse rate. My testicles swelled and ached.

  “You’d better go,” she said.

  “Yeah, I better.”

  We sprang together, lips crushing, hands roughly groping and kneading. We barely made it to her bedroom doorway, collapsing on the floor. Buttons popped and rolled along the tile. Her hands tugged at my belt. I peeled off her shorts and threw them over my shoulder. She stretched out on the floor and bent down. I climbed on top of her, my pants hanging around my knees.

  “I’m not going to last long,” I warned her. I licked one finger and traced it over her pubic bone, then farther down. Arching her hips, she sucked in air, and I thrust into her. She hammered against me, then pulled away, teasing. Again, I pushed into her. She began to shiver and call out my name, “Louie, Lou—” She dropped the “ie” the way she always did before she came. I shuddered and moaned into her hair.

  She curled up against me, exhaling tiny, stabbing breaths. I traced my finger through her damp hair. Our lovemaking had always been tender and satisfying, but during our time apart, it had undergone a metamorphosis into something urgent and addictive. She looked up at me, and her irises darkened. “Louie, we can’t let this happen again.”

  “Too late,” I said, and in one smooth motion I pulled her on top, and I fit myself between her legs. She gasped and her eyes widened, then she locked her hands behind my neck.

  While I sat on Honora’s beach, I realized that I’d made a mess of things. I picked up a shell and tossed it into the bay. The sun hung low over the water. A crab skittled sideways, its claws extended like a surgeon holding up freshly scrubbed hands, hurrying off to an operating suite. A copper wave broke on the sand, washing over the crab, engulfing one of Renata’s abandoned sand castles.

  A little while after sunset, I walked back to the house. Gladys was standing in front of the sink, capping strawberries. Reaching in my pocket, I pulled out the badge and laid it on the counter. “Do you think you could sew this on Renata’s bathing suit?” I asked.

  “Sure.” She glanced at it. “It’s pretty. What is it?”

  “A little something I found in the French Quarter. I’m hoping it’ll give her confidence.”

  Honora stepped into the room, wearing a black-and-white silk pantsuit. On her head was a white turban with a rhinestone clip. Hell, for all I knew it could’ve been a diamond. “Next time you visit, bring Bitsy,” she said, then she lit a cigarette and watched the smoke spiral above her head.

  “If she’s feeling up to it,” I said.

  “She’s up to it,” Honora said. “But you’re not.”

  “I’m up to anything,” I said. “If I want an opinion, I’ll see a shrink.”

  “Before this is over, you’ll have squandered ten years and a hundred thousand dollars—that’s what it would take to shrink your head. And the problem is perfectly clear: you love both women.”

 
I shoved my hand into my pocket, fingering the loose change. I hated how she had the knack of seeing straight through me. She was a voodoo kind of mother. Instead of biting off chicken heads, she went straight for mine. “So what if I do love them?”

  “Dammit, Louie, it’s wrong. You are not a Mormon. You can’t have them both. Too many innocent lives are threatened by your selfish wants.”

  “Too many innocent lungs are threatened by your cigarette smoke,” I said. I left the kitchen and stepped onto the terrace. I hurried around the path, then stopped to pick a handful of zinnias. They were Shelby’s favorite flower. A long time ago, I’d given her a seed packet, and she’d planted half of them, saving the rest in a tiny envelope as her good luck charm.

  When I stepped off the path, I saw Shelby standing in the side yard, throwing rose petals into the koi pond and the Circe statue. Her short blue dress clung to her hips. One hand rose up, smoothing back her shiny blond hair. It was twisted up with mermaid clips, each one encrusted with sparkly stones. A dozen votive candles burned on the railing, throwing light into her mermaids. She sipped her drink, ice cubes tinkling, and threw another handful of petals.

  “You’ve got mermaids in your hair,” I said.

  “They’re Honora’s.” She patted them. “How’d it go with Renata?”

  “Not good.” I shook my head, then held out the flowers. “I’ll just try another time, I guess.”

  “You going back to New Orleans?” She buried her face in the bouquet.

  “I was, but I’m starved. Let’s go over to Gulf Shores and eat some raw oysters.”

  I took her dancing at Coconut Zed’s, where we drank two bottles of mediocre champagne and ate two dozen raw oysters. When it started raining, we drove down the beach and rented the bridal suite at Sugar Sands. There was a mirrored wall behind the bed, reflecting the jade green walls and whitewashed furniture. I pulled her onto the bed and pushed her hair from her eyes.

  “It’s not like this with anyone else, Shelby,” I said.

  “It better not be,” she said.

  We sat down on the king-size bed, admiring each other in the mirrors, performing the strange, compelling rituals of courtship. Later, she sat cross-legged in the bed and spoon-fed me frozen daiquiris. Then she fed me pepper cheese and bacon crackers. I opened my mouth like a baby bird, blind and trusting. “Marry me.”