Yet, despite Christine’s save, what I’d said was true.
If you had asked me when I was little what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would have said “mermaid”. If you had asked me now what I wanted to be when I was eighteen, I would have said “mermaid” as well. Unlike most girls, I was completely serious. Ever since I was three years old and my dad sat me on his lap to watch Disney’s The Little Mermaid, I was enamored with the idea of being a creature of the sea and being able to swim in the water with absolute freedom. I wanted to see the beauty of the underwater world.
I was determined that somehow or another, I would be a mermaid.
My mother had tried to convince me to go into something more sensible. “Tara, you’re smart sweetie, why don’t you become a doctor?” she’d say. Or, “Why not look into being a lawyer?” And lately, it was, “You’re the salutatorian of your class, honey, do you really want to take off a year from college?”
For a chance to be a mermaid, the answer to that last question was a resounding ‘yes’. It’s not a traditional track for the girl who finished second in her class and had scholarship offers from three different universities, yet I had deferred my freshman year to live my dream. After this one year, I could focus on those more sensible things.
If I wanted to.
“How do you breathe underwater?” a young girl asked, tearing me back to reality. She shyly smiled at me and hid behind her mother’s skirt. The poor little thing was anxious too, just like me.
“We have to use air tubes,” I said with a gracious smile. “So we’re able to breathe whenever we want.”
“Ariel from The Little Mermaid doesn’t need air tubes,” another girl protested. “She’s able to breathe whenever she wants.”
I gave a nervous chuckle. I knew it was inevitable that this comparison would come up and I still didn’t quite know how to answer it. How do you convince kids that you’re a real mermaid when you’re not?
“Ariel is a very special mermaid,” I said. “She can hold her breath for quite a long time. But we all have to breathe somehow.” I winked at her, taking a deep breath to demonstrate my working lungs. The girl giggled, and her parents chuckled as well.
“What’s that around your neck?” another girl asked.
As if by instinct, my right hand protectively flew to the pendant that hung around my neck. It was a miniature stone mermaid, carved with startling accuracy and detail. The mermaid had her tail curled around her, her hair flowing like kelp in the sea. It was only about the size of my thumb, yet I cherished it with all my being. After I’d become obsessed with mermaids, my dad gave it to me a few months before he had died of cancer.
I never took it off, even for performances.
“This is a special necklace,” I explained and held it out for the kids to see. “It’s a mermaid. It was given to me by my father when I was about your age.” Strange how even a small mention of it could bring me to the brink of tears. I sniffled, trying to contain it.
I felt a hand on my shoulder. Gratefully, I looked up and saw Christine addressing the crowd. She obviously got the hint that I was getting choked up.
“So many good questions!” she exclaimed. She flashed what I like to call her PR smile. The kids instantly warmed up to her. Even though she was in a turquoise polo shirt and a pair of khaki shorts, she could still command an audience with her ethereal grace like she was wearing her costume. “But Mermaid Tara has to go get ready for her performance at two o’clock.”
There were quite a few disappointed groans in the crowd, and that made me smile despite the fact that I was about to tear up.
“Aww, we’re sad to see you go too,” Christine said, feeding off the crowd. “But we are excited that Mermaid Tara and her friends will be performing a special show just for you right before the dolphin tale show at two o’clock. It’s in the Dolphin Stage Arena.”
The grumbling got louder as kids and their parents made to leave.
“Okay,” Christine said in a low voice so that only I could hear her, putting her hands on her hips. “How did that go for you?”
“All right, I guess,” I said. “They got so…curious…towards the end.”
Christine smiled. “All it takes is one random question, and then they’re all asking random questions.” She would know. She’s been doing this for about ten years, and has had countless meet and greets in that time. “I thought you did great, and you made a good impression. Neptune should be happy.”
I smiled hopefully.
Neptune was our boss, the owner of Neptune’s World Aquarium in Jacksonville, Florida. An old man covered in tattoos on his arm and a white beard on his face, he reminded me of a sailor with his mannerisms and Popeye-like speech. Yet he was a warm and caring man who loved the ocean more than anyone I’d ever met.
We were touring as a troupe of mermaids in aquariums across the country in the winter off-season to generate publicity for Neptune’s World. After one stop, it was working: the crowds loved our performances and we were featured online and in the newspapers. Everyone wanted to see the real-life mermaids of Neptune’s World. We were now at our second stop at the Houston Aquarium in Texas’s largest city.
“You really think he’ll be happy?” I asked. It was only my second month working for the aquarium, so I celebrated every little victory I had at making a good impression.
“Yep. All you have left is this show and you’ll have had a great day.”
I knew I could handle the performance at two. When I was in the water, dancing like a mermaid, I was great. To me, there were no crowds. There were no questions. There was me, the water, and the fullness of heart that only comes with fulfilling a dream.
“All right, let’s get me out of here,” I said, holding my arms up like a baby wanting to be picked up. “We have a show in an hour.”
Christine motioned for the ushers to come help me. While I was in my mermaid tail, there was no way I’d be able to get to the changing room without flopping like a dying fish or some kid seeing me take off my tail.
It was awkward being nearly naked in a strange man’s arms as he carried me to the dressing room. At eighteen years old and being what everyone considered the weird kid in high school, I’d never had a real boyfriend. Or any sort of romantic interest really. Not that I’m hideous or anything - at five four, I’m slim with a head full of dark brown hair that falls past my shoulders, green eyes with turquoise flecks that I’d inherited from Dad, and tanned skin from spending way too much time in the sun, so I’d say I had average looks. I wasn’t interested in a relationship either. And with me starting my year of professional mermaiding, I seriously doubted I would find a boyfriend now.
By the time we arrived at the changing rooms, I was bright red in the face because the method of transportation was so incredibly awkward. Christine was talking my ear off. She does that sometimes.
“How do you like Houston?” she asked me, her question cutting through my embarrassment.
I blinked at her, refocusing my thoughts on her. “Oh, it’s been great.”
Granted, we’d only been here for three days and already performed two of those three days, so I hadn’t been able to get out and see the city. However, everyone I met had been nice, and both of our performances had been extremely well received. I enjoyed getting out and seeing more of the United States, as I’d been confined to Jacksonville for most of my life.
The usher set me down, and I half-hopped, half-fell over to a chair so I could take off my tail and touch up my make-up before we headed to the Dolphin Stage Arena, where we would perform before they brought out the dolphins for their own show. While we swam with whales and turtles and fish in our usual tank at Neptune’s World, we weren’t familiar with the animals at the Houston Aquarium, so we were separated into two different performances.
“Hey, Tara, how did your meet and greet go?” a mermaid named Alaina asked. She was in her late twenties, and while she wasn’t showing yet, she had announced two weeks ago that
she was pregnant and this would be her last season. I liked her a lot, so the thought made me sad.
“Not too great,” I admitted.
“Oh, you did fine for your first time,” Christine interjected. She went to her mirror and unzipped her own mermaid tail from her garment bag, getting ready herself. “Those kids ask all the darndest questions. I think it’s because they all have iPads.”
“It’s my turn tomorrow,” another mermaid, Jordyn said. I glanced at her and I could see her visibly pale at the thought of her first meet and greet. She was only a few years older than me, going to nursing school part-time while she supported herself and her mother with her job as a mermaid.
“We need to think of better answers as to why we don’t look and act like Ariel,” I explained. “I even got asked why I didn’t have red hair.”
Jordyn laughed. “At least I have red hair.”
No kidding. Maybe her Q&A would go better than mine.
I smirked at my reflection in the mirror. With my over-the-top makeup and the glitter in my hair, I looked the part of an ethereal mermaid. I glanced around at the three other mermaids that were getting ready. We looked like a school of sea nymphs straight from the storybooks.
This was my dream. I was living the life. Sure, there were some moments like my meet and greet where I felt like it was going terribly. Yet to me, this was paradise.
I was checking my phone for messages from my mother when a timid knock at the door caused me to look up. An aquarium volunteer was at the door, smiling shyly.
“You’re on in fifteen minutes,” she announced.
We had to hurry to the backstage area. It would take us ten minutes simply to get our tails on near the tank where we’d be performing. How we put our tails on was a highly personal ritual. One, because our tails were unique to each of our bodies, and two, because we all had our ways of fitting into the tight silicon, like putting baby powder or lotion on or having help with pulling it up. For me, I had to get into the pool first and then put it on in the water, otherwise it would stick to my dry skin.
“Okay, we’ll head out now,” Christine said to the volunteer. She looked back and grinned at all of us. “Mermaids, let’s do this thing.”
Chapter 2
I touched my mermaid necklace and said a silent prayer for good luck before I grabbed my tail and headed for the door, following Alaina through the backstage area of the aquarium towards the dolphin tank.
The Houston Aquarium was huge. With six tanks totaling over ten million gallons of water, it put our three tanks at Neptune’s World to shame. On my first day here, someone told me that on its busiest days, the aquarium could accommodate over twenty thousand people, which was mind-blowing. It was November, so it wasn’t going to be anywhere near that many. Yet based on the audience yesterday, we were still going to have more people watching us here than we ever did back home.
The aquarium held every kind of aquatic animal, from Belugas, turtles, and sea otters, to even three whale sharks in the largest tank. The tanks replicated their respective environments in all their underwater splendor, and I was genuinely impressed.
As expected, my nerves flared up. Even though I was prepared for it, still, it made me feel a little nauseated. Though it’s not exactly stage fright, I always get this feeling that I’m going to screw up my routine. It usually passed as soon as I started, a weird, butterfly feeling in my stomach that I had to stomp on in order to be in top mental shape for my performance.
The Dolphin Arena consisted of three open-aired tanks at the back of the aquarium. There were two tanks that housed the dolphins when they weren’t performing, and the performing pool was larger and shallower compared to the other two. A curtain dropped down from the ceiling, bisecting the pool, so that the audience sat in stadium-like seating on one side while the behind-the-scenes work happened on the other side, along with the holding tanks for the dolphins while they weren’t performing.
The backstage area was buzzing with activity, where volunteers and stagehands were busy prepping the stage. Six dolphin trainers were busy petting the cetaceans and feeding them fish, talking to them in low, encouraging tones to get them ready for their own show. The dolphins responded in happy clicks, their eyes trained on their respective handlers. Every so often, one would disappear under the waves and swim a lap to release energy.
It was like babysitting a bunch of three year olds.
Nature’s acrobats, I thought, smiling to myself. This is why I became a professional mermaid. When I did go to college, I was going to study marine biology so I could always be close to the water. I couldn’t imagine life without it.
The coolest thing about the dolphin tanks at the Houston Aquarium was that they backed up to the ocean. The pools led to a landing that extended about eight yards into the Gulf of Mexico. From here, I could see the water and some boats on it, and beyond that, the horizon leading to the edge of the world.
Our boss walked up, his weather-beaten face grinning, and he clapped me on the back.
“Good luck, guys,” he said. He always smelled of the ocean, even though I’ve never actually seen him in the water. I think he could never wash out some of the sea salt that got under his skin.
Neptune—which I don’t think was his real name—was a man of contradictions. He’d built up his fortune as a captain of a fishing boat in the seventies, which must have been pretty lucrative because he made enough money to start his own aquarium. He told me once that he set up Neptune’s World as an apology for all the terrible things he did to the ocean and its animals when he was younger. He wouldn’t go into details, which meant that it must have been bad. Now though, I couldn’t imagine him being a bad person.
“Are you joining us today?” Jordyn quipped.
“Hell, no,” Neptune growled gruffly, although it was good-naturedly. “No one wants to see an old man with a mer tail.”
“Are you so sure?” Christine asked.
“I’d pay good money to see that,” Alaina added.
“Trust me, you don’t,” Neptune warned.
We all laughed. As the butt of the joke, Neptune grinned and joined in. It was like that with him. He was a grandfatherly figure to us and we were like a surrogate family for him.
A lone, high-pitched squeak brought my attention to the smallest of the tanks. Whereas the other two pools were connected by a hatch, this one was completely isolated from the others. A crane with a sling hovered a few yards above the pool, where it could transport animals from that smaller pool to the other ones. The sound was mournful in its cadence, and based on the other dolphins’ reactions, I could tell that they weren’t pleased by it. At the sound of the cry, they all dipped under the water, away from the trainers, who were obviously perplexed by their behavior.
“What was that?” I asked.
Neptune frowned, following my gaze. “I asked about it earlier. Apparently, that’s the newest member of the dolphin family here at the Houston Aquarium. They just brought him in today.”
I could tell from his voice that he wasn’t happy about it. I looked up at him, trying to read his expression, but he refused to look my way.
I meandered over to the holding pool and looked down. A bottle-nose dolphin much smaller than the others in the pool was listing to the side near the surface, its blow hole spraying every so often, like it was in sorrow. Based on its size and darker coloring, it was a young calf, probably only a few months old, squeaking piteously. Other than maintaining its position, it wasn’t moving much.
A lone aquarist was crouching on the edge, trying to tempt the dolphin with some fish. Every time he got close to it, the young calf veered away from him.
“Come on, Kai, you have to eat,” the aquarist said in a thick Texan accent. He tossed another bit of food into the water and the dolphin swayed away from it. The aquarist groaned in frustration.
“Kai?” I asked, startling the aquarist, who jumped up to his feet and looked back at me.
“Yep,” he said, nodding
towards the dolphin. “That’s his name. It means ‘Ocean’ in Hawaiian. He’s the newest addition to the aquarium.”
“He sounds so sad,” I said, more to myself than the aquarist.
The aquarist flashed me a smile. “Don’t worry your pretty little head.”
I knew he didn’t mean anything by it, but that comment with his accent rubbed me the wrong way.
Not noticing my anger, the aquarist continued. “He’ll be fine. He just needs to get used to being here, and we’ll get him acquainted with the other dolphins after his quarantine in the isolation pool.”
“How long will that take?”
The aquarist shrugged. “A week or so, until we know that he doesn’t have any diseases that can be passed onto the others in the group.”
I looked back at Kai and frowned. Even though I’d only been at Neptune’s World for a couple of months, I knew from talking with the aquarists at that park that dolphins were highly social creatures and that isolation was really hard on them. While quarantine was a must for new animals, surely they acted a bit more lively than this one.
“Where did he come from?” I asked.
“Not too far from here, actually,” the aquarist said. “He was caught in a fishing net and separated from his pod. The little guy is lucky to be alive. Mr. Stevens wants him to start training for shows within the next few weeks.”
I’ve met Mr. Stevens twice before. As the president of the Houston Aquarium, he was Neptune’s counterpart, though it sure didn’t seem that way. I could tell from the way the two men interacted that they weren’t on good terms with each other. Based on those two meetings with him, I didn’t like Mr. Stevens because he treated everything like a business venture. He wasn’t in this because he loved animals; he wanted to make money off them.
My heart broke for the poor dolphin. I wanted to reach out and touch him, to tell him that he was going to be with new friends soon.
“Hey buddy,” I whispered. “It’s going to be okay.”
“I miss my mama… I miss my friends…”
Falling in Deep Collection Box Set Page 50
