Pippa popped her head out of the water and Erin stood next to her.
“Okay, here’s the challenge about being a mermaid: you have to keep your feet together at all times. Otherwise, your tail will split and you’ll become human. Be a good mermaid! And be quick! An octopus is after us!”
Erin dolphin kicked to the shallow end. She loved swimming freely.
She’d lived in her grandparents’ lake. The mermaid kicks had come later.
Mermaid kicks. Dolphin kicks?
Erin stood in the shallow end. Her favorite pool game had been a clever ruse to train her. And had her swim instructor invented Mermaid Hair so she would linger underwater? Expanding her lungs and holding her breath underwater was far easier when she had a task.
Was her whole life a complicated manipulation toward winning?
She enjoyed competitive swimming; pushing herself was a huge rush. But playing in the water—what she’d called swimming as a child—was fun. She’d stopped swimming for fun when she started racing.
Where had the fun gone, and how could she reclaim it? Fresh air might do wonders for her brain, but Erin needed something to do wonders for the rest of her.
SIXTY-FOUR
When Erin and Hank finally were alone together, he drove her to the distinguished wop wops. On their way, they’d passed a pig farm complete with little pig houses.
“We’re nearly there,” Hank said as the ratio of houses to cows transposed.
“Did you know my counselor at Ilam recommended you for guitar lessons? She sent a whole list, and you were on it.”
“And you never called?”
Erin shrugged. “I thought it would be weird. Hey, what do you hear from Gloria?” Erin asked. “I haven’t seen Jade around. Is something going on?”
“Sounds like it’s getting serious, actually. They holed up at Gloria’s house this weekend instead of climbing. That’s a big deal.”
“Does she tell you everything?”
“Do you tell Lalitha everything?”
“Touché. So that’s why you went alone to the movies during my outing with Pippa.”
“Indeed. But don’t pity me. I had buttered popcorn for company.”
Hank pulled into a gravel driveway and they bounced toward a tiny yellow house with a huge yard in the middle of the flat nowhere.
“Should I be concerned about what Lalitha knows about me?”
“Absolutely not. I adore you, so she adores you. She is fiercely loyal. To me.”
“All right then,” he said. “Home at last. Come on in.”
Hank’s house was smaller than the Wakefields’: two bedrooms, one bathroom, a living room, and a galley kitchen.
“Used to be my parents’ place. When I started working, they shifted to their bach, so now it’s just me.”
Erin had a million questions about how he’d gotten there and why he lived alone and how he afforded it, but there were more pressing matters.
She kissed him gently, then roughly, and pulled his shirt over his head. She spied his tattoos as he wrapped his naked arms around her, but there would be time discuss those later.
Erin pulled off her own shirt. “Is this okay?”
“Of course. Of course.”
“Do you have something?”
He was confused for a second. “Rubbers, ya. Give us a sec.”
She stood half-naked in his living room, feeling only desire. Hank returned and slipped off his pants.
While they were rolling around on the floor, Erin said, “Do you like this? Is this good?”
“The best,” Hank said.
SIXTY-FIVE
One early November Monday, Erin walked into another gorgeous lunch period: big blue sky and dry grounds drenched in sunshine. Say what you will about freezing nights and wet mornings, but Christchurch had its act together by afternoon.
The guitar trio was singing “Under the Bridge” again. Or trying to.
Erin beelined to their little circle. “Ruby, I can show you a trick, if you want.”
The Ma-ori guy said, “What? You wanna have a go?”
“Sure. I’m Erin.”
“I remember. I’m Hemi.” He pulled the strap over his head and held his guitar to her.
Erin flexed her fingers “It’s a bit of a stretch here.” She played it through three times until she got it right. “Sorry, I’m rusty. So, both hands are doing two things at the same time. I learned it by spending ten minutes doing the hammer-ons with the left while I did the fingerpicking. Then I swapped and did the hammer-ons and fingerpicked with my right. Then I started over with the pull-offs. It took me weeks to get it right.”
She played it again.
“Right on,” he said.
She played it once more and didn’t really want to give the guitar back. “What’s next?”
“‘Revolution #9.’”
She pulled the strap over her head. “Sorry. Don’t know that one.”
Hemi didn’t reach for the guitar. “‘All of Me’? John Legend.”
She shook her head again. “Learned too long ago for that.”
“Simon and Garfunkel, ‘Sound of Silence.’”
“No, but I know ‘Feeling Groovy.’”
“Sweet as. Erin, this is Rico. You know Ruby.”
“Hey.”
Rico didn’t know the chords, but he knew all the lyrics. Ruby harmonized with Erin’s chords, which was awesome. Hemi’s voice was crystal clear. The moment was a throwback to childhood summers when Erin and Grampa played guitar and Tea harmonized when she could. Tea knew all the lyrics, because she knew everything. She was the crafter and the baker and the builder and she knew all the mom stuff.
Erin missed Grandma Tea so much her heart hurt. Tea had loved Simon and Garfunkel and all the Beatles tunes. She knew every song from the fifties and sixties, and she could sing anything. On rainy summer nights, they played, and played, and played.
That had been exactly what she loved doing, and exactly the people she loved doing it with.
Maybe her life didn’t fall apart when the Quigleys arrived in Wheaton. Maybe her life started falling apart when she switched to cello and started intensive study. When she stopped enjoying music and it became work.
Today, she’d focus on what she wanted and what made her happy. And she’d start with Hank.
SIXTY-SIX
Erin saw Hank nearly every day.
