I didn’t want to keep texting Chip, but I knew someone else who wouldn’t mind hearing from me. So, staring out at the empty beach and the sea, I went ahead and texted Gina. She prefers text to voice.
Kidnapped, I wrote. Locked in a room in our resort. Chip coming to save me (hope). Saw real mermaids. Even got video, but video stolen. Someone died. Possibly murdered.
That should pique her interest, I thought smugly. For once I’d be the one to shock Gina, instead of the other way around.
Gina’s never far from her cell, love nest or no. So I knew it wouldn’t be long before she texted back. Indeed: five seconds.
Fuck off! she wrote.
Of course, Gina would never credit such a fanciful-sounding tale. Her irony was far too bulletproof for a mermaid sighting; her irony was a Kevlar of the mind.
Then I remembered our code. The words we used to show we weren’t joking, that we were hardcore, that we meant every word. We’d used those words since we were kids, but only a handful of times and always in deadly earnest. Those words were not ironic. Those words, once spoken, could never be doubted and could never be taken back.
On your mother’s life, I typed. On the life of your mother.
Because Gina had lost her mother not long after we met. Ninth grade. Cancer, long and drawn-out. I was there for her from then on; I’ll never forget the depth of her grief. It changed her forever. It’s fair to say she never recovered.
For once there was a text silence.
Finally, broken.
Do you need me? she typed.
Just that.
It’s OK, I typed. You’d never get here in time. I’ll be OK. Chip’s coming to bust me out.
Mermaids, typed Gina, after a few moments. I’ll be goddamned.
I THINK PART of me expected, when I sent my SOS to Chip, that he’d show up in fifteen minutes. Maybe thirty. I thought Thompson might be in tow, possibly packing a sidearm.
But this was not reasonable. Also it was not the case.
I heard occasional footsteps outside the room; each time I did I got excited, all prepared to leave. But each time the footsteps faded. My texts to Chip came back unanswered, creating anxiety. I knew I couldn’t call the island cops; Thompson had said they were fully in the pocket of the parent company. I didn’t want to use my phone much, because I didn’t have a charger with me, and the battery was in the red. That phone was my lifeline; besides the toilet and sink, that phone was all I had. The TV, on its metal trolley, didn’t seem to get reception—when I turned it on there was nothing but gray static.
So I drank some water from the bathroom sink, splashing it into my mouth; then I sat and stared out the picture window. It was blocked on one side by the building itself, which stretched out to my right; ahead was a strip of beach and ocean, which stretched out to the left until some palm trees blocked the rest of the view.
After a while I saw boats on the ocean. First one, then many. White dots of varying sizes. It had to be the Venture of Marvels: the armada was going out, I guessed. The mermaid site must be within my field of view—too distant for me to see anything, though.
I got frustrated, without any response from Chip; I imagined scenarios, and those scenarios were not pleasant. I’d be like Janeane, I thought, if I let my imagination have free rein. That road was a bad road. I wouldn’t go down that road. I’d leave here, I’d get out, I vowed, and I’d be none the worse for wear, either.
In fact, I decided, I wasn’t going to sit around waiting to be rescued. My country didn’t have princesses—or if it did, they weren’t the kind you bowed down to. They weren’t the kind that got saved by princes, certainly.
I’d made my first mistake not screaming; I wasn’t going to make a second. I felt around for my key card, the plastic key to my room, remembering when Gina had taken a lock-picking course because she was pissed off that she had to pay a locksmith every time she locked herself out of her car. That was back in the days when cars had actual keys, obviously. Gina’s always been prone to losing keys, as well as phones, credit cards, and cash money. Back then she’d tried to convey her newfound knowledge of locks to me. I lost interest fast, regrettably, but I had a couple of the basics and it seemed to me there was quiet outside the door now. So I decided to give it a whirl.
My bet was they hadn’t planted a sentry; from the rare footstep sounds it seemed they were content to check on my locked door periodically. So I listened to make sure it was silent, and then I slipped the card between the door and the jamb and tried to get somewhere. I got nowhere, was where I got, with that flimsy rectangle—it simply didn’t have the thickness and quality of credit.
Then I noticed the knob was the kind with a hole in it; it wasn’t made to be secure, really. All I needed was something to fit in that hole. What did I have? I had a wedding ring. I had flip-flops. I had a pink butterfly air freshener. There had to be a thin piece of metal here somewhere. The TV was all plastic, nothing to break off there . . .
Eureka. I’d put my hair up before we went to the beach; the bun in its elastic was falling now, wispy tendrils on my neck, but yes—a bobby pin. In fact I had two of them.
Gina had said you needed the curved end. The curved end could
