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When Christy arrived at The Sapphire club at a quarter to sunup, there were other cars in the lot. She figured maybe cleaning staff or something. She took Misty’s tail, safe inside its bag, from the back of her little car, hauled it over her shoulder, and headed up the two flights of exterior metal stairs, clanging and banging all the way, then through the rear entrance into the pool room.
It wasn’t empty, as she’d expected at this ungodly hour. She dropped the bag across a bench, unsure what to do. Echo was there, and Jasmine, and orange-haired Toby, the only guy in the bunch. Two tails had assumed the position, out of their bags and laid out on the floor with their zippers pulled all the way down.
“Well, come on, we’ve been waiting,” Echo said. “You bring your tail?”
“Yeah. Um…” Christy stood there not sure what to do. This smacked of an intervention or something— probably or something. They still thought she was the good twin.
Didn’t they?
She walked past them and into the locker room, put her stuff into her locker, changed into her swimsuit— not the glittering clamshell bikini top that went with the tail, but just a simple black tank suit. She picked up her tail as she passed on her way to the pool, then laid it out on the floor the way the others all were.
Donning the tail without help was difficult. Christy wasn’t sure how she’d even thought she’d be able to practice alone. But the whole school of fish had shown up.
“So, before we get started, we should probably introduce ourselves, since we never did that,” Jasmine said, with a steady, serious look in her pale blue eyes.
The bottom fell out of Christy’s stomach.
“We know you’re not Misty,” she went on, “and we know she has a twin sister. So?”
“We’re not going to rat you out,” Toby added, “even though she abandoned us without warning. She’d get fired if we did.”
Echo nodded. “Right, and if you don’t get better at this fast, there’s no way you’re gonna fool Mackey, much less Coach Hannah, so… we came to help.”
“We’ll give you some pointers,” Toby said. “A few tips, a couple of easy tricks, not a real workout. Not when we’re performing tonight.”
Christy looked at each of them in turn. The coach had told her which moves to cut and which to keep in, but what the merfolk were suggesting was actual help. “Shit, you guys are amazing people, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, we are,” Echo said.
“We freaking rock!” Toby raised rock fingers to the sky.
She heaved a sigh, then said, “I’m Christy, Misty’s twin sister. It’s nice to actually meet you.” Then she dropped onto all fours atop her unzipped tail, slid her feet and lower legs into place and adjusted the uppermost edge at her waist.
Jasmine came and stood over her head, facing her feet, grabbed the long cord attached to the tail’s zipper, and began to pull it up. The farther it went, the harder it was to pull, because it fit like a second skin, which was the whole point.
With her zipper zipped, she rolled sideways and right over the edge into the pool. The water was cool, not cold. No shock on contact, which she appreciated. Moments later, the rest of the merfolk joined her.
Echo said, “You kept closing your eyes yesterday. You have to keep them open, and you have to be smiling any time you face the audience.”
“Okay.”
“When you need a breath,” Jasmine said, “pretend to smell one of the flower bubblers. Cup it with your forward hand, to hold the petals up, so when you close your lips around the mouthpiece to breathe, it’s completely hidden.”
“Otherwise,” said Toby, “It destroys the illusion.”
They were floating in a loose circle. The slightest motion of their downward aimed tails was enough to keep them afloat. Their hands were in constant motion to keep them upright. “Now, in today’s show, I’m Prince Eric. There will be a video clip from The Little Mermaid playing on the front of the tank. There’s a storm and Prince Eric is swept overboard. Then, the video shuts off, the lights come up in the tank. I fall into the water and you, Misty— er, Christy?—”
“Call me Misty. Preserve the illusion for the few people who don’t already know,” Christy said.
“Got it. Misty, you come out from behind the rocks. Echo and Jasmine are trying to steer you away from me, but you save me. We kiss, and you carry me to the surface.”
Toby continued, moving his hands in the air as if he were seeing the story play out there. “Then the screen comes back up to show Eric waking on the beach, confused. He dives back into the water to find the mermaid who saved him. Cut back to the tank. You know the rest. You’ve read the script, right?”
“Yeah.” Sappiest shit she’d ever seen. “My thought is, it would be better if one of you took the lead role, though. I’m no good at this.”
Echo shook her head. “It won’t work. Mackey would want to know why. Your sister’s been begging for the lead. I can’t believe she would take off on a weekend with a show.”
“It’s not like it’s opening night,” Jasmine said.
