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“So, you ready to rehearse?” Toby asked. “And listen, I know it’s weird, but you don’t have to worry about the kiss. I’m totally gay.”
“No!” Christy said, touching her chest with one hand. She winked at Toby, who usually had glitter on his cheeks and the coolest little silicone gills glued to either side of his neck. He grinned at her teasing. He was just in baggy swim trunks today, since he’d be playing a human in their little skit.
“Just follow our lead,” Jasmine said, and she did this weird thing with her breaths, taking three really long deep ones right in a row. “It builds up your oxygen,” Toby explained. “You’ll see.”
So she did what Jasmine had done, and so did Echo and they dove down together.
Echo turned to look at her and pointed to her own eyes and smiling mouth.
Christy opened her eyes wider, smiled as bright as Ariel herself, and received a thumbs-up. Then Jasmine swam over, and did a “watch this” sign, pointing two fingers at Christy’s eyes, then one at herself. With a sweep of her tail, she propelled herself into a long, loose somersault. Then she pointed at Christy, who imitated the move once, then had to flip down to a flower for a breath. When she came back, Jasmine clasped her forearms and moved them in just the way she wanted. Then nodded at her to try again, with a slow-down motion, pumping her palms downward.
This time, Christy flipped her tail, propelling herself downward, and then she turned a full somersault beautifully— or it felt beautiful to her, all graceful and elegant as if in slow motion— without pinwheeling her arms like a child in a backyard pool.
Hell, she had to breathe again. She swam to a flower. The others hadn’t had to do so once. Echo pointed to herself, then performed a perfect a kind of whirlwind pirouette, descending like a corkscrew all the way to the bottom. Then with one powerful swoosh of her tail, she propelled herself upward again. This time, she repeated the move in slow motion, demonstrating the undulation that began at her waist, and carried all the way to her tail, and the way she held her arms to assist her in the spin.
Christy nodded, but she couldn’t take it anymore. She flexed her abs to move her hips and legs as one. It took every muscle in her body to move that tail through the water. Her sister must have abs like rocks if she’d been doing this for long. Her head broke the surface, and she took a great big open-mouthed breath and felt a little dizzy.
The others popped up one by one all around her. “It’s okay. Just rest a minute,” Echo said.
“Yeah. But I want to try that corkscrew move. I just need a sec.” Christy leaned on the edge of the pool and let her tail hang still.
“That was a great somersault, for someone who’s never done it before,” Toby said.
“Never done it like that, at least” she replied. “I didn’t even know professional mermaids were a thing until now.”
“We’re catching on. There’s a Netflix series.”
“I’m amazed. So is this something new, or am I just oblivious?”
“It’s been around for decades,” Jasmine said.
Then Echo said, “Wait, you only showed up yesterday for Misty’s shift. You haven’t seen the gallery yet!”
“The gallery?”
“Every mermaid who ever swam here has a photo in the banquet room, the one they reserve for private parties, with a full side view of the tank all to themselves.”
“When there’s someone in there, we angle everything slightly that way, and play up to them. It costs a lot of money to book that room.”
“I heard it was booked tonight,” Echo said in her whisper-soft voice.
“I’d know if it was.” Jasmine pressed herself up out of the water with her strong arms, then half turned to get her butt up there, but she couldn’t really bend in the middle very much. She flipped herself facedown on the concrete and said, “Toby, come unzip me. I’ll call Mackey and find out what’s up.”
Echo said, “Come on, Christy, let’s try the spiral.” She took a couple of breaths, then let herself sink, and Christy followed.
* * *
RACHEL
Mason, Myrtle, and I slept right up until my phone played the opening riff from Barracuda, the custom ringtone I’d set for Christy. Misty’s was Elton John’s Blue Eyes.
Maybe I was going to have to rethink hers.
I picked it up. 8:14 a.m. Mason pulled his pillow over his head. I put the phone on speaker though, because I knew he wouldn’t want me to suffer from sleeplessness alone.
“Morning, Aunt Rache.” It was Christy and she sounded suspiciously upbeat. “Wanna meet for breakfast?”
Mason moved the pillow and picked up his head. His face had pillow lines and his hair was an angry brown chicken. He said, “I could eat.”
