Chapter 12
Two days later, I see Scarlet Failure tagged in a post on Insta with Gigi.
It’s a thirty-second teaser from the song they recently recorded.
Gigi’s wearing headphones, smiling at Sully like she’s sharing some private joke with him.
The camera pans toward him, but it’s too fast—I can’t read his expression.
A tight, uncomfortable pressure settles low in my stomach, like everything inside me just clenched at once. I shouldn’t care this much, but I do. And it hurts more than I want to admit.
Because I hate myself, I doom-scroll through the comments. Fans gush over the snippet of the song. They’re excited and post too many emojis. Some love Sully and Gigi together. They ship them hard.
I move on only to find another post from a media outlet stating Sully and Gigi were spotted having dinner together at a fancy restaurant last night.
Confusion tangles my thoughts as my throat closes. What is this feeling? Jealousy? Shit. One weekend with the guy and I feel like this?
What would they say if I posted my pictures with Sully? With him actually smiling. I open my photos and look at the picture of Sully the night I met him and flip to the one of us at the Bellagio fountain. His smile is wider and his arms wrap around my waist like we’re an item. We look perfect.
Wow. I need to let this go. I click my phone off when it rings. My mom’s name and picture flash on the screen.
Great. This will be fun.
“Hey, Mom,” I answer, putting the call on speaker so I can brush my hair.
“Hey, Ronni. How are you?”
“Good. What’s up with you?”
“Same old. I planted cucumbers in my garden. Hopefully, your father doesn’t kill them. I told him he’s not allowed in my garden anymore after he flooded it last summer.”
I add some hair product to keep my hair shiny and not frizzy when it gets wet. “How’s Bishop?”
“He’s a sloppy mess.” She laughs. Mom loves that dog maybe more than me. He can do no wrong.
“I’m getting ready for work. Did you call for any reason?” I hate cutting her off, but it takes forever for her to get to the point.
“Oh…well, I emailed you some job listings I thought you’d be perfect for. One is at your Aunt Sally’s firm. She can put in a good word for you.”
Yeah. The aunt I haven’t seen in five years would know so much about me to suggest a desk job. I cross my arms, fingers digging into my side. Do I want to start this fight with her right now? No. I don’t.
“Okay. I’ll glance at them when I have a moment.” I cringe. The word “glance” wasn’t the word I should’ve used.
She sighs heavily like I turned down Harvard for community college. “Veronica, you need to get serious about your life. Your mermaid gig was cute in college, but you graduated four years ago. You can’t stay in this forever.”
Because I’ll get old or be mocked or whatever excuse she’s thrown at me over the years.
When in truth it’s her that’s embarrassed by my career choice.
I guess having to tell her friends that her only child dresses as a mermaid for a living makes her think I’m an overgrown child.
But it makes me happy and pays the bills. Isn’t that what life should be?
“I need to go. But I’ll see you Saturday.”
“Okay, sweetie. Look at those jobs before then and I can help you fix your resume after we go shopping.”
“Love you. Bye.” I hang up before I say something that can’t be taken back. My body feels heavy as I finish my makeup. Talking to her is exhausting, but now I get to go swim around and act like the happiest mermaid anyone’s seen. Yay me.
A private event, for a weather convention of all things, wrapped up early, so Arthur and I decided to surprise his daughter with a mermaid lesson to celebrate her good grades this quarter.
Sarah flips her sparkly tail in and out of the water, splashing and laughing. “First, we’re going to learn to swim with the tail. It’s harder to move in the water with your legs pressed together. We’ll go slow.”
Sarah leaps into the water and I help guide her from one side to the other. “Good. Use your arms and your core.” I touch her stomach. “Kick with your legs together. Very good.”
She laughs and hangs onto the side, waving at Arthur who is watching on the grass sitting in a lawn chair. “You see me, Dad?”
He nods. “Yes. You’re a cute mermaid, baby.”
She gets the hang of it and swims from one end to the other in the shallower end of the pool. I prop myself onto the edge and let my tail float in the water. Arthur sits a few feet from me so I lean back on my hands to look at him. “She’s having a blast.”
“Thanks for doing this. She loves you. Maybe more than she loves us.”
“I’m sure that’s not true. But she probably thinks I’m cooler.” My smile slips, remembering my chat with Mom and how she wants me to give this up. But if she could see how happy Sarah is, she’d change her mind. I bring joy to people and magic to a dull world, but she’ll never realize that.
Arthur stands and kicks off his flip-flops to settle beside me and dip his feet into the water. We watch Sarah giggle and swim, adding an impressive twirl as she moves.
Arthur bumps his arm with mine. “What’s wrong?”
I lean my head on his shoulder. “My mom. Spoke to her on the phone and she reminded me how much I’m wasting my life.” I flick my fins, splashing Sarah. She laughs and hits the water with her hand, sending a wave my way.
“She has the old-school way of thinking. Once your name is out there and you have big sponsors and forget about us at The Pearl Kingdom, she’ll know how important you are.”
“I’d never forget The Pearl Kingdom, but you…” I giggle as he slaps my scale-covered thigh.
He pushes me into the pool. I go under and flip around to splash him with my tail. When I surface, he’s soaked and cracking up laughing, lying on his side.
Sarah watches us from the other side of the pool. “You’re weird,” she says, swimming toward my inflatable shell in the deep end. She hops on it and floats, looking like a cute little mermaid resting in the sunshine.
I move to the side and place my arms on the cement, resting my cheek on my forearm. “It’s not just my mom.”
“Sully?” Arthur sits up and wipes the tears of laughter off his face.
I roll my eyes. “Alice told you.”
“Hey, don’t be mad at her. She showed me pictures.”
“How…” I shake my head and drag myself to sit on the edge again. “Of course, she stole my phone and sent the pictures to herself.”
“Never take nudes. She’ll go postal.”
“Right. She would.” I nudge Arthur with my shoulder, getting his sleeve wet. “Sully and I had an amazing time in Vegas. Like…” I fan myself and he nods, understanding. Sarah is still in the shell, not caring about our conversation.
“But on Insta he’s tagged in Gigi’s post and there are reports they had dinner together. What if he’s stringing me along as his side piece in LA?”
Arthur takes my hand and squeezes my fingers.
“You gotta take a chance on love. I know it hurt you before, but your shitty ex wasn’t worth the air you breathe.
In the second picture of you two by the fountain in Vegas, he’s staring at you, not the camera.
I think you need to test the waters and see if he surprises the shrimp out of you. ”
“Those mermaid puns are terrible.” I lightly punch him in the arm.
“They are dad jokes, thank you very much.” He gives me this serious look and then howls in laughter.
Arthur’s wife, Melissa, comes out of the back door. “Pizza! Any hungry mermaids out here?”
Sarah waves her arms. “Me!” She dashes out of the shell and swims to the edge to meet her mom with pizza on a plate.
“What am I?” Arthur asks, standing and stretching his back.
“My hungry pirate.” She walks over and kisses him.
“You want pepperoni, Veronica?” Melissa asks, smiling and batting her husband’s arm away as he grabs her ass.
“Please.”
Melissa and Arthur walk over to the table where the pizza boxes and plates are. They’ve been together for fifteen years and love each other deeply. My heart aches wishing I knew what it felt like to be that cherished by someone.