Chapter 28
Twenty-Eight
Angie
Angie stared at her email inbox, distracted for what felt like the hundredth time as she sat in her school’s main library attempting to study for her upcoming midterms in two weeks.
For the past three days, she had been emailing Kevin Vester, Washington’s governor’s office, and only received canned responses as replies.
Thank you for reaching out to Mr. Vester’s office! We have received your message, and someone will get back to you within 24 hours.
Well, it had been over seventy-two hours, and nobody had gotten back to her, and that was only the most recent email. Five days since the email before that, and over a week since the one before that.
Calls to the office had gone straight to voicemail, and she had left one each time she called, four in total, and no response.
Anxiety built. How long would Cassia wait for a response from the governor?
How was she going to set up a meeting between Mr. Vester and Cassia when she couldn’t even get a response from the former?
In her email and voice messages, she had mentioned her appearances on the Pacific Pulse and the morning show, as well as her work at her school.
Still nothing. She needed more credibility.
After all, the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over again and getting the same results, so Angie needed to switch her tactics.
She turned her attention back to her laptop full of notes and diagrams and illustrations from her classes.
Her mind would not focus, so she stood and walked around the library, weaving between bookshelves and students standing around whispering, reading, or checking out books.
Her sneakers were silent along the carpeted floor and soft LED lights overhead gave the space an ambient feel.
The last thing she needed was to fail her midterms on top of the shitstorm with the humans and mer that was already swirling around her.
Two students speaking in low voices to each other across their cubicles made Angie freeze in her tracks. She recognized them as two of her classmates and she stayed in a high crouched position on the side of the cubicle so they couldn’t see her.
“My in-laws went out mer hunting a few days ago and they caught two mermen!”
“Oh my God, really? What did they do with them?”
“They sold them to two research labs, one all the way in New York. Got half a million for each of them. They’re going to pay off my student loans!”
“Wow, good for you. Maybe I should tell my family to step it up.”
Hushed laughter, and sick to her stomach, Angie crept away before they had any inkling she was lurking.
She pulled up her phone and tapped her news app, Emerald City Newsday, and glanced at the headlines as she walked back to her own cubicle.
Three merfolk discovered on
Western Alaska’s shoreline.
Bile rose to her throat as she clicked the link. Two mermaids and a merman were shot and killed near the Aleutians, and by their descriptions, they were patrolling sentinels.
Her mind blurred when she sat back down, and she sipped her thermos filled with jasmine green tea. The heavenly floral scents never failed to calm her, but today, it did nothing to quell her anxiety.
She wasn’t going to get any studying done, so she shut her laptop, slipping it into her backpack and leaving the now-stifling library.
The moisture-laden, chilly, mid-February air whipped across her cheeks and nose as she exited. She pulled her hood over her head as speckles of raindrops fell from the broken clouds overhead, and she picked up her pace until she was back in her car.
She opened her group chat with Leo, Reesa, and Dr. Williams, firing off a lengthy text message after she turned the ignition and waited for the heat to kick on, explaining the situation with getting the governor’s attention.
All three started replying at once.
Reesa: What do you need help with?
Leo: Let us know. We need to get him to talk to the Mer-Queen.
Dr. Williams: What about setting up a meeting with the marine biology department? I can see about getting some of my coworkers and higher-ups from SMOSA to attend.
Reesa: I’ll ask our classmates if they want to join.
Angie responded.
Sounds like a great idea. I can talk to my supervisor at the aquarium, too.
Leo: Cool
Dr. Williams: Let’s aim to have the meeting tomorrow, okay? We don’t want to keep the Mer-Queen waiting.
Not for the first time, all tension released from Angie’s body and she pressed her fingers to her smiling lips. For all their help, she would have to buy them something when this was over as a token of her gratitude.
Before she drove home, she sent a message to Grayson at the aquarium, letting him know she was on the way over, and she had a plan to approach him about joining their department meeting tomorrow.
Angie’s heart was never fuller than when she arrived at PGU’s life science department’s circular auditorium the next evening.
It was full of her classmates, the marine biology and biology faculty, Grayson, and many others she didn’t recognize, but it gladdened her that they were here.
Though Leo wasn’t standing at the front to present with her, he was sitting front and center and gave her a wave when she passed him.
Dr. Williams and Reesa stood at the front, waving her over, and she rushed to join them.
“Okay, we have a plan?” Angie asked as soon as she was within earshot.
“We’re going to present these topics here.
” Dr. Williams pointed to a sheet of paper on the lectern.
“To give them a background of why we asked them to come. Angie, this is where you speak.” He referred to a section on the paper that he had drawn a rectangle around.
“After that, Reesa and I will go down the list of possible solutions, one by one, and get a response from the audience.”
Angie craned her neck to look at the solutions they had come up with:
-Petition,
-Video with experts in the field speaking,
-Social media posts on PGU and the aquarium’s pages and tag the governor,
-Have a group of experts attend public events and town halls where Mr. Vester is personally in attendance,
-Peaceful protests or rallies,
-Collaborate with local mer advocacy groups.
“We’ll gauge the audience’s response to each, and we will do the top two, so as not to overwhelm everyone,” Dr. Williams finished. “You both ready? I think we’ve kept them waiting long enough.”
“You got it,” Reesa said, rubbing her hands together with an expression of glee.
Angie practiced her box breathing techniques to calm herself down and took one last look at her notes.
She nodded, and with a racing heart and clammy hands, stepped to the lectern to begin.
“We did it! That was awesome!” Reesa’s words trailed out on a single exhale when they were finished, and the audience had begun to line up to talk to them. Dr. Williams stood at the front, addressing the first people in line, while Angie stayed back with Reesa in the meantime.
“I can’t believe that was such a success! The response was amazing.” Angie couldn’t hide the excitement from her voice as Reesa pulled her in for a brief hug.
They agreed on a petition everyone in the room would sign and social media posts.
“You did great. I know you said you get nervous with presentations, but I couldn’t tell.” Reesa’s dark brown eyes twinkled.
“I aspire to be like you and Dr. Williams one of these days. You both are so good in front of people,” Angie said, wistfully.
“Well, I love public speaking. And it is Dr. Williams’ job, so do with that what you will.” Reesa gave Angie a light punch in her upper arm. “Now come on. Let’s go mingle.”
When Angie left the building, a lightness overtook her, feeling as if she was walking on clouds. Again, her first instinct was to share the news with Kaden.
Still, thinking of him brought a heady rush of emotion, and she pursed her lips.
Not yet. She wasn’t ready. The hurt dissipated some, but enough was still there, causing her to hedge at the idea of calling him.
Angie brushed away the feeling and turned her mind to their victories.