Chapter 1
In which Maren almost gets eaten by an alligator
MAREN SHOULD’VE KNOWN her day was going to end poorly the moment she pulled into the Siren Springs parking lot and discovered that the spot she’d been using for the last ten years—appropriately labeled Reserved for Sirens—was taken up by a large white van full of filming equipment being unloaded by a group of twentysomethings who definitely weren’t from around here.
Or maybe she should’ve known when she dropped her favorite eyeshadow palette in the dressing room, sending blue and green glitter flying through the air. Two hours later, she was still sneezing up mermaid-colored snot.
She definitely should’ve known when that tiny-ass fish bit her boob while she was trying to perform emotional underwater choreography to “My Heart Will Go On” during her first show of the day.
But it took until 4:36 p.m. for her to realize her day was royally screwed. That was the moment an all-too-recognizable voice came through the underwater speaker system.
“Why did the mermaid cross the sea?”
The microphone crackled, making Maren wince as she attempted to flip backward through the water, her hair drifting forward to completely block her vision.
So it goes. No one was looking at her hair when her glittery spandex mermaid tail was right there, gliding through the water like a prism of light.
Maren blew bubbles out of her mouth to push the hair away and decrease her buoyancy, allowing her to complete the back flip and float down to a seated position on a rock.
She took a sip of oxygen through the air tube floating nearby, then relaxed her face into a flawless mermaid smile.
Eyes wide and innocent. Mouth parted slightly. Not too many teeth.
“To get to the water slide.” A quiet snort sounded through the microphone.
Maren didn’t react.
“Tough crowd,” the voice said. “I guess mermaids are chicken joke purists.”
If there weren’t a crowd of tourists ogling her through the glass wall that stood between the submarine-esque underwater auditorium and the natural spring she was swimming in, Maren would have flipped him off.
But the crowd couldn’t hear the stupid joke—it was only for her ears, and for the ears of the two other professionally trained mermaids performing in the 4:30 Sing me a song, Sirens! show.
Dean Harrington, up-and-coming actor and dead-in-the-water comedian, was not supposed to arrive until five p.m., which Maren knew because she was taking this extremely seriously.
It wasn’t a good sign that Dean Harrington, the lead actor in the movie about Siren Springs that was about to start filming on location, felt he was too important to follow schedules but just important enough to abuse the underwater speaker system.
The underwater speakers couldn’t be heard by the audience, who sat dry (but probably sweaty) in their seats in the dark and musty underground auditorium that looked out at the underwater stage through a glass wall.
A different speaker system played outdated songs and narration for those tourists, while the secret underwater communications for the Sirens were typically along the lines of “Melissa, move farther to the right,” and “Thunderstorm coming, we’re skipping the last song,” and, on rare occasions, “Manatee, stage left.” The speakers were for key performance information and, most important, for safety.
They were not for actors to test out their new standup routine.
Was it fair to assume someone would’ve explained the speaker rules to him?
Maybe not. But surely anyone—especially an actor, of all people—would understand that you shouldn’t try to distract someone while they’re performing.
Then again. His acting credits were less Scorsese and more Netflix Original.
Who knew how seriously he took the sacred act of performance?
Maren held up her hand, giving the audience a princess wave, the cold water of the natural springs calming her anger.
It was home down here. Even with an annoying distraction, she would never—could never—feel anything but grateful to be in these waters, just like her mother and grandmother.
This was her family legacy, generations of Delaney women committed to entertaining the people of Central Florida with their underwater flips and twirls and waves and smiles and, most important, their spandex-and-sparkle mermaid tails.
Her eyes darted to the side toward the control booth, where she could just barely make out a dark-haired man’s figure at the microphone.
Charlie, the staff member who was supposed to be monitoring the show, was just a shadow in the background, barely visible through the porthole window’s dirty glass.
That motherfucker. She would have a word with him once this show was over.
He was technically higher than her on the totem pole—he made a couple more dollars per hour than she did, which wasn’t saying much—but he had the good sense to listen when she told him what to do.
Most people here did. She’d have to make sure Dean Harrington got the memo.
Maren focused her attention back on the glass wall, where she could make out the shape of a little girl standing right at the front of the auditorium, her hand waving eagerly as her breath fogged up the glass.
Maren waved and winked in the girl’s direction, and the girl’s entire face lit up, visible even through the thick, blurry barrier.
A hand reached out and pulled the girl away from the window right as Maren took another sip of oxygen, letting the air in her lungs pull her up away from the rock and into a spin, the water sliding over her body like silk, the current responding to her tail like magic.
A new song came on, broadcast both into the audience and into the water, and Maren mindlessly performed the choreography she’d done almost every day for the last ten years.
There weren’t a lot of updates to the shows at Siren Springs.
Why fix it if it ain’t broke? her boss always said.
Maybe because this song hadn’t been relevant since 2006.
But Maren supposed that nostalgia was a big part of what drew people to Siren Springs.
The tourist attraction had been around since the forties, hitting its heyday in the fifties and sixties, and many of their guests brought their children because they remembered going as children themselves.
Somewhere along the way, they got stuck replaying mid-2000s country pop.
If Maren were in charge, she’d get rid of that soundtrack.
She’d get rid of other things, too, starting with the shitty contract her shitty boss had signed with the probably shitty production company in a moment of financial desperation.
Starting tomorrow, Siren Springs would be closed to visitors during six weeks of filming, and almost all of the Sirens would be furloughed.
Maren was lucky enough to be one of just three Sirens selected to play a small role in filming, but most of her co-workers would be going without pay for six weeks.
Maybe this contract was saving Siren Springs from financial ruin (or at least had the potential to, should the film be successful enough to increase their ticket sales), but not getting paid was going to financially ruin most of the staff.
“Looking great out there, Sirens!” The microphone crackled again, undoubtedly because Dean Harrington was speaking too loudly, as if he didn’t have a care in the world. “Beautiful!”
Maren’s already-tense mermaid smile briefly transformed into a scowl.
Forcing herself to stay focused, she swam over to Melissa and Kristen, the other mermaids performing today, and grabbed Kristen’s tail.
Kristen swam forward and down, and Melissa swam up from where she was sitting on the rock, grabbing Maren’s tail.
They formed a hoop—the iconic Siren Wheel—and swam in a perfect circle for a few rotations.
The audience’s whoops and claps were faintly audible through the glass, which would normally make Maren’s mermaid smile widen.
She loved the water, would love this spring until her dying breath, but this is what it was all about: getting to share that love with others.
Getting to foster that respect and care for natural Florida springs, especially at a time when fewer and fewer people remembered they should be caring.
Today, though, her mermaid smile remained forced.
“What do you call an angry mermaid?”
Maren was going to kill him.
Eyes wide and innocent. Mouth parted slightly. Not too many teeth.
“A grrrrmaid.”
Maren watched both Kristen’s and Melissa’s chests quickly rise and fall, the universal sign of an underwater giggle. Maren would have to have a conversation with them, too. Adding it to the list. Charlie, Kristen, Melissa. And Dean Harrington.
Leaving the Siren Wheel, Maren blew a kiss at the audience, making eye contact with the little girl in the front row.
She’d learned the hard way that if you blew a kiss at a man, there was at least a 50 percent chance that he would say something inappropriate during the MerMeet ’n’ Greet.
Maren was always happy to take photos with kids and bachelorette parties and, well, really anyone who had a good attitude.
But she wasn’t in the mood for questions about the logistics of mermaid sex.
Especially right now, when she had bigger fish to fry, including at least three conversations about giving this job the respect it deserved.
“What kind of doctor do mermaids see?”
Maren gave another wave before flipping forward, diving down toward the rock from which she would start the choreography for the final song of the show.
Kristen and Melissa followed, air bubbles floating upward as they exhaled, letting their bodies come to a rest against the cold, scratchy surface of their perch.