Lydia Millet - Mermaids in Paradise - A Novel

THERE’S NOT A lot of anger in Chip, really; I’d say he’s well below average on the anger meter, for his demographic. He’s white, he’s male, and he’s quite young, but he’s got no serial killer in him — none at all. No tendencies to violence that I’ve ever seen. Or if he does have them they channel completely into the gaming, sex, and athletics.

And yet, when he looked up at those words and that logo and then looked down at the Guest Services team standing beneath it, their tans glowing against the white of the yacht like twin beacons, I saw blood rush to his face. His face, all of a sudden, looked lightly mottled, and I actually caught the movement of his jaw clenching. I thought I heard his molars grinding, even amidst the pandemonium on the docks.

“No,” said Chip. “No. No. No. No. No!”

“Hey,” I said, “hey, there.” But as I reached out to comfort him I reminded myself of Steve the Freudian wrangling Janeane, which made me jerk back my hand from his arm. It wasn’t that I didn’t want him to be comforted, just that I didn’t want to act like a life partner , exactly. I figured the process would have a neutering effect.

“They can’t do this,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s just like Nancy said! They’re going to wreck everything !”

I didn’t doubt what he said, which made it hard to come back with a soothing remark.

“The others from the dive are working for them! For these people. The Venture of Marvels, whatever that is.”

“I suspect it’s the same people who run the resort. Or at least their parent company,” I said, inclining my head toward the tanned people astride their yacht, above us.

Chip’s brow knit.

“That’s why they left my Listserv, I bet they felt guilty,” he said. “They felt guilty because they were cashing in. They were betraying Nancy and everything she stood for! And violating our contract! They’re getting paid to sell out the mermaids!”

“Yes,” I said. “I think that’s a pretty fair assumption.”

“Deb,” he said, “you’re the strategist. What can we do ?”

I looked around for a place to sit; all I saw was the top of a piling, a sawed-off stumpy thing spattered with seagull white. Any port in a storm, I said to myself, but then I disagreed.

“First,” I said, “who’s still on your Listserv, Chip? Who hasn’t defected yet?”

He lifted his phone, tapped a few times, studied the screen. “Thompson,” he said. “Rick. Ronnie. .”

“Thompson? Who’s that?”

“The retired wreck diver, you know, the ex-Navy guy with all the great stories. You called him the old salt . Then Rick and Ronnie from San Francisco that we had dinner with. And then — just — no way! Another unsubscribe. Right now!”

“And?”

“There’s only one other person left, I guess, Miyoko. Young, Asian, some kind of big-wave surfer but she came here just to dive. She wanted to see the reefs. Dolphin tattoo on her ankle. Remember?”

I vaguely did. She was quiet and self-possessed, with excellent skin; we hadn’t spoken much.

“OK, Chip. We’ve got to call a meeting.”

AFTER WE SAW the banner for the so-called Venture of Marvels I didn’t know whether to feel invisible or paranoid. On the one hand, we were afraid that Nancy had been murdered for her mermaid discovery, in which case we should be paranoid because we, too, could be killed if we didn’t toe the line.

On the other hand, it was in fact possible that Nancy had died a natural, if unlikely, death and that our mermaids had been discovered by the resort only after her death, basically because of her death — from Nancy’s cell phone records, which led them to Riley’s video.

In that case we’d invented the cover-up, invented the idea that the resort had murdered her in order to profit off the mermaids; in that case we didn’t need to be paranoid, possibly, because although the resort’s parent company, if that was true, had been repulsively quick to leap into a niche — had leapt into that niche unethically, cynically, and with the most craven of motives — it wasn’t per se criminal, necessarily. Or it was more a form of white-collar crime or maybe just moral turpitude (a favorite phrase of Gina’s). So maybe the parent company didn’t care what we thought or even what we did.

But of course, we didn’t know which it was, theft or murder. We had to err on the paranoid side, ultimately. Should we operate covertly, sneaking around like spies, or in the wide-open spaces?

In the end I opted to start with wide-open spaces, figuring that our best insurance might be obviousness. Or it might not. It was a risk. Anyway we gathered, the seven of us, in the gazebo of a palm garden (Janeane was still in the Pearl Diver Cabana, building her confidence). There was Steve, Thompson, Rick, Ronnie, Miyoko, Chip, and me. That was all that remained of our catered excursion force, our motley crew of spearfishermen, dive pros, vacationers, and parrotfish experts — all that was left of the boatload that had, for the first time in human history, videotaped mermaids.

Around us the palms were planted in a geometric pattern around the colorful tiled patio, creating a sense that we were on the grounds of some raja’s palace and might at any moment see a line of elephants lumber into sight, caparisoned in finery and bearing howdahs for some Indian royals. Of course we saw no elephants, only the golf carts, loaded with tourists like ourselves. There were also human-size statues of knights, kings, queens, and pawns, arrayed along opposite edges of the patio beside our gazebo. A couple lay on their sides, fallen. The patio was a giant chessboard.

“I guess my question is,” Chip said, when we were all sitting, “what’s our first priority? Justice for Nancy? Or helping the mermaids?”

“We gotta go where we can get shit done,” said the old salt Thompson, with his usual gruffness.

“Nancy would want us to help the mer-people,” put in Rick, the independent film guy.

“That’s right, she would,” agreed Ronnie, his boyfriend the designer. “That’s what Nancy would want. Definitely.”

Miyoko gave the slightest of nods.

“Makes sense to me,” said Steve.

“So the next question,” said Thompson, twiddling the knobs on his elaborate wristwatch, “is how far are we willing to go? To save these critters? Where do we draw the line?”

“Nonviolent protest?” offered Ronnie.

Thompson barked out a laugh.

“No, seriously though,” he said, turning to Chip. “One thing. I’ve got experience with explosives. Another thing. I’ve got explosives.”

“Jesus,” said Rick.

“What kind of explosives?” asked Chip curiously.

“Need-to-know basis. Just saying.”

“A middle ground, maybe,” said Steve. “Between the sign-waving and the bombing?”

“What’s the specific goal, Chip?” I asked. “If we’re trying to stop this hotel chain from destroying the mermaids, OK, but what’s the deliverable? What’s the actual outcome that we’d like to see?”

“It’s Terriault-Smith, right?” mused Rick. “The parent company? They also have a pharmaceutical arm, I think. And maybe frozen foods.”

“I know what Nancy really wanted,” said Chip. “She wanted, like, a mermaid park . That was her vision, a national park in the ocean, but for mermaids. Like with the Channel Islands, remember that trip, Deb? It’s set aside for nature, and then you’re not allowed to fish for them.”

“So how do we do that?” asked Thompson. “That’s a political deal. Got nothing to do with us.”