Fish Out Of Water

By Ros Baxter

Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum meets Splash in a sexy, smart–talking debut about a mermaid in a desert, a city under water, and the secret that no one is supposed to uncover.

Dirtwater's straight–talking Deputy Sheriff Rania Aqualina has a lot on her plate: a nicotine addiction that's a serious liability for a mermaid, a soldier–of–fortune ex who's hooked on her Mum's brownies, a gorgeous, naked stranger in her shower, and a mysterious dead blonde with a fish tattoo on Main Street.

Heading home to Aegira for a family wedding, Rania has a sinking feeling that's got nothing to do with hydroporting seven miles under the sea and everything to do with the crazy situation. Now, if she can just steal a corpse, get a crazy Aegiran priest off her case, work out who the hell's trying to kill her, and stop sleeping with the fishes, she might be able to unravel the mysteries. And maybe even save her own ass while she's at it.

Fish out of Water is Stephanie Plum meets Splash, and the first book in a trilogy about Aegira, an underwater kingdom based on the historical Norse legend of Aegir.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
• Release date: Apr 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9780857990440

Ros Baxter

Ros Baxter has been writing since she was eight and penned a whimsical series of short stories about a race of tiny people who lived on a rainbow. While a few things intervened - a career in social policy, four children - Ros started writing again in earnest three years ago. In that time, Ros secured a two-book deal with Harper Collins Australia, published Sister Pact (a romantic comedy co-written with her sister Ali), been a contributing author to the e-anthology URL Love, and finaled in the STALI competition. Ros writes transporting stories about love, family, friendship and women in all their glorious strength and contrariness. She loves to turn up the sizzle, throwing heroes and heroines into screwy and sometimes fantastical situations and watching how they take the heat. Ros lives in Brisbane's North with her husband Blair, four noisy children under eight, a neurotic dog and nine billion germs.

Book preview

Prologue

In the beginning, before The Awakening, the earth was a place of rage and heat.

Greed fanned murderous embers among the children of the land.

Aegir, God of the Boundless Seas, looked on in fear and perplexity from his island paradise, Hlsey. He called for his nine daughters, the billow maidens, and commanded them to sing nine land-men to their sides. Nine seeds from whom a new world would grow.

Then Aegir summoned a blood-song and rent a jagged scar upon the earth. The waters gushed in like tears and sent Hlsey, and all who dwelt upon it, to rest seven miles under the sea. There, in the deepest place on earth, he bestowed upon them the gift of water-breathing.

And at last Aegir knew peace.

For a millenium he and his goddess wife, Ran, stoked the tiny flame of their family into a nation. Aegira — a land of peace, hope and refuge for all who breathed water.

But history knows that darkness is jealous of the light.

A sorcerer born of the earth, Manos, looked on Aegira with avarice. When each of Aegir’s daughters refused him in contempt, he conjured an illness to call them to Reaper’s side.

Mad with grief, Aegir declared war. In the bloody battle that followed, Manos butchered Aegir and Ran and made the seas run red with blood. With the last of his life force, Aegir spun a veil of secrecy so Aegira could never again be found by Manos or any who wished it harm.

But even Manos had not been able to bring himself extinguish the billow maidens light. He spared Aegir’s eldest daughter, Angeyja, and imprisoned her. Then he cast a spell so that each of her eight murdered sisters would be reborn consecutively, living a millennium before giving birth to the next. But Angeyja escaped and returned to Aegira to become its Queen.

As Manos raged and Aegira wept, the High Council of Dolphins brought forth a prophesy:

At the end of Ran’s line

only one world can be,

and the bloodtide will only be stopped

by the swellsong of the three.

Chapter One

The Beginning and The End of Days

Day One

Mermaids don’t wear nicotine patches. They don’t drink Southern Comfort from a hip flask, inhale Twinkies or watch Dr Phil. Mermaids don’t pack heat. And mermaids definitely don’t get their hearts broken by tattooed guys who look like pirates. In fact, mermaids have always been kinda down on pirates... but that’s another story. The cardinal rule is this: mermaids don’t live in bone-dry frontier towns. Ever.

But here’s the thing. Me, I don’t leave home without my patches, hip flask and Glock. My last moment of true moderation was back in kindergarten, when I stopped myself from using my awesome strength to rip Jamie Kennedy’s pecker off when he waved it at Julie Casey in the bathroom and made her cry. And don’t even start me on my penchant for pirates.

But I am, in fact, a mermaid. So go figure.

Well, technically, Mom’s folks call themselves Aegirans, and they don’t sprout tails, but they’re the closest thing to mermaids under the sea. And, as much as it used to hurt, I’m what they call a dirt-dweller, seeing as Mom was a runaway, Dad’s Sicilian and we live on The Land.

But not for long. You see, I’ve only got three weeks to live. Give or take.

As Aldus and I pulled up on Main Street and started to separate the spectators from their lascivious interest in their first honest-to-goodness corpse, I reminded myself that there was a little wriggle room. The Seer said I’ll die on my thirtieth birthday unless I can change the course of destiny and save the world entire.

Somehow I just don’t like my chances.

I’ve seen some wild stuff in my time and I know there are some things in life that just can’t be avoided. Death. Decay. The sticky fingers of destiny. Believe me, even if you could disrupt destiny, I’m not going to be the one to do it. I never even managed an A in math.

So, three weeks. And the countdown was ticking relentlessly in my brain.

I might be a cop, but I’m no Rambo. I’ve seen enough bodies to know being dead sucks. Just the thought of it makes me feel all tingly and need to take some deep breaths so I don’t have some girly meltdown. You see, I don’t cry. Not me. Too much depends on me being in control.

As I stopped Craig Henshaw from taking photos of the corpse with his iPhone, I reminded myself my own problems were pretty much beside the point. You know, mer-stuff. Impending death. Saving the world (entire). Only three things mattered right now.

One. I was staring at a spookily familiar dead blonde.

Two. I’d just taken a God-sized swig from my hip flask.

And three, I was wishing I’d worn a second nicotine patch for good measure, despite those warnings on the box about not double-patching.

You know what really sucks?

I could tell Aldus, the Sheriff and my boss, didn’t really care what I thought. He certainly didn’t care about the incessant ticking nagging at the back of my brain, counting down the seconds to my doom. Not because he was insensitive, but because he didn’t know. All Aldus knew was that it was Poker Night and it was as hot as death and he was wondering how the hell he was going to explain to the Dirtwater Beautification Committee why he had to put yellow tape around a dead blonde right at the Welcome to Dirtwater end of Main Street on the first night of the Dirt Wrestling Festival. My Mom, the Mayor, is also Chair of the Beautification Committee, and he’s been trying to get into her pants for twelve years.

Ever since my Dad, his best friend, got locked up in the county jail.

Some of which probably explains why he forced out a grunt of interest. Wha’?

I looked again at the blonde, her perfect tresses the color of moonbeams, and shook my head. Clucked my tongue a couple of times. Highlights like that don’t come cheap.

Aldus shot me a sidelong look that could’ve snap-chilled a beer. I knew what he was thinking: Chick cops, worrying more about hair stuff than the stiff. But he was wrong. My mouth was all gummy and my tummy was doing cartwheels. I looked again at the dead girl and realized I was going to dream about her for longer than Aldus would even remember her face, shocked and frozen in a moment of violence.

Well, for three weeks, at least.

Tick, tick, tick.

I’d been thinking a lot lately. Was this my last cookie? Was this the last time I’d hear Livin’ on a Prayer? And looking at this beautiful blonde that someone cut down like a sapling, I was wondering if this was my last corpse. And whether I had enough time to work out who messed with her. And make them sorry. ’Cause no-one’s more powerless than dead people. It might sound crazy, but dead people make me feel, well… protective.

Aldus crouched down again on the still-warm asphalt, poking lazily at the corpse. Okay, so the find got rung in ‘bout twenty minutes ago. Coupla farm boys making their way over to the dirt wrestling. One of them stepped on her—

He pointed matter-of-factly to the muddy size nine imprint on the white denim of her jeans. As he did, a quick buzz of electricity pinged me, making the hair on my arms stand to attention and a shiver of something no good chase scratchy fingers down my spine.

Felt terrible, of course. Place is pretty busy tonight so she can’t have been here long.

I looked around at Main Street. It was nine pm on a Saturday and even though something about the blue-gray quality of the darkness was tap-dancing on my danger radar for reasons I couldn’t quite pin down, I could only see three people on the entire street now the scene was cleared. Two were weaving drunkenly in our direction from The Dirty Boar. One was taking a leak against a sign: Welcome to Dirtwater – lotsa dirt, not so much water.

I tried to shake off the thick tendrils of trepidation that had stuck fast to my uniform and swivelled in a circle, raising an eyebrow at Aldus. Yeah, real busy.

Okay, smartass. Busy for Dirtwater. Aldus scrunched his smooth, full-moon face unhappily as he looked our blonde up and down again. She was lying outside the Dirtwater Convenience Store, the one that never opens after 4:30 pm, and one door down from the laundromat: Dirty Deeds. For the five millionth time in my life, I wondered why everything in this godforsaken town was named after dirt. Great way to attract sightseers.

The girl looked a few years younger than me, maybe 25. And she had the kind of beautiful, never-gonna-be-lined face used by anti-wrinkle cream companies to sell insecurity to fifty-year-old women. Her head lay slightly askew on her neck, an angle you’d never quite pull off alive. A trace of purple outlined her full lips. A pair of wild blue eyes stared upwards to infinity. And, because of what I am, I could smell it too. The smoky stench of death.

I crouched down and laid a hand on her forearm, expecting the usual chill but registering that she was even colder than I’d expected. Must have been here longer than we’d thought.

Looking at her, touching her, thinking about her deadness, my brain filled up, thinking about my responsibilities. I felt the sweat start to bead on my lip again and straightened up. Spots jangled in front of my eyes and the tendons at the back of my knees danced a mini hula. By the Goddess, only three weeks. Who was gonna take care of things when I was gone?

I took a deep breath and said it internally like the yogi taught me:

I embrace my fate and welcome each moment until my end.

You still doin’ that hippy crap? Aldus is deeply suspicious of meditation.

You should try it sometime. Helps you find peace.

Whadda I need with peace? He snorted in disgust. And whadda you need with peace? Will it help you find a man? Pretty girl like you, goin’ on thirty. Saw this Oprah thing ‘bout these poor girls waited so long they had to freeze their e—

Aldus...

I’m just sayin’…

And I’m just not listening.

Aldus started muttering under his breath as he stalked around the blonde, his dirty brown point-toed cowboy boots making crunchy noises on the road. If the good Lord had meantcha to be peaceful, he wouldn’a made you Sicilian.

He had a point. But you’ve got to find some way to manage the psychic burden of waiting to die. Young. And for me, stumbling into an Ashram in Goa after years of doing my best James Dean, meditation was it.

Aldus took up my previous position crouching by the blonde and ran one dirty finger through the pool of clear liquid she was lying in. Still can’t work out what the hell she died of, or what this shit is.

Jesus, talk about contaminating the crime scene. My boss in NYC would have relegated his ass to desk duty for a month for that kind of sloppiness.

Tastes kind of salty. Eat your heart out, Agatha Christie.

I joined him beside the girl and we spent a companionable moment sizing up the corpse, Aldus running his hands through his greased-back grey hair and me tearing at a fingernail with my teeth. I looked up at him from my notebook. Hm. No obvious marks or wounds. ’Cept the shoe-print. No blood or other fluids. No weapon. Just a dead girl. Didn’t even take the hair.

Aldus frowned, huffily muttering something about too much goddam NCIS.

He hated it when I did this. You know, police work.

I looked at our dead blonde again. Something was so definitely wrong with this picture. I felt it low and deep, someplace between my stomach and my heart. I hadn’t been home to Aegira for thirteen years, since I found out I was a dead woman walking. But I still knew what the blonde looked like. My intuition was telling me what she was, clear as a bell. And my intuition’s just about the only thing on earth I trust. I may be only half-Sicilian, but I got the suspicious part. In fact, I avoid thinking about what Dr Phil would make of my trust issues. But tonight my logic was waging war with my intuition, and my logic was winning.

First time for everything.

Better call it in, I offered as we stood up, by way of making up with Aldus. And don’t worry. I squeezed his shoulder, feeling a warm rush in my tummy as I touched this man, who’d given me a job when I’d needed so bad to come back home. I’ll take the late shift.

Okay, he agreed, with a relieved whoosh of spit and breath. I’ll call Billy.

I crouched again to look at the blonde, out of sight of Aldus’ Buick. My eyes swept the scene, trying to work out why my arm-hairs were going crazy. I started making notes in the little spiral notebook I carry in my pocket. No signs of a scuffle. No hand-bag, or any other accessories. No wedding band. No jewelry of any kind.

I stood back, sniffed the thick summer air, sized her up.

Tall, slim but broad-shouldered. Like a supermodel. I checked the bottom of her white, no-brand trainers. Size 10. Big feet. Her eyes were wide, almost in shock. And ice blue. Don’t get excited, I warned myself, balancing my book on my knee and rubbing my patch in hopes of cajoling it into releasing some more nicotine. Most blondes have blue eyes. It didn’t mean…

Something twitched in my consciousness again, and my hand slid off her face and down her shoulder to fall beside her, grazing the pool of liquid. Unconsciously, I brought a ragged fingernail to my mouth to chew and worry at. And then I tasted it. Aldus was right. Salty.

Shee-yit.

She was lying in a pool of saltwater.

In the middle of Dirtwater. The only settlement in the recorded history of humans settling anyplace that lays claim to no naturally occurring water of any kind. Salt or fresh. Even the town fountain, once a semi-ironic feature piece, dried up two years ago and has since stood empty. A bone-dry reminder that this place really is a hellhole.

So what was my beautiful blonde, clearly dead but with no apparent sign of injury, doing lying in a pool of seawater on its main street? I had a sick feeling it was a question to which I really needed to know the answer. And not just for the sake of the blonde.

Apart from Mom, I hadn’t seen a mermaid for thirteen years. So why would one turn up now, when I’ve only got three weeks left? It was just too neat. Only one way to know for sure.

My hand twitched nervously as it swept aside the white blonde hair on the left side of her cheek, and revealed her swan-like neck. Her skin was more golden than a Baywatch babe but cold as a popsicle on a summer day. And there it was. A tiny blue-green tattoo of a stylised fish.

Holy shit, she was a watch-keeper.

I could hear Aldus behind me, on the two-way to Billy, the local paramedic. Billy runs the funeral home as well, but no-one’s ever questioned the conflict of interest. He picks up Dirtwater’s bruised, battered and, ever so occasionally, dead, and takes them to the hospital, the funeral home or the morgue. Depending on the type and degree of their misfortune.

Aldus has loved Billy since Billy played ball for Dirtwater High a dozen years before, and I could tell he was thinking passing Blondie over to him might be his ticket back to the air-conditioned bliss of Boss Hadley’s poker room. I tried to tune Aldus out. My hands were shaking and my heart pounding as I contemplated it all.

A mermaid. A watch-keeper. On the main street of Dirtwater. Dead.

What the hell was she doing there? There’s never been a mermaid in Dirtwater. Talk about a fish out of water. So far out of water it’s not funny.

Well, correction. There’s never been a mermaid here apart from my Mom. And me.

Although technically I’m only half-mermaid.

Travel well, little one, I said, sweeping my fingers lightly over her eyelids and down her cheeks in the ancient farewell. May the seas be gentle with your ship of sleep.

My heart constricted and I felt out of breath. The spots before my eyes lengthened into jagged lines at the edges of my vision. Wow, go figure. Just when you’re sure you’ve seen it all and nothing can make you sad. I could hear Mom saying Baby, your heart’s too big for this job. Tell that to all the badasses I’d locked up, throwing away the key without a second thought.

I looked again at the blonde. Her stillness stopped me. It seemed small and selfish to think about my own impending fate, but I couldn’t stop myself. Three weeks. Tick, tick, tick…

Still, nothing an old friend wouldn’t fix.

I tapped a cigarette out of its packet and slid its clean, dry beauty between my lips.

It was like coming home. I’d been planning to clean up my body to prepare it for the hereafter – no Twinkies, no cigarettes. If I had to meet the Goddess, I didn’t want her seeing what a lousy job I did of looking after the fine body she gave me. For a start, I’d never seen another mermaid with cellulite. But I figured that was a technicality now. The quitting thing, I mean. Now I had something else to focus on for the next three weeks. I had to find out who hurt this Chosen One.

I lit up, looking for comfort as much as the dizzy hit that I knew was my pay-off for walking this carcinogenic tightrope.

I could always give up tomorrow.

Wish some woman loved to suck on me that much, a seedy voice behind me wheezed. I swivelled to see a face that was heading towards handsome in high school but never quite fulfilled its promise. Billy. By the Goddess, this day couldn’t get any worse.

Hi Rania, he oozed in that breathy drawl that some cheerleader back in the day had told him was sexy. He swayed closer to me so I could smell the sweet-sour cocktail of bad whiskey and bourbon chicken on his breath. I didn’t need to look into his puffy blue eyes to know he was looking at me the way he’d looked at me since we were in second grade together. Like he couldn’t decide if he wanted to catch me in a game of kiss chasey or pull my pigtails.

Even now that I didn’t have a pigtails.

So what’s with the stiff? Aldus says we need an autopsy. Been trying to get Larry, but no luck. Done one of his disappearing acts. I guess I’ll take her to the morgue anyway, prep her, ’til we reach him. Billy sidelines as a forensic assistant, helping out the coroner.

Damn. Last thing I needed was this doofus poking around my girl.

Thanks Billy, I purred, real friendly, to the background buzz of crickets and a lone generator. He grinned hopefully. But you better not prep her tonight, huh? Federal law. Anyone who deals with a corpse under the influence is liable to hefty penalties.

Billy licked his lips in a gesture that came off stomach-churningly sensuous. Really?

I nodded. Oh yeah, man. And there’s something about this case. I searched for the right word. Something… fishy.

The crickets buzzed. The generator groaned. I waited, to give him time to catch up.

Billy nodded, mentally watching the greenbacks fly out of his account.

The feds are gonna be all over it. Might be best if you just keep her on ice. I’ll meet you at the morgue in the morning.

Billy’s now glum face lit up, creasing into a toothy smile. Tomorrow? Sunday?

I nodded reluctantly. Here it comes.

That tongue reappeared to caress his lips. Your Ma still do brownies Sunday mornin’?

Men and their appetites. Every atom in me wanted to tell him to take his greedy little brownie-loving fingers and shove ’em where the sun don’t shine, but I needed him on my side.

Sure. Leave Blondie alone tonight and there’ll be brownies in it for you tomorrow.

Billy smiled and turned back to his rig to pop the gurney out before speeding off, leaving Aldus and me on Main Street looking at the slick stain where she’d been a moment before. Aldus cracked his knuckles enthusiastically and smiled hopefully, but I couldn’t shake the fog of wrong that was dogging me.

I guess we’d better start canvassing, I suggested to Aldus, who looked like a petulant twelve-year-old whose Mama’s told him he’s gotta do his homework before he goes to surf porn on the internet. Dr Phil would tell him to muscle up.

Come on Aldus, I offered heartily, punching him on the arm affectionately but forgetting my strength until he winced and rubbed the spot my fist had landed. Remember I said I’ll take the late? But we have a dead girl here. Our first corpse in God knows how long.

Do you have to act so goddamn excited? He sounded really petulant now. Anyway, how bout old Mrs Kraus, down on Park and Lincoln last week? You forget already?

Buh-bow. I made a noise like a game show buzzer signalling wrong answer. Cardiac arrest. She was eighty-five. Her team lost the bridge final. She didn’t have the heart to go on.

"Uncommon courage, my ass, Aldus bitched. Uncommon nagging more like. Shoulda given you the Medal of Pain-in-the-Ass, not the Medal of Freakin’ Valor."

I laughed and scratched my arm, where the shiny, plastic scar ran from cuff to elbow.

Thing is, I agreed with him. No way am I brave. A year later and I still have nightmares about red-headed girls clutching smoking teddy bears.

Aldus swiftly changed tack, reminding me he wasn’t as clueless as he liked everyone to believe. Ah, so okay, okay. What the hell else we gotta do this week, right? Only business lately’s been those crazy sonsabitches out at the old Hagan estate.

Technically, I corrected him, there are some pretty damn irritating daughtersabitches out there too. We both sighed into the claggy heat of the Dirtwater night.

Aldus and I had really had it with the Children of the Apocalypse. They aren’t the only ones sayin’ the world’s gonna end, Aldus snorted. He was in his Buick, one leg propped on the dash, and I could see sock and way too much hairy white leg. I know it’s hot as hell and feels like the end of the goddamn world, but I blame her. He jabbed a finger at the radio, which he’d flicked onto NPR. Not that he’d ever admit to anyone else that he loved the hell out of what he called in company that liberal crap.

I tuned in. …so I say it’s okay to look out for each other. To have a healthcare system that protects the vulnerable. To stop sending our kids off to die on foreign soil-

Aldus flicked it off as I visualized Susan Murray, the stunning fifty-something blonde with the soft voice. He made a throaty tick that was hard to interpret. Ever since that goddam woman came on the scene, the nutjobs have gone even crazier. ‘S the heat, y’know?

I raised an eyebrow at him, and he went on.

Makes people nuts. Horses and nutjobs, they can smell the change in the air. He made that phlegmy tick again. Maybe it is global warming or whatever the hell they call it. Whatever. But what I say is this. If we really are facing down maybe the first female President, then maybe the crazies are right. Maybe the world really is ending. He paused for effect and I knew what was coming next. I’d heard it often enough. No matter how good-lookin’ that goddam woman might be.

I tried to make the right kind of pissed face, the one he would expect. But I wasn’t really listening. Mom says back in Aegira they’re spooked and predicting the end of the world too. It’s all to do with the royal line and this damn prophecy. Only one world can survive. Bloodtides. And all that. I guess that’s enough to spook anyone.

Me, I haven’t got enough headspace for anyone else’s prophecies. I’ve been living under the shadow of my own personal End of Days prediction for thirteen years now.

But, as the song says, I’ve only got myself to blame.

There’s one rule about visits to the Seer back in Aegira. And I had to break it.

Don’t ask about the appointed hour of your own death.

But hey, I was sixteen. And I didn’t think she’d really tell me.

I spent a long time after trying to convince myself it was all just so much horseshit. But then slowly, surely, all the rest of it came true. Dad went to jail. Queen Imd didn’t fall pregnant. And the biggest long shot of all: Faigerst really did ask Zali to the Evensong Ball.

And then I knew it for sure. I was screwed.

No-one had seen Blondie arrive. Or seen her die. Or even seen her dead (well, except for the guy who stepped on her, and he was feeling pretty sheepish about the whole thing really; Dirtwater folks are kinda genteel like that). It was the first night of the Dirt Wrestling Festival, and by nine most folks were at The Dirty Boar, well-lubricated with Dirty Dan’s home brew.

We only discovered two interesting things all night. First, the aquarium.

We found it stashed in some bushes near Blondie. Like a sliver of ocean in the Dirtwater desert. A half-full, reef-fish aquarium. Still with the fish in it. Six beautiful, multi-colored angels, swimming in a daze around their half-drained home. Big too. The aquarium, that is. And something else; one tiny little blue-green fish, barely noticeable, swimming innocently beside its magnificent cellmates.

Aldus decided immediately the aquarium had nothing to do with our girl. Despite the saltwater. Too heavy, he pronounced. Skinny little thing’d never have lifted that sucker.

I said nothing, but when he disappeared (thank God for that prostate or I’d never get any work done) I checked. And yep, I could lift it. I bet a million bucks Blondie could too.

I thought about that tiny blue fish. Maybe she hadn’t needed to lift it at all.

The other thing was the second stranger. Dan, who ran the Dirty Boar, had seen something out back, when he was banging the generator. A shadow. And a back, retreating. He remembered because he’d stood up quickly to get a look, and got this buzz in his ears. Worried his tinnitus was playing up again. Couldn’t say much. Tall, dark clothes. But he did say the guy moved like a boxer, light on his feet. He’d wondered if it was a wrestler, for the festival.

Missy Lovelace had seen something too, but was even less helpful. Admittedly, she was distracted and it had been hard to question her as she adjusted her bikini and mentally banked audience appreciation points. Man, dirt wrestling is just a whole other thing.

This town doesn’t really have a lot going for it, just people on their way somewhere else, or hiding out, or dropping out. So about ten years ago, the big men of Dirtwater started looking for a way to attract tourists. They thought mud wrestling had something going for it, but given that there wasn’t much water, there wasn’t much mud. So dirt-wrestling was born.

Anyway, I hit Missy up as she was preparing for her set, tugging on one improbable breast to bring it further into the action – a delicate task given that it already seemed unbelievable that you could expose that much breast without revealing nipple. Surely that little sucker was popping out any second. Watching Missy in her bikini, I cursed Mom’s sense of humor. I still couldn’t believe the theme for this year’s festival was Under The Sea.

I could hear the dull murmur of the crowd building, even from inside. The little dressing room was hot and impossibly wet. Missy told me she kept the shower running because the steam helped her false eyelashes stick. It’s good to see you, Rania. Listen, I know I said it at the time, but I really appreciate… Pause. Tug, tug on her bikini. What you did, y’know.

I tried not to look as she pulled on her bosom