The Girl with the Mermaid Hair Read online

  “Come in, darling, let’s have a look at you,” called her mom.

  Her parents were in the living room but not together. In her journal Sukie had noted the difference between being together and being in the same room at the same time. Her parents were often the latter and rarely the former. Even when they strolled side by side, they seemed to be in separate spaces. Sukie could assess her parents’ moods. She knew, for instance, when her dad was edgy or her mom was “stalky”—looking for a reason to pounce. Her radar was defensive. They would as easily pick on her as each other. She would go right to her room and do homework. Sometimes she ran a bath and did the mermaid float. Occasionally if her parents argued loudly late at night, Mikey crawled into her bed and they both buried their heads under pillows.

  Today there was a détente between her parents, a temporary relaxing of tension between battling nations. Her mom, thumbing through a magazine, was tucked into an armchair, curled up like a cat. Her dad had taken possession of the couch. Seated on the center cushion, he hunched over his work papers strewn across the coffee table. At the same time, he wielded the remote, switching back and forth between football games.

  “You look beautiful,” said her mom. “Pretty enough to be in this.” She held up Vogue.

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  Her dad looked over now and whistled.

  “Your father is taking up golf. He’s going to the driving range today. He’s sick of tennis. Don’t you think you should eat something?”

  “I’m not hungry,” said Sukie. So her hunch had been correct. He wasn’t going back to the club. “Am I still going to take lessons from Vince?”

  “Of course,” said her mom. “Unless, little copycat, you’re switching to golf, too. But you can’t because you’re committed to tennis. And you’re a terrific player. ‘Captain of the tennis team’ looks a lot more impressive on a college application than ‘I golf for fun.’ Did you meet him on Facebook?”

  “Meet who?”

  “This quarterback?”

  “No. Dad, come on.”

  “Is your Facebook clean?”

  “Clean? What does that mean?”

  “I have no idea. Mr. Vickers mentioned it. I suppose not dirty. Nothing to be ashamed of. Where did you meet him?”

  “At the mall. I know some friends of his.” A lie but not a big lie. She did know a few of his friends because he’d introduced them to her. “Dad?”

  “Did you see that?” said her dad.

  “Holding,” said Sukie. “Why didn’t the ref call it?”

  “Atta girl—you never miss a thing.” He clicked off the game and dropped the remote. “I’ll get my jacket and clubs and meet you at the car.”

  “Can we see your Facebook?” asked her mom.

  Sukie hurried away.

  “Susannah!”

  “I’m not on Facebook.”

  “What do you mean you’re not on Facebook?” Her mother sprang from the chair.

  Sukie knew what had happened. The worry of what her daughter might be up to on Facebook had yielded to an even greater anxiety: What’s wrong with Sukie that she isn’t on Facebook?

  Sukie powered on and out the front door. Her mom would never follow. She wasn’t allowed to be in the sun for a month, her skin was too tender. Even though the sky today was blanketed with thick dark clouds, Sukie was safe because, as her mom had explained only yesterday, the sun could beam those ultraviolets right through.

  From the doorway her mother begged, “Sukie, I’m trying to have a conversation.” But Sukie pretended that her mom was speaking to the wind, and the wind would carry her words over the trees and far away.

  “Just tell me, sweetie, why aren’t you on Facebook?”

  Sukie concentrated on managing her spiked heels on the gravel driveway, although for a second she considered turning and screaming, “Because I hate you.”

  But that wasn’t the reason.

  She wasn’t on Facebook because she couldn’t complete the questionnaire. It demanded originality. Even the simplest query. After hours of staring at it empty-headed, she had cruised her classmates. Under religion, Autumn had written, “Found God in prison.” How brilliant was that? Frannie’s favorite movie was foreign. Really foreign, like Italian. Il Postino, it was called. Sukie had heard her talk about it in school, how sad it was, how much her dad had loved it. Sukie had never even seen a film in a foreign language. How could she confess that her favorite movie was The Princess Diaries? And that looming blank…the one she couldn’t fathom answering: Favorite Quotation. Sukie’s head had nearly crashed down on the keyboard at the sight of it. She had no idea what to put, but everyone else did. Even Jenna, who didn’t seem deep-deep, only average deep, had a great quote. Sukie had copied it down. “We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once.” Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche. James had quoted himself. “Broccoli is better overcooked.” Was that even true? Sukie had no idea. Plus, who cared about broccoli, but didn’t that make his quote even more inspired and unique? Even drippy Ethan had an Ethiopian proverb. Ethiopia was not the coolest place to have a proverb from, but still the quote was interesting and political, just like Ethan. “When spiders unite, they can tie up a lion.”

  But the worst part of Facebook were the photos. Everyone posted photos of themselves having fun. With friends.

  Her dad opened the car door, tossed his clubs over the front seat into the back, and climbed in behind the wheel. “Let’s get out of here.”

  As they backed out, Sukie peered up. Sunlight streamed though a rent in the clouds. “The sun coming out means nothing,” she told herself. “Expect. Nothing.”

  Hawks and Bulls

  UNLIKE Cobweb, a modest and meandering wood-and-glass structure shaded by tall oaks and pines, Hudson Glen High sat on a huge expanse of cleared earth. The school was a three-story imposing brick edifice with columns built into the façade. It could have been a president’s birthplace, Sukie decided, someone like Thomas Jefferson’s. Behind the school were two rows of trailers, extra classrooms for its enormous student body of two thousand, and a long, low, windowless gymnasium constructed of metal that looked silvery in sunlight. Beyond that lay the athletic fields—track, baseball, and football. The football field had bleachers stretching along one side, with pennants (Hudson Glen Hawks, white on black, the school colors) rippling across the top.

  Swarms of people converged from all directions. Some, like Sukie, had been dropped off in front of the school, others parked in the lot next to the field, and still others arrived from Mason Street, which bordered the opposite side.

  Everyone was headed for a good time, and Sukie was one of them.

  She didn’t mind that she didn’t know anyone. It was exciting, like arriving in the city after living one’s whole life in a small peasant village. The way Madame Bovary must have felt when she talked her boring husband into moving from Tostes to Yonville, or when she entered the ball at the chateau and the vicomte asked her to dance. “I am here to dance with Bobo. Bobo wants me. Hi, I’m here. Hey, well hey. So real. So real life.” The conversation she was having with herself was so involving and compelling that she was smiling unself-consciously when, after the long walk, she finally stepped off the asphalt path onto the athletic fields.

  The ground felt soft, squishy, spongy.

  She hesitated before looking down but then seemingly of its own accord her head fell forward and she saw her shoes. She had stepped onto a patch of grass so soggy from rain that it was nearly liquid, and her shoes were disappearing much the way a car driven into a lake submerges slowly until, with a pop, it’s gone.

  Faced with this catastrophe and the notion as sudden as a smack on the head that she must solve it immediately or be humiliated for life, her mind froze.

  People streaked and streamed about her. She might be no more than a sign on a freeway, one of those innocuous ones like FOOD GAS REST. Girls gossiped in cliques. Friends shared peanuts and popcorn, whapped each other with red l
icorice vines, shouted orders to pals at the front of concession-stand lines. Some, heads down, worked BlackBerrys. Others nearly knocked Sukie over, so preoccupied were they with their cell conversations. Parents shepherded their children around her. One toddler bounced along, his rain boots making happy smacking sounds on the wet grass. That’s when she realized, and how could it have escaped her notice? The foot gear. Every single person wore rain boots or athletic shoes of some sort. They were all prepared for mud.

  Only Sukie was in party shoes. Only Sukie.

  Was she sinking with no end in sight? Had she located the only square foot of quicksand in the entire United States?

  Sukie had been afraid of quicksand ever since, at age five, she’d seen a picture of it in a book, sandy ground and two arms sticking out waving feebly, and no one around to throw a log. Being thrown a log was the only way to get out of quicksand, according to the book. While Sukie rationally knew this wasn’t quicksand, she still got blindsided by the fear as if it had been lying in wait for a moment of intense vulnerability to launch an attack.

  Wouldn’t a friend be helpful right this second? If only she had a friend. A friend would save her. “Hey, Sukie, I’m here, don’t worry, I’m throwing a log.”

  She would hang on to that log for dear life while the friend hauled her and it to solid earth, all the while talking her down. What a comfort it must be to be talked out of panic and to safety by a good friend.

  She was deep into the wish for it when she realized with relief that her feet had stabilized, although her heels were so deep in mud that they were nearly as fixed as goal posts. Sukie pulled out her phone and feigned intense interest in nonexistent emails and calls. She pretended for a half hour, until nearly everyone had climbed into the stands and she could see where it was safe to walk. She stepped out of her heels, dislodged her ruined shoes from the mud, and walked lightly on the balls of her bare feet to privacy, the back of the hot-dog stand. Her shoes were dripping and disgusting, all the pretty doily holes clogged. First she wiped them on wet grass, then extracted the little packet of tissues she kept in her purse in a zippered compartment, and used them to smear off the rest of the gunk. When she reached down to clean off her feet, her hair fell into her face. She tried to push it back with her forearm and, when it fell again, used her hand, and soon she had mud and bits of grass on her face. On her carefully sculpted nose.

  She slipped her soaked shoes back on, a most unpleasant feeling, and squished along the side of the bleachers. Every time her feet pressed down in her shoes, she produced water. It was as if she were juicing them. They made sounds, too, gurgles, and her feet were numb from cold. She rounded the front of the bleachers. The warmups were over, teams huddled with their coaches for final instructions, some players jumping and twisting, broncos desperate to break out of the pen. She spotted Bobo’s number and watched while, for luck, he banged fists with his teammates and trotted back onto the field. “Hey there,” she murmured him a hello. “I hope you don’t mind my shoes.” That amused and perked her up a bit. Cheerleaders and pom-pom girls were performing acrobatically. “Give me an H, give me an A, give me…” Sukie yelled enthusiastically, “W-K-S.”

  Now she scanned to the top of the first set of bleachers. It was overstuffed with fans. Proceeding along, she kept her head down, not wanting to attract attention. People might notice her filthy shoes. At a loud screeching “Woo,” she snapped up. Harry the Hawk, all seven feathered feet of him, flapped toward her and with a whoosh enveloped her in his gigantic damp and smelly wings. Terrifying, pitch dark, no air. Just as quickly he released her. The crowd hooted as Harry began reeling drunkenly, kicking up his huge plastic yellow talons and flapping his wings, trying to bat Sukie this way and that. She dodged the bird to great laughter and ran. She didn’t stop until, nearly breathless and exhausted, she had climbed high into the second set of bleachers, more sparsely populated.

  She edged down a row to an empty spot, realizing when she got there that the seat had a big puddle on it. “Sit your ass down,” a man shouted. Sukie twisted around. Right behind her was a beefy guy, naked from the waist up, with six other beefy guys, also naked from the waist up. Weren’t they cold? Each had a large capital letter painted on his hairy bare chest. She arched back to read—what possessed her to think she should? For such a good and obedient A-student, any string of letters meant reading was required. “Finster?”

  “The quarterback,” he said. “Down.”

  Sukie put her suede purse on the puddle and sat on it. The woman next to her, cradling a plastic container of fried chicken, pinched a leg with a pink paper napkin and offered it.

  “No, thanks,” said Sukie.

  “Let me know if you change your mind. Where’s your hat?”

  “I don’t have a hat.”

  The woman pulled a green cap from under her arm and put it on.

  “Bobo’s the quarterback. Bobo Deeb.” Sukie turned to enlighten the painted man who leaped up, shrieking with glee. She wheeled back around. The Hawks had kicked off and the Poughkeepsie running back was tacking skillfully through the Hawk defense. Everyone stood and screamed until he was finally tackled after a gain of twenty yards. Sukie, depressed by that, was the only person who sat down immediately. Folks slapped palms over Sukie’s head, reaching up, down, and around, before settling on the bench again and launching a chant: “Bulls, Bulls, Bulls.”

  It was then that she noticed all the green caps. They dotted the rows below. In front of her bleachers, cheerleaders bounced up and down in green skirts and white sweaters. “Bulls, Bulls, Bulls.” A baton twirler tossed her green baton into the air. The paint on the half-naked men’s chests was green. She was sitting in the wrong stands. She was sitting with the enemy. With the fans of Poughkeepsie High.

  Sukie shrank. She simply deflated. It was as if she took up no more space on that bench than a wrinkled balloon. All her positive attitude, although tempered with “expect nothing” but still leaning positive…now gone. She couldn’t relocate, it was too late, too traumatic—her shoes, the possibility of another encounter with the giant bird. Besides, that first set of bleachers for Hawks fans was packed to capacity.

  She watched the entire game in silence, barely moving. Barely, it seemed, breathing. Not once did she get to shout, “Go-Bo, Bobo.” It would have been weird, surrounded as she was by Bullmania, maybe even dangerous. The half-naked man behind her might bean her with his Bull-light, flashlights all the Bulls fans carried. They aimed them at the field and one another, even though it was afternoon and the lights didn’t project. Were they morons? Idiots? Sukie entertained herself with thoughts of their low IQs. How understandable, even inevitable, that she would blame them for something she felt about herself. She was the truly stupid one, sitting in the wrong stands. Not only couldn’t she cheer Bobo, but she had to sit there meekly when the crowd around her heaped insults on him. “Boo-hoo Bobo” and “Bobo Boob-O.” She had to swallow a gasp of fear when the entire Bulls front line rushed and crushed him. One by one his tormentors rose, until only he remained facedown in mud. It was a frightening wait for Sukie until Bobo pushed himself to his knees and, shunning assists from his teammates, finally stood…frightening not only because he might be hurt but also because, if he was hurt, he wouldn’t be able to meet her after. He’d be at the hospital being rolled into a CT scan machine. At one point a man poked her and said, “Hey grass-face, why so sad, we’re going to win.” And they did. At the very last second, the Hawks blew a field goal and the Bulls beat them, 21–19. She was sad for Bobo and sad for herself. Grass-face? Was there grass on her face? How could she take a selfie to find out? Not in front of these people. Besides, there was no way to get into her purse. She was sitting on it, the metal buckle jamming her butt.

  She stayed put until everyone else had left. She thought about going home, about whether to call her dad to pick her up, but Bobo had had such a hard time, losing in a squeaker. If she stood him up, how cruel would that be? She had to show up for their
rendezvous. She owed it to him.

  In the privacy of the empty bleachers, she took a selfie and discovered grass blades speckling her face, mud on her forehead, and her nose makeup streaked.

  Her suede purse was soggy and one side was discolored. Although it was a shoulder bag, she dangled it from her hand, grasped so that the good side faced out, and trekked down out of the stands. Carefully selecting solid earth, she made her way to the gymnasium, stopping first at a place she’d sworn she’d never enter, a Porta-Potty. There she quickly cleaned herself up, smoothed her nose makeup, freshened her lip gloss, and spoke as confidently as she could to her reflection in the small blotchy mirror hanging over the molded rubber sink. “Hi, Bobo, you played a great game. Great. Great.” She tried that word several times. It kept sounding fake and forced. “Great!” Finally she managed to infuse it with a lively energy.

  Outside the locker-room door, the atmosphere was grim. Parents slumped listlessly on concrete benches. As more showed up, they greeted in ways that acknowledged the grief: faint nods, half smiles, limp waves. Their younger children—siblings of players—quickly tired of the sadness and moved on to chasing, pushing, and complaining. Could they go to McDonald’s and how soon? Adults who conversed spoke softly, and Sukie, straining to eavesdrop, discovered that the Hawks had lost three consecutive games and were therefore out of the running. For what, she wasn’t sure, she presumed the league championship. The entire pep squad, about twenty girls, comforted one another, hugging, a few wiping tears.

  Sukie stationed herself a little apart but in view of the locker-room door. Bobo could easily spot her. She didn’t want to tax his brain and make him dig her out of the mob after he’d suffered so. No flirty hide-and-seek game, it wouldn’t be appropriate. Close by, four heartbroken cheerleaders discussed Hunters, the kind of rain boots that Sukie owned but unfortunately hadn’t worn.

  “I think my boots are too big.”