Page 19 of Love & Lattes at The Mermaid Cafe
You’re kind of different?
I’m not confident enough to say the words out loud.
We stare at each other the way almost-couples do, with tender smiles that somehow stand up to that coarse wind and acknowledge there are obstacles ahead we might not weather as well.
“How are you with stairs?” Lena asks, gesturing toward the narrow lighthouse. “We’ve got over sixty steps to the top.”
The light is rapidly fading and the wind picking up, tugging my short hair more insistently. “Stairs don’t bother me.” Uncertainty did.
We walk toward the lighthouse without speaking.
When we get there, Lena opens the unlocked door. There’s nothing inside but a concrete foundation and winding, metalstairs. It smells like a dank cellar. The wind howls somewhere above.
Without a word, we climb the stairs. I feel like what needs to be said between us will be said when the stairs have been surmounted. I’m just not certain the words Lena speaks will be the words I want to hear.
We reach the lamp room at the top. The big light has already come on and is rotating. I open the heavy, metal door leading onto a narrow, circular walkway around the lamp room the storm strikes. Once outside, rain pelts us hard, shifting directions randomly as if probing for a weakness.
Above us, the beacon of light is on, turning in a circular motion.
Between the wind, the rain, and the swiveling light, my equilibrium feels off. I reach for Lena’s hand, drawing her close. My other hand takes hold of the metal railing.
“Is there a riddle to be solved here?” I ask, raising my voice to be heard above the crashing waves below and hum of the lighthouse behind.
Lena shakes her head. “This is the point where the fisherman would come to hear his mermaid sing.”
This is goodbye.
The idea pierces my chest, taking aim at the heart I haven’t acknowledged in five years.
“Shhh. Listen,” Lena counsels.
No voice fills the air.
Lena taps my shoulder, then gestures toward the crashing waves below us. “This is also your moment of truth…where you toss that bottle with all your winnings out to sea.” The wooden heart. The wooden nickel. The note I’ve written to myself.
I’m suddenly loathe to toss it away. “Isn’t that bad for the environment?”
“No.” Lena shakes her head. Wet wisps of hair cling to her pretty face. Her forehead. Her cheek.
I store the memory of Lena in my head. But at the same time, I reach for her. My hands land on the wet jacket covering her shoulders. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” Lena touches one of my hands with her cold, wet fingers. “What you toss out to sea is just glass, paper, cork, twine, and wood. It’ll break down naturally.”
Naturally.
The word echoes in my head amidst the chaos of the storm.
Today, it’s felt entirely too natural to be with Lena.
I draw her into my arms, holding her close, trying without words to tell her farewell.
Her arms slide around my waist. Her head rests on my shoulder. “Tomorrow, you’ll leave.”
That hadn’t been my plan. I’d planned to stay, take what I’d learned of Mermaid Bay, and write up offers for businesses.
But there’s something about Lena in my arms that makes the idea of making those offers repugnant.
Because I want this. My mermaid.
