Page 17 of Oceansong
It was as if her body didn’t know how to handle the second glass, but Angie resolved to stop after this one.
“Why do you think I’m sad?” She flashed a smile at her, and Rosie returned it with a gap-toothed one of her own.
“Cause you’re not talking to anyone. You’re sitting here by yourself when everyone else is over there.” She pointed to Mia, Nick, and Bàba, their necks bent forward in conversation, a second bottle of Malbec opened before them. “They must be talking about something serious. None of them are smiling.”
Angie’s face fell, and she groaned while rising to her feet, her head swimming while she regained her balance. “You’re right, I should stop being antisocial.”
“Yeah, don’t be antisocial! And you’ll come play with me later?”
“Of course.”
Leave it to a kid to tell her to get off her ass and go spend time with family.
Rosie ran off, and Angie walked to the dining table, stopping for a glass of water. Mia brightened when she saw her.
“Look who decided to join us again. More wine?” Mia waved at the second, half-empty bottle, their three wine glasses half full.
“Ah, no thanks.” Angie plopped into an empty chair and sipped the water. Refreshing and cooling, it slid down her throat.
“Yeah, you have that Asian flush going.” Nick leaned back in his chair and grinned like a fool.
Angie faced him and didn’t say a word.
“Nick, stop.” Mia put her palms to her cheeks and squeezed them together, muffling an exasperated groan. “Angie, are you okay? You looked lost in your own world there. I wanted to go talk to you, but it didn’t look like you wanted to be bothered.”
Before Angie replied, Bàba spoke up. “I meant to tell you all. We killed another merman today.” Until now, he’d been quietly sipping his wine and staring at his phone like it held the secret of the missing fish.
“What? When?” Angie dug her short nails into the plastic navy-blue tablecloth. Could it have been the same merman who mocked her and lashed a stream of salt at her earlier?
“After you left. That’s why I didn’t get to tell you once it happened.” Bàba gave her a sympathetic nod, refilling his wine glass.
Angie set her lips in a grim line. She wavered between gladness that there would be one less fish-creature to take their food supply, and a sense of loss that maybe she could have found some use for him, the only mer who was known to have spoken to a human.
She had to know. “Wh-what color was the tail?”
“The tail?” Bàba furrowed his brow, thinking. “I believe it was green.”
“Turquoise, to be exact,” Nick added, sounding a tad too smug. “Maybe now that a few of them are dead, they’ll start getting the hint and give us our fucking seafood back.” Her face drained of blood, Mia put a warning hand on her husband’s forearm, but he continued. Angie heard enough stories from Mia about his ramblings when he had too much to drink. “Because if they don’t, we’ll hunt them down. Right, Dad?”
Angie hated it when he called BàbaDadbecause it reminded her that she was related to him through marriage. Bàba nodded, silent.
“Oh.” Her chest deflated.
“Why did you ask about the tail color?” Bàba’s eyes narrowed, facing her.
She cleared her throat and her head. “Before I left today, I heard a loud splash. So, I went to investigate. And I saw one.”
“A merman?” Mia’s jaw dropped.
Even Nick listened during her confession. Bàba’s eyes burned a hole into her head. Nick put his wine glass down. “Why didn’t you kill it? Or did you?”
She shook her head, squeezing her hands together. It was a good question, why couldn’t she finish him? “He got away before I could pull the trigger,” she fibbed.
“Don’t hesitate next time. They’re just fish.” Nick flashed her a sly, drunken smile. “Or, if you’re too scared, you can call one of us men to do it for you.” He sat back and draped a lazy arm around the back of Mia’s chair, using his free arm to sweep an arc over the table. “You don’t see one chunk of fish, or crab or lobster meat, or even one single clam here, do you? They’re killing us off slowly. I say we round them up and execute them.”
Angie flinched, thinking back to Jenny and Dave. Yes, they had enough food for now, and their own stores could last them another month if they ate half of what they normally did. But many of her fellow villagers didn’t.
Nick continued. “The fishing nets are sitting empty right now. Why not use those to catch more mer, eh? Angela? Mia? What do you girls think?”
