When We Believed in Mermaids(23)

“Just a cup of coffee or something? It’s been a while, Kit. I miss you.”

“Yeah, me too,” I said by rote, but I didn’t. I’d missed her fiercely a hundred times in my life, but on those long, lonely days in Salinas after the earthquake, when she dived entirely into her dual addictions of surfing and getting high, I’d finally realized she was never really coming back to me. “I just have a lot of studying to do.”

“That’s cool. I get it. Med school, dude. I’m so proud of you.”

The words plucked a string somewhere deep in my gut, and the reverberation released a thousand memories, all reminding me of the ways I loved her. I took a breath. “I’ll meet you somewhere. Where are you?”

“That’s okay, sis. Seriously. I get it. If you don’t have time, you don’t have time. I just wanted to say hi.”

“Where are you going after this?”

“Um. Not sure. The waves are great in Baja, but I’m kind of over Mexico. Maybe Oz. A bunch of us have been talking about finding space on a freighter or something.”

The more she talked in her raspy, beautiful voice, the more I wanted to hug her. “Look, you know what? I can spare a couple of hours.”

“Really? I don’t want to interfere with anything.”

“You won’t. It might be ages before you’re back in San Francisco. I’ll come to you. Where are you?”



We met at a burger joint not far from Ocean Beach. Some guy with a tangle of blond hair and at least three leather bracelets on his arm dropped her off. Josie tumbled out of the truck looking like a creature from a Charles de Lint novel, an urban sprite or fairy walking amid the mortals. She was deeply, deeply tan from her year-round surfing, her hair impossibly long, cascading over her lean arms and past her waist. She wore an India cotton peasant blouse over jean shorts and sandals, and every male from the age of six to ninety-six stopped to admire her. A backpack, battered but strong, hung from her left shoulder.

When she saw me, she broke into a run, stretching out her arms, and I found myself moving toward her, allowing her to fling her slim, taut body into my arms. We hugged hard. Her hair let loose the scent of a fresh breeze, a scent that made me ache to go surfing, to leave this grind I’d put myself in and run away to the beach with her. “Oh my God,” she breathed in my ear, her arms fierce around my neck. “I miss you so damn much.”

Tears stung my eyes. By then I had my guard up with her, but within twenty seconds, she swept me into her realm. “Me too,” I admitted, and this time it was true. For one minute, two, I held on to her, dizzy with love and no thought, only her lean body against mine, her hair in my face. I stepped back. “You look really good.”

“Fresh air,” she quipped, then touched my face. “You look tired.”

“Med school.”

Inside the diner, still in touch with the seventies with its red Naugahyde booths and chrome appointments, we sat by the window and ordered cheeseburgers. “Tell me everything,” she said, sipping Cherry Coke through a straw.

“Umm . . .” I floundered, trying to think of something that wasn’t a grind of books, rotations, notes. I was third year, on the floor for the first time, and it was both exhilarating and devastatingly exhausting. “I don’t know what to say. I’m working hard.”

She nodded eagerly, and I noticed how red her eyes were. High, as ever. “Well, what did you do yesterday?”

“Yesterday.” I took a breath, trying to remember. “I got up at four so I could get to the hospital in time to do early rounds; then we had rounds with our team, which is surgical, so I’m working with surgeons and residents. I scrubbed in for a gall bladder removal and an emergency appendectomy.” I paused, feeling sleep, like a hook on a slow-moving train, start to reel me under. I blinked hard. Shook my head. “What else? I met a study group before dinner, then ate, then went home to read for rounds this morning.”

Her eyebrows rose. “Dude. Do you ever get to sleep?”

I nodded. “Sometimes?”

“I can’t believe you’re going to be a doctor. I always brag about you.”

“Thanks.” They drop off the burgers, and all the salt and fat smells so good, I bend in and breathe it deep. “I’m freaking starving.”

“Not much time to eat there either. Do you get to surf?”

“Sometimes. Not a lot, but it’s okay. Eventually, this part will be done, and I’ll be like everybody else.”

She pointed a fry at me. “Except you will be Dr. Bianci.”

I grinned. “I do love the sound of that.” I arranged the pickles and tomatoes on top of the cheese, then added swirls of mustard. “What about you? Tell me about last week.”

She laughed, that low, raspy laugh that made everyone lean in close. “Good one.” She took a bite of her burger and nodded as she chewed, as if she were thinking about all the things she could tell me. She held her napkin in her lap primly, and in the action I saw my mother. “I bet you do more in a day than I do in a month.” She dabbed her lips politely, making sure they were ketchup-and grease-free. “But actually, last week was bitchin’ because we were chasing a hurricane up the coast, from Florida all the way to Long Island.”

“Wow.” I felt a ripple of envy. “Biggest waves?”