Dreamland Social Club(74)

“Are you saying you don’t want to do it?”

“No,” Jane admitted. “Not exactly. It’s just, I don’t know. My mother went to mermaid camp once. With Leo’s mom. And she had this thing about mermaids, so it all makes me sort of sad.”

“I’m sorry, sweetie.” Babette patted her leg. “But think of it this way. It’s your chance to take back the mermaid. And make it not sad anymore.”

“I guess,” Jane said, though it all sounded sort of dumb. “But it’s a funeral.”

“Well, it was your idea.”

“I know. I just didn’t think it through.”

Babette took a small card out of her backpack and handed it to Jane. “Leo gave this to me,” she said, “but he probably meant it for you.”

It read MERMAID AUDITIONS @ THE CORAL ROOM, 4:00 p.m., and it had that day’s date on it.

“You’re joking, right?” she said.

“Not to audition,” Babette said with an eye roll. “To watch. To be inspired.”

“Oh, what’s the point?” Jane said, but she was still studying the card.

Babette looked at her watch. “If you hurry, you can get there in time.”





Jane took off toward the Coral Room as fast as her legs would carry her. Leo would probably be there. She didn’t care. Or maybe that was the whole reason she was going. She wasn’t sure. She thought maybe she wanted to apologize for saying the stuff about the rats and the rent in front of everybody. But she’d been provoked. Shouldn’t he have to apologize, too?

The club was packed, mostly with women in bikinis, so Jane shrunk her shoulders and slid through until she was right up behind the people sitting at the bar, right near the tanks. In front of her a pair of twin girls swiveled on bar stools—“Mom is up first,” one of them said, and their small bodies seemed to vibrate with anticipation. Jane felt that way, too.

Buzzing.

Buzzed.

She looked around for Leo but couldn’t see past the people nearest her and, really, she didn’t feel like dealing with him right then anyway.

When the first mermaid drifted down into the tank—the fish darted away in a sudden bolt—the crowd let out a collective gasp and she was there, a beautiful brunette who was waving and smiling, which had to be hard, in a pink and red polka-dot bikini. Was smiling underwater something they taught you how to do at mermaid camp? Had all of these women who were auditioning been to camp? Or did Beth run her own? Was Jane too old to go?

Between mermaids, she studied the glass, looking for that starfish she’d seen, and finally found it stuck to the side of the treasure chest of jewels. For a second she thought the journal had to be in there, but then she remembered: the club hadn’t even been around then. Jane knew that sea stars could grow new limbs when they were hurt and, as she watched mermaid after mermaid take their quick turn in the tank, she wondered if maybe she was starting to regenerate missing parts in her own way, too.

It was sort of heartbreaking how un-mermaidy some of the women were—they were old and misshapen or had straggly hair or wrinkled bellies—but they all got their turn, and sometimes there were surprises. Like right at the end when the skinny old woman with the long white ponytail got in the tank in her black one-piece suit and let her hair loose and swam like she was putting on a mermaid show for real, waving and pretending to be having tea with a blowfish that seemed drawn to the sheen of her floating white hair. Jane would have hired her in a heartbeat.





Jane walked over to say hi to Beth, who cleared the room with the announcement that she would be calling three or four women tomorrow, and wished she wasn’t a little bit scared of her, but she was. She was scared of how good that hug had felt, scared that Beth was—besides Jane’s father—the one living breathing tie that existed to her mother’s past, scared that if Beth knew about her father and the Tsunami—she must!—she’d never want to talk to Jane again.

“Did you just come to watch?” Beth asked, pulling her into a hug.

“I did,” Jane said. “It was fun.”

“Leo was just here.” She looked around, as if he still might be in the room.

“Oh,” Jane shook her head. “We’re not—” How to explain? “I just mean, I’m not looking for him. I don’t think—”

“Sit,” Beth said, and she pointed toward a booth; they moved over to sit.

“Here’s the thing.” Beth straightened a tent card for Burlesque Night on the table. “Leo worships his father. So the idea that his father might not have done everything he could have to save this sinking ship, well, that’s not so easy for him to accept right now.”

So it was true about the rent, the rats. Jane stole a glance at the tank, where some fish had decided to come out of hiding. “But why is he so mad at me?”

“You’re the messenger,” Beth said. “Never a good role.”

“So what do I do?”

“You wait. Or you move on. Or both.” She took Jane’s hand and said, “Your father is quite a roller coaster designer, by the way.”

“I’m really sorry,” Jane said, and Beth said, “Oh, honey. Don’t be. It’s not about one roller coaster or one amusement park or bar. It’s about how to go about things is all. How to do things so that people feel they’re being heard. That’s all Coney Islanders for Coney is really about.”