The boat swayed in the gentle evening breeze and for a moment they all took advantage of the perfect evening. The sun was setting, the sky rosy with promises of a sailor’s delight. In the far distance, Liz heard music. The Mystical Merfest Regatta Boat Parade was fast approaching.
“Okay, enough about psychics and witches, who wants to hear about mermaids?” Even though the sun was lower in the early evening sky, she pulled her wide brimmed straw hat down to protect her scar. It would always be visible, no matter how many surgeries she had, and she’d made peace with it. Things could have turned out way worse, and almost had.
She didn’t wait for their consent and began to read a short passage.
“Wow,” Charlotte said as Liz closed the book. “That was certainly apropos for today’s festivities. What did you think, Fenton?”
Her father winked at Ryan, “A fanciful tale that’s for sure. I’d like to hear a man’s version of it. The way Ernest Hemingway would tell it.”
Ryan raised his beer and said, “Something like this…The storm came in. The ship capsized. A big fish saved the drowning sailors.”
Fenton laughed.
“A lot of people put down Hemingway’s simple style,” Liz said, “but he was a master of dialog. His dialog was what told the story. There were times when he never gave any description of the surroundings or what his characters looked like, just revealed their true nature through dialog. I also read that for all of Hemingway’s simple sounding prose, he revised his stories and novels so many times it became an obsession. He was quoted as saying, ‘A writer’s words should be simple and vigorous.’ I believe good writing is a combination of both, and if this was written by a child, I think she did a darn good job. Not girly or fanciful as you’re implying, Dad.”
“Hemingway was a chauvinist,” Charlotte said, simply. “But he also told a darn good yarn, just like your mermaid storyteller.”
“That was a simple analysis,” Liz said, laughing, “but I like it.”
Before they went on to discussing different authors writing styles, they heard the sound of steel drums and calypso music filter toward them from the north.
“Here they come,” Ryan said, standing.
The rest of them stood, balancing on their sea legs as the boat swayed and waited until the lead forty-three-foot sailboat came into view. Kate sat on the bow, facing them, while Alex’s back faced the mainland to the west. Kate’s mermaid tail was exquisite, its jewel-toned sequins reflecting the waning sun in dazzling splendor. She was very much the mermaid Meribel, her gold crown studded with colored rhinestones over her long brown shiny hair. Waving with both her hand and her tail, Kate shouted, “Isn’t this a blast! Meet you at Ryckman Park in an hour. The skipper said he’d drop us.”
They all waved back. Fenton blasted the foghorn and when the boat came nearer, Charlotte shouted to Kate, “Magnificent mermaid’s tail!” Then she snapped a dozen photos with her phone.
Kate tossed a few hibiscus flower heads onto the Serendipity and the sailboat continued south toward the Sebastian Inlet where the Queen of the Seas would be moored and waiting for the tail end of the Mystical Merfest Boat Regatta. Something Aunt Amelia had commandeered for the rehearsal dinner guests’ viewing pleasure.
As Kate’s sailboat pulled away, Aunt Amelia’s boat came into view. On the side of the boat was a banner. Centered inside the graphic of a mermaid’s tail was the tagline: The Melbourne Beach Theatre presents Sea Witch—not your typical Fairy Tail. The word “tail” purposely used instead of tale. Liz wasn’t sure it worked, but it was fun all the same. And no doubt her great-aunt’s idea. Aunt Amelia was smiling and waving. Instead of hibiscus heads, she was throwing gray rubber fish. At least, Liz thought they were rubber. Her great-aunt’s face and body were painted a glossy blue-green and she wore a long red wig with a single braid that fell over her left shoulder and hit below her waistline. Around her neck was a scarf of seaweed. Liz also hoped that wasn’t real.
Fenton laughed. “I see Auntie’s drab, army green and black mermaid’s tail. But what the heck is she wearing on top?”
“What’s she supposed to be?” Ryan asked. “Don’t tell me she’s playing the Little Mermaid? She’s not little and…Why do I bother, I should know by now, there is no part she can’t play.”
“Just go with it and blow her a kiss. All will be revealed next Saturday. Opening night.” Liz raised both hands in the air and waved frantically, calling out, “Brava! Brava!”
Aunt Amelia spotted them and lifted what looked like the pitchfork from the famous painting “American Gothic.” Liz guessed it was meant to be a trident. For her bikini top, she must have gotten inspiration from years ago being on the set of Gilligan’s Island. She’d taken a coconut from one the Indialantic’s trees, cracked it in half, then glued one to either side of a bikini swimsuit top. All in all, Aunt Amelia made quite the voluptuous Sea Witch, perfect for her part in the theater’s upcoming production about a misunderstood sea witch, loosely based on Hans Christian Andersen’s 1836 story, The Little Mermaid. The script from the play had been written by her great-aunt with a little, okay, a lot, of tweaking from Liz.
“Hope she doesn’t fall and break something in that getup,” Fenton said, “you know how excited she gets when she’s ‘in character’.”
“She seems confident she won’t,” Liz answered, “and assures me that after watching Carolyn Jones wiggling around in her formfitting black spider skirt on the set of TV’s The Addams Family, she’d learned a few tricks.” Liz hadn’t asked what they were, but Aunt Amelia had passed on two anyway. “Don’t drink any liquids in case you have to go the restroom and use Vaseline on your legs to get the tail on and off. Just like you do when putting on leather pants.”
Leather pants! Aunt Amelia? Luckily, that was one thing Liz had never witnessed her wearing.
Charlotte laughed. “So that’s why she brought me to her viewing room to show me her cameo as Uncle Foster’s love interest in the old sitcom.”
“It’s Uncle Fester not Foster,” Fenton added, joining in the laughter.
Fenton said, “Hopefully when Queen of the Seas pulls into port, everyone will make it an early night, and be refreshed for the wedding, Auntie included. In less than twenty-four hours she’ll be able to rest her dogs.”
“Her barking dogs. Although I’ve never known Auntie to rest anything,” Liz added. Did she have to worry about both Aunt Amelia’s health and Grand-Pierre’s? Both eighty and both precious to her. Without them she didn’t know how she’d go on. She didn’t have time to think about it because the hotel’s eco-tour sightseeing ship, Queen of the Seas came out of nowhere, heading toward them at full throttle, its horn blaring in SOS beats.
“Dad, Look!”
Fenton stood, immediately went to the wheel, and started the engine. The regatta spectator boats next to them also started their engines. Captain Netherton was at the wheel. As the ship came closer, she heard his voice over the loudspeaker, “Clear the end of the dock. We have an emergency!”
There wasn’t any billowing smoke or flames shooting from the portholes of the engine room, but Liz did see Ashley, Phoebe, Branson, Garrett, and Wren standing stiffly at the ship’s guardrail.
Where were Dorian, Julian, and Susannah?
Had they fallen overboard?
Or something much worse?