Mermaids in Paradise by Lydia Millet (debian ebook reader .txt) 📕

master it. We’re shooting to look credible, that’s it. A fifteen-minute tutorial will have to do.”

So the security team set off for the jeep, while we women, and Rick, stayed in the Pearl Diver, Miyoko typing away, Rick fiddling with his camera obscurely. Before I knew it Miyoko was done with her script-typing—she’d put in what we asked her to about the mermaids likely depending on the reefs; she’d reviewed and even memorized it—and moved on to her makeup. She didn’t have her professional kit with her, she said, but she had some odds and ends; before long, with the aid of some hair gel, eyeliner and fake eyelashes, she was a hipster Tokyo VJ again. She even stuck a small jewel to the side of her nose, to look like a piercing, I guess.

When our security detail returned—Chip swinging his numchucks happily like a man who’d been born to them, Ronnie carrying the things with what I can only describe as distaste—we loaded up our tech and, after a cringe-inducing breathing exercise mandated and led by Janeane, set out across campus. We were passing the side of the main building, trying to keep a low profile (the numchucks, at that point, were largely out of view) when a group of new arrivals filed into the lobby lugging their suitcases. We turned our faces away, avoiding eye contact studiously until I heard, behind my back, a British-accented voice call out, “What ho!”

I feared—all of us feared—an obstruction to our progress toward the beach from the minions of the parent company. And so I turned slightly, a wary, even hostile look upon my face, no doubt.

And there I saw not minions of said parent company but two highly familiar faces and forms. Standing in front of the lobby, smiling widely, were none other than my friends Ellis. And Gina.

IV.

GLORIOUS REVOLUTION

“Jesus,” said Gina disgustedly, before she said anything else. “What the hell are you wearing, Deb? You look like a hangover from Woodstock. I mean, you look really bad.”

We ushered them to us hastily, decamping to a small clump of trees behind a stucco half-wall where we weren’t in full view.

“We’re in a hurry, G.,” I said. I was suddenly seeing myself the way Gina saw me, clad in Janeane’s hippie hand-me-downs, my hair like a cheap fright wig from Walmart. I tried to shake it off. “We’ve got to keep moving. My God. I can’t believe you’re here!”

She and Ellis stashed their roller bags in an oleander and we kept going. Miyoko had a broadcast appointment to keep; we’d timed our walk to the minute because we hadn’t wanted to hang out, waiting, in the open. We hoped that, once we were broadcasting live, we’d have a little more protective cover.

As we hurried down to the beach in our group, heavily laden with AV equipment and numchucks, Gina explained she’d had to come. It was a moral imperative. Honeymoon or no honeymoon, she had to be in on the mermaids. It hadn’t sounded like we had much privacy anyway, right? “I’m being obviously euphemistic,” she added, “what I mean is, no time for sex.” (Chip and I acknowledged that reality with mournful head bows.) And once she decided to book her ticket Ellis had flatly refused to stay behind—the British Virgin Islands being, of course, Her Majesty’s territory.

I gave Gina the plot summary as we hastened along, breathless and no doubt confusing. She wanted to see the footage, couldn’t wait, but she also yearned to tangle with the parent company. She’d flirted with the law once, Gina had, I mean, not flirted with a cop—though she’s also done that, almost serially. I mean she flirted with the idea of becoming a lawyer, before she decided academia was more her speed (the law being, as she put it, a little too much real work). Still, she had a few law courses beneath her belt, as well as a brother who’s a hotshot litigator in D.C., and she was foaming at the mouth to threaten litigation.

Then we were there, on the sand, vigilant and purposeful, on the lookout for minions. At first the only people nearby were some early-morning beachgoers, who ogled us curiously, their eyes asking: Is that pretty young Asian woman a celebrity? Yes, I answered those curious oglers in my mind, quite a celebrity, well known to millions but not to you. Or me. Then we were setting up; then Miyoko was smiling and smiling and speaking in Japanese, while Rick filmed her and Steve held the small-but-heavy satellite dish. Her small black mic was on her small black collar and behind her stretched the blue-turquoise expanse of ocean, upon which, in the distance, the white dots of the armada could be seen.

But sure enough, before long we had company.

THEY MARCHED TOWARD us across the sand, parallel to the water, from the direction of the marina—men in formation, dressed as soldiers. Yes: soldiers, said their camouflage uniforms, and soldiers, said the long guns they were carrying. They wore berets, I saw as they got closer, which gave them an effeminate quality, or French at least. But then they chose the long guns for accessories, which lent a tone of seriousness to the outfits. They made you hesitate to laugh at the berets—the laugh impulse was certainly silenced. And the soldiers had tucked their pants into their boots; I wondered what Gina was thinking of that, the pants tucked into chunky combat boots. I couldn’t ask, while Miyoko was recording, but I did wonder.

It wasn’t only foot soldiers, either. From behind their ranks appeared some vehicles, and the vehicles soon overtook them. The vehicles were jeeps, and those jeeps, as far as I could see, were chock-full of soldiers, those jeeps without tops on them, those open-air jeeps bouncing over the creamy white sand.

Where had the soldiers come from? They looked like UN peacekeeping forces, with those berets—the guys that got sent out