Page 29 of When We Believed in Mermaids

“Hey, hey, can we bring it down a notch?” I gasp.

“Sorry.” She slows. “We should have a welcome party or something.”

I take a long gulp from my CamelBak. “That sounds like fun. I’m not sure when we’ll fit it in, but we can try.”

“I know!” She gives me a wide-eyed glance. “When did everything get so busy? I was never so busy when I worked.”

“You didn’t have children. Each child takes approximately forty-eight hours per day.”

“Ah. That’s what it is. No one told me that.”

We hike in silence for a while. To our right stretch the harbor and the irregular coastline of the city. To the north is Rangitoto, an uninhabited volcanic island popular with tourists. In the far distance stretches a line of mountains meeting the sea, the whole scene painted in blues—blue water, blue mountains, blue skies. I never thought I would find a place more beautiful than the northern California coast, but this is outrageous. “Amazing. I never get tired of that view.”

“That’s why I never leave. I wanted to as a girl. Go to Paris and New York and all those places. But I visited, and none of them matched this.”

I was luckier than I could have expressed to have washed up here. It was all blind luck, ridiculous timing, a good decision made at a moment of crisis. My throat tightens at all that I would never have known.

And right behind it, a subtle worry crawls down my neck again—that television camera, right on my face the night of the club fire. I had been in the CBD with Nan and was headed back to the ferry when I saw the news crews. Before I registered what was going on, I stared right into it for the space of three heartbeats.

Careless, but honestly—how many news events happen on an average day? Not even a cataclysmic nightclub fire would spend much time in the spotlight.

At the top of the headland, we pause briefly, leaning on a bunker built in WWII, and catch our breath. It’s one of the best views I know of anywhere—the islands and Rangitoto, the skyscrapers of the CBD, the quaint tumble of villas along the Devonport seafront.

“We are so lucky,” Gweneth said.

“Yes.” I bump her shoulder. “We have each other.”

“Sisters,” she says, flinging an arm around me. “Forever.”

No one will ever be my sister except Kit, but I can’t bear a life without close female friendships. “Sisters,” I agree, and lean my head on her shoulder, looking east across the water to where my sister lives. For a faint, foolish moment, I wonder if she is looking toward me too, across time, across the miles, somehow sensing that I am still alive.

Chapter Nine

Kit

I ride the elevator down to the eighth floor. It’s still very early on a Friday morning, so there aren’t many people about—it’s between the crack-of-dawn, before-work crowd and the post-school-run moms. The area is nearly empty, only one person swimming laps.

The pool is wildly inviting, full Olympic length, the water a rich turquoise, maybe three lanes wide. Windows look out to the high-rise-building forest, and I’m cheerfully anticipating a good swim as I kick off my flip-flops. The man in the pool is swimming vigorously, powerfully, and comes up for air at the far end where I’m standing.

Damn.

Of course it’s Javier.

“Of all the gin joints in all the world,” I say.

“Pardon?” He gives the word its Spanish intonation as he wipes water from his face. A face, I note with some despair, that is just as fabulous as it was yesterday. Maybe even better.

“Never mind,” I say, and pick up my towel. “I won’t bother you.”

He easily hauls himself out of the water and stands there with wet skin and powerful shoulders and modest swim shorts still showing a lot. “No, no, please. I’m nearly finished. You can have the pool.”

“Stay. It’s plenty big enough for both of us.”

“Sure?”

I feel like an idiot. “I’m sorry about last night.”

A twitch of his shoulders. He gestures to the water. “A race?”