In this writing session, the idea of having Marissa turn out to be a mermaid was unexpected, but I liked it. It helps cement the idea that now that the narrator (sorry, still no name for her) has come into her power, she can see the world as it really is. It also gave me an idea about who Hugh Smalls is and what he wants – that he’s the center of a conspiracy rather than the source of it, and that sent me in a new direction with my planning.

The idea that Marissa is cheating on Smalls came kind of naturally from what I know of cheaters – emotional chaos everywhere, so it felt right that she would be also have a boyfriend on the side. The fact that he’s also some sort of fairy-tale/mythological creature was also unexpected, and though I’ve described him I’m not sure what he is yet. Time will tell. (I hope.)

Here’s this week’s entry:

Maybe I should go to Vegas, too, I thought as I let Mickey out the back way, then got in my car and went out the front way. The best way to be careful is to be careful, and in Mickey’s mind at least he’d been asked to step off investigating Hugh Smalls, which meant it would probably be healthier for me to step off as well.

I wasn’t going to, not because I’m some sort of incredible bad ass, fearless in the face of the death of dogs, but because I’d have to tell Arnold why I couldn’t deliver the goods and then no matter how he took it—with argument or good grace—he’d never hire me again.

It costs a lot of money to live a regular middle-class life in LA and Arnold and similar clients made it possible for me to do so, and I really like living in LA. I had no intention of spending my declining years in a state that started with a vowel, even if it would be budget-friendly.

So I nosed the Charger out of the garage and headed for the 10.

Parking in Santa Monica sucks just as bas as it does everywhere else in Los Angeles, but there’s a big garage on Second Street (named, with the imagination you’d expect from a city engineer, Parking Structure Eight). It had plenty of parking for a weekday in the spring. I’d have to pay a sizeable chunk of change for the privilege but Arnold was paying expenses so what did I care?

It was a pleasant afternoon for a walk and since I didn’t plan to confront anyone, normally I would have felt energized by it. But someone had killed Mickey’s dog, and he was afraid, and it was entirely possible that even being in the vicinity of Hugh Small’s girlfriend would make me a target of whatever goons were trying to scare Mickey off.

I figured the attack—assuming Mickey was right and it was related to my case—must mean that there was something to hide, and I suspected whatever it was had to be something worse than a mistress. That was bad enough and might be sufficient ammunition to knock him out of the running, but voters were fickle and it was hard to say. It struck me that it would be better for Smalls to distance himself from Marissa, and pay her off so she didn’t blab to the tabloids. Then all he’d have to do was deny, deny, deny.

So why go over the top like that and kill Mickey’s dog? Especially since the information had already been unearthed.

That suggested there was something that hadn’t been unearthed, that Smalls or his campaign wanted to stay buried. I’d have to read Mickey’s report more carefully to see if there were any signs of some other secret Smalls was hiding.

The restaurant was the kind of shacky thing common in Santa Monica—peeling paint and a floor worn into ruts, serving $25 margaritas.

I usually prefer outdoor seating when I can get it, but the server handling the terrace was not the willowy brunette Mickey had described to me. She was a short, energetic blonde so I guessed Marissa had pulled inside duty so I went inside.

She was standing at the long bar near the door, rolling silverware into paper napkins. She gave me a pleasant smile as I drew nearer.

I stopped in my tracks. Her teeth were green. So was her hair. People sometimes do their hair—L’Oreal dye or something like that. But green teeth? That was not a thing.

“You can sit anywhere,” she said, her smile still bright and looking like she’d just eaten a bunch of algae.

The green hair drifted away from her face like seaweed on the tide and I managed to stammer, “Okay, thanks.”

I took a table by the window and watched as she glided over with a menu in hand.

The light from the window caught against the glitter of her skin.

She was covered in scales. Fish scales. Belatedly, I took the menu, the sparks racing along my skin.

Say, are you a mermaid? I had the nearly irresistible urge to ask.

“Can I get you anything to drink?” she asked, still perky.

What did mermaids drink? Salt water? Humans couldn’t but maybe mermaids could.

“Coffee would be good,” I said. “Plain is fine.”

She nodded and walked off on two regular legs, no hint of a tail. Wasn’t there a story about how mermaids could look human? Or was the merman?

Anyway, I remember the story being faintly gruesome, like wearing someone’s skin?

Or maybe she’d had a nice talk with Ursula and traded her voice for the legs. But she’d spoken to me, so it couldn’t be that. Maybe it was her soul or maybe I was imagining things. Maybe sporting green teeth as a new fashion. Maybe painting scale patterns on your skin was a new makeup trend. Maybe she was going to a costume party or was a social media influencer.

I watched as she greeted a paid of diners at the door. Both of them smiled at her and gave no sign that they noticed the green teeth or hair. She showed them to a table and handed over menus, the fluorescent lighting coruscating over her scales.  

Maybe I was the only one who could see her clearly.

That pretty much had to be it, that I could see the actual nature of things. Wasn’t that a treat?

I mean, what use was this kind of stupid pet trick? How did it help me be a witch? What did being a witch even mean? What use was it that I could see she was a mermaid? What was the point?

I sipped water and looked at the menu. On cue, my stomach growled.

She drifted over to my table to take my order. I got the avocado toast—I know, but it’s good—and remembered that I wasn’t here because she was a mermaid, I was her because she was Hugh Smalls’s mistress, or at least she was according to Mickey.

How had that happened, and why? I know young women do it, but schtupping a fifty-something man wasn’t what most twenty-five year old women dream of. Usually he’s got money and Smalls did, but not that much, at least as LA wealth goes, and he had no connection to the movies. Being a film producer or something like that caused some young women to close their eyes and sleep with married men, the promise of stardom overwhelming their common sense.

So I didn’t get it. He wasn’t that attractive and he certainly wasn’t charming, but then maybe he was like a lot of narcissists and could turn it on and off, depending on his audience and personal goals.

I was just chasing the last bite of avocado with a sip of coffee that would keep me up all night but some people never learn, when the bell over the door jangled and a golden god came in, or at least that’s what it seemed like.

He was a young man, perhaps in his early twenties, blond, but more than blond, he brought an aura of sunlight with him. He was wearing board shorts and flip-flops, an open-collared shirt handing from his shoulders, the minimum attire necessary to meet the shoes-and-shirts-required sign posted on the door.

Not that Marissa would have tossed him out for violating it; instead, she flowed into is arms and stuck her tongue down his throat. His hands went immediately to her butt and he demonstrated how happy he was to see her.

Who was this guy? I got my phone out and snapped a few surreptitious pictures while pretending to talk; you get good at subterfuge in my business, but did subterfuge really matter when no one pays attention to middle-aged women? Certainly neither of them were aware of my existence.

Moments before the embraced earned an R rating, Marissa released him and stepped back.

So.

Would you call that cheating on the cheater?

I was pretty sure Hugh Small would think so because despite the fact that he was cheating on his wife, he wouldn’t be able to conceive of the fact that someone else could treat him the same way. I could imagine his rage and self-pity if he found it. But never once would he consider how his wife might feel the same way. These fuckwits are all alike: the rules are for you, not for me.

Golden Boy took a stool at the counter and she brushed a hand against his shoulder as she walked by to great another guest.

My toast was gone and so was my coffee. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do now. Stay a while longer and see what transpired? Corner Marissa and ask why she conspired in the abuse of another woman?

I glanced at the clock above the counter, which brought Golden Boy back into my line of sight. His back twitched, as if he knew I was noticing him, and then he slowly turned his head and looked over his shoulder.

I didn’t look away or pretend I hadn’t been staring. The golden aura was seriously difficult to ignore and I wondered what on earth (or beyond) he was.

His eyes were blue, startling blue, like those of a Siamese cat, and the pupils were like a cat’s too, vertical lines rather than human circles.

I blinked, checked the time, and looked away. He was at least twenty feet away from me and I surely hadn’t seen his pupils from that distance. I was imagining things.

When Marissa came away from seating a group of new diners, I waved a hand to get her attention, then scribbled in the air in the universal sign that I wanted the check. She gave me a remote, unsmiling nod; had she seen me staring at Golden Boy? Did she think I was quietly lusting after him? If I’d been thirty years younger, maybe. But at my age, twenty-something men are barely more than adolescents.

She brought the check and a card reader and I tapped my card and gave my usual tip (twenty percent) and said, as she walked away, just to stir up trouble, “Say hi to Hugh Smalls for me.”

~~~

Jennifer Lawler has been a writer-editor for more than twenty-five years and has published more than forty novels and nonfiction books. She is the founder of the online education company Club Ed LLC.