The Summer of Chasing Mermaids Read Online Free Page A

U.S. president a while back.
    â€œYou must be Elyse. I’m Andy, Andy Kane,” he said, not waiting for an answer about Christian. He smelled like mint and expensive cologne and just beneath that, the faint odor of cigarettes.
    Behind me, Vanessa and Kirby continued their good-natured teasing, sipping their daiquiris. All around us, party guests drank and laughed, nibbling cheese and those eraser-shrimp from small plates, and this man’s eyes were on my scar. I could feel them, behind their glassy politeness, burning through my shell necklace.
    â€œWhat . . . um . . . what . . .”
    What happened. Ask me what happened. Ask me why I can’t speak.
    â€œWhat can I get you to drink?” He pointed at me again. “Coke? Seltzer?”
    I held up my glass, still half-full of strawberry-banana daiquiri.
    â€œYou’re all set, then. Good.”
    I nodded.
    â€œSo. I understand we’re going to be neighbors,” he said.
    I nodded.
    â€œFor the whole summer, that right?”
    Nodded, nodded.
    It was getting pretty awkward, me waiting for Andy Andy Kane to say what he wanted to say, him going on not saying it. I tried to extract myself, edging back toward Kirby and Vanessa. Somehow he kept finding more words.
    â€œHave you met the rest of my family?” he asked, looking around. “I don’t know when he’ll grace us with his presence, but Christian’s my oldest, the birthday boy. Just finished up his freshman stint at Stanford. Sebastian’s the little guy, he’s running around here somewhere. Meredith, my wife? I know she’d love to say hello.”
    The way he talked about them felt like a sound bite, a clean arrangement of words he’d mastered but never really meant.
    Silence was a fishhook, catching secrets and tugging them from beneath the surface. Since losing the ability to speak, I’d learned to observe, to watch and listen when others had all but forgotten my presence. In ways I’d never noticed before, I’d seen bodies defy words, how a person’s eyes and hands revealed truths their mouths were trying so desperately to deny.
    More than a stolen smoke break, Mr. Kane was hiding something. An old wound, perhaps. Some thinly concealed resentment.
    â€œShall we?” His arm was extended in front of him, and it took me a beat to realize he wanted me to lead the way into the gallery, to find and meet his family.
    His wife, however, was on her way to meet us.
    With one hand glued to her phone, Meredith Kane power-walked across the gallery. When she reached us, she smiled at me without showing her teeth, then looked at her husband.
    â€œI can’t get ahold of him,” she said. In a sleek brunette bun, crisp white blouse, and navy dress pants, she looked even more polished than her husband. Kirby had told me that both Kanes ran their own tech businesses from home—he had started some big-deal social networking platform, and she built websites for other tech companies. Wherever the Kanes went, it was clear that the work went with them. Even to their son’s birthday party.
    â€œDid you start with him again?” Mrs. Kane asked. “Because I thought we agreed this morning—”
    â€œMeredith.” His eyes flicked to me, then back to his wife, pleading. “Can we not—”
    â€œSo check this out,” Vanessa said. She came around the front of the island and stepped between us. It was like she hadn’t heard them bickering, just hopped up on a barstool, legs dangling. “At school this year, my friends and I caused some major capital- D drama. It was in the paper and all, and one of the reporters gotsnarky and called us—ready?—feminist killjoys. Direct quote.”
    Vanessa tossed her long, chestnut hair over her shoulders. She kept her eyes on me as she laughed at the story, but the look was as friendly and curious as ever, assessing but not