Pretty in Pearls: A Forgive My Fins Novella (HarperTeen Impulse) (6 page)

“That makes it worse,” I say with a sigh. “You’re only messing with my love life because Quince is on the mainland visiting his mom.”

“That’s not true.”

I cross my arms and raise my brows.

“Okay, maybe it’s a little bit true,” she relents. “I just want you to be happy. Quince is hoping to be back in time for the dance. If I get to go with the boy of my dreams, you should too.”

When she puts it like that, I almost want to let her try.

She means well. She’s so ecstatically happy with Quince, I know she just wants to help me find that same happiness. But sometimes her plans are a little misguided.

“I don’t want to play any games,” I say. “If he doesn’t like me—” When Lily opens her mouth to argue, I correct, “If he
can’t
like me, then he can’t like me.”

“Fine,” she says. “I shouldn’t have interfered.”

“I know you’re just trying to help, but this is something I have to figure out on my own.”

“Understood.” She grins at me. “You should still go out with Lom. He’s a sweetie, and you two have a lot in common.”

I give her a wry smile. “Not today.”

She nods before turning and swimming out of the kitchen. “Come on, Lom. Time to go.”

“Nice to meet you,” he says, his voice carrying through the house as Lily drags him to the door.

Make Riatus jealous? What a ridiculous idea.

I can’t fall asleep. My mind keeps going over everything that has happened in the past few days. From following Riatus to the edge of the kingdom to seeing him at the market today, and then Lily bringing a nerdy merboy to my house.

I should be able to relax knowing that everything is settled. That I might as well give up on my crush on Riatus because that’s all it will ever be, and that Lily won’t try any more crazy schemes to make him jealous. I hope.

But my mind won’t let it go.

There is an old mer saying that goes,
If you fall off the sea horse, you have to get right back on and try again
. That might be just the advice I need to get past this thing about Riatus.

If he is the sea horse I fell off of, then maybe I need to try another sea horse. Okay, that analogy went really bad very quickly, but the general meaning is sound. I need to go on a date. Not to make Riatus jealous—if that was even possible—but for me.

I mean, there’s nothing wrong with Lom. In fact, beneath that nerdy exterior is . . . well, a nerdy interior, but he was sweet. Nerdy can be adorable sometimes.

And Lily did say we have things in common.

She had the motive wrong, but maybe she had the right idea.

I flip out of bed and kick over to my desk. I pull out my old bubble machine, the one Lily and I used to use to send messages back and forth between my bedroom and hers when we were little. I scribble a quick message to Lily on a little sheet of stationery.

I need to move on. Do you think Lom still wants to go out?

A few seconds later, I’ve popped the message into the pale blue bubble and I’m shooting it across the open water toward the palace.

This could be some kind of stupid rebound reaction. Or it could be exactly what I need to get over Riatus.

A few minutes later, a bright pink bubble floats in my window and lands on the center of my bed. I swim over, pop it, and pull out the message inside.

Of course he does! I’ll talk to him tomorrow.

Okay, the plan is in action. Now I just need to get my mind—and my heart—to follow through.

    
6

I
don’t know why I set up this date. I don’t know why I ever possibly even considered that this might be a good idea.

But I did and now, in less than two minutes, Lom is going to show up at my door and take me out. On a date.

Some people might think it’s pathetic that after more than seventeen years of life under the ocean, I’ve never gone out with a boy before, and maybe it is. It’s not that I haven’t had offers before. A few merboys have asked me out over the years, but I never really wanted to say yes. When your parents had a true love match and you can see what that’s really like—when you see your mom still loyal to him even years after he’s gone—then that makes your standards really high, I guess.

And then there’s the little matter of being in love—or believing myself to be in love—with Riatus since forever. What ordinary merboy stands a chance against a pirate?

The fact that I am now, at seventeen, about to go on my first date isn’t all that awful. The horrible part is that I still wish I were going with someone else.

“It’s wrong,” I say to Lily. “I’m using him. It’s not fair.”

“It’s one date, Peri.” She fusses with my hair. “Not a bonding ceremony. You’re allowed to go on a date.”

“I guess, but it still feels—”

Ding, gong, ding.

My eyes widen. “He’s here.”

“Relax,” Lily says, swimming to the door. “Just have a good time. Don’t think of it as a
date
.”

“Then what?”

“I don’t know.” She grins as she grabs the handle. “A
not
date.”

I frown at her.

My heart is racing as she opens the door and lets Lom inside. He is wearing—I am not joking—a suit jacket and a tie. I glance down at the fluttery top Lily helped me pick out. I look like I’m going on a picnic. He looks like he’s going to the opera.

Oh yeah, totally a
not
date.

If I were the kind of mergirl who went for nerdy cute, he would probably be my type.

“You look very pretty, Miss Wentletrap,” he says, his head bowed a little.

“You look, um, nice too, Lom. And please”—I give Lily a this-is-so-wrong look—“call me Peri.”

It’s a good thing Mom is busy in her studio. She would find this absolutely hilarious. Or horrifying. Either way, I just want to get out of here and get this over with.

“Come on, Lom,” I say, grabbing his arm and swimming for the door. “Let’s go.”

“Bye,” Lily calls after us. “You kids have fun.”

I throw one last angry-worried look over my shoulder and see Lily waving at me with a dreamy look on her face. She thinks this is so romantic. I think it’s going to be a nightmare.

“I have our date all planned,” Lom says, seemingly oblivious to the fact that I’m dragging him away from my house at breakneck speed.

See,
he’s
thinking of it as a date.

“Oh yeah?” I ask absently.

Lily promised she would tell Lom this was just a casual thing. So he wouldn’t think this was anything more than new friends hanging out.

She and I are going to have a serious conversation about promises and meddling in other mergirls’ personal lives.

“It’s a perfect plan,” he says. “But it’s a secret. You’ll have to wait and see.”

“Great,” I say, because I think I have to.

But as we swim toward downtown, the rock in the pit of my stomach gets heavier and heavier. It’s obvious that Lom is really excited and he’s just going to end up getting his feelings hurt. But he seems like a nice guy and, who knows, maybe I’ll have fun. I need to stop being so worried about this and just have a good time.

“The first stop,” he says, “is the Thalassinian Marketplace. Have you ever been?”

The rock in my stomach turns into a boulder.

“Yeah,” I reply. “I’ve been.”

“It’s one of my favorite places in the kingdom,” he says. “Do you have a favorite stall?”

I used to. But now even the thought of going near Paru’s Pearls makes me nauseous. What was I thinking going out on this date? Clearly I am emotionally imbalanced.

“No,” I say, “I like them all.”

“Well, I do,” Lom says. “And that will be our final stop at the end of the tour.”

I force a smile. “Sounds good.”

I can do this. I can be just a girl out on a date having fun. I don’t have to be tied up in knots about some complicated boy who doesn’t know what he wants or doesn’t want. I can swim through the market without freaking out. Besides, we might not even go anywhere near his stall. It is a really big market, after all.

It turns out that Lom and I do have a lot in common—more than Lily knew. We both love kelpberry cakes. We both think tentacles are the most disgusting things in the sea. And we are both interested in the law, although he will probably go directly to law school after his internship with the king, and I’m content to work on the diplomatic side for a while.

The only problem is that after two hours of floating around the market, tasting samples and window-shopping, I know we’ll never be more than friends. It’s not that I don’t like him—I just don’t like him
that way
. Mom always says she knew Dad was the one from the first moment she saw him. I know just as surely that Lom isn’t the one.

Besides, as much as I want to say I’m done with Riatus, that I’m over him and I’ll never think of him again, I know that’s not true. Some part of me—probably a larger part than I want to admit—is still hung up on him.

As Lom and I drift away from the stall full of giant conch shells, I know I need to tell him that there’s no romantic future for us.

“Hey, Lom,” I say as we swim down the aisle, “I’m having a really good time.”

He turns and smiles so big that his cheeks push his glasses up. “Me too.”

“I think you should know—”

“Hey, we’re down to the last stop on my itinerary.” He takes my hand and starts swimming faster. “It’s my favorite stall in the whole market.”

I have to start kicking just to keep up. He seems really excited, which makes it all the more urgent I tell him.

“Listen, Lom—”

“It’s just down this aisle,” he says. “And I’m going to buy you a souvenir from our first date.”

Oh no. That’s exactly what I’m worried about. That he thinks this is a first date, not an only date. Not a hanging-out-with-a-new-friend thing.

But as I open my mouth to tell him, he turns to face me and says, “I hope you like pearls.”

My mouth snaps shut.

Oh no. Worst idea ever. Worst. Idea.
Ever
.

I should say something. I should tell him I hate pearls or I’m allergic or my obsessive ex-boyfriend works the stall. I should say
something
.

But my tongue is frozen to the roof of my mouth and I let Lom lead us toward doom.

I’m tempted to close my eyes. Maybe if I imagine I’m somewhere else, some previously unknown mermaid magic will pop me there.

Unfortunately, the first thing that comes to mind is the Black Kelpforest, and there is no way I want to end up there again—even if it means discovering some new magical power. So my eyes pop open and I brace myself.

I scan the stall, looking for the telltale scarf and black hair. I don’t see it.

Riatus isn’t there.

But Coral is.

Her dark curls bounce as she swims over. “Peri,” she cries, pulling me into a tight hug. “It’s been a few days.”

“Hi, Coral,” Lom says from behind me.

“Lom?” She releases me and gives me a questioning look. “Do you two know each other?”

“We do now,” he says. “It’s our first date.”

Coral’s jaw drops. “Date?”

I shake my head, but Lom speaks before I have a chance to say anything, to explain anything.

“The princess set us up.” He gives me a toothy grin and I have to fight the urge to roll my eyes.

Coral glances from me to Lom and back again. She might be young, but she’s not stupid. I can see in her eyes—a familiar pale gray—that she understands exactly what’s going on here. I start to give her a pleading look, but then I stop myself. What do I have to explain? What do I have to apologize for? Riatus pushed me away, not the other way around.

As if she can totally hear my internal monologue, Coral nods sagely. “Okay, then. Well, let me know if you need anything.”

She winks at me—just like her brother. Then, with a flick of her tail fin, she’s sailing across the stall to greet another customer.

“Come on,” Lom says, pulling me toward a display of exotic black pearls. “Help me choose.”

I float over to the barrel and study the contents. I need to tell Lom this will be our only date, but he seems to be having such a good time. Maybe I should wait until it’s over. That’s probably the nice thing to do.

The pearls in this barrel are so dark and shiny and beautiful that I can’t help digging my hand into them.

“Do you have pierced ears?” Lom asks. “I was thinking a pair for you and one for me.”

He chooses a large pearl and holds it up to his left earlobe.

“I’m going to get it pierced as soon as my internship is over.”

I giggle at the thought of Lom with a black pearl stud in his ear. It’s so different than his clean-cut, nerdy merboy look. Thick, black glasses and a black pearl stud. On some guys the stud would look tough. If Riatus had one it would give him even more of an edge, like he’s daring anyone to say something about the girly pearl in his ear.

On Lom it just looks adorable.

“I think it’s a great idea,” I say, reaching forward to nudge the pearl down his ear to a better position. “You definitely should.”

A shadow passes over us, blocking out some of the light from behind. Lom looks over my shoulder and smiles.

He holds up the pearl. “How much is this one?”

I expect Coral to answer.

When the voice is male, my spine stiffens.

“Fifty.”

I sense movement and a second later Riatus is floating next to us. At first I’m frozen, stunned to see him after thinking he wasn’t here. But then I see the intimidating look on his face. He’s scowling at Lom, like he wants to take him out behind the market and beat the carp out of him.

Where does he get off?

I float closer to Lom’s side and paste a thrilled smile on my face.

Grabbing a pair of black pearls from the bin, I hold them up to my lobes. “How much for a pair?”

Riatus’s eyes narrow.

“For those?” His mouth kicks up to one side. “Eighty-five.”

“That’s not bad,” Lom says.

Riatus adds, “Each.”

Lom’s face falls. “Oh.”

I drop the pearls back into the barrel. “That’s okay,” I say, my eyes focused on Riatus. “I’m kind of over pearls anyway.”

“Yeah,” Lom says, adding his to the pile. “Me too.”

He seems completely oblivious to the tension hanging in the water between me and Riatus. He’s a sweet guy, but definitely clueless.

Riatus floats closer to me. “Oh really?”

“Yes.” I lift my chin. “Pearls are just too . . . complicated for me.”

His pale gaze dips to my collarbone and then back up. “Are they?”

The urge to reach up and cover the copper pearl pendant hanging beneath my throat is almost overwhelming. But I resist. I won’t give him the satisfaction.

I want to turn the tables.

Reaching up behind my neck, I start to unhook the chain. Riatus’s hand is around my wrist before I can even locate the clasp.

“Don’t.” His voice is low and urgent.

I suck in a breath. His jaw muscles twitch and his eyes spear into mine. A moment passes between us, but for the life of me I can’t figure out what it is.

Like I said, complicated.

“Do you two know each other?” Lom asks.