The Ingenue by Rachel Kapelke-Dale

Author:Rachel Kapelke-Dale
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

Chapter 14

“It’s very simple,” said the Sea Witch. “All you have to do to become human is to give up your voice.”

The Little Mermaid bit her lip.

“But my voice—” she said. “My voice is how I tell people where my boundaries are. My voice is how I set limits. No. You can take anything you like, but I won’t let you take away my voice.”

—FAIRY TALES FOR LITTLE FEMINISTS:

THE LITTLE MERMAID, EVELYN HARPER KREIS

June 1997

Saskia was fourteen, and Patrick was a song she couldn’t get out of her head. He was the bass line echoing through everything she did for a week. Brushing her teeth, he was there. Doing her homework, he was there. At the piano—he was always, always there.

And on Saturday, she waved goodbye to Carrie and walked the six blocks down Downer to the address of the studio he’d given her. But it was funny, as she checked the note again—the address was actually two blocks south of the commercial strip, it wasn’t a professional studio at all. So where was she going?

The address, when she reached it, turned out to be an apartment building. Turn-of-the-century red brick, bracketing a central courtyard. Her whole body was lit up with a kind of buzzing, an excitement and a something else, and her breath was coming out shaky. She did her pre-performance breathing exercises to slow it as she found his name, listened closely to his garbled instructions, and followed them up to the third floor, the top floor. The final door on the left, his door, was already cracked open by the time she reached the top. She knocked anyway, knuckles brushing tentatively against the wood. After all, what if she’d got it wrong? What if it wasn’t his?

And then the door swung open and there he was.

He filled up almost the whole frame, he was so tall. After a week of imagining him, there was a hyper-realness to his presence that unnerved her. She’d forgotten about how tan he was, though summer had just begun. About the vague smell of photo chemicals he emitted, sweet and tangy. About the way his eyes disappeared into sunbursts as he smiled.

The way they did then.

“Saskia Kreis,” he said, and stepped back to let her pass. “Come in, come in.”

The apartment was an extension of his office: the same black-and-white photos, the same type of framed album covers. Though here, the Dylan wasn’t Blonde on Blonde but instead The Basement Tapes. To its side, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Bruce Springsteen, the Rolling Stones.

“You really like old music, huh,” she said.

“I mean,” he said, laughing in that low growl that sent vibrations through her, “it’s not the Spice Girls.”

She put all of the acid she could muster into her voice. “Like I would listen to the Spice Girls.”

“So what do you listen to?”

He walked into the open kitchen area, and she turned to follow him. Felt stupid standing there all of a sudden and hopped up on a stool. The wicker of the seat cut into the backs of her legs, and she pulled her skin away.

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