The Mermaids of Lake Michigan by Suzanne Kamata

Author:Suzanne Kamata [Kamata, Suzanne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781942545590
Publisher: Wyatt-MacKenzie
Published: 2017-02-14T00:00:00+00:00

When the letter from Kalamazoo College arrived, I sat on the edge of my bed for a long time, holding the unopened envelope. My heart pounded as I slit the envelope with my fingernail. I extracted the letter, noted the soft creamy vellum, breathed in the aroma of ink.

“Dear Ms. Faulkner,” I read. “We are pleased to accept your application to Kalamazoo College...” I let the letter fall to my lap. Inexplicable tears filled my eyes. Months ago, this letter would have made me jump up and down. When I had been yearning to fling myself into the arms of adventure, I’d thought of college as my big getaway. But now that I was having such a good time, now that Chiara was my friend, I wasn’t so sure.

I told Chiara the news that evening as we sat in her room, textbooks spread open on the floor, Billie Holiday’s voice bleeding from the stereo speakers.

“That’s great,” she said. “Congratulations. I’ve heard Kalamazoo College is really cool. They have a great foreign study program. You’ll meet lots of interesting people.”

We were supposed to be studying for a French midterm, but Chiara was busy painting her toenails.

“Why don’t you apply there, too?” I asked, suddenly hopeful. “We could be roommates.”

She blew on her toenails, then held them up for my inspection. I nodded and smiled, but I was impatient to hear her answer.

“I don’t think so, Elise. I’m not planning on going to college. At least not right away.”

It had never occurred to me that she wouldn’t be going at all. She was the brightest person I knew at Grand Haven High School. “What are you going to do, then?” I asked.

“I think I’ll try being a writer,” she said. “For that, I need life experience.”

I thought she had enough of that already. “Will you at least apply?” I was nagging, but I felt desperate. What would I do without her? Who would be my guide?

She finally agreed to fill out the forms, but I could tell she was humoring me. Well, there was still time to make her change her mind.

“What about you?” she asked. “What do you want to be?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. When I was little I wanted to be a mermaid hunter.”

Anyone else might have made fun of me, but Chiara nodded as if it was a logical career choice. “Tell me more.”

“The idea came from my great-grandmother,” I said. “Once, when she came up from being underwater, she told everyone that she’d seen a mermaid. Some people said that she’d probably seen a dead body floating around, or a fish, but she insisted.”

“Do you believe she saw a mermaid?”

“I’d like to,” I said with a smile. “I’ve read that people hallucinate when they’re deprived of oxygen, so it was probably something like that. My grandmother, of course, believes that her delusion was more proof that she was crazy and unfit to be a mother. I guess that makes her feel better about having lost her mom.”

Chiara got quiet, and I wondered if she was thinking about her mother, if she was missing her parents.

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