Mermaids of Glendale - a novel

Chapter 26

“Kitt?” called Lorna, her voice echoing through the wide and deserted entrance hall at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. “Are you here?”

In the past week couple of weeks, Jimmy had returned to work at Lorna’s father’s pet store, O’Shene Aquatic & Avian, and together he and Lorna kept the store operating. During his continued absence, recovering from his heart attack, Patrick O’Shene had promoted Jimmy to acting store manager. In his own way, Jimmy was slowly on a road of recovery himself.

“Kitt?” repeated Lorna. Her voice echoed in the cavernous space, rising to the massive fiberglass blue whale suspended from the ceiling, then diving down into water tanks and swimming amongst a shoal of clown fish, a cloud of porcupine puffers, a herd of seahorses.

Lorna had been keeping busy with the pet store and Kitt had been more than understanding. He had, in fact, been keeping busy himself, still working on data collected during their expedition to Guadalupe Island, in addition to curating a new forthcoming exhibit at the Aquarium; one which was replacing the recently retired Mermaids exhibit which had been in place when Lorna had first met Dr. Kittridge Dawson – the man she loved like she never knew such love was possible; unconditional and complete.

Earlier that afternoon, following a slow day at the pet store and then leaving it in Jimmy’s experienced and capable hands, Lorna went home to her apartment in the Atwater Village neighborhood of Glendale, showered, dressed and returned to her car. She headed southeast on the Golden State Freeway, then hit Long Beach Freeway and followed it south, parallel to the winding concrete basin of the Los Angeles river, driving towards the sea and to the Aquarium.

Kitt had called Lorna and asked if she would like to come down to preview the new exhibit that evening, after hours.

“We’ll have the place more or less to ourselves,” he had said, which sent a delicious thrill through Lorna, from her scalp and on down her body to her hips, her legs, on down into her toes, a familiar tingling not unlike that which heralded her transformation.

Lorna, however, had not transformed in over two weeks; not since that time with Jimmy in the alley behind her apartment building.

“Can I help you, miss?” asked a voice behind Lorna. She spun around to see a security guard in a light blue uniform, his belt crowded by a radio, a flashlight, a large ring of jangling keys.

“Oh,” said Lorna, a little startled, but then realized that the guard’s presence made perfect sense. The Aquarium was huge and, in addition to the constant presence of security, it made sense that there would be other staff on site, too – marine veterinarians and custodial staff, at least. “Hi.”

“Hello, miss,” said the security guard, the name plate on his chest read Sanderson. “Can I help you? The Aquarium is closed for the day, I was just about to lock the main doors but you beat me to it. We re-open tomorrow morning at nine a.m.”

“I’m here to meet Kitt – I mean, I have an appointment with Dr. Dawson,” said Lorna.

“Ah,” said Sanderson, with a snap of his fingers. “You must be Miss O’Shene. Dr. Dawson said you’d be coming. You’ll find him upstairs in the Northern Pacific gallery.”

“Thank you.”

“Have a good evening, miss,” said Sanderson, reaching up and touching the brim of his peaked cap, its stylized silver Aquarium logo in the shape of a wave glinting in the blue reflected light.

Lorna walked the length of the Great Hall, into the shadow beneath the blue whale. It was here she saw a note on the floor. A square Post-It note with a familiar message written in black marker pen and in the same handwriting: