My first attempt at making sushi for Galen sucks. The rice won’t stick to the seaweed in some places, which looks like bald patches. The body of it looks chunky here, skinny there because I didn’t cut the cucumber thinly enough and the avocado is too mushy to stay in place.
So my California Roll resembles a balding snake that swallowed a toy train. And now I have to slice it up into recognizable little squares and hope Galen believes it’s the same thing that Rachel used to fix him.
I raise the knife, ready to massacre my masterpiece, when I hear the sliding glass door in my living room open behind me. It could be anyone except Galen; he’s in Saturday detention for fighting in school. In his defense, he tried not to brawl. He really did. He bumped into the guy on accident, and the guy took all kinds of offense. I was so proud of how patient Galen was about the whole thing. He didn’t even throw the first punch. But the guy was bent on fighting. And while Galen didn’t start it, he did finish it. With finesse, I might add. Which is why he has not one Saturday detention, but two. So until four thirty this afternoon, I have to entertain myself.
Rayna pulls up a barstool beside me at the counter, wrapped in one of our many beach towels and dripping salt water on the counter where she reaches for my leftover crab meat. She eyes my creation warily. “It smells right,” she says. “But it looks funny.”
“But you’d still eat it?”
She sniffs. “Is that the fake crab meat?”
“You tell me.”
She pops a piece into her mouth and chews slowly. “It’s fake.”
“Nope. It’s real.”
“Then something’s wrong with it. It’s not fresh.”
By fresh, she means that I didn’t catch it, murder it, and mutilate it myself in the last half hour. I set the knife down, too unsettled to cut into the roll just yet. “It is fresh. I got it from the grocery store.”
“Galen likes fresh. Real fresh.”
“Galen is going to eat this, I promise you.” There’s a trick I learned while babysitting Chloe’s younger brother. When he didn’t want to take his medicine, I spooned it into his mouth, then blew in his face, which causes a person to reflexively swallow.
I’m quite certain this tactic works on Triton princes as well.
She raises a doubtful brow.
“What are you doing here anyway? Where’s Toraf?”
She shrugs. “We’re fighting. And I need to use your computer thing.”
I nod to the couch where my laptop is snuggled into the throw blanket. I’d been doing some online shopping. My favorite new thing is to dress Galen. And he doesn’t even put up much of a fight about it. “What do you need it for?”
Rayna seats herself and opens the laptop while I wrap the roll in foil. I’ll slash it up later. I don’t want to do it in front of know-it-all Rayna, and I’ve lost my confidence to do it right now anyway. Maybe when I open it again, it will miraculously be the sterling example of what a California roll should be. I put it in the fridge and walk over to the couch, plopping down beside her.
“What are you doing?”
She’s all concentration. “I’m looking at the sail dates for the cruise lines.”
Of course. Because fish princesses love to go on cruises. “Okey-dokey then.”
Rayna turns to me. “You never know what those stupid humans are going to throw overboard.”
“Mostly trash, I’m guessing.”
“Sometimes. But sometimes it’s treasure. Stuff you wouldn’t believe.”
To Rayna, a plastic comb could be treasure. “Try me.”
She’s getting excited, I can tell. These are the only times when Rayna looks truly innocent; when she’s talking about her human treasures. “A lot of times they toss in those gold dollar things. Rachel told me they do that for good luck. Idiots. I have like a million of those or something.” She pecks at the keyboard with one finger, leaning in to scan the screen. “One time someone tossed a ring overboard, a real diamond ring. I showed it to Rachel and she just couldn’t believe someone would do that. She thought maybe they didn’t mean to, but I told her I saw them do it. It was a man and a woman, and they took it off her finger, threw it into the ocean, and laughed when it hit the water.”
“Celebrating a divorce, probably.”
She turns to me. “A what?”
“A divorce. It’s when humans who are married decide they don’t want to be married anymore.”
“An unsealing then.”
“Pretty much.”
She nods, referring back to the computer screen. “So that man must have been her new mate. You think? Oh, here’s one that sailed yesterday from Charleston, going to the Bahamas. We should hit that one.”
“We? Are you inviting me to come along?”
She ignores my question, and points to the screen which now displays a map of the Atlantic Ocean. “According to their itinerary, they should be about here. We could get there within a few hours if we catch the current.”
I’m already texting Galen, telling him I’ll be home late tonight.
He texts back: Should I be worried?
Probably, but admitting that would just complicate things, so I just explain: Going to hunt down cruise ships with Rayna.
Galen isn’t happy: Toraf is going, right?
Me: Ummmm
Galen: Give me the odds.
This is the short way we use to end a potential argument. He simply asks me what the odds are that I can be swayed to not do whatever it is we’re talking about, and if I give him too high a figure, he’ll usually drop it.
I try not to be too pushy, but I don’t see the harm in this outing. I mean, Rayna does this a lot and she always comes back in one piece. What can’t I just follow along for fun? And everyone knows Galen is just a tad overprotective, which is probably all this is right now.
He doesn’t really not want me to go, he just would rather I went with him. Which isn’t an option, because this is the week he chose to bust some guy’s lip open at school.
Me: I really would like to go.
Just when I think we might have to actually argue, he gets back to me: Have fun, angelfish. Be careful.
Sweet. “What should I bring?” I say, struggling to pull myself up from the butt-gobbling seat cushion. We’ve needed a new couch for a while.
“I’ve been taking a pillow case.”
“I’ll get one from the spare bedroom.” Mom’s not going to love that, but I’ll put it back. If all goes well.
