Lovesick Little Page 4

  “Don’t worry, Arabella,” said the girl on her right, wearing little white nautical shorts with ultra-high red platforms. “You’re the hottest dimepiece on this boat. He’d have to be an absolute crackstar not to invite you over tonight.”

  “Yeah, Arabella,” said the girl to her left, wearing a tight, black bandage dress that was a size too small and required constant adjustment. “Gabriel is as good as yours; there’s definitely no one hotter than you,” she said perfunctorily before blotting her lips in the reflection of a shiny butter knife.

  Arabella sighed. “Well I know all that,” she responded coldly. “What I cannot understand is why he hasn’t yet asked me to marry him when I’ve been throwing myself at him since the fourth grade!” It was true; she had been chasing him since the fourth grade. She made him a gingerbread house that Christmas. He ate it and thanked her. Unbeknownst to him at the time, a tradition was being born in her brain and every year since then, she had sent him another gingerbread house in the spirit of desperately clinging to the one thing she thought they shared.

  As the years went by, her home-crafted gingerbread houses became more and more detailed. They began simply enough as icing- and candy-covered single room cookie shacks but recent years saw them morph into increasingly large, multiple-story gingerbread dream homes. He always thanked her politely, told her she didn’t have to do that, reciprocated with a last-minute box of chocolates he’d fetch out of the stockpile his mom kept in the pantry. He had always managed to circumvent her advances . . . until tonight, it had been decided. She was touring in Japan when her assistant called to tell her she’d received an invitation to his birthday party, and so she cancelled her next two shows and a photo shoot for a Korean soft drink to be on the next flight home to be there. Looking stunning in a perfect red satin gown, she was easily the belle of the ball and had the attention of just about every set of eyes on board, except for the only ones she wanted on her. She had convinced herself that this would be the night she’d make him fall in love with her, and they could finally stop with all of their coy silliness and just get married like she always imagined they would. In her mind, he was already hers, but just didn’t know it yet.

  Her green eyes flickered bitterly as she watched a pretty redhead hug and kiss him a bunch of birthday wishes. She fixated on them so intently that she didn’t even notice Rourke secretly taking pictures of her angry, jealous face on his camera phone to sell to the Hollywood gossip rags.

  “Jealous gorgeous pop star, six o’clock,” said Rourke as he dropped his phone back into his pocket, grabbed a champagne flute off a passing tray and downed its contents like it was Gatorade.

  “I know, I can feel her eyes grilling me,” Gabriel replied. “It’s so awkward; I only invited her because my parents are friends with the Behrensens and I wanted to be polite! I didn’t actually think she’d take time off her sold-out Asian tour just to be here.”

  Rourke looked at him like he was a foolish, naïve person. “Come on, man, of course she’d be here! She’s obsessed with you and that will never stop until you finally give it up to her so she can see that you aren’t actually as wonderful as she’s built you up to be. Until you give in, she’ll never leave you alone. You might as well prepare for a life of being stalked.”

  Gabriel shivered at the thought of getting intimate with her. “I had hoped to hear she was happily married to a foreign monarch or former Backstreet Boy by now. But no, she’s here scaring girls away from talking to me at my own birthday party.”

  Rourke shot his friend an envious, disgusted look. “Well haven’t you got just the direst of problems? Pfft. A sexy international songbird wants you for her boy toy and it distresses you that she refuses to give up on your stubborn ass!” The mermaid glanced back at Arabella through the port hole. She fully understood why Arabella wanted him, but could not at all understand his apparent aversion to her.

  “That’s what’s creepy about the whole thing!” remarked Gabriel. “Arabella could have anyone! And I mean anyone --”

  “BUT SHE WANTS YOU!” howled Rourke passionately. “So hit that! Take that down! God knows why she wants you so bad but she does… love is a strange and messed-up thing!”

  Gabriel shook his head. “It isn’t love; it’s relentless infatuation. I’m about the only thing she ever wanted that her parents couldn’t buy for her.”

  “So let her have you! What have you got to lose?”

  Gabriel looked back over his shoulder to see if she was still watching him and accidentally locked eyes with her for a moment. She smiled casually and waved as if she had just noticed him over there, and hadn’t been planted strategically under the light of a lamp, seductively flipping her hair over her shoulder every time she thought he might look over. She was silly, obsessed and terribly unbalanced, in ways that only pretty girls ever seem to get away with. And she really was very, very pretty. He thought for a moment about what he would really have to lose by just hooking up with her and getting it overwith. Their would-be romance played out in his mind a lot like the plot of Vanilla Sky. He shuddered.

  When he realized his gap-out moment had been spent staring right in her direction, he glanced away awkwardly. She was convinced he was star-struck by her beauty that evening and was just playing shy out of intimidation. He was positive beyond positive that he would never, ever be with her.

  Unfortunately, Arabella never got the picture, for she had a onetrack mind and it was set on him. In honour of his birthday, she had rehearsed a song and dance number with the as-yet unreleased and highly anticipated first single off her third album. This collection of tracks promised to showcase her edgier, more artistic side after a four-year career of peddling bubble gum pop hits. She was sure that after he saw what she had planned for him, he would finally fall for her and they could live happily ever after.

  With Gabriel’s back unacceptably turned to her once again, she decided it was time to go on the offensive. She whispered something into the ears of her minions and, as if they had rehearsed it, the two girls beelined over to Rourke and began flirting with him, sparing no leg or breast in his face to get him over to the dance floor, leaving Gabriel conveniently alone. And vulnerable.

  By the time he realized he was being cornered, it was too late and she was already gliding over to him. She strutted seductively, her voluminous tresses bouncing beautifully as she walked, framing her body from the small of her back up to the top of her face that launched a thousand billboards.

  “I got you something, Gabe,” she said in her sexiest voice, winking at him. His stomach turned.

  “Oh hey there Arabella,” he said, looking around for whomever might save him from her clutches. “A present? For me? You really shouldn’t have. I’m just grateful you could make it; I thought there was no way you could. . .”

  Arabella smiled and flicked her hair again, batting her thick, mascara-clad eyelashes twice. “Well, it’s not exactly that kind of gift,” she began, stepping in closer. “What I have for you is something much more . . . experiential,” she said breathily. He gulped. “Experiential?”

  Smiling brightly, she looked up at him with her big green eyes and then looked away, trying to be intriguing. Then she began to giggle in a way she hoped he’d find to be sexy, cute, mysterious. Her provocative shtick might have proven effective on most other guys in the world, but Gabriel was decidedly immune to her feminine wiles. “Oh, here goes,” he muttered to himself.

  Arabella reached out and brushed his hair out of his eyes. “I don’t want to ruin the surprise, so that’s all I’m telling you for now,” she said in her flirtiest voice, certain she’d planted a seed of mystery. “That said, you better like it or I’ll totally die and then kill your whole family!” He gulped again. Then she clinked her champagne glass with his, kissed his stunned face on the cheek, then turned and walked a few steps. Like she’d been planning to, she walked just far enough in front of him that his eyes would be uncontrollably drawn to her flawless, round booty, for she was
sure it would seal the deal. “See you later, birthday boy,” she cooed as she blew him a kiss and sailed inside. Gabriel briefly considered jumping ship and swimming to shore.

  Better sense prevailed and as he stood by the railing going over his gentle rejection speech, he glanced down at the glittery ocean surface and for a second, he could’ve sworn he saw a white shoulder wading in the dark water. He stood up and narrowed his eyes to better see what it was.

  The mermaid, frightened of being seen, ducked under and hid herself in the shadows. He leaned down and saw nothing out of the ordinary, so he shrugged it off and went back inside to rejoin the party. The mermaid breathed a sigh of relief at having not been seen, and then turned to watch him walk back through his crowds of adoring friends.

  Once Gabriel reached the middle of the dance floor, all of the lights blew out all at once, and everyone froze in silence. When the spotlight switched on and shone down, Arabella stepped up onto the stage and everyone began to clap their hands. She looked demure and theatrical, and was wearing an entirely different outfit than the one she’d been in just moments prior.

  She began to sing her new song. It began slowly, “It was you I hunted, and it was you I claimed, Then you slipped between my fingers, never to be seen again. And the storms within my soul started shaking my foundation I know I said I would love again, but this time with trepidation…”

  As everyone stood still, watching their free performance, winds began to blow harder until two loud thunder claps interrupted her song. Everyone looked out to see that rain was starting to fall, and three lightning bolts touched down around them in a span of six seconds. Big waves began to roll in, and rocked the boat so hard that all the DJ’s equipment slid off the table and went crashing to the floor, causing all sound on the boat to come to an abrupt halt. Everyone looked around startled, then felt the yacht tip beneath their feet even deeper to the side, causing several people on the dance floor to lose their footing and fall. Just then, massive rain clouds seemed to appear out of nowhere and burst all over them, blotting out the bright moon and lashing down with rain. Bigger, scarier waves began smacking wildly against the hull, rocking the respectably sized party yacht as if it was little more than a plastic dinghy.

  The decks were flooded with torrential rain, while lightning bolts put on a pyrotechnics show. Their vessel tried in vain to stay afloat but even over the thunder, the creaking and groaning of the beautiful boat could be heard threatening to bust from the pressure.

  Gabriel and a crewmember went to work untying the life boats and the mermaid followed and watched him, dazzled and confused by the sudden change in the general mood of everyone aboard. Amid the excitement, she completely forgot that the storm had been sent to fetch her, and couldn’t understand why everyone appeared to be so stressed out by the rain, thunder, lightning and high winds when she found them to be such great fun! The little mermaid watched with fascination as everyone hustled around with frightened looks on their faces, scrambling to put puffy orange vests on and fighting for spots on the mini boats. She began to sing her most soothing songs, about the delights to be found at the bottom. She sang sweetly about what would await them if they would just allow the waves to take them under.

  Gabriel was on the other side of the boat now, reaching inside a bench to pull out more life vests when the boat rocked again and knocked a heavy magnum bottle of vodka off the bar shelf. When the bottle dropped, it fell straight down at his head and its blunt base thumped him on the left temple, knocking him backwards. In what felt like slow motion, he fell down the side of the yacht and into the crashing waves. On his way down to the water in the very second before he blacked out, the last things he saw were his friends dressed in their finest, drenched and flailing in gowns and suits, with hair all matted and mascara running down girls’ faces. Between the heavy claps of thunder, terrified screams rang out into the night as everyone abandoned ship in any way they could. The people in lifeboats rowed vigorously through the choppy water and the people in the water kicked and paddled, clinging to their life vests. Everyone was so busy trying not to drown that no one even noticed the little mermaid as she swam between pieces of debris, oblivious to their danger. Gabriel was now under water, sinking lower into the darkness while blood billowed from his forehead.

  As she swam towards him, she continued to sing about the beautiful life that awaited him if he would stay with her in her underwater paradise. How delighted she was! She could not believe her wish was coming true; that the statue of a boy that she’d adored for years was real, and would be coming with her down to her father’s kingdom.

  Then suddenly, she remembered how her grandmother had taught her that humans get their oxygen from the air, and the only way she could bring a human to her father’s kingdom was as a dead man. Refusing to let him die, she swam over to him, grabbed him under his arms, and swam him straight up to the surface so he could breathe. Then she held him tight and swam him far, far away from the wreckage, just as rescue helicopters swooped in to lift his friends to safety.

  She brought him to rest in the sand where they wouldn’t be seen, where a small bush sheltered them from the cool evening wind. The storm had died down, and the once-grand vessel was now reduced to little more than bits of wood and floating furniture scattered on the water. He was there, right there in her arms, and wishes really do come true.

  She put her ear to his mouth; he exhaled and it smelled sweet. With every exhalation, he put goose bumps all over her and she closed her eyes to experience him as the thumping of his heartbeat made her own heart race. She smoothed his dark hair away from his face and inspected the crack on his forehead. Already it was beginning to bruise morbidly; blood was still seeping out, and the red skin around the cut was soggy and torn up.

  She laid herself down beside him with her arm under his neck, letting his heavy, sleeping head rest upon her vernal bosom. Very gently she stroked his rosy cheeks with her fingers and watched his dark eyelashes flutter when the wind blew over him, calm and resting like a child in the arms of a woman he trusts. As much as she wanted him to be alive and well and to eventually wake up, the moment she was sharing with his still, warm body was so precious. With her free hand, she took a lock of her own damp hair and wiped it like a cloth across his face, brushing him clean, turning her pale yellow hair a shade of pink. Then she began to kiss his wound softly but thoroughly until it began to seal up perfectly as if it never was.

  She kissed heartily his eyelids and brow, for the smell of his skin was intoxicating and she surrendered to it. She held her prince closely with her little white arms wrapped protectively around his body, and in this moment, he was her prince, all hers and no one else’s. For as long as she watched over him and they were alone in the night, he belonged to her and she belonged to him and none of the silly details that divided their worlds counted for anything while they lay there in the sand. Her lips quivered as his breath warmed her chest and her chest warmed his face, and she ran her fingers through his raven-colored hair. For a brief second he opened his eyes and they met hers with a surge of electricity, as if they’d retained a bit of fire from the lightning storm. Her cheeks flushed red as she absorbed his brief but warm glance. In that second, she felt all the light and love in all the world flow into her, as if her entire life had been leading up to this. From somewhere deep inside, she felt herself begin to vibrate on a whole new frequency, an awakening that had her heart fluttering like a hummingbird’s wings. He drifted off again, closing his eyes and slipping back to whatever beautiful place his mind was taking him. While she lay beside him, adoring everything about him she could see, she struggled to breathe quietly while her heart pumped so violently.

  She stayed there with him all through the night, cradling him as he slept, feeling his chest rise and fall with every breath and praying that her time with him would never end. The dark night was their canopy and she wished it would shield them forever. But as it often does, dawn came all too fast with its sudden dose of reality; i
t would soon be time for goodbye, and time to slip away into her own world.

  Oh, how she wanted him to see her! As the morning’s first rays glimmered upon her milky white skin for the first time, she wished for nothing more than for him to see her. What good, she wondered, were all her charms and beauties if the only one she wanted couldn’t appreciate them? She looked down and compared their lower halves; he was born to walk on land and she was born to roam the seas. As long as he had legs and she had a tail, love between them would be impossible. Suddenly, the notion dawned on her that perhaps her lifelong, previously inexplicable infatuation with the world above actually made perfect sense: had she been searching for Gabriel all along?

  As the morning warmed up, she felt the pull of her underwater home tugging at her, knowing that soon he might wake and not understand what she was. Beginning to miss him already, she leaned in to kiss him one last time when suddenly, she felt a thundering rumble approaching from down the beach. Terrified, she pulled away from him and slid back into the water, jumping behind some big rocks to hide.

  When she looked up, she saw a white horse galloping down the beach towards Gabriel’s motionless body. He looked quite dead as he lay there in the sand, allowing shallow waves to push up over him in his tattered suit. The little mermaid was amazed at the sight of the swift and muscular white beast, realizing she had seen one just like it before, carved into the old walls of her father’s palace. How elegant the creature was . . . and there was a girl riding up on its back!

  The thundering she had heard before was just the beast’s hooves as they pounded the wet sand, gallivanting forward. The girl looked savagely beautiful, with her dark hair blowing wildly in the wind as she rode the brown leather saddle in denim shorts and a ripped t-shirt, her worn-out leather boots gripping the stirrups. She clutched the reins tightly and absorbed every gallop in perfect unison with the pace of her mare, recklessly speeding together down the beach, as if making an epic getaway. When she spotted Gabriel lying in the sand, she pulled back on the reins and her mare reared at the sight of him, coming to an abrupt halt. Startled and unsure, the girl jumped down and tiptoed toward the body, praying with all her might that she hadn’t just stumbled upon a corpse. She had never stumbled upon a corpse before, but she was pretty sure something like that could easily ruin her day.