CHAPTER ONE

"Marina Kingston?"

The voice was cheerful, professional, and quite bored. Butterflies performing impressive acrobatics in my stomach, I stood.

"That's me."

"Great. Come stand up here on the stage, please."

I handed the woman my quickly-typed resume, which she glanced over. Even I had to admit that it wasn't impressive. Two school plays, one in which I'd performed as a rabbit and another in which I was the queen's handmaid that waxed loquacious about the joys of recycling. In addition, I had been in a rather mediocre high school choir that I hadn't even had to audition for, because the director was so desperate for anyone who was willing to be in it. I didn't mention that last part, of course. I had a head shot attached to the resume, which was slightly better but far from professional --- a friend had taken several pictures and we'd picked the best one. Still, everyone started somewhere. Not that I wanted to "make it big" or anything. This play was something to do, something to get my mother to stop suggesting that I get involved in some extra-curricular activities. I wasn't sure whether she was concerned for my welfare or just wanted to make sure I wasn't in trouble while at the same time keeping me out of her hair. It might have been a harsh thought for a daughter to have, for as far as parents go, she'd been perfectly responsible and kinder than many --- I was adopted as a baby, and I supposed these qualities were pretty much requisite --- but I had never felt especially close to her, and she usually seemed to not know what to do with me. My dad had been different, but his memory was fading now --- he'd died from cancer when I was seven. Ten years can make memories as distant and elusive as snowflakes sometimes.

"Okay, go whenever you're ready," the woman said. I nodded, paused to remember what I was doing, and launched into my monologue. It was short, and when I was done she nodded in a bland way, first to me and then to the accompanist on the piano, and again told me to go ahead.

The song was from "Fiddler On The Roof," called "Far From the Home I Love." It was very pretty, and I sounded, I thought, pretty. Nothing special. I glanced down at the casting director. Clearly she disagreed. As far as she was concerned, "awful" wouldn't cover it. Her jaw was slightly slack, and eyebrows were raised in horrified shock. I faltered a bit --- nothing for the nerves like a good dose of realizing how horrible you sound --- and considered stopping right there. I'd read somewhere that you shouldn't do that, thought, and maybe she'd give me a small part with no singing if I managed to have grace under pressure. Or something.

At long last, I fell silent. She, and the man next to her, were both gaping. It was getting very embarrassing, very fast. I waited, feeling my face get red. Finally, the casting director opened her mouth.

"Well," she said. "Well." She blinked a few times. It was like hearing from some adult how "nice" your picture is, when you know full well that it's a piece of crap. I waited, and she said, "Thank you very much. You should be... You'll be hearing from us soon."

I thanked her politely, and made fast tracks out of there. I'd been an idiot to even try this. On my way out of the building, I heard a male voice saying, "Wait."

I stopped and glanced back. Yes, someone was looking at me. A very attractive someone.

"You talking to me?" I said.

"Yeah, I am," the guy said. Nice eyes. "Was that you in there?"

I nodded, feeling the embarrassment creep up again. They could hear you from out here.

"You're good," he said, with an approving nod. I froze, digested what he'd said, and then managed a smile.

"Thanks."

"Good luck."

"Yeah, you, too."

The air was cold on the way home and my jacket was thin, but I turned away from the road home and headed down to the beach. We'd moved here to Maine a year or so earlier, and having lived most of my life in Colorado, it was the first I'd ever seen the sea. I had immediately fallen in love. There was something about the pounding waves, the hugeness of it all, and its utter unpredictability that entranced me. My mother liked it as well, but, for some reason, didn't like my going down there alone. Not that that stopped me, of course --- I was a pretty un-rebellious teenager, and claimed going to sit by the water alone as one of my few marks of adolescence.

The wind whipped my hair around, and I perched on one of the several boulders that lined part of the water. The beach was entirely deserted now --- tourists were scarce this time of year --- and I sat and let the quiet soak into my body. I truly felt like some sort of sponge, and stared out at the waves until my mind had entirely quieted and the waves began to turn into one another, fluid and ever-changing. The overcast sky brought out deep green highlights in the water, and the nearby waves crashed with a soft roar of grey foam. Off, far in the distance, I saw a lone bird, dipping over the flat expanse, wings tilting to ride the currents of air he chose as his own.

The sun began to sink slowly down to the horizon, and regretfully, I came to myself and slid off the rock. My mom would worry if I wasn't home before dark. Eyes more on the changing lights of sunset, a faint orange glow behind the clouds, I made my way up the path back to the main road, and from there to our small, quiet house.

Dinner was on the table, with a note saying "Come get me when you get home --- how'd the audition go?" I hung up my jacket, lifted the lid on the frying pan to examine dinner --- stir fry --- and then made my way to Mom's office. She was a real-estate agent, an occupation I thought very boring but which she seemed to enjoy. Here, she mainly trafficked in timeshares, summer cottages, and second homes of the very wealthy. I couldn't see why on earth anyone would want to come to Maine only in the summer. Admittedly, it was freezing, and the people weren't nearly the warm and welcoming type I'd grown up with in the west, but the ocean was beautiful all year round, and there was still plenty to do in winter. This was, of course, coming from someone whose idea of a "good night out" was taking a book to a small cafe and reading for a few hours while sipping gourmet chocolate, but still. It wasn't totally flat.

She asked about the audition while we were eating, and I tried to sum up what had happened. I still wasn't sure if I was awful and that guy had been being sarcastic, or if I actually was good and the casting director was... shocked at the amazing quality of my voice? Hardly. I voiced this opinion, but she only laughed.

"No, you have a good voice," she said. "It's in your blood."

I raised an eyebrow at this. She had known my birth parents, and I had heard about them --- their names were Pearl and Ryan, gave me up because they were unmarried and too young to raise a kid, but were apparently not total losers because they both went onto college and apparently had led happy lives --- but had never met them and they were rarely mentioned. I was a little curious --- who wouldn't be? --- but I wasn't especially consumed with them.

"How so?" I prodded, after she didn't say anything more. She shrugged.

"Your birth mom sang," she said. "So did her mother, and her grandma, and so on until back until who knows when."

"Oh. Cool."

The subject changed, and Mom told me about a new sale she was making --- a client was considering buying a summer home, and had already requested to go through it four times. He had scheduled a fifth visit, and she really, really hoped he was planning on buying. The sellers weren't too inconvenienced, as they were in California, where they lived most of the year, but things were getting a bit out of hand.

After dinner, I went straight up to bed and pulled out a book. Ever since I was little, I've read before going to sleep. When I was really young, my dad would come in to turn off the light, then come back ten minutes later to take away the flashlight, and then come in five minutes after that to take away my other flashlight. Now, however, I'd been forced to develop some sense of responsibility, solely because my mom refused to go through the long charade, but wouldn't let me miss school in the morning because I was too tired. A few weeks of that and I learned my lesson. Tonight, I glanced at my stack of books and was decidedly disappointed at the lone unread volume I had there. The pile had dwindled sadly, as I hadn't gotten to the library in over a week, and after putting down the last book because it was positively insipid, I turned to an old favorite.

The book itself was beautiful and leather-bound, embossed with gold, but the story within was rather childish. "The Little Mermaid," non-Disney version. It had always been my favorite fairy tale, and I had loved the princess, in part because she looked a little bit like me, and in part because her name, like my birth mother's, was Pearl. The prince was never mentioned by name, but I rather thought the illustrations made him look like an Edmund: very stately and dignified.

When I glanced at the clock, it was almost midnight. There was school in the morning. I sighed and put the story away, and fell asleep to dreams of laughing merbabies and shimmering waves.