I was quick to shut off my alarm. It only had a second to buzz before I turned it off and shot out of bed. Truthfully, I hadn't gotten much sleep the night before. I faded in and out of light slumber while my mind raced with all the possibilities of today. What would I say to Rikki? How would that even go? It's a little awkward to go up to someone and admit that you are well aware of their biggest secret. I also thought about how my conversation with Jennifer would go. I had no clue what Rikki did, but Jennifer's friends were clearly not pleased with her. I guess I didn't make things too much better either, pushing one of her goons down to create a distraction. The common theme of the day? I fucked up.
I made it to the showers and quickly went through my morning routine. Day 2 of no accidents! Autopilot carried me through the drying off process and out the door in record time. I only snapped out of it when I heard some rustling in the bushes. I quickly glanced over and noticed a pile of trash spilling over outside the building. Ugh. Is it that hard to be clean? The rustling was probably some raccoon looking for breakfast.
I began back up to the dorm when I had the idea to instead go for a swim. I reasoned that it would clear my mind before work, so I dropped off my things and dove off into the lake. I returned to the underwater cave entrance that I had found the first time. Calmed by the natural beauty, I tilted my head back, closed my eyes, and dozed off, floating in the tiny pool of water.
God. Damn. It. I jolted awake, at first startled by my...appearance...before remembering where I was. Once that rush of panic was done, a new one swept in to take its place as I realized that I was probably late for work. I swam out of the cave and as fast as I could to the shore where I nearly burned myself trying to dry off. The next thing to burn was my lungs as I ran up to the campsite, praying that I didn't miss too much. Luckily, I was only about 30 minutes late to breakfast - Barbara was just finishing up her little morning announcements before sending the campers to their first activity of the day. I took a deep breath and got ready to face Jennifer.
For the first twenty minutes of our shift, Jennifer and I were too occupied with leading the parade of brats to the lake to have a meaningful conversation. Still, I was somewhat relieved that she didn't seem hostile toward me. We exchanged a few words here and there - all work-related - but none were dripping with malice like I had envisioned they would be.
Finally, everyone was settled in and having the time of their lives splashing around. Jennifer and I climbed the tower to get settled in ourselves. I braced myself for the certain awkwardness that was to come.
...
Nothing? Neither of us saying anything? Uh oh. This is more awkward than I thought. I would take the malicious words over this any day. Time to do what I do best, I suppose: instigate.
"So..." I started, rather rhetorically, waiting for Jennifer to pick up.
"So." she said, uncharacteristically coldly.
"Look, I don't want this to be a thing. Can we just talk?" I asked.
"Sure," Jennifer responded.
"Okay," I began, my shaky voice revealing my nerves, "I wanted to start by apologizing. I didn't mean to hurt-"
"That's not the issue, Claire," Jennifer interjected, "it's the girl you were with."
"Rikki?" I questioned, "I know she did something to upset you guys but honestly I had no clue what it was. I'm sure she's sorry-"
"Oh I'm sure she is," Jennifer said sarcastically.
Silence permeated the air for a few seconds. I didn't want to pry and ask what Rikki did that was so horrible, so I just waited.
"Listen Claire," Jennifer said softly, "I like you. I want to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you just don't know any better. So I'll tell you now - you shouldn't be hanging out with Rikki."
I stared for a moment, my face plastered with notes of anger, but still subtle enough that I don't think Jennifer noticed. How could she have the audacity to dictate my social life? We barely know each other.
"And why is that?" I asked monotonically.
"She's got an...interesting...past," Jennifer responded, avoiding eye contact.
No fucking way they know. That's impossible, right? No, she has to be talking about something different.
"What does that mean?" I said.
"Well I guess she was pretty violent back home. That's why she got sent here. Her family just didn't want to deal with her," Jennifer answered.
"Violent?" I began, "no, you guys have something wrong. She's not violent."
Jennifer sighed, "See, I told them you didn't know. It's like this whole thing. Apparently she got caught up with this like, underground black market trade group and ended up burning a few of them pretty badly."
Oh no. Burned them? Yeah that checks out, just not in the way Jennifer thinks...
"And then," she continued, "she attacked this one girl for buying a necklace she wanted. A fucking necklace! That girl is insane!"
I wanted to express how underwhelming that last story was, especially following the mafia anecdote, but I realized that probably wasn't a good idea.
"That's awful..." I trailed off, "She really did all of that?"
She nodded slowly, "I'm sorry, we really thought you knew. That's why I was so surprised to see you guys together."
"Right..." I said, a million thoughts running through my mind. I decided to change the subject a bit, "So you really aren't mad at me for pushing your friend and getting the other one...stung?"
Jennifer chuckled, "Honestly, it was kind of funny. Don't worry, we're good."
I audibly sighed in relief as we both returned our eyes to survey the kids swimming. While I'm glad Jennifer doesn't absolutely despise me, I can't help but have this pit in my stomach about Rikki. Was all of that true? I contemplated whether or not I should talk to her about it, completely forgetting about the OTHER conversation I'm sure she wants to have with me. I concluded that my best option is to just wait for Rikki to talk to me. Am I avoiding the problem? Mildly. But it still makes sense. I mean, it's HER secret. If she really thought I knew something, she'd have to be the one to take initiative. Yeah, that seems okay for now.
A few hours later, we finished up our shift and went our separate ways. I headed back to the dorm and braced myself for the assault of questions I was sure to receive. I questioned whether or not I should provide the whole truth or not - do I even admit that I know her secret? All of the uncertainty swirling around my head abruptly halted the second I stepped into the dorm. Rikki wasn't there.
For the next two days, Rikki avoided me like the plague. She didn't even try to hide it. If she walked into a room that I was alone in, she would immediately turn and walk out. The only time I could really see her was at night when we were all getting ready for bed, but that isn't exactly the best time to go up to someone and say "Hey, sorry I didn't tell you that I knew that you were a mermaid." I know what I said about waiting for her to talk to me, but this was getting tedious. I needed to have two very important conversations with her and the suspense was killing me. Besides, I did like her as a friend. We were similar in a lot of ways (besides the obvious) and I missed talking to her. I needed to come up with something.
Friday had arrived, and I went about my daily routine as normal. It was shaping up to be a rather uneventful end to the first week. Breakfast and lineup had gone by smoothly since everyone pretty much knew what to do by this point. The only thing out of the ordinary was the lack of a second lifeguard - Jennifer wasn't there to escort the kids to the lake. I prayed that none of the campers would find a way to drown in the shallow water today.
About twenty minutes after getting situated on the lifeguard stand, I could feel it start to move a little, like someone was climbing up. I prepared to greet Jennifer and ask her all of the necessary small-talk questions: "Hey! Where were you? Are you feeling alright?", but I quickly realized I wouldn't get that opportunity. Rikki was the one climbing up.
"Hey Claire!" she said, uncharacteristically peppy, "How's it going?"
I stared at her, confused.
"What? Oh come on, I know it's not the best gig, but lifeguarding isn't that bad, is it?" she continued.
"Where's Jennifer?" I asked sharply.
Rikki smirked, "Oh, Jennifer switched with me. I guess she wasn't a fan of this job either..."
She switched with Rikki? Why would she do that? She doesn't even like Rikki. Unless this was some form of punishment? I was so lost.
"Anyway, I figured it would be fun to hang out with you for a few hours," she began.
Where is this going?
Rikki suddenly dropped the bubbly act, "and maybe have a little chat."
Okay yep that's where this is going.
"A chat about what?" I half giggled, hoping to feign obliviousness. It didn't work.
"The other day." Rikki said.
"W-What about it?" I stammered. God, I suck at pretending to not be nervous. There's no way she's buying this.
"Anything you want to tell me? Anything that might have motivated you to tell me to jump off a cliff and then punch some random chick?" Rikki questioned.
Fuck fuck fuck. She's got me in a chokehold. I'm not sure how much longer I can ride this out.
"Well, it didn't seem like you wanted to stick around. If you jumped and then I distracted them, they wouldn't go after you and you would avoid getting beat up for whatever the hell you did to piss them off," I asserted, proud of my white lie.
I expected to see Rikki's face drop or at least give some indication that she was having second thoughts about her interrogation. But that's what frightened me - she didn't seem fazed in the slightest.
"Oh, was that it? Well in that case, thank you!" she said, returning to her lively persona.
Uh oh. That's not good. The conversation isn't over. Why did she end it so abruptly? We both know there wasn't an ounce of sincerity in what she just said. Before I had time to run through all the permutations of outcomes in my head, I saw Rikki reach over into a small bag she brought. I hadn't even noticed it until now. From it, she produced a small, stainless steel water bottle. She slowly twisted the lid off, making intermittent eye contact with me. Of course, I was keeping a close eye on the contents of the bottle, making sure it stayed far away from me.
"Oh," Rikki said in her sarcastically lively voice, "do you want some?"
She thrust the bottle over towards me in a rapid motion, making some drops fly out and land on the seat. I reflexively jumped in the opposite direction, immediately regretting the involuntary motion.
"What, it's just water," Rikki cocked her head, "you sure you don't want some?"
She thrust the bottle towards me again, this time getting even closer. It was obvious what she was doing at this point, but I still wasn't sure how to react. I'm not even sure how she knows that I share her secret. Then again, maybe this is just her testing me like I did at the sushi restaurant.
"Stop!" I yelled, probably a bit too loud to maintain discretion.
Rikki smiled again, "Stop what? I'm just offering you some-"
"No. You know what you're doing," I said sternly, "We can talk about this later, I promise, but please just stop for now."
"Fine," she said, using her real tone.
Neither of us said a word for the rest of the shift.