Page 46 of Stranded With the Grumpy Mermaid

The whole room already knows the newspaper version. Rafe gives them more.

The storm. The Belle. Rafe talks about the cottage. The mussels. The flare. He doesn’t make any of it prettier than it was. He talks about being cold and scared. About the nights we didn’t know if anyone was coming. The room goes silent during those parts.

And through all of it, he protects me. He calls me “my colleague, who is the reason I’m alive.” Later I become “the best scientist I’ve ever been stranded with, and I hope never to expand the category.” The room laughs, and four hundred faces turn toward me.

I smile. Nobody in this dome knows there was a cove, a fire or a bed the size of a bathtub.

He kept his promise.

Exactly as I asked. And it breaks my heart.

Afterward, there’s champagne under the dome and people close around him from every direction. I could leave. I’ve shown my face. My own talk is tomorrow. Nothing requires me to stay.

I get in the congratulation line instead.

Up close, he looks older around the eyes than he did only a few weeks ago. Still beautiful. Still Rafe. Then the line delivers me to him. His smile stays polite.

“Congratulations, Dr. Vasquez. The keynote was wonderful.”

Dr. Vasquez.

I know he hates it. I use it anyway. Something passes across his face. Hurt, maybe. It’s gone before I can be certain.

“Thank you, Dr. Marsh.” He gives me a small nod. “Good of you to make the crossing. Enjoy the reception.”

Then he turns to the next person.

That’s it.

No anger. No punishment. Just this cold, unbearable politeness. I don’t remember leaving the dome.

One minute I’m standing beneath its white curve with champagne glasses chiming behind me. The next I’m outside in the blue coastal dusk, walking down a gravel path with no idea where I’m going.

So I do the thing I have done in every wreck of my life. I call my father. He picks up on the second ring, though it’s barely afternoon in San Francisco.

“Neri. How was the big ceremony? Did the famous telescope work?”

“It hasn’t looked at anything yet. That’s tonight, the ceremonial first light, and—”

My voice breaks.

“Okay my little seaweed,” he says immediately. “I’m here. Talk to me.”

I sit down on a low granite wall beside the path. Then I tell him everything.

It comes out in pieces. I tell him about the cove and shifting again. About Rafe. About ending it on the beach. About seeing him tonight and about thinking I might have made the biggest mistake of my life.

Dad listens. He doesn’t interrupt. He doesn’t tell me what to do. When I finally stop, he’s quiet for a few seconds.

“You want me to say something, or do you want me to keep listening?”

“Say something.”

“All right.”

He exhales.

“I know your career matters to you. And I know you’re not imagining the problem. People gossip. People make ugly assumptions. Especially when a woman is younger or less established than the man she’s with.”