Merlot on the Seine

The glass of merlot on the table was a little bit fuller than Katie was used to, so she took a sip to even it out. “Have you tried yours yet?” she asked her date, although she’d watched him and seen that he hadn’t.

Without replying, Marc took up his own heavy glass and gulped, and his eyebrows raised. “Most dark wines usually feel heavy going down, but this doesn’t!”

“That makes it more dangerous,” Katie told him, and her date chuckled.

It was their proverbial ‘first date,’ although they had gotten coffee together the day they'd met.

That wasn't an official date, though, thought Katie. He was only making it up to me after accidentally elbowing me in the eye at the bookstore.

He’s a good guy, she thought. He doesn’t pry for background info. He’s gentle, and kind. It’s been oh so long since I’ve been on a date with a guy like him. Actually, I don’t think I ever have…

“I like this spot, because we can listen to the Seine babbling behind us, in case we run out of stuff to talk about,” Marc remarked, and Katie giggled.

We'd never, ever, run out of stuff to talk about, thought Katie.

The two of them had a mechanical chemistry that allowed the conversation to go on and on quite naturally — although Katie would better describe it as ‘up and up.’ Theirs was a type of chemistry that probably couldn’t be replicated in a lab, but only occurred naturally. It was the type of organic chemistry that she sensed was responsible for the promulgation of life on earth itself. A rare, non-replicable type.

It's just a hunch, but some hunches ring so true that you can’t seriously doubt them, she thought.

“I should say, though,” Marc continued, “sometimes when I hear the sound of rushing water, I get a little queasy.”

“Me too, actually,” Katie replied. “I’m so sensitive, it reminds me of my childhood on the ferry when I’d get seasick from the rocking back and forth. Like the memory and the sensation are connected in my body. I cant get away from it. Oh!”

To her horror, Katie felt the merlot coming back up again, and she rushed to the Seine riverside to kneel over its chain-linked barrier, before letting it go. Behind her, Marc wretched.

“Ugh,” groaned Katie. “Sometimes childhood memories pack a large punch,” she managed.

“It…it was my fault,” Marc told her. “That’s one thing I’ve learned in my 39 years. It’s always the man’s fault, right?”

He smiled and came to stand by her.

“Oh, don’t tell me that!”

The strange voice hadn’t been Katie’s or Marc’s, but had come from within the Seine itself. Still catching her breath, Katie looked into the river. Therein, she saw a pair of eyes more full of love yet more desperate than any she’d ever seen.

In that moment, she made an unconscious decision: I’ll do whatever they say.

“My son, Jacques!” the eyes screamed at the pair.

“Jesus!” gasped Marc. “It’s a… I mean, she’s a … a …”

“Yes, I have a tail fin.” The pair of eyes — framed by wet, magenta hair —flashed her jarringly green posterior. To Katie’s breathlessness, the Seine woman was lined below the belt with glistening scales of emerald that culminated into a muscular, two-finned tail that spanned wider than a bicycle.

A mermaid! she realized, gazing at the scales that glowed like living treasure. The woman in the river then held up a naked newborn — a boy — who was screaming and crying as passionately as one would expect one to cry in his circumstance.

“He's male! I can’t take him!” the mermaid screamed. “He’s yours, I think! Or maybe!”

Katie had never visited Europe before her recent move. She'd met Marc a few days after starting a new job down the street. Straight from Indiana, she’d come without any expectations, yet the mermaid at her feet somehow blew them out of the water.

“Back here! Get back here, filthy maid!” shouted a few men upriver. Katie, Marc, and the Seine woman turned to the jeers, and Katie spotted a wooden boat steering straight for them.

“They’re gonna skin me!" screamed the Seine woman. "They want my scales! Please, I need to get back to the sea, but I can’t take him with me! He needs someone!”

“Oh, of course!” Katie replied, and she held her arms out to take the baby boy from her, and the mermaid then vanished into the Seine.

“She’s…she’s gone,” murmured Marc, and Katie nodded once as she tended to the infant. Katie doubted she could bear children of her own, after all those years of radiation. At least that's what the doctor told me, Katie thought. So, she held tightly to Jacques, and his wails softened a bit.

“This’ll calm him down,” said Marc, and he dipped his pointer finger into his merlot glass before providing it to the infant. “I read it in a book once. It’s a pacifier.”

“Did you recognize her?” Katie asked, but her date didn’t answer. Together, they took the baby to the nearest hospital, and then took him home to her apartment.

THE END