Ever since her husband was hit by a municipal bus, Mrs. Atwal would spend her afternoons watching the hippos at the aquarium. Their fleetness of hoof belying their primordial size.
At two o’clock, on the nose, the hippos were isolated in a separate part of the tank and the mermaid show would begin. Children crowded the double-paned glass. A drowsy piano tune was piped through the speakers. The mermaids emerged from some unknowable recess in the tank. Each time one of the mermaids waved at Mrs. Atwal, or otherwise made eye contact with her, she imagined a hippo breaking loose of its enclosure and flattening the mermaid against the glass.
“Afternoon pick me up?”
The question threw her, as the man was small—very small—and she couldn’t be sure whether he was asking to be physically picked up.
“It’s the good stuff,” he added, and held out a large soda container with a crooked straw poking out from the lid. Then shook the drink so the ice rattled against the sides.
“Seems like you could use an eye-opener.”
She declined as politely as possible.
They watched one of the mermaids purse her lips and blow a kiss to the children.
“I hate these floating turds. I wish one of them would get crushed by the hippos already.”
She decided she liked this man, and when he asked her if she wanted to visit the food cart—the one by the penguin exhibit—she accepted his invitation.
Outside, an axolotl-shaped balloon escaped a child’s hand and floated skywards. The man pointed at the boy and bent over in laughter.
“Idiot,” he said. “How hard is it to hold on to a balloon?”
The man ordered a single tray of fries, which he proceeded to slather in ketchup from the condiment pump. Mrs. Atwal ordered a small pouch of chips, which she slipped into her bag for later. They sat down at a picnic bench overlooking the Gentoo penguins.
“You know how much they pay you if you fall into one of the exhibits?”
She shook her head.
“I mean, with a good lawyer, we’re talking millions. Even with a bad lawyer, you’ll be set for life. Just for slugging it out for a few rounds with some puffin.”
He continued: “A couple of months ago some kid got bit by an otter. Guess what? A quarter million dollars. Can you imagine? He was ugly as sin before the otter got him. A quarter million! What would you do with all that money?”
She tried to think of an answer. It shouldn’t have been hard to imagine as her husband had taken out multiple life insurance policies before he died and she had that much—more—in the bank.
A seagull flew over to pick at the greasy jetsam under their table.
“Fuck off, you ocean rat,” he said, trying to kick at the gull, but his feet couldn’t reach the bird from his seated position.
Mrs. Atwal rose to go to the bathroom.
“Where are you going, lady? It’s just an ocean rat.”
The bathroom was precisely empty. She sat down on a toilet seat in the stall and thought about whether seagulls could digest fries or if it caused them to get sick and throw up later.
Under the stall, she saw a coral blue tail fin trawl across the floor tiling. She opened the stall to find a mermaid in a silver wig crying over the sink. She edged beside her.
“Why doesn’t Jason look at me the way he used to?” the mermaid said.
She wondered if Jason was the other mermaid in the show. Or a land dweller with the biologically appointed number of toes.
“He’s always talking with Miranda. And she can barely go thirty seconds without reaching for the air hose.”
Mrs. Atwal nodded conspiratorially.
“Miranda doesn’t have the lung capacity for this work.”
“Right?”
“And Jason, I saw him laughing earlier when a child lost his balloon.”
“How cruel.”
“Cruel indeed.”
The mermaid threw her mammalian arms around Mrs. Atwal.
“Thank you.”
The mermaid hopped and shimmied out of the bathroom. Mrs. Atwal returned to the picnic bench, where only the man’s partially eaten tray of fries remained. She took out her bag of chips and ate them leaning over the railing encircling the penguin colony.
“Ma’am,” said the moon-faced attendant. “You have to stand behind the red line.”
She looked at the red line, which was several inches behind the railing.
Would standing behind this line shelter her from life’s assorted dangers? A tall order for a band of paint, she thought.
But like the well-mannered woman she was, had been raised to be, she stepped behind the red line, and for a moment even she believed that nothing bad could befall her.