Isaac pulled the hardcover thriller from the library shelf and peered through the gaping hole into the next aisle at the dark-haired woman with berry-blue lips. Her protuberant eyes darted left and right, then regarded him and softened for a moment before returning to her stoic expression. To Isaac, her scaled face and colored lips completed a portrait of beauty he had painted more than once back at his studio.
Business first. “Elling Park. Tuesday. 10:00 sharp. Be ready,” he whispered.
She absorbed all the details with a quick nod. “I’m packed.”
Business out of the way, Isaac softened. “I love—”
“We both love Shakespeare, Isaac. You don’t need to tell me again.”
Isaac rubbed a hand through his buzzcut. “No one’s around, Calista.”
“We don’t know for certain,” she hissed.
“You’re being overcautious.”
“Who goes to jail if they catch us?”
According to the law, both of them would be imprisoned, but he wasn’t going to argue the point. “I have an idea. I’ve been practicing a new form of art. It may be just the thing to help us cross the border.”
“You’re going to bribe the border guards with art?”
“Not with art, I have—”
He broke off when she held a book up, signaling someone was approaching. He replaced the hardcover into the empty space and retrieved a paperback from another shelf. Heels clicked on the stone floor in Calista’s aisle. A nasally-feminine voice said, “Get out of the way, ignorant gurgle!”
Isaac twisted the paperback in his brown hands, nearly breaking the binding. He wanted to round the corner and give the woman a piece of his mind.
No, it would endanger Calista.
The woman’s voice sneered, “When will they ban you people from public places?”
Restraining himself from starting an argument, Isaac gritted his teeth. A podcast published last week claimed the people called Marinamers had always existed among humans, hiding and spying on them for centuries. When the Marinamers emerged from the sea two decades ago with their bulging eyes and blue lips, humans thought them a marvel of science. The commentator challenged the water people’s intentions, documenting their history of luring land-dwellers to the ocean’s depths. Conclusion? Marinamers haven’t truly evolved past their atavistic urges. A lie.
The woman retreated from the next row and clip-clopped away. Isaac moved the bound novel aside to view Calista’s moue on her sapphire-shaded lips. If only he could kiss her worries away.
Her eyes welled up with tears. “Who would have thought a librarian would be so intolerant? Aren’t they supposed to see past the rhetoric?”
“Sometimes the so-called enlightened ones are the most credulous.”
Calista rubbed her temples. “True, my ancestors called to yours and drowned them, but that’s ancient history. We’re different now.”
Isaac shelved the paperback. “The hatred is escalating, Calista.”
Calista reached into the hole and spread her webbed fingers wide. “I don’t want to talk about them. I want to talk about us.”
Isaac took her hand and squeezed it. “As I was saying, I have a new technique. It will allow us to emigrate to Mexico to join many of your kin. Their economy is booming.”
“The Mexicans are friendly to my people and will accept me with no red tape, but politics will put you in a queue for years,” said Calista. “Who knows when we’ll see each other again? And what about your parents?”
Isaac rubbed his thumb over the back of her scaled hand. “Love, you’re my family now. They’ll understand.”
A man rounded the corner, and Isaac’s adrenaline spiked. He didn’t have a book to hide behind like she had. He released Calista’s hand, but left his in the hole, patting the shelf as if trying to find something lost. The gray-haired man stopped and eyed Isaac.
Isaac cursed until his fingers closed on a pencil Calista had placed there. Fast thinker—another reason he loved her. He presented it to the man. “Thought I lost it.”
The man turned away while Isaac opened another book on the shelf. Patiently, he traced the rubber eraser over the words as if reading them. After a few minutes, the other man left, and Isaac returned his attention to the hole between aisles.
Calista removed her book. “Too many people here. In the park on Tuesday? We drive south to the border. I cross over, and you stay here.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
Calista’s plaintive eyes crinkled. “They’ll detain you at the border. You’ve heard the podcasts.”
Isaac reached into his pocket and produced his phone, then showed a photograph to Calista. “Who do you think this is?”
Calista glanced at the phone. “Some random Marinamer. Did you take the picture to paint him?”
“Look again.”
She took the phone and studied it. “It’s you! How did you do this?”
“I’ve been practicing every free hour. Darken the skin around the eyes to make them pop. Blue-colored scales affixed to my skin that won’t come off if they ask me to press a handkerchief to my face. Using every trick in the book, I disguised myself and walked down the street yesterday. Three different people called me a gurgle.”
Delight blossomed on her face like a firework exploding in the night. “They won’t stop us.”
Isaac accepted his phone back. “Two emigrating Marinamers starting a new life together. And it all starts Tuesday.”
He placed his fingers to his mouth, reached through the channel between them, and pressed his fingertips to her deep-blue lips.