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buying it.
    â€œWe shall soon see if you look as good in the water as you do out of it.” Thelma nodded, as if she were agreeing with herself. “Ah, here’s the famous bell, where dreams are made and hearts are broken.”
    They stopped before a metal capsule that was indeed in the shape of a bell. It was open at the top and filled with water, and it had windows all around it. The bell stood about twelve feet tall and nine feet wide—just big enough for one swimmer. Thelma told Delores that the water temperature was 74.5 degrees, the same as it was in the springs. Most pools are heated to between 80 and 83 degrees. This would be cold—“plenty cold”—she said.
    Delores stripped down to her electric green suit. She shook her long brown hair so it fell around her shoulders. “So what do you want me to do?” she asked.
    â€œI want you to get into that tank and show me what you’ve got. Convince me you’re a mermaid.”
    Delores arched her back and moved her head from side to side, loosening her neck muscles.
    She stepped into the bell. At first, she just swam in circles. Then she did a couple of twirls and pinwheels and basic ballet movements. She smiled and pretended to lip synch to a song, like the girls in the show. Molly had told her that the mermaids swam sixteen feet beneath the surface and that sometimes they needed to stand totally still. The way they controlled their buoyancy was by taking air in or letting it out at the right times. Delores was able to hold her breath for a little over a minute. Keeping her eyes open in the clear spring water was hard. Mermaids never wore masks, and the water made everything blurry. Everywhere she looked, all she could see were the thick, black frames of Thelma Foote’s glasses pressed up against the glass windows. After about ten minutes, she hoisted herself half out of the water. She waited for Thelma to speak.
    Thelma yanked her zipper one more time. “Crap,” she whispered, looking momentarily distracted. Then she turned her attention to Delores. “Lord knows, you’re photogenic enough, and you’ve got enough damn grace to make Esther Williams look like a frog. Iwant you to do one more thing. I want you to swim on your back, forward, underwater.”
    Molly had warned her about this part. If you swam forward on your back underwater, there was no way water wouldn’t go up your nose. “If you’re going to lose it, that’s when it happens,” she’d said. “Just keep your eyes straight ahead and don’t panic.” Delores plunged back into the tank. She arched her back and did the scissor-kick to get herself underwater. The water burned as it went up her nose. The urge to come to the surface was so strong that she felt tears come to her eyes. She tried to concentrate on the water before her, just as Molly had said she should. She noticed that the sun reflected on it in such a way that all of the bubbles looked like tiny diamonds. She thought about what it must be like to be able to swim in this clear water every day and see the diamonds and the turtles and the manatees that would float by. She pretended that she was swimming in the real springs and that the audience inside the amphitheater was applauding and whispering to one another: “Do you think she’s a real mermaid?” It gave her the courage to do a back flip and keep her legs perfectly straight. She came out of the flip and swam to the window where Thelma Foote was peering in on her. She put her face right up against the glass so that she and Thelma were nose to nose, but for the thin piece of Plexiglas between them. The move startled Thelma. Delores smiled a mysterious smile and swam away.
    In all her life, Delores had never been as sure of herself as she was at that moment. She’d passed the tryout and would become a mermaid; that was for sure. It wasn’t until she climbed out of the bell that