Read Swimming Without a Net for Free Online

“But that’s wonderful!”
    “Why,” Fred asked suspiciously, “is it wonderful?”
    “It means they’re accepting you as one of them! And—and—”
    Fred let her mother grope for words, not having the heart to say that Jonas, too, had an invitation to the Pelagic and certainly was not accepted by them. One didn’t ensure the other. And Tennian and Kertal had been creepily vague.
    She didn’t like it. At all. She was only going because they’d gotten stubborn about Jonas and she couldn’t resist jerking their chains. It had nothing to do with the possibility of seeing Artur again.
    Nothing.
    At all.
    Shit, the guy was probably married with a wife who’d already popped out a litter of guppies. No, she had enough on her plate without worrying about Artur and who he’d been banging and what he’d been up to. Like…like…
    Thomas! Thomas, for instance. She wondered what Thomas would think of the Pelagic. Shit, that was a lie. She knew exactly what he’d think. He was a marine biologist; he’d be wild to go.
    Firmly, she shoved Artur and Thomas out of her mind and focused on what her mother was saying.
    “—maybe even see your father again!”
    Fred’s jaw sagged and she clutched the back of the empty chair so hard she heard it crack. Here was a nightmare she had never even considered.
    “You’d better sit down,” Jonas worried. “You look really white. Even for you.”
    “I’m not going to the Caymans for a fucking family reunion!” she yowled.
    “Oh, this Pelagic thing is in the Cayman Islands? Lovely this time of the year.” Moon frowned. “I think. It’s not hurricane season, is it?”
    “Mom, I don’t even know if my father will be there.”
    “It’s a big meeting? Important? Obviously someone tracked you down and presented an invitation. That’s a lot of trouble for, say, a slumber party.”
    “Yeah,” Fred said grudgingly.
    “So it’s obviously a very important thing, this Paregoric, if they’re tracking everybody down for it.”
    “Pelagic. A paregoric makes you pass out. On second thought,” Fred admitted, “that might be the right name after all.”
    “Then he might be there! In fact, he’s sure to be there!”
    “Wait, wait, wait.” Jonas held up a strawberry-stained hand like a traffic cop gone off his diet. “I thought Artur said your dad was dead. Remember, last fall? Just before Fred broke down the kitchen door?”
    “He said he thought Fred’s dad was dead. That he hadn’t been seen for many years. But the ocean is a big place.” To Fred’s dismay, Moon had that “everything will work out” expression on her face. “He could be alive! Sure he could! And Fred could meet him.”
    “Mom, I wouldn’t know my bio-dad if he swam up to me and hooked me in the gut. And he wouldn’t know me.”
    “Then I’ll describe him,” she said, and the horror continued. “He was built like a swimmer—”
    “Ha, ha.”
    “—with the broad shoulders, you know, and the narrow waist? Oh, the body on your father! It was too dark to see his hair color, and besides, his hair was wet, but I imagine it’s a darker shade of yours.”
    “Mom, I’m going to break Jonas’s ice cream bowl and eat the pieces if you don’t stop.”
    “His eyes were the purest green I’d ever seen, even darker than yours, sweetie. He was…” She looked over her shoulder, satisfying herself that Ellie and Sam were engrossed in SpongeBob. “He was the most mesmerizing creature I’d ever met.”
    “Vomit, vomit, vomit.”
    “I hardly noticed when he was inside me because I was just so enthralled by his eyes, his hair, his shoulders…and then it was done—”
    “Mesmerizing,” Jonas noted, “but fast.”
    “—and then he rolled off me and dove back into the ocean and I watched for him until dawn, but he never came back. I watched for him at that spot every night for three months.” Moon sighed and looked out the kitchen window. “But he never came back.”
    “You want me to track