She handed me my shot, then got the skull bottle, the bowl of pickles, the platter of bread chunks, and laid them out poolside, within my reach. Then she went around to the shallow end of the pool, shrugged off her see-through pink thing, and walked herself slowly down the stairs into the water like some bikini babe in a video. While eating the last of her pickle and trying not to spill her shot. She sank into the water up to her chest and glided over to me, vodka held carefully above the water.
“So, what’s the bread for?” she asked, as I handed her a chunk.
“I dunno. Same as the pickle? It’s uncouth to drink straight liquor without eating something?”
“Really?”
“Honestly, this came from an actual drunk who wasn’t even Russian, so who knows.”
She laughed a little. “Gabe’s vodka guzzling uncle wasn’t Russian?”
“Ukrainian.”
“Hmm.” We tapped shot glasses and tossed the cold vodka back. Then we both helped ourselves to a pickle from the bowl. “So, why are we doing this again?”
“Because a drinking tradition is just like music. It’s personal. Imprints on you. Even if it makes no sense. It’s why you listen to certain music even if your friends hate it and you’re supposed to, too. And it’s why you drink straight vodka with a pickle and bread. Memories.”
“Ah. Well. I have no memories with this.”
“Guess we’ll have to make some.”
She just looked at me with the reflection of the water shimmering in her shipwreck eyes.
“So, what do you think of the vodka you chose?” I asked her. “How do the waters of Newfoundland taste?”
She licked her lip. “I confess, I’ve never drank straight vodka before, much less with a pickle chaser. I have no idea what it’s supposed to taste like. You?”
“No idea.” I handed her another piece of bread; I didn’t want her getting sick tonight. “Eat that.”
She gaped at me. “What? I thought you did this all the time.”
“Yeah, when I did this, I was already hammered. You think I’m drinking straight vodka sober?”
“But you said—”
“I had to say something. You asked me what I drink in the studio. I couldn’t say nothing and burst your bubble. Guy sitting around staring at the ceiling, writing music by himself, no cigarettes, no drinks, no drugs, it’s not the romantic vision you had in mind.”
She was gazing at me dreamily with those ocean-bottom eyes of hers. “It looks pretty romantic to me.”
“You look like a siren.”
“Huh?” She laughed a little, then frowned. “Siren,” she said, like she was searching her mental database for the word through the vodka buzz. “What is a siren, exactly? Is that one of those vague sexual compliments-slash-insults that men make up for women?”
“No,” I said, pouring us another shot, “it’s an actual thing from mythology. Enchantress who lures sailors with music, so they wreck their ships on the rocks.”
“Wow. Savage.”
I handed her a shot. “Not your style?”
“Hmm. The guys on the ship are stranded with me now, right?”
“I guess so.” I clinked my glass to hers and we threw back the vodka.
She shivered and sucked on her pickle. “Do some of them survive the wreckage? Like the cute ones?”
I plucked her shot glass from her hand. “It’s your fantasy, sweetheart.”
“Do I have somewhere to collect them? Is there vegetation on this island so I can feed them and keep them alive? I’m on an island, right? So I don’t have to share the cute guys I shipwrecked?”
“You may be putting too much thought into this.”
She was still thinking as she munched on her pickle. “Can I have a mermaid tail, though?”
“How are all these sailors you’re collecting gonna fuck you if you’re a mermaid?”
“Mermaid’s don’t fuck?”
“Think about that,” I said, as I tried to pour us shots without wasting vodka. My aim was already getting a little dubious.
“Holy shit,” she said, her eyes wide. “Check out this mindfuck, Cary Clarke. Why have men fantasized about mermaids for centuries if they can’t fuck?”
“Dunno.”
“Is it because they have boobs?”
“Maybe it’s the seashell bras.” I handed her a shot.
“Huh. Do you think they give really good blowjobs or something?”
“How about when I meet an actual mermaid, I’ll let you know.”
She gave me a dirty look, but laughed. We clinked shots and drank.
“Come on,” I said, eating a pickle. “I don’t get a free pass for a mermaid?”
“Okay, fine. You meet a mermaid, you get a blowjob. But I get to watch.”
“Fine by me.” I took the empty shot glass from her and set it aside. How