Fishing for Mermaids

The Corvette

"You need to find a job today." Larissa zipped the dirty jacket over her white blouse, staring expressionless down at Martin. "I mean it." She tugged the unfinished door open with both hands. A breeze crept through the holes in their screen door, and the long black hairs on Martin's left arm slowly awoke. Larissa swung the screen door open to cross the lawn, speckled with orange and red leaves, and got into her co-worker's dented pick-up.

Martin could hear the wheels screech as it sped away to the diner, where they had met four years ago, where he had proposed to her, and where they held their wedding reception. Martin had not gone there since he lost his job at the local coalmine, or more importantly, since he sold the Corvette. The recession meant job loss for a lot of miners that year, which meant a lot of men and women out of work in Westmoreland County, Martin being one of them. He was one of the first to go. "Such a shame, Martin. Maybe that mechanic in town will hire ya'?" He used to resent the miners who tried to comfort him, who had kept their jobs; but after the entire mine closed, he pitied them. There was nothing he could say to them, Martin knew how much advice stung. Instead, he simply bought a Rolling Rock for those he ran into at the bar. Until the money ran out. That's when the vette had to go.

Martin's butt cheeks sank into Larissa's orange corduroy couch, finding their nooks between the worn cushion padding. "We don't have to keep it," Larissa had said when she first brought the couch into his home, but Martin sort of liked its ugliness. As soon as anyone walked through the door, they commented on the bright orange couch directly to their right. "How... pleasant," they would say. After seeing such an eyesore, the rest of Martin and Larissa's home seemed tasteful: her porcelain dog collection atop the boxy T.V. stand, his posters of Steeler players strewed over the wood paneled walls, and their mail-cluttered coffee table. Martin stared at a photo displayed proudly atop the T.V. stand beside one of Larissa's porcelain beagle dogs, which she had moved to look like it was guarding their framed memory. Something stung within him. He knew that no matter how hard he tried to forget how he felt in that captured moment, he couldn't. He thought of how nothing in the picture had lasted: The warm sun was gone, the smiles were gone, the vette was gone.

It was the first warm day of the spring in 2005 when the photo was taken. Martin held the blue velvet box tightly in his palm, sweat collecting between its fibers. The thawing gravel of the diner's parking lot loosened beneath his feet as he leaned against his newly waxed, black corvette with purple flames painted on its sides. Westmoreland's rare spring sun soaked into the car's exterior, warming Martin's hand as he waited for Larissa to finish her shift at the diner. He didn't dare expose the surprise clasped in his hand. He knew all too well how the diner waitresses loved to stare at his car when he pulled in.

After a few moments, Larissa revealed herself from behind the diner doors. She smiled widely, as she tossed her straight auburn hair away from her face to greet him.

"Hey sweetie," she said, leaning in to kiss him. She tasted like Italian wedding soup, one of the diner's specialties. "Happy seven month anniversary." She had drawn a heart on the twenty-seventh day of each month to remind Martin.

"You too." Martin took a deep breath and swallowed his nerves. He knelt down on one knee before Larissa, the small gravel rocks digging into his kneecap, and revealed the velvet box. "Larissa, these past seven months have been amazing, and I know that the rest of my life with you will be amazing too. Baby, will you marry me?"

She shifted her glance quickly between Martin and the vette, a tear of joy streaming down her porcelain cheek. "Yes, of course!" She cried, sliding the modest ring upon her finger.

A waitress who had been watching ran out from the diner, a disposable camera in her hand.

"Oh my god! Congratulations, Larissa! You will make such a beautiful bride. Oh, and when you drive off from the church in this vette. It will be all just be so beautiful." She clapped excitedly, her forced curls bouncing to her movement. "Let me take a picture of the happy couple."