“Ma'am, please don't crawl under the -- Oh, my god!"

"There's nothing to see here," said Marina. "Really."

"But...but...she's got a tail!" said the Neiman Marcus sales assistant, taking a step back from the shoe department display table. At this exclamation, heads turned and cell phone cameras were engaged as the early morning bargain hunters turned their attention from footwear to, well, they didn't really know what they were seeing.

Lorna had felt as though she was in a whirlpool, a maelstrom, from the very first moment the department store doors had opened. The press of so many bodies crashed around Lorna as she was taken on the wave through the glass doors of Neiman Marcus and into the women’s shoe department. Lorna had lost sight of Marina within moments, tossed back and forth through the seaweed limbs and coral shoulders of a couple hundred shoe-crazed women and then there, shining at the center of a trestle-table like a lighthouse on a storm-wracked promontory, sat the shoes, the Stella McCartney’s Lorna coveted, now ultra-discounted. Lorna fought her way back, reaching out her hand, grabbing the edge of the display table and using it like an anchor to draw herself forward.

“Eeep!” said Lorna, her voice like that of a porpoise as she pulled up to the table, inch by inexorable inch, her other hand reaching for the shoes, those delightful sky blue d’Orsay cork wedges with the Vegan-friendly faux leather. Lorna’s fingers touched the soft, velvety insole and then her legs gave way and she found herself falling to the polished tile floor, her hand receding from the shoes and then she had to give them up and try to steady herself with both hands on the edge of the display table even as she watched an opposing pair of hands snatch the shoes up from the table and then they were gone from Lorna’s sight.

“Nooo!” she shrieked, but not because the shoes had been snatched away from her by a competing shopper, a department store Darwinist where it was survival of the fittest.

Lorna let go of the display table’s edge and let herself slip down, down among the bulrushes of legs. Lorna crawled under the table, thoughts of Stella McCartney now gone. All around her were the gaggle of voices, the clatter of shoes, the distant chiming of cash registers and credit card scans.

Lorna had shrieked because her legs were transforming into a fish tail again.

“Nooo!” repeated Lorna. “I can’t turn into a fish. Fish don’t have feet!”

Maybe she was still thinking about the shoes after all.

“Lorna,” said a voice, far away at first and then again louder, closer. “Lorn!”

Lorna’s attention was on the shimmering scales flowing against her skin, flowing like spilled mercury across a tabletop, moving with a life of their own. Her thighs were moving together, and on downwards her flesh was merging, fusing, her knees disappearing into fish-skin.

“Lorn!”

Lorna’s feet were elongating, becoming longer, thinner, her ankles growing together and forming the –What’s that part called? Lorna asked and in the same moment her racing mind supplied its own answer.

“Caudal fin,” whispered Lorna, watching as the transformation finalized, stabilized. “It’s called the caudal fin.”

Lorna didn’t know how she knew this, in much the same way she didn’t know why the sudden merging of flesh and bone didn’t hurt and only… tingled, like when due to bad circulation a limb has been asleep and begins to wake up.

“Where are you, Lorna?”

Lorna turned her head to see Marina, or rather Lorna recognized Marina by her shoes and the Lululemon yoga pants she was wearing. Lorna reached out and tugged at Marina’s pants leg.

“Down here,” said Lorna.

Marina managed to crouch down beside the display table; the crowd had already thinned somewhat, the initial shoe-mad surge having now abated.

“Lorna, OMG! What happened?”

There was a protracted pause and then Lorna burst into tears -- Marina was holding the pair of Stella McCartneys.

"Hey, it's that girl from the Galleria a few days ago!" shouted a lady clutching a pair of discounted black suede Sergio Rossi sandals, pointing them towards Lorna like a crucifix might be held up to a cheesy Hollywood vampire.

So, what now? thought Lorna. Should I start hissing and spitting like a cursed demon?

"Lorna," said Marina, offering her hand to her sister. "I think we need to get you out of here!"

Lorna looked down at her shimmery tail where it emerged from her skirt, from her thighs to her knees and calves and on down to her feet, the transformation complete. She had no idea how long it might last this time but Lorna knew she couldn't wait it out under the department store display table. She closed her eyes for a moment, focusing, concentrating. She opened her eyes and wiggled her toes. Or rather, she wiggled the ends of her caudal fin. She found that whatever it was in the nervous system that could wiggle toes used the same mechanics for her tail fin. She flexed her ankles and the caudal fin raised and lowered. She bent and straightened her "knees", and the lower half of her tail bent and curled accordingly.

I can do this, thought Lorna.

"Marina," said Lorna. "Give me those shoes."

Within moments, Marina was helping Lorna stand up. She had strapped either side of her caudal fin into the Stella McCartney's and stood upright on her tail, now a full head taller than her sister and balancing somewhat precarious but nonetheless determined. With her arm around her sister's shoulders, Lorna wiggled her "toes", flexed her "ankles", bent her "knees" and shuffle-hopped through the department store, the crowd in awe as they watched her go, following her path with their camera phones. There was the slow sound of a pair of hands coming together, getting louder, growing in frequency and number, clap, clap, clap. The women’s shoe department of Neiman Marcus became a cacophony of cheers and applause and also the scene of several people fainting.

It turned out that the shoes were too big for Lorna's feet after all; but for her fins they were fantastic!

Lorna went to the sales counter and paid for the shoes. For his part, this sales assistant was very courteous, offering to box and bag the shoes for Lorna.

"No, it's fine, thank you. I'll be wearing them out of the store," she said, giving him her best smile.

Marina assisted Lorna across the parking lot to her car, opened the passenger side door and helped Lorna to sit, exhausted, a sheen of perspiration making her face glisten in competition to her iridescent scales.

"Home?" asked Marina, climbing in behind the wheel.

"Why not drive to the aquarium?" said Lorna.

"I'll take you home."

"I'm supposed to go in to work today."

"You at least should get some rest, Lorna. I'll let Dame Kilroy know you might be in later -- and possibly with a tail."

So, for the second time in the past week, Lorna was helped to bed but this time her tail remained. Marina had helped her up the steps of the apartment building, with Lorna going up each stair backwards, on her backside, her tailbone starting to ache from the hopping and shuffling and now the bumping of her... her fish-butt up to the apartment.

Lorna slept while Marina watched television, then got a phone call from the hot guy in Newport.

"Lorna, hon?" said Marina, standing at Lorna's bedroom door. "Will you be OK if I..."

"Sure... sure...," mumbled Lorna, still mostly asleep, waving her arm from under the covers like nocturnal semaphore.

"Thanks, hon. I'll call you later," said Marina, and then she was gone.

Lorna rolled over and went back to sleep, her tail kicking weakly beneath the covers.

While she slept, her tail disappeared again.

***

She is swimming in the Pacific Ocean, her limbs moving through water that is like a cafe wall artwork executed in pastels. She stops, turns in the water and sees the shore, so far away now, how did it get so far away? There has been a riptide forming and Lorna can feel it pulling at her. Previously, she had been swimming with the flow of the rip and hadn't noticed but now she has started to panic, instinctively fighting the irresistible pull. In the distance, on the shore, Lorna can see figures waving to her, arms raising and lowering like the wings of gulls.

I can see you, thinks Lorna in her dream, in that curious lucidity that sometimes comes with dreams and then just as soon is gone. I can see you but I can't come back to you.

Lorna hears a splash, like a body knifing into the water. Who could be out here beyond the shoals and drifting out to sea? But then Lorna isn’t out to sea. Now she’s sinking in a pool, a public pool. She remembers something about a diving platform. Lorna feels the strength in her legs failing, her kicking slowing. The water is strangely warm and comforting now, like the embrace of a parent, so easy to just succumb, as in sleep, as in dreams.

“This is where you were drowning,” says a voice, the speaker hazy and distant.

Lorna's eyes snapped open. She kicked off the sheets and threw herself off the sea bed and onto the shore of her bedroom floor, simultaneously whacking her wrist on the side table and taking a minor carpet burn to the knee. Disorientated, still wondering if she was asleep or awake, she heard the wail of sirens in the night and the calling of the ocean moving, making the sound of waves against rock like a white noise machine -- the mobile app that Lorna left running on her smart phone to soothe her sleep and to help block out the traffic noises from the street outside. Lorna reached up to the bedside table, grabbed for her phone and terminated the app. She dropped the phone bedside her with a dull thud on the carpet, rubbed her tender wrist and, with her back against the bed frame, curled up into a ball, shaking.

What is happening to me?

She looked at her alarm clock, the red glowing numbers indicating it was still the middle of the night, which meant she had slept all of yesterday away. Lorna didn't go back to bed, fearing a repeat of the dream; a riptide of nightmare hiding beneath the calm waters of slumber. Once the shaking subsided and after she had focused on her breathing and on calming her racing heart, Lorna went to the closet and took out her bathrobe, pulling it around herself. She went to the living room and sat on the couch in the aquarium-lit night. Turning on the television, Lorna watched infomercials for knives and food processors and spray-on hair until her alarm went off, signaling the start of the new day.

Lorna opened the glass-paneled door and stepped inside the pet store. An old brass bell hung over the door frame announced her presence but the sound was lost in the white noise of aquarium filters and the chirping of birds. Stepping over the threshold into the store, Lorna rubbed her shoulders and rolled her head back and forth. She was really due to make that appointment with Clint, but now she didn’t know when he’d be able to squeeze her in. They’d all be getting busier. In addition to handling her regular clients, new clients had been scheduled for future appointments. Mermaids of Glendale was now booked up solid and Dame Kilroy had already mentioned they may need to hire another staff member. Lorna certainly hoped so, as she didn't like the idea of having too many days in a row like today -- she'd miss out on her valuable visits to the gym and to the Mall.

Lorna found it hard to believe that this surge in interest at the spa had solely to do with her… Well, Lorna didn't know what to call it, but in any case Lorna was glad that, at least so far, people really did think it was all special effects and make-up for a viral YouTube video. Lorna was certainly sure it beat the alternative -- namely a raging mob of Atwater Villagers brandishing pitchforks and firebrands, storming her 1940s apartment building and calling for the monster's blood. Lorna shuddered, shaking off the thought. She had been trying to think what could have...triggered her brief but nonetheless upsetting transformation. Radioactive soil in the Galleria pot plant? Wizard-enchanted water in the sprinkler system?

No, thought Lorna, that's ridiculous. Why, that makes about as much sense as... as much sense as... turning into a...

"...Fish," said a voice off to her right.

Lorna walked further into the store toward the sales counter where Jimmy the sales associate was twisting the top of a plastic bag filled with water and containing a single goldfish. Jimmy sealed the bag with a wire twist-tie and handed the goldfish to a customer.

"Yes, as I was saying, these fish all look alike to me, but my kid will probably know it’s a replacement," said the customer, a man in an Izod business shirt and blazer ensemble with the tired eyes of a parent as opposed to an overworked office worker. He uttered a long sigh, perhaps looking for sympathy and not finding it.

"Well, now," said Jimmy, also handing a couple of bills and coins change and a receipt to the customer. "We did the best we could, I think. Thanks for bringing the body in -- most people just flush them and then it is impossible to get a match. Have a nice day and thank you for shopping at O'Shene Aquatic and Avian."

The customer held the goldfish in its bag and walked past Lorna on his way to the exit. Lorna could have sworn she saw the goldfish looking at her with its tiny, shining eyes. Swimming in a world that had grown suddenly larger, scrutinized from the outside through clear walls, no privacy, no escape…

"Hi, Lorna," said Jimmy.

"Hi, Jimmy," replied Lorna. "Is my dad here?"

"He's in the back, you can go on through," replied Jimmy. "How are you, Lorna? You haven't been around here in a while. Hey, are you going to the reunion? I hear simply everyone will be there."

Jimmy and Lorna had been at high school together. He'd also been working for her dad for a long time, still behind the counter, still stocking shelves with fish food cans and brightly colored plastic birdcage mirrors. Jimmy always seemed to studying these past years, straight through high school and then college and on and on; he always seemed to be changing his major. Lorna never asked, however, how Jimmy ever managed to pay for all that schooling. As far as she knew, Jimmy's only income came from working at the store and, although her dad was a kind and generous man, there was no way working in a pet shop could possibly pay that well. Lorna assumed it was instead an inheritance, perhaps from a rich, dead aunt or something. In any case, Lorna minded her business. Jimmy's life was his own, but for a moment she did scrutinize him and in that moment pictured him like that goldfish in the plastic bag and stifled a giggle.

"I don't know if I'll make the reunion, Jimmy," said Lorna. "But thanks for the reminder."

"No problem," said Jimmy, despite looking a little crestfallen. Lorna had long suspected Jimmy to have a crush on her. She had never been interested in Jimmy that way, but it remained nonetheless flattering.

"There's my girl," said Lorna's dad, coming out of the double plastic-flap stockroom doors. He was wearing a tan-colored leather apron with the store logo on it -- a stylized flying fish that Lorna had also designed, with feathered wings as opposed to scales; the perfect image for a store that stocked both marine and bird life. Perched on her dad's hand was a magnificent red and gold parrot.

"Awk!" said the parrot. "Hello, Lorna. Hello, Lorna. Awk!"

"Did you teach him that, Dad?" asked Lorna, stepping forward to hug her father, enjoying the welcome and strong and familiar feel of his arm around her even as he held his other arm outstretched and away from her, the parrot scratching at the side of its face with one of its feet, balancing on her father's hand with the other foot, claws pinching into his bare skin.

"No, honey," said her father, Patrick O'Shene. "Besides, he's never met you before. How could he know that you’re Lorna?"

And then she saw her Dad's lip twitch. He never could keep a secret or keep a straight face. He'd be a terrible poker player.

"Oh, Dad!" said Lorna, slapping his arm. The parrot cried Awk! again and beat its wings, a semaphore flashing like a miniature sunset in the aisle of her father's pet store.

"He's smart, though," said Patrick O'Shene. "I can't say I actually taught him, but I keep a picture of you on the desk in my office and I no doubt occasionally look at it when I talk to you on the phone. He must have just put two and two together. Didn't you, Eisenhower, yes, you are a smart parrot."

"You named the parrot Eisenhower?" asked Lorna.

Patrick grinned.

"How are you, honey?" he asked. "You sounded pretty distracted when I called this morning."

"I don't think I can carry on a conversation with you while you are holding that parrot, Dad."

"Right you are," said Patrick. He placed the parrot on a tall steel perch next to the sales counter and slipped a knotted shoelace over one of Eisenhower's feet and secured it so the parrot could flap around but not stray from the perch. "Jimmy, please watch the store for me."

"No problem, Mr. O'Shene," said Jimmy, feeding a Skyflakes cracker to Eisenhower.

“Awk! Eisenhower likes crackers. Awk!"

“I'll meet you across the street at the bakery cafe in, say, five minutes?" said Patrick. "I'll get cleaned up and be right over."

"Sounds good, Dad," said Lorna. "See you soon."

She watched her Dad head back into the stockroom area behind the store, the love she felt for him like butterflies in her stomach or perhaps more like angelfish swimming and finches chirping. He'd always been so strong for her, ever since...

Not now, thought Lorna to herself, fighting back a tear and fighting back sad memories. She decided to take strength from the parrot Eisenhower's namesake. She could use some of that fortitude right about now.

"Awk!” said Eisenhower, startling her out of reverie and back to the present. "Hello, Lorna. How are you? Awk!"

Lorna wasn't quite sure how to answer that question.

HeyMuffin was crowded with early-evening coffee drinkers and most everybody was sitting with laptops or tablet computers, checking their email, Facebook, or watching cat videos on YouTube. Lorna managed to snag a table that had just been vacated by a tech-savvy elderly couple who were chatting to their adult son in Australia via Skype. Lorna brushed crumbs from the table and sat down with the two coffees and croissants she had purchased.

She wasn't quite sure what she was going to say to her dad.

Hey, Dad, what do think about your daughter briefly turning into a fish? Ever see that sort of thing in the pet store? No, that’s not the right way to go about this.

Lorna briefly contemplated not saying anything at all. Her cell phone beeped. She dug it out of her handbag -- she was using her small blue leather See by Chloe one now, having given up the Juicy Couture as a lost cause -- and read the text message from her sister Marina.

Hot guy in Newport not so hot. Sad now. Call me.

Lorna started to tap out a reply, then looked up to see her dad enter the bakery cafe and look around the crowded room. Lorna waved him over, then hit send on her reply.

"Thanks for the coffee, hon," said Patrick, taking a seat. "Cream?"

"Soy, Daddy, it's healthier for you, now," replied Lorna.

"Yes, yes, I suppose you're right," said Patrick, taking a sip and making a face in mock-horror. "Arrgh! Soy!"

Patrick tore a piece off his croissant and chewed happily, a look of contentment on his face. Lorna couldn't deny him every pleasure, despite a couple of recent health scares. That was something else that worried her about telling her dad about the transformations. She sat quietly, picking desultorily at her own croissant. It had blueberries baked into it, which she picked out with her fingernails like a beachcomber picking shells and stones on a storm-washed and distant shore.

"Honey," said Patrick. "What's the matter?"

"It was a very busy day at work today," replied Lorna. "We are getting a whole bunch of new clients and we may be hiring more staff to handle them."

"Well, that's good news, isn't it? Maybe now Marjorie will give you a raise or put you more in charge."

Lorna was about to ask who Marjorie was, then remembered.        

Yes, of course, that's Dame Kilroy's real first name. Hold on, how does Dad know that?

Lorna figured she'd probably just told him at some point.

Ugh, thought Lorna. I'm such a head case today!

"We're getting busier because of a camera phone video I've been, ah, featured in," said Lorna, taking a sip of coffee and looking away and looking at the art on the walls of HeyMuffin; the works of local artists for sale.

"A camera phone video? I don't understand."

Lorna pressed a few icons on her phone and brought up the footage. She handed the phone to her dad. Patrick brushed croissant crumbs and grease from his fingers onto a paper napkin and took the phone from her, his face lit from the blue-white glow of the screen, eyes dancing in the light. Lorna sat across the table from her father, taking another sip of the coffee -- mild roast, black, one sugar; not her usual latte, she didn't think she could handle the slightly bloated feeling she knew she'd get, the mild lactose intolerance she had inherited from her dad. She watched Patrick watching the video. Lorna could hear the splash of water and mud, the chattering on onlookers, the comment that this was like life but in 3D. Her father smirked at that part.

"It is an amazing video, Lorna," said her dad, handing the phone back to Lorna, who slipped it back into her handbag. "The fish scales on the dropped business card were a good touch. How does the tail look so realistic?"

"Because it is," said Lorna.        

Her father had picked up his croissant again and took another bite and then talked with his mouth full like he had always told his kids not to do.

"Sorry? I don't understand what you mean," he mumbled through the buttery pastry, oil glossy on his lips and his moustache, the one he'd always wore, the hairs that had tickled her forehead as he had kissed her and Marina goodnight.

"The tail," said Lorna. "It's real. It's mine, or rather it is… was…  My legs... my legs..."

Lorna put her face in her hands.

"Honey," said Patrick. He reached across the small cafe table and laid one of his large yet gentle hands on her shoulder. "Whatever this is, I don't know what this is, but anything you need, you just let me know."

"I had hoped," said Lorna, looking up at her father, honesty flowing from her in a torrent, "that you would know. I don't know. I had hoped that maybe you'd tell me you knew exactly what this was. That you'd tell me you weren't really Patrick O'Shene, that that was an assumed name. Heck, it even sounds like ocean."

"Oh, sweetheart," said Patrick.

"Yes," continued Lorna. "Yes, on my way over to see you tonight, I thought to myself how could I have never realized you had such a special affinity for marine life, to have an aquatic pet store --"

"And avian," interrupted her father.

"-- And that somehow, somehow, I'd ask you why I turned into a fish at the Glendale Galleria and you would sit me down and calmly tell me that you were really the king of Atlantis or that you were the god Neptune or Poseidon and that having a tail was completely normal and then I'd be able to feel -- I don't know, some sort of satisfaction in that!”

"Sweetheart," said Lorna's father once he was sure she had calmed down. He looked around the tables at HeyMuffin -- most everybody were still glued to their laptops -- Those who weren't quickly looked away from his gaze. He returned his attention to Lorna. "If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes right now, I might never have believed it possible, but... But I believe you. I wish I could tell you I was Neptune or whatever. But all I am, all I ever have been, is your dad."

Lorna nodded, wiping tears away from her eyes.

"I know that," said Lorna. "And of course I've always known you are there for me."

"If it happens again, we'll handle it, sweetheart, like we've always tried so hard to handle everything in our lives."

"Yes, we will," said Lorna, nodding again and basking in the love and company of her father. She also didn’t quite know to tell him that it had happened again.

"If nothing else, judging from the video online, nobody thinks this is weird and it is going to be good for Mermaids of Glendale and good for you and for now, maybe just think about the short term," said Patrick.

"I love you, Daddy," said Lorna.

"I love you, too, hon."

Lorna still didn't have any answers but, right at that moment and for the next twenty minutes before he went back to the pet store -- as she sat there with her father catching up on shop gossip, chit-chat, shooting the breeze -- Lorna found she didn't have any questions, either.

Later, leaving the bakery cafe and going home, Lorna hadn't noticed that among the crumbs of croissants were a few glittery fish scales on the worn linoleum floor.