Swim to Me Read Online Free Page A

day. She got a good look at the man and woman. How ridiculous to fantasize that they could be her parents; they were only a year or two older than she was.
    Delores waited until everyone left the bus station. She went into the ladies’ room and opened her suitcase. She pulled out her suede jacket, then unwrapped Otto, running her fingers around his head. No cracks. What a relief. He would stay with her for a while. She reached inside his skull and pulled out the letter inviting her to audition at Weeki Wachee. She plucked a coin from the bathing cap in which she had stashed her treasured silver dollars and closed the suitcase. The man at the ticket counter seemed surprised when she asked for change, but handed her ten dimes, smiled, and said: “Anything else I can do for you?”
    She wasn’t used to people being this friendly: the man who lifted her suitcase, the girl who told her to have a good time, and now this man who wanted to know if he could do something else for her.
    â€œThank you, I’m fine,” she said.
    â€œYou take care,” he said, winking at Otto.
    Delores found a phone booth. She closed the door and dialed the phone number on the letterhead.
    â€œWeeki Wachee, how may I help you?” It hadn’t even rung twice.
    Delores asked for the director, Thelma Foote, the woman who had signed the letter.
    â€œHello, this is Delores Walker. You sent me a letter saying I could try out to be a mermaid if I came here,” said Delores. “Well, I’m here.”
    â€œDelores, sweet thing,” said Thelma Foote. “Where’s ‘here’?”
    Delores read from the sign in front of her. “The Tampa bus depot.”
    â€œAre you by yourself?”
    â€œI am.”
    â€œHang on a moment, will you?”
    â€œYou stay right there,” she said. “One of my girls will come get you. It’ll take about an hour. How will we know you?”
    â€œI’m tall with long, brown hair and I’ll be carrying a fringed suede jacket.”
    Delores sat on the concrete bench outside the depot and started to reread her copy of
Teen Girl
magazine. The sun made her head pound. She moved inside the stuffy building and sat on a backless wooden bench, too distracted to read. She put her suitcase and the brown paper bag next to her. Otto flopped on her lap. She unwrapped the last of her sandwiches. It was cold sliced liver on Wonder Bread with ketchup. And now, here Delores was, eleven hundred miles away from home, eating liver and already missing it. A little touch of France in Tampa. She polished off the sandwich and decided against buying a drink to go with it. Best to save her money. Who knew where she’d wind up sleeping tonight?
    When she was sure no one was looking, she slipped her hand into Otto’s flaccid body. “Hey kiddo,” he said in his squeaky voice. He cocked his head, then looked around in the darting way that pigeons do. “We’re here. We made it.”
    â€œOtto,” she whispered, staring at the return ticket in her other hand. “What am I going to do if they don’t take me as a mermaid?”
    Otto leaned his cool face against hers. Then he pulled back and looked her in the eye. “With your looks and talent? It’s in the bag, kiddo. Would they drive an hour one-way to pick up just anyone? I don’t think so.” With Otto still alive on her right hand, Delores curled up on the bench and fell asleep. She awoke to the sound of a honking car horn. They were here. She gave Otto a quick peck on the cheek, wrapped her pajamas around his head, and shoved him into the suitcase. She ran her hands through her hair, squeezed her eyes open and shut a few times, then walked outside. There was a white pickup truck with the blue letters WEEKI WACHEE and a drawing of the two mermaids in front of the clamshell.
    â€œYou the girl from New York City?” asked the young woman who was