Mari en el Mar: Part 2
Marimar and Sergio meet, and things take an unexpected turn.
This is the second part of a Mermay mini series. You can read Part 1 here.
A crisp, blue sky reflected over the glistening sea. It was the perfect backdrop to reunite lost lovers. At least, that’s what telenovelas led Thiago to believe. Meanwhile, Sergio scoped out the few beach goers that passed them by, lingering on a woman in a red bikini until she was out of sight. Thiago wandered towards a slab of beach rock rising above the water. Sergio followed.
“Is she on her way?” He cooly asked.
“She will be. Trust me, she’ll be easy to spot.” A smile bloomed on his face as he imagined Sergio’s reaction to a real mermaid.
Right on time, the tide pulled further back and then towards their direction. Marimar broke through the water and rested her forearms over the slab. Sergio jumped back releasing a startled “Ño!1” before propping up an air of nonchalance.
The mermaid’s eyes widened, and she sat up on the bedrock to survey the man. She held out her webbed hands, and Sergio readily accepted them without so much as a glance at her hands. He lifted them up for a kiss. Thiago rolled his eyes at the romantic scene.
“Mi amor…who did this to your hair?” She chuckled, brushing her fingers along his low fade.
Sergio gave a smirk.
“I’ve had this style for a while now. Lots of people like it.”
Marimar rested her hand along his jawline, searching in his eyes. It was one thing for Thiago to sit through a telenovela with his abuela, but watching it unfold in front of him stirred up a new sense of curiosity and anticipation.
Then the spark behind her eyes dimmed, and he held his breath. Sergio’s smile remained plastered, oblivious to the change in her mood. The skies began to gray.
Marimar let go and studied Sergio one more time.
“What’s wrong, bebe?” He asked.
She wrinkled her nose.
“Do you remember the nickname you gave me?”
Sergio tisked.
“Of course I do! I used to call you mi sirena for your beautiful voice. Who knew it would actually come true?” He answered, reaching for her hand.
Marimar scoffed and splashed him with her tail. The skies darkened, followed by a low rumble beyond the skies.
“That must have been your other lover.” She replied, emphasizing ‘lover’ with a hiss.
Registering her annoyance, Sergio put on an assuring smile.
“Girl, I never cheated on you. Honest to God.”
The waters became disturbed by the building storm. Marimar’s eyes began to glow. Thiago reached for Sergio.
“I think we should go now.” He warned.
“Please, she’s just playing. Typical, Marisol.” He said as his pitch dropped in fear.
Before Thiago could correct him, the tide gripped at their ankles. Marimar turned away and looked over her shoulder. The resident playboy could no longer ignore the danger behind her orange eyes.
“Vete pa’l carajo.2” She snapped and returned to the ocean.
The tide swelled enough to snatch the two into torrential waters. The surge knocked Thiago in sporadic directions, taking him under. He swam for the surface in vain, only to be pulled further down. He thought of the consoling embrace of his parents when they returned home, his grandmother’s gentle strokes of his curled hair, and of Maite’s smile proudly showing a gap between her incisors.
He collided into a body before being propelled back onto shore. He hunched over and coughed out whatever saltwater remained in his lungs. Sergio did the same beside him. Once they both could breath, Thiago punched him on the shoulder.
“Why did you lie about knowing her?” He yelled.
Sergio sat up and rubbed his shoulders.
“Kid, I date a lot of girls. I can’t remember every single one that I’ve…escorted.” Sergio glanced at Thiago, remembering his age. Then he gave a smirk.
“Don’t tell me you wouldn’t shoot your shot with a literal mermaid!”
Thiago spat on the sand and clumsily got on his feet.
“You suck, bro. I’m going home.”
Sergio waited until the boy was out of sight before cursing at the horizon, disappointed at the turn of events.
A trembling clouded sky hung above Tívoli. Thiago’s shirt clung to his chest as if it was in danger of slipping away, while his shorts sagged from the added water. His thoughts wallowed so deep in embarrassment that he was started by a sudden grip on his forearm. On the other side of the tug was his daydream.
“Are you all right, Thiago?”
His eyes lingered on Maite’s hand, his mind fumbling for a response.
“I-I’m fine. I went for a swim when the storm started.”
She let him go and scanned him top to bottom.
“Okay, but…you don’t have any shoes.”
“Oh, I left them by the shore. The ocean got them.”
She shook her head with a sigh, then gave him a smile.
“Well, that’s the summer storms for you.”
He stiffly shrugged, failing to come off as cool.
“Where are you going?” He asked her.
“My American primas sent us a package, so I’m going to the post office to pick them up.”
“D-Do you need any help? Carrying the package, I mean.” He offered with colored cheeks.
“That’s very sweet, but it’s only medicine this time. Hopefully, we get everything they sent to us...”
A rumble of storms got both of their attention. When it passed, Maite looked back at Thiago.
“I better get there before the rain starts again. Plus, I bet your abuela is worried about you.”
She stepped forward and offered an air kiss on the cheek. He returned the gesture by instinct.
“I’m gonna hold you to your offer!” She said as she waved goodbye.
They were a few feet apart when Thiago caught himself staring at Maite’s shoulders. He shook his head, noticing the excess saltwater leaving his hair. He released an elated laugh, and with a lighter step he made his way towards home.
Thiago turned a block when he was stopped by an older gentleman, who stared at the boy under a straw fedora hat. Cigar smoke lingered on his person, though no traces of ash could be seen on his clothing. The man hummed.
“It looks like you lost a fight with the ocean. You didn’t happen to be with Sergio Alvarez, did you?”
The boy tilted his head. Upon hearing the name, this man did seem like an older version of his unpleasant companion.
“Yes, sir.”
The gentleman crossed his arms, wrinkling his ivory guayabera.
“I am his grandfather, and my neighbor saw you two get taken away by the tide during a storm. What in God’s name were you two doing out there?”
Thiago straightened himself.
“We were meeting someone that he knew.”
“Who were you meeting?”
He flitted a glance to the left.
“Just a girl.”
His grandfather sucked his teeth.
“I love my grandson, but he thinks of himself as a Casanova. God only knows who deceived him. Now, who was the girl?”
He pressed his lips together, eliciting a raised eyebrow.
“Mira, chico, I know your family. If you two are involved in anything dangerous, it will certainly break their heart.”
He huffed. Adults always played the guilt card.
“Her name was Marimar.”
Thiago parroted his invented backstory, until he realized that he was not even listening. In fact, it was as if a vision took over his senses. He waited for the man to come back to the present.
“Take me to Marimar.”
Thiago raised a curious eyebrow.
“You…know her?”
“Perhaps. Just lead the way, boy.”
Though the waters were calm, the atmosphere was unsettlingly still. The two looked out at the horizon, expecting Marimar to appear the moment they reached the shore. Thiago cupped his hands around his mouth, calling her name several times. With each call, he raised his voice to the point that his throat began to itch. Sergio’s grandfather was less successful.
“I think she’s still mad about meeting Sergio.”
It was the man’s turn to call out to the ocean.
“Mi Niña!3”
The ocean hung in silence until water moved over the slab of rock from earlier. Thiago led the old man to the meeting spot. The waters withdrew, revealing a hesitant Marimar peering over the rocks. Her webbed ears flickered with curiosity, studying the visitor.
The man’s face transformed from surprise to a budding hope. The finer wrinkles on his face seemed to have disappeared. Marimar raised herself up, her eyes growing wider the longer she stared.
“Sergio…”
Thiago was stunned in place as Sergio Sr. reached his right hand out to touch her face. His thumbs gently brushed over the scales freckling her cheek.
“How…?”
Memories flashed across his mind.
“Was this Angélica’s doing?” He stiffly asked. Thiago swore that his voice reverted back to its youth.
Marimar nodded.
“She told me you wanted to meet me on the beach late at night. When I arrived, she was there with a large conch shell, chanting nonsense over it. The next thing I knew, I turned into this and was carried away by the current.” She gestured at her fin, and her ears flickered.
Sergio retrieved his hand and spat to his right.
“May that bruja4 rot in hell for eternity.” He cursed with a puffed chest.
“But I waited by this shore for days hoping you’d come find me. Where were you?”
Sergio caught a stray tear, and cupped his hands on her face.
“I did look for you - out here, and all over town. Angélica insisted that you ran off with a revolutionary. No one else knew what happened to you. When el movimiento 26 de julio5 happened, I had lost hope.”
Marimar hissed, and for a moment her eyes glowed.
“Fidel can rot in hell with that puta.6” Her curse was accompanied by a distant rumbling thunder.
Sergio took Marimar’s hands, noticing the webbing between her fingers. He looked right into her eyes.
“If I could turn back time and stop you from this fate, I would.”
His gaze softened.
“But now that we are reunited, would you accept this widowed man?”
A doey, love-struck smile bloomed on the mermaid.
“Always, mi amor.”
Ecstatic passion prompted the two to embrace before sharing a deep kiss, to the disgust of their young companion.
Once they broke their exchange, Marimar’s whole being began to glow. The scales across her skin disappeared, her ears transformed back to their original state, and her fin was replaced with human legs.
When the glow faded away, a matured Marimar sat before them. She ordered Thiago to look away, though her silver hair conveniently covered her chest. Sergio gave her his guayabera to cover her top half, and asked the boy to go search for spare clothes. Then, he helped her off the stone, accompanying her as she readjusted to walking on land.
Thiago and his grandmother ran into Sergio and Marimar three months after their reunion, who spent their walks with arms intertwined.
According to his grandmother and all the people who remembered Marimar, she moved to Cienfuegos when the revolution happened. She never married, and returned when she heard that Sergio was still in Tívoli. Recalling the time Thiago asked her about a Sergio Alvarez, she praised him for describing Marimar’s voice as a young woman.
As their small talk came to a lull, Thiago’s grandmother pointed across the plaza with her chin. Maite was on the opposite side of the street heading towards the post office.
“Gricelda said she was expecting a handful of clothes from their American family. She must have sent Maite to pick it up.” She gave a playful smirk.
“Ay, si, go help her!” Doña Marimar encouraged, her eyes sparkled.
Thiago stared at Maite until Don Sergio clapped his back.
“Vete, chico!7”
The next thing he knew, he was crossing the plaza and called her name. When she recognized him, her face lit up.
“Hey, Thiago! Are you doing anything right now?”
“Actually, I came to see if you needed help. I-I mean, because it looks like you’re going to the post office and I remembered-”
Maite laughed and put her hands on his shoulders to stop his rambling.
“That’s exactly what I was going to ask you. I told you I’d hold you to it.” Her touch left him dazed, only breaking out of the spell as she led him towards the direction of the post office.
I hope you enjoyed this Mermay mini series! This story is VERY loosely inspired by the 90s Mexican telenovela, Marimar. And by loosely inspired, I mean that I yoinked the main characters and made the leading lady a mermaid. Plus my story is far less dramatic, if you can believe it!
The word “mar” means sea, and Mari is a version of Mary, usually with what I like to call joint names like Marisol, Maricela, Mariana, etc. So, literally, Marimar would translate to “Mary-sea”, I guess? The title of this series translates to “Mary in the Sea.”
Personally, I think it’s a shame that the telenovela did not make her a mermaid, even though she literally lived by the ocean! So this is my attempt at making that motif.
A shortened version of “coño” - AKA, “shit.”
Go to hell.
My girl!
Witch
Bitch
Just go, boy!
Ok, I love the twist though that he had the wrong generation of Sergio! This was so fun.
Also, I am very curious about what could be more dramatic than having a mermaid 😂 but I really love your take on the story!
I love that you had all the cuss words in Spanish, which normally works as a soft censor...and then listed all the definitions at the end. 😂
Beautiful story! Are there any current telenovelas you'd recommend? Or older ones that I might be able to find somewhere? With or without mermaids 😉