“Precisely. If you struggle with dressing, the woman, Maria, who is taking you to the hotel can assist you.”
How hard could dressing be? Sure, she still had no idea how she was going to handle the whole legs situation, but she didn’t imagine it would be hard to slide fabric up over them.
It was actually the only part Iris was a little bit excited about. She’d never worn clothes; she couldn’t even imagine what they would feel like. Though she was reasonably sure that if the standard attire for humans involved that lower-body garment that slipped between women’s butt cheeks, she wasn’t going to enjoy that.
“I’m sure I can handle getting dressed.” She had to not only accomplish that but also tamp down all of her anger and resentment about the situation so she could come off as overly excited about it.
“Remember that while you are on land, you arerepresenting not only our family but also all our kind. Conduct yourself appropriately,” Juna said, reaching out to tuck some of Iris’s hair behind her ear in an uncharacteristically gentle gesture.
“I know what I’m doing,” Iris assured her sisters.
She just went ahead and didn’t tell them that what she was doing was making her potential fiancé run screaming.
She said her goodbyes and started her swim toward the surface.
“What do we have here?” Monty called from the sky as she broke the surface on a sandbar. He landed with the grace of a swan and the drama of a disgraced duchess.
“You didn’t hear the news?”
“News? What news? I do hate to miss some juicy gossip.”
Iris plopped herself on the sand, knowing it would be a few minutes before the water would dry and her tail would slowly disappear. She couldn’t pinpoint why the potential of seeing her land legs filled her with so much dread.
“I am being sacrificed to the gods of politics,” Iris told the bird. “I’m getting married. To a human.”
“Betrothed? You’re betrothed? To a man withknees?”
“So it seems. I have to go meet with him today.”
“I havejustthe outfit for an Upper East Side brunch.” At Iris’s raised brow, Monty fluffed his feathers. “I’m obviously coming with you. I’ve always felt I was meant for city life. Do you think a cravat is too much?”
Iris had no idea what a cravat was but was almost certain it would be too much. Like most things Monty.
“Is there some sort of clause in this marriage contract for your emotional support pelican? Because there shouldbe. Anyway, tell me everything. Does he have a penthouse? Does he have … breadcrumbs?”
Leave it to Monty to somehow lighten her mood, despite everything.
“I don’t know where he lives. I don’t know much about him. Apparently, his name is Finn Westrock—”
“The mayoral candidate?” Monty gasped. “We’re going to be political royalty. I want a sash! No, a tiara. With diamonds. We might be invited to galas! And be in the tabloids! I do hope they will catch my good side. I mean, they’re all good sides, but still. This is fantastic. We might be one step closer to my real dream: Broadway! Which, of course, I could segue into a long-running reality show. I could interview people every week. And give my opinion—”
“How do you know he’s a mayoral candidate?”
Looking down, Iris watched as the glitter of her scales dimmed, shimmer by shimmer, leaving unfamiliar skin in their wake.
“By his flyers, of course.”
“Wait, you can read?”
“Of course I can read. How else do you think I keep up with gossip? And seafood recalls.”
Monty, it seemed, had a whole life outside of listening to her complaints and humoring her with tales of the things he witnessed at the beaches.
“Don’t get too excited, Monty,” she said. Her tail was almost completely gone, replaced with two long legs and feet. She spread her toes, seeing the slightest bit of webbing between them—seeing a flash of the green there, the only remaining trace of her tail left.
“Why ever not?”
“Because I don’t plan on actually marrying the man. I am going to get him to break off the engagement.”
