Exclusive Excerpt for The Llano County Mermaid Club by Kathleen M. Rodgers:
Mama said lazy people left pins on the line. I didn’t tell her I’d seen pins left on the line at Melody’s house, and there was nothing lazy about Grandma Dot.
As I gazed again at Tansy and Ruthie, my mind flashed to a fountain on the other side of Sandhill. The one we drove past when we went to look at rich people’s houses at Christmastime. “Our fountain’s almost as nice as the one in front of the country club.”
Melody picked at a scab on her knee. “Grandma Dot used to work there. One summer when I was five, she took me to work with her every day. While she waited tables, I sat in the dining room and colored and read books and stared out a window at rich kids swimming and eating snow cones all day.”
A yucky feeling quivered inside me. “They didn’t let you go swimming, even though your grandma worked there?” I heard my voice tremble in my chest.
“You had to be a member,” Melody sniffed, thumbing her nose.
Mama stopped in front of us, plunking the empty basket at our feet. “It cost money, like everything else.” Straightening, she stretched her back and gazed toward the squeals of laughter coming from the fountain. “Ruthie,” Mama bellowed to get her attention, “what did you say the fountain looked like the first time you saw it?” Ruthie raised the end of the hose in the air. “A giant wedding cake, like the ones Mommy bakes at work.” She grinned at Mama as an arch of water shot out the end of the hose like a silver rainbow and splashed into the fountain.
Mama picked up the basket. “You girls should start your own club. One that doesn’t cost money to join.”
“You mean like a secret club, Mrs. Hubbard?” Melody sprang to her feet, making goo-goo eyes at Mama.
“What should we call it?” Clover put her book down and pushed up from the chair.
“Let me think about it. In the meantime, come help me take clothes off the line. Sometimes the best ideas come when you’re not thinking too hard.”
While we helped Mama, we took turns keeping an eye on the two younger girls, making sure more water went into the fountain than into the yard. I couldn’t wait to get wet. We didn’t change into swimsuits since Melody and Ruthie didn’t bring theirs. Mama said she was proud of us for showing solidarity. What a big word. I counted all five syllables with my fingers. Mama said it meant sticking together.
She hummed and made small talk, her hands plucking clothes off the line like two small birds, quick and graceful. I buried my face in a clean sheet, still warm from the sun. When I looked up, Clover stood inches from my face. She had a clothespin stuck on the end of her nose. “Do I sound like Miss Mavis when I talk?”
I burst out laughing. Every time we visited the library, Miss Mavis sounded like she suffered from a permanent cold. Melody unclipped one of Mama’s bras and stuffed a sock in each cup before stretching it across her flat chest. We laughed so hard my cheeks hurt. Mama laughed, too, but her cheeks turned red.
Then her head snapped up. We all turned to see Tansy shaking her hiney and waving her arms in the air, daring Ruthie to spray her.
Tansy of the webbed toes, our little Aquarius.
Ruthie dropped the end of the hose in the fountain and wiggled her hiney, too. She fluttered her thin brown arms in the air, and she and Tansy danced around the fountain, singing, and carrying on.
A moment later, something caught Mama’s attention. She canted her head, listening hard over the happy sounds coming from the fountain. What is it, Mama? I thought. Are you listening for thunder again or the sound of Daddy’s green Edsel pulling in the driveway?
Then I heard it. A train whistle far off in the distance. A passenger or freight train as it barreled down the tracks toward Sandhill. A few seconds later another whistle pierced the air. Then another.
Mama stood rigid, her hands in the pockets of her apron where she’d dropped more clothespins. “Can you hear them?” she asked softly. “They’re calling to each other across Llano County. Across the whole blasted state of New Mexico.”
“Who’s calling, Mama?” Clover removed the clothespin from her nose.
“The other mermaids,” Mama said. We’d never heard her sound so dreamy. “They whistle, like a train. Millions of years ago, this land was covered by an ocean. Now all those mermaids are trapped. New Mexico is a landlocked state. We don’t border any large bodies of water.”
“Landlocked.” I repeated the word a couple of times, counting each syllable with my fingers. “Did you read that in one of your books?”
“Geography.” Another whistle caught her attention. She glanced at Tansy and Ruthie then back in the direction of the last whistle.
“What are they saying?” Melody asked, dropping Mama’s bra in the laundry basket.
“‘Let it rain. Let it rain.’ They’ve been taking lessons from the Indians.” Mama paused and winked at Melody. “Because if it rains long enough and fills up all the dry arroyos, all those ancient mermaids can find their way to the rivers and streams and swim back to the ocean.”
From the corner of my eye, I saw Melody cross her eyes and fingers like she was making a wish.
“Maybe we’re all mermaids living too far from the ocean.” Mama laughed and threw her head back. Her face glowed in the sunlight. Right then, I got a glimpse of what felt like magic bubbling up out of her through the gap in her teeth. Then she thrust her arms skyward and shook her hiney. “I’ve got it, girls. Y’all can call yourselves ‘The Llano County Mermaid Club.’”
We left the laundry basket under the empty clothesline and followed Mama to the fountain. Waving our arms in the air, we swished our imaginary tails, and chanted our club’s new name.
© 2025 by Kathleen M. Rodgers. Shared with permission from the publisher, University of New Mexico Press.
Lynn and Lynda Miller Southwest Fiction
A Novel
Book club fiction at its finest as Kathleen Rodgers' novel reaches new heights, and hopefully new audiences, in this marvelous story of a group of girls in northeast New Mexico. Here is regional fiction aspiring for a broader market!
Growing up in the desert town of Sandhill, New Mexico, Marigold Hubbard and her friends wanted only one thing: to see the ocean. The community pool and the nearby Santa Rosa Blue Hole are the closest they can get, and they dream of mermaids while swimming these rare waters. When Marigold learns of the affair between her father and the mother of her best friend, Melody Calloway, the betrayal tears the girls apart. Unmoored from both friends and family, Melody meets a tragic and mysterious end on the shores of the Blue Hole, leaving Marigold no chance to ever reconcile the friendship.
Forty years later, Marigold returns to Sandhill to care for her elderly father, but an envelope of old letters and a cryptic message in an abandoned church leads her on a quest to find answers about what really happened to Melody. Threading between past and present, Marigold must piece together the tragic chain of events that led to Melody’s death, pursuing questions that may have no easy answers.
Women's Fiction Family Life [University of Nex Mexico Press, On Sale: October 21, 2025, Trade Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9780826368263 / eISBN: 9780826368270]
Kathleen M. Rodgers is a novelist and the 2024 MWSA WRITER OF THE YEAR. Her work has appeared in Family Circle Magazine, Military Times, and in several anthologies. Her fifth novel, Llano County Mermaid Club, is slated for release 10.21.2025 from University of New Mexico Press and is represented by Tracy Crow Literary Agency. She’s been featured in USA Today, The Associated Press, and many other publications. A native of Clovis, New Mexico, Kathleen resides in North Texas and is working on her sixth novel. She is available to speak at events and book clubs.
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