My time to process comes in a most unexpected way. I am shoveling the salad and chewing with as much attention as I dare while Cici talks about how hard some of the moves are and how Amber has a pole in her living room for practice. I nod my head along with her explanations, even as my mind reels. I feel so stupid; I don’t even know what a pole in the living room means. Is it like a ballet barre? I don’t know, and there is no way I am going to ask.
“It takes tremendous upper-body strength,” she says, flexing her arm to show me her muscle. It’s true; she is tight and toned and looks fantastic. There is a definite note of pride in her voice. I nod, and Cici’s eyes shift upward at the same time a hand taps down on my shoulder.
“It is you,” he says, and I look up.
I am flustered for a second, but then I see him, the boy on the beach. The boy whom I’ve been half hoping to see all day, and he is standing right here. “Hey. Trey, right?”
He nods, his hand still on my shoulder. “Kansas, right?”
I laugh. “Yeah, that’s me.”
“I’m Cici,” she pipes up, and Trey gives her a glance and takes his hand off my shoulder to grasp the hand she has put forward. She puts it out flat, almost, like a queen to her subjects.
“Nice to meet you,” he says, polite but uninterested, and he turns back to me.
I see the look pass over Cici’s face—the shock, the irritation, the realization that somebody thinks I am more interesting than she is. The blush climbs up my face, and I avoid her eyes.
“Do you live around here?” he asks. “I’ve been looking for you.” He is tossed—his hair disheveled from time in the water, his skin burnished, the t-shirt hanging loose from his shoulder, showing off the hollows of his shoulder meeting his neck.
“Really?” The word comes out in full flirt, coy and simple.
“Sure,” he says, and his smile is radiant and glowing. “Is that creepy?” His smile dims, and his brows draw together.
“Maybe, a little.”
“Yeah well, sorry 'bout that.” He pulls a chair over from the table behind us and gets a slightly annoyed look from the people sitting there. He spins the chair and sits with his arms on the back. His hair is still wet from whatever time he spent in the water.
“You could have just found her in your Sunday paper,” Cici says, looking bored, and her vowels stretch.
I put my hand up over my face, embarrassed, laughing, heady with the Hurricane roaring in my stomach.
“What?” he asks, leaning in, his face even with mine.
“Yeah. I was in the Dillard’s local this morning. No big deal, really.” I roll my eyes and crinkle my nose, out of my element with the attention on me.
“Five times,” Cici declares, and I look at her, asking her to shut up with my eyes.
“That is something.” He nods appreciatively. “I told Darius you were a model when I met you.”
“No you didn’t.”
“Seriously, I did. Come ask him.” He gestures toward a group of boys sitting at the bar, watching but not watching.
“So,” I let the word draw out long, changing the subject, “do you live around here?”
“Yeah. I do. This is my beach,” He laughs, and the muscles of his throat move with the sound. “My beach” suggests ownership, like the way I say “my car” or “my shirt.”
I laugh with him, because he is easy to laugh with.
“So, do you surf?”
I snort out a, “No.” Of course I don’t surf.
“Well, you should. Can I teach you?”
“Well, yes,” Cici answers for me, and he looks at her for only the second time today. “Of course she wants to learn to surf.” I give her a look, but she isn’t wrong Why not? Maybe that should be my new life motto. Why not?
“I would, apparently, like to know how to surf.” I let the sarcasm drip off my words, but even with the sarcasm, my voice is happy and light.
“We’re heading back out after lunch.”
“Not gonna wait an hour?” I cock an eyebrow.
“Living life large,” He says, cocking his own eyebrow and looking just a little bit dangerous himself. “Up for it?”
I look at Cici, and she nods emphatically. “Sure, that sounds great,” I say and bite my lip.
Cici, as it turns out is not a big water person either, but she pulls off her top readily enough as we make our way down the beach with Trey and his two friends. The tall one is David, and the smaller one is Darius. “Okay, Kansas, the most important thing is to be one with the water” Trey says, starting his instructions as we walk along the beach.
“Okay. One with the water . . .” I draw my hands up, pantomiming meditation. “How do I do that, again?”
“The ocean has a language. You have to listen to her, and she’ll tell you what is coming.”
“I’m a good listener. I can do that.” After we have walked past several pods of people on the beach and find an area that is not crowded, Trey, David and Darius drop their board onto the sand.
He flops down on one of the boards. “First thing: paddling out.” He rakes his arms over his shoulders and drags them along the sand, the muscles of his shoulder flexing and displaying deep pockets where the muscles come together. “Try it.”
Cici and I get down on the other two boards and mimic his motions, Cici not touching the sand, her cheeks flushed with the exertion and alcohol. She had finished my Hurricane as well as the two she’d ordered for herself.
“Good. The second thing: popping up.” He demonstrates, and Cici groans. I am relieved that I didn’t take my own t-shirt off. We follow his lead, and after the third attempt, with her boobs nearly flinging out of her top each time, Cici turns and walks way, flopping down in the sand between Darius and David, adjusting her top as she goes.
“What? You giving up?” I ask, laughing.
She blows a small puff of air through her lips and fans herself with her hand, “Too much work for entertainment.”
We laugh, and David puts his hand up to her, congratulating her for the truth. She slaps his hand and says, “Right!”
Trey and I head out into the water, and when I glance back, Cici is leaning back on her elbows, watching me through half-closed lids, and both of the boys beside her are looking down at her. She gives me that exceptional smile, and the waves nudge at my thighs, pushing the board and forcing me to turn around and focus on my forward motion.
Trey stays close, guiding me past the breakers until we get on the boards and begin to paddle out. There is sun streaking down on the water, even though the beach is still overcast, and I feel the shift on my skin as soon as we pass the line of clouds. He stops paddling and turns on his board, sitting, facing the beach, and I do the same, nearly losing my balance on the turn-around. While we wait, he trails his fingers in the water.
We listen, watching as the swells slowly undulate toward us, and on the first three, he says no. On the fourth, I follow his lead and shift down, paddling, feeling the sea rising under me until it breaks and washes away. I watch him ride the wave I lost until his speed slows, and he drops off, looking back to find me sitting up again, embarrassed, but exuberant.
“I forgot to pop up,” I say when he gets back to me.
“Yeah, that happens a lot. You didn’t fall off, though, and you didn’t panic.”
“I panicked, a little,” I say, comfortable and at ease. He is so calm and relaxed that I feel more calm and relaxed. We paddle back out to the depth we started from, and we sit on our boards, watching to the west, feeling the ocean surge, his fingers trailing in the water.
“You may be just a bit far back on your board,” he says, and I turn from looking out at the coming waves to find him looking at my hips on the board. I shift forward. “That’s better. If you sit too far back, you’ll never get up.” The first surge passes, and we bob up and then down. “When we go, just try to get to your knees. Understand? I mean, don’t pop up all the way. Do a knee ride in and see how that feels, okay, Kansas?”
“You know, my name isn’t Kansas.” He looks at me for a long minute with such a spark of amusement in his eyes that I feel like I’ve said a joke. “It’s Alison.” He smiles and reaches his hand out to me.
His fingers close on mine, and another surge rises under us. “I’m glad to meet you, Alison.”
“I’m glad to meet you,” I say, and I hear the honesty, the joy, of this one moment
He holds my hand for a split second longer and then turns to the west. We watch another swell and let it pass, then we paddle into the next one, and this time I remember to shift up to my knees. I think I’ve got it before I tilt forward and the front of the board dips under the surface, catching and tumbling me into the water. I roll as the surf passes over me, the sand scraping rough against my shoulder. I break the surface, gasping for air, exhilarated and terrified at the same time. For that second, when I was moving up to my knees, I’d felt it. I’d felt the draw of surfing, the excitement of feeling the water rushing beneath me and the sky above me. I’d felt like I could fly.
We settle again, sitting on the boards, are legs dangling in the water, watching the ocean pulse toward us two more times before Cici stands from the sand and waves me in, ready to go. I only got to my knees the one time, and Trey says, “Probably just getting tired. You’ll be surprised at where you hurt tomorrow.” He winks. “You’ll get it next time.” He drops his arm over my shoulder as we wade through the water. He is so like Dylan, with the easy way he smiles and that golden-boy look, that I miss Dylan a little less.
We are on the way back up to Poway when Cici brings up the dancing thing again. I am tired, but happy beyond belief. My body feels loose and relaxed, the way it does after a good run, or after a long horse ride through he trails back home. I am tuned and synced, and don’t want to think about anything but the afternoon we have spent.
I glance at her wondering what she wants me to say. What does she want me to say? Does she want me to tell her I’m proud of her, for her newfound aspiration to be a stripper? I let my head roll and look at her as her words die away.
“You want to know what I think? Really?” I look back at the road, and we merge into traffic.
“Yeah. I do,” she says. She doesn’t. I know she doesn’t, even if she thinks she does.
“I think you’ll regret it,” I say, holding my eyes steady on the road, trying to keep the accusations and any hint of judgment out of my voice. She glances at me, and I see, out of the corner of my eye, that she is ready to argue, but she just closes her mouth instead.
“What?”
“Not all of us had somebody open the door for them.”
“What that’s supposed to mean?” My heat rises, wiping out some of the happy from the afternoon.
“Nothing,” she snaps, turning to look out the window.
We ride in silence, the air in the car sizzling with the vibrations washing off of her.
“I’m sorry, Ceece. I just worry about you.”
She nods and some of the stiffness in her neck relaxes. She looks down at her hands. “Yeah well, I’m really good at it.”
“I’m sure you are. Just be safe. Keep yourself safe.” I take my hand off the shifter and reach out for hers. She wraps her fingers in mine. Will we ever be able to bridge the gap left by the things we cannot talk about?
She nods, and I wonder if she feels it too.