“How’s the conquest going?” Dave asked the next morning over breakfast. I had moved on to Lucky Charms. There’s nothing like the marshmallow-dyed milk that’s left after the last piece of cereal makes its way to my mouth.
“The surfboard? You’ve been at all my surf lessons. You should know.”
“No, your other conquest. Aren’t you stalking Matt Gibson?”
I narrowed my eyes. “You aren’t supposed to know that.”
“Whatever,” he shrugged. “I don’t think Matt knows he’s being stalked.”
“Sure he knows he’s being stalked,” Celia said, diverting her attention from her yogurt for a moment. “It’s just hard to tell which girl is doing the stalking at any given moment, is all.”
“No kidding,” Dave said. “I know he’s a good-looking dude, but how does he pull so many hot chicks?”
“Probably by not referring to them as chicks,” I retorted.
“Are you a feminist or something?” Dave asked.
“I just have a little self-respect.”
“But I don’t care if you call me a dude. Why do you care if someone calls you a chick?”
“Dude isn’t insulting. What if I referred to you as a puppy or something? They’re all cute and cuddly and stuff. Wouldn’t you like that?”
“No, but that’s because puppies aren’t manly.”
“And chicks are fluffy and useless.”
He shook his head. “I think college is ruining you. That’s the problem with chicks and higher education.”
I was about to go after him again when a balled-up napkin bounced off the side of his head. “Quit messing with her, Dave,” Celia ordered.
He grinned at me. “I’m kidding,” he said. “I respect women. But you can’t deny that it’s mostly the chick variety who go after Matt. They don’t get it.”
“Get what?” I asked.
“They think he’s just a surf bum and they like that he’s all buff, but the guy has a lot going on upstairs.”
“You know him well?” I asked.
“A group of us surfed together before my mission and we would talk. Matt’s pretty smart, actually. He’s got some good ideas.”
“Ideas about what?”
He shrugged. “They’re his ideas. You should ask him.”
“Oh, she can’t,” Celia said. “Ashley stalks by not talking to him or being anywhere in his vicinity.”
“Not true,” I defended myself. “I just make him come to my vicinity. That’s all.”
“That’s a pretty good plan, cuz,” Dave said. “Is it working? Because there’s a cute girl I saw at FHE that I might try ignoring completely if this works out for you.”
“It won’t work if everyone does it, so you’ll just have to go back to lurking and hope she notices you,” I teased him.
“Dave’s not a lurker,” Celia said.
“Thanks, sis.”
“Yeah, he’s more of a skulker,” she added.
He rolled his eyes and scooped up the last of his Grape Nuts. “I’m done with this estrogen fest,” he said. He took his bowl to the sink and then headed for the back door. “The Taco Reef Express leaves in one minute if any chicks in here are trying to get some surfing in.”
He barely ducked to avoid Celia’s yogurt container as it bounced off the door frame behind him, leaving a small splatter of pink gunk in its wake.
“You got one minute, Barrett!” he called to me over his shoulder. “I hear the pearl beds are hopping today.”
Knowing I needed the practice, I dumped my marshmallow milk out with a sigh and hustled after him. It looked like I’d be washing down my Lucky Charms with mouthfuls of sand and seawater instead. Yum.
I secured my board in the back of Dave’s pickup and hopped in. He pulled out, and as the wind whipped through the rolled-down window, I scooped a fistful of hair out of my face and turned to face Dave. “How come you didn’t mention you know Matt?”
“How come you didn’t mention you were trying to replace me with him as your surf coach?” he responded.
“I don’t know. I guess I figured you didn’t like teaching me and you’d be happy to get rid of me. He seems like a good bet.”
“And I guess I thought you were looking around for someone better.” He kept his tone even, but I could sense a slight trace of hurt.
“No way! I just feel bad that I keep carving out chunks of your surf time when you already have to squeeze it in. I’m sorry, Dave. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
He was quiet for a minute. Then he shrugged. “Well, in that case, maybe I’ll help you get lessons from Matt Gibson. He pretty much is the best guy around.”
“You can do that? He’s already full for the summer, I heard.”
“Yeah, but he speaks dude. I’ll make it work.”
“That would be awesome!” I was excited for almost ten seconds, and then I frowned. “Wait, are you just trying to get rid of me so you don’t have to teach me anymore?”
“Yep.”
“Then my feelings are hurt now.”
“But you get Matt Gibson as a consolation prize.”
“Oh yeah. Good trade.” I thought for another minute. “Can you do this in a way that doesn’t blow my covert stalker status?”
“Trust me.”
“I don’t really have a choice.”
He snorted and cranked up the radio. “That’s the best thing about you, Ashley. That great attitude.”
I grinned and spent the last few minutes of the drive watching the houses downtown roll by. Old original beach bungalows nestled between small apartment units and large McMansions with tiny front yards. The crazy hodgepodge of architecture always entertained me. If I lived here, I’d probably hole up in one of the little cottages with their wooden porches and low roofs. They reminded me of my favorite old-school neighborhood, the Avenues, back home in Salt Lake.
Dave turned down Ninth and situated us next to the Taco Bell again. We jumped out, wiggled into our wetsuits, grabbed our boards, and then waited at the light with a few other surfers and some dog walkers on their way to Dog Beach. After two weeks, standing in front of the Pacific and watching it stretch endlessly before me still gave me a flutter in my stomach. The waves were about waist high again, and when we hit the water, I stayed right behind Dave. He watched the waves roll in, checking for a rideable one.
“The first one that comes in and looks good is yours. Be ready to go when I tell you, okay?”
I nodded and stayed focused on the swells. I saw one forming up that looked right.
“This one’s yours,” he nodded toward it. “Let’s go.”
We turned our boards toward the shore and I took off, paddling fast to match the momentum of the wave. A strange, weightless feeling stole over me for a moment, almost like the texture of the wave had smoothed out beneath me.
I was about to tell Dave that I thought I finally got “the plane” he described when he asked, “Do you trust me?”
I turned around in confusion. “What?”
“You have to trust me. Stand up!”
I did as ordered, feeling for the first time ever that I was on the shoulder, the prime spot for taking a wave in. A giddy bubble of adrenaline welled up inside me, and then suddenly, a sharp tug on my ankle sent me headfirst over the nose of my surfboard. When I broke through the surface of the water, Dave was almost on me, looking angry.
“How many times do I have to explain this to you, Ashley?” he demanded, irritation furrowing his brow. “It’s standing up. Just stand up!”
Too confused to speak because I knew Dave was the one who had yanked my leash, I treated him to a cold shoulder and paddled toward the sand when I heard Matt say, “Hey, Dave,” his voice mellow.
“Hey,” my cousin spat back. Whoa.
“What’s going on?” Matt asked.
“I’ve been trying to teach Ash here to surf for two weeks. I’m over it.”
“Have you stood yet?” Matt asked me.
I shook my head. “Only in the white water.”
“She doesn’t get the timing, and I’m running out of ways to explain it to her,” Dave said. “You know what, Ashley? I quit. I’m going to go catch some of my own waves. Stay here if you want a ride back home.” Then he stomped off to grab his own board and headed for the water.
I think my mouth was slightly open, unhinged with shock at this little display. I snapped it shut and managed a joke. “I hope he doesn’t come back and kick sand at me.”
Matt smiled. “I’ll help you brush it off if he does.”
When I looked at him funny, he added, “Uh, that was an accidental double meaning. I just meant I’d help you.”
“Yeah, that’s what I need. Help. Like remedial surf tutoring.” I didn’t know if I was more embarrassed over how wrecked I must look from the wave bashing or the fact that he’d seen my pitiful attempts to stand up. It was a humiliating toss up.
“Surfing is a little easier if you’re relaxed,” he said.
I mustered a weak smile. “Again with the suggestion that I’m uptight. I’m not uptight. I just lose all sense of coordination in the water. I’m pretty athletic everywhere else, so I don’t even have an excuse.” I plopped down on the sand, deciding that dejected loser status could only work in my favor. “It’s bad when even family quits on you.”
My patheticness was a black hole that sucked him down on the sand next to me. “I could help,” he offered. He stretched out his sand-dusted legs, which extended from black board shorts.
Nibble, fishy, nibble.
“How? Are you going to yell ‘Relax!’ from the sidelines every time I fall off my board?”
“No, I just mean I could teach you.”
“You heard Dave. I’m hopeless.” I held my breath, hoping I was throwing out just enough line.
“I’ve watched you on the waves a few times. It’s possible Dave might not have explained a couple of things to you that would help.”
Almost there, almost there . . .
“Really?” I asked, allowing curiosity to color my voice. “Like what?”
“Like you need to change the angle of your surfboard when you’re paddling to catch a wave. You always point straight toward the shore. Starting diagonal would help you.”
“That sounds so easy. How come he never told me that?”
Matt shrugged. “I don’t know. Sometimes people who are really good at something don’t know how to explain it. It’s just what they do. That’s what my sister says about math, so maybe it’s true about surfing.”
“So you’d still teach me even though I stink after two weeks of lessons?”
“Yeah. I’m out here most mornings, anyway.”
Tugging on the line . . . !
“I’m pretty broke, so I can’t pay you.”
“Just make me dinner and we’ll call it even. I’m tired of Derek’s burgers.”
“What if I’m a bad cook?”
A slight grin twisted his lips. “You can’t cook worse than you surf. I’m sure I’ll live.”
“Hey!”
“I’m just kidding.” His grin widened. “Can you cook?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact.” My mom had insisted that all of her daughters learn to make some fierce meals as part of our Early-Marriage Prep training. Goat cheese stuffed chicken breasts? Unbelievably rich beef stroganoff? I’m your girl.
“Okay, then. How about we trade? A surf lesson for a meal.”
I heaved an overly dramatic sigh. “And I so hoped you would do it just for the chance to hang out with me.”
“Who says I’m not finding a way to do that twice?”
Hooked.
He climbed to his feet, and I looked up, way up, to see his face.
“I think my client is rested enough for me to finish his lesson right now and I have another one after that, so I need to go, but what are you doing in an hour?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m stuck here waiting for a ride with Dave whenever he decides he wants to leave.”
“If you’re still here and the waves are still right, I’ll take you out.”
“To tell you the truth, Matt, chances are I’m going to lose my balance and my board is going to take you out.”
He grinned and pointed to an older gentleman in a comically small wetsuit sitting several lengths down the beach. “That guy was standing halfway through our first lesson. You’ll be fine.”
“If I get bored working on my tan and you only find an Ashley-shaped indentation in the sand where I used to be, I’m probably at the volleyball nets.”
“See you in an hour.”
“Sure,” I agreed, and watched him saunter off. He had a world-class saunter. I leaned back, enjoying the steady heat from the sun until a spray of cold droplets rained down on my face. I gasped and jerked upright to discover Dave standing over me, dripping, with a crafty smile on his face.
“Why did you yank my leash?” I demanded.
“Come on, cuz. You’re the queen of strategy around here. You know why I did it.”
“Because you were trying to make Matt feel sorry for me so he’d offer to teach me instead?” I guessed.
“Yep.”
“You little schemer. I’m so proud.” I slapped him a high five.
“I knew you would be.”
“But I totally owe you for knocking me off my board. I was going to catch that wave, for once.”
“You caught Matt instead. You’re a very demanding female to want it both ways.”
“Haven’t you heard, Dave? The new generation of chicks wants it all.”
He sighed and began toweling his hair dry. “As dudes, do we have any say in that?”
“Nah. Total world domination.”
“Okay, but I want to be kept alive as a breeder when the revolution comes.”
“That’s disturbing.”
“I try. You ready to go?” He held out a hand to help me up.
“I’m waiting for Matt to give me a surf lesson.”
“Good work,” he grinned. “I need to try some of your reverse voodoo on my FHE girl.”
“Or you could talk to her and ask her out.”
He stared at me, one eyebrow arched. “Did you just give me advice on being straightforward in a dating situation?”
“Yeah.” I paused. “It felt weird.”
He laughed. “If you’re sure you’re okay, I’m outta here.”
“I’m cool. You can go.”
He headed off in the direction of his truck, and I stood to test my injured foot. The cut from the glass throbbed but not too badly. It would do. I shucked my wetsuit off so I could play volleyball. Maybe I should add “Become an Olympic medalist in beach volleyball” to my list . . .
* * *
An hour drags by like days when you’re getting your pride handed to you on a sand court, but right as I missed another dig, I heard Matt call, “Ashley,” to get my attention from the sideline. Ah, the sound of my name on his lips. It was a gentle reminder that my ego was about to endure even greater abuse from the waves.
I swapped out with another girl watching from the sidelines and jogged over to my new surf guru who looked tanned and relaxed.
“Are you going to have the energy for this?” he asked.
I nodded. “My energy’s fine. It’s my self-esteem that’s been sucked dry.”
“Why? I saw you make some great returns.”
“Did you happen to notice all the ones I missed?”
He laughed, the rich sound sending a shiver down my back. “Ashley, do you know who you were playing against?”
“I didn’t memorize all their names or anything.”
He pointed to a girl in a bright yellow bikini with sporty stripes. “She’s on the AVP tour. And that one,” he said, indicating a girl in a swimsuit underneath a tank top, “is trying to qualify for it this year. They’re not exactly amateurs.”
The AVP is the pro beach volleyball organization that sponsors stars like Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh. I felt a little less dismal about my performance.
“I thought they were bionic or Amazons or something. I feel better now,” I said.
“See? You’re not as bad as you thought at volleyball or at surfing. Where’s your board?”
I pointed it out, and once I was back in my wetsuit we made our way toward the waves.
“I want to watch you a couple of times in the white water first, then we’ll go from there,” he said.
The volleyball courts are right by the pier, which is where more experienced surfers hang out. They get a little impatient with beginners cluttering up their waves, so we moved a few hundred yards down the beach. I paddled out to the right break point and when the first wave rolled in, I hopped up straight and rode the froth until my board scraped sand. I’d been doing that since the first day. It wasn’t real surfing, but it’s how everyone had to start. Since I had that trick down pat, I scooped my board up and waited for Matt’s assessment without too much concern.
“Not bad, Ashley,” he said. “You look comfortable in the water, and you’re steady on your feet. Let me see you do it a couple of more times so I can check out your form.”
I lifted an eyebrow, and he shook his head. “That’s exactly why I don’t teach girls over the age of about six.”
I grinned and plowed back through the water, standing the next two times successfully as well. Matt came out to meet me after the last attempt. “Ready to try something bigger?” he asked.
I shrugged. “Sure,” but my stomach was in knots. Now that the goal of getting him to coach me was a reality, I realized I had overlooked the details. Stuff like how I was going to look like a total idiot when I ate it on wave after wave. And details like how that would adversely affect him falling madly in love with me for the summer.
“Let’s walk back to Taco Reef and try there so we’re not in anyone’s way,” he said.
Neither of us said much on the short walk down the sand. I tried to decide if the silence felt uncomfortable or companionable. Putting my stress aside, it was nice to hang out without saying much. I looked over at Matt and smiled.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “I just realized that this is the first time I’ve seen you without a herd of girls.”
His eyes crinkled at the corners as his mouth turned up in a sheepish smile. “It’s kind of ridiculous, I guess, but I don’t know how to make them go away. I don’t want to be rude.”
“Poor baby.”
“Maybe I should copy you and not talk to any of them,” he teased.
“I talk to people.”
“Not really,” he said. “You talk to your cousins. You talk to people if they talk to you first, like Derek. You don’t socialize, though.”
“How do you know? We just met on Sunday.”
“And yet it’s taken me more than one Sunday to figure that out,” he said.
Wait. Did that mean he’d been watching me more than one Sunday? Props to him if that was true, because I hadn’t noticed, and I’d been watching him for three weeks.
Huh.
I didn’t want to explain the dynamics of being a pretty face in a new ward. The girls view newcomers as a threat and are mean until they know you, and the guys treat you like fresh meat. I find it easier to keep a low profile and meet people gradually until I make a few friends and prove to the girls that I’m not there staking out anyone else’s territory. To Matt, I said only, “Guess I’m just shy.”
He grinned. “Yeah, right.”
We reached the spot where he found me earlier and dread formed a fist in my gut as I tried not to think about the number of sand sandwiches I was about to eat in front of him.
“Paddle out,” he said. “I’ll be right behind you.”
I turned to the water and followed directions, eventually lying on my board to paddle as the water got deep enough. Matt stayed even with my shoulder a short distance away.
Finally, Matt stopped and straddled his board. “You ready?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Okay, I’m going to watch you again and see what I can figure out.”
“Are you going to tell me which wave to catch?”
“Yeah. But I want to see what you know about riding it once I pick it, okay?”
I nodded, gauging the waves to see which one he would choose. A few rolled by that he told me to skip, explaining why each wouldn’t work. I tried to let his mellow voice soothe my nerves, but I still felt like I was wound tighter than a Joan Rivers face-lift. He finally picked one, and I turned to paddle, my sense of impending disaster in full force.
My arms picked up speed, but whatever instinct I had almost tapped on my last run with Dave deserted me. Making my best guess, I jumped up on my board and stood for about three seconds before the nose began to sink and I knew I wasn’t going to be riding this one in. I jumped to the side, desperate to avoid a more painful wipeout.
When I did my cool break-through-the-surface-and-sputter routine again, I found Matt already waiting for me, the water at his waist, his hand calmly keeping his board in place as a maverick wave rolled in and tried to buck against it. “What’s the diagnosis, doctor?” I joked. Lame.
“I think you’re mainly going to need to work on timing because you have good body mechanics. If you just put them together at the right point on the wave, you’ll get it down fast.”
“Well, that’s better than the coordination transplant I thought you were going to suggest.”
“Surfing doesn’t require a lot of athleticism, Ashley. If it did you’d still be fine. I saw you on the volleyball court. Even without it, if you can learn patience and flow, you’ll get it.”
“Patience and flow?”
“Yeah,” he said. “This is where we sing ‘Kumbaya’ and light incense.”
I laughed, feeling a measure of tension dribble away.
“Okay, I’m going to give you a couple of things to feel for on the next wave. It should help.”
“Yes, sir,” I saluted. “Hey, do you have an official title? Like coach? Or sensei or something?”
“I prefer Supreme Boardrider and Wave Master. But usually I forget that’s my title so I might not answer if you call me that. Let’s stick to Matt.”
“You’re a funny guy, Matt.”
“Thanks. Are you done avoiding the next wave?”
“No?” I said, without any real hope that I could stall.
He shook his head. “I’m going to have to do a power of positive thinking lecture and I really hate those, so just smile and paddle back out, please.”
“Fine.”
“This is what I want you to think about,” Matt said as we watched the next set roll in. “You don’t have to finish every wave you start. If it’s not working for you, wrap your legs around your board and pull on the rails until the wave passes. Less wrecks that way.”
“But why would you tell me to take a wave that isn’t good?”
“You can’t always tell by looking whether it’s going to wall up. Sometimes you’re ready to take off on the wave when it starts closing off on both sides, and it’s time to pull back and wait for the next one.”
That speech actually made sense to me, thanks to Dave’s penchant for surf lingo. “Okay,” I nodded. “Don’t finish every wave. What else?”
“This is something you may not have thought about before. Have you noticed when you’re paddling to catch a wave that there’s a point where your arms don’t do you any good anymore because the wave takes over?”
“Not really,” I admitted.
“Watch for it,” he said. “It’ll be really obvious once you’re looking for it.”
“And if I notice it?”
“That’s a good time to hop up.”
When he spotted a wave that looked right, he said, “Go get it.”
I turned my board and paddled toward shore diagonally and then I felt it—a split second where I realized the wave was doing the work and my arms were doing little more than splashing. Without thinking too much harder, I jumped up. Again, I had a three-second window where I felt a little thrill of victory, and then my board shot forward like I was a clown on a banana peel, and I braced for my next dunking.
This time, I scrambled up and found Matt looking pleased.
“That was really good,” he said.
“And yet I’m in the same place as I was after the last wave,” I retorted.
“Because you were too far back on your board. But you stood at exactly the right moment, and I think it might have been on purpose.”
I stared at him. “It was.” That took me aback for a moment. “Whoa.”
“Feels good, huh?”
“Really good.”
“Let’s go home, then.”
“What? I’m just getting started!” I protested.
“Yeah, you are. So now’s a good time to savor the victory. I’m going to take you home so you can think about what you’re making me for dinner on Friday.”
“I can’t Friday. I have to work.” I couldn’t trade away a lucrative shift like that, even if it meant hanging out with Matt.
“Great. I’ll come over for lunch, then.”
“I’m not a lunch chef. I top out at sandwiches.”
“Perfect. Sandwiches are always better when someone else makes them.”
“Yeah, and spaghetti.”
“To tell the truth,” he said, “I’m not much of a cook so pretty much anything tastes better if someone else makes it.”
“Reeeeally?” I drawled. I felt the bite of an idea coming on. “Then we’re going fishing.”
“We are?” he asked in confusion.
“Yeah. Come over on Friday at noon. We’ll go fishing then.”
Curiosity mixed with the confusion on his face.
“Let’s get you home, then,” he said. “I have to drop you off so I know where this fishing expedition starts on Friday.”
Hook. Line. And Friday I’d make sure he swallowed the sinker too.