My board hit the water with a slap. I jumped on, letting it glide for a long moment before I dug my arms in to paddle. My dad was out in front of me and I concentrated on trying to keep up with the powerful strokes he always made look easy. No matter how much time had pa.s.sed since he had last surfed, his strokes were sure, fast, and smooth. And no matter how in shape I thought I was, I always had to push to keep up with him. By the time I caught up, he was already straddling his board as it bobbed gently in the gla.s.sy morning water. Arms burning, I pushed myself up, and we sat, just the two of us, in the shadow of Ab Rock.
"Great morning to be out here, huh?" he said happily. "Did you see that last little set that came through?" I nodded, and he motioned for me to paddle closer to him. "If you wanna get any of *em, you gotta be right over here, almost on top of the rock."
I slid back onto my stomach and paddled over, eyeing the base of the rock we had both jumped off. We sat for another moment, with only the gurgling sounds of the water between us. It was peaceful, but I knew the weight of our "talk" hung over us. I also knew that my dad probably didn"t know how to start, so I figured I"d just throw it out there.
"So. This is it. The place where you and Mom met." I watched him carefully for a reaction as I spoke. "Something about you being sloshed ... jumping naked ... off a rock ..." I gestured up at the sheer rock cliff above us and smiled, trying to keep the tone light for as long as I could. "We never did get to talk about when you did it. You know, with you yelling at me and all."
He gave me a stern look that lasted only a second before it turned into a slow smile. "No, I guess we didn"t. There are a few things we didn"t get to talk about, on account of you yelling at me, too." I looked down at the b.u.mpy white wax on my board but didn"t say anything.
A swell pa.s.sed under us, providing a moment, and questions bounced off each other in my mind. I decided to start small, and looked up into my dad"s face. "So did you really meet her that night? When you kissed her?"
He grinned the grin that made him look young and happy. "Yeah. I spent all summer watching her on the beach, working up the nerve, and when she showed up at the party, I knew it was my last shot, because she"d be leaving soon." He smiled down at the water, remembering. "I half-expected to get slapped, but she was a good sport about it. She didn"t have a choice but to fall for me after that. From that night on, if she was here, we were together."
"Hm." I watched my foot swirl around under the water, and I enjoyed the thought that they had once been young, and reckless, and happy. It was encouraging, even though I knew how the story ended.
"So she didn"t live here? She just visited?"
He nodded. "The cottage belonged to her grandma, Louanna, who you"re named after. She lived here permanently. Your mom and her parents lived up near San Francisco. They came down summers, but rented a house on Balboa Island. Only your mom stayed here, at the cottage. Louanna always had a room made up for her." His tone hardened slightly. "Her folks didn"t care for it down here, though. It was too ..." A pause. "It wasn"t good enough for them." He shook his head, and in the tightening of his jaw, I started to understand. "But your mom loved it. She loved it like she"d lived here all her life. So she stayed here with her grandma. Every summer, every vacation she could."
I"d never met her parents. Had never even heard them mentioned. Growing up, my dad"s mom had been my only grandparent. She lived a few blocks over from where we"d lived in Pis...o...b..ach, and she was as much a part of my life as my parents. I never questioned it, before or after my mom was gone.
Now, though, a reason took shape. Another wave pa.s.sed under us, and I waited a beat before asking.
"So ... did they not like you, either? Is that why I don"t know them?"
He blinked, maybe taken aback at my questions, maybe at what the answers were. Then he cleared his throat and looked out over the water, and resignation settled on his face.
"No. They didn"t like me. And they hated that she did. And, yes, that"s why you don"t know them. When she chose me, they chose not to be a part of her life." His voice was a mix I knew, sad and angry. "Or yours."
I took a deep breath, trying to understand. It didn"t make sense. "Because they didn"t approve of you? Because of money or something? That"s insane.
She was their only daughter. How does a parent even do that?" I was surprised at how indignant I felt, but it sounded like the most ridiculous, old-fashioned thing I"d ever heard, to disown your child because she fell for someone you didn"t approve of. My dad watched me without saying anything, and then I knew.
There had to be more.
More than one wave pa.s.sed under us this time, but we didn"t move or say anything. After what seemed like forever, he got to the more.
"We were seventeen, Anna. We had a year of school left, and then she was supposed to go off to some big college, far away, and live up to their expectations. She"d already made up her mind that she wasn"t going...." He paused, like he was deciding what to say. Then he cleared his throat. "When she told me about you, I was on my knees in the sand before she could finish, with a piece of sea gra.s.s for a ring, and it was the most right thing I"d ever done in my life."
He looked at me now with eyes I"d seen before. Eyes that had lost her. And I couldn"t stand to look back, so I put my head down and ran my finger down the center of my surfboard. They were a year older than me. And parents.
"I"m sorry I didn"t tell you sooner. You were a little girl when she died, and right after it happened, you wanted to know everything about her, like you were collecting details to remember her by. You slept with her clothes, wore her perfume, asked me to tell you the stories she used to tell ." He shook his head.
"You"d sit out there on the beach with me, talking about how she"d come back as a mermaid and you"d swim together in the waves. It broke my heart, but it was good to talk about her with you." He paused and looked down again before bringing his eyes back to me. "Then somewhere along the line you stopped asking, like she was just gone. And we stopped talking.... So I didn"t tell you when we came here. I didn"t know how to even start."
I felt weary. Like I was sinking. For a long time I"d put it on him that we didn"t talk about her. But it had been me, too. Because the older I got, and the more I remembered, the heavier it weighed on me. It was easier to think of both her and her death as a dream, or to push it back to a place where the details were hazy and unclear, and I was never there.
I stared hard now at the beach, zipping my moongla.s.s back and forth along its chain, wishing I had just left it alone, because now there was more, and it started with a choice she"d made before I was even born. She"d chosen my dad, and she"d chosen me. She"d left her family, and her life, and the place she"d loved behind, because of the choice she"d been forced to make. By me.
I blinked back tears and bit the inside of my cheek. My dad treaded water over to me and put his hand on my leg. "I wasn"t sure about coming here at first, because of all this. But the happiest memories I have of your mother are here, and lots of people around knew her, and so I thought, now that you"re older, if you started to wonder, it might be a place you could find out who she was and see her in a different light. She was really happy here." He looked hopeful, like he wanted me to ask him more about her. He had no idea he"d just confirmed what I"d always thought, that I was a part of her unhappiness. We"d never said the word for what her death really was, but people who are happy with their lives don"t just walk out into the water. He had to know that. I"d known it, somewhere deep, that things were bad, but I didn"t know when it had happened. And now I realized it had begun with me.
I nodded and wiped at my tears, smoothing the surface back over, because, really, that was what we both wanted. "I"m glad you told me. And I"m so, so sorry. For ... for how I"ve been, and ... everything."
"Don"t be, Anna. It"s all right." Another little roller pa.s.sed under us, and he motioned to the wave that was rising behind it. "Let"s get this one in and go get some breakfast." I was more than ready to be finished talking about it as we slid to our bell ies and paddled. The wave came beneath me, lifting me up, and I gave one more hard pull before popping to my feet, just as my dad did the same. Together we cut a wide path down the gla.s.s face of the wave, over tiny brown fish that darted across the sandy bottom, and I did my best to leave it all out in the water, a deep ocean of secrets.
CHAPTER 19.
My dad slid the door of the bus closed. "Poke-N-Eat tomorrow. Andy"s coming over. If you want to invite any of your friends, that"d be fine." I tried to picture Ashley"s reaction to seeing the tail being pulled off a lobster in the backyard. Jillian was out of town for the weekend. "I think I"ll pa.s.s. I don"t really know anybody who"d want to get in the water."
We got in and he turned the key. "What about Tyler?" I tried not to flinch. He"d said it casually, like he had never embarra.s.sed me in front of him, or told me to stay away, or anything. He had to know. He had to have seen us, or something.
I shrugged. "I"m not really friends with him. I just met him on the beach, that"s all." Flimsy.
He put his hands up. "I"m just saying ... if you want to invite him down, that"s fine with me. He seems like a pretty good kid. James says he is. And it"s better than having the two of you sneak around together. I do know that." I watched him out of the corner of my eye as we backed up, debating about how to respond without getting myself into trouble. "Okay. Maybe. Thanks, Dad." He smiled wryly as we pulled onto the highway and headed south for Laguna. I rolled my window down, let the cool air rush over me, and cleared my mind of everything but Tyler.
I"d been afraid Tyler might say no. Not only because there was this whole business about my dad being his boss, but because we hadn"t talked since our kiss, and he hadn"t called back when I"d left a message inviting him over. But when I came up from the beach in the late afternoon on Sunday, he was sitting at the picnic table on our back patio, talking with my dad about lifeguarding like they were old friends. It was a little unnerving. I ran a hand through my hair and then walked over to the hose to rinse my feet.
"You made it." I smiled, turning the faucet.
"Of course I made it. It"s my first invitation to the traditional Sunday Poke-N-Eat. I"ve heard about it since my first year here." He smirked at me, and I shook my head and rubbed the last of the sand off the tops of my toes, a little irritated he hadn"t told me he was coming. I wasn"t sure how to navigate with my dad around. Andy walked up the steps carrying his dive gear and a six-pack just in time to save me from having to come up with something.
"Anna Banana!" He set his stuff down on the table, used the edge of it to open two beers, and handed one to my dad. When he saw Tyler, his face went serious, which struck me as comical. Andy had always been protective, but when it came to me having anything to do with guys, he felt it was his duty to inform and protect me from the ones he thought were most like himself. When I turned thirteen, he pulled me aside and we had his version of "the talk," which mostly consisted of a bunch of "Uhs" and "Ums," but I got the gist of his speech: boys only wanted one thing, and I shouldn"t give it to them until I was at least thirty-three. And married.
Before I had a chance to make any introductions, Tyler stood up and walked over to him, hand extended. "How"s it goin"? I"m Tyler." Andy took another drink and stood up tall, looking Tyler over before shaking his hand. "Andy. You must be a friend of Anna"s?" Tyler nodded easily. "Yeah, we go to school together."
"He guards down here too," I added. "He came for the Poke-N-Eat." I looked around for something I could use to distract Andy from any questions or lectures.
"No friend for you this time? What happened to Tamra?" I pictured her staring, teary-eyed, out the window at the shack, and I felt a little guilty for how I had acted at the last Poke-NEat. "I didn"t scare her off, did I?"
"Tamra? Nah, you didn"t scare her. She was too high maintenance." Tyler looked at me quizzically, which I brushed off, and Andy took another gulp of his beer, then exhaled loudly. "I"ve been thinkin" I should spend some time on my own anyway." He looked over at my dad, who was sitting in one of the chairs, the amus.e.m.e.nt clear on his face. "We going out north or south tonight?"
My dad set down his beer and leaned back in the chair, stretching both arms above his head, surveying the water. "I don"t know yet. Wanna go take a look?"
I glanced over at Tyler, who was pointedly looking out at the beach.
Andy finished off his beer and stifled a burp. "Yeah, sure."
"We won"t be long," my dad said, eyeing me. "Go ahead and get your gear out. We"re going scuba tonight." I nodded and tried to suppress a smile as they tromped down the stairs. Tyler walked over to the tub that held his dive gear and started pulling out his weights, fins, and mask. I leaned on the picnic table, watching him and feeling the last of the afternoon sun sink into my skin. Once my dad and Andy were down on the sand, he looked up at me with a wide smile that made me sure of myself with him.
"I can"t believe how hot it is down here still ." He pulled his shirt up over his head, then came over and leaned on the table next to me. He was right. The air hung perfectly still and heavy around us. Even the ocean looked lazy, virtually flat with only the occasional ripple splashing up onto the sand.
"Ah, you just wanted an excuse to take your shirt off in front of me."
He raised his eyebrows and looked me over. "Says the girl who only ever wears a bikini." I laughed nervously, then looked at my toenails that needed to be painted, the water, my bathing suit top, anything but him, because I was suddenly aware of how close we were standing.
"So now that my dad"s not your boss, he"s not scary anymore, huh?"
He shrugged. "James says he"s not so bad. That he actually is a pretty good guy." I bit my lip to keep from smiling, and reminded myself to thank James later on.
He noticed and turned to face me. "What?"
"Nothing." I shook my head. "I"m just wondering if James actually runs the beach. He seems to know everything."
Tyler shrugged his brown shoulders again. "Well, he"s been around awhile." The smirk appeared again at the corners of his mouth, stretching out the seconds before he spoke again.
"I also had to see if you were actually going to get in the water and dive instead of just working on your tan, cuz that would be impressive." I gave him an exasperated look. Then I kept looking for longer than I meant to. He didn"t look away either, and I thought how easy it would be to just lean in and kiss him. So much easier after the first one.
The moment dissolved when Andy"s and my dad"s voices drifted up from the beach. I turned from Tyler and walked over to the wall where my wet suit lay draped, then bent slowly, pointedly, to pick up my fins from the ground.
"Yes," I said, smiling. "I will be diving. And I"d be willing to bet that you"ll be impressed." After a good amount of jumping around, yanking at wet suits, and weighting ourselves down, we trudged out onto the dusky beach, bent forward under our air tanks. The water lapped gently at the beach, almost like a lake, and the moon spread a glittering path out toward the rocks. It was more serene and beautiful than the night we"d arrived. We all stood at the waterline taking it in for a moment, then Tyler looked over at me and pulled the hood of his wet suit over his head.
"I can"t believe you get to look out your window and see this every night." He pulled his gloves on.
"It"s pretty amazing."
I hoped my voice didn"t give away the ripples of apprehension that were now spreading out from the pit in my stomach. My dad stepped over to Tyler and me and gave the same instructions he did every time we went out.
"Try to keep us in sight. If you get turned around or lose us, look for no longer than a minute, then surface. We"ll do the same thing. If anything happens, remember to let all your air out from your vest and kick up slower than your bubbles." A flash of our last dive came and went, and I wondered what I would do if I thought I caught a glimpse of her again. I shook off the ridiculousness of the thought and watched as Andy and my dad switched on their lights. My dad turned to Tyler and me.
"Got your lights?"
"Yep," we answered.
"Check your pressure ... compa.s.s ... mask?"
"Yeah, Dad," I answered curtly. The longer we stood there looking at the water, the more anxious I felt. I tried to tell myself it was because Tyler was there, or that it was my first night dive in a long time, but it wasn"t the excited antic.i.p.ation kind of nervous. It was pit-in-your-stomach disquiet.
My dad ignored my tone and motioned at my fins. "You check your straps after the last dive? They were looking a little worn."
"Dad, I got it," I said impatiently. "I"ll be fine. Besides"-I tried to sound nicer-"I"m with three lifeguards."
"All right. Once we"re out there, keep your eyes on the crevices and rocks. The lobsters will be hanging out there. Tyler, you gone out for lobsters before?"
"No, sir, but I can"t wait to bring a few home."
"Well, the easiest way to do it is to pin *em down." He demonstrated with a quick hand motion. "Then, once you have a good hold, measure *em and get *em into your bag. They"ll fight you, though, so be ready." Tyler nodded, and I could tell he was looking forward to it.
"Okay. Let"s go." My dad pulled his mask down over his face, flicked on his light, and walked out into the water, stopping chest-deep to put his fins on. I watched as the light went under with him and became the center of an illuminated green patch of water that slowly moved away from the sh.o.r.e.
Tyler spit into his mask and rubbed it around with his thumbs. "So you really go out there and grab at those things, huh?" I scoffed. "Uh ... no. They scare the c.r.a.p out of me. Truly. They"re like giant bugs. I just like to go along for the dive." I pulled on my gloves, then stretched my mask over my forehead. "But I do eat them. Tacos are the best way. I bought all the stuff for them today, so hopefully you guys will come through." I forced a smile, then stuck my regulator into my mouth and tested it out.
"All right, then," he said, and smiled. "Tacos it is."
I popped my ears all the way down to the bottom, then looked at my depth gauge. Thirty-six feet. Our lights cut bright beams through the water and illuminated the tiny particles that hung suspended in liquid green. Tyler checked his compa.s.s and pointed in the direction of the rocks. I nodded, motioning for him to lead. He pushed off with the tip of his fin, and we cruised along the bottom, which was barren and sandy. Up ahead I could see the beginning of the rocks, silhouetted in the moonlight.
I kicked easily next to Tyler as we hovered over the sand. He looked at me through his mask and nodded, which I returned, and I enjoyed not having to think of something to say. When quiet moments fell over us above the water, it was awkward, and I almost always made a wisea.s.s remark to cover that. But down here I didn"t have to.
We reached the edge of the rocks just as a stream of bubbles danced up from behind them, and my dad came into view holding a good-size lobster in the beam of his light. He stuffed it into his net bag and gave us an okay sign, checking to make sure that we were all right. We answered by returning the sign. He nodded and then pointed down at the rocks and swept his hands wide, indicating that this was the area to be looking around in. Tyler shined his light below us into a crevice and illuminated several lobsters, all waving their antennae and backing up at the same time.
Not interested in trying for them, I surveyed the rocky area around us. Some distance away, buried in the rocks, I could see the faint glow of another light.
An image from the dream I"d had flashed in my mind: my mom, searching endlessly for something she"d lost. For a split second my stomach lurched, before logic told me it was Andy. Even so, my breaths came a little quicker and I had to make an effort to slow down and keep them even. Night dives were always a little eerie for me, but the last one had been unsettling.
Tyler was just ahead of me, pulling himself along the bottom edge of the rocky reef, with my dad in front of him a little ways. While they were absorbed in searching out lobsters, I hung back a bit and tried to occupy my mind with Tyler, and running, and school. Whatever might hold off images of my mom. But the images twisted and swirled around me in the water, rising like the smoke of a just-extinguished candle.
Up ahead Tyler"s light went still, and I saw him make a grab. The lobster escaped and shot around him, doing zigzags before disappearing into the dark water beyond us. My dad turned to him and flashed him the okay sign again, and Tyler gave it back. When I caught up to them and they both checked with me too, I put my gloved index finger to my thumb, answering that I was okay. It was easy to lie underwater. A lot easier than having to control my voice or avoid eye contact. Or put it all out of my mind. I"d been so good at it for so long, but now something was rising slowly, making its way up through cold, black, winter water, and no matter how hard I pushed, it wouldn"t go back down.
I was definitely not okay.
The air flowed easily in and out of my regulator, at a steady rhythm, but I couldn"t breathe. I needed to get out.
I saw my chance as I followed the deep crevice until it widened and I could see it was lined with spiky purple urchins. Calmly and deliberately I used my right heel to push the fin strap off my left one. I felt it release, and I watched as the fin descended in slow motion into the crack, before coming to rest on a bed of urchins. Then I kicked hard to catch up and grabbed my dad"s ankle, shaking it to get his attention. He turned around slowly, and I pointed to my foot, which now only wore a neoprene bootie. Then I pointed down into the crevice. Through his mask I could see he was p.i.s.sed. He flashed his light to get Tyler"s attention, and when Tyler swam over, my dad gave the signal for us to surface. We let all the air out of our vests and then began the kick upward, where the light of the moon waved above us, and I started to relax a little in spite of the fact that my dad was not going to be happy. When our heads broke the surface, I was waiting for it.
"Dammit, Anna," he spit out, along with his regulator. "I asked you about your fins." He pulled his mask up to his forehead, then shook his head. "I guess you"re done for the night." Tyler didn"t say anything, but looked from one of us to the other.
"I"m sorry." And I genuinely was. I had just lost a perfectly good fin on purpose, but it was better than having to explain why I didn"t want to be out there. "You guys stay out. I"ll kick in and start getting dinner stuff ready. You already got a couple, right?" He brightened a little at this and looked down at his bag. "Yeah, it"s good out here. Which is why you should have checked your fins." He looked over my shoulder to the lights of our house. "That"s a long kick in. I don"t want you doing it by yourself with one fin." He sighed, then looked at Tyler, and I could almost hear him weighing his options. Tyler must have too.
"I can go in with her," he offered. He said it almost grudgingly, but I had a feeling it was meant to sound that way.
I played too. "I"ll be fine, you guys. It"s not that far." I looked at both of them, and my dad shook his head.
"No, not by yourself." He turned to Tyler. "If you"re volunteering, I"ll stay out here and have my limit in half an hour." Tyler nodded. "Sure. No problem. I got to grab at a few, at least."
"I would say you could come back out and find us," my dad offered, "but by the time you did, we"d probably be done. And I don"t want you getting lost out here either." He sighed and shook his head yet again. "You two go on in. We shouldn"t be too long. And, Anna, be sure you rinse your gear." He pulled down his mask and pushed on it until it suctioned to his face.
Then he stuck his regulator into his mouth and gave a little wave before going back under. That had worked out better than I"d thought it would.
Tyler and I were left bobbing on the slick surface only a few feet out of the bright path of moonlight. He inflated his vest and floated on his back, face to the sky. "I guess Andy"s not the only one with high-maintenance girl problems. Lose a fin, require a private escort in.... Must be rough to be you."
"Shut up." I splashed at him. "That"s not high maintenance. That"s faulty equipment. And I would have made it in fine. He"s just like that because ... of his job. He has to be." I kicked my single fin so that I floated on my back next to him. He didn"t say anything, and we both drifted there, looking up at the moon.
Just as the quiet started to feel awkward, I pictured how ridiculous we must look, covered in neoprene from head to toe, floating on our backs with our vests fully inflated, and I couldn"t help but laugh.
"What?" Tyler strained to lift his head out of the water.
"Nothing. I"d like to see a picture of this is all."
He grinned, then stuck his fins up out of the water. "You want one for the swim in?"
"I think I can manage. I don"t want to be too high maintenance or anything." I lay back and started my uneven kick.