Wavehouse

by Kaltman, Alice;

  “Not really,” I said. Man, how I missed Myra.

  “Trouble between you two?”

  “Something like that.”

  “I was wondering why she didn’t come to the hospital. She did ask me to keep her posted, though, told me to call again this morning to let her know everything was okay with you.”

  “Whatever,” I huffed.

  “You wanna talk about it? This stuff between you and Myra?”

  “No.”

  Grandpa sighed. “Well, I won’t pretend to understand what goes on between two females. But if that surfer boy is at the beach, I can shake his hand or give him a piece of my mind. Whichever you choose.”

  “Leave it, Grandpa, will you?” I cried.

  “Geez. Okay. Forget it,” he muttered.

  “Besides, he’s on his way to Fiji.” With Inga Ward, I thought. Ms. Perfection.

  “Oh. Well, then.”

  We drove the rest of the way in tense silence. When we got to the parking lot, I was glad to see it was packed.

  “See? There’s nowhere to park,” I said. “Just do a U-turn and leave.”

  “Hold your horses. I think I see someone pulling out ahead.” Grandpa inched his pickup forward. A spot was open—left by a SUV with three stacked boards strapped to the roof. The surf-mobile careened past us, causing a minor dust storm.

  “Hey, Bub, watch it!” Grandpa yelled out his window. “I don’t get it,” he muttered. “What’s his hurry? He got his waves already, right?”

  “There’s nothing to get, Grandpa,” I sighed. “Some surfers always have something to prove. Even on land.”

  Grandpa parked the car and turned off the engine. “What are you waiting for, Grumpy?” he asked, opening his door. “You’re not gonna let me go down to the beach and make an asshole of myself without you, are you?”

  “Oh great,” I exclaimed. “I just can’t win with you.” Hauling myself out of the car, I walked through the crowded parking lot with Grandpa. “You have to promise—no mention of what happened last night. They’ll all learn soon enough, but I can’t deal with it right now, okay?”

  “Okay,” he agreed. “Hey, there’s Bob Tellings. Hey Bobby, over here!” Grandpa waved his arms at Bob, who was making his way over the slippery low-tide rocks.

  Bob had spent the summer between college and law school working for Grandpa’s construction company. Now, Bob walked toward us looking demented and deliriously happy. I knew that look. He had died and gone to heaven at least twenty times on at least twenty waves.

  He shook Grandpa’s hand. “Mr. Tom Dugan. To what do we owe the pleasure?”

  “Anna here needed a ride, so I gave her one,” Grandpa lied through his teeth.

  I narrowed my eyes at Grandpa.

  “Super Surfer, where the hell have you been?” Bob asked.

  I shrugged. “I haven’t felt too well.”

  “And where’s Sara? Her admirers have all been looking for her.”

  “She’s been sick, too,” I told him. Kendall’s Watch was a small town that fed on gossip. Word would be out by the end of the day as to what had happened last night, but I didn’t have to rush the onslaught of embarrassing chatter.

  “Well, girl, I hope you’re on the mend. It is pumping out there. Get on it. Where’s your board?”

  Where was my board? Probably floating in broken pieces and halfway to Europe, or scattered in shards of fiberglass and foam on Secretspot beach. “I didn’t bring it.”

  “Well, that’s a mighty shame. Hey, if you want, you could take out my seven-six. It’s in the back of my truck.”

  “Go ahead, Anna,” said Grandpa. “The doc said it would be okay.”

  “You talked to the doctor about my surfing?”

  “Yeah, so what if I did?” Grandpa shrugged. “Come on. I’ll stay and watch.”

  “I don’t have my surf clothes,” I said through gritted teeth.

  “Yeah, you do. I tossed the ones you stash at our house in the back seat.” Grandpa smiled.

  I glared at him.

  “Hey, it’s a free country. I’m allowed to toss whatever I want into my own car.”

  “Fine.”

  I turned back to Bob and shook my head. “No thanks, Bob. I think I’m just gonna watch for now.”

  “Suit yourself, Anna. But if you want the board, you know where to find it.” He shook hands with Grandpa again. “Great to see you, Tom. Give my love to Lorraine.” Bob stumbled up the beach to sit with a bunch of his cronies. Once he was out of earshot, I poked Grandpa gently in his soft side.

  “I can’t friggin’ believe you, Grandpa.”

  “I had to at least give it a try,” he explained.

  “Well, now you can give it a rest.”

  We sat together on an old park bench, stolen years ago from the Town Green and dragged onto the Early’s beach for surf viewing.

  “Who’s that guy out there with the purple shirt on?” Grandpa pointed toward the waves.

  “That’s Nick Fleming. And it’s called a rash guard, Grandpa. Not a shirt.”

  “Little Nicholas Fleming? Dorothy’s boy?”

  “Nick Fleming is no boy, Grandpa. He’s a beast. He rips really hard.”

  We watched Nick paddle for a huge wave. He was a power

  surfer, pure gritty muscular strength, but not a whole lot of grace. He took risks and made them work, popping up clumsily before the wave had really formed, but when it started to crank he timed his moves to easily slide across the face. Nick squatted, knees bent so deep that his butt almost hit the back of his board; a posture which made him go super-fast like an arrow parallel to the crest of the wave. Then he slowed down ever so slightly and the wave covered him.

  “Jesus Christ,” Grandpa cried. “Is he gonna be okay?”

  “Don’t worry, he’s just getting barreled. A little driving through the cavern. He’ll pop out the other side in a second. You’ll see.”

  Nick appeared as I had predicted. When he emerged, he whipped over the top of the wave, beating his chest and screaming.

  “Can you do that?” Grandpa asked.

  “Yeah. But without the Tarzan bull.”

  “Impressive. That move, I mean. The driving thing. Not the macho shit. That’s just embarrassing.”

  “Welcome to my world,” I sighed.

  “Maybe I should take up this sport,” Grandpa said. “Maybe then I wouldn’t need that other surgery.”

  I looked at him closely. His color was off, and he kept clearing his throat as if he had a mothball stuck in his gullet. He didn’t look good. “Grandpa. You don’t have a choice, do you?”

  He shrugged, defeated for once. “Seems like I don’t, according to the doctor.”

  “So, when are you gonna do it?”

  “Not until your mother and you are back on your feet, and I know everything at the shop is running smoothly. Until I’ve paid the goddamn co-insurance on your hospital bill. Then I’ll save up my pennies and fork them over for mine.”

  “But Grandpa, I don’t think this is something they want you to wait for,” I tried.

  “Well, I don’t give a rat’s ass what they want,” he snapped. “I’ve said yes to the damn operation, but I’ll do it when it’s convenient and that’s that.”

  I knew it was pointless to push the issue.

  I didn’t have any overwhelming urges to surf myself. In some ways it felt like a relief, the way an addict must feel when they’re finally clean. I realized it was probably a temporary state of mind, the after-effect of the accident—but I couldn’t be entirely sure.

  As we sat there, a little kid ran up and shoved several sheets of paper in our hands. Another flyer for the Montauk tournament—the tournament that refused to die.

  “Is this the contest you did when you were younger?” Grandpa asked. “Sa
ys here it starts this weekend.”

  “Big whoop.” I crumpled my flyer up and tossed it in the bin next to the bench. Suddenly I wanted to leave. Getting up, I walked toward the truck. Grandpa eventually followed.

  Grandpa dropped me off at Toilsome and headed back to Easton General to pick up Gramma. I stumbled up to my room hoping for a nap, but couldn’t fall asleep. I lay on top of the quilt with both Fluffy and Woof Woof clutched to my chest and pondered the idea of professional surfing. It still gave me heart palpitations. I would be a professional disaster—crashing and burning within days. Even the idea of drawing didn’t excite me anymore. I couldn’t conjure a single Wavehouse.

  When I had first lain down, the sun was a bright slash across the bed. Now, it was dark out and my whole body was cold. The smell of Gramma’s cooking seeped under the door. Trudging down the stairs, I heard them going at it in the kitchen.

  “You can’t wait, Tom!” Gramma shrieked. “I don’t care about the money. We’ll find a way to pay for it.”

  “You don’t get it, Lorraine.” Grandpa was trying to sound reasonable. “There is no money anywhere. That first operation near cleaned us out. The co-pays on this valve replacement are going to ruin us. And now this last disaster with Sara? She can’t pay those hospital bills. She won’t say boo, but I know the shop’s not doing too well. We’re gonna have to help out. This is gonna sink us into an even deeper hole.”

  Gramma was crying. I could hear her sniffle and moan. “You’re going to die. I just know it.”

  “There, there, Lainie,” Grandpa comforted. “I’ll drink the piss milk and take my pills. I’ll be fine, don’t you worry.”

  “Just get out of the kitchen now,” Gramma stammered. “Come on. Go. Go!”

  I tiptoed back up to the top landing as I heard Grandpa grumbling his way toward his La-Z-Boy. I sat on the bed and waited another ten minutes before walking downstairs. I didn’t quite know what to say or do. Everyone and everything in my world seemed to be falling apart.

  Gramma and Grandpa were in the living room watching TV. Gramma was swooning and clutching her potholder to her heart. Grandpa was in full recline looking self-satisfied and smug. I noticed the flyer for the Montauk tournament had made its way home, and was lying on the table next to the TV Guide.

  “Oh my,” cried Gramma. “Amazing.” Her eyes were puffy and red, but she looked happy.

  “What are you guys watching?” I asked. The screen was filled with lots of ocean, a bit of sky and not much else. “What is this? One of your nature shows?”

  “Just wait a minute,” Grandpa said slyly. “You’ll see.”

  Suddenly from the right corner of the screen a bright yellow dash appeared; then a flash of red and black. I realized what we were watching—me.

  “You’re lovely, Anna Marie,” gushed Gramma. “Like a beautiful bird riding the wind in the sky.”

  The me on the TV took off and flew down the face of a nice, chunky wave. My legs looked like a pair of stilts, my hair pushed off my forehead in odd little peaks, and my hands looked like paws at the end of string beany arms. But once I got over my physical self-consciousness, I had to admit the surfing was all there. I was pretty damn good.

  “Myra gave us this DVD. Dropped it off yesterday, before all hell broke loose,” Grandpa explained.

  “I can’t friggin’ believe her,” I said and started to leave the room.

  “Anna Marie, you come back here this instant!” Gramma demanded in a shaky, on-the-verge-of-tears voice.

  Gramma didn’t deserve any more pain from me. Obediently returning to the couch, I watched the Surfing Siren take on a few more waves. Gramma continued to watch me and sigh. I had assumed that I would need to wear a dress, or sing in the church choir, or join the cooking club to get those types of sighs. But go figure. All I needed to do was ace a nice ten-foot Secretspot left and polish it off with a confident cut back. Monkey paws and all.

  That’s when the Siren made it clear. She told me exactly what I needed to do.

  I stood up. “I’m hungry. What’s for dinner?” I left the room and walked toward the kitchen. I was going to need lots of fuel—physically and mentally—to get through what I had determined to do. Dinner had never smelled so good in all my life.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  The next morning, the sound of a howling wind woke me from a deep sleep. It was seven thirty and I was drowsy and disoriented. By normal-person standards, half-past seven was a perfectly acceptable time to wake up, but by dawn-patrolling-surf standards it was wicked late. And I was now back on patrol. I had a mission, and only one day to prepare. My mother had risked her life to save me, and now she was in the hospital. I had to win this year’s Montauk Junior Surf Tournament so I could get the money needed to pay Sara’s hospital bills. And maybe enough to get Grandpa his heart valve operation pronto. They had all put themselves out for me. It was payback time.

  And how totally psyched would Sara be if I could come home from Montauk a winner? Maybe that would make up for her broken bones and broken heart. “Hey, Sara. Guess what I just did?” I imagined myself telling her, all nonchalant and cool as a cucumber. Then I would tell her the great news and she would give me one of her killer smiles.

  And at least Myra wouldn’t be able to call me a scared little mouse. Though I was trying as hard as possible not to care what Myra thought about me ever again.

  I had told my grandparents that we had made up and that I’d like to stay with Myra through the weekend. They thought it was a grand idea. Like every other Kendall’s Watcher over the age of sixty-five, they thought Myra Berkowitz was the ‘bee’s knees.’ I didn’t quite know what I thought of Miss Paris Cafe anymore.

  Right now, though, it was all about surfing. I needed to get back on top of my game, and only had until Saturday to do it. Changing into my surf gear, I made the bed, shoved my clothes into my backpack, and kissed my pet pillows goodbye. Then I rode the banister downstairs, starting the day with a wave-like slide, and tiptoed into the kitchen where I gobbled a banana and a corn muffin, and washed them down with a glass of milk. I left my crummy plate, banana peel, and filmy glass by the sink—I knew Gramma would be happy to notice that I had eaten a proper breakfast, even if she grumbled about the mess I had left behind.

  The rainbow-colored windsock flapped away on top of the garage; gusts from the southeast were beating it silly. The waves at Secretspot would be a gnarly mess. When the wind was that strong and blowing from that direction, all it did was chop the ocean up like a giant washing machine. It would most likely be a total drag, but come hell or high water, I would be a hard-core surf-training machine.

  I had an old, dinged-up board stashed in Grandpa’s

  garage. I secured the board to the rack on my bike and rode to Secretspot at warp speed with the wind at my back.

  At the beach, I sneaked a peek up at the Ramelle house. The curtains were all drawn and there was not a soul in sight. The ocean looked dirty and cold. Mushy peaks formed all over the place; the waves had no rhyme or reason. It would be like surfing in a slop sink. Waxing my board, I secured the leash to my ankle and did a few side stretches and forward bends to get the early morning creaks out of my body.

  In the water, the familiar feeling of salty coolness washed over my feet. Same old, same old, I told myself. You’ve done this a million times before. But I had a brief flash of panic It took me a few minutes to talk myself off the scaredy-cat ledge, to remind myself that surfing in the dark had been a crazy-pants move, whereas surfing in the light of day—in manageable, if not perfect, waves was something I’d done my entire life. I lay on my board and off I went.

  The paddle out was one big splash-fest. I got hit from the east by a nasty little bump that sent me in the opposite direction, only to get slapped silly by another little annoyance from the west. It stayed that way until I got outside the tricky break. Not a whole lot of fun.r />
  The outside was equally nauseating. A stealthy southwesterly drift meant I couldn’t relax in any one spot. This is good practice, I said to myself. Imagine the people. They’re what’s gonna trip you up, not the waves. I imagined being bookended by my mother’s surfer favorites, Kelly Garrison and Mindy Shultz. Eventually, a quasi-rideable three-wave set came through. In my mind, Kelly took off on the first wave of the set, and Mindy took the second. I would wisely wait for the last one, hoping there would be less whitewater frenzy behind it.

  My wave wasn’t huge, maybe five feet high, but it packed a surprising punch. As soon as I stood up, I could tell it would be a ride that required concentration. I faced a steep and sudden slide on a face that was as rutted as an abandoned train track. There was no getting into a groove with this wave; I could only endure the bump, bump, bump that traveled up my feet to my thighs, back, and chest. I imagined what my surf session might look like from the beach. Not pretty, that’s for sure. What kind of score would that wave have gotten me? I wondered. Probably a minus ten.

  “Goddamn wave,” I snarled, as I repositioned my board to paddle back out. I was really testy, but realized that cursing the ocean got me nowhere. Blaming the waves for my incompetence was just bratty and stupid. “Okay. Sorry, wave,” I sighed. “It’s not you. I’m just having a bad day.”

  Whatever kind of wave came next, I vowed to accept it as gracefully as possible. The next wave was slightly better, larger and thicker, and the drop not quite so steep; it held its shape longer, giving me the chance to try a few maneuvers in the whipped cream wind-blown surface. I managed to carve a few edges, flapping around in a loony-bird-meets-orangutan style. During one upward move, a bump in the wave almost sent the nose of my board into the nose on my face.

  Once I got back to the outside, I looked toward shore and spotted Sara standing by Pee Pee Rock.

  “What the hell?” I said aloud. She wasn’t supposed to be out of the hospital for at least another two days. Why was she back here at Secretspot? Sara saw me looking her way and raised her crutch in a wave.

  I paddled in to shore and stumbled up the beach to where she waited.