by Kate McMahon
Then they hid in the dunes for an hour while the black souped-up Commodore cruised the streets in search of them. Was it worth the risk of their DNA ending up under the nails of some inner west scrappers? Heck yeah. Would she have done it without Mel’s instigation? Heck no.
Mel takes back her phone to enter the number of the Coastal Times journalist into her contacts. Jaspa sees the familiar look in Mel’s eyes. We’re in this together, she realises. No backing down now.
‘Her name’s Josephine Brown and she’s expecting your call,’ Ellen says, masking her pride under a subtle smile. She glances at her watch. ‘I’ll run out and get some groceries for tonight. What would you like for dinner?’ she asks. Jaspa cocks her head and bites down on her bottom lip, trying to prompt culinary inspiration. Carolyn suddenly sits upright and whacks Jaspa’s thigh with the back of her hand.
‘Hey, let’s use the pizza voucher I won. It’s for a hundred bucks, so you should all come, you too Mel.’ Carolyn seems to be bubbling with empowerment. After all those years of having to rely on Jaspa’s generosity, sharing her lunch whenever Carolyn’s mum forgot to put ‘feed child’ on her to-do list, she’s sure Carolyn feels like she’s repaying the favour.
Jaspa catches Carolyn’s hand. ‘Yes, what an awesome idea!’ she beams.
Mel interrupts, holding her phone in the air. ‘Righto, who’s going to call this Josephine, then?’
Jaspa and Carolyn smirk at each other and simultaneously blurt out a single laugh. ‘Who do you think?’
Needing no further encouragement, Mel presses the saved number and puts her phone on speaker. After five rings, someone answers.
‘Josephine Brown speaking,’ chimes a women’s low-toned, husky voice – the kind you hear reading the triple j news. Mel draws in a breath, realising she hasn’t really thought about what to say.
‘Oh, hi, this is Melissa Appleby here … we’re returning your call regarding the letter to Salt Action mag.’ Mel motions for the girls to be silent as they wait for a response, staring intently at the phone.
‘Thank you for calling me back, Melissa. The Coastal Times would like to run an article on the letter you and your friends wrote to the magazine, and wondered if you’d be available for an interview?’
Mel raises her eyebrows at her friends, who nod their approval, then leans towards the phone. ‘Yes, we’d love to be involved. But we’re down the coast for a comp until Sunday.’
‘If possible, I’d like to speak to you this afternoon – I’m already in Wiloonga covering the junior event. We’re hoping to run the story in Monday’s paper.’ Mel asks Josephine to hold for a moment, then mutes the phone and turns to her friends.
‘What do you think? It’ll eat into our afternoon surf session, and we should be training for the comp, but …’
‘We should do it, it’s for the good of girls’ surfing,’ Carolyn leaps in.
Jaspa nods rapidly and laughs at Mel’s attempt at trying to keep cool. ‘Of course we’re doing it! It’ll be heaps of fun.’
Mel unmutes the phone and brings it up to her ear. ‘Hi, sorry to keep you. We’d love to do the interview.’ She pauses, listening. ‘Oh wow, sure! Three pm? Great, see you then.’ Mel chucks the phone on the bed and starts dancing around the room. ‘You’re not going to believe this,’ she sings.
‘What, what, what, tell us!’ Jaspa pleads as Mel playfully pinches her cheeks.
‘We, my fine surfer friends, have also been asked to do a photo shoot!’
Jaspa flops on the bed with a wide grin. This is totally worth any grief her brother can dish out. I mean, come on … a photo shoot? Another scoop of awesome added to an already awesome day of AWESOMENESS.
#11
Cooper approaches the counter of Bite Size, Wiloonga’s only cafe, and hands over his vibrating beeper. A waitress wearing a scoop-neck white T-shirt, her auburn hair styled back into a plait, brings two plates over to Cooper and picks up the beeper, which is still buzzing. ‘We could have some fun later, me and you,’ she suggests, leaning on her forearms. Cooper blurts out a guffaw, which isn’t exactly the smooth and suggestive response he was baited for.
‘Yeah, maybe,’ is all he can offer, picking up the plates. ‘Thanks, looks delicious,’ he adds, gesturing towards the grilled fish burgers and beer-battered chips.
‘Yep, it sure does,’ the waitress flirts back with a grin, her eyes fixed on Cooper, with no interest whatsoever in his lunch. Oblivious, Cooper lets the scoring potential pass when the girl looks past his shoulder to her next target. ‘Hey handsome, what can I get ya … besides me?’
When a surf comp’s in town, and surfers get hungry, and you work in the only cafe in town, it’s like a smorgasbord of yummy boys.
Cooper sits on the tree stump stool opposite Tyler in the cafe’s courtyard. Tyler wraps both hands around his burger, squashes it and then hoovers at least a third of the meal in one bite. ‘She’s pretty hot,’ he mumbles, mayonnaise dripping down onto his bare belly.
Shoving a few fries into his mouth, Cooper looks over his shoulder at the waitress, who’s now perched on the lap of Cooper’s successor. ‘Yeah, kinda,’ he shrugs, not too cut about the boat he just missed.
Tyler looks over the top of his burger at the waitress, who’s giggling as she attempts to suck a strawberry thickshake up through a straw. Tyler knows she’s not really Cooper’s type. Most of Cooper’s girlfriends have a splash of sweet in their DNA. If wild is on the menu, it’s rare that Cooper will order it. Tyler, on the other hand …
Cooper’s first serious hook-up was with Tiffany Stevens, the girl he’d been dating since year nine when, after waiting for almost two years, they finally took the plunge on her sixteenth birthday. While her parents were up the coast visiting relatives, she filled her room with sandalwood-scented candles, put on Angus and Julia Stone and they had a night they’d remember forever, even though they broke up five months later.
Tyler’s, by comparison, was at an end-of-year-ten garage party with a year twelve seductress who may have been called Bronwyn – too wasted to recall the finer details.
‘Dude, you could score so many more chicks by using those pretty-boy looks for evil instead of good,’ Tyler teases with a grin. A girl could throw herself at Cooper’s feet and he’d probably think she’d simply dropped something.
‘Well, seeing as you brought it up …’ Cooper wipes the remnants of smeared tomato sauce off his plate with his last hot chip and stuffs it in his mouth. ‘Look, the thing is, I think I like …’ he begins, ready to spill the thing that’s been on his mind for months now. But before he can finish, a roll of board tape flies through the air and lands on their table, knocking over the salt shaker.
‘Hey, Ryder, use that to muzzle ya stupid sister and her friends,’ riles Andrew Olsen, a bruiser from Maroubra. A Southern Cross tattoo is spread across his pecs, which bulge from beneath a navy blue tank top. ‘As if we need girls surfing in magazines when we can perve at ’em gettin’ their titties out!’ He cups his hands underneath his chest and jiggles to illustrate his point.
‘Rack off, Olsen,’ Tyler retaliates, rising from his stool and letting it tip over. ‘Go near my sister and I’ll smash you from here back to the southern hovel you came from.’ Tyler is furious about Jaspa’s public rant – it’s causing him major embarrassment. He can’t believe she would do this to him.
‘I’d much rather have more chicks in the line-up than have to look at ugly mugs like you,’ Cooper humours, trying to lighten the debate and encouraging Tyler to sit back down. Andrew’s a known hothead, and Cooper’s seen his fists in action before. That’s not something they should be provoking.
A group of three girls seated a few tables away listen in on the argument. The blonde turns to her friends with a quizzical look.
‘What are they talking about?’
Her friend Pepita, her black hair blunted at the fringe and folding into a shoulder-length bob, whacks the side of her head for dramatic effect. ‘I forgot to tell
you,’ she says, beckoning them closer. ‘That Jaspa chick and her friends wrote a letter on Salt Action’s Facebook page, grilling them about not featuring any girls surfing in the mag.’
‘Oh my god, that’s awesome. About time,’ says the third girl, lightly clapping her hands. Pepita brings up the post on her phone and the three of them scroll through, reading the comments aloud with every intention of being heard.
Andrew and his hometown mates cough an unsubtle ‘shut up’ into their hands, projected in the girls’ direction.
Pepita continues to read the posts, brushing aside the flying remarks until one word hits a nerve: kooks. She springs up and walks with purpose over to Andrew’s table. Standing at just five foot two, it’s like a Jack Russell confronting a pack of Rottweilers.
Pepita prides herself on her koala-like calm, which she gets from her Australian father, and the snake-like strike she gets from her Malaysian mother.
Tyler and Cooper watch the girl with dark hair approaching the table of brutes. ‘You ready to back me up if things turn ugly?’ Cooper asks.
Tyler shoots Cooper a look to suggest he’s gotta be kidding. ‘Oh, you’re not kidding, are you?’ He slumps on his stool with an annoyed groan. Since when did he sign up for feminist fight club? ‘Urgh. Okay, yeah, I guess.’
‘How dare you call us kooks? You have no idea what you’re talking about!’ Pepita snaps, pointing her OPI Big Red Apple-polished finger towards the group of guys.
‘You’re a girl surfer, the lesser breed, honey. Get used to it,’ snubs one of Andrew’s sidekicks, as his friends snicker in support.
Pepita’s face tightens and her breath catches in her throat. No way is she letting this go. ‘You ignorant loser. If you took the time to watch girls surfing, you might learn a thing or two about style!’
‘The only style I give a rats about is when you duckdive in front of me, sweetheart,’ Andrew drawls with a sleazy curl of his upper lip.
Pepita calmly picks up the jug of water in front of her and splashes its contents all over Andrew’s face. ‘There, you putrid excuse of a human!’ she spits, slamming it back down on the table. ‘Next time I spray you like that, it’ll be with my board. Now show some respect!’
Stunned by a cocktail of awe and astonishment, her two friends collect their jaws off the floor and pull Pepita away from any potential payback. As Tyler and Cooper slip out through the back door, they hear the cafe rumble behind them as the king of Maroubra drowns in the laughter erupting around the room, every drop at his expense.
#12
‘Yes, definitely those ones. The colour suits you and they sit nice on your hips,’ Jaspa offers around the door, hoping to quash Carolyn’s self-doubt.
Carolyn studies herself in the mirror, donning brown and blue tie-dyed swimmers, and decides to take Jaspa’s word for it. ‘Well, there’s nothin’ I can do about my friend here,’ Carolyn says, patting the tummy flesh she’s had since puberty. ‘It’s not that I don’t have a six-pack, it’s just that I’ve got an esky as well,’ she laughs.
Jaspa strides out of the ensuite in pink and yellow floral hipster bikinis with a frilled waist and a halter-neck top, looking as photogenic as Aqua Adore’s top surfer/bikini model Sky Cassidy.
‘These are cute, but I’m not sure if my bum looks too floppy.’ Jaspa jiggles her bottom in her hands.
‘Oh, as if,’ Carolyn protests, playfully throwing a Havaiana at Jaspa, then turning towards the door as Mel comes in.
‘Your butt’s as floppy as a coconut,’ Mel joins in, grabbing the thrown thong and using it to spank Jaspa’s behind.
Carolyn slips into her khaki capris and fumbles in her bag for her zinc. ‘C’mon, it’s two forty-five, we’ve gotta bounce.’
Mel bites back a teasing ‘Yo, CF from the block’. Carolyn’s been dropping a lot ghetto speak lately, probably thanks to her current obsession with ’90s hip-hop.
As Jaspa, Mel and Carolyn turn the corner of main street, all looking down at their phones, they are almost bowled over by three girls from the competition circuit in full sprint. Mel pulls Jaspa and Carolyn off the pavement to avoid the stampede with only a second to spare. ‘See,’ Mel says, shaking her head. ‘I always say phone distraction is what’s going to wipe out the entire human race.’
They see Josephine Brown who is seated at a beachfront picnic table wearing a black cotton maxi dress and a pair of gold-rimmed aviator sunglasses, her hair tousled into a high bun. She looks up from her notepad and raises a hand to acknowledge the girls’ arrival. Jaspa recognises the journalist from her headshot in the contributor’s column of the paper – she’s always thought she looks like Emma Watson. Josephine is known for a controversial story she wrote earlier in the year revealing the appalling ways some of the players from the Pacific Grove Growlers NRL team had treated women. Josephine’s headline read: We Will Not Be Silenced. The article earned her a Walkley award.
‘Hi girls, thanks for coming, take a seat. This is Sean.’ Josephine points to a young man leaning against the fence, a big waterproof camera at his feet. ‘He’ll be doing your photo shoot today.’
Jaspa squeezes in next to Mel and Carolyn on the bench seat opposite Josephine. The contest commentary can be heard in the distance, but it’s still quiet enough to talk.
Josephine places her phone on the table and taps on the My Memo app. ‘We’ll mainly be featuring the letter you wrote, but I’d also like to ask you a few questions, too.’
‘Sure, no worries,’ replies Mel.
Jaspa gives Carolyn a comforting leg squeeze under the table.
‘What prompted you to write the letter?’ Josephine asks, pressing record.
‘We just got tired of the lack of inspiration for us as surfer girls,’ Mel replies, with the confidence of someone you might see on Oprah. ‘I mean, there’s only one Australian girls’ surfing publication, Shredder, which is more of a pamphlet attached to the back of the guys’ Line Up magazine, and that’s only produced twice a year.’ Mel glances at the two girls, encouraging them to pipe in at any time.
‘Yeah.’ Carolyn scratches her fingernail along a groove in the wooden table. ‘It’s BS that even places like England have a monthly chick surf mag even though there are so many more girl rippers in Australia.’
‘So, you believe it’s the responsibility of the men’s surfing magazines to represent female athletes?’ Josephine asks, directing the question at Jaspa.
‘Umm …’ Jaspa leans on her hand and squints towards the sky. ‘Well … I just think women’s surfing is another form of beauty, and more meaningful to admire than the way someone looks.’
Mel has her mouth open, ready to add to Jaspa’s response. ‘I think it’s the industry’s responsibility to support women’s surfing, and allow the public access to it. There are four men’s surfing magazines in Australia and, as we say, only one “pamphlet” twice a year for women,’ Mel explains, gesturing quotation marks with her fingers. ‘We believe female surfing is of interest to the entire surfing community, including guys.’
Each time Jaspa considers the way females are portrayed to be ogled rather than to inspire, it’s like a match lights a fire in her stomach. ‘The girls on tour are incredible athletes with stories to tell. If society only showcases women as sex objects, that’s not setting a good example for boys or girls,’ Jaspa says.
Josephine checks her phone to ensure the recording light is still on, then responds, ‘That’s interesting. So why isn’t there a more regular magazine for surfing women?’
Carolyn remembers the manager at work telling her about Shredder’s beginnings. ‘Oh, there was, about five years ago. Shredder was out every two months, like a proper mag, but it got scrapped and whacked as the add-on to Line Up. I hear it’s cos the industry wouldn’t support it with ads.’
‘Oh, that’s right, I used to love it!’ Jaspa squeals.
Mel has her own opinion on why it didn’t last. ‘Did you know it was run by a bunch of guys? In fact, the pamphlet still is.
Can you imagine a team of women running a men’s surfing magazine?’ she questions rhetorically. ‘There’s no way they’d allow that!’ Mel unties her white cotton shirt from around her waist and slips it on, leaving it unbuttoned at the front. ‘I mean, don’t you reckon a women’s surfing magazine would be best run by female surfers, or at least some female surfers?’
Jaspa crinkles her brow and nods slowly. ‘Yeah, actually I do. Being a girl surfer, it’s … it’s different.’
‘How so?’ asks Josephine, who’s never set foot on a board herself.
‘We have boobs and butts to fit into the barrel,’ Carolyn blurts, prompting a giggle and a nod of agreement from her friends.
‘Well,’ Jaspa says, nudging Mel with her elbow. ‘It’s like what you pointed out the other morning, with the hipster.’
‘Oh yeah, that’s exactly it, Jazz.’ Mel slams her hands on the table, almost knocking over Josephine’s phone. ‘Oops, sorry! So, we were out surfing yesterday and this guy paddles straight to Jaspa’s inside. It’s like, hello asshole, you can’t act all nicey pie, say “hi” and then snake for the wave!’
Jaspa leans in to Josephine. ‘To be honest, I didn’t think to stand up for myself, but Mel’s a good teacher,’ she admits. ‘I usually let guys get whatever wave they want. It can be pretty fierce out there.’
‘Fully,’ Carolyn adds. ‘Sometimes you can smell the testosterone, it’s so intense.’
Josephine sucks in air to make her cheekbones rise even higher. ‘That’s a great point. Do you think female surfers will always be distinctly different to males?’
Mel pops open the cap of her water bottle, takes a long gulp then offers it to Jaspa before answering. ‘Well, I guess our bodies are different; we have to deal with hectic hormones. I might be ripping one day, then have my period the next and keep falling off.’