• • •
By the summer of 1969, June’s father had been dead two years. It was now only her and her mother running Pacific Fish. Nina was almost eleven. Jay and Hud were nine. Kit was six. And every day during the summer, they came with June to the restaurant.
One particular July morning, it neared a hundred degrees. People were coming in out of the sun in droves. They wanted cold beers and big sodas and shrimp rolls. The kitchen staff was overwhelmed and June, in a moment of crisis management, took the busboys off duty, put them in the kitchen to help out, and handed a rag to Nina, asking her to clean the tables.
Hud and Kit were playing Go Fish on a bench on the side of the restaurant by the parking lot. Jay was trying to flirt with a twelve-year-old girl, not above invoking his father’s name in order to get a hello and a smile. And Nina was inside, watching the customers, making her way to their tables to clean up before they had barely left their seats.
Nina worked fast, with a sense of duty and pride in a job well done. She was efficient rather than perfect, just as her mother had instructed. And, without being asked, Nina grabbed a bin and pulled empty plastic baskets and cups and brought them over to the dishwasher. She was a natural. Born to serve.
As June rang in orders on the second register next to Christina, she looked up from the sea of customers to spot her daughter, wringing out the rag and getting to work on a just-vacated table. Nina’s long brown hair had golden highlights from the sun just like June’s had when she was a child, and her eyes were big and brown and open, just like June’s had always been. Watching her daughter standing there, scrubbing down a table, June saw herself, only twenty years younger, and suddenly had the feeling she was going to jump out of her skin.
“Nina!” she called to her. “Take your brothers and sister to the beach.”
“But—” Nina began to protest. She wanted to clean the tables because who else would clean them?
“Go!” June said, her voice impatient.
Nina thought she was in trouble. June believed she was setting her free.
• • •
Nina gathered her brothers and sister and pulled their swimsuits out of the back of the Cadillac that was now over a decade old. The four of them changed in the bathrooms behind the restaurant. Afterward, Nina took Kit’s hand and the four of them stood on the side of the Pacific Coast Highway, waiting for an opportunity to cross over to the beach.
Nina was wearing a navy blue one-piece. She had sprouted that summer, now tall and lanky. She’d already begun to notice the way people looked at her, a second or two longer than they used to. The suit was now just a bit too small, the straps making indentations into the terra-cotta burn of her shoulders.
Jay, refusing to come inside all summer, had turned downright bronze, a fact made that much more apparent by his yellow swimming trunks. And Hud, faithfully beside Jay all season, had a sunburn, as always, and a new crop of light freckles across his nose and cheeks. His shoulders had begun to peel.
Kit, all of six years old, had begun insisting upon wearing T-shirts over her bathing suits because she didn’t like boys looking at her half-naked. She stood on the side of the road with a yellow Snoopy T-shirt hiding a pink flowered suit, purple flip-flops on her feet.
Each one of them held a towel over their shoulder.
Nina held her siblings back from the road with one arm outstretched, forcing Jay and Hud to wait to cross the highway until she gave them the go-ahead. When she nodded, the four of them ran across, holding one another’s hands. When their feet hit the hot sand, they pulled off their sandals and dropped their towels. They ran as fast as they could toward the water. And then the four of them came to an abrupt stop as their toes hit the foam, eight little feet sinking into the cold wet sand.
“Kit, you have to stay right next to me,” Nina said.
Kit frowned but Nina knew she would do as she was told.
“All right,” Jay said. “Ready? Set. Go!”
The four of them charged into the ocean like soldiers heading into battle.
They swam out, past the small breaking waves that were gently rolling onto the shore, preparing to bodysurf to the sand. The ocean was something they had lived in their entire lives. In the water outside their home, they had swam while their mother cleaned the bathrooms, done somersaults in high tide as she made dinner, tried to find fish as June poured herself another Cape Codder. The Riva kids lived with water-clogged ears and salt-crusted faces.
Jay claimed the first good wave coming in. “Hud,” he said. “Let’s go.”
“Right behind you,” Hud called.
They took off. Jay’s long, gangly arms paddled as fast as they could, Hud’s thick legs kicked with all of their might. They coasted through the water, side by side, each one inching ahead and then falling behind.
These two had no real understanding of doing anything alone. They had come together at such a young age that they knew of no world but the one they inhabited alongside each other.
But they were not twins. And they had no illusions that they were, despite what their mother pretended in polite company. Each one of the children knew how Hud had joined the family. June had always told the kids the story with a sense of awe and destiny. She told them sometimes wild circumstances help fate unfold.
Jay and Hud. An apple and an orange. They did not have the same abilities or wear the same virtues. And yet, they still belonged side by side.
Jay coasted until his body hit the sand. Hud got clobbered at the last second, the wave turning him over and over in its grasp until he got his bearings and stood up. He looked to find Jay.
It felt as if Jay would always be the one who had made it to the sand and Hud would be the one thrown off the wave. But even before ten years old, Hud was managing this, redirecting his interests.
“Nice one!” Hud said, giving Jay a thumbs-up. This was something Hud took pride in, his lack of ego, his ability to appreciate the success of others, even when he had failed. His mother called it “good character.”
Jay pointed out to the distance. Nina and Kit were coming in on a second wave. Nina had chosen a slow one, a small one. One that a six-year-old like Kit could handle. Nina was not looking at the shoreline or at Jay or at Hud. She was watching her sister, making sure if Kit went under, she knew where. Kit, even then, was irritated by her gaze.
They rode the calm wave in and were kicked off it only when they lost their momentum and landed butt first on the wet sand.
The four kids stood there in the shallow water, about to go back out, when Jay happened to spot a lone surfboard resting against the grassy dunes to their left. Pale yellow with a cherry red stringer, beat up across the deck, the board stood there casually, as if it was waiting for someone.
“What if we surfed?” Jay asked.
These kids had been watching people on surfboards for as long as they could remember. There were surfers all down the waterline at that very moment, riding waves along the shore from cove to cove.
“We are surfing,” Nina told him.
“No, with a surfboard,” Jay said, as if Nina could not possibly get any dumber.
They didn’t have money for a surfboard. They had just enough money to pay the bills and eat three square meals a day. There was no money for new toys, new clothes. Nina was well aware of this. She was aware that, some months even the necessities weren’t a guarantee. Children who grow up with money have no idea it exists. But children who don’t understand that it powers everything.
“We are never going to have surfboards,” Nina said.
“But what if we used that surfboard?” Jay said, pointing to the one that remained unclaimed.
“That isn’t ours,” Nina said.
“But what if,” Jay said, walking over to it, “we just used it for a few minutes.” Two preteen girls in crochet bikinis were in the process of laying down a blanket, preparing to sunbathe. Jay and Hud were both momentarily distracted.
“What are we gonna do when th
e guy who owns it comes looking for it?” Hud asked, pulling himself away.
“I don’t know.” Jay shrugged.
“That’s your plan?” Kit said. “‘I don’t know’?”
“If he shows up and wants it back, we’ll say we’re sorry,” Jay said. And before Nina could tell him no, he ran to the board and put his arms around it.
“Jay—” Nina began.
But Jay was already dragging it toward the waterline. He laid it down in the water, maneuvered himself on top of it, and began to paddle.
“Jay, come on,” Nina shouted. “You shouldn’t do this! It’s lunchtime anyway, we should go back in!”
“No way! Mom said to stay out here!” Jay shouted back.
Nina looked at Hud, and Hud shrugged. Nina grabbed Kit’s hand.
Kit took her hand reluctantly, and looked up at Nina, watching her sister’s face scrunch into tiny folds. “Can I go out there, too? I want to try,” Kit asked.
“No,” Nina said, shaking her head. “It’s not safe.”
“But Jay is doing OK,” Kit said.
Jay was now past the breakers, but he was having trouble handling the full weight of the board. It was hard to turn, hard to control. And then he couldn’t get his legs around it quite right. The deck was wider than his straddle.
Nina grew more and more anxious with every second. He could fall off, he could lose the board, he could break his leg or his hand or go under. Nina quietly calculated how she would save him, or what she would say if the owner showed up, how she could handle all of this if it went south.
“I’m going out there,” Kit said, taking her hand from Nina’s and running into the water. Nina grabbed Kit with both arms and held her back.
“You always catch me,” Kit said, aggrieved.
“You always run away,” Nina said, smiling.
“Look, he’s got it,” Hud said, pointing at Jay.
Jay was standing on the board but then he swiftly slipped back, falling into the water. The board floated toward them with the current, as if it didn’t need him to catch a wave. Nina waited for Jay to pop his head out of the water. And it was only once he did that she dared to take another breath.
By the time Jay made his way back to them, Hud had grabbed the board and saved it.
“Nina,” Hud said, pushing the board over to her. “Take it.”
“Just put it back where it was,” Nina replied.
“Take it out!” Kit said.
Jay made his way back, put his hands on the board as if it was his.
“No,” Hud said. “Nina’s gonna take it out.”
“No, I’m not.”
“No, she’s not,” Jay said, taking it again. “I am.”
“You’re not either,” Nina said.
“Yes, I am.”
And it was then—this one moment in time—that Nina realized things were going to happen whether she relaxed or not. Whether she rode the surfboard herself or just watched Jay do it, the surfboard wasn’t going back where it belonged. And so, Nina put her hands on the board. “Fine, I’m taking it.”
Jay looked at her, stunned. He took his hands off of it. “It’s heavy,” he said.
“All right,” Nina said.
“And it’s hard to balance,” he said.
“All right.”
“When you fall off, it’s my turn again,” he said.
“Lay off, Jay,” Hud said.
And Jay did.
Nina laid her body across the board and stretched her arms as far as they would go to paddle out. It was harder to get past the waves on the board. She kept getting pushed back, having to start all over again. But then she pushed her chest up off the board when the next wave came for her, the crest of it hitting her chest instead of her face, and she finally busted through.
She turned herself around, pushed her arms up, sat down on the board. She could feel it teeter underneath her and she straightened herself out.
When a wave approached, Nina weighed her options. She could try to stand up on the board or she could lie down and ride it in that way. Having watched Jay fall trying to stand up, she decided to lie low. Just before the wave bloated underneath her, Nina started paddling as hard as she could. When she felt the water lift her, she didn’t let up. She kept swimming until suddenly she couldn’t swim anymore. Because she was in the air.
Lying across the board, she felt weightless and free, the wind blowing past her. What glory it was to feel the ocean move with you, to ride the water. The wave delivered her, softly, onto the sand.
Nina looked at her hands, now grazing the bottom. She’d done it. She’d ridden a surfboard all the way in.
When she stood up, she looked down the beach to see her siblings all cheering for her. Her brothers stood there with their mouths open.
“You have to keep paddling your arms as hard as you can until you catch it,” Nina said, as she caught back up with them. “It takes more effort than just with your body. But then you move faster, once you catch it.”
“You didn’t stand up though,” Jay said.
“I know but I think we can work up to that.”
And so, that’s what they did.
Nina, Jay, and Hud took turns riding the surfboard into the shore with varying degrees of success, sometimes letting Kit tag along on their backs.
They rode the surfboard all afternoon, crashing and gliding in equal measure. They inhaled water as they crashed, cut their toes on rocks, bruised their ribs simply from the weight of their bodies against the board. Their eyes stung with the salt of the ocean and the glare of the sun.
Until finally, hours into their adventure, Jay took the surfboard out on his own as the three of them watched from the wet sand. “I’m gonna stand up,” he said. “Watch me.”
Jay had fallen off enough times now to believe he understood the rules. He paddled out, faced the shore, and lay on the board, waiting. He waited for one slow, small wave, just big enough to carry him.
When he saw what he wanted, he paused until just before it swelled right behind him and he started to paddle. He used his arms harder than he had ever used them before. He could feel the board catch on the wave, feel it steady itself. And he slowly got onto his knees, and then his feet, and stayed low. He was doing it. He was surfing.
He could see Nina, Hud, and Kit watching him from the distance, could feel their anticipation. It was moments like this, all eyes on him, when he understood himself the best.
Beaming, he crouched as still as he could, until the wave started to knock him off. And then, feeling the board begin to betray him, Jay jumped off and landed, half gracefully, into the water. A champion.
Nina and Hud started running toward him, Kit leading their way. And Jay started laughing so hard that tears were forming in his eyes. “Did you see that?” he yelled to them. He was lost in pure, fresh joy. The kind that keeps you weightless even after you’ve touched ground.
“Pretty cool,” Hud said, as he gave Jay a high five. Kit wrapped her hands around his neck and jumped up onto him. Nina smiled. He had been right. The whole afternoon had been exhilarating. The trying and crashing, the trying and doing, the trying harder, doing better.
• • •
Soon after, the extended lunch rush had ended and the real dinner rush had not quite started and so June snuck out of the restaurant. In her navy high-waisted shorts and white sleeveless button-up, she ran across the highway, to the beach. She found all four of her children taking turns on a surfboard that she knew wasn’t theirs.
She put her hands on her hips and said, “Now where did this come from?”
“Mom, I’m sorry we—” Nina started to explain, but June put her hand up.
“It’s all right, sweetheart,” June said. “I was teasing. It doesn’t seem like it belongs to anyone anyhow.”
“Can we keep the surfboard?” Kit asked. “So we can do this together every day?”
All four of her children looked toward June, waiting for an answer.
&nb
sp; “No, I’m sorry, honey, I don’t think so,” June said. “Just in case someone is looking for it.” June watched as all four of her children deflated. “But I’ll tell you what. If it’s here tomorrow, we’ll bring it home.”
That night, as the kids ate dinner in the break room in the back of the restaurant and June sipped her Cape Codder, they spoke of nothing but the water. June, with her cup in hand, listened patiently as her children described wave after wave. June kept them talking, asking questions about even the most trivial facts of the day. None of the kids stopped to wonder whether she actually found them fascinating or was just very good at pretending. But the truth was, June simply adored her children. She loved their thoughts and ideas, loved to hear about their personal discoveries, loved to watch them as they began to take the shape of fully formed people.
She thought of her children like the magic grow capsules you got at gift shops at the science museum. These tiny little nothings that you drop into water and then watch as they slowly reveal what they were always destined to be. This one a Stegosaurus, this one a T. rex. Except, instead, it was watching them become dependable, or talented, or kind, or daring.
June knew that her children had found a previously undiscovered part of themselves that day. She knew that childhood is made up of days magnificent and mundane. And this had been a magnificent day for all of them.
That night, they went home and watched Adam-12 together and then dispersed. Kit went to bed. Jay and Hud went to their room to read comics. Nina got under the covers and pretended to read a book from the summer reading list.
But all of them felt as though their bodies were still rising with the surf.
For Jay, the feeling was almost an obsession. His brain couldn’t stop focusing on how it had felt to ride a wave with that much power. To glide that smoothly. To ride, to float, to soar. He was lost in the thought of it when he heard Hud speak up from his bed.
“If that board’s not there tomorrow,” Hud said, “what are we going to do?”
Jay sat up. “I was wondering the same thing. Should we try to sneak out? And go get it so no one else does?”
“No,” Hud said. “We can’t do that.”
Malibu Rising: A Novel Page 11