Pulled Under (Sixteenth Summer)

by Michelle Dalton

  I’m too exhausted to go back, and even though there’s a little bit of time left, I decide to call it for the round. If I have not posted high enough scores with those rides, it’s just not going to happen. I wade up to the waterline and plop down on the sand.

  “When did you learn to do that?” Sophie asks as she sits down next to me. “When did you learn to catch air?”

  “Just now,” I say with a laugh. “That’s the first time I landed it.”

  “Well, you picked a pretty good first time,” Nicole adds. “You really got up there.”

  Once I catch my breath, I get up and head over to the Surf Sisters crowd. My dad is beaming.

  “I told you you could land it!”

  I smile at him, but I’m still a nervous wreck.

  We have to wait a few minutes for the scores to be tabulated, and when they are, I am in the final. I’ve climbed all the way up to sixth place, but that doesn’t matter now, because all the scores are reset at zero for the finals.

  Before we go out, all the finalists pose together for a picture beneath the King of the Beach sign. Not only am I the only girl in the group, but I’m also the only one who’s not competing for Surf City.

  I start walking over to Mickey and Mo to get some last second pointers when Morgan Bullard suddenly cuts me off.

  “Morgan Bullard,” he says, extending his hand to me. “Surf City.”

  “I know,” I say. “I was there earlier when you were yelling at everybody.”

  He doesn’t let this faze him one bit. He just chuckles and says, “What can I tell you? I’m passionate about surfing.”

  “Is that what you call it? Passion?”

  “You were . . . impressive out there. Izzy, is it?”

  I nod my head yes, my eyes wandering for Mo, wondering if she had anything to do with Morgan Bullard taking time out of his precious life to talk with me.

  “I just wanted to introduce myself and say that there might be a spot on our team for you in the future. It’s a sad thing that Surf Sisters is going to close, but I hope you’d consider joining up with us next season.”

  “That’s very nice of you to offer,” I say, mustering all the politeness I can.

  “Well, it’s not an official offer, not yet,” he says. “I just want you to know it’s a possibility.”

  “Of course,” I say.

  Bullard leans in to me, his lips mere inches from my ear. Considering that sharing an entire miles-long beach with this overly tanned “my surfboard don’t stink” sellout is borderline unbearable, it takes each and every drop of my Zenlike calm to bare his intrusive stance.

  “Think about it,” Bullard whispers, turning to leave as Ben comes to my rescue, ready to give me the latest on scoring.

  “You’re amazing,” Ben says. “When you flew up in the air, I had chills. I am so proud of you.”

  “Thanks,” I say, trying to shake my run-in with Bullard and keep my focus on what’s still to come. “What’s the magic number? How high do I have to finish?”

  “Third,” he says, and I feel the air race out of my lungs.

  “Really? Third? I thought you said top five.”

  “That was before Surf City took all of the seven other spots in the Main Event final. Fourth would tie it, but Surf City would win the tiebreaker. You’re going to need third to get the trophy.”

  At this point my strategy is simple. I have to surf better than I ever have in my life to get to third place. I need to post two monster scores. There’s no value in getting a couple of safe scores out of the way like in the earlier rounds. I’ve got to go for as much as I can get.

  I come out swinging and nail an aerial on my first ride. I don’t know how far I get into the air, but Bailey Kossoff high-fives me when I get back to the lineup. I have another great run during which I pull several moves in quick succession, each one flowing directly into the next. In a weird way they all play like music in my head, as if I’m riding from note to note.

  I feel good about my rides, but it doesn’t feel like third. I need one more and I need it to be epic. As the clock winds down, the only two people left in the lineup are Bailey and me.

  “It’s all yours,” he calls out as a wave comes. I start to paddle, but then I pull off. I don’t think it’s going to be any good. He smiles and takes it instead. A part of me worries that I just blew it.

  I know I’m short on time, but there’s something I’ve learned coming out here every day. The pier is an odd break, and a lot of times after there is a set of good waves, there will be one stray wave that comes along even better. I look down at the board for a moment and see the Eye of the Storm design. It gives me focus. Then I look back at the water and see the stray wave I was hoping for.

  “There it is!” I say, even though no one is around to hear me.

  I lie flat on my stomach and paddle with all I’ve got. I try to flush everything out of my mind, but I can’t. Except, instead of thinking about the wave and surfing, I think about everything else. All these images shoot through my mind: meeting Ben, teaching the campers, the kiss on the end of the pier, waving good-bye to him at the airport, the look on Nicole’s face when we got our surfboards. It’s like I’m watching ten televisions at once.

  A wave is a cosmic event, and this one is more than just the gravitational pull of the moon and the force of the ocean. This wave is the result of a summer like none I’ve ever had before. My ride is almost dreamlike. And before I know it I am surrounded by water on all sides. I am in the barrel of the wave, and everything is collapsing around me as I shoot for the light at the end of the tunnel.

  I can imagine how nuts they’re going up in our little cheering section, and when I burst back out of the tube and ride up the face of the wave, I feel invincible. I snap back and turn and ride until the last bit of it dies off. That’s when I step off into the shallow water. It’s like I’m asleep, and then the horn sounds and wakes me up. Time’s up. I finished with only seconds to spare, but I finished in time.

  The first two to greet me are Nicole and Sophie, who wrap me in a hug so violent that we end up crashing into the water.

  “That was awesome!” Sophie screams. “Awesome!”

  It’s strange because, other than when I rode through the tube, I’m not really sure how it went. I just kind of did it all by instinct.

  “Oh my God, Izzy!” Nicole says as she kicks water on me. “Oh my God!”

  I pick up the board and we walk up onto the beach, where I take off my leash and sit on the sand to catch my breath. I can see a lot of activity in the scoring tent as they add up the final scores, and I get up and walk over there.

  “Sweet ride, Surf Sister,” Bailey says as I walk by him. “Very sweet.”

  “Oh, and Bailey!” I shout after him. He turns around, swiping away the wet hair sticking to his forehead. “Tell your fearless leader thanks, but no thanks.” With a deep breath, I try to take it all in. The beach, the sound of the ocean, the amazing feeling rushing through me. “I can’t surf for him. I won’t.”

  Bailey smiles. “I’d hope not. Till next time, Surf Sister,” he says, joining his team, already congratulating him.

  Mo breaks free from the clutch of people in the scoring tent and walks over to me. Her eyes are red, and I think she’s about to cry. My heart sinks.

  “Did I make it?” I ask. “Did I finish third?”

  She quietly shakes her head. “No, sweetie. You didn’t.”

  Heartbroken, I lower my head forward onto her shoulder. She puts her arm around me and pats my back. And then she whispers something into my ear that I never imagined I could possibly hear.

  “You won.”

  The Surf Sisters victory celebration starts on the beach and migrates to the shop, where it turns into a full-fledged party with music and food. There are more celebratory hugs and kisses than I can count, and at on
e point I even cry when Mickey and Mo have me pose for a picture with the King of the Beach trophy in front of the original steady eddie’s surf school sign.

  Hours later it still hasn’t sunk in. I cannot believe that I won. I don’t know how I did it. I’ve heard various descriptions of the final wave, but I still don’t remember most of it. But that’s more than okay right now as I slow dance with Ben on the roof of the shop. It seems an appropriate location considering this was the place where I challenged everyone to try to win back the trophy from Surf City. But never in my wildest dreams did I see us actually doing it.

  “If you’re the King of the Beach, what does that make me?” asks Ben. “The First Dude? The Royal Boyfriend?”

  “Boyfriend?” I ask with a raised eyebrow. “Is that a label we’re using?”

  He hems and haws for a moment.

  “I win King of the Beach and suddenly we’re boyfriend and girlfriend again?”

  Now he looks horrified, and I bust out laughing.

  “I’m just kidding,” I say. “You pretty much sealed the deal as my boyfriend the moment you put on the coconut bra and danced the hula. That saved me. I was panicked and flustered, but when I saw you out there on the pier, I realized that everything was going to work out. And not just in the contest. Everything.”

  “The end of the pier’s been pretty good for us,” he says.

  “It most definitely has.”

  He leans over and gives me a quick kiss.

  “You know, at some point, we’re going to have to have the talk.”

  I look up at him as we sway to the Hawaiian music wafting from the sound system below. We have not talked about how all of this comes to an end. There haven’t been any discussions of attempts to make something work long distance. It’s so complicated. But I’m still not ready to say it all out loud.

  “I’ve got ten days left in the most amazing summer of my life. I know it’s going to end, but there’s nothing that I can do about that. So I’m going to make the most out of every one of those days.”

  “You certainly did that today.”

  I allow myself a moment of pride as I flash a big grin. “I did, didn’t I?”

  “Okay,” he says. “We’ll wait and have the talk the night before I leave.”

  “At the end of the pier,” I say. “But for now we just dance.”

  He gives me a little look. “I didn’t realize you were in charge.”

  “You didn’t? We’re on the beach and I am the king. I’ve got a trophy over there to prove it.”

  He laughs some more and holds me tighter. I press my ear against his chest, and we continue to move to the mellow music. I feel completely different than I have ever felt in my entire life.

  Earlier in the summer I had expected that these last days would be the worst. I thought I’d be filled with dread as the clock kept counting down toward August twenty-fifth. Oddly, that’s not the case. I don’t know if it’s because I’m living in some sort of denial and will be a total cry factory on the twenty-fourth, or if I’ve somehow come to accept that I can’t control the things I can’t control. This is not to say there aren’t moments when I get in a funk or wallow in a momentary flurry of self-pity. But for the most part these are just quick and they pass.

  The last day of summer camp is memorable because all of the kids celebrate our victory in the King of the Beach. As members of the Surf Sisters team, Rebecca, Tyler, and I are presented with cardboard crowns that we wear for most of the class. Normally I wouldn’t, but the kids really want me to, and I can tell that it drives Kayla crazy. Ben has a special little waterproof camera that he uses to shoot video of all the kids surfing. Then he pulls out a surprise and shows them how good he’s gotten at surfing too. At the end of the class, we have a graduation ceremony where Mickey and Mo present them with their official surf-plomas and we all pose for a group picture.

  Every night Ben and I walk on the beach and check on the turtle’s nest. Sometimes we just sit there in the sand for over an hour looking at the nest and talking about anything and everything, except for the future. Then one night we’re about to get up when I notice the sand above the nest shift ever so slightly.

  “Check it out,” I whisper. “I think it’s time.”

  The sand begins to drain down and we see a tiny loggerhead, less than two inches long, pop his head up from underground.

  “He’s so tiny,” says Ben. “How does he grow to be so big?”

  There’s a flurry of activity, and one by one little turtle heads start popping up from the sand as the hatchlings use their tiny flippers to crawl out onto the beach. Within thirty seconds, there are nearly a hundred of them.

  “Look at them all!” he says in total amazement.

  “They’re going to follow the moonlight,” I remind him. “The reflection of the moon on the ocean is their guide.”

  “This is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.” Ben looks over at me in the moonlight and adds, “Well, maybe the second most amazing thing.”

  “Is that so?” I ask. “What’s first?”

  He gives me a coy shrug, then gets up onto his feet and follows behind the hatchlings as they scamper to the sea.

  I follow too, and once the last turtle reaches the water, I hug Ben from behind and press my cheek up against his back.

  “What’s the most amazing thing you ever saw?”

  “There was this girl,” he says. “And she had a wrinkle in her chin.”

  “And eyes that seemed to change colors?” I joke.

  “That’s right,” he says. “And a big old guacamole stain on her shirt.”

  He turns around to face me, but I still keep my arms around him.

  “You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?”

  “Well, I’m certainly never going to forget it.”

  “You also better not forget that I have pictures of you . . . on the beach . . . in shoes and socks, coach’s shorts, a belt, and a tucked-in shirt. I’m talking photographic evidence that can be enlarged and printed.”

  He pulls me even closer. “I only dressed that way to get your attention. I knew that you’d have to rescue me.”

  I stand up on my tiptoes and give him a kiss. I close my eyes when I do and let my lips linger on his for a moment.

  “You know, I haven’t officially asked you to the Sand Castle Dance,” he says.

  “I was wondering when you’d get around to that,” I say. “And I think it was a big oversight on your part.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Earlier in the summer I’m sure I would have jumped at the chance to go with you. But now that I’m King of the Beach, I’ve got other offers to consider.”

  He looks down at me, and I can see the moonlight in his eyes.

  “Don’t even joke like that,” he says.

  I give him an apology kiss. “I’m sorry.”

  “Isabel Lucas, would you like to go to the Sand Castle Dance with me?”

  “More than you can possibly know.”

  He kisses me again, and then we walk back down the beach.

  There are three days left of summer.

  For more than fifty years the Sand Castle Dance has signaled the end of the summer season as the locals come out to the bandshell to dance the night away. Nicole and I have been many times, but this year is significant because it’s the first time we’ll be going with dates. We’re at my house and I’m putting on the finishing touches.

  “You look amazing,” Nic says when she sees me in my dress.

  “Really?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “So do you,” I say.

  I’m wearing a white summer dress with floral lace over a soft interior layer. I’m hoping to strike a balance between cute and comfortable that will still look good after hours of dancing outside on a hot and humid night. A ta
ll order indeed.

  Officially Ben and I are doubling with Nicole and Cody. Sophie’s boyfriend, from Florida State, is coming, but they’re going to meet us there.

  “Can you believe this summer?” I ask her. “I mean seriously.”

  “It’s been a whirlwind,” she says. “Starting with Sophie’s first day back at the shop.”

  “That’s the day I met Ben.”

  “And the day you sentenced me to talk to Cody.”

  I smile. “That turned out to be a good day for us.”

  She looks at me, and I can tell that she’s concerned. “Are you going to be okay?”

  I nod. “I’m going to have to be.”

  “Have you told him?”

  I shake my head. “No.”

  She goes to say something else, but there’s a knock on the door.

  “They’re here!” I say as I get up and start to walk down the hall to the front door.

  Nicole comes right behind me, and before I answer it, she takes me by the shoulder. “Tell him how you feel. You owe it to him and you owe it to yourself.”

  I nod.

  Both of us take a breath and we open the door. Ben and Cody are standing together on the porch. In keeping with tradition, each one is wearing board shorts, a short sleeve button-down shirt, and a tie.

  “Okay . . . wow!” Ben says. “You look sensational.”

  “You look pretty good yourself,” I say, trying not to blush too much.

  The dance is great. The band, which Ben picked out, is fun and plays covers of music from all different eras. This is important because the dance is for all ages. There are couples who have been married for more than fifty years dancing right next to teenagers like us.

  “I know our big talk isn’t until tomorrow night,” I say while we’re slow dancing. “But there is something that I kind of need to tell you tonight.”

  “Sure,” he says. “What is it?”