Summer and July

by Paul Mosier

  I pack everything except for what I’ll wear tomorrow, and what I’m wearing to bed—my shorty. Wearing my shorty to bed is so pathetic it almost makes me hate myself. Wearing my shorty to bed reminds me of everything I wished for in the month of July and didn’t get—the two things I wrote on the bottom of the list on the day I met Summer.

  MAKE A NEW FRIEND

  LEARN TO SURF?

  Especially the thing I had and then lost, because of running away from the friend I made.

  I’m sure I won’t sleep, that I’ll lie awake replaying my bad decision, feeling my remorse. But after brushing my teeth and lying down beneath this open window, with the fragrance of the sea and the hummingbird buffet washing over me, my body feels like the whole month has caught up to it. All of July spent running around, and swimming, and boogie boarding, and skateboarding, and trying to surf suddenly seizes me. It flattens me and tucks me in. I fall into sleep like an overstuffed beach bag dropped to the sand.

  27

  I DREAM OF a long shoreline, of a perfect day, with corduroy waves as shiny as melting ice.

  And I dream of everything Summer taught me about recognizing the right wave, and how to paddle into it like a hobo jumping a train, and how to pop up, and how to curl against the drop like a parenthesis. I’ve never put this all together to catch a wave, but in the dream I do all of it perfectly.

  But Summer isn’t there to see me.

  Then she is there, not in the dream but framed in the window, her arm reaching to me, her fingertips on my cheek. She draws her hand away as I sit up quickly, like I’ve been awake and waiting for her all night long. My heart accelerates, but not from surprise or fear.

  “Thanks for not screaming.” She’s said this before, but this time her voice is sad. “So are you ready for dawn patrol or what?” She sounds unhappy, like she’s mad at me.

  I frown. “Obviously. Did you bring both boards?”

  “Obviously.”

  I stand as Summer backs away from the window, then climb outside. Summer is holding the sea-foam-green board. I grab the pink board from where it’s leaning against the house. We head to the sidewalk, then make our way down the hill on Ocean Park Boulevard.

  The predawn is quiet as a postcard. No dogs bark, no crickets chirp, no cars go on the empty streets. No words are spoken between us. The only sound is the slap of our bare, calloused feet on the sidewalk.

  I wish she would just get it over with and tell me it was weird of me to kiss her. Her keeping quiet is killing me.

  She finally breaks the silence as we cross Main Street. “This is gonna be brutal.”

  I wait for further explanation, but it doesn’t come. “The surf?”

  “Yeah. The surf.”

  We make the last block and pass the little park with the playground equipment.

  Then our toes hit the sand, and she speaks to it as we cross toward the water. “On a morning like this you might catch a wave and feel like you’re on top of the world. Like everything is perfect and it’s never gonna end. Then out of nowhere it ragdolls you. Next thing you know you’re crawling on the sand, spewing up a Neptune cocktail, and you’re done.”

  Again I listen for more, and again there isn’t any. “The surf?” I ask.

  She jams the nose of her board into the sand at the water’s edge. “Everything.” She kicks at a clump of seaweed. “Waves. Friends.” Her gaze lifts toward the sea. “Hank dying.”

  My board falls from my hands, banging my ankle. “Hank died?”

  Summer says nothing, but drops to the sand, falling on her butt like her legs have been cut from under her. My own legs are shaky as I lower myself beside her. I put my arm around her and pull her against me.

  “That’s why you didn’t meet me yesterday?”

  She nods.

  I feel horrible. I was so selfish, being worried about myself when Hank’s dying was the reason she was missing all day.

  She gives me her hand, and I take it. We sit together watching the pounding surf, the white breakers appearing in the dark distance and rushing up to smash the empty beach.

  “When I woke up yesterday morning he was already gone. I went into his room and my mom was lying beside him on his bed with her head on his shoulder. She didn’t even have to tell me. I knew.”

  I picture it.

  “Then I crowded in on the other side of Hank. We lay there telling stories about him for a couple hours. Mostly funny stories. Stories of his antics. And the waves.” Summer turns to face me. “I told my mom how we kidnapped Hank and brought him to dawn patrol.”

  “What did she say about that?”

  “She said she would have killed me if she’d found out.” Summer laughs, then wipes her eyes. “But she was glad we did. She said she was sure Hank could feel it. The roar, the mist. And she said Hank would be watching every wave I ride for the rest of my life.”

  “He’ll be riding with you.” I nod, willing myself to believe it.

  I believe it.

  “Without you I could never have done it,” she says. “Without you at my side these past few weeks, I would never have been brave enough to admit to myself what was coming for Hank. I never could have broken the rules of Hank’s room. I never could have said a proper good-bye. And I never could have brought him to the beach at dawn patrol.”

  I can feel her eyes on me, but I can’t look back. So I stare across the water and furrow my brow to keep from crying.

  “Showing you my world reminded me how much I love it. And how much Hank loved it.”

  “I love it too,” I say, my voice catching in my throat. A sandpiper advances on a retreating wave at the water’s edge, then pecks at the wet sand.

  Summer sighs. “These really are some pounders this morning. I mean, this could be a fun morning for an experienced surfer. But I shouldn’t have brought you.”

  “It’s my last chance,” I say. Suddenly I realize how important it is for me to do this, how badly I want to catch a wave. Even just one. I need it the way Summer needed to bring Hank to his beloved shore one last time.

  “But these waves are savage.” She shakes her head. “You probably shouldn’t go.”

  A coarse voice sounds from behind us. “Hank would go.”

  I know without turning that it’s the Big Kahuna. And there he is again, tall and mythical in his wet suit, surfboard under his arm. He comes up alongside us and stands his stick in the sand. He appraises the scene before him, nods, and repeats it. “Yep. Hank would go.” He bends to leash his board to his ankle and smiles at us, but the gentle sort of smile someone gives you when you’re sitting on the beach, staring at the sea like everything you love has drifted away and you’re hopelessly waiting for it to come back. Then he trudges off against the surf.

  Summer watches the Big Kahuna leave. She’s so close to crying. She’s holding it in like a mouthful of water.

  “Hank would go!” comes a friendly voice as Otis passes by in a full wetty. He shakas with his thumb and pinkie. Summer gives a sad smile, and shakas back at Otis. So do I, but he’s already turned away.

  “Hank would go!” A lifeguard in red trunks tips an imaginary hat to Summer as he heads out to catch some waves before his shift begins. Summer does the namaste bow to him, her hands joined together like a prayer.

  It occurs to me that Hank is being paid the ultimate tribute. All the surfers know that one of their own is gone too soon. They know it like they know the surf report.

  Gidget moves down the beach to find an open spot in the line. “Hank would most definitely go.” She blows a kiss to Summer, who blows one back at her.

  I feel a chill down my spine as the scene unfolds before me. All the experienced surfers know the precise moment when there’s just enough light to read the waves. Dawn patrol is in full effect as a couple dozen dedicated surfers fan out on the empty water.

  “Hank would go,” I say, and rise to my feet. I bend down, hiding the emotion in my eyes from Summer as I leash myself to my board.

&nb
sp; But Summer shakes her head. “I don’t know if I can do this anymore.” Her voice is choked with pain.

  I kick at the sand. “I haven’t gotten this close just to give up now. All month long you’ve been by my side when I was scared. Now it’s your turn to let me help you.” I turn away from Summer, to the angry sea. Then I reach down to her, offering my hand. “Take it.”

  Summer looks up. Then she reaches for my hand, and I lean back to pull her from the sand, to her feet.

  “When we ride, we ride together.” Again my voice cracks as I say it.

  Summer stands straight, shoulders back, and faces the waves. “I’m most definitely Hank’s sister.” She nods at the dark, roiling sea. “And Hank would go.” She wipes an eye with her palm, and bends to tie herself to her board. Then she rises, and finally smiles a smile that is more happy than sad. “We ride together.”

  My heart pounds as we run off into the ocean, ankle-deep like my first day, then waist-deep like my first week. We bounce over the incoming rakers, get pounded by the pounders and mashed by the beasts until we’re out past the break zone, where the waves are born, bellies to our boards.

  We pause to catch our breath. Then Summer turns to me, and my pink board bumps against hers, sea-foam green. “Are you ready?” she asks.

  “Heck yeah,” I say, trying to talk myself into feeling brave. But I really am ready, for whatever.

  Then she furrows her brow and stares at the nose of her board. “Just in case you get crushed by a wave and I never get a chance to say this again, I want you to know I’m sorry I laughed when you did that thing with the whipped cream. When you said you were just getting it off my lips, I’m pretty sure I was hiding my disappointment. Because I was wishing it was a kiss.”

  I reach for Summer’s board and tow her closer. “I only said that because I felt like an idiot.”

  Her eyes meet mine.

  “It was definitely a kiss,” I say.

  “Oh,” she replies.

  Then the cunning Pacific pushes us even nearer each other, belly-down on our boards. Our faces are lined up, positioned perfectly, and I know it’s gonna happen.

  But before it can, a gigantic bluebird breaks right on top of us. We tumble off our boards into the sea, and come up for air, laughing, and her smile is back. Summer is back. It’s all back.

  “That wave was very rude,” she says. We pull ourselves onto our decks. “If we’re gonna catch a wave, we need a little distance between us so we don’t crash.” She paddles off a bit to my left, and turns. I face the shore in imitation of her.

  But I’m thinking of the almost kiss. The ocean cast the spell, and then the ocean broke it, as carelessly as it plays tug-of-war with the shore. It’s telling me I haven’t earned it, that there’s some unfinished business to take care of first.

  Fine, then. Bring me my wave.

  I look over my shoulder at a ridge rising in the dark water.

  “Not this one,” Summer says, and we let it go by, a wave that might have worked if we were a little closer to shore.

  She looks back again, through the mists, toward Catalina, toward Hawaii, toward China. Then she looks at me, and shakes her head.

  “Let it go.”

  We do. A wave I couldn’t even see rolls beneath us, bobbing us as it goes.

  I watch her, glance over my shoulder at the distance, and watch her again.

  Mainly I watch her. I could watch her all day.

  “Maybe we should move in a bit!” she shouts. Then adds, “Wait.”

  She studies the dark horizon intently.

  Then she turns to me, eyes big.

  “Akaw!”

  “What?”

  “Akaw! This one!”

  I begin paddling when she begins paddling, but I feel it behind me, the swell, kissing my toes, and then beneath me, and I know I’m on my own.

  My hands push me from the deck. I pop up.

  My legs are strong, my feet are sure on the surface of the board, calloused from a month of walking barefoot on streets and sand. My stance is nearly perfect, and for a moment, perched atop the wave, I am Neptune’s only daughter, surveying her domain. And then it happens, the drop, and I drop but I don’t fall, leaning against the wave like I know what I’m doing, riding the sharp edge of the ocean, hearing noises coming from my body, through my mouth, of wildest happiness. I almost shout cowabunga, but I mustn’t sound presumptuous on my first wave, however appropriate it might feel.

  But I hear Summer shouting. She’s shouting the very best words of affection and shouting my name, but she’s calling me Juillet, and though she’s calling me Juillet I feel like Betty, because I am Betty, I am the physically appealing surfer girl, strong and statue-worthy and still on this wave, still on this wave as it runs out of mojo. I have tamed it, what the wave has lost I have gained, and though I’m breathless I feel absolutely electrified.

  In the thigh-high foam I bail from my deck like I’m jumping from a stage, and I grab my board and turn to Summer, who runs across the shallow water to me. Her eyes are as big as sand dollars—not little ones like the one she found for me, but full-size. She isn’t saying anything, she can’t say anything, because there are no words, not in this moment. There is a whole vocabulary and a catalog of song for it, for this feeling, for these feelings, for catching a wave and for knowing this girl, for loving this girl, but not in this moment. Instead she drops her board and puts her arms around me, and her head into my shoulder, and I put my arms around her and do the same.

  The remnants of waves push, the undertow pulls. We hold the pose, we hold each other. Our boards tug at their leashes, urging us.

  I don’t want to let go of Summer. I don’t want to say good-bye. But somewhere above the blanket of the morning marine layer, the roar of a jet leaving LAX cuts through the sound of the surf, reminding me that I, too, must leave.

  The sun will peek over the horizon, Mom will wake. She will know where I am, and who I am with, but still we must board—the entirely wrong sort of board—before noon, and leave Summer behind.

  But not just yet.

  “Another?” Summer asks.

  “Another.”

  We say it again and again.

  And next summer—if I have anything to say about it—we’ll get back together and do it again.

  Good-bye, California

  WHEN WE FINALLY leave the beach there’s no time to spare, so we run barefoot up the hill, boards under our arms. We turn the corner onto Fourth Street, jump over alien orders, and slip behind the hedge in front of the cottage. We pass through the screen door and find Mom just inside, arms folded. The suitcases are lined up by the big wooden table. My pair of flip-flops is on the floor, and a cover-up is draped over a chair.

  “Sorry I’m late.”

  Mom looks at her watch, then speaks calmly. “There’s a taxi coming. It should be here any minute.” Her expression softens, her arms unfold. “We’ll be fine. You’re right on time.”

  “She caught a wave!” Summer beams. “Many, actually. Your daughter is quite sick.”

  Mom almost laughs at this. “Well, I’m very happy to hear that.”

  I look down at the bright pink surfboard I hold.

  “I’ll keep it for you,” Summer says. “Nobody gets to ride it except Betty.” She clears her throat. “By which I mean Juillet.”

  I pass the board to her.

  A yellow butterfly flutters past the side window. I hear the tires of the yellow taxi on the driveway.

  “Well,” Summer says. “So long for now.”

  I look to Mom. She stares back. She keeps staring back, then suddenly snaps her fingers. “I’m just gonna go make sure I didn’t leave anything in the medicine cabinet.” She turns away and walks down the hall.

  I take a step toward Summer. She leans the boards against the table. I tilt my face slightly as it moves closer to hers, so I don’t bump her nose with mine, like I’ve got loads of experience with this kind of thing. Her lips touch mine, and I feel the wa
rmth where we meet. Then her hand takes mine, guiding it upward to her heart. She holds it there, and I can feel the pounding against my fingertips. Like her heart wants to come home with me.

  There’s a pounding on the screen door. We pull away from each other as Mom’s footsteps return down the hall. “That’s our ride.”

  Eyes shining, Summer looks radiant as she turns from me and steps toward Mom.

  “It was nice to meet you, Maja.”

  Mom smiles. “Abbie. And it was lovely meeting you, Summer.”

  “Okay, Maja.” Summer moves in, hugs Mom, then draws back. “Thanks for bringing Betty into my world.” Then she takes my hand, squeezes it, and turns away. She gathers the two surfboards under her arm and smiles over her shoulder as she walks out the door. Her golden hair flashes across the window, and she is gone.

  I listen to Summer’s footsteps disappear. I sigh. “Thank you for checking the medicine cabinet.”

  Mom turns to me. “Happy birthday,” she says. Suddenly she looks happy and relaxed, like maybe she did have a bit of a holiday after all.

  Sitting on the airplane, I look through the window at the tarmac and the big jets from every continent as we roll back from the gate to get in line for takeoff. There’s a little green bug with transparent wings on the window, the outer layer of glass. He hangs tough as the ground crew pulls away and the jet begins to slowly taxi down the runway.

  “Maja,” Mom says. She’s looking at her iPhone. “According to Bro-man Bob’s Surf Dictionary, a Maja is ‘a tight surfer mom.’” She sounds amused.

  “Yep.”

  Mom extends her hand to me. “From your desk drawer.” She holds a slip of paper. It’s the list of goals she wrote for me on our second day, with the items I added. I take it from her, revisit it.

  More exercise and fresh air.

  Confront your fears.

  Go outside your comfort zone!

  MAKE A NEW FRIEND

  LEARN TO SURF?

  FIX FERN THING

  GET CLOSER TO MOM

  HELP SUMMER LIKE SHE HAS HELPED ME

  DAD?

  As I read the list, I check off most of the items in my head.