by Jenn Bennett
She stares at me like I’ve gone nuts then shakes her head. “Porter just apologized and let them in free of charge. People will forgive anything if you give them stuff for free. Don’t quit! It’s all good. And I need your help now, yeah?”
“Okay.”
I close the door behind me and sit on my stool, waving the next person in line over to my window. I’m not sure how I feel. Relieved? Wiped out? Still humiliated and angry at Porter? I don’t even know anymore.
Before I click on my mic, I look down and see a fresh bottle of water and three cookies sitting on a printed Cavern Palace napkin. One chocolate chip, one sugar, one oatmeal. A note in scraggly, boyish handwriting is inked on the napkin’s corner, along with a drawing of a sad face. It says: Sorry.
LUMIÈRE FILM FANATICS COMMUNITY
PRIVATE MESSAGES>ALEX>NEW!
@alex: I need cheering up.
@mink: Me too. Want to watch Gold Diggers of 1933?
@alex: Blues Brothers?
@mink: Dr. Strangelove?
@alex: Young Frankenstein?
@mink: Young Frankenstein.
@alex: You’re the best.
@mink: You’re not so bad yourself. Tell me when you’re ready to hit play.
“Sometimes you’re better off not knowing.”
—Jack Nicholson, Chinatown (1974)
6
* * *
I spend the next morning on the boardwalk. It’s going much the same as my first morning on the boardwalk, which is to say that it’s a bust. Despite zero signs of Alex, I’ve run into that stupid orange tabby again hanging around my favorite churro cart. I’ve now dubbed her Señor Don Gato (from my dad’s and my favorite children’s song, “Meow-meow-meow”). After all, she fooled me into thinking she was a “he” the first time around.
After pigging out and feeding churro crumbs to some bossy seagulls, I still have some time before I have to head over to the Cave for my afternoon shift. I’m not looking forward to facing Porter again. We didn’t see each other after the cookies. Yeah, that was a nice attempt at making up for his dickery, but whatever. Maybe don’t say anything you need to atone for in the first place.
Ugh. Just thinking about him makes me want to kick something. It also reminds me that I wanted to find a scarf to tie up my hair, so that it doesn’t stick to the back of my neck when the sweating starts in the Hotbox. I throw away my crumpled churro paper in the trash can, say good-bye to sleepy Señor Don Gato, and head to a shop I spied during my previous Alex sleuthing— Déjà Vu. It’s a small vintage clothing store with old mannequins in the window that have been pieced together from several different mannequin bodies—male, female, brown, pink, tall, small. When I go inside, a small bell over the door dings, a sound that’s barely audible over the congo drums of the 1950s exotica music thumping over the speakers. The shop is dark, and it smells of a mix of musty old clothes and cheap detergent. Everything is jammed in tight, a browser’s dream. There’s only one other shopper in the store, and a bored college-aged girl with purple dreadlocks is running the register in the back.
I spot a rotating rack of old scarves near the counter. Bingo. Some of them smell funky, and a few are way too psychedelic for my taste, but there’re dozens to choose from. Halfway through the rack, I find a gray-and-black striped one that won’t clash too badly with my pumpkin vest at work. I pay the girl at the register. When she’s ringing me up, the bell over the door rings. I glance over my shoulder to see two boys walking through the store. One is a burly Latino guy in a sleeveless T-shirt. The other is lanky and white blond, wearing shorts and no shirt at all. He walks with a limp, as if he’s got an injured leg.
Crap. I know him. It’s Porter’s friend. The other guy from the crosswalk—the drugged-up one who slammed his fists on my dad’s car. They both approach us.
“What up, mamacita?” he says in a lazy, raspy voice to the girl at the register as he sidles up to the counter next to me while she’s getting my change out of the register. I glance up at his face. He’s got high cheekbones and deep hollows beneath them, pockmarked by acne scars. His white-blond hair is a mess. Despite this, he might be more classically handsome than Porter. Almost model pretty. But he has a scarier vibe. Something’s off-kilter.
“I told you not to bother me at work, Davy.”
“Yeah, well, it’s an emergency. I’m driving down to La Salva this afternoon. Need you to help a brother out.”
“Not now.”
He puts his hands on the counter and leans closer, blocking my view of their faces. I can still see her purple dreads draped over one bare shoulder. “Please,” he begs.
“I thought you were chipping,” she says in a hushed voice.
“I am, but you know how it goes. I just need a little.” His soft tone matches hers, but I can still hear every word they’re saying. I mean, hello. This conversation isn’t private. Do they know that? “It’s just for today.”
“That’s what you said last week,” she argues.
“Julie, come on.” He runs a hand down her arm, stroking a dreadlock with the tips of his fingers. “Julie, Julie, Julie.”
She sighs. “I’ll make a call and text you. Might be a couple of hours.”
Satisfied, he turns back around and seems to notice me for the first time. “Hi there.”
I don’t reply, but I can feel him looking me over while I accept my change. I quickly shove it into my wallet, and then grab the bag with my scarf and head down the narrow aisle toward the door. I just want to get out of here, like, yesterday.
But I’m not fast enough. Footfalls dog my heels.
“Whatcha buyin’?” I feel a tug on my bag and turn around to see Davy pulling the scarf out. “Are you a cowgirl or a gangbanger?”
I snatch the scarf out of his hand. “Neither.”
His companion snickers behind him.
“Whoa, now. Just curious,” Davy says. “Haven’t seen you around. What’s your name?”
“I don’t think so.”
“O-oh, burn,” the burly guy murmurs.
“Come on, cowgirl,” Davy says. “Don’t be that way.”
I can’t get through the door fast enough. Too fast. For the second time in twenty-four hours, I slam straight into another human being. The real Artful Dodger would be so disappointed in my slipshod getaway skills. My cheek smacks against a breastbone made of steel. I jerk back, overcorrecting, and nearly lose my balance. Hands grip my forearms.
I’m staring at a Quiksilver Surfboards logo. I crack my jaw and raise my line of sight. Now I’m staring at the angry face of Porter Roth.
“For the love of rocks,” I mumble.
The hard lines around his eyes soften when he sees me. Just slightly. Then he looks above my head and gets pissed again. “What the hell do you think you’re doing here?” He’s not talking to me. That’s when I realize he’s not angry at me either; he’s angry at the person standing behind me.
“Who are you, my mom?” Davy’s raspy voice answers. “Relax, man. Ray and I were just grabbing something to eat then heading to Capo’s place.”
Porter’s hands are still gripping my arms. I can’t tell if he’s holding me up or trying to keep me away from Davy. But standing so close, he smells strongly of coconut oil and wax—which smells pretty freaking good, frankly. And while I’m busy being intoxicated, he’s still drilling Davy. “You mean to tell me that I didn’t just see you walking out of Déjà Vu?”
I turn my head to see Davy backpedaling. “Julie asked us to come inside. It was nothing. We were just chatting about Capo’s new dog. Get your panties unbunched.”
Umm, he’s lying. But there’s enough testosterone flying through the air to start a war, no way am I tattling on Davy. And what do I care? Not my business. I just want to get out of here and go to work. And why is Porter still holding on to me? He seems to finally notice this too, and at the same time I shake him loose, he lets go of me and holds his hands back like I’m radioactive.
“And what are yo
u doing here?” he asks me.
“Buying a scarf,” I say, moving away from him. Why is he always in my personal space?
“You two know each other?” Davy asks, absently rubbing his right leg. Looks like that’s the injured one—the cause of the limp.
“We work together.” Porter eyes Davy, and then my bag, like he doesn’t believe either one of us. I’m insulted to be lumped in with this loser.
“Small world,” Davy says, grinning. “You gonna tell me your name now, cowgirl?”
“Seems to me you’re going to call me whatever you want, so what’s the point?”
“Damn, girl.” He hikes up his shorts. “Is she this mean to you at work?” he asks Porter.
Porter slides a glance down at me. I dare him with my eyes to say something smart. Go on, buddy. Show off. Tell him how you riled me up, acting like a pig, called me a snob, and I almost got myself fired. Make yourself look tough in front of your dirtbag friend.
But all he says is, “She’s cool.”
Huh.
Davy gives me another slow once-over and then snaps his fingers. “You should come to a bonfire. Saturday night at sunset, the Bone Garden.”
I have no idea where that is, nor do I really care. Especially not after that dubious exchange I heard inside the shop.
Porter snorts. “Don’t think I don’t know that’s where you first hooked up with Chloe.”
“So?” Davy challenges. “Chloe’s in LA now. Why you gotta bring up the past?”
“Why are you inviting her to the bonfire?” Porter jerks his thumb toward me.
Davy shrugs as his friend Ray urges him down the boardwalk, away from the vintage clothing shop. “It’s a free country.”
I’m not sure what that was all about, but I’m feeling pretty awkward being left alone with Porter. “I gotta get to work.”
Midday sun lights up golden streaks on top of Porter’s dark curls, and when he turns his head toward the ocean, the scruff on his face almost looks red. “Yeah, me too.”
Crap. We’re both working together again today? I forgot to check the schedule in my rush to get out of there after everything that happened yesterday. I’m not sure how much more of this strained togetherness I can handle. But he’s looking at me sort of funny, scratching the back of his neck, like he wants to say something else. And now I remember the cookies he left me, and I’m wondering if he’s remembering them too. Sure, as far as gestures go, it was okay. But for all I know, he could’ve stolen them from the café. I should have just thrown them in the trash, but I gave the chocolate chip one to Grace and ate the others.
Feeling uncomfortable, I mumble a good-bye and turn to leave. That chick from the shop, Julie, is standing outside, both arms and purple dreadlocks crossed over her chest, warily watching us. I avoid eye contact and keep walking.
“See you later, cowgirl,” Davy calls in the distance somewhere behind me.
Let’s hope not. As I pass the churro cart, I notice Porter heading in the same general direction, but his muscular legs carry him faster. Someone whistles, flagging him down. It’s a middle-aged man, maybe my dad’s age, with wavy, gray-brown hair, closely cropped. He’s dressed in board shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt and looks like he could have been handsome when he was younger, but he’s had some hard knocks. One of his arms is covered with faded tattoos; the other arm is missing—as in, completely gone.
I’m surprised to recognize Porter’s eyes in the man’s when I pass, then I glance at the puckering pink scars where the arm once was. Porter catches me staring. I quickly look away and keep going, face flaming.
I think this is probably Porter’s dad and the “horrible” thing that Grace was talking about.
What in the world happened to that family?
LUMIÈRE FILM FANATICS COMMUNITY
PRIVATE MESSAGES>ALEX>ARCHIVED
@mink: What do you want to do after high school?
@alex: You mean, with my life?
@mink: I mean college. When I was younger, I used to think I wanted to go to film school. Be a director. But now I don’t think I’d be so good at being in charge. I don’t want that kind of pressure. Now I think I’d rather be behind the scenes, cataloging something.
@alex: Professional film hobbyist?
@mink: *blink* Is that a real job? Hopefully, it pays huge sums of cash.
@alex: Right there with you. My dad expects me to take over the family business, and I don’t want to. Don’t get me wrong: I like the family business. I enjoy it as a hobby. But I don’t want the pressure of doing it full-time for money. What if I want to do other things, you know?
@mink: I hear ya. And I guess we have to start applying for colleges in the fall. Sort of scary. Too many schools. West Coast? East Coast? I don’t know.
@alex: Enjoy your multitude of choices. Meanwhile, I’ll be stuck at the local community college, working two jobs. My future is already mapped out for me.
@mink: That can’t be true.
@alex: Some of us aren’t so lucky, Mink.
“I used to hate the water.”
—Roy Scheider, Jaws (1975)
7
* * *
My dad says the second day of something is always better than the first because you know what to expect, and he’s right. The Hotbox is slightly more tolerable today. I sacrifice my long waves for an updo and tie the scarf pinup-style, which keeps the sweat from rolling down the back of my neck. Grace has taken preventative measures too, bringing in a battery-powered oscillating fan from home that she’s mounted between our stations. Our biggest obstacle is juggling bathroom breaks, because we’re drinking more water than horses after the Kentucky Derby.
Halfway through my shift, I get my thirty-minute break. Shucking my orange vest, I head upstairs to the café, where I find a lull in the line. The sugar cookie Porter gave me yesterday was pretty scrumptious, so I buy two and find an empty table in a private alcove under the pirate ship. I pull out my phone and look up what’s been hounding me since I clocked in today.
Bill “Pennywise” Roth was a professional surfer who won a bunch of World Surf League championship titles and Triple Crowns in the 1980s. According to his online biography, he’s continually ranked as one of the top surfers of all time. It looks like he died eight years ago. There’s a photo of a life-size memorial statue out by the surfer’s crosswalk, taken at sunset, with a bunch of flowers and surfboards propped up against it.
I start to read about how he grew up in a poor Jewish family and started surfing at the age of six, and how he fostered this entire multigenerational family of professional surfers: his son, Xander Roth, and his grandchildren—
Hold on. Porter has a younger sister, Lana, sixteen, and she’s a state and nationally ranked surfer who’ll be competing professionally for the first time this fall and predicted to join a yearlong world tour starting next January. But Porter won’t? And what happened to his dad?
A shadow falls over my phone. I hit the power button, but not fast enough.
“Reading up on me?”
I grimace, squeezing my eyes shut for a moment. How did he find me up here? “Are you stalking me on the security cameras?”
“Every move,” Porter says. Metal legs squeak against the slate floor as he spins another chair around backward and straddles it, legs spread, like he’s riding a horse. He crosses his arms on the chair’s back. “If you wanted to know something about my family, all you had to do was ask.”
“I’m good, thanks.” I start to gather up my stuff, but I’m only halfway through the first cookie, so it’s pretty obvious that I just sat down.
“I saw you staring at my dad today.” An accusation.
“I wasn’t—”
“You were.”
A tiny groan escapes my mouth. My shoulders fall. “I didn’t know . . . I mean, Grace kind of mentioned something happened, but I didn’t know what, exactly, so I was just . . .” Just what? Digging my grave a little deeper? “Curious,” I finally finish.
/> “Okay,” he says, nodding his head slowly. “So what do you already know?”
I turn my phone back on. “I got to here,” I say, and point to the article.
He leans over the back of the chair and squints at the screen. “Ah. That’s it? So you know who my grandfather was and how he died?”
“Didn’t get to the death part,” I say, hoping that doesn’t sound as bad as I think it does.
He doesn’t seem to take offense. “He was a big wave surfer. That means he had steel balls. Took stupid risks, even when he got too old to be doing it. In the winter, after big storms, the waves will crest really high north of the cove, up at Bone Garden. He took a big risk one morning after a storm when I was ten. I watched him from the cliffs. The wave ate him whole and spit him out onto the rocks. That’s why they call it Bone Garden, by the way. He wasn’t the first idiot to die there. Just the most famous one.”
I don’t even know what to say. A large family stops near our table to pose for a photo in front of the sea monster. We lean to get out of their shot, once, twice, three times. They’re finally finished, and we’re left alone again.
Uninterested in dredging up his grandfather again, I try to think of something else to talk about. My mind turns to what I thought I witnessed in the vintage clothing shop. “Was that your buddy or something? That Davy guy?”
Porter grunts. “We grew up together.” He squints at me and says, “Was he bothering you?”
“Not successfully.”
Porter’s mouth twists at the corners. He chuckles softly. “Now, that I believe. He’s not very bright. But he’s pernicious. I do my best to keep my eye on him, but . . .” Porter trails off, like he was going to say more but thinks better about it and clams up. I notice his gaze flick over me, head to bare legs—not really in a lurid way. His eyes are tight, wary, and troubled, and there’s something behind that dark emotion connected to Davy that I don’t understand. I wonder if it has to do with that Chloe girl they were talking about.