The Tribes of Palos Verdes

by Joy Nicholson

  “No you don’t,” he says. “You hope they’ll die.”

  * * *

  My mother doesn’t care about the fires or the tide.

  Money. That’s what she’s talking about tonight. Piles of money stretching out to the water, oceans of bills that will float to Dr. Phil Mason.

  All day we’ve been watching local news interviews with wealthy Palos Verdes families. My mother is indignant about the beautiful interior of Mrs. Paxton’s house. She lists the prices of the Paxtons’ antiques and rugs as the camera pans through their living room.

  “It looks just like your father’s house,” she says. “He spent plenty on that fancy designer from England. He never let me buy nice things for this house.”

  She says she’s tired of being poor, Jim deserves better. She hums softly.

  “Don’t worry, sweetheart, I have a good plan,” she tells Jim, “and your father isn’t here to stop me.”

  “Red Rover, Red Rover—send the catalogues right over. And row, row, row your boat upstream, Phil, because merrily, merrily we’re going to buy a few things we need.”

  “Shhhh,” Jim says, watching a citizen’s fire-watch posse gather angrily in front of the bay. “Look. Even Mr. Chaplain is scared.”

  “Maybe the arsonist will do us a favor and get your father’s house next time.” My mother stretches, sprays a little cheese from a can onto her potato chips.

  “Then he’d be poor, and we’d have to move for sure,” I say, glaring at her.

  “He’d get the insurance. Your father is very shrewd.”

  “He’s still the one paying for this house,” I insist, looking at Jim.

  “Oh yes. He’ll pay,” my mother promises.

  When dinner is over, my mother tries to command my brother’s attention.

  “Look, Jim, we can buy nice things like everybody else’s now.”

  She spreads the cards out, picking one with her eyes closed. With American Express Platinum, she orders Godiva chocolates. With Mastercard she arranges on the telephone for the family portrait to be repainted. As her orders are accepted, she becomes more sure of herself, arrogant even, hurrying along the operator.

  “UPS it, Fed Ex it, next-day delivery. Send those things right over.” She laughs into the receiver. “Run, run, run as fast as you can.”

  Mrs. Phil Mason the cards say. They say it in writing.

  * * *

  A family of hawks circles the black trees on the hill, diving near to the ground, looking for animals displaced by the fire. A few surfers, towel girls, and remaining mothers are there too, looking. Yellow police barriers crisscross the edge of the hill, people line up just behind them.

  * * *

  Cami Miller and her friends are staring at us in the Mustang parked on the edge of Sueno Street. I smile at Cami, then bark at her.

  “Why’d you do that?” Adrian says, laughing.

  “Please, swear you won’t laugh,” I say, chewing on my nails.

  Then I tell Adrian what they spray-painted on my locker in red acrylic: Bitch. Slut. Whore. Bitch. Hate You.

  Then I tell him how they wait, every year, near the MGM halls after school with water balloons, and how I eat lunch alone in back of the science quad, hidden behind a jacaranda tree. For a minute I wait silently, with my eyes down. Adrian doesn’t laugh.

  * * *

  At noon the next day, we’re parked at Manhattan Beach Pier.

  The public beach sign in the parking lot has been sprayed over so it reads NOT A PUBLIC BEACH. A bus bench is graffitied: LOCALS ONLY. GET OUT YOU SUCK SUCKERS.

  I’m afraid of surfing here, but Adrian grabs the vanilla board off the rack on top of the Mustang, opening the door.

  “Look. I won’t even tell them where you’re from. I promise.”

  The group of surfers all eye me curiously and say hello to Adrian, slapping him on the back, giving him a warm, friendly beer.

  “I’ve known these guys for years,” he whispers, “since my mother was married to husband number two.”

  “Ade got himself a rich chick,” Derrick Wong says right off. Another guy says, “Do you have a sister?”

  “We’re not rich,” I say, laughing.

  “Come off it,” Derrick insists, kissing my hand. “You even have teeth like a rich girl.”

  After a few more questions, I have to admit I’m from Lunada Bay.

  “Lunada?” Derrick asks. “Whoa. I wanna go! Tell the Bayboys I’m your houseboy or your maid’s poor little son from China.”

  “She doesn’t have a maid,” Adrian says, tightly holding my hand.

  “He does,” I say, pinching him.

  Then we all smoke a little weed, talk about what’s been going on in Manhattan Beach since Adrian left. I listen, smoking, until I can relax.

  “Okay, surfer girl, show these guys how great you are,” Adrian says.

  “Go with me,” I beg.

  “Come on, shredder. You go and I’ll watch.”

  While I put on my wet suit, I listen from the sand, spying. Adrian sits in the middle of a secret surfer’s circle, smiling as they try to pry information out of him.

  “You just came back to see how the other half surfs,” they joke with him, “the better half.”

  “Cradle robbery, man, is that what you rich guys do?”

  “She’s skinny, and living the lux life for sure, but she seems cool. I’d say you’re a lucky man, Ade.”

  “I didn’t know those girls talked to us lowdowns. You’re still a lowdown, no matter what place you move to. What did they do? Open the gates of Palos Verdes and let you all come down slumming?”

  “Look,” Adrian tells them. “If my mother didn’t fuck some doctor, I’d still be here, and you know it.”

  “What’s it like up in those hills, brother?” asks Derrick Wong, diffusing the tension. “I hear you get arrested up there for driving a Pinto. I hear you’ve got to have a Beemer or something.”

  Derrick slaps Adrian on the back, and does a perfect imitation of a P.V. boy. He gets the smug, lazy voice just right.

  “Why don’t you just get into your twenty-five-dollar car, and drive back to the Valley, where you can serve me a burger with a smile on your ugly face. And you can say thank you … massa.”

  When I paddle out for a wave, they stop talking.

  Strange conch-shaped waves come fast and hard, then break very close to the shore. Compared to the long, smooth tubes of Palos Verdes, the waves at Manhattan Beach Pier are harsh like the first jolt of an earthquake. Two seconds after I take off, I realize I’m out of control; the water lifts me high, bucks underneath, and then ends without warning.

  I wipe out badly and swim, ashamed, looking for my board. Derrick’s deep voice calls out, “Get a leash,” but I ignore him.

  From the safety of the whitewash, I study the patterns in the current; the height between the crest and trough, the time it takes for the swash to break. After watching for a few sets, I paddle out again.

  This time, instead of resisting the violent swerves and thrusts, I let my body relax until I feel fluid and flexible. Finally I stand, riding a wave without falling. There’s sand in my teeth and bruises blooming on the balls of my feet. My heart is beating extra fast, my mouth is numb with cold and salt.

  I feel beautiful.

  * * *

  The boys high-five me later on the shore, crowding around, winking at Adrian. “I’ve never seen a chick surf like that!”

  “I told you,” he says, shrugging.

  “And, it’s good to know someone from Lunada Bay.” Derrick smiles. “Real good.”

  I smile back, but an invisible wall divides us.

  * * *

  A thick chain is stretched from one end of Palos Verdes Drive to the next, stopping all cars from entering. Police have set up a roadblock. They stand in a line, peering into the cars with flashlights and badges. They motion Mexicans, dented cars, anyone they don’t recognize as a citizen of Palos Verdes to the side of the road for further in
spection.

  “She’s okay,” one policeman says to another, waving us past with a baton. “That’s Phil Mason’s daughter.”

  But before we drive off, he gives us a little advice.

  “Don’t park anywhere tonight, Miss Mason; go straight home where it’s safe. There’s a dangerous criminal on the loose.”

  “Ooooh! Maybe the arsonist is watching,” I tease as we drive away. “Maybe you should take me home where it’s safe.”

  Opening and closing his hands, Adrian admits he has to go home soon to study for a calculus test. I tell him it’s too early to go home, plus I want to try the strawberry daiquiris that are sitting in the cooler.

  “Sorry, but I have to study, Medina. U.C. Davis won’t let me in unless I pass these last summer school classes.”

  When I ask how much longer until he leaves, he stares straight ahead. “A few months.”

  I tell him it’s not fair that he gets to go, but I have to wait.

  “Wouldn’t it be funny if I ran away?” I say, closing my eyes. “I could come with you…”

  “Right,” Adrian says. “We’d be laughing all the way to jail.”

  We drive around not talking, looking for a spot away from the red tide. We park far away from the cliffs, under the eaves of the Wayfarer’s Chapel.

  “We have twenty minutes,” Adrian says, setting the timer on his watch.

  I drink five electric-colored daiquiris in a can, quickly. The sky starts to spin. Still I drink.

  “You’re getting wasted,” Adrian says, sitting up.

  “You’re getting away,” I tell him, sinking.

  I pass out after Adrian drops me off, burrowing under my woolly frog blanket, but soon I’m awakened by smoke and sirens. The Portuguese Bend fire starts at eleven, coyotes howl in the hills and fire trucks wail, hopscotching up the thin, dry trails.

  My head is on fire from the daiquiris. I run to the bathroom, nauseated, breathing in smoke and red tide. After half an hour, I creep out the door, holding my stomach, shaking, white.

  “Oh, God,” my mother says, standing in front of the door. “Are you pregnant? I knew this would happen.”

  I try to stand straight. “No, I’m on the pill.”

  “How did you get that?” she asks, and then she says, “I don’t want to know, that’s your business, not mine.”

  * * *

  “So, were they trolls?” Jim asks the next day, trying to be casual.

  “No, they were supercool,” I tell him bluntly, tensed for a fight. But Jim only picks at his nails and jokes sarcastically.

  “It’s been pretty cool here, too. First we played cards, then Monopoly. Tomorrow, we’re going to pick out new furniture for the den. It’s my job to pick—Mastercard or Visa.”

  He stares out the window, watching the brilliant red water shimmer in the sun. “I wish I could surf, even just for an hour.”

  I take a deep breath and tell him not to get mad. “You could come with us next time. We don’t have to tell Skeezer, and you don’t even have to talk to him,” I say, not daring to say Adrian’s name out loud.

  “Are you in love with him or something?” Jim asks. Then he tells me to forget it. He doesn’t want to know if his sister is in love with a Val. For a second, I consider telling him all about Adrian, Ava, and my father, but then I hear the floorboards groan and heavy steps pounding on the carpet.

  Putting his finger to his lips, Jim smiles strangely, and gives me our secret handshake.

  Later that night he’s standing over my bed, trembling. I’m not sure how long he’s been there.

  “How does it feel to stand up? I can’t remember.”

  “Once you paddle out, you’ll remember,” I say, scared. “It’s like riding a bicycle.”

  When Jim falls asleep, I push my nightstand in front of the door to my bedroom to keep my mother out, take the phone into my closet, and call my father’s service.

  “Is this an emergency call?” the operator asks.

  “Yes,” I say, looking at Jim.

  He is quiet now, breath falling softly, almost drowned out against the sound of the tide.

  “I’m sorry, Dr. Mason is in France; it may take him a day or two to call you.”

  * * *

  The next day, my mother has my bedroom door removed. A small guy with a tape measure comes and loosens the hinges, and it crashes down to the carpet.

  “Too much hiding,” she explains. “Too many secrets and late-night talking. Too much I don’t understand.”

  My mother walks in and out of my room three times in a row.

  “Doors encourage secrets, Medina. I am watching now. I do see.”

  She gives the handyman twenty dollars cash.

  * * *

  The air is muggy with smoke at 7:30 A.M. The scientists are already at Lunada Bay, wearing rubber masks and bacteria barriers. They dive in sealed suits, counting plankton with green machines, infrared lights flashing in the forest of seaweed. I stand above, on the cliffs, watching a camera crew pan over the burnt hillside, while a reporter interviews an arson expert.

  “What clues do we have about the mind of an arsonist?” the reporter asks.

  “Usually Caucasian males. Highly intelligent. Often sexually impotent,” the expert says neutrally.

  * * *

  When my father finally calls from Paris, the sound of the long-distance phone is like a train roaring.

  “How are you guys holding up over there?” he asks. “Not that it’s such a bad place to hold up in.” Ha ha ha.

  “Did you get my message?” I say quickly. “Jim needs you.”

  “Put him on then.”

  I tell my father that it isn’t something that can be handled on the phone. I tell him he needs to come home immediately and talk to Jim face-to-face.

  “Well,” my father says, “I can’t just hop on a plane, Medina. These conferences aren’t for fun, they’re a matter of life and death for millions of people.”

  He tells me to calm down and says admonishingly, “Look, I talked to your mother earlier. She said Jim was fine.”

  “He isn’t,” I say. “She’s lying.”

  My father’s voice is very smooth and soft now.

  “Your mother told me the truth—it’s you who’s been acting out, Medina. You’ve got to stop fighting with your mother all the time.”

  He silences my protests. “I understand your anger; I’m very angry with her too, for different reasons. But we need to leave Jim out of it, hon.”

  * * *

  The next afternoon, Jim is on the couch, watching cartoons. There are Robinson’s catalogues spread before him and oversized UPS boxes in the hall, a few still unopened. There are packing peanuts scattered across the floor.

  “Let’s go out for the day, just you and me,” I say. “There’s a waterpark in the Torrance Mall where a machine makes fake waves in a pool.”

  I tell him to hurry, before my mother comes to stop us.

  On the bus, we pass a bunch of surfers sitting on the cliffs, idle and bickering. A film of tide covers the water like the skin of old milk. Jim ducks, pulling me down with him. He huddles against the Naugahyde, shaking his head until we’re out of the curve, afraid the guys will see how much he’s changed.

  “Oh man, oh man,” he says over and over.

  * * *

  The wave machine is shaped like a wheat thresher; it hums and clicks in the cavernous mall. The pool is Olympic sized, acrid with chlorine, bright blue with pictures of dolphins and starfish painted in glossy green along the bottom.

  Valley kids stand along the sides, hopping from one foot to the other, gossiping among themselves, checking out girls who wear long feather earrings and pastel tube tops.

  Jim and I each take plastic-coated numbers and pin them to our wet suits. No one else is wearing wet suits, only bright boardshorts with neon patches along the panels. Jim is looking around, lost, trying to be cool, wearing sunglasses, fidgeting.

  Finally a man at an intercom cal
ls a number; it’s Jim’s turn, but he tells me to go first.

  The water feels like it’s breathing, sucking me backward as the machine whirrs to a start. The wave is gentle, slow, short like a burp. I stand up easily, twisting around, trying to speed it up. I look at the fluorescent lights, smell the popcorn and chocolate cookies, hear another voice on an intercom advertising a sale at Sears. Then the water ducks down with a smushy slap, until I kneel to a finish. I hear the machine whirr for the next person.

  “You better imagine you’re somewhere else,” I tell Jim, shrugging. He sighs, telling me he’ll try. I watch him slide over the mechanical wave; he stands still, moving slowly, putting his arms out listlessly.

  For ten dollars a ride, we decide that it isn’t worth it to go again.

  “Manhattan Beach would be cooler,” I say, elbowing him.

  “Surfing milk would be cooler,” he says, ignoring me.

  * * *

  In the bus on the way home, Jim tells me he feels bad for all the kids at the mall.

  “I thought you hated Vals,” I say, looking at my nails before I bite them.

  “It’s the little kids I feel sorry for,” he amends. “They don’t know what real waves are like. Just that terrible recycled air, awful lighting, fake fish.”

  Then he’s quiet for a while, thinking. He looks around to make sure no one’s watching, swallows a few pills. “No wonder they grow up so weird.”

  He goes to sleep, his head on my lap. It’s hard to wake him up when we get to our stop.

  “Shhhh,” he says. “I feel too tired to walk home.” I tell him he can’t sleep on the bus, shaking him until he gets up heavily, knocking an old lady in the head with his backpack. He tells her he’s sorry, and starts to lie down on the floor. But I pull him up again, my heart beating fast.

  That night he wakes me up at 2:00 A.M., thrashing loudly in his sleep, moaning about water, fire, and other stuff I don’t understand.

  “I’m okay,” he says, when I wake him. “I shouldn’t have taken the black ones with the white ones. I’m okay now, go away.”

  * * *

  Adrian wants me to come out and have dinner with him at Dave’s Italian Restaurant. He’s a vegetarian, and his favorite food is spaghetti with tomato sauce and green olives.

  After dinner, we park the car a block away from my house. The street is deserted and dark, except for a light in my neighbor’s window. Gulls sit on the Murphys’ hedge, swaying in the breeze, ruffling their feathers, shooing away insects. Adrian puts his arm around me and kisses me, running his tongue along my teeth.