His restlessness shifted a little. Maybe he did need a girlfriend.
“We were just talking, honey,” Gabe said, nuzzling her neck. “No biggie.”
“Really?” Her voice said she wasn’t buying it one bit. Then she glanced at Sean, even as her arms went around her husband’s waist. “You okay? Did you eat anything?”
“Waiting for the turkey,” he said. “But everything looks great. You guys keep pulling together a great party. Thanks for inviting me.”
“You’re not just a friend. You’re family,” she said, sincerity rich in her voice. She’d lost her parents at an early age, so she knew what it felt like to be alone. Sean was grateful he had Janie and her family, but he knew what she meant— the Hoodlums were his family, had been for years. “You sure you’re okay? You’ve seemed a little out of sorts lately.”
Sean laughed, even as he wondered just how restless he’d been, if people were starting to comment on it. “What, am I wearing a sign?” he asked, a little embarrassed.
“Oh. That’s what Gabe was bugging you about, I get it.” She reddened a little. “Well, we just...you know.”
“I know,” he answered, chucking her under the chin. She was like a little sister, too. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Uh-oh,” Gabe said, noticing that Mike was back at the
vat. “I’d better make sure that they don’t maim anybody or start a fire. We’ll talk later.”
“If we have to,” Sean said with a little grin to show he was kidding. Still, as he watched Gabe and Charlotte walk away, and saw his friends all gathered again around the turkey, he realized that he still felt weird. Like all the surfing in the world wasn’t going to solve it. He was lucky to have his friends, his job, his place to live. He’d always loved his life. He just wasn’t sure what was missing.
He took one last look at the surf, hearing the crash of the waves in the growing darkness. His life wasn’t perfect, he admitted. But at times like this, it was pretty darned close. And for now, that’d have to be enough.
“HAPPY THANKSGIVING,” Allison said with as much cheer as she could muster.
“Happy Thanksgiving, dear,” her mother replied. “I can only speak for a minute—they’re going to serve dinner soon.”
Allison shifted the phone to her other ear. “That sounds nice,” she said, looking down at the remnants of the deli turkey sandwich, sitting on a paper plate by her open laptop. “How’s Dad enjoying the Bahamas?”
“He’s been thinking of investing down here. You know how he is,” her mother said with a tone of tolerant amusement. “Just like your brother, always on the lookout for some kind of deal.”
“Once a venture capitalist, always a venture capitalist,” Allison said. “I take it Rod never made it down to the islands, then?”
“No. He’s in the middle of some deal with a company in... let’s see, Norway? Sweden? Someplace cold that doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving.” Again, that small laugh, with the boys-will-be-boys-and-businessmen brand of humor.
“And Beth?” Allison asked.
“Are you crazy? She’s studying for finals!”
Beth, Allison’s younger sister, was in UCLA law, and working hard on becoming the top student. Allison sighed. She really should’ve known better than to ask.
Her mother cleared her throat. “And what about you, dear? We were hoping that at least you could have joined us for this holiday.”
Allison felt a little spurt of anger, and quickly quenched it. “I’m working on this promotion. If we land this account, I’ll be account supervisor. Before I’m thirty.” Which would be in March. Not that she was thinking about that too hard.
“Well, that’ll be nice,” her mother said a little diffidently. “Still, you might’ve taken just a few days to be with your parents. I mean, the company could probably spare you.”
“It’s not a merger with a European conglomerate,” she said, her voice even, “and it’s not editing Law Review, but it’s still important, Mom.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. “You’re the one who chose advertising, Allison,” her mother said, and even over the thousands of miles, Allison felt her mother’s rebuke like she was in the same room. “I’m just saying, it’s not quite as rigorous. If you’re feeling inadequate, you’ve only yourself to blame.”
Allison swallowed hard, but took the comment quietly.
“Oh, here’s your father. They’re serving dinner. I trust you’ll be at the house for Christmas?” Her mother’s voice was a study in forced cheerfulness. “Even your brother will be there.”
What, he’s not doing a deal with some African company that doesn’t celebrate Christmas?
“I’ll be there,” Allison said, keeping her own voice cheerful in response. “Love to Dad.”
“All right, dear. Goodbye.”
Allison hung up her phone, then threw it on the couch. She looked at her living room. There were papers everywhere. There were remnants of her Thanksgiving feast next to her laptop with the presentation slides. The television was on, the volume turned low. They were playing It’s a Wonderful Life on cable, and it was her favorite part, when Donna Reed got caught naked in a hydrangea bush.
“This is a very interesting situation,” she quoted right along with Jimmy Stewart, and she giggled a little hysterically.
The thing is, it wasn’t a very interesting situation. It was a sad and vaguely alarming one.
Panic attack.
She hadn’t mentioned it to her mother, for obvious reasons, but she sat on her couch, trying to will away the incipient touches of squeezy pain starting to clench at her chest. She had too much on her plate to succumb to panic attacks, of all things. Her family didn’t do panic attacks. Just like they didn’t do failure.
The doctor at the hospital had tried to prescribe antianxiety medicine, and a bunch of other kinds of pills, but Allison had turned them down. She had tried pills like that before, back when she was in college. Of course, then it had just been lower-level stress, and she had felt weird going to the doctor for something so stupid, but she’d gone at her roommate’s insistence. Unfortunately, the medicine had made her dizzy and loopy, unable to focus.
So she’d done the only thing she could. She moved out on her own. No roommate, no pressure to go to the doctor. She still stressed out, and she lost a lot of weight that semester, but she’d managed to pull it out with a 3.85 grade-point average.
The fact that her mother had shown off her brother’s dean’s list 4.0 grades was not helpful, admittedly. But the point was, she’d made it through just fine.
Allison picked up her plate and headed off to the kitchen, where a pumpkin pie from the grocery store was thawing out on the counter. She methodically washed up her dishes, then looked at the pie. Then she grabbed a fork, taking the whole pie to the couch. “Happy Thanksgiving to me,” she said with a firm nod, then dug in.
An hour later, with a sick but happy feeling of satiety, Allison stretched out on her couch. She managed to rough out a lot of the Kibble Tidbits presentation, but she knew that there was going to be about seven thousand more drafts, if her boss had any say in it...and, of course, he did. The account was too important for him not to get obsessively involved.
The thing was, if she kept having panic attacks, she wouldn’t be able to work. At all. And that scared her more than anything.
She frowned, replaying the conversation with the doctor in her head.
“What can I do, other than drugs, to prevent these—” she’d winced, not even wanting to say the words “—panic attacks?”
The doctor was clearly not happy with her comments, and he’d frowned fiercely. “There’s only one way to prevent these, really,” he said, and from the tone of his voice, he didn’t sound very confident. “You’re going to need to relax.”
“Relax. Just...relax.” Allison tensed up immediately. “Uh...”
“Which I can see,” he said dryly, “that you�
��re completely incapable of doing at this point.”
She bristled, even as some part of her brain said he’s got your number there, kid. “I can...I mean, I’m sure...”
“What are your hobbies?” he asked, throwing her off.
“Hobbies?”
“Yes. You know, what do you do when you’re not working?”
“I...er...” She thought about it. Eat. Sleep. Shower. Repeat as necessary. “Um...”
He sighed, impatient. “What was the last movie you saw? The last book you read? The last time you spent time with a friend?”
“I’ve been busy,” Allison hedged, feeling her face redden. “So you’re saying I need to get a life.”
He frowned so fiercely, she thought he was going to blow a fuse. “I’m saying if you keep working this way, next time, it might not be a panic attack,” the doctor warned, even though he’d kept his voice gentle. “Next time, it might really be a heart attack, Ms. Robbins. Believe me, you don’t want that.”
Allison sighed just remembering the exchange. Reluctantly, she leaned over, shutting down her laptop, putting her work into its neat, respective folders, and tucking the whole lot of it into her briefcase. She’d have enough time to work on it tomorrow, anyway, since a good chunk of the office would still be on vacation the day after Thanksgiving. Hopefully, it’d be nice and quiet, at least.
Then she pulled out a large piece of paper. Panic attacks, like anything else, were just a problem—a challenge. She could handle challenges. In fact, she lived on them.
First thing to do was to brainstorm. She pulled out her felt pens. On the TV, It’s a Wonderful Life had moved on to Funniest Holiday Moments, so she changed the channel, not even paying attention to what was playing. Then she started scribbling away with the single-minded determination that made her one of the best advertising execs on the West Coast.
Hobbies, she wrote in fat letters.
She realized, with some distress, that she didn’t have a lot of friends to hang out with. Most of the people that she had been friends with in college had drifted away, gotten married, moved. The friends she had now...well, “friends” was a loose definition. They were people from work. She barely had coffee with them, unless it was somehow related to a work project. Besides, they were people who were more than likely vying for the same job she was, now that she thought about it. Approaching any of them to join her in a hobby was probably not going to happen.
Social life, she wrote on a different comer of the large paper. Then, biting her lip, she added Friends to the fist. Might as well work on that, too. “In my copious spare time,” she said ruefully to herself.
She looked back at hobbies, then started listing things randomly. Skiing. Skating. Swimming. Painting. She kept adding things, getting as blue sky as possible. She always told the people she worked with to think big, and then they’d come up with how to get there. There was always a way, she was a firm believer in that. Dream it, and you could do it.
She figured this wasn’t any different.
After an hour, she looked at her sprawling list. It didn’t cheer her up. On the contrary, she actually felt hints of the panic creeping back.
How am I going to have time to do any of these things? I barely have time for the whole eat-sleep-shower thing!
She took a few deep breaths, and a few more forkfuls of pumpkin pie. Just pretend it’s a client project. And slowly, logically, she forced herself to focus.
She needed something she could do locally. She crossed off skiing, camping and European travel immediately.
She needed something that incorporated exercise, if at all possible—the doctor had mentioned that exercise would also help, and she was all about multitasking. So she crossed off poker, the art-related stuff and museum visiting.
She needed something that wouldn’t stress her out more than she already was. She scratched off bungee jumping, skydiving and hang gliding with a silent breath of relief.
She stared at the options she had left. She lived in Southern California. Sure, it was winter, but all things considered, that didn’t mean much. She should probably choose to do something outdoors. She was pretty pale, as she’d mentioned to her boss. So something involving sunshine, she thought with a smile.
And maybe the water. She’d loved the beach when she was a kid, she remembered, even though she never had time to enjoy it. And now, she only lived ten minutes from the sands of Manhattan Beach. When was the last time she’d actually looked at the ocean, now that she thought about it?
So what could she do that involved the water?
“I feel like I just got hit on the hedge by a sledgehammer," a girlish voice said from the television.
Allison looked up, startled...and then abruptly started laughing.
Gidget. The classic-movie channel was playing the movie Gidget. Allison watched as a diminutive and driven Sandra Dee tackled the sport of surfing with the same single-minded focus that had apparently made her valedictorian, or something. Now, there was a fellow short blonde who knew what she wanted, and knew how to go after it.
Allison felt herself grin. She looked down at her list.. .and sure enough, there it was.
With a fat felt-tip pen, she circled one word in red, and leaned back, feeling better than she had in hours. She had her answer.
Surfing.
She could hardly wait.
CHAPTER TWO
“HERE GOES,” Allison muttered to herself.
It was Friday, and she’d snuck out of work early, taking advantage of Frank’s absence to embark on her latest adventure. She wasn’t quite as enthused as she’d been on her couch, after her Gidget epiphany. In fact, she felt as if every single muscle fiber in her body was tensed.
You can do this, she thought. If Sandra Dee can hang ten, you can get your butt into a surf shop and ask for help.
She stood up straight, and walked with purpose through the door. The faded sign said Tubes and showed a surfer— at least, she thought it had been a surfer, once upon a time— and a big, curling wave around him. The place looked run-down and somewhat disreputable. Still, it was close to her house, and in the online research she’d managed to do, people on several Web sites and bulletin boards said that Tubes was the absolute best and most knowledgeable surf store in the South Bay.
She was all about Internet research.
She walked in, looking around like a mouse sensing a cat. She hated feeling as if she didn’t know what she was doing, hated feeling out of her element. Still, it was just a store, not—
“Can I help you?”
She jumped like a firecracker had gone off. The guy seemed to come out of nowhere. Well, technically, he came out of the back storeroom, obviously. Still, it was so quiet in there, and the guy moved like a ghost.
He didn’t look like one, though.
She stared. He was six foot, easily, and had sandy-brown hair. Nice eyes, too, sort of blue-green-hazel, changing. Like the ocean, she thought absently. And he had a tan. She’d bet he was a surfer...she could make out a very nice muscled torso under the long-sleeved cotton shirt he was wearing, which sported a logo of a shark with sunglasses.
Then he smiled, and she felt her mouth go dry.
Wow. All she could think was “wow” in response to a smile like that.
“If I can help you with anything at all,” he said, his tone slightly amused and a little provocative. “Let me know.”
She shook her head. Stay focused, she chided herself. Don’t even go there.
“I need to learn how to surf,” she said in a brisk, businesslike tone.
He smiled a little wider, looking her up and down. He didn’t seem to be doing the sexist scope-out. Instead, he was studying her. Truth be told, she felt insulted because he didn’t really seem all that impressed.
She was wearing a Max Mara suit, she thought, and these shoes were Louboutins. Exactly what was Mr. Big Kahuna smirking at?
“I see,” he said slowly, although obviously, he didn’t. “Don’t tell m
e. You’re a beginner.”
“Obviously,” she said, feeling a little waspish. Then she noticed abruptly that she was starting to breathe a little more shallowly.
She stopped herself, closed her eyes. Took three deep breaths, just like the doctor suggested.
“Sorry. I’ve been a little on edge lately,” she apologized, grateful that her voice was more mellow. “I know absolutely nothing about surfing. I don’t have any equipment. In fact, I don’t know the last time I owned a bathing suit,” she admitted with a small smile. “So. How can I get started?”
He blinked at her. “Um...”
“Do you have any idea how long it would take? To learn, I mean?” She whipped her iPhone out of her bag, opening up her calendar. “I don’t expect to be hitting pro tournaments anytime soon, but being able to stand up on the board is probably good enough, anyway. You do give lessons here, right? I seem to remember reading that on the Internet. There’s a really good instructor here, I’ve heard, but I didn’t see anything advertised anywhere specifically.” She looked at him, realizing that her conversation was starting to speed up, like a runaway train. She tried to slow down by focusing on the business aspect. “You know, you guys really ought to consider a Web site,” she added.
“Don’t I know it,” he muttered, and she saw him cast a glance toward the back room. “But hey, I just work here. So how long, exactly, did you plan on spending on... er, learning to stand on the board?”
He was mocking her now, that So Cal drawl obvious. She crossed her arms. “I want to focus on this for the next month and a half, at least,” she said, thinking of when the presentation was due. “And I’m serious about the process. I want to get started right away.”
She knew that sounded ludicrous. Most people who didn’t know her thought things like this were impossible. She proved them wrong every single time. For example, she’d learned Italian to near fluency in three months.
She glared at his gorgeous, yet doubtful face. She could learn how to stand on a floating fiberglass plank in a month and a frickin’ half.
The Surfer Solution Page 2