Second Star

by Alyssa B. Sheinmel

  “Come here,” Jas says, walking down the beach, his back to the motel. “I want to show you something.”

  I follow. Sand sticks to the bottom of my pajama pants, and the wind whips through my T-shirt, making me shiver. This beach is tiny; only a few yards from here the water meets the mountains, the hills dotted with houses. No doubt the owners paid premium prices for the views: ocean on one side, mountains on the other.

  Jas stops walking and points to the biggest house by far, perched on the tallest peak. Three times the size of the glass house, at least. You could fit Jas’s entire Kensington house inside of it. But unlike the other houses on the hill, it doesn’t have enormous walls of windows facing the sea. Just normal-sized windows peeking out from beneath the Spanish tile roof, as though whoever built it didn’t value the view at all.

  “You see that house?” Jas asks.

  “It’s impossible not to see that house,” I say. “Can you imagine all the trees they had to chop down to build that house? The roads they had to carve into the mountain just to get there?”

  Jas nods. “I can imagine,” he says. “I spent my whole childhood imagining.”

  I squint in the sunlight, holding up my hand to shield my eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “That’s where I grew up,” he says.

  “That’s where you grew up?” I echo, wishing I didn’t sound quite so incredulous, but Jas just laughs.

  “Oh yes,” he answers. “And I learned a lot more than my pleases and thank-yous. I learned just how to hold a salad fork and a steak knife, how to sip soup and drink iced tea every afternoon at four p.m. on the button.”

  I can’t imagine that Jas lived a single second of his life on the button.

  “How did you get from there to—” I stop myself, but Jas still answers the unasked question.

  “I discovered surfing. It was impossible not to discover surfing. I could see every beach for miles around from that monstrosity, and every day, rain or shine, there they were. Surfers. Kids who had nothing but the clothes on their backs and the boards at their feet. Kids who were having a hell of a lot more fun than I was. So one morning, I snuck out, bought a board with my allowance, and…” He trails off, a strange sort of smile dancing on his lips at the memory. It’s a look I know well; I’ve seen it on Pete’s face and on my brothers’ faces, too. That look that says you don’t understand what the rest of us are doing on land, when there’s that much joy to be found on the water.

  “What happened?”

  Jas shrugs. “It’s not a particularly unique kind of story,” he says. “I blew off school to chase waves. Rigged a rack to the roof of my car, strapped on a couple boards, and took off for days at a time. I wasn’t exactly the son they had in mind—you know, straight As, college-bound, that kind of thing.”

  I nod, thinking about my brothers. By the time they ran away last year, they’d been driving my parents crazy for months. Every morning, when my parents and I woke up, we didn’t know whether John and Michael would be home or would have vanished to hit up the newest beach where the waves were said to be charging. My parents came to dread phone calls most evenings from our school, warnings that if things didn’t change my brothers would be held back a year, suspended, expelled. I got used to the way my mother’s lips pressed into a thin line when my father lectured them about priorities. I got used to the look on my brothers’ faces, like my dad didn’t have a clue what that word really meant.

  “When I was sixteen,” Jas continues, “my parents said they were sending me away to school. I can’t remember the name of the place, but it was someplace landlocked, nowhere near the ocean. They thought all I needed to get straightened out was some time on dry land.” He laughs now, but there’s no joy in it. “So I left. I wasn’t scared of being homeless, of being alone with nothing but the clothes on my back and the board at my feet. But I was terrified of living a life without the ocean right outside my door.”

  I open my mouth to make a crack about a big tough guy like him being so frightened, but I press my lips together before a single word can escape. Because he looks so serious. He wasn’t a big tough guy, not back then. He was a sixteen-year-old kid. Like my brothers. Like me; and I’ve fled, too.

  “A few months after I left, I ran into Pete. Little brat cut me off on a wave down on Huntington Beach.” He smiles at the memory. “I charged after him like a bat out of hell. I mean it, I was ready to kick the kid’s teeth in.” He shakes his head. “But then he grinned at me and held out his hand. And before I knew it, I was crashing on the floor of whatever empty abandoned house he’d found to shack up in that week.”

  I smile. “Sounds kind of nice,” I say.

  Jas nods. “It was. It was…” He pauses. “Don’t make fun of me for what I’m about to say, okay?”

  I nod.

  “It was the happiest time in my life. Pete and I just made our way up and down the coast, talking a big game, sleeping on couches and camping on beaches and just—surfing, you know? Every wave we could find.

  “Finally, Pete discovered Kensington and those empty houses, and we moved into one of ’em and woke up with the sunrise to surf every morning. And we were so good. We knew how good we were. It was only a matter of time, we said, before we’d fly off around the world and start in on the big waves, the famous ones. At night, we’d say their names like other people say their prayers: Maverick’s, Witch Tree, Jaws, Pipeline, Teahupoo.”

  “Cho-poo?” I echo. “What’s that?”

  “It’s a wave in Tahiti,” he explains. “Teahupoo is Tahitian for broken skulls.”

  “Seriously? You wanted to surf a wave called Broken Skulls?”

  “I still want to,” Jas says.

  “Well then, why didn’t you?” I ask. “Why didn’t you and Pete get out there and conquer the world just like you planned?”

  Instead of answering me, Jas begins walking back in the direction of the hotel. I follow. “You hungry?” he says. “Let’s get something to eat.”

  “I’m in my pajamas,” I say. “I don’t have any shoes on.”

  “Neither do I,” Jas answers. “Don’t worry, the place I’m taking you doesn’t exactly have a no shoes, no shirt, no service policy.”

  “You see,” Jas begins about twenty minutes later, when we’re sitting at a splintered, beat-up picnic table that I think may have been painted white about fifty years ago, “my life used to be a lot like your life.”

  “Oh, did you make a habit of running off with drug dealers in search of your missing siblings, too?”

  Jas shakes his head. “Let me rephrase that. My life used to be a lot like your life used to be. Fancy house on a hill—”

  “My house is not like your house,” I interrupt. My house is nice and all, but Jas grew up in a castle.

  “Fair enough,” he says, nodding. “But we both grew up in nice homes with parents who wanted what they thought was best for us. I went to school five days a week, just like you. I was supposed to go to college, just like you. I even dated a girl like you—smart, pretty, determined as hell to get the things she wanted, whether it was her next wave or her next test score.”

  “What happened to her?”

  Jas smiles sadly. “Eventually she figured out that I wasn’t one of the things she wanted.”

  I’m surprised at the heavy ache in his voice. “Broke your heart?”

  Jas shrugs heavily. “She did the right thing, breaking up with me. She was still on the right track, and I had run off the rails. Anyway, there’re all different kinds of heartbreaks,” he says slowly. “But you know that already, don’t you?”

  I nod, thinking of Fiona. A few days before graduation, she had called me crying. Dax had said that maybe they should break up before they went off to their separate colleges. She’d said he was breaking her heart just by thinking that, and I said all the things she needed to hear: Of course he loves you. He doesn’t really want to break up with you. Of course you can stay together, even at different schools.

>   But really, I was thinking that my brothers broke my heart the instant they ran away. They broke my parents’ hearts, too. I lived in a glass house full of shattered hearts and I hadn’t even fallen in love yet.

  I wonder if that’s still true. My heart certainly feels better than it has in a long time. Maybe it’s putting itself back together, getting stronger the closer I get to finding my brothers. Or maybe it’s something else, someone else. I shake my head, blinking, decide to change the subject.

  “You were going to tell me why you and Pete didn’t go around the world together like you planned.”

  Jas nods, smiling at the waitress, who brings him a cup of coffee and places two plates of scrambled eggs in front of us.

  “I didn’t order scrambled eggs,” I say.

  “That’s all they have here,” Jas answers. I look around. I’m not sure this even qualifies as a restaurant. It’s just an RV at the edge of the beach, behind the motel, with three beat-up picnic tables beside it. I take a tentative bite of the eggs, expecting to gag. But they’re surprisingly good, and I’m starving.

  “Here’s the thing,” Jas says finally. “Jet Skis cost money.”

  “Of course they do.”

  “Jet Skis,” Jas repeats, “cost money. Plane tickets cost money. Surfboards cost money and foot straps cost money and even towropes cost money.”

  “I get it,” I say. “You can’t surf the world’s biggest and best waves for free.”

  “Exactly,” Jas agrees. He leans back, lacing his hands at the base of his head, straightening his legs out in front of him.

  I have to move over so that our feet don’t touch.

  He shrugs again and sits back up, leaning toward me, his elbows on the table. “I was just trying to make us some money.”

  I look at my scrambled eggs. “But at what cost?”

  “You sound just like Pete. ‘It’s not worth it’—that’s what he’d tell me over and over again. I told him it was only temporary, just until I saved up enough to get us a ski and some tickets. But Pete kicked me out before I made that much. Course,” Jas adds, taking a sip of coffee, “I didn’t go far. Pete may have hated me, but his wasn’t the only empty house in Kensie.”

  “So he lives on one side of the beach and you live on the other.”

  “And he steals to put enough scraps together to feed the strays who show up at his house from time to time, and I sell drugs to make enough money to have running water and electricity and a Jet Ski and all the boards I want.”

  He smiles, but he doesn’t sound pleased with himself. Quietly, he says, “If I hadn’t been selling, Wendy, someone else would have.” He’s saying it to me, but he doesn’t sound like he even believes it himself.

  Shaking his head, he continues. “Pete and his crew still make it to the big waves sometimes. The local ones. But the ones across the globe? He just can’t get there.”

  “Neither can you, apparently,” I counter, and Jas’s blue eyes fix on me. “I mean, you saved up all that money and bought yourself all those supplies, but you’re still not out there, traveling the world, conquering those waves. Not like you planned anyway.”

  “No,” Jas agrees, “not like I planned.” He rests his forehead in his hands and takes a deep breath. “I did what I had to do,” he says. His voice sounds muffled and far away. “I’m not going to lie—I would do it again.” He looks up now, his eyes piercing and bright in the sunlight.

  “Do you ever think of going back?” I ask, nodding my head in the direction of the mountains, in the direction of his childhood home. “You know, just to see your parents again, just for a second? To let them know that you’re okay?”

  Jas nods, breaking his gaze with me to look at the mountains above us. He presses his hands flat into the table, just inches away from mine. I don’t think he’s going to answer me, but finally he looks at me with his clear blue eyes and says, “Am I okay?”

  I don’t mean to do it, but in a second I’ve taken his hand in mine, squeezing it tight. His flesh is cool, and the callus on his thumb rubs my knuckles softly, so softly, softer than I ever imagined anyone could or would touch me.

  26

  Jas is heaving my duffel bag into the back of the truck when he turns to me. “I’ve got an idea,” he says.

  “What?” I answer, walking around to the passenger side of the car. He rushes to beat me there and hold the door open for me. My hair is still wet from the morning shower; drying in the ocean air, it even has the tiniest bit of a wave to it, instead of hanging stick-straight down my back like it usually does.

  Jas climbs into the driver’s seat. “There’s a bar not too far from here. The Jolly Roger. I spent a lot of time there after I ran away. It’s an old-school kinda place. Lots of surfers, lots of skin.” He pauses, then adds, “Lots of substances.”

  “You think someone there might know my brothers?” I ask, cutting to the chase. Jas always hesitates before he mentions drugs and my brothers in the same sentence, like he hates to remind me about that part of them. It’d be kind of sweet, except for the fact that he’s the person who sold them the drugs in the first place.

  Jas nods. “But, Wendy, listen—” Jas’s voice shifts, lowering an octave. “It’s a bad scene.”

  I almost laugh; Pete used exactly the same words to describe Jas’s side of Kensie, the first night I spent there. “Jas, no offense or anything, but I’m a big girl and you’re a drug dealer. Won’t we fit right in?”

  He doesn’t answer right away, just twists the keys in the ignition. I jump when the truck roars to life. “It’s a long shot,” he says, “but your brothers might’ve stopped there on their way up the coast months back. Someone might remember…”

  “Supplying them?” I offer, and Jas nods. He pulls the car out of the lot.

  “Well, then,” I say, “I guess we’re headed to the Jolly Roger.”

  Darkness falls earlier than usual; Jas explains that the storm is coming down from Canada, the one that’s going to cause Witch Tree to break. He hands me his phone and shows me a weather map, tracking the storm.

  “Looks like the wave will break sometime tomorrow morning,” he says, studying the map.

  “Who knew surfers were such meteorology geeks?” I say, handing it back to him.

  Jas laughs.

  Even the parking lot of the Jolly Roger looks dangerous. First of all, it’s not even paved; it’s just a field of dirt next to a surfside shack. The beach is right across the street, but it looks gritty somehow, the water not quite so blue, the sand gray with tar or dirt. Cars and motorcycles are parked haphazardly across the lot so that Jas has to squeeze his truck into a corner, the back half popping out onto the road behind us. A bare, grimy yellow lightbulb hangs above the door, flickering on and off.

  “How do you even know this place is called the Jolly Roger?” I ask. “There’s not exactly a sign over the door.”

  Jas smiles grimly. “You’re just somebody who knows—or you aren’t.”

  “Surfers,” I say.

  “Not just surfers.”

  I nod, unclicking my seat belt.

  “You ready for this?” Jas asks.

  I nod again, trying not to look nervous.

  “You could stay in the car if you want to,” Jas offers, but I shake my head. “That’s what I thought,” he says.

  I take a deep breath. We’ve come this far, halfway across the state. What’s a few steps farther?

  I’m shaking as I follow him across the parking lot, and it takes me a second to realize that it’s not fear, but excitement. For all I know, John and Michael are inside the Jolly Roger right now, just a few yards away, on the other side of a crappy door that I notice, when Jas opens it, is halfway off its hinges. They could be in there just killing time before Witch Tree breaks in the morning. Jas might walk right up to them and tell them to follow him out to the parking lot. They wouldn’t hesitate. They’d assume that Jas was about to hook them up. Imagine their surprise when they see me standing beside him.<
br />
  It’s sad how relieved I am that they’d follow a drug dealer wherever he led them, like Jas is some kind of pied piper. They’ll be so disappointed when Jas doesn’t actually have anything to sell them, more disappointed still when we get home and it’s them going off to rehab. Because they’re the ones who need help, not me.

  Inside, it’s so dimly lit that my eyes have to adjust to the darkness, even though it wasn’t exactly bright outside either. Sitting at the bar are about a half dozen men and teenage boys, nursing beers or cocktails, one or two looking so skinny that, despite their muscles and their tans, they seem sick. A few splintered tables dot the room, most of them empty.

  “Wendy,” Jas whispers, tugging my arm; I look down, surprised to see that he’s holding my hand, not exactly sure when that happened. “I’m going to go into the back room.”

  “What’s in there?”

  Jas shakes his head. “Just wait for me out here.”

  A woman staggers across the room and practically falls into a chair beside a table and promptly passes out. Other than her, I’m the only female here.

  “Okay,” I say, reaching into my purse for my phone and scrolling through the photos. “Here’s their picture. There’s, like, twelve of them on there, but this one is the most recent. Their names are John and Michael and they’re twins, but not identical. And they’re about five feet eight, or that’s what they were the last time I saw them. Michael is maybe a half an inch taller and he never lets John forget it, even though technically John is older. He was born ninety seconds ahead of Michael. And—”

  “Wendy,” Jas says gently, “I know them, remember?”

  I nod. He squeezes my hand once more before he leaves. “Be careful,” he says.

  “You, too.”

  He slips me the car keys before he leaves. “You can go back to the car if you need to,” he says.

  By the time Jas has disappeared behind an unmarked swinging door, I’m wondering if I should run back to the car right away. Pete would have wanted me to stay in the car to begin with.