Riptide Summer

by Lisa Freeman

  I didn’t know if I was going to succumb to her nastiness or start laughing harder. Most importantly, I didn’t want Windy to get caught up in this, so I moved her off to one side and told her to go back to the towels. She looked at me uncertainly. I told her, “It’s okay”—even though it wasn’t.

  Rox gave Windy the stink eye. It looked like she would never run out of hate. She offered me a cigarette, then sniffed. With a condescending smile she said, “Oh, that’s right. You quit.”

  She lit up and then exhaled right into my face. Could I really despise someone I used to love so much? My palms started to sweat as I asked her, “How long have you been hiding under the tower?”

  “I don’t hide.” She crossed her arms and pushed her boobs up, grinning. “Long enough, though, Dodger.”

  Obliterators love it when they’ve got the upper hand. “Why are you this way?” I asked.

  “Why are you? You must really be a dyke if you dress up like a guy and surf,” she said flatly, exhaling her smoke into my face. But this time I inhaled it and blew the stinky air right back at her. Rox didn’t say a word. She tried to freeze me. When I didn’t look phased, she said, “I’m going to tell everyone you’re a dyke. Right now.”

  “No, you won’t,” I countered. “Because you’re one, too. Even if you won’t admit it.” I thought of my goddess, Pele. She would help me stand tall. ‘Onipa‘a, I told myself.

  But Rox sneered. “I have a boyfriend. You don’t. No one will believe anything you say. I’ll make sure of that.”

  And she would. I could see it in her eyes.

  “No one would take you seriously,” she went on, “if you said that about me. But I’ll send rumors about you to every break from here to Hawaii. I’ll make sure it gets across the ocean, even if I have to scribble the words ‘Nani Nuuhiwa is a dyke’ and toss them into bottles to get them there.”

  She was obsessed, and I could see that she wouldn’t stop. I stared at her. I had to pretend I didn’t care.

  Rox was surprised. “You think you’re so tough, but I know you’re not. So give in right now, or you’ll regret it. Say girls don’t surf. Come on, say it so I can hear it.”

  “No. That’s stupid.”

  “Say it, or your new pals Wendy and Baby, Julie, and Ms. ERA—which is a stupid nickname—and even Jenni and Lisa—all of you will be labeled dykes by the time I’m done. All of State Beach will hate you. They’ll tar and feather you.” She slapped at my boa. “Well, it looks like you’ve already been feathered.”

  I pushed her hand away and looked over at sweet Baby, wearing my top hat as she twirled her pink parasol. Then there was Ms. ERA with her balance of beauty and brains, and Julie Saratoga, starting a new life at Pali, so delicate on the inside and tough on the out. There was Lisa, in her prime, ruler extraordinaire, and Jenni, finally out of her cocoon, soaring like a great enchantress into Coco’s arms. Above all, there was Windy, seated in the middle of the lineup on her first day. I had just promised I would keep her secret. And now I had to prove I would.

  No way was I going to let anything happen to them. I saw Mary Jo walking down the beach beside the perky Nancy Norris. Watching how nice she was being, I could actually forgive Mary Jo. She would do anything to be in the lineup. It was more important than her pride or common sense. She was just messed up and burned out, and I wasn’t going to let Rox hurt her, either. I couldn’t be that selfish.

  “Okay, I’ll say it.” I looked at Rox. “Girls don’t surf.” I said it really fast, so it wouldn’t hurt as much.

  “Now go tell them.” Rox pointed at the lineup. When I hesitated, she said, “Are you going to say it, or should I?”

  “This is so stupid.”

  “You better choose fast. My boyfriend is waiting for me.” She licked her lips and glanced up at the courts. Scotty was sitting down, drinking a beer. He wasn’t even looking at her. He didn’t care.

  Even so, I got it. That’s how Rox did it: she always had a boyfriend to make her look un-gay. No one would think she liked girls when she had a guy on her arm.

  All of a sudden, I felt sorry for her. She would be like a room without furniture—empty and alone—for the rest of her life. I gently touched her scar with my fingertip and said, “You might not call yourself a lesbian, Rox. But you are.”

  That sent her into another raging fury, and she stormed over to the lineup. I was hot on her trail. Neither one of us wanted to run, because it would look dorky, but we both wanted to be the first one there, so we did a weird fast walk until our toes touched the first towel.

  She started to say something, but I stopped her. I said, “I’ll tell them.”

  The lineup turned around attentively. I yanked the Dodger cap out of the back of my bikini and stuck it on my head. Rox reacted as if I had just done a magic trick. Lisa looked at the photo of Dodger on the cover of Tubed and then at me. “Isn’t that … the Dodger’s cap?”

  I put it on. “Yep.” And before anyone could say another word, I said, “I’m Dodger. And I surf.”

  Rox froze. Windy covered her mouth so no one could see her smiling. Then I lifted my boa and tossed it into the wind. There was no need to say a word. Rox choked on her smoke and spun around to get a closer look. The lineup went wild, and Rox went quiet.

  “You’ve been sneaking around with Dodger?” Jenni asked.

  “No,” I said. “I am Dodger.” It was the one time I think it was okay for the lineup to squeal, which they did loudly. They started flipping through Tubed, pointing to the pictures of me sailing though the waves under a bright moon.

  Rox staggered back in disbelief. “You guys!” she said. “It’s going to make all of us look bad if one of us surfs. Girls who surf are gross. Next thing you know, she’ll be growing hair under her pits and telling you to stop shaving your legs. Do you know what I’m saying?”

  Julie Saratoga spoke right over her. “Where did you learn to surf like that, Nani?”

  Baby jumped up and hugged me. It was as if Rox weren’t even there. “You’re so amazing, Nani! Someday I’m gonna be like you. Will you teach me?”

  “Me, too,” Ms. ERA and Julie said at the same time.

  Even Nancy Norris joined in, waddling into my arms and hugging me, too, though she had no idea what was going on.

  But it was Lisa who asked Rox, not so politely, “Don’t you have somewhere else to be?”

  Rox couldn’t say a word with all of us standing there together, united, staring her down. She pointed her finger at me, stabbing it repeatedly in the air, as she walked away without a word. And that was the absolute, final end to her rule.

  I sat down beside Windy and whispered, “Are you still going to run away?”

  “Definitely not. You’re way too interesting.” Our hands touched accidently, but neither one of us moved.

  “Girls, a photo?” Glenn Martin asked in his sexy accent. I could tell everyone was stoked, but nobody showed it. The SOS moved slowly and methodically, getting their towels into place in the new order: starting with Ms. ERA, then Julie, Baby, Windy, me, Lisa, Jenni, Mary Jo, and Nancy Norris on the far end. I took off the baseball cap and shook out my hair.

  “I thought girls weren’t allowed in Tubed?” I said.

  “You never know. Things could change.” He winked. That cracked everybody up. “Come together.”

  We put our arms around each other, playfully entangled our legs, and laughed as he clicked away.

  I cherished this lineup. These beauties really cared about each other. I knew that, together, we would discover what life meant beyond the sand and State Beach. The world was waiting for us.

  Here’s something else I knew: girls did surf. And soon we would be free to surf everywhere guys did. Surfing would be open to any girl strong enough to go for it. But they’d have to have courage. I didn’t want to stand alone, but sometimes that’s the only way to get things started. I swore to myself, to Nāmaka, and to all the goddesses above and beyond, that someday I’d surf State Beach in broad
daylight, for all to see.