The Homecoming

by Alan Russell

  As they paddled out to the lineup, Luke offered Stella nonstop surf advice. “Normally we’d paddle around the break to get out,” he said. “That’s surfer etiquette. You don’t want to interfere with someone’s ride. But today, deserted like it is, we don’t have to worry about that. And right now, even though the incoming waves aren’t much, I still want you to try a turtle roll.”

  They’d gone over a turtle roll onshore. Luke hung back while Stella paddled toward the swell. He watched as she flipped over on her board and cut into the wave upside down. Since he was on a shortboard, Luke’s maneuver was different. He took the wave by diving under it, and came up next to Stella.

  “Good job,” he said. “When you take out a shortboard like mine, you’ll be doing duck dives like I just did,” he said. “But here comes a wave. I want you to do another turtle roll.”

  Stella rolled over, and as the wave passed, she rolled over again. When Luke joined her, she was laughing. For the moment, gravity was no longer weighing her down.

  Wilkerson looked to his right, then to his left. The beach was uncrowded, with most of the activity being generated by joggers and strollers. There were only a few surfers out in the water.

  He stood on the sand debating his next move. Surfer Boy had a few other spots where he liked to catch waves. Wilkerson was pretty sure he hadn’t gone to Black’s Beach; that would have required a long hike down the cliffs that would take too much time on a school day. But maybe he was at Tabletops or Cardiff Reef or Swami’s. There were all sorts of surf spots up and down the coast, each with its own name.

  But Wilkerson was feeling something. It was that sensation he had when she was near.

  He looked up and down the long shoreline again, but didn’t see anyone who resembled Stella. Then his eyes settled on the scattered figures in the water. One of the dark-suited bodies caught his eye.

  There she was, bobbing in the waves like some exotic bird.

  “The lineup is the area where the waves are forming,” Luke said. “It’s there the surfers are waiting to pounce. Before you try and take your first wave, you need to know the rules. The first thing to remember is that the surfer closest to the curl has the right-of-way. What you never want to do is drop in on another surfer. That’s a real kook move.

  “And you don’t take waves you can’t handle. You have to surf within your ability. At the same time, when you commit to a wave, you need to go all in. And don’t ever be a snake. Nobody likes a snake.”

  “What’s a snake?”

  “A snake is a cheat. You can wait a long time to get your chance at a good set. A snake tries to claim a wave that’s yours by paddling in front of you to be closer to the curl.”

  “I’ll try to never be a snake,” promised Stella.

  “You could never be a snake,” he said.

  Each looked at the other; Luke was the first to glance away. He was afraid of falling into her eyes and not being able to get out.

  “Ready to take on an ankle snapper?” he asked.

  “Ready,” she said.

  “I’ll try and find you a ride even in these conditions,” he said.

  The two of them sat bobbing in the water. Luke kept vigil. A minute passed, then another, and just when Stella feared they’d have to leave without her getting a ride, Luke yelled, “Go!”

  Her pop-up was perfect, and Stella balanced herself atop the board. A moment later a wave carried her away.

  Wilkerson watched from the shore. He wished he had his camera, wished he could have caught the moment. It looked as if Stella was floating on water, or walking on it. She was this sea nymph, a goddess with winged sandals. She wasn’t surfing; it looked as if she was moving between two worlds.

  The small wave was breaking left to right, and Wilkerson was able to watch her ride it almost all the way to shore. When she finished, she raised up both of her arms. Or were they wings she lifted? That’s what they looked like to Wilkerson.

  He almost covered his ears at the shouting that followed. Surfer Boy whooped it up, splashing the sides of his board like some two-year-old in a kiddie pool. Then he began paddling toward her with strong, sure strokes.

  The two boards came together in the shallows; Stella’s tip was pointed out, his was pointed in. There was no distance between the boards; their bodies pressed against each other. Luke extended a congratulatory hand, and Stella pressed her flesh against his. The moment turned from celebratory to something else. He leaned into her, and she leaned into him, and then the two of them kissed.

  No one was close enough to hear Wilkerson’s wail.

  In less than a second, Luke’s world completely changed. Stella’s kiss took him to a different place. There was nothing to explain it; there was nothing to liken it to.

  It was vertigo; it was like falling into a wormhole. But he wasn’t landing in one spot. It seemed as if a million worlds were opening up to him. He went through hyperspace, but wasn’t sure if he came out on the other side.

  The ocean had been his mistress. He had thought no vastness could surpass her. But now he saw the ocean as only the beginning. There was more, and more.

  Then and now, thought Luke. There had been his life before the kiss, and now his life after. It was not the same, would never be the same.

  “Thank you,” he whispered to Stella.

  The two of them walked back to shore. Luke had volunteered to carry both boards, but Stella had insisted on carrying her own.

  Neither of them said much. For his own part, Luke was feeling the aftereffects of what had felt like an out-of-body experience.

  He snuck a peek at her, but she sensed his scrutiny, and their eyes met. Both of them smiled.

  “If I hadn’t promised your mom that I’d get you to school on time,” Luke said, “I’d take you to breakfast or somewhere.”

  “Let’s do that another morning,” she said.

  He felt the need to tell her more; he wanted to share.

  “You made me feel part of,” and then he stopped to think before adding, “the infinite.”

  “You are part of the infinite.”

  He let out some pent-up air and nodded. “I might have been afraid of being lost, except you were there with me.”

  “I was there,” she said.

  “You really did go off with the Travelers, didn’t you?” he asked.

  “I did.”

  They came upon their towels and the piles of clothing they’d left on the beach.

  “What the hell?” Luke said.

  He dropped down to his knees and held up a T-shirt that was in tatters. Someone had cut it up.

  Stella lifted up her blouse. The fabric hadn’t been gashed repeatedly as had Luke’s shirt, but it had been slashed in one spot.

  She pressed the blouse against her chest. The slasher had plunged his knife into the spot where her heart was.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  From outside the door, Luke called, “Everything okay in there?”

  “I’m fine,” Stella said. “I’ll be out in a second.”

  She finished putting on a floral halter sundress and slipped on some sandals. It was lucky that both of them had left their school clothes in the car. She was changing inside the women’s bathroom off the beach boardwalk. Luke had insisted upon standing guard while she did so.

  Stella exited the bathroom, and Luke said, “You really did only take a second, and you really do look great.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “It was meant as one,” he said. “I know girls who take hours to get the same look you achieved in seconds.”

  “You changed as well,” said a surprised Stella.

  “Surfers only need a towel to change in public,” he said. “But usually I don’t use a towel that’s been slashed into tatters.”

  Both of them set off at a jog. Luke had parked on the street two blocks from the beach. “As soon as we get to the car, you’re going to have to call your mom,” he said. “She’ll need to contact the a
ttendance office so that you can get a late pass for first period.”

  “That’s not going to make her happy.”

  “Lucky for you, Michael isn’t the most punctual person in the world. Your mom is used to doing it for him.”

  “That’s a relief,” said Stella. “I’ll tell her that time got away from us. That’s true enough.”

  “I hope she doesn’t get too upset with your slashed clothing.”

  “I think I’ll avoid that discussion by throwing my blouse away.”

  There was something in Stella’s words that didn’t sound right to Luke. “Is there a reason you don’t want to tell your mom what happened?”

  “I don’t want her to be worried,” Stella said. “And . . .”

  “And?”

  “Seven years ago the police arrested a man named Guy Wilkerson. They were sure he was involved in my disappearance, but because it turned out he wasn’t, they released him from prison. That doesn’t mean Wilkerson isn’t a threat to me, though.”

  “Do you think he’s the one who cut up our clothes?”

  “I’m sure of it.” Stella remembered the combination of desire and hatred she’d felt through the tattered fabric. Wilkerson had left his mark like an animal might leave its scent. But instead of trying to explain what she’d sensed and how she had experienced it, Stella offered an easier explanation: “I saw him lingering near my house.”

  “Did you tell your parents or the police?”

  “It happened yesterday. I know I should have said something to my mom, but if I had, she wouldn’t have let us go surfing or spend time together. And I was afraid she’d get it into her head to confine me to the house and homeschool me. That’s not something I want.”

  “That’s not something I want either,” said Luke, “but you should have said something, especially since this guy is dangerous. And I wish you’d warned me so that I could have been watching out for this creep.”

  “You’re right,” said Stella.

  “If you see this guy again, you need to tell your parents, and you need to call the cops.”

  “That sounds like the sensible thing to do,” said Stella, but she made no promise that she would.

  As they approached Luke’s car, he unlocked the doors with his remote. Then he scanned the area protectively before lifting the boards up to the roof rack.

  “What if I don’t see Wilkerson today?” asked Stella. “Does that mean you’ll give me another surfing lesson tomorrow?”

  She sounded excited at the prospect, which made Luke very, very happy. “You better believe it,” he said.

  As soon as Stella entered Mr. Rankin’s algebra class, all the students began talking. Her media interview had gone viral; everyone in school knew about “Space Girl.”

  “Thank you, Stella,” Mr. Rankin said, taking her pass. “Please have a seat.”

  In a louder voice, he added, “And unless the rest of you want an impromptu quiz, settle down.”

  Voices lowered, and conversations came to a stop. All eyes followed Stella.

  It was less than five minutes later when she received her first note. The wadded piece of paper skidded off her desk and landed on the floor. She reached down and scooped it up, then unfolded it. In block writing the sender had written: Is it true that once you’ve had an alien, there is no going back?

  Stella heard several boys snickering, but she didn’t turn to look at them. She put the note in her purse, but as soon as Mr. Rankin’s back was turned, two more notes landed on her desk. One of them was written in a feminine hand and read, E.T., call home! She opened the second note: How about showing me Ur-anus?

  The tittering in the classroom prompted Mr. Rankin to turn away from the equation he was writing on his whiteboard. He stared at his students and said, “Anyone care to tell me what’s so funny?”

  There were a few scattered laughs, but the teacher’s hard glance made quick work of those. Under his baleful gaze, all the noise stopped. He went back to his whiteboard. With Mr. Rankin occupied, the boy sitting behind Stella tapped her shoulder. She half turned her head, and the boy whispered, “Note from Lance.” Stella reached down with her hand and received the note. When she looked back to identify the note’s sender, a boy sitting in the row to the right and two seats back waved to her. Then Lance began moving his eyebrows up and down. She wasn’t sure what that meant, even though those around him seemed to find it funny.

  Stella considered putting the note away unread. Maybe her disinterest would discourage others from sending her notes. But as Lance continued his eyebrow gyrations, she decided to see what he’d written. Stella opened the note and tried to make sense of it: Are you a member of the million-mile-high club?

  She mulled over the words. Her apparent confusion resulted in a new outbreak of laughter. Most in the classroom were apparently privy to the contents of the note; those who weren’t were quickly apprised. Ugly laughter filled the room, making her feel dirty.

  For the second day in a row, Luke and Stella met at the same secluded lunch spot. Stella had grabbed a pasta primavera salad to go; Luke had brought a peanut butter-and-banana sandwich and some oatmeal cookies from home.

  “Why don’t we share our food?” suggested Stella.

  Luke looked at her lunch, made a little face, and said, “My agreeing means I must really like you.”

  He took a tentative forkful of her salad and looked pleasantly surprised. Stella bit into his sandwich and happily sighed.

  “I forgot how good peanut butter is,” she said.

  “I practically live on it,” said Luke. “It’s what I eat most days for breakfast and lunch. But I don’t just go the PB-and-J route. Usually I add some kind of fruit. Maybe tomorrow I’ll bring you a peanut butter-and-apple sandwich.”

  “That sounds good.”

  “I use tart apples, like Granny Smiths. We’ve got a lime tree in our backyard, so I usually squeeze some on the apples. And sometimes I put some strawberry jam on the slices as well. I like getting the taste of peanuts along with the sweet and sour.”

  Stella took another appreciative bite of Luke’s sandwich and then handed it back to him. Her gaze drifted over to the Performing Arts Building. Luke noticed where she was looking.

  “Hoping for more of Saint Joan?” he asked.

  “I enjoyed what we saw yesterday,” said Stella. “It actually inspired me to go learn more about her. Did you know Joan carried a banner into battle, not a sword?”

  He shook his head. Normally it wouldn’t have been a subject that interested him, but Stella’s enthusiasm was contagious. It was also atypical of the girls her age that Luke knew, most of whom liked to act world-weary.

  “Joan wasn’t educated,” she said. “She could neither read nor write. But when she was put on trial for heresy, she managed to make her prosecutors look silly.”

  “But wasn’t she found guilty?”

  “It wasn’t an impartial verdict,” said Stella. “Because of that, at the age of nineteen, she was burned at the stake. Afterward, her executor admitted that he feared being damned for his role.”

  “Nowadays everyone would have just thought she was crazy,” said Luke.

  “I suppose you’re right. But doesn’t everyone in this school think I’m crazy?”

  “They don’t know you.”

  “Joan said she began having her visions when she was thirteen. I’m not much older than that. I wonder if my visions are that much different from hers. She had her God; I have my universe. She thought she was a messenger of God.”

  “You don’t think that.”

  “Don’t I? I am a messenger.”

  “My mom is always saying, ‘Don’t blame the messenger.’”

  “That sounds like good advice.”

  “Then you won’t blame me for what I saw on the way over here?”

  “I won’t blame you, even though you’ve made me curious.”

  “First,” he said, “I need to know something. You’re not performing at tomorrow nigh
t’s high school talent show, are you?”

  “I’m not even sure what a talent show is.”

  “It’s a showcase for students to perform their act. It draws dancers, singers, and musicians—people like that.”

  “That sounds like fun. But why did you ask me if I’d be performing?”

  “Because as I was walking over here, I saw talent-show posters being put up, and on them they’re advertising a ‘Special Performance by Space Girl.’”

  “I don’t know anything about that,” said Stella.

  “That’s what I figured. It’s a joke, even if it’s not a very funny one. I’m sure the Y-Girls are behind it. That sounds like their kind of bullshit. After lunch I’ll go to the office and ask to have the posters taken down.”

  Stella thought about that but then shook her head. “There’s no need,” she said.

  As Stella entered Dr. Rommel’s biology class, she was met by an acrid, chemical smell that seemed to be coming from everywhere. Then she saw the trays set upon each desk. In the center of each of the trays was a still, spotted frog.

  She started toward her desk to get a better look, but a boy stretched out his arm and blocked her path. In his hand was one of the frogs. “Froggie went a courtin’,” he sang, and then made it look like the frog was dancing. On an invisible dance floor of air, the frog hopped from one webbed foot to another.

  Stella backed up, but didn’t get far. A second boy held his frog as if it was a microphone and sang, “It’s not easy being green.”

  Turning to a girl who had mostly purple hair, Stella asked, “What’s going on?”

  The girl shrugged and said, “We’re dissecting frogs today.”

  “What?”

  “I know,” said the girl. “Gross, right? Payton says he’ll give ten bucks to any girl who kisses her frog. He says it’s our chance to find a prince.”

  The boy using his frog as a microphone began crooning, “Someday my prince will come.”

  Stella looked again to the purple-haired girl for answers. “What prince?”