Pleasure Point: The Complete Series

by Evans, Jennifer

  “Do you two mind?” my mom said, as she stuck her head in our room. “Think you guys can stop from killing each other and grace your father and me with your presence at dinner?”

  We both burst into laughter as my mom left our room.

  Tyler said, “You taking her out for surf lessons again?”

  “Guess so.” I swung my legs out of bed.

  “Well, just make sure you don’t catch a contact-high from her pot smoking.”

  I could promise him I wouldn’t catch a high from the pot, but catching a buzz from being around Rosalyn—that was another story.

  Rosalyn

  My body was still aglow from the great time I’d had surfing with Jax when I got back to my apartment. The phone was ringing and I snatched it up with a smile.

  “Hey lady,” Carissa said. “Do you miss Santa Fe yet?”

  I collapsed on my hand-me-down sofa with a happy sigh, putting my feet up on the ottoman. “Hi, Carissa. And yes, I miss Santa Fe already.” I reached for my bong, balancing the phone in the crook of my neck while I lit up and took a deep inhale. “I went surfing today.”

  I could picture my friend Carissa in her tiny studio apartment, probably dressed for another evening waiting tables at Jalisco’s, Santa Fe’s unrivaled Mexican restaurant.

  “Surfing? You’re not wasting any time getting into the beach scene.”

  “Yeah, Lydia’s son Jax is this totally cute surfer. He’s giving me lessons.”

  “Cute? How cute?”

  “He’s young, Carissa.”

  “You, a surfer?” she said. “You did say you wanted to give it a try. How’s the art scene?”

  “I don’t know yet.” I glanced at my empty canvases and oil paints leaned up against one wall of the sunny apartment. The first things I had unpacked were my painting supplies, but somehow, things felt different in Point Loma. The weather was so gorgeous, who had time to sit inside painting? “First things first. I signed up for school today.”

  “That’s cool.” She hesitated. “At least one of us is finally getting responsible in life. I suppose they don’t call us starving artists for nothing.”

  I had grown up in Point Loma and my parents who were aging hippies had encouraged me to fly the coop as soon as I was legal, which is exactly what I’d done. When I turned eighteen, I packed up and headed out to Santa Fe, where I’d slept on a friend’s living room floor, waiting tables until I scraped together enough money to rent my own tiny place. My vision of becoming the next O’Keefe seemed romantic. The reality was, I romanced myself straight into debt while I painted oil canvases of sunsets in the desert and waited tables at a local Southwestern Mexican restaurant that had arguably the world’s best green chili pozole dish. Ah, that wonderful Hatch chili with its spicy, crisp and smoky taste. Went good with a cold beer and a bong hit.

  “What’s up with the surfing thing?” Carissa said.

  I smiled. “Like I was telling you, Lydia’s son surfs. Lydia’s trying to make me feel welcome.”

  “Well, that’s cool. She’s got two, right?”

  I took another toke of my bong, and the Point Loma afternoon became much more mellow. “Yep. Tyler just turned eighteen, Jax is seventeen.” I smiled thinking about Tyler with the long, dark hair and that guitar constantly strapped to his body like an appendage and Jax with blond surfer boy good looks and those crazy blue eyes.

  “How old’s Lydia now?”

  “Thirty-three.” Lydia had married her high school sweetheart and had her first kid when she was sixteen. Yikes! Then, twelve months later, she’d popped out another. There was actually one week in the year when they were the same age. Shoot, having two boys in diapers must’ve been wild. I had a hard enough time taking care of myself.

  “Are you going to check out the SRF? You’re only a few towns over,” Carissa said. The Self Realization Fellowship was a meditation temple in Encinitas that was built by Swami Paramahansa Yogananda some eighty-five years prior.

  I looked out the window, my mind straying to how fun surfing had been. “Yeah, guess so. But I’m kind of busy—”

  “With surfing? My friend Rosalyn, the surf bum.” Carissa’s teasing laughter made me homesick for my bohemian life in New Mexico. All those years in Santa Fe I’d lived with other artists, writers, people who had this crazy illusion that it was hip to suffer for your art. When the landlord came knocking on your front door demanding the rent, it wasn’t cool anymore. Santa Fe was an awesome place to live. High altitude, fresh air, and the pot was flowing. All kinds of New Age stuff happening there too. I’d gotten involved in crystals, aromatherapy, astrology, tarot card reading, yoga, meditation, reiki … you name it.

  I stood up and stretched the long telephone cord across the small living room, peering out the picture window that overlooked a spectacular California Live Oak. “Stop making fun of me.”

  “Surfer girl, surfer girl,” Carissa chanted.

  “Well, my beautiful artist bum,” I said, “I, for one, am going to take all the stuff I learn in physical therapy school and do what I really want to do. This way, I’ll get to help my clients with all the holistic stuff I absorbed in Santa Fe. And make some money.”

  She sighed. “Yeah, I guess it’s time we get serious about life. Hey, maybe now you’re back in Cali, you’ll meet a cute surfer guy.”

  “Not interested.”

  “Why not?”

  “I need to get busy and stop screwing around.”

  “I’m not talking about screwing around. Maybe you’ll meet somebody you click with. We’re thirty, Roz. We’re not getting any younger.”

  “Quit reminding me.” I glanced at the clock. “Hey, gotta go. My shift at the Yacht Club starts in a half hour.”

  I hung up and stood by the open window inhaling the faint smell of the ocean breeze. My new life was so different from what I’d been used to. I missed Carissa, and wondered if I could find that same kind of friendship with Lydia. We had grown up on the same block in Point Loma. She had three years on me and neither of us had siblings. She’d made it her mission in life to treat me like her baby sister. We’d become great friends. The whole time I’d lived in Santa Fe we kept in touch via phone calls, letters, and my occasional trips to Point Loma. I thought it was sweet the way she’d welcomed me with open arms, wanting to include me in her family.

  I wasn’t counting on what would transpire between Jax and me.

  Jax

  The morning after I took Rosalyn for surf lessons, I woke up with a hard-on. That was nothing new because I was always waking up with stiffies in those days. I’d be so embarrassed when I had a wet dream, and I’d guiltily wad up my sheets and throw them in the washing machine before my mom found them. But was it wrong that the first thing I thought about that morning was Rosalyn? My cheeks felt hot with shame.

  Rosalyn rented a tiny apartment that connected to one of those fancy houses right by Sunset Cliffs. When I finished surfing that day and rode my skateboard home with my surfboard tucked under my arm, I wasn’t surprised to see her standing in front of her place as I rode by.

  “Hey Jax,” she yelled, waving crazily. “Come on over.” I quickly turned my skateboard her way and skidded to a stop. “You gotta see my new place,” she said.

  I followed her as she skipped up the steps of her porch, her long, curly hair pulled back into a thick ponytail. I checked out her gorgeous body. Nice butt, perky boobs, in a skin-tight pair of black yoga pants and a skimpy tank top.

  We stood in the living room, and Rosalyn twirled around. “Pretty groovy, don’t you think? Got it for six hundred and fifty bucks a month. Including utilities.”

  I glanced around the neatly kept apartment. “Sounds like a great deal.”

  “And check out all this cool stuff I’m doing.” She ran her hand along the sofa, which was covered with a tie-dyed looking throw. “I learned how to do batik when I lived in Santa Fe. Me and a bunch of chicks would get together every Wednesday night for cheap wine and creative projects,” she
enthused. “And check this out, I’m going to paint the bedroom wall this deep purple color.” She picked up a paint can. My heart beat a little harder just being around Rosalyn. When she bent over to pick up the paint can, I stared at her butt, but then turned away quickly so she wouldn’t notice.

  The apartment was filled with crystals, some rough cut like amethyst and rose quartz and some kind of silver type and others that looked like crystal balls I’d seen in movies when they showed fortune tellers, only smaller. She’d made curtains out of some of that same tie-dye looking stuff and there was a round cushion set out in one corner in front of a low table that had more crystals, feathers, incense, and a thick book with a blue cover and gold lettering that said, A Course In Miracles. The table faced the picture window that perfectly framed a humongous California oak tree.

  “That’s my altar,” she said. “I find that if I meditate every morning, my psyche is centered and it makes the day happier.”

  “Maybe I’ll try it sometime,” I said, knowing I wouldn’t.

  “But hey,” she said, touching my arm. “I was wondering if you’d help me with a little creative project I have in mind.”

  “Creative project?” I was an athlete, but I said, “Sure, what’re you doing?” If it meant spending time with Rosalyn, I would try to remember what I had learned in art class.

  “Well, I was thinking that Ol’ Betsy, my car, is looking a little sad these days. What she needs is some color, so I’m planning a desert mural on one side and an ocean scene on the other. It’ll kind of center me in my travels. You know, since I lived in the desert and now I’m at the ocean?”

  I looked at her with amusement as she stood in the middle of her living room, hands on hips. I had never met anyone like Rosalyn. She had her own flamboyant style, and I could tell she didn’t care what anyone thought of her.

  “What are you going to use for paint?” I asked.

  “Oh, I got it all figured out. We’re going to get some Rustoleum, the kind that comes in a can, and I’ve already got it all sketched out. She moved to her cheap, particle-board desk that looked like it came from a garage sale, and picked up a sketch-pad. “See,” she said, handing it to me.

  I rifled through the pages. Rosalyn was quite the artist. There were sketches of landscapes, people, and even one of the ocean—an enormous wave with a tiny surfer riding down the face.

  “Hey, I like this one,” I said.

  “That’s you,” she said with a huge grin on her face.

  Rosalyn’s smile was one of the most beautiful things about her. It reminded me of that famous poster of Farrah Fawcett with her smiling at the camera and wearing a red bathing suit that my dad had tacked to the wall in our garage. I’d always tried to figure out what was so great about it, and one day I realized it was because of her smile. It was mischievous, sexy, and full of joy. That’s what Rosalyn’s smile was like.

  She flipped to the sketches for the murals on the car. “This is what I’m planning. You in?”

  “Sure.” I walked into the kitchen and poked through the cabinet beneath the sink. “You got any Ajax?” I said, moving bottles around until I found a can of Comet. “And a sponge that has one of those scrubber things on one side?”

  “What do we need that for?”

  “Because, you dummy,” I said pushing her playfully. “The car’s gotta be clean and roughed up if you want the paint to stick.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because I’m a guy,” I said, putting extra emphasis on the word guy.

  Rosalyn smiled at me, and I felt like I was going to faint.

  I went to work on Ol’ Betsy that afternoon, Rosalyn working beside me, scrubbing and rinsing. Every now and then, her arm would graze mine, and I felt a jolt run up my spine. What was that?

  We drove to the hardware store and bought out the whole paint section, every color of the Rustoleum rainbow, from fire engine red to periwinkle blue. Rosalyn sketched the design on the car while I taped off the windows and headlights. Every day after school I’d grab a quick surf session, and then I’d race over to Rosalyn’s to help paint the car. By the end of the week, we were done.

  The day we finished, Rosalyn walked out to the driveway where we’d been working, with two ice-cold glasses of lemonade as I stripped off the final pieces of masking tape from Ol’ Betsy. When she saw the unveiling, both of her hands flew to her mouth, and she dropped the glasses onto the ground.

  “Jax,” she said, tears filling her eyes. “It’s gorgeous.” Then she raced over and hugged me. Her body was soft, feminine, and she smelled like heaven. She let go of me and twirled around in circles right there in the middle of the driveway, laughing, her arms outstretched. Her gauzy skirt flowed around her body so high that I saw her lacy underwear. “Let’s celebrate!”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  She smiled that devastating smile and said, “What else? A surf session.”

  I couldn’t wait to see Rosalyn in a wetsuit again.

  Rosalyn

  Jax was turning out to be okay. He was helpful, fun, and he knew his way around a toolbox. I was touched by how hard he’d worked on Ol’ Betsy. I wanted to show my appreciation by surfing at Sunset Cliffs with him, although I knew the waves there were probably too advanced for me. Jax loved that surf spot and I wanted to make him happy.

  The guy lived and breathed surfing. I was used to seeing him jet past my apartment on his skateboard, his wetsuit pulled down around his waist, surfboard tucked under his arm, blond hair blowing in the breeze.

  We stood at the beige cliffs, verdant ice plant vines trailing jungle-like down the boulders, the ocean air bracingly cool. A few surfers dotted the ocean, their Neoprene-clad bodies making them look like seals. Jax shielded his eyes from the sun and scanned the horizon. “Looks like the waves are small. You’re not ready for the bigger stuff yet.” We walked to the edge, boards tucked under our arms.

  “How do we get down there?” I asked.

  “The rope. I’ll help you.” A salt-cured rope about eight-feet long with knots tied at regular intervals had been attached to the side of the cliff.

  Were we supposed to jump the final three feet to the sand? “I’m not as fragile as I look.” When I looked down, I felt dizzy. Why had I suggested this? I took a deep breath.

  “I’ve done this hundreds of times, but you’re a virgin. I mean—” He blushed. “You’ve never gone down the rope.”

  “I know what you meant,” I said, concealing a grin.

  Jax said, “I’ll go down first, then you hand me your board, and I’ll help you.” There were a bunch of surfers hanging around the beach, and seeing one of his surfing buddies, Jax yelled, “Hey, Tommy, give me a hand.” A dark-haired kid jogged toward the edge of the cliff, and Jax handed his surfboard down the side of the cliff to his waiting friend who set it on the sand. “Thanks, man.” Jax climbed down the rope with athletic surety and jumped the last few feet. Then, I handed him my board, and he held his hand out to help me down.

  “Careful.” His hands were on my leg, my hip, my waist, then my hand, assisting me patiently. “Okay, jump.”

  I vaulted to the beach, with a laugh. “How adventurous. This is fun.”

  Jax speared his surfboard into the sand, and then we entered the water, the cool Pacific Ocean caressing our skin. Jax said, “Okay, we’ll do like we did last time. I’ll stand next to you and wait for waves then push you in.” I positioned myself prone on my board, and was it my imagination, or were Jax’s hands getting a little too close to my butt?

  “I probably shouldn’t have you out here. Local’s are pretty protective of this spot.” He smiled big and said, “But they’ll have to deal with the King Of Sunset Cliffs.”

  “And who would that be?”

  He put both arms out, flexing his biceps. “Who else? Now, concentrate, Rip-It-Up Rosalyn, ‘cause here comes the wave of the day.” He pushed me into the small wave. “Stand up!” he yelled. When I did, it was like floating in hea
ven. Being in the ocean was better than meditating. It was almost better than sex. I paddled back to Jax.

  “Awesome, dudette,” he said, slapping me five. “You looked just like a fairy on that wave.”

  “Can we do it again?”

  “Sure, but you’re going to have to paddle for your own waves pretty soon. Now get ready.” I lay on the board again, and when I glanced at Jax, his eyes were staring at my butt. He quickly looked away, swallowing hard. I smiled. I told myself Jax was no more than a teenager with raging hormones.

  After he’d been pushing me into waves for a while, I told him I was ready to try it on my own. “I’m only letting you do this because the waves are small,” he said. He instructed me on how to position myself on the board, to look over my shoulder for when the wave was building, and how to time everything exactly right so that when I paddled hard the wave would pick me up. Jax watched me carefully until I finally convinced him to get his board so we could surf together.

  It was magic. Surfing with Jax was like being with a best friend on a Saturday morning when I was a kid and all we wanted to do was run outside and play till the sun set. He never took his eyes off me. Even when he rode waves of his own, he’d glance over his shoulder to check on me.

  “You okay?” he said, paddling up to where I sat on my surfboard.

  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Because … you’re a girl.”

  “You mean woman.” I scooped up some ocean water and threw it in his face. “And don’t you forget it.”

  We surfed in the healing Pacific, a few of the locals giving me appraising glances. It looked like they weren’t used to newbies in the lineup.

  After our surf session, Jax helped me up the rope.

  “That was fun!” I said.

  Jax smiled a shy smile. “Told you it would be.”

  As we walked home that day, happy from the endorphins of the workout, we spotted a crumbling old house marked for demolition. It was a decaying place that was eventually torn down to make way for one of those fancy multimillion dollar houses built along the cliff.