The Green Room

by Deborah Turrell Atkinson

  The jet ski coughed, and Goober gave it a tiny bit of gas. It moved him about ten feet away, and he disappeared in the heavy seas.

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Storm didn’t watch him go. Instead, she examined the seas between herself and the strip of beach so far away. Sitting upright on the board and floating atop a wave, she caught a glimpse of a surfer about a hundred yards from where she floated.

  That was where she needed to go. She needed to move to stay warm, plus she had to get to the lineup, which was not only where she’d find other people, but where the waves first hit the outer reef and changed to a shape that could be ridden. Goober had left her outside the break zone, but it was also an area where currents could carry her farther out to sea and down the coastline, where her chances of getting help would diminish.

  Her wrists burned from their re-immersion in the sea and she shivered from cold. The ordeal in the cave had thoroughly chilled her. Storm began to paddle, partly to generate body heat. She was relieved to note that once she got moving, her arms loosened up and felt stronger. In some ways, it was good to get off the bouncing jet ski and into a medium that was more familiar.

  She could no longer see Goober, nor could she hear the machine. She thought about his last look, though, and the admission that he’d broken into her house. Talk to O’Reilly, he’d said. So O’Reilly was behind the break-in? Goober had been living in his guest apartment, so maybe he’d felt a sense of obligation that extended to burglary. Which was stupid, and she’d tell him so later. In fact, she and Sunny would have to have a talk with him about his sense of obligation, or desperation, whichever it was. It was way too easy to become sucked into other people’s deceptions, chicaneries, and rationalizations.

  Storm found it easier to ponder these issues as she paddled than to think about the challenge that faced her. If she thought about the size of the waves around her, she’d be paralyzed with fear and hopelessness. No, it was better to think about Goober, O’Reilly, and Nahoa. Especially Nahoa, who had taught her some crucial concepts about surfing and the ocean.

  She could tell she was getting closer to the break zone. Whenever she heard the roar of a breaking wave ahead of her, and felt the familiar clench of fear that coincided with the noise, she shook her arms out and forced the tension out of her shoulders and neck. By now, her neck was getting tired of its craned position, always trying to peer over the chop around her. From time to time, she sat up and waited for a swell to elevate her so she could see where she headed.

  She wasn’t far from the lineup, and she could see at least two heads still bobbing around in the water. If she could see two, there were probably more. Contest participants or not, these were maniac big-wave surfers, the kind who surfed to brush up to a power greater than one’s self and who sought to test their own strength against dispassionate brute force. They were kindred souls with other athletic extremists—certain mountain climbers, scuba divers, pilots, and others who wanted to measure their courage, their skill, and their wits against the earth’s might.

  Nahoa may have fit into this group, but she didn’t. And right now, she wanted to get to land so badly it nearly brought tears to her eyes. Yet she couldn’t let herself think about her chances, or how cold she was, or even hope like crazy that Goober had been able to get to shore and send help.

  She sat up on her board to shake the shivers out of her arms and roll the tension out of her neck. Good grief, there was Gabe Watson twenty yards away. He looked her way, then did a genuine double take. His mouth even dropped open. If Storm hadn’t been stiff with cold and terrified, she would have laughed. But she wasn’t amused, and he wasn’t the kind of person she’d rely on for help. Better that she put some distance between them.

  Not far away, a jet ski whined, but she couldn’t see it in the troughs between the waves. She hoped it was Goober. At that moment, fear gripped her to the point that she wondered if she’d ever see Hamlin again. She shouted and waved in the direction of the noise, but it was too far away, and the sound of the engine faded without her ever catching sight of the machine.

  She couldn’t even see Gabe anymore. Instead, she pitched in the chop that covered the approaching swell. The jet ski had likely dropped a surfer onto a wave. Storm sat up and turned seaward to get a read on how big the approaching set might be and whether she was positioned where she wanted to be. Seas like this would move her quite a distance without her knowing, and the ocean could easily shift her into what surfers referred to as The Zone. This was the dreaded area landward of the break zone where there was no escape from the oncoming wave. In a second, she’d be caught in the rip current, too far inside to catch the wave, and not enough time to paddle over it. She’d get worked, pounded by tons and tons of water. Pushed all the way to the bottom.

  The wave coming at her right now was a monster, the biggest she’d ever seen. Storm flopped down on her board and dug into the rising water with pumping arms. The wave was still growing, and her shoulders ached with the effort of getting to it. It was fast as a bullet train, and it was imperative that she get over it before the lip started to curl. Rising on its flank was like being on one of those outdoor elevators, where her ears popped twice before getting to the thirtieth floor.

  The next second, it passed by her, and she tore down the backside. This plummeting swoop presented its own challenge, because the wind-generated chop threatened to jerk the board out from under her.

  Storm extended an arm to slow and turn. She needed to watch the wave’s progress toward shore, to get a read on the ocean’s rhythm. At the same time, she took deep, even breaths and told herself not to be frightened. They couldn’t all be that big. Aim for one wave, just one. But one that was smaller, perhaps nestled between the huge sets. One that she could ride to shore.

  But the passing wave did what she’d most feared. It broke across the entire shore, all the way to Kalalua Point, which jutted more than a half mile to her right. The shoreline was closing out. There’d be no swimming around a wave that turned out to be bigger than she wanted. Once she got into the break zone, she’d be committed. There would be no bailing out, no avoiding the mountain that would either bear her on or beneath its thundering race to land.

  Storm shuddered. If anyone had ridden that wave, and she couldn’t see from where she sat, he’d have needed the slingshot action of a jet ski just to catch that rocket. Which was what tow-in surfing was all about. Storm had heard that the good tow-in surfers could swim five miles in the open ocean and hold their breath for more than two minutes in a roiling brew.

  No, she’d have to bide her time, pick her progress. A swell bore her up to view the whitewater left behind by the wave. She was just in time to see a surfboard shoot twenty feet into the air, riderless, its broken leash trailing like fishing filament from a marlin.

  The surfer hadn’t appeared, and his partner zoomed back and forth, parallel to shore, waiting for the soup to subside enough to roar in on the jet ski. Just to get near where the surfer was last seen. She hoped he’d practiced holding his breath.

  The helicopter, having dropped its last passenger on the sand, probably at the medical tent, was on its way to where the surfboard had popped out. Two more helicopters hovered, though they seemed focused on the whitewater, not in the break zone. Another shiver ran through Storm and she frantically waved both arms at the approaching chopper. But as she sank into the trough between swells, she saw the tail rotor pivot toward her. The pilot had turned away.

  Storm suppressed a moan of despair. If Goober made it, she told herself, he would go for help. With the next swell, she scoured the whitewater for any sign of the his jet ski. But she only saw the one, pacing like a dog looking for its lost master.

  Storm looked away. Right now, you’re on your own. Get back to basics. Study the ocean. And most of all, stay calm. Remember Nahoa’s advice. Number one was to relax and go with, rather than fight, the power of the water.

  She had the feeling she was in a lull b
etween sets of monstrous waves. Several minutes had elapsed where the distances between ups and downs in the cobalt depths hadn’t seemed as dramatic. Storm repositioned herself and paddled in a bit closer to shore.

  She shivered. Fatigue washed over her, and she noticed her fingers were numb again with cold. The rising wind whipped at her hair. Hawai'i waters are warm compared to many other places, but people still suffer from hypothermia and exposure. It was easy to underestimate the effects of the temperate climate. It was balmy if you were hanging out at Waikiki Beach, but not on a mountain ridge, a lava flow, or in the ocean.

  Storm had been in the water for hours. She didn’t really know how long, and she pondered this fact with the same urgency that she usually remembered to make her annual dentist appointment. Oh yeah, it’s that time again. It was her own reaction that clued her in to the fact that her emotions were no longer commensurate with her circumstances. This was a root canal, not a tooth cleaning. Creeping complacency showed degeneration in her judgment, which could be deadly.

  She slipped off the board and ducked her head underwater to slick back her hair. The water, which was probably around 77° Fahrenheit, felt warm compared to the air, which was another sign she was chilled. It was time to go. She needed to sharpen up, pick her ride, and get set to make the drop on a wave bigger than anything she’d ever ridden.

  The dip revived her. In fact, fear tightened her throat to the extent that it was hard to draw a deep breath. She slithered back onto the board and moved slowly into the break zone. She looked around for other surfers, but couldn’t see any in her vicinity. She remembered how Gabe had dropped in on Sunny. He’d deliberately snaked her. Here, where the waves were bigger, dropping in would more likely happen by accident, for the simple fact that it was hard to see people. But accident or not, impacting another person with a heavy big wave surfboard, with its pointed tip, sharp skegs, and reinforced rails, could be fatal. Big wave boards were called guns for a number of reasons, and one of them was deadly speed.

  Storm scanned the water again, but didn’t see the telltale flash of colored singlet or board shorts, the splash of someone’s arm or leg. One wave steamrolled by, and she tried to observe its form, which way it broke, and how the wind blew its curl. But they were moving fast, and were hard to read. Each wave looked different, and if she picked the wrong one, it could send her up a blind alley to a booming wall of water. Even the right choice was going to be a tough ride.

  It happened before Storm intended. One moment, she was craning her neck to observe a wave form on her left. The next, her board was sucked up the face of a wave.

  Chapter Forty

  The water made the decision for her, and she was committed. No choice but to paddle, hard. Three strokes, and the wind tore at her face. The sucking, roaring current obliterated all other sounds. Wind-borne water blinded her to the point that she had to rely on sensation rather than sight, and that sensation consisted only of speed. Teeth-chattering, flesh-rippling speed.

  Aware of a thinning, transparent curl of greenface, Storm remembered Ben’s and Nahoa’s shouts when she’d gone out with them. “Stand up,” they’d yelled. She popped to her feet. Just in time, and she instinctively adjusted her weight toward the tail to avoid pearling, and going over the falls to tumble down the face of a wave. A wave whose size and velocity wouldn’t allow her to penetrate its surface. If she fell, she and her board would bounce along the wave’s face like stones skipping down a concrete dike. Boards and backs could be snapped like toothpicks when that happened.

  The rising wave created its own vortex and, combining with the force of the day’s offshore trade winds, whirled stinging droplets of saltwater so that she had to squint and draw only shallow breaths. Her body was like a sail, keeping her aloft before the plunge. Now she understood why big wave surfers used foot straps. The board chattered as if she jammed over cobblestones, wanting to lag behind the wave, while the wind filled the now-accursed sweatshirt.

  “No!” she shrieked to the ocean, the wind, the board under her feet. And she bent her knees to right angles while she shifted her feet to drive the board, increase its speed. To her relief, the fins dug in, though the jolting lifted the board entirely out of the water. It was like standing on the bouncing back one of the Big Island quarterhorses she’d grown up with, though she’d never done that at a full gallop.

  She’d never felt the effects of momentum so strongly. Her thigh muscles burned. Even her toes ached in their desperate grip on the waxy surface of the board, and she held her arms like an osprey plunging for sustenance. And plunge she did, crouching so low on screaming quadriceps that her fingertips brushed the water gushing by the rocketing slab of fiberglass.

  At one point, she sensed rather than saw the wave curling too close above her head, and she managed to scoot up the wave’s face to a point where she clung, just ahead of The Zone. The wave broke left, which, with her goofy-footed stance, helped her. Its translucent lip curled just over her shoulder.

  She raced toward land, still a quarter mile away, but knew she’d done it, she’d made the drop on a wave that had towered above her. She’d also negotiated the break zone, which was what she’d most feared.

  Storm felt like she’d clung to a guardian angel’s thunderbolt as it rocketed through the perils of hell. The wave she’d ridden hadn’t been as big as the ones the tow-in surfers took, and she’d been fortunate that it had come along. Not only was she not skilled enough, but the board she rode wasn’t built for that kind of speed. But she’d never have done it without the pointers Nahoa had given her. Ben and Goober, too. She’d been incredibly lucky.

  Her thighs quivered with fatigue and spent adrenaline. Storm relaxed her stance and straightened a bit, just to give her trembling legs a reprieve. It was a mistake. Though the ocean hissed a warning, she was too tired to react.

  An eddy of wind twisted the still-curling lip to Storm’s left, and folded it over like a book slamming shut. One moment, she was congratulating herself on the biggest ride of her life. The next, she was cartwheeling through whitewater.

  Storm’s first thought was to protect her head against assault by the catapulted surfboard she’d been riding, but her limbs were helpless, pulled willy-nilly by the boiling soup. Her mind worked, though, and Nahoa’s words popped into it. Stay relaxed and curl into a ball. Don’t fight. Hopefully, the surfboard was far above her.

  It was all she could do not to struggle. Tons of water tumbled her like a leaf in a river. Opening her eyes didn’t give her any information; she couldn’t tell up from down. She was in the green room, and there was nothing she could do about it until the ocean decided to release her.

  Her hip banged against the bottom, and she felt the baggy sweatshirt fill around her head as she somersaulted. When her shoulder bounced painfully off a rock, the sweatshirt billowed like a drag racer’s parachute. It may have protected her to this point, but the shirt was extra baggage now. The neck and sleeves were all that held the shirt on; the rest fluttered around her head. Storm shook her arms, tucked her chin, and let the water pull it free.

  At the same time, she got her bearings and kicked to the surface, where she gasped for air. Two breaths later, another breaking wave roared toward her. She dived a split second before it got to her. It still flipped her end for end twice before she clawed her way back to daylight.

  Oh, shit. Another frothing wall of water barreled toward her. Jesus, this wasn’t even the impact zone. She tumbled for longer this time, and for the first time wondered what happened to the leash and board. The board might help her get to shore, even if she plowed through whitewater on her belly. The reassuring jerk on her ankle wasn’t there, and when she finally reached the surface, she knew she’d either broken the leash or pulled free.

  She couldn’t hold her breath any longer. Little red and black spots flickered in her peripheral vision. Her ears rang. Her arms and legs felt like dead weights. Desperate to get out of the foaming boil, Storm flailed to
align her body so that she would at least be aimed at shore. Go with the waves, she told herself. Even if she got sucked back, the next one would take her closer. She hoped.

  So when the crackling, amplified voice came from above, she didn’t even hear it. It had to ask twice before she sputtered and twisted her neck toward the noise.

  “Can you grab the basket?”

  Storm nearly cried with relief, and swung one arm wildly in the direction of the hovering craft. But wind from the helicopter rotors pushed her arms back into the water, and the basket swung two feet above her head. She wasn’t anywhere near it.

  She swung again, and missed. The pilot was trying to get lower; she could tell. The sound of the rotors was deafening. They pelted her with water droplets, too.

  “C’mon now, you can do it,” the voice from above said.

  It took three tries. Even when she’d managed to snag it, her arms were so weak and shaky, she wondered if she could pull herself aboard. That took long seconds too, struggling not to backslide into the water. When she flopped into the basket, she lay limp and panting.

  A few minutes later, the basket deposited her on the sand and people surrounded her. She couldn’t react to them, and felt like she moved in a dream-like state. Exhaustion and relief had depleted her final reserves.

  Someone threw a warm blanket around her shoulders. She couldn’t yet discern faces, though she wondered if Hamlin might be nearby. She was shaking so hard, it was all she could do to hold onto the blanket.

  “How’d you get out there?” someone asked, but dirty looks from two emergency technicians shut him up.

  “Let’s get her warmed up and checked out.” One of them put his arm around her shoulders and led her inside the medical tent, out of the wind and away from the crowd.