Malibu Rising

by Taylor Jenkins Reid

  “Cool, cool,” Seth said, one eye still watching Kit.

  As Seth and Jay continued talking, Kit got the boards out of the back and waxed them both down. She started dragging them to the shoreline. Jay caught up with her. He grabbed his board out of her hands.

  “So I guess Seth is coming tonight,” Jay said.

  “I gathered,” Kit said, tying her leash onto her ankle.

  “He was … checking you out,” Jay said. He hadn’t ever noticed someone checking Kit out before. Nina, sure, all the time. But not Kit.

  Jay looked at his little sister again, with fresh eyes. Was she hot now or something? He couldn’t stand to even ask himself the question.

  “Whatever,” Kit said.

  “He’s a good guy but it’s weird,” Jay said. “Somebody scoping out my little sister in front of me like that.”

  “I’m twenty years old, Jay,” Kit said.

  Jay frowned. “Still.”

  “Yeah, well, I’d rather die than suck face with Seth Whittles,” Kit said, standing up and grabbing her board. “So don’t lose sleep over it.”

  Seth was an all-right-looking guy, Jay figured. And he was nice. He was always falling in love with some girl or another, taking them out to dinner and shit. Kit could do worse than Seth Whittles. Sometimes she made no sense to him.

  “You ready?” Kit said.

  Jay nodded. “Let’s go.”

  The two of them headed into the waves as they had countless other times over the course of their lives—laying their bodies down on their boards and paddling out, side by side.

  There were already a handful of people in the lineup. But it was easy to see Jay’s prominence as he made his way past the breakers, as the men in the water saw him coming toward them. The lineup spaced out, made room.

  Jay and Kit saddled up right at the peak.

  Hud Riva, short where his siblings were tall, stocky where they were lithe, who spent the summer getting sunburned as they grew bronze, was the smartest one of the bunch. Far too smart to not understand the true ramifications of what he was doing.

  He was eight miles south on PCH, going down on his brother’s ex-girlfriend Ashley in an Airstream illegally parked on Zuma Beach.

  However, that was not how he would have phrased it. For him, the act was making love. There was simply too much heart in all of it, in every breath, for it to be anything cheaper than love.

  Hud loved Ashley’s one dimple and her green-gold eyes and her gold-gold hair. He loved the way she could not pronounce anthropology, that she always asked him how Nina and Kit were doing, and that her favorite movie was Private Benjamin.

  He loved her one snaggletooth that you could only ever see when she laughed. Whenever she caught Hud looking at it, she’d get embarrassed, covering her mouth with her hand and laughing even harder. And he loved that about her, too.

  In those moments, Ashley would often hit him and say, “Stop it, you’re making me self-conscious,” with the sparkle still in her eye. And when she did that, he knew she loved him, too.

  Ashley often told him she loved his broad shoulders and his long eyelashes. She loved the way he always looked out for his family. She admired his talent—the way the world looked more beautiful through his camera than it did right in front of her. She admired that he could get in just as dangerous waters as the surfers did, but that he swam, or balanced on a Jet Ski, holding up a however-many-pound camera, capturing in perfect light and motion what Jay could do on the board.

  Ashley thought that was the more impressive feat. After all, it wasn’t just Jay who had made the cover of Surfer’s Monthly three times in as many years. So had Hud. All of the most famous shots of Jay were by Hud. The wave breaking, the board cutting through the water, the sea spray, the horizon …

  Jay might be able to ride the wave but Hud was the one making it look beautiful. The name Hudson Riva was in all three of those issues. Ashley believed that Jay needed Hud as much as Hud needed Jay.

  Which is why, when Ashley looked at Hud Riva, she saw a quiet man who did not need attention or accolades. She saw a man whose work spoke for itself. She saw a man instead of a boy.

  And in doing so, she made Hud feel like more of a man than he ever had before.

  Ashley’s breath got shallower as Hud moved faster. He knew her body, knew what she needed. This wasn’t the first or second or tenth time he’d done this.

  When it was over, Ashley pulled Hud up to lie next to her. The air was muggy—the two of them had shut all the windows and doors before they had even kissed, for fear of being seen or heard or even sensed. Ashley sat up and cracked open the window near the bed, letting the breeze in. The salt air cut the humidity.

  They could hear families and teenagers on the beach, the waves rolling onto the shore, the sharp whistle of a lifeguard at the nearest tower. So much of Malibu was restricted beach access, but Zuma—that wide stretch of fine sand and unobstructed coast against PCH—was for everyone. On a day like this, it attracted families from all over Los Angeles trying to squeeze one last memorable day out of summer vacation.

  “Hi,” Ashley said softly, shy and smiling.

  “Hi,” Hud said, charmed.

  He grabbed the fingers of Ashley’s left hand and played with them, weaving his own fingers between them.

  He could marry her. He knew that. He’d never felt this way about anyone before but he felt it for her. He felt like he’d known it since the day he was born, though he knew that couldn’t possibly be right.

  Hud was ready to give Ashley all of him, anything he had, anything he could give. The wedding of her dreams, however many babies she wanted. What was so hard about dedicating yourself to a woman? It felt so natural to him.

  Hud was only twenty-three but he felt ready to be a husband, to have a family, to build a life with Ashley.

  He just had to find a way to tell Jay.

  “So … tonight,” Ashley said as she sat up to get dressed. She pulled up her yellow bikini bottom and threw on a white T-shirt that said UCLA in blue and gold across the chest.

  “Wait,” Hud said, sitting up, his head almost hitting the ceiling. He was wearing navy blue corduroy shorts and no shirt. There was sand on his feet. There was always sand on his feet. It was the way he and his brother and sisters had grown up. Sand on their feet and on their floors and in their cars and bags and shower drains. “Take your shirt off. Please,” Hud said as he leaned over and grabbed one of his cameras.

  Ashley rolled her eyes, but they both knew she would do it.

  He pulled the viewfinder down, looked at her directly. “You’re art.”

  Ashley rolled her eyes again. “That is such a lame line.”

  Hud smiled. “I know but I swear I’ve never said it to any other woman on the planet.” This was true.

  Ashley took her hands and crossed them over her chest. She grabbed the bottom edge of her shirt, and pulled it off her head, her long sandy hair falling down her back and around her shoulders. As she did all of that, Hud held down the shutter, capturing her in every state of undress.

  She knew she would look beautiful through his lens. As he clicked, she grew more and more comfortable, blooming at the idea of being seen by him. Ashley slowly took her hands and put them on her bikini bottom and untied the strings holding it on. And in three swift clicks, it was gone.

  Hud stopped for an imperceptible second, stunned at her willingness, at her initiative, to become even more bare in front of his camera than he’d ever asked of her. And then he continued. He photographed her over and over and over again. She sat down, on the bed, and crossed her legs. And he moved closer and closer to her with the camera.

  “Keep shooting,” she said. “Shoot until we’re done.” And then she pulled at his shorts, and let them fall down, and put her mouth on him. And he kept photographing her until they were done, when she looked up at him and said, “Those are just for you. You have to develop them yourself, all right? But now you’ll have them forever. Because I love you
.”

  “OK,” Hud said, still watching her, stunned. She was so many incredible things at once. Confident enough to be this vulnerable. Generous but in control. He always felt so calm around her, even when she thrilled him.

  Ashley stood up and tied her bikini bottom back on, put her shirt on with conviction. “So, like I was saying, about the party tonight …” Ashley looked at Hud to gauge his reaction. “I don’t think I should go.”

  “I thought we decided—” Hud started but Ashley cut him off.

  “Your family has enough problems right now.” She started slipping her feet into her sandals. “Don’t you think?”

  “You mean Nina?” Hud said, following Ashley to the door. “Nina’s going to be fine. You think this is the hardest thing Nina’s had to go through?”

  “That’s even more to my point,” Ashley said as she walked out of the Airstream, her feet hitting the sand, the sun hitting her eyes. Hud was one step behind her. “I don’t want a spectacle. Your family …”

  “Attracts a lot of attention?” Hud offered.

  “Exactly. And I don’t want to be one more problem for Nina.”

  It was this kind of thoughtfulness for his sister, despite having met her only a few times, that Hud had found so enchanting about Ashley from the beginning.

  “I know but … we have to tell them,” Hud said, pulling Ashley toward him. He put his arms over her shoulders, tucked her head underneath his. He kissed her hair. She smelled like tanning oil—fake coconuts and bananas. “We have to tell Jay,” he clarified.

  “I know,” Ashley said. She rested her head on Hud’s chest. “I just don’t want to be this person.”

  “What person?”

  “The bitch, you know? That comes between brothers.”

  “Hey,” Hud said. “Me falling in love with you is my fault. Not yours. And it was the best thing I ever did.”

  Fate trips up sometimes. That’s the conclusion Hud had come to. It’s how he made sense of a lot of things that had happened in his life. Whatever hand was guiding him—guiding everyone—toward a certain future … there’s no way it could work without error.

  Sometimes the wrong brother meets the girl first. It doesn’t have to be any more complicated than that. Hud and Ashley … they were simply correcting fate.

  “It doesn’t even make sense I was with Jay,” Ashley said, pulling back from him except for where her hands interlaced with his.

  “That’s what I thought the first time I saw you,” Hud said. “I thought, That girl doesn’t belong with Jay.”

  “Did you think I belonged with you?”

  Hud shook his head. “No, you’re far too good for me.”

  “Well, at least you recognize it.”

  Ashley pulled far away this time, sinking her heels into the sand, letting Hud’s grip on her be the only thing keeping her from falling down. Hud let her hang for a moment and then pulled her back to him.

  “You should come tonight,” he said. “And we will tell Jay and it will all be OK.”

  There was an unspoken pact between them that what they were going to “tell Jay” was going to be a lie. A half-truth.

  They were going to tell Jay they were together. They were not going to tell him they had started sleeping together one night six months ago, when they ran into each other on the Venice Boardwalk. Back when Ashley and Jay were still together.

  Ashley had been wearing a denim jacket over a coral dress that was floating up with the breeze. Hud was in white shorts and a blue short-sleeved button-down, a pair of old Topsiders on his feet.

  Each had been out drinking with friends when they found themselves passing each other just outside a tourist shop, selling tank tops with cheesy catchphrases and cheap sunglasses.

  They stopped to say hi and told their friends they would catch up in a moment. But “a moment” seemed to get longer and longer until they realized they weren’t going to catch up with their friends at all.

  They kept talking as they slowly started walking together down the boulevard, going into shops and bars. Hud tried on a straw cowboy hat and Ashley laughed. Ashley jokingly grabbed a Wonder Woman lasso and pretended to twirl it in the air. And Hud could tell, the way Ashley smiled at him, that the night was becoming something bigger than either of them intended.

  Hours later, after a few too many drinks, they crammed themselves into one of the bathroom stalls of a bar called Mad Dogs. Ashley whispered into Hud’s ear, “I always wanted you. I always wanted you instead.” She’d always wanted him instead.

  A second after she’d said it, Hud had kissed her and grabbed her legs, pulling her up around his waist and against the wall. She smelled like a flower he couldn’t name. Her hair felt fine and soft in his fingers. No one had ever felt as good against him as she did that night.

  When it was over, they both felt exhilarated and satiated and light as air, until the anvil of guilt settled in their stomachs.

  Hud liked thinking of himself as a good guy. And yet … sleeping with your brother’s girlfriend was exactly the sort of thing a good guy would never do.

  Certainly not more than once.

  But there was that night and then another. Then dinner in a restaurant four towns up the coast. And then a few discussions of how, exactly, Ashley should break up with Jay.

  And then, she did it.

  Five months ago, Ashley had shown up at Hud’s Airstream at eleven o’clock at night and said, “I broke up with him. And I think you should know that I love you.”

  Hud had pulled her inside and taken her face in his hands and said, “I love you, too. I’ve loved you since … I don’t know. Well before I should have.”

  And now they were just biding their time, trying to create the perfect moment in which to tell Jay the half-truth. A half-truth between half brothers, though Jay and Hud never thought of themselves as half brothers at all.

  “Come to the party,” Hud said to Ashley. “I’m ready to tell everyone.”

  “I don’t know,” Ashley said as she put on her white sunglasses and grabbed her keys. “We’ll see.”

  8:00 A.M.

  Nina was out in the surf, having a hard time finding the kind of long, slow right-handers she was looking for.

  She wasn’t there to shred. And the waves weren’t right for it that morning anyway. All she wanted was to ride her longboard gracefully, cross-stepping up to the nose until the waves knocked her off.

  The beach was quiet. This was the glory of a tiny, exclusive cove, protected on three sides by fifty-foot cliffs. While technically the beach was public, the only people who knew how to get to it were those who had access to private stairs or those willing to hike the jagged coastline and risk high tide.

  That morning, Nina was sharing the cove with two teenage girls in neon swimsuits who were sunbathing and reading Jackie Collins and Stephen King.

  Since Nina was the only one in the water, she hung out on her board just past the peak, unhurried. As she floated there, the wind chilling her wet skin, the sun crisping her bare shoulders, with her legs dangling in the water, Nina was already getting a small slice of the peace she’d come out here for.

  An hour ago, she had been dreading the party. She’d even fantasized about canceling it. But she couldn’t do that to Jay, Hud, and Kit. They looked forward to this party every year, talked about it for months afterward.

  The party had started out as a wild kegger years ago, a bunch of surfers and skateboarders from around town gathering at the Rivas’ house the last Saturday in August. But in the time since, Nina’s own fame had risen and she’d married Brandon, garnering even more attention.

  With each passing year, the party seemed to attract more and more recognizable people. Actors, pop stars, models, writers, directors, even a few Olympians. Somehow, this once small get-together had become the party to be seen at. If only to be able to say you were there when.

  When, in 1979, Warren Rhodes and Lisa Crowne got naked in the pool. When, in ’81, the supermodels Alm
a Amador and Georgina Corbyn made out with each other in front of their husbands. When, last year, Bridger Miller and Tuesday Hendricks met for the first time, sharing a joint in Nina’s backyard. They got engaged two weeks later and then Tuesday left him at the altar back in May. Now This ran a headline that said, WHY TUESDAY COULDN’T CROSS THAT BRIDGE WITH BRIDGER.

  There was no end to the stories people would tell about what happened at the Riva party, some of which Nina wasn’t even sure were true.

  Supposedly, Louie Davies discovered Alexandra Covington when she was swimming topless in Nina’s pool. He cast her as a prostitute in Let ’Em Down Easy and now, two years later, she had an Oscar.

  Apparently, at the party back in 1980, Doug Tucker, the new head of Sunset Studios, got plastered and told everyone that he had proof Celia St. James was gay.

  Did Nina’s neighbor Rob Lowe sing all of “Jack & Diane” with her other neighbor Emilio Estevez last year in her kitchen? People claimed so. Nina never knew for sure.

  She didn’t always catch everything that happened in her own home. Didn’t see every person that showed up. She was mostly concerned with whether her brothers and sister had a good time. And they always did.

  Last year, Jay and Hud had smoked weed with every member of the Breeze. Kit spent the entire night talking to Violet North up in Nina’s bedroom, a week before Violet’s debut album hit number one. Since then, Jay and Hud had tickets to the Breeze’s shows whenever they wanted. And Kit did not shut up about how cool Violet was for weeks afterward.

  So Nina knew she couldn’t cancel a party like that. The Rivas might not be like most families, being just the four of them, but they had their traditions. And anyway, there was no good way to cancel a party that never had any invitations. People were coming, whether she wanted them there or not.

  She’d even heard from her close friend Tarine, whom she’d met at a Sports Illustrated shoot, that Vaughn Donovan was planning on coming. And Nina had to admit Vaughn Donovan was perhaps the hottest guy she’d ever seen on-screen. The way he smiled as he took off his glasses in the mall parking lot in Wild Night still got her.