Second Star

4

I pull into the gas station and open my window. It’s been hours since I dropped Fiona at the beach and it already feels like I’ve been up and down the coast a dozen times. I’ve seen so many surfboards sticking out of trunks and balanced across the tops of cars that I can’t even tell them apart anymore. I rest my head on the steering wheel, my face close to the air-conditioning vents, trying to cool off. The floor of my mother’s car is already covered in sand. I never realized just how much beach there was.

Someone is knocking on the roof. I blink.

“Miss?” The gas station attendant is waiting for me.

“Here.” I turn to hand him my credit card and ask for unleaded. Out of the corner of my eye, I spot a surfboard.

“Miss?” he says again. I take the card back, sign the receipt. I put my hand to the keys, willing myself to put the car in gear and drive away without looking at the board. I don’t need to stare at another surfboard.

But then my eyes fall on someone’s bare back. Messy dark hair and long, colt-like legs under board shorts. A patch of sand has dried onto the small of his back. He’s bending down over a bike, filling up its tires with air, just a few feet from where the board leans against a tree. His feet are bare and the ground must be a million degrees, but he hardly seems to notice.

When his tires are full, he grabs his board and hops onto the bike. He turns around for a second, adjusting in his seat, and I gasp.

It’s the boy from the bonfire. The boy who pulled me to shore.

I pull out after him. He expertly balances his board on his right hip while he rides, then turns into one of the lookouts and dismounts. He walks his bike and his board toward the edge of the lookout, where brush grows out of the sandy dirt.

I park and follow him.

At the edge of the lot, the reeds grow as high as my head. Then taller, so that they cover the surfer’s head, too. It doesn’t look like a path at first, just grass and rocks, sharp under my bare feet. I keep my eyes down, following the stripe that the boy’s bicycle tires made in the sand as it slopes downward. The air is thick with the smell of salt water. Seagulls shout in the distance.

The reeds begin to thin out, and the sand beneath my feet becomes sugar-white and flour-soft, and slightly wet, as though it was covered in water not very long ago. I can hear the ocean, but the waves sound different here. Even though I can’t yet see the water, somehow I can tell: these waves are perfect.

The path opens up onto a small but pristine triangle of beach, bordered by the reeds on one side, rocky, sloping cliffs on another, and then the sparkling water. The sun reflects on the ocean like a million fingerprints.

I look around, searching for the boy with the freckles on his face and the sand on his back.

Shielding my eyes from the glare of the setting sun, I can make out the shadow of the boy paddling out, already beyond the break of the waves.

Suddenly, he sits up and lifts one arm into the air: he’s waving. I look behind myself to make sure that it’s me he’s waving at.

He shouts, “You made it!” as though he’d been waiting for me to arrive. His voice carries over the surf.

He turns back to the ocean and begins to paddle into a wave.

“I made it,” I echo, but too quietly to be heard.

Behind the boy, moving so fast that I can barely make her out, is a small girl with wild blond hair. In between their rides, the pair sit up on their surfboards, rising and falling gently, until they finally let the waves bring them back to shore. I wait. Just under the cliffs, a handful of boys crouch around a fire burning down to its embers, filling the air with a warm, smoky scent.

“Nice to see you again,” the boy says when he pulls his board out of the water.

I smile. “I wasn’t sure you’d recognize me.”

He grins. “You’re kind of hard to forget.”

I can feel myself blushing. Of course, I remind myself, it’s hard to forget a girl you nearly decapitated with your surfboard.

“Who’s this?” the blonde asks, stepping out from behind him. She doesn’t look at me but at the boy, who’s at least a foot taller than she is. Her skin is tan and freckled, her teeth bright white. Without meaning to, I fold my arms across my chest, trying to cover up my skin, so pale by comparison.

“Don’t know,” the boy says, grinning and leaning down to muss the girl’s hair. They could be brother and sister, even though they look nothing alike.

“I’m Wendy.”

“Wendy,” he repeats, wiping his hand on his board shorts then holding it out in front of him. “Pete,” he says, his smile inviting me to take his hand.

“Pete.” I nod, reaching out and closing my fingers around his. His hand is cool from the ocean, and when we touch, I shiver.

“I’m Belle,” the blonde says, interrupting the moment. Abruptly, Pete drops my hand.

I smile at her. “That was some amazing surfing.”

Belle shrugs, then turns her back on me, dragging her board toward the water.

“You’re amazing, too,” I add, turning to Pete. “I’ve spent a lot of time watching people surf. I watched my brothers for years.”

“Watching people surf?” Pete echoes, his lips widening into a grin. His freckles make his teeth look even whiter. “Your brothers never made you get on a board?”

I shake my head. Michael and John had been surfing for a year when I asked John if he’d teach me. I’d wanted to share in it, too. But Michael started laughing before John could answer.

“Sorry,” Michael said, in a tone that made it clear he wasn’t at all sorry. “You do know that the ocean is full of water, right? Might mess up your pretty hair.”

Now, standing on the beach next to Pete, I wonder whether things would have been different if I’d learned to surf. Maybe they wouldn’t have run away. Or maybe they would have taken me with them.

“Surfing wasn’t something they shared with me,” I say finally.

“Don’t worry.” Pete props his board so that it stands up on the sand and he leans toward me. “I’m an excellent teacher.”

I shake my head. I can conduct my research just fine on dry land. “No, thanks,” I say. “I’ll just hang out here.”

“Life isn’t about watching from the beach, Wendy.” He points to the water, where Belle is paddling toward a wave that is about to open, dropping into its mouth until it looks like the wave will snap shut with her inside it. But she comes out the other side and immediately turns around, paddling back out into the water, not even winded.

“I taught Belle,” he says. “Look at her go.”

A feeling like jealousy weaves its way tightly around my ribs, tugging me in the direction of the water. Something shifts inside of me: I want to be out there on the waves.

“Okay,” I say, “I’ll try.”