I feel weird getting behind the wheel for the first time. I almost back out, almost tell the sales guy to forget it, but Sloane hops in the passenger seat and sits there looking like money, like she belongs, and when she casts me that playful smile of hers, I wonder if I don’t belong too. It’s at least worth giving it a shot.
“Take it for a spin,” the old guy tells me, closing my door for me like a valet. He’s clearly not going with us, a fact that I don’t understand at all. “Take your time. Enjoy the afternoon. See how she feels.”
I run my thumb over the key fob in my palm. It’s beginning to sweat. “Just around the block or…”
“Take it on the freeway at least,” Sloane suggests. “You want to know how it accelerates.”
The guy taps my door twice as a send off. He’s already backing away. “Like I said, enjoy the afternoon. Call us if you’re going to keep it overnight.”
“What the fuck is happening?” I whisper to Sloane. “What’s to stop us from stealing this thing?”
“Morals?”
“Seriously though.”
She chuckles as she snaps her seatbelt over her chest. “He photocopied my driver’s license while you were checking out the colors. They know who has the car. Plus it has a GPS tracker chip so you can find it if it does get stolen. Don’t worry about it. Just drive it.”
“I already feel like I’m stealing it.”
“They want you to feel like it’s yours. That’s why they don’t go with you. They want you to get comfortable in it, so get comfortable. Adjust the seat, change the radio presets. Take us for a long drive, Trey. Relax. Enjoy yourself.”
I gently put the key in the ignition. When I turn it over the truck rumbles to life, throaty and easy like it’s singing. “How far should I go?”
She leans back, lowering her big black sunglasses over her eyes. “Until you’re happy.”
I take us to the ocean. I drive as far and as hard up against the California coastline as I can get, as close to Hawaii as the land will allow. Sloane rolls down her window to let the ocean in. She changes the music on the radio from contemporary pop to a classic rock station and leaves it there as we weave our way north up the Pacific Coast highway. It takes almost an hour to find Malibu.
“Should we turn back?” I ask her.
“Are you happy yet?” she replies.
I keep going.
I drive until we lose the ocean, diverted inland at Oxnard, led up to Ventura where we cut west and find it again. Blue and green and glistening in the fading afternoon sun. It’ll be on fire soon. I don’t want to miss that.
Thirty minutes later I pull off at a viewpoint on the outskirts of a tiny town called Isla Azul. Several cars are parked by the access path to the beach. None of them are very new. None of them are very shiny. All of them have a roof rack on top, perfect for surf boards. I park the very new, very shiny truck far away from them on the other side of the lot where there’s a food truck serving tacos and warm Fanta. Sloane and I take our orders to a gray picnic table at the base of a wind-bent tree. She sits next to me, shoulder to shoulder, her hair blowing long and free behind her. We watch the surfers out in the water as we eat.
“Are you any good at it?” she asks.
“At surfing?”
She wipes a bit of guac off her lip with a thin brown napkin. “Yeah.”
“Wow. Just because I’m from Hawaii, I know how to surf, huh?”
“Do you not?”
“That’s not the point.”
“What is the point?”
“Your assumptions. That’s a stereotype. Next thing you know you’ll be asking me if I know how to hula and roast a pig in the sand.”
Sloane pauses, silently chewing on her picadillo and my indignation. “You know how to do all of that, don’t you?”
I grin into my drink. “I know how to do everything.”
“You’re an asshole.”
“I am, yeah. But I’m a happy asshole.”
Out of the corner of my eye I catch a small smile on her lips.
“I’m glad.”
When we’re done eating and the blazing sun has been extinguished in the cool waters of the Pacific, Sloane calls the dealership to tell them we’ll be bringing the car back first thing in the morning.
“Are you going to buy it?” she asks as we climb back inside.
I look out the windshield at the water turning dark. Some of the surfers are still out, the serious ones. The crazy ones. Others are coming back in and latching their boards to the roof of their cars.
I ask Sloane, “Do you know how to surf?”
“Badly, but yes.”
“Do you want to get better?”
“Are you offering to teach me?”
“I’m asking you to go with me.”
She considers the sky before agreeing, “Yes.”
“Do you think a couple boards would fit in the bed of this truck?”
“I think most of the inventory for a small surf shop would fit in the bed of this truck.”
I turn the key, making the engine growl. “Then I’d be an idiot not to buy it.”
I take her home. It takes hours. It feels like minutes. She invites me up to her apartment and we drink beers on the balcony of her condo in the dark, looking out silently over the glittering Los Angeles skyline. It’s different from the ocean, but it’s still beautiful in its own way. In ways that are growing on me.