As he fiddles with my zipper, goose bumps prick the skin of my back. I can’t help blushing. It’s just my back, but please let him not be staring at the birthmark lower down that looks like a pair of lips. When he brushes the hair off my neck, I nearly faint at the whispery heat of his hand.
He zips me up as carefully as if he’s trying to draw the straightest line he can. In the time it takes to finish the job—a few seconds at most—I feel as if I’ve circled the earth in the Cloud Air jet and landed, disoriented and giddy.
Finally, he pulls his board out of the trunk. It’s white and roughed up around the edges with a No Fear sticker on the tip.
“This will keep us topside.”
I clear my throat. “How, exactly, will this work?”
“I’ll lie across the deck and paddle us frontside.”
“Where will I be?”
He flashes me a lopsided grin. “On top of me.”
My stomach flip-flops, and my flush travels all the way down to my toes. The thrilled scent of flame lily, also called Gloriosa, peels off me in a thick layer. I blush even more furiously, though of course he can’t smell the honey scent.
“We’ll have two layers of neoprene between us. No skin contact, I promise.” He holds up his hands in surrender. I mumble something agreeable, as if the idea of me riding him like a human surfboard doesn’t affect me in the least.
After clipping a pair of gloves to my waist tag, he hands me a canvas bag with towels, and bottled water. “Let’s go before the sun goes down.”
I sling the canvas bag around my body. After I grab my mesh collection bag, I follow him down the cliff.
The cove is shaped like a scallop shell. A rock twenty feet across juts out of the water like a black pearl. Two sea lions sun themselves on the rock, two bumps on an otherwise craggy outcropping.
We pick our way down the zigzagging cliffside pathway. Somehow he manages to get himself and the surfboard down without falling, while I find myself scrabbling down the steeper parts like a crab.
We rest on a ledge halfway down the cliff.
After I catch my breath, I ask, “When did you learn how to surf?”
“When I was ten. Dad used to take Melanie and me down to Santa Cruz when we were kids. Mel could kick my ass back then. Afterward, we’d get Snowshoe Cones.” A shadow crosses his face and I catch the scent of friar plums again, mingled with the damp earth of longing.
“You miss him.”
One of his cheek muscles tightens. “I miss thinking I have the coolest father in the world. Now I’m the son of the town lecher. I mean, my dad.”
I try to imagine how it would feel to be in Court’s shoes. I can smell the bleeding heart that pervades his mood, and I know how angry I would be if anyone ever hurt Mother. But having never had a father, the precise dimensions of his emotions are hard to conjure. Perhaps I’ve been spared a degree of pain by not having one.
Was my father spared a degree of pain by not having me? I nearly snort aloud. It’s different for him. As a sperm donor, he probably thinks he’s made some infertile couple very happy. But I will always wonder if there’s a part of me that failed to thrive in his absence, like an unrotated watermelon that stays yellow on one side.
Then again, I can’t imagine anyone brave enough to take on Mother. She’s a one-woman show, and though I may have my hang-ups over the running of said show, her moral virtue has never been one of them. In fact, I often wish I had her convictions. Somehow, I think it would make life easier.
Court stares into the ocean, his mouth a tight line.
“Certain people are supposed to be reliable, like rhubarb,” I tell him. “Once you plant the crowns in the ground, you don’t have to worry about them. They take care of themselves. Parents should be like that.”
“Yeah. Well, he was no rhubarb. More like . . .” He looks at me for help.
“Eggplant? They’re sensitive to flea beetles.”
“Right, eggplant.” He smiles. “You ready?”
A line of black cormorants swoop down to land on the beach. When we finally touch down on sand, they fly off again.
The noise of the ocean echoes off the cliff walls. Waves rush up to kiss our feet. I hiss in my breath at the arctic temperature, which freezes me all the way to my teeth. Suddenly, swimming doesn’t seem as easy as it did from above.
A crop of bull kelp pokes out of the water like Paul Bunyan–size jalape?o peppers, growing and shrinking with the flow of the tides. Massive fronds of giant kelp spread their arms over the surface, making me wonder if they’re hiding something. Water blocks my sense of smell so if something’s down there, I won’t know unless it surfaces.
Court sets down his board and the tiny No Fear sticker seems to thumb its nose at me. Well, I said I wanted to try surfing, and now it’s come back to bite me. At least I didn’t say crocodile wrestling.
He pulls on his gloves. “You okay?”
“Fine.” I try to keep my teeth from chattering.
As I work on Melanie’s gloves, Court stands the board in front of me. “After I get on, you’ll have to crawl on top of me. Think you can do that?”