Air (16 page)

“I should have got you a trip home,” Zeke said.

“No, it's fine,” I said, wiping away tears.

“We only had a few days. I didn't think it was long enough. Flying all the way home and back. By the time we got there and unpacked, it wouldn't have been worth it. I thought that would be worse than not going home at all. But I'm starting to think I was wrong.”

“Don't feel bad. I didn't know they'd do some big thing without me.”

“They miss you. Maybe they thought if you see how much, you'll go home sooner.”

“God, I really wish I had a teleporter right now.”

“So go visit after your contest.”

“Will you come too?”

“I can't. You know I can't. I have responsibilities.”

“Screw responsibilities.”

“Not so easy.”

Nothing in Zeke's life, I was coming to understand, was easy.

“Zeke, it's my family.”

“Hey, I have a gift for you. I was planning on giving it to you tonight, but here, take it now.”

He handed me a small turquoise cardboard box, tied up in a white ribbon, with the words “Tiffany & Co.” on the lid. I opened it up to reveal a smaller black velvet box. Rings came in those kinds of boxes, I thought, and panicked.

I hesitated.

“Aren't you gonna open it?” he said.

I opened the box, and inside were two beautiful diamond solitaire earrings.

“Bloody hell, Zeke,” I said. “They must have cost a fortune.”

“Not really. You could wear them tonight, if you wanted.”

I was so relieved it wasn't an engagement ring. Daniel had asked me to marry him and that had ended hideously. But I also felt guilty for feeling relieved that he'd bought me earrings. To make it worse, I couldn't even wear them.

“Oh, I don't think I can.”

“Wait, you have pierced ears, right?”

“They sort of closed over a while ago. I need to get them redone.”

“Shoot, I knew I should've gone for the bracelet.”

“They're beautiful though. I love them. Thank you so much, Zeke.”

He seemed so disappointed in his choice, and I felt so guilty for my overwhelming dread at the mere thought of a ring, that I went into the bathroom, took a deep breath and repierced my
ears myself, using the backs of the earrings. It actually didn't hurt as much as I'd expected, but my earlobes were indisputably bright red.

“Look,” I said. “They went in after all.”

“Awesome. What do you wanna do this afternoon?”

“I don't know. Do you have anything planned?”

“Not really. Maybe watch the tube and chill before the party?”

So much for special birthday plans.

Zeke got back on the bed with the remote control.

“We have to leave for the launch at nine, so can you make sure you're ready on time? I don't think we can be late to this.”

“No problem.”

I could feel the stress building up in my veins, so I thought I'd hit the hotel gym and try to burn some of it out.

“We could go and work out first, if you want,” I said.

“I'm still hurting from yesterday,” he said, settling on a true-crime documentary.

“Fine. I'll go on my own.” Happy birthday to me.

I killed a couple of hours in the gym, and when I got back to the room, feeling much calmer and thinking more clearly, Zeke had docked his iPod and Sia's “Breathe Me” was throbbing so loud the floor seemed to be vibrating.

“Trying to annoy the people in the room next door?” I asked, turning down the music.

He hadn't even noticed I'd come in. The blinds were closed and he was slumped on the bed with his head in his hands.

“What's going on?”

“I don't wanna go tonight.”

“What? You're the one that told me we
had
to go.”

“I changed my mind.”

“What the fuck, Zeke?”

“Stop with the cursing.”

“
You
swear loads. So we're just not going?”

He was scratching at a mole on his wrist so viciously that I was worried he was going to make it bleed, or go cancerous. I moved his hand away from it, but two seconds later he went back to scratching it.

“What's wrong?” I said.

“I don't want to be around people right now.”

“We're here, so we might as well go,” I said. “Anders reckons you could pick up a few new sponsors. He'll go mad if we don't turn up. What's going on, Zeke? Is it because of your mum being pregnant?”

“What, no. I'm super-excited about that. Jesus fuck, Iris.”

“Well then, what's wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Yeah, right.”

He stood up and started pacing around the room. “Give me a break, will you? I'm getting real tired of all these accusations.”

“I've accused you of nothing. I've just asked you what's going on.”

“I have to be some place.”

“Fine. Go. Again.”

“I'll be back for the party. Don't stress out.”

I took off my gym vest and yoga trousers, showered, put on a sundress and went across the street to some beauty-parlor place that was kitted out with naff tropical swamp furnishings, to make it look like the Everglades. I managed to get an appointment to get my hair and make-up done, thank God, because waiting for Zeke was driving me demented. I had to get out of that bloody room.

The girl who did my hair was called Cynthia and she talked a lot about the benefits of certain products she wanted to flog me for my sun-damaged hair. I bought them all, just so she'd stop talking about them.

Zeke was losing it. Whatever he said, I could see he was unraveling.

I told myself I needed to put it out of my mind, at least until the media launch and my surf contest were over.

I couldn't handle another argument. My mum used to tell me that when the argument days were more frequent than the fun days, it was time to get out.

I checked the time. 8:33 p.m. and Zeke still wasn't back. Swallowing my pride, I called him on his cellphone.

He didn't answer, so I sat at my dressing table, painted my fingernails silver, and at 8:57 p.m., he came through the door, but it wasn't him at all.

I stared at him, open-mouthed, and couldn't find a single word to say.

“How's it look?” he smiled.

Terrible, I wanted to say. Completely and utterly terrible.

“Yeah, I buzzed it off. My head feels so cool now. Like, I could actually feel the breeze on my scalp just then.” He rubbed his hand over the back of his head, clearly appreciating the suede-like texture. He bent his knees and bowed down so I could feel it too. The hair was so short I could actually see the reef scars on his scalp.

“
You
did that? On purpose?”

“Looks pretty badass, huh?”

I was faced with a choice: be honest and tell him I hated it, which would mean hurting his feelings, or lie and tell him I liked it.

“It looks . . . so different,” I said, with the same tone of voice my mum used on me the time I dyed my hair purple.

“You think I look like Garrett, huh?”

Zeke's brother had super-short hair, but that hadn't even occurred to me.
Make it grow back right now!
was the only thought rattling around my head.

“It's just going to take some getting used to.”

“Hey, I thought you wanted this.”

“No when did I say that?”

“You told me to get a haircut! Like, eight different times!”

“I didn't mean
all
of it. A trim.”

He looked in the mirror behind me and I could see the doubt pass over his face. A look of,
Maybe this isn't so awesome after all
. And then,
Shit, it's gonna take forever to grow back
.

“It's nice,” I said, buckling under the pressure to lie. “You know, I actually quite like it, now I'm getting used to it. It makes you look way . . . tidier. Anyway, I'd better change into my dress.”

My ridiculously expensive designer dress, and high heels that cost twice as much again. The dress was backless, silver, with tiny jewels encrusted on the skirt. The shoes were a lighter shade of silver and had a four-inch stiletto heel. The sales assistant had said that the more you paid for shoes, the better they felt, because it was all to do with the quality of the leather. I didn't agree. These were Manolo Blahniks, and when I put them on I had all the grace of a three-legged pig. Zeke came out of the bathroom and stopped in his tracks.

“Wow,” he said and whistled, which made me feel even more terrible for reacting so negatively to his hair.

“What?” I said, instinctively putting my hand to my hair, which the hairdresser had blow-dried straight and slicked into a ballerina bun. “I look weird, don't I?” I said, feeling incredibly self-conscious.

“No. You look great,” he said. “Like one-hundred-per-cent smoking hot.”

He had every reason to echo my words back at me: tell me I looked “tidier,” or that it would take some getting used to, but instead he'd been completely lovely. The dart of guilt sticking in my heart would take a while to shift.

I had never owned such an expensive outfit in my life. But when I looked in the mirror, I couldn't really spot myself behind the make-up and glitz.

Zeke changed into a rented tuxedo. He had a definite Bond vibe going on.

I looked at the clock and said, “We're gonna be late if we don't leave right now.”

“Let's go.”

“I'm not overdressed? Because it seems like a lot of effort for a surf party. I could put on one of my Billabong beach dresses, look more the surfer-girl part?”

“I'm guessing you don't know a heap about the Fontainebleau.”

We'd just got into the car that Chase had lent Zeke, when Kelly called me again.

“Iris,” she said, “can you talk? Is Zeke there?”

“Yeah, and yeah.”

“Call me back when he's not with you, will you?”

“Why?”

“Just because, OK?”

Garrett, I thought. He'd have done something irritating probably being poly with half of Newquay and Kelly didn't want Zeke within earshot while she slagged off his brother.

“OK, but it'll be a few minutes. Driving.”

“Fine. Just don't forget.”

The sunroof was down and as we drove my hair was starting to come loose from the bun. I looked in the glovebox, found a baseball cap for the Miami Marlins and stuck it on backward in an attempt to make Zeke laugh, which he did.

“You feel like a driver's lesson? Since you have a car now and all.”

“A van, and no, thanks.”

“Why not? When I was your age I'd had my permit for a year.”

“Yeah, you're American. I only qualified for my provisional license today.”

“Incorrect.”

“I think I know when my own birthday is.”

“I'm Hawaiian. I surf for Hawaii, not the US. I thought you'd be excited to learn.”

“I will learn. I just don't want my first driving lesson to be from my boyfriend, on a foreign road where I don't even understand the road signs. In his mate's car. Especially when that car is a Porsche.”

“I wouldn't have asked you if I didn't think you could handle it.”

“Zeke,” I said, exasperated, “no, thank you.”

“OK. Forget I mentioned it.”

Zeke was a crazy driver at the best of times, but he was even worse in America, so he fitted right in on the roads of Florida, where drivers undertook us at the same time as others overtook us. It was mayhem, but Zeke seemed fine with it. He clocked my pale face and said, “Feeling slammed from the gym? I have some Advil if you need it.”

“Nah, a bit of period pain, but . . .”

“Yeah?”

Normally, I'd have defaulted to my usual strategy of covering up feelings that were difficult to talk about, but something about being on the road, side by side rather than face to face, made it easier to be honest with him.

“I wanna be straight with you, all right? So, when you said that about me throwing a mobile phone at you, that was not cool.”

Zeke took his eyes off the road to look at me for a second.

“How come?”

“If you were gonna lie, you should've asked me first.”

“I know, but it was just one little lie.”

“Not the point. You seemed really convincing, by the way. I'd never have known you were talking bollocks.” I let that hang for a moment, to make sure he knew what I was getting at.

Zeke turned to me again and gave me a weak grin. “I'm sorry. You forgive me?”

“Why didn't you run it past me first?”

“I guess I was worried you'd say no and then I'd have been left telling them I'd been brawling with a stranger.”

“Me saying no is not a reason.”

“Sure it is.” He gave me a cheeky grin, but it didn't work.

“Zeke, you can't just not ask me things in case I say no. That's not how it works. I get a choice.”

“I know. I'm sorry. I'm not good at this. I was never in a relationship before. Not like this. I usually bailed the first day it wasn't fun.”

“What's that supposed to mean? Thanks very much.”

“No. I'm just saying I never, like, committed before. This is new for me. You have to train me, cos I was on my own for a long time.”

“We've been together half a year.”

“And for the eighteen and a half years before that, I only had to worry about me. So tell me when I'm being a dick. Keep telling me.”

I thought about this.

“No problem.”

“So, uh,” he went on, looking sheepish, “what should I do, when you do stuff?”

“Me?”

“Yeah. Like the jealousy thing you have about other girls. What am I supposed to do about that?”

“Don't remind me,” I groaned.

“It's not your fault. I'd have been pissed too, about the Inga thing, if the situation was the other way. But I'm gonna still be friends with girls. You cool with that?”

“Yes. And I'm gonna be mates with lads.” A needle of guilt pricked at my conscience. “By the way, I, uh, gave Seb my business card.”

“The guy who punched me?”

“The guy you
pushed
. He's actually called me a few times today. At least, I think it's him. I don't recognize the number, so I haven't answered.”

“If he calls again, I'll pick up and set him straight,” Zeke said, pretending to look serious. “I mean, he gets a pass on the punch, because I had that coming, but he doesn't get to harass my girl.”

My girl.

I'd told myself I liked him calling me that, but I realized then that a tiny part of me had always rebelled, wanted to point out that I wasn't anybody's girl, no matter how hot that anybody happened to be, no matter how high his rank in the list of the world's best wave riders.

He took a hand from the steering wheel and touched my wrist. “Ignore the calls and he'll soon figure out you're not interested.”

“All right.”

“Iris, since we're talking about stuff that we've been thinking about . . .”

“Yeah?”

He started scratching at something on the side of his face. A zit under the surface of the skin maybe, or a mossie bite. Scratching seemed to be becoming a thing with him.

“What, Zeke?”

His whole body looked tense and I braced myself, waiting for him to say whatever major thing he had to get off his chest.

Suddenly his shoulders relaxed and he said, “Condoms. Do we still need those? I mean, it's not like anyone's sleeping around, so . . .”

I gave him a hard stare, trying to work out if he was serious.

“Yeah, we need them.”

“After we get checked out, and get the all-clear, we can ditch them, yeah? Since you're on birth control and all.”

“The implant is ninety-nine-per-cent effective.”

“Uh-huh, so we don't need to worry, right?”

“Yes, we absolutely do need to worry. There's a one-per-cent chance it won't be effective.”

I spent loads of time worrying about getting pregnant; I could get lost in pregnancy worry spirals that lasted hours. Even a slight chance of getting knocked up felt terrifying.

“Google says maybe one women in a thousand gets pregnant on the implant. You'll be fine.”

“What's so bad about condoms?”

“Err, nothing . . .”

“Zeke, this is mental. I cannot risk getting pregnant. I was actually wondering if we should be using the ultra-safe condoms. The really thick ones with extra spermicide.”

Zeke looked deeply skeptical about this, and it occurred to me that this conversation had probably not gone the way he'd hoped.

“Whatever makes you comfortable,” he said with a sigh.

“Cool,” I said, already planning to scour the next pharmacy. There wasn't much I could control, but this I could.

“I love you, Iris,” he said, taking his eyes off the road again to look at me. One of his intense looks that made my heart beat faster.

The lights turned green and Zeke put his foot down.