Emmy & Oliver (9 page)

“Okay, lie flat on the board,” I said once we were outfitted and I checked to make sure that the neck closure on Oliver's suit was Velcroed into place. “Palms on the front of the board. You want to be right in the middle so you don't lose your balance on the water.”

“Got it,” he said, grunting a little as he got into position. He was squinting against the afternoon sun's rays reflecting on the water, tiny little diamond glints of light. “Am I surfing now?”

“Not quite.” I laughed and then moved his hands a little bit. They were warmer than mine. “Did you ever see the movie
Point Break
?”

“About a million times. It was on cable a lot when I was home alone.”

“Well, I'm Patrick Swayze and you're Keanu Reeves.”

“Righteous,” Oliver said, and we grinned at each other. “When do we rob the banks?”

We practiced popping up for a few minutes. He was pretty good at this part, but everyone is. Surfing is a lot easier when you're not in the water.

After I thought he was ready (which, it turned out, was a
slight
miscalculation on my part), we walked down to the water, dragging our boards behind us in the sand, the leashes attached to our ankle. “You ready?” I asked him, wishing I had remembered to wear sunscreen. The sun was hot and it always feels warmer when you're encased in a rubber suit.

“Quick question,” Oliver said as he scanned the horizon. “What is the shark population like around here?”

I blinked at him. “Are you being serious right now?”

“I don't know.” He laughed nervously. “No. Yes. Maybe? Sharks?”

I sighed. “There are no sharks here.”

“Do you mean ‘here' as in the ‘Pacific Ocean' or . . . ?”

“Okay, yes, there are sharks in the Pacific Ocean
somewhere
but I don't think—”

“Could you be a little more specific about the word
somewhere
?”

“Oliver,” I said. There was the flinch again. “If Patrick Swayze saw a shark, what do
you think he would have done?”

“I also didn't foresee this surf lesson involving that question.”

“Patrick Swayze would punch that shark in the nose,” I answered for him. “And that's what I will do for you, okay?”

“For me?” He put his hand to his chest and pretended to be flattered.

“I told you, I'm a loyal friend. Kicking therapists, punching sharks, whatever it takes.”

“Okay,” he finally said. “Let's do this.”

“Great,” I said. “Now let's see what you're made of.”

“I bet that's what the sharks are saying right now,” Oliver muttered, but he paddled out behind me.

He had strong arms, it turned out, and the waves were flat enough that it wasn't too hard to get past them and out to a few bigger swells. “What do you do if the waves are big when you're paddling out?” he asked when I pointed that out.

“You turtle,” I replied, then held on to the sides of my boards and flipped it over just as a slightly bigger wave crashed over me. The board protected me from the wave and I waited until I felt the whoosh of the water recede before I turned over and came back up. “See?” I sputtered, wiping my hair out of my eyes. “Like a turtle. Your board becomes a shell to protect you.”

“Pretty cool,” Oliver said. He looked impressed.

“Lucky for you, these are baby waves.” We continued to paddle out and when we were far enough, I hopped off my board and went to swim next to him. “Do you remember what we practiced on the shore?”

“Yeah, it happened, like, three minutes ago.”

I just smiled. “It's amazing what you can forget when a giant force of nature is rushing toward you.”

“That's . . . really reassuring, thanks.”

“I like to provide a dose of realism,” I said, then watched as a wave started to build about fifty feet away from us. “You see this wave?”

Oliver craned his neck to look over his shoulder. “What wave? Is that even a wave?”

“It will be. And it's going to be your wave.”

Oliver just looked at me. “You're serious.”

“Like a heart attack. I'll give you a shove. Now, just before the wave hits you, start paddling. Paddle like”—I had a burst of genius—“like a shark is after you, all right? Just go until you feel the wave pick up the board, then use your arms to pop up. Easy peasy.”

Oliver's eyes widened. “Tell me again why you do this for fun?”

“Because it's awesome!” I told him as the wave came closer. “Are you ready?”

“No! Yes!”

“Go go go go go GO!” I gave the tail of his board a shove just as the wave started to crest, and Oliver began to paddle furiously, his hands going in and out of the water at an impressive speed. “Faster!” I yelled as he started to cruise away from me. “You can do it! Stand up, stand up!”

“What?” I heard him yell, but then he let out a shout, like a battle cry or a victory sound, and I watched as Oliver . . . did nothing.

“Stand up!” I yelled. “You can do it!”

I heard him yell something but I couldn't hear him this time, and I climbed back up on my board just so I could see a little better. He was laughing at least, his hair wet across his forehead as he literally lay on top of his board until it ground into the shore and got stuck in the sand. I caught the next wave, taking advantage of the white water so I wouldn't have to paddle too much and wear myself out, and rode it in to meet up with Oliver.

“That was so cool!” he yelled when he saw me.

“You didn't even try!” I laughed, falling off my board and righting myself before I was completely submerged. “You just stayed there!”

“No, what you just did. You made it look easy!”

I wiped the salt water out of my eyes (Visine was my friend, lest my parents think that my red eyes were a part of a raging pot-smoking habit) and looked at him. “What happened? There was no actual surfing!” I teased.

“I decided to take it easy my first time,” he said. “Also, that shit is hard.”

I grinned at him. “Round two?”

“Race you.”

We paddled back out.

Three tries later, Oliver managed to get to his knees, but wouldn't let go of the edges of the board. By the fifth time, he was standing. “YEAAAHH!!!” I screamed as I rode in just behind him. “You did it!”

“I fell, like, two seconds later,” he said, but I could tell he was proud. His cheeks were flushed, and whether it was from pride, embarrassment, the cold water, or the hot sun, I couldn't tell.

“But it counts!” I said. “You surfed!”

Oliver was hanging on to the edge of his board, his legs dangling in the water, and I circled back to meet him. “What's wrong?” I said. “Need a break?”

He shook his head. “No, I'm fine. It was just . . . I haven't had fun since I've been back. And that was really fun.”

Now I was the one whose cheeks were flushed.

“Oh. Oh, well, yeah. Of course. I like surfing and I don't really have anyone else to go out with besides Drew, so . . .” I shrugged. “Anytime you need a buddy.”

A
buddy
, Emmy? Good Lord. What is this, AA or something?

“Go again?” Oliver said. “I think I've gotten my second wind.”

I glanced at the sun. Judging from its position, it was almost five, and I had to be home (with passable dry hair) by seven. “Two more rides,” I said. “I'm on this ridiculous curfew. I'm basically only allowed outside during daytime hours. Do you have a curfew or anything?”

Oliver shrugged. “I have no idea. I don't really go anywhere. I could call my mom . . .” he added, but the look on his face told me that that wasn't his favorite option.

“Two more rides,” I said again. “C'mon, let's go. Sunset and surfing. What more do you need?”

Oliver needed a lot, I knew that. He needed more than anything I could provide on that afternoon. But right then, sunsets and surfing, just maybe, were enough.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

B
y the time we got out of the water, I was shivering a little and Oliver's lips were blue. “I
thought this was California,” he said, his teeth chattering as he spoke. The sun was setting, a glorious firework of reds and pinks and oranges as it sank behind Catalina Island, leaving us until tomorrow. With the sun gone, now it was just cold. “I thought it was supposed to be warm in winter.”

“It's all relative,” I said, wrapping my towel around my shoulders and bringing the corners up to my mouth, warming my face a little. Next to me, Oliver was doing the same thing, both of us watching the waves.

“Thanks,” he said after a minute. “Sorry I sucked.”

I shrugged. “I was terrible the first time, too. You just have to keep practicing, right?”

“If you say so.”

I shivered again as a breeze blew up behind us. “Are you hungry?”

“Yeah. Yeah, definitely.” Oliver opened his towel so that it fanned out behind him like a cape, the ends clenched in his fists. He looked so much different like this, not the skulking guy I saw in the hallway at school, not the little boy I used to go on the swings with back in kindergarten. He looked like a stranger, and then he met my glance, and it was like I had never stopped seeing him.

I shivered again. This time, there was no breeze.

Oliver came to stand next to me as the sun continued to set. The sand was peppered with tourists taking pictures, and locals out for walks with their dogs, and everyone looked so soft and pretty, bathed in the pink-and-golden light that only ever seemed to exist at the edge of a continent. “What island is that?” Oliver asked.

“Hawaii,” I replied.

“Shut up, it is not.”

I smiled. “It's Catalina. There's a ferry that goes back and forth a few times a day, but I've never been. I'd rather go to Hawaii, to be honest.”

Oliver nodded and I wondered if that's where'd he rather be, as well.

And then the last sliver of sun disappeared and the spell was broken and we were still standing in the same place, whether we liked it or not.

“You said something about food . . . ?” Oliver nudged.

“Yes! Food. Starving. Must eat. Do you like burritos?”

“I like all food,” he replied.

“Follow me.”

We used the shower at the base of the stairs to rinse off the sand and salt. I peeled off the top half of my wet suit and tried to rinse it as best I could. The spray from the shower was cold and stinging, yet it never really managed to get all the sand off. “Ow!” I
said as some salt got into my eyes. “I hate this shower, I really do.”

At the nozzle next to mine, Oliver was wincing as the water hit his shoulders. After much hoopla that saw him hopping up and down on one foot and me laughing hysterically, he had managed to get out of the wet suit and now held it up under the shower. “That was more of a workout than surfing was,” he said, trying to keep getting hit by the wonky spray. “Is this supposed to hurt this much?”

“They're not the best,” I admitted, quickly pulling my dress over my wet bathing suit. “You get used to it.”

Oliver just muttered something I couldn't hear and winced again as the spray knocked him right in the chest.

We managed to get the boards back up the stairs, where we threw them into the trunk of my car, and I reached into the back of my van and pulled out a pair of jeans for myself and some hoodies for both of us. “Here,” I said, tossing one at him. “Thank me later.”

Oliver, to his immense credit, didn't say anything about it being a “girl” hoodie and just tugged it over his head. It was enormous on me, so much so that it was still big on him, and the hood settled on the top of his head, making him look like an overgrown garden gnome. “What?” he said as I started to giggle. “What, does it not match my jeans? Is it last season?”

“You look like a Disney cartoon reject,” I said as I tugged my jeans up under my dress. (I was definitely warmer, but wearing wet bathing suit bottoms under jeans can be filed under the category “NO FUN EVER.”)

Oliver looked at his reflection in the passenger window, then grinned. “I'm the eighth dwarf,” he said. “Surfy.”

“Ha! If anything, I'm Surfy. You're . . .”

“Newbie?”

“Perfect.” I shucked the dress and threw it into the van before pulling my own hoodie over my head. It smelled like it had been in the van a little too long, which was definitely not pleasant, but it was warm enough that I didn't care. “Okay,” I said, slamming the door shut. “Let's eat.”

“After you,” Oliver said.

We crossed PCH and went to the Stand, a tiny outdoor restaurant that was aptly named. The menu was written underneath the ordering window, but I didn't have to look. “You already know?” Oliver said, not taking his eyes off the menu.