Siren (10 page)

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CHAPTER 7

"I DON'T GET IT," I said to Simon at the beach the next day. "I mean, I don't get going in water so deep your feet can't touch the ground without your head going under--but what I
really
don't get is voluntarily going in water that could pull you out and suck you down as soon as it hits your ankles."

"Does that mean you don't want the surfing lesson I booked for you today?" Simon sounded disappointed.

I looked at him. "You booked me a surfing lesson?" He didn't know everything about the accident two years ago, but he knew enough not to sign me up for a repeat performance.

He smiled. "Yes. And after that we're going skydiving. And bungee jumping. And if there's time, we might try walking through fire."

"Glad I wore my flame-resistant Nikes."

He gave me a small smile, then started walking toward a cluster of cars parked down the beach.

I followed him, thinking again how happy I'd been to hear

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his knock on the back door two hours before. The Subaru hadn't been in the driveway when I returned from Betty's in the early evening yesterday and didn't appear again until almost midnight. As soon as I saw it, I was able to relax enough to lie down on the couch and try to sleep. My eyes had snapped open at five, and by six I'd showered and lowered the volume on the TV and radio so I wouldn't miss Simon if he knocked. He'd come over at eight, bearing more smoothies and egg sandwiches. By eight thirty, we were in the Subaru, heading toward Beacon Beach, Caleb's friends' favorite surfing spot.

And now we were going to find out if his friends knew anything we didn't.

"It's messed up," a guy in a wet suit was saying as I neared the half circle of beat-up Jeeps and pickups. "He just took off. Zack went to go pick him up for this barbecue we were having, and he wasn't there."

"And there's been nothing since then?" Simon asked. "No calls? E-mails?"

The guy--his name was Mark, which I remembered from a picture of Caleb and his friends that Justine had taken last summer--shook his head. "Nothing. Not a word. We just figured it was too much for him."

"Too much?" Simon asked.

Noticing me there, Mark nodded toward me. "This cutie your girlfriend?"

"Actually--" I started, my cheeks warming.

"So you're, like, crazy in love," he continued before I could

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clarify Simon's and my relationship. "You open your eyes in the morning and your first thought is her. You wonder how she is. What she's doing. When you can see her again. Those thoughts stay with you all day. You share them with whoever will listen--including your best friends, who of course
respect
you but, after a while, out of the kind of concern only real friends have, seriously question your sanity. And you make all sorts of plans--
big
plans, like, post-high school--when the rest of us can barely wrap our heads around the fact that we only have two years left to get a clue."

"I sound obsessed," Simon said, reaching over to tug gently on my ponytail.

"You have no idea." Mark bent down and lifted his board from the sand. "You live and breathe this girl. You talk about her all the time, you hang out with your friends less and less, you're blind to
other
girls, no matter how hot or into you they are--and some of them are extremely hot and into you--and eventually, you break and actually say you love her."

Simon looked down, suddenly interested in the multicolored rocks at his feet.

"Not only that, you tell your friends you love her. Which, as you know, is about as major as you can get."

"I'm obsessed
and
a sap." Simon nodded. "Backbone, anyone?"

"Don't be so hard on yourself," Mark said with a shrug. "Your friends aren't. They might think you're a little out there, but

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they know you wouldn't be for any other girl. It's just because it's her. She's different."

I felt my face turn pink and silently reminded myself that Simon and I weren't really the couple in question.

"Anyway, this girl is it for you. Food, water, oxygen, sleep--all details. All inconsequential." Mark sighed and looked toward the water. "And then she's dead. Done. Gone. Washed up like a fish."

My knees gave slightly. Of course that's where the sweet story was going, but just like the way it really happened with Caleb and Justine, the tragic twist still seemed to come out of nowhere. "And then what?" I asked, mostly because Simon was watching me carefully, and I wanted to let him know that I was okay.

Mark turned back to us. "And then you run. Because the only thing worse than her being gone is that you're still here."

Simon paused, apparently trying to understand the perspective of someone who had spent much more time with his brother than he had in the past year. "But why not hang around your--my--friends? And family? And everyone else who cares about me? Why just disappear without saying where I'm going?"

"If she was gone," he said, nodding at me again, "would you really want the looks? The questions? The nice but pointless attempts at sympathy? Especially from people who really no longer knew you as you without her?"

I tried to process this. Caleb had loved Justine. Not just liked her. Not just enjoyed having a reliable make-out partner. Had

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Justine felt the same way? And if he was so important to her, if they were so important to each other, why had she done her best to convince everyone that their relationship was just a casual summer fling? She'd even hung out with several guys from Hawthorne Prep during the school year; if she'd felt that strongly about Caleb, why bother with anyone else?

"No, I guess I wouldn't," Simon said finally, pulling me back into the conversation.

"Dude,
what
are you waiting for?"

Three guys in wet suits, looking simultaneously excited and exhausted and dragging their boards in the sand behind them, made their way toward us.

"If you don't get out there soon, it'll be too late," one of the surfers warned Mark.

Simon looked to the water, his internal weatherman alerted.

"Hey," the surfer said, noticing Simon and clapping him on the shoulder. "Bummer about Caleb's girl, man. He'll be back once the fog lifts."

"It's insane out there," another surfer continued. "The waves were about half the size twenty minutes ago, and they just keep coming faster and stronger and higher."

"Is that normal?" I asked.

"Not even close," Mark said.

"They're big even for winter waves, when colliding fronts really stir things up." Simon eyed the water warily.

"Well," Mark said, attaching the strap at one end of his board

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around his ankle, "hats off to global warming. Bad for mankind, great for Maine-kind."

"Just one more thing," Simon called after Mark as he started for the water. "Did you know Caleb quit the marina last year? And was working at the Lighthouse?"

Mark stopped short. "What?"

"We talked to Monty a few days ago. He said Caleb stopped showing without warning last summer. He found out where he went from one of the Lighthouse backers."

Mark exchanged looks with the other surfers, who'd all dropped to the sand to recover.

"You didn't know?" Simon prompted when they didn't say anything.

"No," Mark said, continuing toward the water. "And I'm surprised to hear it, considering how hard Caleb tried to keep the Lighthouse dark."

"He went to every town board meeting for a
year,"
one of the surfers explained. "He made flyers, talked to the papers. He even started a petition and went door-to-door, collecting hundreds of signatures. He was so against the Lighthouse coming--he thought it would destroy the town and put people like Monty out of business. He even met with the money guys, all by himself. He cornered them at one of the town meetings and wouldn't let them leave until they agreed to a lunch."

Simon looked like he'd been told that the sky was green and that rain actually shot up from the ground. I understood the feeling. Caleb was a notorious slacker; it was the main reason

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Mom didn't think he was right for Justine. It was hard to imagine his not only caring that much about the town but also putting in such effort to preserve it.

"Did they have lunch?" I asked.

"They did. At Betty's, at Caleb's insistence. Which actually turned out to be a bad move--he'd wanted to give them an authentic taste of Winter Harbor so that they'd realize what was already there and leave it alone, but it only made them want in even more."

I tried to picture Caleb and a couple of suits sitting at one of the tables at Betty's. I wondered if Zara had served them, if her charming way with male customers had pushed the suits over the edge.

"Look at him go," another surfer said, scrambling to his feet.

We faced the water just as Mark jumped to a low squat on the board. He tried to stand twice, but placed his hands back by his feet when the wave dropped and lifted, sending him off balance. He tried again, wobbling from side to side as his legs straightened. The wave grew taller, its crest reached forward. I glanced at Simon, who appeared to be mentally recording the wave's height and odd behavior.

The guys erupted in cheers as Mark rode the wave for three seconds before diving into the water. I held my breath until his head broke the surface; when he beamed in our direction and punched the air with his fist, I finally exhaled.

"Thanks for the info, guys," Simon said as Mark jogged toward us. "It was good to see you."

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"Take care, man," Mark said, shaking Simon's hand. "If we hear anything, we'll definitely be in touch."

"Thanks. And you might want to pack it in soon--by the looks of it, you've got about fifteen minutes before all this is underwater."

They looked at their stuff scattered across the sand, clearly wondering, like me, how that was possible. The water's edge was at least fifty feet away.

"Do you mind if I just grab a few measurements?" Simon asked after a silent walk to the car a few minutes later. "It won't take long."

"I don't mind. Do you need help?" I watched him take a backpack and plastic box from the backseat.

He looked to the sky, then toward the water. He scanned the horizon before turning back and looking at my feet. "You
are
wearing sneakers."

"Flame resistant," I reminded him.

"Okay, then." He gave me a small smile. "I could use the extra set of hands."

It became clear almost immediately why my footwear was a concern--the water was rising as fast as Simon had predicted. I looked to the left as we veered right and saw Caleb's friends gathering their boards and gear as the foamy runoff reached for their cars. Given the water's movement, we had to move fast.

Reaching a tall line of boulders a quarter mile down the beach, Simon opened his backpack, handed me a measuring

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tape, and pulled out a stack of notebooks. He slid a notebook and three plastic vials in his jacket pocket.

He scaled the smallest boulder, dropped to his knees, and reached one hand toward me. He pulled me up easily, as if I were a pillow and not a 130-pound person.

"Hold one end of the measuring tape and keep an eye on the side of the rock," he said. "If the water starts reaching farther back than where you're standing, follow it. You should be even with the break the whole time. The measuring tape needs to be kept as level as possible. I'll tug when I reach the end of the line, and then we'll both reach over the side so I can get a more accurate measurement."

"Got it." I watched him go up and over the rocks like Spider-Man in a maroon fleece.

I dropped to my knees and crawled toward the boulder's edge. Peering over, I saw a thin layer of foam dissolving across the sand. The water was breaking a few feet away, so I shuffled to the right until a wave struck directly below me. My head snapped back as the spray shot up, coating the rock and my face.

The water rose faster. Simon barely had time to lift up from the last boulder, make notes, and reach back down before I was moving with the water and scooting to the left. The waves were so big it was hard to gauge the break, but I judged the movement by where the spray felt most concentrated.

Ten minutes later, thin, salty streams flowed down my face and my wet hair stuck to my forehead. Simon tugged on the

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measuring tape one last time. He gave me a quick thumbs-up, and I released my end.

"Awesome," he said, hopping down to my boulder. "I mean, crazy and weird and totally unnatural, but ... awesome. The tide's moving at about an inch a minute." He unzipped his fleece and grabbed at his collar.

"That's not normal?" I guessed, jumping up and helping him pull off the wet fleece when it stuck around his shoulders.

"Not even close."

I looked away as he straightened his T-shirt. Stressful circumstances were clearly messing with my emotions. I'd seen Simon without his shirt on countless occasions, but now, just catching a glimpse of his bare abdomen had made my face flush.

"Tides move around ten feet every six hours--or about a foot every thirty minutes. Fast enough to notice after a while, but not fast enough to notice while it's happening. At this rate, the tides are rising a foot every twelve minutes."

"More than twice as fast," I calculated quickly.

"Exactly." He shook his head. "Crazy."

"What's also crazy is that you don't seem to notice that you're shaking and your lips are turning blue." I retrieved his backpack and plastic box from where he'd thrown them. "We should get back to the car."

"You're right." He cupped his hands and blew in them. "We still have a lot to do."

He jumped to the sand, and I tossed him his stuff. He shoved the plastic box in the backpack, slid the backpack on