Swell (20 page)

She angled herself a little towards me.

‘I intend to write the best book I can for both of us. For all of us. I have absolutely no intention of becoming any more involved than I already am as his biographer. I have made a promise not to get involved with any professional surfer in fact.’

Portia tapped her nails slowly against the crystal glass.

‘Right so sleeping with people you write books for is professional is it?’

‘No and I really must apologise profusely but I can assure you all we did was sleep. We didn’t even touch.’

The begging and scraping was sticking in my throat but I ploughed on.

‘Come on, Portia, you just have to look at yourself.’

She tapped her fingers more frantically and raised her eyes to gaze at her own reflection in the mirrored wall behind the bar.

‘I mean honestly, Portia, why would a man like Jason be interested in someone like me when he has a woman like you?’

I closed my fist around the stem of my glass and squeezed, imagining it was her neck.

Portia paused to reflect before saying – ‘Point taken.’

She really was the most hideous girl I had ever met.

‘Surfers are not my type anyway, Portia. Men with girlfriends are definitely not my type and’ – I paused to take a deep breath before I delivered the blow – ‘single fathers with girlfriends and a young son are, as far as I am concerned, one hundred percent out of bounds.’

I heard the unmistakeable sound of Chuck’s booming voice in the lobby and knew I was running out of time. Portia turned her sharp knees to face me.

‘What the hell are you talking about? Who’s a single father?’

‘Jason of course. Well not exactly single but he’s a father, right? I am so not going down that road. I mean, who wants to be the wicked old stepmother?’

The colour drained from Portia’s face.

‘I have stayed away because I realise you two needed space to work through this but I have a nephew around the same age as Harrison.’

Portia mouthed the name Harrison incredulously.

‘So if you ever want to talk to me about the simple things like the best presents to buy and what they’re into then I can help you be the best stepmother on the planet.’

I beamed at Portia and bit down on a cherry. Portia gripped the edge of the bar and stared at me. I wondered what was worse for her; discovering Jason had a son or hearing the news from me. The stepmother thing was definitely, however, the straw that broke the camel’s back.

‘You’re a lying bitch,’ Portia seethed, slowly sliding down onto her feet, ‘Jason does not have a son.’

‘Of course he does, we all know that and he looks so much like him.’ I touched my hand to my chest. ‘Oh gosh, Portia, I am so sorry I just assumed Jason would have told you by now.’

A red flush crawled across Portia’s face like a rash.

We stared at each other and then my eyes followed Portia’s when she turned to watch Jason, Chuck, Rory and Ruby walking towards us. I gulped, feeling immediately sorry for what I was about to put him through but I told myself better one rocky evening than an entire year balanced on the edge of a perilous precipice.

I was either going to hell or to the top of the bestseller chart. Portia had done nothing but condescend to me and dislike me from the moment we met and I was not about to let a girl like her ruin everything I had worked for. The gloves were off, which made writing a damn sight easier.

Jason knew something was up before he reached us. He was certain of the fact when he took a couple more steps and Portia threw her royal cosmopolitan in his face.

‘I hate you,’ she screamed, ‘I’m way too good for you.’

Chuck’s head whizzed this way and that as if there was a fire and he was trying to locate an extinguisher. Rory placed his hand on Chuck’s arm.

Portia brought her face close to Jason’s and pointed her finger at him.

‘If you think I am going to play stepmother to some bastard little kid you’ve fathered with another woman you have got another thing coming. I will not be an old stepmother and I will not be second best to anyone. Oh my God, if people knew about this I would be a mockery.’

A smile touched my lips. My assumptions about Portia, it seemed, had been right.

‘I am so out of here. I’m going to find myself a real man who can keep his dick in his pants.’

We all watched open-mouthed as she sashayed across the bar, eyeing every man she passed. Jason then turned back and stared at me. I shuffled my feet.

‘Oops, did I say something wrong?’ I said.

Jason opened his mouth, closed it again and then wiped the champagne cocktail dripping from his chin.

‘No,’ he said, ‘I think you might have got that absolutely right.’

I smiled, Ruby and Rory did the same and Chuck bounced up and down hollering – ‘Ding, dong the witch has gone!’

Jason sat down on the barstool beside me.

‘I could not see a way out of that one.’

‘I’m sorry to interfere but I had to try something,’ I said.

‘Just tell me this’ – he glanced furtively at me – ‘did you do it because you were jealous?’

‘No,’ I scoffed, ‘I did it because this is business.’

‘Then why are you blushing?’

‘I’m not blushing.’

Chuck’s beaming face appeared between us.

‘This calls for champagne for shizzle. Now we could all suck on your face, Jason, but I think I’ll just order us a bottle. Things are going to get better, dudes. No more distractions.’

Jason and I looked at each other and quickly looked away.

‘No more distractions,’ I repeated and glugged back the rest of my drink.

CALIFORNIA

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

I called Jon when we landed in Los Angeles and promised to try and make time to meet him while we were in California. It seemed so long since the party that had led to me being on tour in the first place, yet it was only a matter of months. My life, and to some extent I, had changed so much.

‘So how is the book?’ he asked enthusiastically.

‘Great. I’m over half way and honestly I already know it’s the best thing I’ve ever written.’

‘I’m so pleased for you, Bailey. Can I have half the royalties for kind of getting you the job in the first place?’

‘Kind of getting me the job?’ I laughed. ‘If I remember rightly you told me not to go anywhere near Jason Cross. Now what was it you said again? Something about not getting involved. About how these guys have groupies in every port and they’re glamorous, sexy and dangerous.’

‘I must have been right about some of it.’

I pressed the phone between my ear and my shoulder and smiled.

‘Actually, Jon, you were right about a lot of things.’

‘Uh oh,’ he breathed, ‘what is that I detect in your voice?’

I cleared my throat.

‘Nothing. I’m just saying they are dangerous and glamorous and a bit sexy.’

Jon gasped and I could just picture his mouth dropping open in the exaggerated way it always had.

‘Bailey Brown you haven’t.’

‘No I haven’t and I won’t. I am far too busy concentrating on the book to have time for games.’

‘Thank God,’ Jon laughed, ‘or do I mean shame? I’m not sure.’

We laughed and made to say our goodbyes.

‘Good luck with the rest of the year if you don’t have time to see me. I know how you surfy folk jet about on the whims of the ocean.’

‘Surfy folk. Am I now one of the surfy folk?’

‘I bet you are. Are your toes tanned?’

‘Yes.’

‘Have you surfed?’

‘Lord no.’

‘Good, so you haven’t been completely sucked in.’

I blushed, thankful we were talking on the phone.

‘Thank you for inviting me to that party, Jon, it changed my life.’

‘You’re welcome. I expect a glitzy invitation in return. And if there are any handsome, gay surfers just send them my way. Good luck, BB.’

I hung up and smiled to myself. We did not need luck. Everything was going according to plan.

That afternoon, Jason drove me to meet his surfboard shaper, Seb. Surfboard design had transformed over the years and much was now done on computer but many of the boards and, indeed all the boards Jason rode, were finished by hand. Jason had an input from the
start to the finish of the design and shaping process. The most important test being whether the board responded in the right way when put through its paces in the surf. Jason loved to innovate, trying out prototypes and tweaking designs and according to Seb, Jason had been responsible for some of the most important innovations in board composition during his years at the top. He was never afraid to try something radically different because he was talented enough to turn a risk into a breakthrough.

‘This man is a scientist when it comes to his boards,’ Seb explained to me through the white mask he wore to protect his mouth and nose from the foam dust that layered the floor like a recent snowfall.

‘Seb you sound like Darth Vader,’ Jason laughed.

‘Luke, I am your father,’ Seb wheezed before removing the mask.

Seb was a friendly-faced man in his late fifties with legs too short for his body and ears too big for his head. He chuckled constantly as he spoke as if overcome by so much happiness he had to release it at regular intervals like the valve on a pressure cooker.

His shaping bay was a square wooden room lit by low strip lighting. Sheets of paper showing board dimensions were pinned to the walls in no apparent order. There was no furniture in the room, other than a makeshift wooden bench that supported the surfboard currently being shaped. Instruments such as protractors and templates hung on nails among the dusty reams of paper, alongside the planers and sanders Seb used to turn a crude block of foam into the tools of Jason’s trade. The latest album of surfer turned musician, Jack Johnson, played on the stereo, as if to remind Seb of the soulful pursuit behind his work in what could only be described as a soulless wooden box.

It was immediately apparent that shaping surfboards was a dirty, smelly process but it was also abundantly obvious that Seb loved his choice of career. To him it was a vocation. He had been loyal to that vocation since he was a teenager and equally loyal to Jason for two decades. Seb was responsible for the single essential piece of equipment the greatest surfer who had ever lived needed to perform and he revelled in that task. His mission was to keep shaping Jason the best surfboards in the world.

‘It’s not down to the board, though. Jason would have won all his titles with or without me,’ he said modestly but I did not believe his role was as insignificant as he liked to make out.

‘Seb is my guru,’ said Jason before he wandered off to meet and greet the delighted members of staff who were working with renewed enthusiasm since Jason had walked through the door.

Seb kindly proceeded to bring me up to speed on the science of surfboard shaping.

‘The big foam blank is cut down to size by a computer and then I finish the process by hand, sanding the rails,’ – he touched the edges of the board which were sharp on the base and smooth on the deck – ‘the rocker, which is the curve of the board along its length from the tail to the nose, and the shape of the tail itself. This one’s a pintail. It’s a rounded point and holds well in the wave. It’s used in bigger surf and can handle speed well so won’t spin the board out of control.’

I rubbed my nose and tried to concentrate.

‘What other tails are there?’

‘Oh you get the square tail, the squash tail, the swallow tail, the rounded square, the diamond tail, the…’

‘Gosh that’s a lot of tails.’

‘And boy can I tell you some tales about the boards we’ve made over the years. See that one’ – he pointed out of the door to the opposite wall of the factory on which was mounted a wide board sprayed neon with an eighties zigzag design – ‘first board I ever shaped for Jason when he was fifteen. Took him to number one in America. We’ve been working together ever since, improving, perfecting, innovating.’

‘Glad to see your surfboard sprays have improved since then,’ I laughed.

‘You got to worry when you’ve been around long enough for spray designs to go out of fashion and then come back in, let me tell you,’ he grinned.

Seb picked up the tail of the surfboard he was in the middle of shaping. He closed one eye and peered along the length of the board.

‘So enough about me, tell me about yourself. Writing that guy’s book must be a big task.’

I glanced around for Jason.

‘You could say that. We’ve had to work hard at it and there have been ups and downs.’

‘Like every job,’ Seb said philosophically.

‘Yes and he can be difficult to pin down when it comes to interviews and concentrating for a long time on the nitty gritty parts.’

‘Are you surprised? The guy’s never worked anywhere except the ocean his whole life. Never had to be at work at a certain time or ask for vacation leave. Never been
the new kid trying to figure out how the photocopier works or where the bathroom is. Never had to kiss the boss’s ass to get a promotion. Which is not to say he hasn’t worked hard at his thing. We couldn’t do what he does, but you see that’s how it is when you’ve got a special gift. I bet it’s the same with you.’

I laughed self-consciously.

‘Hardly. I’m my own boss, which is great, but I’ve had to do my fair share of sucking up to agents and publishers and I’ve also done my fair share of donkey work to supplement my struggling artist’s income.’

‘Not any more. This will fly off the shelves.’

I pressed my palms together.

‘Don’t jinx me please, Seb.’

He smiled and returned his attention to the surfboard. I stood beside him and gently touched the foam. The surface was covered in a layer of fresh white dust that was hard and sharp to the touch like tiny crystals of sugar.

‘Is this board for Jason?’

‘Sure is. This is a board fit for Pipeline. All those boards out there are for him too. Twelve of them.’

I peered out of the door at the dozen off-white foam blanks lined up against the outside wall of the bay like an army of cuttlefish.

‘Does he need all those?’