Always Summer (5 page)

Colby shakes his head. “I’m not worried
about you,” he says. “It’s just…sometimes, in this industry, people
lose focus. We’re surfers. We’re on the beach all day, hanging out,
getting wrapped up in it all. Just keep a tight grip on the reins
with Topher. I could see the whirlwind catching up to him.”

I don’t like admitting that he’s right, but
Topher’s career path is going to be vastly different from
Colby’s.

And I’m not sure if I can manage it.

After watching Topher play professional
surfer all afternoon with Ocean Blast Energy, I rethink Colby’s
worries that Topher may lose his sense of self in this business.
Sure, surfing is their passion and hobby, but it’s still a business
that I think Topher will be able to navigate easily. He’s got the
personality for it, much like his brother, even if he would flip
out if he heard me say that.

“We’re going out tonight,” he says from
across the kitchen counter at the condo we’re staying in. “There’s
this really awesome beach party celebration thing going on, and
we’re going.”

“Were you invited?” I ask from the
barstool.

He shakes his head. “It’s not like a
party
party,” he explains. “It’s almost like a festival or
something. They have it every summer here, and I think you’ll like
it. Besides, Ocean Blast is paying for us to stay here another
night so we might as well make the most of it. It starts in like an
hour so get ready.”

A smile sweeps his face, and his eyes
glisten like moonlight against the waves. There’s no way I can say
no, even if I wanted to – but I don’t want to. I change into a tank
top and shorts, much less professional than what I wore to our
meeting with Ocean Blast Energy earlier today, and grab the smaller
purse that I borrowed from Emily. Topher still looks like a surfer
– board shorts and a Drenaline Surf T-shirt. He bounces with
excitement all the way to his vehicle.

The drive to the boardwalk is much longer
than necessary, but being on the edge of Sunrise Valley, it’s to be
expected. Topher hasn’t mentioned Liquid Spirit, although I know he
knows, and I don’t dare bring them up right now. But seeing the
size of Sunrise Valley, how the entire city is immersed in surf
culture, I’m scared. Crescent Cove may be a gorgeous little beach
town, but it’s still little. It’s a retirement area. Why bother
with our tiny town when you have all it has to offer and more just
an hour and a half north?

“Looks like we may have to walk,” Topher
says, stretching his neck in an attempt to see around the cars
ahead of us. “I’m going to pull into that parking garage. At least
it’s close to the boardwalk.”

It takes another twenty minutes, though, to
even get into the parking garage and find the elevator back to the
ground level. This city is crawling with vacationers, locals, and
party-goers who are just here for the drinks and bonfires.

Topher slips his hand into mine and keeps me
close to him as we fight our way through the crosswalk and over to
the beach. A hazy sunset falls behind the ocean, pinks and purples
dancing together across the sky like melted cotton candy. The waves
glow with the colors of the sky, like a computerized ocean in a
fantasy movie rather than reality.

“What are they celebrating here?” I ask,
hoping Topher can hear me over the crowd of people. “There are like
a million people here.”

He laughs. “Everyone from like three towns
over comes out for this,” he says. “It’s a pretty huge deal.”

A banner stretches across the boardwalk that
reads
Sunrise Valley Seahorse Memorial Celebration
in big
turquoise letters. Did Topher really bring me to a celebration for
dead seahorses? Solomon has been my guiding light. The last thing I
need right now is his death. How is this even a good idea?

“Whoa,” I say, jerking his arm back and
stepping out of the line of the crowd. “Seahorse Memorial? I don’t
want to celebrate the lives of dead seahorses. How is that
something I’d actually like?”

Topher shakes his head quickly, but his face
is concerned. “It’s not like that. I read about it online,” he
replies. He motions toward the boardwalk. “It’s like this huge
celebration for seahorses…but you know, in a good way?”

Part of me wonders if Topher even read about
this thing or if he just heard something about a seahorse
celebration on the beach and thought it was a good idea.

“Okay, if you’re sure,” I say, even though
I’m not sold on this at all.

“Look, I wasn’t supposed to tell you, but
Colby told me to bring you here. Apparently, he’s been before, and
he said I had to bring you because it’s perfect – his words,”
Topher says with pleading eyes.

I can’t deny him any longer. I interlock my
fingers with his and continue forth toward the pier that harbors
the boardwalk and all of the festivities of the night. Topher hands
over the entrance fee and gets our plastic bracelets for access to
the pier. The girl asks if this is our first time coming to the
celebration. She directs us toward a group of people down on the
sand upon hearing it is.

We find a seat on a wooden log carved with
tribal designs. A bonfire blazes before us, but it’s small and
controlled, unlike some of the crazy ones I’ve seen at the
Hooligans’ beach parties. An older lady who looks as though she
could be Kale’s grandmother sits at the head of the fire. A woven
blanket with brilliant colors rests over her shoulders, blocking
her from the breeze that gusts in from the ocean. I sort of feel
like I’m in a Twilight film waiting for tribe secrets to be
revealed.

People crowd in around us, chattering about
last summer’s celebration and how they love coming out here. The
leather-skinned lady raises her hands upward, and the audience
falls silent, as if they know what’s about to happen.

“Tonight, there will be a full moon,” she
begins, waving her arms open wide toward the sky. Yep. We’re
definitely in werewolf territory. “And tonight, that full moon will
change the tides. The ocean will not be the same.”

She speaks with a serious yet dramatic tone,
like she’s going to lunge forward toward the fire and scream bloody
murder just to scare us at any given moment. But she remains fairly
still. I, on the other hand, feel incredibly antsy sitting here
with strangers listening to a woman blab about the moon.

“It was long ago when they reigned supreme,”
she says, her face narrowing toward the fire. “It was during a time
when mermaids were not afraid to swim near the surface. The ocean
was a place of pure magnificence, no dangers but those of the waves
in a storm. It was glorious with colors – beautiful, angelic
fishes…so vibrant, so large. And seahorses, studded with jewels,
that would someday be harnessed for greed. And the songs of the
mermaids. All blended into a mirage of colors and life and
beauty.”

She speaks with conviction, like she truly
believes that mermaids are frolicking in the depths of the oceans,
unwilling to surface for fear that humans may see them. In a way, I
want to believe it as well, just to know that Shark isn’t alone out
there, that maybe someone is singing his soul into a realm of
peace.

“The seahorses embodied what sea royalty
should be,” she continues, punching her fist into the air. “They
were regal, kings of the sea. Friends of the mermaids and family to
the majestic fishes. As large as a human, as gentle as an elephant,
more beautiful than a sunset.”

I try to envision Solomon as one of these
real life sea kings – cerulean blue with sapphires and diamonds
sparkling over his fins and around his eyes, human-sized and royal.
He’d be beautiful, at the very least.

She continues talking about the angel fishes
and how brightly colored they were, how they floated among the
waters like gentle giants, catching rays of sun and bouncing them
around to form rainbow prisms among themselves in the water.

“But the ships could not appreciate their
beauty. Evil men, hungry with greed, hunted them, preyed on them
like monsters,” she says, her voice intensifying and echoing around
us.

I wish I could tune her out. I don’t want to
hear about their tragic ends. I want to imagine an ocean where
seahorses still rule the ocean kingdoms. But she tells of spears
piercing through them, angelic fishes floating dead at the surface,
and mermaids dying and being captured during rescue missions.

“This is where piracy began,” she explains.
“The jewels within their skins were the original treasures of the
sea. The pirates sailed the waters, in search of the next jewel,
the next color to add to their chests. Slowly and surely, they took
what they wanted, destroying the life below the waters.”

And that’s when it happened – the moon
exploded. I shift my eyes at Topher to make sure I’m hearing this
lady correctly. But she lifts her arms widely toward the sky and
says it again.

“Her anger was becoming of her,” she lady
says, with a hint of a smirk. “She controlled the tides, and she
decided to take back what belonged to her.”

The legend states that on that fateful
night, when the moon was full, a terrible storm swept over the
oceans, sinking ships and their chests of treasures. The mermaids
scattered, retreating to the ocean bottoms for protection, and in
the wake of the madness, hid the jewels of their beloved seahorses
so deeply that no pirate would ever find them.

And of course, the moon exploded. But it
didn’t just explode into dust. The moon erupted into thousands of
bean-shaped rocks, “moon beans” as they were called.

“When they hit the water, the angel fishes
and seahorses shrunk to the size of the beans, making them hard to
find in the vast scheme of things,” she says, holding up a
bean-shaped rock that looks as though it could be made from a piece
of the moon. “And every small creature – the whales and dolphins
and sharks – were suddenly enlarged. No longer were they the tiny
fishes that swam in the distance. They were now the protectors of
the seas, a royalty of a more vicious kind, a role they still play
to this day.”

Oh, what I’d give to time travel back to
those days, to see life-sized seahorses adorned with jewels and
hear the mermaids sing their enchanted songs. Shark McAllister
would’ve taken photos of giant yellow angel fishes rather than
Great Whites. I wonder what kind of nickname he would’ve had
instead. Shark would be out of the question.

“But tonight, on the full moon, we celebrate
the true kings of the sea,” the lady announces. “We celebrate them
with colors and jewels and beauty. For tonight, the giant killers
in the ocean shall shrink back to their true sizes, spend the night
in a state of rest, and prepare for another year of protecting the
true royalty. For tonight, the seahorses shall return to their
glorified state, in true size, to swim in the oceans that belong to
them.”

Cheers erupt around us. I wonder if these
people have heard this story before or if they are first timers
like Topher and me. Our storyteller encourages everyone to join in
the festivities, to enjoy the night like we’re part of the sea,
celebrating our leaders in their night of freedom. Topher grabs my
hand and leads me back up the pier. We flash them our bracelets and
keep going. Booths of masquerade masks and face painting artists
line the entrance of the pier.

“I think we’re a little underdressed,” I
say, glancing around. I make my way toward a table of masks to see
the selection. The face paintings are much more elaborate and
pretty, but I want something to take home with me after
tonight.

“Should I assume you’re going with blue?”
Topher asks. He smiles when I glance up at him. “I mean, it’s your
seahorse color, right?”

That it is. I choose a half-mask that wraps
itself in a crescent-shaped seahorse. The seahorse itself is a mix
of turquoise and cerulean blue with an array of blue rhinestones
adorning it. Topher chooses a similar Phantom of the Opera style
mask with red hues. He’s fine in board shorts and his Drenaline
Surf merch, but we stop at another vendor to let me grab a blue
gypsy-style wraparound skirt to tie over my cut off shorts.

Although the reason for celebration is
enchanting and magical, it’s still quite the commercial event for
Sunrise Valley. Booths line the pier just like The Strip back in
the cove. There are carnival games where you can win stuffed sea
creatures, funnel cakes that I’m sure A.J. would love, and multiple
artists much like Emily selling homemade items that fit tonight’s
theme. She and Miles should’ve come with us. Maybe next year she
can.

Further down the boardwalk, a restaurant is
buzzing with customers and live entertainment. Metal tables sit
outside like a coffee shop, and strings of twinkle lights sparkle
against the backdrop of a California night. They remind me of
fireflies who never lose their light, who just sparkle in place
until it’s time for a long sleep. The sounds of bongo drums and
ukuleles float across the night air, and Topher pulls me toward
him.

“Dance with me,” he says, as if we’ve never
had this moment before.

But tonight, for Solomon and the seahorses,
I don’t even hesitate. I let myself fall into Topher’s arms, and we
dance like we’ve never had this moment before.

The whirlwind of seahorse celebrations and a
long, lazy day on the beach both slip away the moment we step
inside Colby’s house. Part of me wishes I’d gone home first, just
to hang on to the lingering glow of the twinkle lights that I can
still see in Topher’s eyes when he smiles. Why couldn’t this
weekend last forever? Or, you know, at least a week? I need a
longer Drenaline Surf vacation.

“Get in here and watch this shit,” Miles
says, reaching across Colby’s couch for the remote. He rewinds the
DVR and pauses it on Colby’s parents.