Blue (16 page)

Once again I woke up to the sound of my phone beeping. I didn't move; I couldn't bring myself to read the message.

Zeke had tried to call me at 9 p.m., and then again at 9:30 and 9:55, but I'd screened his calls. I couldn't talk to him. Saskia would have told him what she'd seen. He was calling to tell me he never wanted to see me again.

I lay on my back in the morning light of my bedroom and tried not to cry. I'd been awake for most of the night, full of hot shame about what I'd done with Daniel, and then when I finally got to sleep in the early hours of the morning, it was one bad dream after another.

Eventually I worked up enough courage to feel for my phone under my pillow. It wasn't a goodbye text from Zeke. Instead I had a text from a number I didn't recognize. It said: “Saskia told me bout yr ex. Cum 2 Sth Fistral @ 10. Wes.”

Saskia had told Wes that she saw me with Daniel and had given him my cell phone number? Why would she do that? Was this some weird way of stirring? Why didn't she just tell Zeke, if she was going to tell anyone? Or maybe she'd told
everyone
.

I checked the time on my phone. It was half past nine and I was still in my nightshirt. I had the world's quickest shower, tied up my hair in a messy bun on the top of my head and got dressed. The sky was clear and the sun already hot so I opted for my uniform of sleeveless top and shorts and ran straight to the beach. It was five past ten by the time I made it to the south end, and with the tide on the way out I saw right away what was going on.

Sephy, Wes, Garrett and Zeke were climbing down over the rocks from the headland, various kinds of surfboards under their arms. Dave was behind them, and in his arms he carried Nanna.

I ran up the stone steps, past Bodhi's and over to the cliff-edge, where I could watch them up close. The sun was right behind me, so if they looked across all they'd see would be a dark silhouette.

So they were actually going to take Nanna for one last tandem-surf?

The guys hadn't bothered with wetsuits but had stripped down to their baggies. Sephy took off her blue sundress and flip-flops and rocked a black bikini.

Their voices carried in the fresh morning air and I heard Wes say, “Mom, you're no way strong enough for this. Nanna's a dead weight.”

“Less of the dead, sonny!”

A few dog walkers stopped beside me to watch too.

“I can do it,” Dave was saying, but Garrett interrupted, “It's gotta be Zeke. He has the best balance and he knows how to keep cool. Hate to admit it, but little bro surfs better than me and Wes combined. So, what do you say, champ?”

Zeke rubbed his eyes with both hands, and said, “Super.”

“Hurray!” Nanna shouted.

“We'll help get her on your board, but after that it's all you, little brother.”

Zeke tossed five boards on to the water and he and Wes got on to theirs. Zeke had brought the red and white, heavily glassed sixties board that had belonged to his Pop. Nanna said something I didn't catch when she saw it, maybe recognizing that it was the same style of board that surfers had ridden when she was part of the surf scene.

Zeke was getting knocked about a bit, trying to hold the board still so that Nanna could be helped on to if she was boarding a boat. But the swell kept bumping Zeke and the longboard against the rocks. Eventually they managed to get Nanna on Zeke's back and she held on for dear life, her arms tight around his neck.

Sephy had Zeke's fish board to ride, which was the smallest and most maneuverable of the boards, so she'd be the lookout, paddling wide and deep to keep an eye out for sleeper sets.

Wes and Dave led the way with Zeke and Nanna behind and Garrett bringing up the rear. Sephy veered a bit further offshore, then looked over her shoulder, where the others were paddling close together in a convoy. Nanna had no wetsuit, and was dressed up in sweaters with her white hair flowing freely in the wind.

After a minute of paddling they made position, stopping beyond the range of the headland currents, where the waves would be smallest.

Pulling this off was going to be seriously difficult. It would have to be a party wave, which is when a group of friends catch the same breaking wave. Garrett, Dave and Wes would need to drop in at the same time, so that they'd be on hand to help Zeke if things went wrong. But there wouldn't be any riding the curl. It would have to be a journey straight back to shore.

Garrett and Wes sidled up so that their boards were neck and neck with Zeke's, while Sephy stayed slightly further out to sea to give the signal when she spotted the right wave.

Sephy's hand was up but all the waves coming through were too messy.

No. No. No. No.

And then it was suddenly coming, a beautiful glassy green wave.

Sephy dropped her hand, caught the wave on the shoulder as it approached her and turned a little so that she could see everything that happened without getting in the way.

Dave caught a smaller wave coming through first, probably so that he'd be in the right position in the shallows to take Nanna from Zeke's arms when they'd finished.

I watched as Zeke moved Nanna to the nose of his board and then popped up to his feet, with Garrett and Wes only half a second behind him. Instead of taking the traditional surfer stance, Zeke put his feet together facing onshore and then picked up Nanna like she weighed nothing at all and put her on his shoulders.

Dave surfed through the impact zone, hopped off his board and turned offshore to face his family.

Zeke was really struggling. The wave was moving fast and Nanna kept wriggling her hands out of his. With his eyes looking forward so he could steer past other surfers, Zeke couldn't get a good grip on her, so her weight had slumped to one side. He was working hard to balance and his spine was flexing backward as he tried to find his new center of gravity.

I knew what Nanna was doing. She was trying to stretch her arms out to either side, which is how she'd told us she'd tandem-surfed back when she was young.

Zeke must have had the same thought, because suddenly his arms swung out wide and he grabbed Nanna's small hands.

Finally stable, Nanna straightened her back a bit and looked at the sea rushing everywhere beneath her. From the cliff it looked like some crazy dad was out there with his little girl on his shoulders.

I could only imagine what Nanna must have felt.

The wave uncurled beautifully behind him, and Zeke was able to pump the longboard with his legs so that he could punch through the sloppy sections and ride right to Dave, who stood waist-deep in the water, his arms wide open.

In the slop, with the wave's power bottoming out, Zeke knelt down on his board and lifted Nanna off his shoulders and passed her to Dave.

Garrett, Wes and Sephy were right behind and I watched them jump off their boards and high-five. On the beach, Sephy hugged her boys one after the other, and as soon as Dave set Nanna down on the sand, Sephy wrapped her arms around him and kissed his face off.

In that moment I was quite certain that they were the coolest family on earth.

And yet tears were in my eyes. For the first time, I was watching them from the
outside
. Being part of their world was something I'd taken for granted. I owed Wes for letting me know what they were doing, because I'd have hated to miss Nanna's moment of glory, but I wished I'd been out there with them.

Saskia must have told Zeke that she'd seen me with Daniel. He wouldn't want me around his family ever again.

I watched Zeke's family mount the steps to Bodhi's, with Nanna being carried by Garrett, but Wes stayed behind on the sand, his knees up to his chest.

Keeping my head down, I walked past the cafe and over to Wes.

“Thanks for texting me. That was amazing,” I said.

“You're welcome.”

“I didn't realize it was happening today.”

“Zeke says he's been trying to call you to apologize about something, but you haven't returned his calls. I guess he doesn't know if you're still interested.”

“Oh.”

“So what's the deal, Iris?”

“What did Saskia say?” I said, feeling sick.

“She brought me up to speed on a few things. She's concerned. Are you actually going on, what, fishing trips with the psycho creep that stabbed my brother?”

“We weren't fishing.”

“Did you sleep with him?”

“
No
.”

“You did something. It's written all over your face.”

“I might have let him kiss me. Just once.”

“Oh man.”

“But then I came to my senses.”

“Why are you even hanging out with that guy?”

“We have a lot of history. Daniel's had some seriously awful stuff happen to him.”

“So has Zeke. Like being
stabbed
, for instance.”

I winced. The thought of Daniel's knife plunging into Zeke's thigh was horrendous. I usually tried to block it out of my mind, because it was just too painful to think about.

“I screwed up. I should never have gone on that boat, not after what Daniel did to Zeke. I'm sorry.”

“Don't you care about Zeke?”

“Yes, I care. But I don't really know how he feels. He could have a different girl on every beach on the planet for all I know. Also, he totally stood me up.”

Wes sighed. “Zeke's serious about you. I don't know why he stood you up, but he sees a future with you.”

“Does he?” It was the first I'd heard of it. Obviously I'd done my fair share of daydreaming about a future in which Zeke and me were properly together, but it never occurred to me that Zeke might be doing the same.

“He talks about places he wants to take you, stuff he wants to show you, breaks he wants to surf with you.”

I let that sink in for a gorgeous moment.

“But why hasn't he told me any of this?”

“I guess he doesn't want to freak you out.”

“I wouldn't have freaked out. Maybe I would have assumed he was exaggerating, or just being nice . . .”

Wes rolled his eyes, as if I was completely clueless.

“So what's next, Iris? How are you gonna handle this?”

It was a good question.

“Uh, I don't know yet.”

“I like you, Iris, but it seems like you still have feelings for your ex, and I don't want my brother to get burned. I'm giving you one day to come clean to Zeke. Let's say, by nightfall tomorrow? Otherwise I think I have to tell him.”

“Please don't do that. I'll talk to Zeke, I promise. I just need time to think first.”

“Choose Zeke or choose the juicebox ex-boyfriend. You can't have them both. Zeke would not be into that.”

I thought briefly about Elijah and wondered how Wes was going to come clean about his own secrets to Zeke and the rest of his family.

“I've gotta catch up with my folks now, but I'll see you tomorrow, right?”

“Right. Thanks, Wes.”

“No problem. Go do your thinking.”

Thirty-two hours later, I walked past the Beached Lamb cafe, past the Red Lion pub and across to Fistral. I'd gone gig-rowing with Kelly, done a circuits class up at the Atlantic Hotel, and swum thirty laps in the pool at Waterworld because I didn't want to risk running into Zeke or his family at the beach until I'd sorted through my feelings and cleared my head. I hadn't eaten anything decent all day and I was starting to feel light-headed, but there was no way I was turning back.

I only had twenty minutes to get there so I had to run. I walked quickly across half a mile of sand, over rocks, up stone steps, across the esplanade, through sliding doors and into the ballroom of Hotel Serenity.

I didn't stop to think what I must have looked like tearing into yoga class with my hair in a big tangled mess from swimming in chlorine and not a scrap of make-up on my face.

A few heads turned but there weren't many people in the class. I grabbed a mat from the box and tried to calm myself down. Zeke would come to this class, I knew he would. I just had to wait.

Five minutes into the class, I was trying hard to think about nothing. There was a different teacher today, a quiet Scandinavian woman called Astrid, who talked a lot about the theories behind yoga. Thinking about nothing was a vital yoga skill. One I definitely needed to learn.

“If thoughts come into your mind, acknowledge them and then let them float away like clouds.
Be the sky
.”

Be the sky
. If only it was that easy.

We were halfway through this being-the-sky exercise when the door opened and Saskia walked in, followed by Zeke.

Zeke was wearing a colorful T-shirt and he had his hair swept back in a headband. He gave me a worried look and made the phone sign.

I shrugged, since I couldn't exactly shout out in the middle of a yoga class that yeah, I'd screened all his calls because I'd been busy with some epic soul-searching.

Astrid was telling a story about an elephant who was walking in a parade and kept getting distracted by the food stalls ahead of and behind her, instead of just being happy with where she was, when I stood up and walked over to Zeke. I must have looked schizo, because Saskia's face was all alarmed, as if I was about to punch him or something.

I put out my hand to him, which he took, and I hauled him up. “How about we hit the beach for a private yoga lesson?”

Literally everyone was looking at us, trying to figure out what was happening. For a second I thought he was going to say no.

Then he broke into a grin and said, “Sure, why not?”

Astrid smiled, and Saskia sat on her mat frowning.

This was it. I was going to tell him exactly what had happened and how I felt. Expecting him to be a mind-reader was just stupid.

We left the hotel and as soon as we'd walked down the slate steps Zeke turned and gave me a long hug. “I'm sorry I let you down,” he said, his voice warming my hair.

“That's all right, but . . . what happened? Where were you?”

A group of German tourists swarmed out of a bus and headed toward us.

“It's a long story. Can we talk on the beach?”

I nodded and followed him to a battered green Kawasaki motorcycle. “Whose is that?”

“Garrett's. He said I could borrow it for a few days while my van is in the repair shop.”

“Cool of him.”

“Least he can do, since I'm buying him an apartment.”

“For real?”

“I'll own it, but he'll be living in it rent-free.”

“You're like the best brother ever.”

“Not really. I'll have someone I trust looking after the place. Don't wanna leave it empty. Pa has me putting as much of my money into property as I can. You know, so I won't spend it all on coke and strippers. Kidding.”

I winced at the very idea of that.

“Garrett's staying in Newquay for a while, is he?”

“Yeah, he likes it here. Likes Kelly too, I guess.”

“I suppose you'll be coming back a lot then, if you have an apartment here.”

“Sure hope so.”

He gave me a spare helmet and I climbed on to the back of the motorcycle, wrapped my arms around his waist and held on tight as he kick-started the bike and revved the engine.

We burned around to North Fistral, the roar of the bike turning heads, and parked up. He went to feed the meter and I carried on down past the huge lifeguards' building and slumped down in its shadow on to the soft sand. I saw Zeke come down to the beach and look for me, not able to find me in the crowd of tourists.

I was still struck by how much I liked watching him, just the way he moved, his posture, the way his T-shirt hung down from wide shoulders.

I whistled with two fingers and he looked into the shadow and saw me. “Hey there,” he said, sitting next to me. I went to say something but he placed his finger over my lips.

“I have to tell you something,” he said, before I could say that exact same thing.

“OK,” I said, moving his hand from my face.

“Well, first, I wanted to tell you that before I met you, I was sorta in a relationship with another girl. Do you have the word ‘umfriend' over here?”

“I never heard it.”

“OK, well, it's that thing where you're kind of seeing someone but they're not your girlfriend yet. So like when you introduce that person to your crew, it's all, ‘This is my, um, friend.' Does that make sense?”

“You were just seeing a girl, but you weren't going out.”

“Right. That's it. And it was pretty much over by the time I met you.”

“Who was it? Not Saskia?”

“Maybe . . .” He grimaced a bit.

So I'd been right. Out of all the girls he could have hooked up with, why did it have to be the most irritating one on earth?

“Anders said she wasn't your type.”

“I don't have a type.”

“Open to all, are you?” I said, smiling despite myself.

“I guess so.”

“Gaah,” I said. This was the sort of word I'd normally put in a text or email. It had never come out of my mouth before and it sounded ridiculous, like a lazy baby.

“It was only for a few months, and it just kinda fizzled out. Then I met you.”

“Amazing. No wonder she hates me.”

“She doesn't hate you. She thinks you hate her.”

I wanted to say, “And she's right.” But instead, I said, “I don't hate anybody,” which was a lie on so many counts. It was like I'd suddenly grown incapable of honesty. I had to change that.

The sea wind blew harder and I looked down to see my hands were white with cold and the hairs on my arms bristling. Zeke noticed, got to his feet and went to collect driftwood, which he brought back and set down in front of me. He carried on like that, piling it up, and I helped. When there wasn't a piece of driftwood left to find, Zeke took out a lighter, lit a receipt from his pocket and set it to a twig.

“Thanks,” I said, smiling.

“Iris, here's the thing: I wanna explain why I didn't show up. I guess you don't know this—which is totally my bad—but—”

“Hey, guys, OK if we edge in on your fire?”

We both turned to see some surfers, fresh out of the water, looking to get warm and be sociable. Before we could answer, one of them gave us a cheeky grin and said, “Our friend's bringing lotsa beer. Be here any minute. Booze for flames: what say ya?”

Zeke looked at me with a blank expression that I couldn't read at all.

“Yeah, cool. More the merrier,” I mumbled, secretly wishing they'd all evaporate.

There was soon a big group of us, maybe twenty, twenty-five. Someone had a guitar. People started talking about their tales of perfect glassy surf in foreign countries. Zeke was quiet. I wanted to talk to him more, but it seemed like he just wanted to think. What didn't I know? What did he want to tell me? What was going on with him?

A half-hour passed, and I was about to crack and ask him anyway, when Garrett, Wes and some of Zeke's cousins showed up. Wes raised his eyebrows at me and I shook my head. He tapped his watch.

I got it: time was running out.

Garrett was joking around with another guy and trying to get the surfers to have an arm-wrestling tournament.

A few of the guys were up for it but Zeke said, “Maybe later, bro. I'm not in the mood. Plus, I promised Iris we'd do some beach yoga.”

“Seriously?” Garrett said. “Only girls do yoga in public.”

Zeke sighed but didn't say anything.

“Just one minute,” Garrett said. “Suck up to your girlfriend later.”

“Back off, dude.”

“OK, be a homo.”

I didn't mean to, but I looked over at Wes and caught his eye. He was bound to be upset by that and I half expected him to storm off. Wes didn't even give Garrett a dirty look though. Instead he gave me one, and then he side-eyed me hard.

I couldn't seem to do anything right: I'd upset Wes, I didn't know what Zeke was thinking, and I
still
hadn't told him what I'd done with Daniel. Maybe, I thought, if I told Zeke some of the history I had with Daniel, then just maybe he'd understand.

Zeke showed me a few new yoga poses I hadn't done before, and he stood in front of me, making himself into a wall so that I could kick up into my first-ever headstand with his chest supporting my feet. It felt nice to be upside down, and the dull headache I'd had all day vanished.

The sun bobbed on the horizon; Zeke had been roped into playing beach baseball with his brothers and cousins, and I found myself alone. I psyched myself up and walked purposefully over the powdery sand at the foot of the dunes to the flats where they were messing around. I stood for a second to watch them. Zeke was batting, Garrett was pitching and I watched as Zeke whacked the ball, sending it sailing all the way down into the water. The ball was being sucked by the backwash and Wes was running after it at a hundred miles an hour. Zeke was running flat out too, zooming past the second baseman, but laughing at the same time, which was making him cough like the twenty-a-day smoker he probably was. Wes had the ball in his hand and I watched as he leaned back and whipped forward, using his whole body weight to throw the ball to his fielding team. It was an immense throw and one of Zeke's cousins, Nils, caught it, got to the plate and Zeke was out.

Wes caught my eye and glared. I walked straight over to him and said, “I'm really sorry if I made it worse for you back there.”

“What?”

“You know.”

He looked over his shoulder. Nobody was close enough to hear us.

“Just what do you think you know, Iris?”

“I saw you kissing Elijah in your bedroom.”

“At my pa's party, right?”

“Right.”

“Knew that was a mistake. Did you say something to Zeke?”

“I wasn't thinking and I almost told Zeke what I saw, but I didn't. I started talking about you, then stopped in my tracks, so he was suspicious. But he probably figured it was to do with you kissing me during Spin the Bottle. I don't think anybody knows about you and Elijah, except Kelly, and that's only because she knows Elijah from yoga.”

“Elijah told Kelly about me?”

“No, but he talked about his boyfriend and then Kelly noticed you two hanging out and she put it all together. I promise I won't say anything to anyone, OK?”

“OK. Thanks, I guess.”

“Do not thank me. I am a total moron.”

“No, you're not,” he said, breaking into a rare smile. “But maybe I am for trying to keep Elijah a secret. We're gonna get busted someday. I feel like I'm at this crossroads, and I need to pick a direction, especially since Elijah's roommate just moved out, leaving him with a ton of utility bills and rent arrears. He
seriously needs someone to move in, like yesterday, or he'll lose the place and have to go live in Truro with his parents.”

“Elijah wants you to be his new roommate?” I said, wondering if that would be the thing that made Zeke realize the truth about Elijah and Wes, or if he'd just shrug it off as two bros splitting bills in a bachelor pad.

“Uh-huh, and I said yes.”

“What about your folks? Will you tell them the truth?”

“Elijah is really bugging me to. But I just can't even—”

“Zeke can handle it.”

“He can? And you've known Zeke how long?”

“OK, not very. But I know he loves you. He talks about you and Garrett loads. Even if it's weird at first, he'll be fine in the end.”

“Maybe, maybe not. Garrett is gonna flip out big-style.”

“So he'll just have to get over it.”

“He'll never speak to me again, and he'll probably kick the shit out of Elijah. That would kill me.”

“You love Elijah?”

“Maybe . . . It blows. This would be so much easier if it was just physical.”

“And Elijah totally wants you to come out?”

“Yeah. He thinks I'm ashamed of him. Plus, he's majoring in psychology with a minor in gender studies, so he's all amped up on queer theory. He figures I'm betraying the gay community by not coming out. Says that every queer person who stays in the closet is making it harder for the people who are out.”

“How's that?”

“Gay visibility. Making gay guys seem like a smaller minority than they actually are.
We
are. Whatever.”

“Wow, that's rough.”

“He's just so much cooler than I am. He like totally knows who he is, and he's not afraid of anything, or anyone.”

“You're pretty cool yourself, you know?”

Wes sighed and said, “I'm so the dorky Francis brother.”

“Which is still ten times cooler than most of the other guys in this town.”

He grinned. “I mean, so yeah, I do have a hydrofoil surfboard.”

“Why, yes you do. Don't worry, you'll figure this out, and you can talk to me whenever. Or I could talk to Elijah for you? Try to get him to take the pressure off? Actually, maybe Kelly could. They get along really well; they keep going out for mocktails and pancakes at Cafe Irie.”