Fish Out of Water (6 page)

This, of course, makes it a busy tourist spot, but that’s pretty much why Shreya and I pick this beach so often. We’re show-offs. When your art is as fleeting as sand sculpture, the goal is to have as many people as possible see it before it crumbles.

The beach is still cold this early in the morning, so I pull my hoodie up and nestle deep into my favorite fleece blanket. Opening my current sketchbook, I draw out ideas for today’s piece in the slowly increasing sunlight. An opulent castle. An old man making sand angels. A dragon crawling up from a spring.

Shreya will probably hate them all—she’s a much better artist, honestly—but I always sketch anyway. It’s nice to let my mind wander, to draw whatever shows up there.

When I’m not sketching, I shamelessly people-watch. As the sun rises, they make their way down the cliff to the beach, walk along the park paths with their dogs, take pictures of the Victorian-style bed and breakfast places lined up across the street. I check my phone, wondering just how late Shreya will be. It tends to vary based on how busy the restaurant was Friday night.

Finally, I see her on the cliff stairs. She has her usual equipment strapped to her back, and she waves when she spots me. I wave back, ready to do something normal after this crazy week.

“Good spot,” she says when she gets close enough. “I have all day, so let’s try going bigger, okay?”

“Hell yeah,” I say. “I brought lunch, no reason to leave.”

“What did you draw this morning?” She snatches my book from me, looking at the latest stuff. “I like the dragon. I’m so in the mood for a dragon, but—”

“You have a better idea?” I ask.

She laughs. “Just some modifications! We’ll totally keep it an Asian dragon. Way cooler.”

“Fair enough.”

We get to work planning the dragon. Of course her ideas take my sketch to the next level. She wants to make it look like it’s just about to take flight, its front feet pushing up from the ground, its head lifted to the sky. “It’ll look awesome from the cliff, like it’s about to shoot up and take someone out.”

“Totally.”

We get to work mapping out the size and proportions in the sand—its giant head, the arch of its back in the center, the tail resting on the other side of the pond. I even run up to the cliff top to make sure it looks like a good size. Then it’s time for sand packing, which is the least fun part. But firmly packed sand is key to a sturdy sculpture, so we take our jackets off and begin.

“This part never stops sucking,” Shreya says, huffing as we shovel sand into our five-gallon buckets. “Can’t sand weigh less? Stupid sand.”

I laugh. “But hey, our arms are ripped.”

She flexes her triceps, which are seriously cut, then her biceps. “I do look hot, don’t I?”

“Totally hot.” I move on to my next bucket. “What we need is Olivia.”

“Psh, she always whines.”

“She has good stories, though, and it feels weird without her to entertain us.” When Olivia is not in Tahiti, she works at the Pebble Beach Spa with her mom, who’s a masseuse. Olivia’s basically a gofer for the rich ladies who hang out while their husbands play golf, and she constantly has some dramatic tale to tell us about them.

“True. Olivia is our creamy Oreo center.”

“I miss her.” Olivia’s the one who doesn’t take life too seriously—Shreya and I have a tendency to be too “goal oriented,” as Olivia says.

“Me too, but I will channel her. I want to hear more about Dylan,” Shreya says.

I roll my eyes, though Olivia
would
ask me about him. “There’s nothing to tell. Still doesn’t do anything I tell him to do. Still acts like he’d rather have his nails ripped out than work there. You really need to get out if you’re desperate enough to talk about him.”

She snorts. “I know I do! But that’s what my parents are worried about, even when I’ve told them I don’t want to date until college. Seems like the older I get the more they want to keep me at the restaurant. They have another thing coming if they think I’ll let them pick my husband, though.”

Her face goes dark, and I frown. Shreya’s parents had an arranged marriage, but I didn’t think they’d do that to her. “Shrey, is that really what they’re planning?”

She shrugs. “Not completely. Yet. I don’t know. My dad doesn’t want me to marry a non-Indian, though. We kinda had a huge fight about it last night. Not that I
don’t
want to marry an Indian guy—I’d just like to have a choice, you know?”

I’m not sure what to say, because it seems weird that this still happens. I can’t help thinking about my parents, how being in love made so many problems with my dad’s family. I sigh. “We’re only seventeen. You have time to win them over.”

She smiles, but it’s sad. “I’m not sure it works that way, Mika.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. It should be that simple, shouldn’t it?” She grabs a smaller bucket to fetch water.

“Yes, it should be.”

“But it isn’t.” She walks toward the waves, tugging at her ponytail. That means she’s upset. It makes my heart ache. Shreya is my best friend. She shouldn’t have to choose between love and her family. They should go hand in hand.

Within a few hours, we’ve packed all the sand into giant mounds that will form the foundation of our dragon. It’s a simple enough design, though bigger than we usually go, so I figure it’ll take us well into the afternoon to finish. We stand next to each other, surveying our work.

“I’ll do the head,” Shreya says.

“I was just gonna say you should. I’ll do the rest—it’s mostly scales.” I grab the sketchbook, and we spend a few minutes collaborating on the look of it to make sure our pieces will match. Then it’s time for the fun to begin.

I start from the top. We learned pretty quickly that starting anywhere else was bad. I begin by smoothing out the upper arch, so that the shape is just right, and then I hand pack ridges for the spine scales. Now that morning is in full swing, the beach is bustling with people. Many of them watch us work, which made me nervous when we first started getting serious about sand sculpture. But now I’m used to the camera clicks and the kids who stare on as if we’re the goddesses of sand. I’m also used to the annoying people who ask if it’s really sand.

“Yes, it’s definitely sand,” I say to a man watching on. He doesn’t look convinced.

“You can pack it all next time, sir, if you’d like proof,” Shreya says. “Just show up before dawn with a shovel. We’d be happy for the extra manual labor.”

He snorts and walks off.

Once I have the large spinal scales as crisp as possible, I start on the tedious process of adding small ones to the whole body. I’m just starting to remember why it’s been a while since we did a dragon when I hear, “Mika?”

I look up, blinking a few times because the scale pattern is burned into my retinas. Creepy mustache and running shorts just a touch
too
short. His sulky companion glares at me.

“Supervisor Clark?” I choke out.

“Hey! What a coincidence!” He pats his nephew on the back. “Dylan, look, it’s Mika.”

“I have eyes.” Dylan wears running gear, too, except his fits much better than his uncle’s. The red shirt clings to his form, revealing way more muscle than I expected. His black shorts hit at the knee. His shoes look flashy and expensive. I hate to think it, but he looks like he stepped out of an ad for running wear.

“
That’s
Dylan?” Shreya says, clearly taken in by this version of him.

I want to say he looks a lot worse in the AnimalZone uniform, but I have a feeling I’d insult my boss. “Yeah. This is my best friend, Shreya.”

Clark holds out his hand, and they shake. “Nice to meet you.”

Dylan turns to the ocean, clearly trying to pretend he’s not here. I give Shreya an I-told-you-so look.

She smiles. “Looks like you guys went running.”

“Yup.” Clark nods in Dylan’s direction. “It might not look like it, but he does like to run. And I’ve always liked Lovers Point, touristy or not.”

“Us too,” I say.

“I had no idea you made sand sculptures.” Clark looks over our work, which is maybe one third done. Something in me starts to squirm. I’m positive I mentioned it to him before, because I told him I had to have Saturdays off. “How long have you been doing this?”

“Pretty much every good-weathered Saturday since we were ten,” I reply. That’s when Shreya started at my elementary school. We became instant friends, and we’d go to the beach and build sandcastles. “The sculptures just got bigger.”

“Right.” He glances at Dylan like he wants to kick him for being a jerk. “So, let me guess…a dragon?”

I nod. “Maybe you’ll have to come back in a few hours when it’s done. It doesn’t look like much right now.”

“Or we could stay! I didn’t get to treat you to lunch the other day like I wanted—you deserve it for putting up with Dylan. I could run and get something, be back in like thirty minutes.”

Dylan looks over his shoulder, glaring at his uncle. “I’d rather shower.”

“Being dirty builds character,” Clark says to him, and it feels like I’m missing something. “Hang out with the girls. Maybe you could even help.”

His jaw slacks. “But Unc—”

“No buts! I won’t feed you if you leave.” Clark sprints off. “I’ll be right back with sandwiches!”

I watch in shock as he gets farther and farther away. “Did he seriously plan this?”

“Yup.” Dylan sits in the sand. “And I fell for it.”

Chapter 9

“You
can
just leave,” I say to Dylan as I work. “Clearly you don’t want to be here, and I don’t want you here, either.”

“Mika!” Shreya says, seeming surprised. “When did you get so mean?”

“I’ve been trying to be nice all week. I’m tired.”

Dylan sighs. “I can’t leave. He really won’t feed me if I do. All the food at the house is locked up.”

Shreya and I exchange a puzzled glance. Clark has always seemed like a nice guy to me, but that sounds a little weird. “Can’t you go buy something?” I ask.

“I don’t have any money. Not even my wallet.”

I stick my carver in the sand and tromp over to the cooler I brought. Setting a sandwich down in front of him, I say, “Eat this and leave, then.”

“So I’m supposed to tell him I stole your lunch and left? Do you know how much trouble I’d get in? He’d probably starve me all day, and I’m already dying from running.” He lays back, looking pretty tired. “Jerk didn’t even leave water.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Why is he doing that?”

“Not your business.” He covers his eyes with one arm. “Can you leave me alone? I really am exhausted.”

“She’s only asking because it sounds batshit crazy,” Shreya points out. “Like you’re a prisoner. And I thought my parents were strict.”

“Seriously, shut up, your voice hurts my head,” he says.

That does it. Nobody talks to my friend that way. Grabbing my cooler, I pluck out the first cold water bottle I see, unscrew the top, and pour it right on his crotch. He flies up, and I fling the rest of the water in his face. He gasps for breath, his eyes full of fire. “What the hell?!”

“Either apologize to Shreya or leave. Because I’m so done with your crap.”

“You can’t make me leave.”

I fold my arms. “But I can scream about the weird guy who peed himself and is bothering us. Or maybe…is that…You were doing
what
in public?”

His face goes slack with shock. “You wouldn’t.”

“You wanna bet?”

“You’re bluffing.”

I take in a deep breath, but only get out a partial scream before he lunges at me and covers my mouth. His weight takes me off guard, and I hit the sand. I stare at him, his face just inches from my own, his wet hair dripping onto my forehead. He glares at me, seething. “Are you crazy?”

He doesn’t move his hand, so I don’t know how he expects me to answer. He just stares and stares, and I don’t know why but I keep looking at him, too. There are gold and green flecks in his brown eyes that you’d never see from a distance. And his lips glisten from the water. Maybe it
has
been too long since I had a boyfriend, because his weight on me…

“Get off her!” Shreya yells.

That snaps him out of it, and he springs back. People gawk at us. One woman even has her phone out, as if she’s just about to call 911. I pull myself up, brushing off the sand and whatever it was I felt. When she sees I’m okay, she lowers her phone, but I can feel her eyes on me.

“Well,” I say. “You did a good job humiliating yourself all on your own, didn’t you?”

Dylan sits in the sand, his head to his knees. His ears are vibrant red, and I’m pretty sure it’s not a sunburn. I purse my lips in an attempt not to laugh. Grabbing another water bottle, I hold it out in front of him. He doesn’t take it.

“C’mon, I know you’re thirsty. And it’s not like you can stand up to get your own drink.”

He looks up at me. I expect something mean to come out of his mouth, but he takes the water and cracks the top. In about five seconds, the bottle is empty. He doesn’t say thank you.

“Don’t think I’ve let you off on the apology. But you can save it for later if you need to rehearse.” I go back to sculpting. I have to go slow because my hands are shaking. I’m not sure why, since I’m not mad anymore. Better just focus on the scales.

“Sorry, Shreya,” Dylan says after about five minutes.

She gives him a puzzled look. “Thanks, I guess.”

“Here’s the deal,” he continues. “When my uncle gets back, I’m betting he’ll have some excuse to leave again. If we don’t play nice, he’ll probably keep trying to orchestrate these run-ins. So can you pretend we get along while we eat, and then I’ll leave you alone?”

“Why is he doing this, anyway?” I ask.

He shrugs. “Thinks I need new friends. You’re the only person my age he knows.”

“Great.”

“Yeah…” Dylan stares out at the waves, where a few people are surfing. He does seem genuinely exhausted. I almost feel bad for him, and a small part of me wishes he wouldn’t be so determined in his rudeness. He might not be so bad if he’d talk nicely like he did about the koi legend.