Spring Tide (2 page)

“Oh, it’s his latest venture into idiocy. For the last week he’s been staking out some guy who surfs Laces. He talked to him yesterday and then ran right out to buy a board, calling me to come over and see it. What was I supposed to say? Radical?”

“I’m thinkin’ gnarly or bitchin’. Laces? That can’t be right. It’s laced with rip currents. At the piers or around the jetties, yeah, but I’ve never seen anyone surfing at that break. It’s closed to swimmers half the year.”

“I don’t know about any of that, but Nick getting hospitalized from wiping out would make his parents come. Then they’d see the state of their beach house and he and Derek would have to go back home to Austin for the rest of the summer. King of morons.” She wove her fingers above her eyes. “I talked to a few people from home this morning. Ruin your day now or later?”

“I guess ruin it now but I don’t see how you can. It’s summer, your boy thinks he can surf, and look, we’re on a beach.”

“Joshua’s been asking around about you.”

My left shoulder lurched forward as my abs contracted. “Why? What’s he asking?”

“Where you are, who you’re with.”

Day ruined.
Why was he asking about me then, two months later? Images of him ricocheted in my brain, bringing with them the whine of trampoline springs.

“I tried to explain to Nick about him, but you know how he idolizes Joshua. Nick thinks you shouldn’t’ve—”

I snapped my fingers. “Oh. Before I forget, I picked up a spare key from the condo office and put it in the frog pot thingy.”

“You’re changing the subject. I think it’s a cookie jar, a sea turtle.”

“Either way, it’s ugly.”

“The whole place is ugly. I mean, it’s a Roman Catholic miracle that Mom and Daniel set me up with the condo for the summer and I’m truly, deeply ecstatic to be out of their house, but the couch has unholy gravity and the decor is nauseating. Teal and peach, uck. I taste vomit just thinking about it.”

I smirked. “You know I don’t care about color schemes.”

“You should.”

Sarah’s parents’ one condition for the condo was that a friend stay with her, and I was the recipient of her generosity, living in a beachside time-share for free. My mom thought it was a good idea that I was on my own. She was adamant that I call her with any trouble, like car trouble or money trouble or the very laughable premise of boy trouble, not so funny with Joshua’s inquiry.

I stood and put on my flip flops. “I’d better crack a window in my car. It’s gettin’ warm.”

Sarah’s car and mine looked like us; her Mercedes coupe with its glossy white paint versus my dragon, an old Fiat wagon sporting a flat, mossy color. Both were efficient and reliable, but mine had suicide doors—and
everyone
loves suicide doors. But it didn’t have air conditioning. Hence the nickname. It breathed fire.

I rolled down the window, snatched my sunglasses from the dash, fought with the door, and returned to my towel. Sunlight reflecting off the movement of the water mesmerized me, a million sparkling diamonds gleaming in formation from left to right. The sound of the waves, its simple rhythm, created white noise, washing away the stray thoughts of Joshua murmuring in my mind, the squeal of the trampoline that was still ringing in my ears.

“Quit daydreaming, Edwards.” Derek ran a hand over his short, dark brown hair, his pale blue eyes seeming even lighter against his newly acquired tan. “You got a song stuck in your head again?”

“Always.” I tapped the imaginary watch on my wrist. “Why so late?”

“I had to take my car to the shop … again. Barely made it to my interview at Gulf Shores Savings.” He ground his heel into the sand. “They’ll probably take someone who’s already in college. Their loss.”

“I’d hire you. You’re an overachiever, detail oriented, and you think you’re smarter than everyone. Who wouldn’t hire you?”

“That’s right.”

I pulled on my running shorts. “I know you want something more exciting than waiter on your résumé, but try to break away from your many aspirations and enjoy the summer.”

“That’s your problem. You can’t see the bigger picture. That you turned down the summer internship at the lab is totally beyond me. You rejected Stanford. Then there’s Rice … it’s like you’re oblivious to your potential.”

“Be here or spend my summer doing analysis of veterinary urine samples—hmm, tough one. And you gonna comment on that and Rice every week or just lookin’ to finish out the month?”

He grinned. “I almost talked you into taking that job.”

He had. But in the end I couldn’t escape the feeling that Corpus was where I needed to be to figure out my life.

He nodded toward the shoreline. “You ready or what?”

“See you in a bit,” I said to Sarah.

She gave a two-finger wave but didn’t look up, too engrossed in her fashion rag.

We took off to the packed sand at the water’s edge. Running with Derek was like being in a car with Derek. He was always gauging which lane was moving most quickly, was always looking around the next corner. I often questioned how much he missed along the way because he was so focused on getting to the destination.

We were about a mile and a half down the beach, sandpipers in the shallows scattering to get out of our way, when I pointed to the clouds above the ocean. Silk smooth and backlit by the sun, they were moving rapidly on a windless day. It was like time-lapse photography, our steps prolonged in relation to the skies. The interruption of his thoughts wasn’t appreciated and resulted in a light shove to my arm, followed by a tickle to my waist. I retaliated with a head slap and the remaining run was fraught with pushing each other while plodding around piles of seaweed. Fifty feet from the condo building, he picked up speed.

“It’s not … a competition,” I gasped.

“Everything’s … a competition.”

Red faced and panting like Irish Setters, we stopped short of Sarah, who was still lounging in her chair. The crinkling of dried grass in the dunes by our building’s garage made me look right. Small frame, brown hair, plaid shirt—it was him.

“Sarah, don’t look behind you.” I knelt by her chair. “I think Aaron’s over there.”

She glanced over her shoulder. “Oh Lord! Are you kidding me? We’re how many miles from Austin?”

Derek started toward the dunes. “Two-twenty, but stalkers don’t care about geographic distance.”

Aaron was a classmate and didn’t participate in sports, illegal by Texas high school standards. He kept to himself, was indifferent to everything and everyone. In three years, I’d never heard him laugh and had never seen him afraid or angry despite the persecution he endured on a daily basis. I felt bad for him but his attitude had made it impossible for me to reach out. He’d been watching Sarah from a distance since sophomore year, a fixture in the shadows of her life, a testament to her beauty.

Derek sauntered back from the garage entrance. “Edwards, get your eyes checked. No one’s there. You’re probably hallucinating from heat stroke from trying to keep up with the master.” His shoulder swooped down and came up under my stomach. “I got this. You’re goin’ in.”

My body was off the ground, his arm cinching my legs as he walked into the water.

I hit his back twice. “You’d better not.”

He fell forward and we were under. The initial shock of the coolness against my skin abated, blood vessels receding into flesh, and I swam away to splash him.

It was a typical afternoon. Derek and I played Frisbee, our beach sport of choice; after all, we’d been throwing hard, plastic objects at each other since we were ten. Sarah perused her “reading material” or played with her phone. At two I went into our building, stopped in our hallway, and frowned at the crumpled mess on the floor that was our neighbor, Sylvia. Mid-twenties and attractive, she proved alcoholism didn’t discriminate by age, sex, or looks. I took the key ring from her index finger and opened her door.

“Sylvia? Come on, time to go to bed.” I lightly shook her. Nothing. I shook her again. “It’s Kris from next door. Here ya go.”

I helped her in and back to her bedroom, where she collapsed into the disarray that was her bed, mumbling about her boyfriend or ex, some guy named Joel. Her cat, Bongos, jumped down from the open bag of cat food (that I’d anonymously left at her door the week before) and up to her, purring.

As I left, I pretended I couldn’t see her living room: the mishmash of dishes, clothes, papers, bottles, and a whole lot of cat hair. Everyone has problems, but hers seemed so punishing. I wished I knew what to do for her.

In our unit, I went straight to the balcony and hung my towel on the railing. Goose bumps crawled across my back and I did an about-face to stare at an orange buoy a quarter of a mile offshore. Luminous, black mist hovered over a section of water behind the marker. In a sea of light its glitter was deviant, moving opposite the waves and changing shape. What is that? I blinked and it was gone, no planes or dark clouds in the sky to account for the shadow. For three minutes I looked over the area, but there was nothing. First Aaron, now mystery vapor. Heat stroke, sun stroke—take your pick.

_______

Derek and I worked evenings at Crazy Jim’s House of Crabs. The interior was treasure chests, fishing nets, and a giant papier-mâché crab plastered to the ceiling. My job was a step or three down from my previous kitchen experience and wage, but it kept me busy, my knife skills sharp, and my efficiency jacked when the dining room got slammed. I made salads, did prep and just about everything else, routinely offering suggestions for the specials to my boss, Freddy.

I watched Derek refresh salt shakers through the opening from the kitchen to the wait area. He’d looked good last tennis season, real good. The way he’d whipped off his shirt while prancing around the court, yelling woo-hoo with every victory, was a bit much, but showcased a slender body with contours in all the right places. And at five foot ten, he was an ideal height for me. He wasn’t every girl’s cup of tea, but in my eyes he was noble. And the little mole above the corner of his lip was kinda sexy. He caught me surveying him and smiled. I winked at him and broke off another crab claw.

Little things like that smile and that wink were the reasons rumors had flourished about our relationship for years in high school. When we were sophomores, Derek said I was sorta cute, not pretty or beautiful, but sorta cute, which meant we’d been secretly getting it on since we were fourteen. And that I never dated anyone and always hung out with him compounded it. But there were a few times in the last year when I’d passed him in the hallways and he’d stopped his conversation. His head had angled back and his lips had parted as he looked me over, his gaze so suggestive. I wanted him to look at me that way all the time.

At a little after nine, Derek and I were seated in a booth in the back corner at Bruno’s Pizzeria, eating and making small talk about the people we worked with.

He handed me the crushed red pepper. “So the dishwasher guy quit?”

“Ben, yeah. He was convinced that there’re snakes under the kitchen’s floor, that they’re gonna go dark side, rise up and take over.” I held in a laugh. “I think that’s something we all worry about now and again.”

“It could happen. So what’s goin’ on with you? You’ve got this look on your face.”

“And you’ve been freakin’ weird all day.”

“Nu uh.”

“Yeah huh. When you suck at Frisbee the way you sucked today, somethin’s up.”

He crossed his arms. “I didn’t suck.”

“And speakin’ of weird. I saw this … localized patch of fog over the water today. There was something about it that—”

“Ah God, is this gonna turn into one of your science experiments? Should I be looking forward to collecting data and whatnot?”

“No, it’s just bugging me that I don’t know what it was, how it moved like it did.”

“You’ll get past it.” He tapped his straw against his glass twice. “What’s bugging me is that Pam called—”

“Your ex? That Pam?”

He nodded. “She’s spending the summer with her sister in Rockport, twenty minutes up the road. I think she wants to get back together.”

“Oh.” My voice went flat.

“What?”

“Nothin’. My news is that Joshua’s been asking around Austin about me.”

“He can burn in hell.”

“Thank you. Let’s leave it at that. I’m still trying to forget the shit that went down with him.” I held the edge of the table and swiveled myself around so I could sit next to him. “Did Pam break up with you because of me, because we partnered on everything—?”

“You and I partnered because we play off of each other’s strengths. It was justice. You, me—us poor kids so graciously accepted into Falls Creek at reduced tuition like white trash takin’ a handout. I’m so sick of people calling our neighborhood the ghetto or—”

“Derek, you gotta get over all that. So your dad’s not a dermatologist like Sarah’s and my mom’s not a lawyer like Nick’s. Big wow. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the rumors about our friendship that never die. Did Pam break up with you because—?”

“I broke up with her. I got tired of accusations every time I came from your house. It got old.” He shifted closer to me.

I leaned into him. “Do you wanna get back together with her?”

“I’m not sure what the right move is, you know?” He lightly thumped my thigh with his fist.

“I don’t think it’s about moves. Just do what feels good.”

“What feels good,” he put his forehead against mine, “could wreck everything.” He sat up straight and wadded up his napkin. “All set?”

I rose and dropped a twenty on top of the check.

Wreck what?
I wasn’t sure what he meant. But I did know that Pam’s upper-class family represented the things Derek wanted: security, status, respect. We came from decent, middle-class homes, but for him it wasn’t enough. Between Aaron trolling the scene, the possibility of Derek reuniting with Pam, my neighbor being a total lush, and the mention of Joshua, my idyllic summer was going to crap.

We went out to my car and when I turned on the ignition, music blared through the speakers, startling him. I liked my music and I liked it loud, even if nobody else did. And I’d adjusted the volume before we went in because I got a kick out of seeing him jump. On the way back to his place, we took turns using adjectives or nouns to describe Nick (Boy Wonder) in alphabetical order: athletic, boner, crass, delinquent …