Summer of Seventeen (6 page)

By the end of my first week the alarm on my phone had become an instrument of torture. I was so tempted to just ignore it and go back to sleep.

But two things made me haul my ass out of bed. One was that last night Julia had laughed when I dragged myself home, and said that I’d never make it at this job. The second was that Yansi had texted me and said that she wasn’t working on Saturday, and did I want to do something.

Hell, yeah! And I was counting on Mr. Alfaro paying me, so I could take her somewhere nice.

I was pretty much used to the work and had learned to pace myself. Mr. Alfaro did a ten day rotation, so I’d already met a lot of his customers, although quite a few were out when we were there. Maybe they went to work in air-conditioned offices, sat on padded chairs behind desks and never broke a sweat. The women had maids and nannies and cleaners and kids at summer camp, so I wondered what they did all day. Although a lot of them seemed to make shopping into a hobby. I’d never understood that. I mean, you can only wear one pair of sneakers at a time, right?

Most of his customers were polite but vague, their smiles sliding away as if it was too much effort to keep one fixed to their face, or to meet your eyes. But a couple were nice. One lady gave us fresh lemonade so sweet I nearly went into diabetic shock, and another had homemade cookies. On those occasions Mr. Alfaro would lean on his spade or his weed whacker and talk in formal English, his face grave and serious. I don’t think I’d ever seen the man smile. If it wasn’t for the fact I saw him chewing his food, I’d have doubted he had teeth.

At 4
PM
on Friday, I wanted to yell ‘quittin’ time!’. I stood by his truck, half tempted to stand at attention, but I didn’t think Mr. Alfaro would find that funny.

When he saw me, he nodded slowly, then reached into his wallet and counted out a bunch of notes. I watched every dollar bill land in the palm of my hand, eyes narrowed, counting hungrily. It was more than I’d expected and I realized he’d paid me for the half hour of my lunch break. I was surprised and I wondered if he’d made a mistake. But Mr. Alfaro didn’t make mistakes, and I wasn’t about to argue with him.

I muttered, “Gracias, señor,” and shoved the money in my pocket as I went to climb in next to the mower. Then I felt his hand on my arm, and he pointed with his chin at the cab of the truck.

I must have looked dumbstruck, because he pointed again at the passenger door, then paced around to the driver’s side.

A weird feeling settled in my chest, something like I’d won an award, something like pride. The only thing I’d ever been good at, I mean better than other people, was surfing. In every other single part in my life, I was average, ordinary, just one of the guys. But now, being allowed to ride up front after sweating my guts out all week … it felt damn fine.

He dropped me back home and I walked inside wearing his silent approval like armor. Julia’s shit wouldn’t touch me today.

She was sitting on the back porch drinking coffee when I walked into the kitchen.

“You survived the week then,” she said.

I peeled $100 from my small pile and laid the bills on the table. That was my reply.

I heard her calling after me as I walked upstairs, but she was easy to ignore.

I showered slowly, letting the hot water wash away the week. One more night before I could see Yansi, and then we’d have the whole day together.

Mr. Alfaro had made damn sure we didn’t get the chance to see each other during the week, although he couldn’t stop us talking on our cells or texting. Thinking about her, wanting her and not seeing her was torture. I woke up every morning hard enough to pound nails. Every morning and right now. I wanted to feel bad that I jerked off thinking about her. I knew I should, but I couldn’t.

I didn’t feel like hanging with the guys, but it was Friday and even though I was exhausted from a week of back breaking yard work, I’d arranged to meet up with Sean and Rob. Sean had gotten a car from his parents for his sixteenth birthday and they even paid for his gas, so tonight we were going to drive to Melbourne, eat junk, talk trash and see a movie.

I’d learned by now that I’d only survive going out after work if I took a quick nap like some old guy. I stretched out on top of the sheets wearing just a pair of boxers, because it was too danged hot and Julia said we couldn’t afford to run the A/C. I dozed, vaguely aware of voices in the house, before it occurred to me that I could hear Julia, and she was laughing.

And I felt a pang of grief, cold and solid in my stomach, like I’d swallowed a rock. I hadn’t heard her laugh in a long time. No one had.

I lay there listening, certain it wasn’t Ben who made her laugh. When she talked to him, she sounded pinched and irritated, like how she talked to me, but now her laugh was open and loose.

And then I heard Marcus’ laughter, floating up weightless.

I remember this
, I thought.
We used to laugh in this house
.

I’d known Sean almost my whole life. I wondered sometimes whether we’d be friends if we’d met in high school instead of third grade, because he could be kind of a dick. But when Mom got sick, he stuck around. A lot of people didn’t because it’s a major downer when someone’s dying. Nobody wants to be around you, like the silence will break apart if someone laughs or cracks a joke.

But Sean stayed. He drove me to the hospital after school every day, and sometimes he’d sit with Mom and tell her all the dumb shit that we did, and I’d see this look on her face like life was normal again, even though she had these tubes all over her. I couldn’t make her look like that because life wasn’t normal and never would be again and I tried, I really tried, but the words choked me and filled my mouth with cotton. So I’d smile like I was the one who was sick.

Sean never expected anything from me during those days, and he even laid off Yansi. I couldn’t figure out why those two didn’t get along. They tolerated each other, that was all. But with Mom dying, they must have agreed to a truce. I don’t know, they never told me. I asked Yansi why she didn’t like Sean and she said, “he’s a dick,” which I knew. And I asked Sean why he enjoyed making her mad and he said, “she’s a chick.”

But even though he acted like a douche sometimes, I knew Sean was solid.

It pissed me off that he resented the time I spent with Yansi, and it was true I didn’t hang with the guys as much, especially at school. But even though he was all about ‘bros before ho’s’, he was the first person to ditch a party if he hooked up with someone. He had a casual thing going with Lacey Russo who was a year ahead of us in school. I think he knew her through his brothers. They hung out at parties, or disappeared into locked rooms at parties. Whatever, good for him. I was glad one of us was getting some action. I could have cheated on Yansi. It would have been easy, because she was almost never allowed out in the evenings, and not to parties, not with me. And it wasn’t like I hadn’t had offers, because I had. I wasn’t squeaky-clean either because sometimes I wanted to, just to know what it was like. But I knew Yansi would dump my ass real fast if I so much as kissed another girl. Not that anyone else really did it for me anyway.

Mom gave me ‘the talk’ when I was 12. It’s in the top two of most embarrassing moments ever. The other is changing into my boardshorts on the beach when I was 13, and managing to leave my dick waving in the wind. Sean nearly choked to death he was laughing so hard.

But ‘the talk’ was a whole other level of excruciating. Mom brought out a pack of condoms and rolled one over a banana to show me how it was done. I couldn’t even think about having a piece of fruit for months, and I haven’t been able to eat bananas ever since. There are some things that scar a guy for life.

After that, she talked about feelings and how shitty it was (without using that word) when somebody you cared about treated you badly. I always wondered if she was talking about my dad, but I didn’t have the balls to ask. She looked so sad, I felt all sort of hot and queasy inside, like I wanted to punch the fucker who put that look on her face.

So I can’t cheat. And that’s Mom’s fault.

Before Yansi, I’d made out with a lot of girls, even getting to third base once, when Wendy de Luca sucked my cock at a party. I lasted about ten seconds, which felt like a world record at the time.

But I didn’t cheat.

It was kinda fun hanging with Sean and Rob on Friday night, even though the movie was lame. Sean started hitting on a group of girls who were sitting behind us. He was the annoying guy that everyone kept frowning at and shushing, and the funny thing was, even though he spent the whole movie trying to persuade the girls to come to the beach with us after, as soon as the movie was over and the lights came on, he decided they were dogs and we had to head out fast. See what I mean? Asshole.

Instead, we drove back to Cocoa Beach and when Rob said he’d gotten hold of some weed, Sean cheered up and we headed down to the pier.

I was surprised to see Marcus pulling up at the same time as us. I thought he’d be working. I hadn’t seen him since the night I met Gina or Dina or whatever her name was, but tonight he had a dark haired girl with him that I’d never seen before.

He looked up and nodded when he saw me.

“Hey, Nick. How you doing?”

“Hey! This is Sean and Rob. Marcus is our roomie.”

We joined the small group of people hanging out. I knew most of them vaguely because they’d gone to our school and graduated a couple of years back, and some because they were surfers.

Jonno, a guy who’d been our high school quarterback last year was drinking from a quart of whiskey.

“You new in town?” he asked Marcus.

“Yeah, moved in a couple of weeks ago.”

“You surf?”

“Every chance I get.”

Jonno saluted him by raising his bottle.

“A day without waves is a day wasted.”

Marcus laughed.

“I’ll drink to that.”

Rob started rolling a blunt and I made myself comfortable on the sand, listening to the waves, half an ear on the conversation. I never got tired of talking about surfing; where was the best break, the most awesome wave you’d ever ridden, the worst wipeout. It was our own language and it separated us from civilians—people who didn’t surf.

“You got a favorite break?”

When Marcus answered, I could tell by his voice that he was smiling.

“A few. Bali is the place, man. Great waves, cheap food.”

“Cheap women,” said an older guy named Frank, and everyone laughed, even the girl Marcus was with. “Padang. Now
that
was special.”

Marcus nodded in agreement. “Nusa Dua had a gnarly left and right just before the rip.”

I could tell Sean was drinking it in, his eyes intense and glassy at the same time. We’d talked about taking a year off when we graduated, leaving town, surfing our way around the world. I didn’t know if I’d be able to afford it now. I hadn’t told him that. I suppose part of me was still hoping I’d find a way, but part of me couldn’t imagine leaving Yansi for that long. I hadn’t told him that either. But with Mom dying, I couldn’t imagine staying. That was the bit I hadn’t told anyone.

“Oh man! I’m totally going there!” Sean said, the weed making his words slow like he was sucking on licorice. “There hasn’t been any decent surf here for two, three weeks now. It’s driving me crazy.”

“Yeah,” said Rob. “And even before that it was typical summer mush … just shitty surf.”

There was a general mumble of agreement.

“I don’t know why you bother coming back here,” griped Sean.

Marcus just smiled.

“Working the summer season is the quickest way to get some cash: tourist tips are usually pretty good.”

“Yeah, but you could be in Maui or Bali.”

I could tell that Sean was turning into some sort of Marcus fanboy now. This could get embarrassing quick.

“What’s the biggest wave you’ve ever ridden?”

Everyone pitched in their answer. I’d ridden a 12 footer once, and it had scared the crap out of me—not that I was admitting that to
anyone
. But, man, the adrenalin rush was with me for days.

“Mavericks, northern California,” said Frank. “The waves were topping 20 feet and the swell just kept getting bigger. By the time the waves were 35 feet there was only one surfer left: Jeff Clark. Everyone else had called time-out.”

“Freakin’ A!” muttered Sean, in an awed voice. “What about you, Marcus?”

I sucked on the blunt that Rob passed to me and imagined traveling the world, ripping across monster waves. My dreams drifted out with the sweet smoke. Anywhere but here … maybe.

“Nazaré in Portugal was pretty wild,” said Marcus, leaning back on his elbows. “It was topping 30, 35 feet when I was there.”

Everyone went quiet. When someone told you that they’d ridden a thirty foot wave, you paid some fucking respect.

“What was it like?” breathed Sean. “Surfing a wave that big?”

Marcus paused.

“It was … intense. I was sitting in the line-up with two other guys and I could see all these people on the beach. I wondered what they were looking at and then I realized it was me—like they were waiting for a train wreck or something. And then the horizon went black and I knew this was my wave. You start paddling for the peak and it’s getting higher and higher and you’re paddling up hill and this wall of water is rearing up behind you; then just as the nose starts to drop, you’re standing up and … imagine a two-story house chasing you down the wave; the wind’s roaring and you think you’re shouting but you can’t hear your own voice; and you know that if you wipeout they’ll be picking your carcass out of the seabed; and your thighs are starting to cramp because the water’s so cold and your balance is the only thing keeping you alive; and the spray is whipping past you like an express train; and all the time the wave is threatening to snap its jaws shut; so you’re pushing and pushing and part of your mind is ice cool and part of it’s burning; and then the wave starts curling over and wrapping around you and the light is green all around; and you don’t know if you’re gasping or holding your breath; and then you’re spat out the other side like you’ve just been born; there’s no past, no future—just the moment.”