The Shore (35 page)

Jodi said cynically, “Because it matches your eyes.”

“You’re going to need at least one skin before the summer is over,” said Linley.

“Okay.” Claire was examining wet suits. They looked so—tiny. Snug. Impossible. Yet she knew that she could fit into one because she’d been wearing Jodi’s and Linley’s.

“I like this one,” Claire held up a shorty, a 2.1-mil, one-piece wet suit with short sleeves and legs that stopped at the knees. It had a short zipper with a long zipper pull-cord on the back.

“That company makes designs especially for women. They look great,” Jodi said. “But I like men’s gear when I can wear it. I think they’re made stronger.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me—they probably are,” Claire agreed. “But I’m trying this on, anyway.”

Dozens of suits and skins later, Claire piled a dark ocean-green shorty, two skins in what Linley disdainfully called conservative colors, and a pair of sunglasses on the counter, and prepared for credit card meltdown.

“Sex wax,” said Linley and plopped a final item on the pile.

“What?” Claire felt her face go red.

Big-eyed innocence, Linley said, “For Finn. I’m sure he needs it.”

“Needs it? Needs”—involuntarily, Claire’s voice dropped—“sex wax?” Good grief, the things your mother never told you—not that her mother had ever told her anything.

“You can never put too many coats on your ride,” the girl at the checkout assured Claire solemnly. Her name tag said “Carrie.”

Claire looked wildly from Linley to Jodi to the clerk. Did they all know that she and Finn had been up in the dunes together?

Then Jodi started laughing madly. “Your board. Your surfboard. It protects it and you.”

“Surfboard wax,” said Claire.

“Will that be all?” asked the Carrie-the-clerk, beginning to ring up the purchases.

“Yes,” said Claire.

“And you want the sex wax?” She indicated the little container on top.

“Yes,” said Claire.

Linley leaned over and patted Claire’s arm and whispered loudly, “Finn will be so pleased.”

“Yes,” said Claire, and gave Linley and Jodi a big smile.

They cleared the parking lot and Jodi slammed on some music. Shouting above it, she said, “Let’s give your gear a workout, Claire.”

“You mean, now?”

“Sure. Surf report!”

Linley flipped open her phone and punched in digits.

Claire said, “Surf? But—”

“Wait! We need boards! We need our stuff!” Jodi burst out laughing, and the car careened wildly as she banked off a driveway to turn around.

“That’s my baby,” said Jodi, patting the car’s dash. She cranked the music, and Linley laughed.

“Don’t you have to work tonight, both of you?” asked Claire.

“All night,” said Jodi cheerfully, but I don’t start until eight.”

“I’m just eight-to-two tonight,” said Linley.

“Remember sleep? Naps?” Claire tried again.

“Naps—babies; sleep—when I’m dead,” Jodi declared, and accelerated as if to emphasize her point.

They were in and out of the beach house in record speed. Claire yearned to go knock on Finn’s door and see if he was there, even though she was pretty sure he wasn’t. But how uncool was that? She compromised by calling as loudly as she could, “Hey, Linley, what beach did you say we were going to surf at this afternoon?”

If Finn was there and that didn’t wake him or buy him a clue, then Claire could do nothing more.

She put on her bathing suit and paused to admire herself in her new short suit. Did it look too new? Did she look too newbie?

Well, she’d practice. Surprise Finn.

A short time later, she surprised herself by hooking an actual
ride. Okay, it was on a baby wave, what Linley called a beachbreak, and her exit from the board was just this side of a face plant, but she couldn’t complain.

After that, she gently floated for a while, savoring her victory. Through half-closed eyes she stared at the shining, irregular crescent of beach, felt the warm sun through her new wet suit. Time seemed to slow down.

But this was not the slow march of time while she watched a clock in a bank. This was time spread out around her like the ocean. Her friends drifted and surfed and laughed and talked. She had friends.

Farther along this same beach, Finn was probably teaching someone to surf while Barrel waited patiently in a nearby patch of shade. She had a boyfriend.

High overhead, a bird wheeled and Claire felt as free as that bird.

I could live like this, Claire thought. I could die right now and I’d die happy.

And ten yards away, a triangular fin broke the water.

Thirteen

Claire jerked her feet up instinctively and almost tipped her board. She grabbed hold and somehow righted herself and croaked, “Shark.”

The fin slid down leaving no mark in the water. Fin, and then no fin. Shark, and then no shark.

Her voice had come out the whisper of a whisper, lost in the sound of water and wind.

Claire tried again. “Linley. Jodi.”

Louder. Good. Much louder. But not a scream of panic.

Not yet.

Linley glanced over and straightened. “Claire. Are you okay?”

Raising a shaking hand, Claire pointed. “P-porpoise?” she said hopefully, although she knew better. As if Claire had conjured it, the fin appeared again. It was farther away this time, but not nearly far enough. Was that just the tip of it? Was that an enormous shadow she saw below it, the hulk of the beast itself?

In a deadly quiet voice, Linley said, “Paddle slowly toward shore. Don’t splash or thrash, do you hear me?”

Claire nodded.

“And whatever you do, don’t fall off your board.”

As if I needed anyone to tell me that, Claire thought.

They began to move. Time slowed even more. No, time stood still.

From some far distant place, Claire heard Linley’s calm, conversational voice. “Dusk and dawn is when they usually come out the most. That’s why it’s good never to surf alone, especially early morning or at sunset.”

“Yeah, and it’s probably not a white, or anything like that.” Jodi’s voice was quick and breathless with excitement. “Those are the ones that use surfboards for toothpicks.”

“Better the board than me,” Claire heard herself say. Her voice sounded far away. Would they never reach the shore? She was afraid to look back, afraid of tipping, afraid of what she’d see. She dug into the water with her hands, but not too deeply. Every minute she expected to feel the thump of shark against board, for her to be turned over into a shark soup. Would it hurt? Would she scream?

“. . . spearfishing,” Linley was saying. “You want to avoid that, believe me. That’s why you want to paddle without thrashing. Thrashing is shark language for injured fish. Or, in a single word, dinner.”

As if it were a fishing line reeling her toward shore, Linley’s calm voice pulled Claire along.

“Don’t look back,” Jodi advised in a staccato whisper, as if the shark might attack at the sound of her voice. “Just wastes time.”

No time to waste, that was for sure. Claire paddled in long, slow, shallow strokes.

Something brushed her hand, and she jerked it up with a strangled cry. The board rocked.

“Claire!” Lindsey’s voice, taut, low.

Looking down, Claire saw not a bloody stump but a strand of seaweed. “Seaweed,” she croaked. “Sorry.”

“Just keep paddling, nice and easy,” Linley said. “We’ll be there soon, no worries. I remember one time, I was out on this break . . .”

Her voice rippled along, and Claire concentrated not on the words but on the calm tone of them, concentrated, too, on paddling through the bright sun that suddenly reminded Claire of the heat lamps above the food at the restaurant. She was the food, the ocean was the plate, and . . .

And then they’d reached the froth of water’s edge, and Linley and Jodi had flicked off their quick releases and stood up to grab their boards. With single-minded efficiency, Linley reached over and flicked Claire free and somehow Claire didn’t run out of the water, but walked as calmly as if she’d done this every day of her life, walked out of the ocean and away from a shark.

Then Claire saw that some of the other surfers who had been nearby had come in, too, although she hadn’t even noticed
them paddling toward shore. No one had screamed, no one had shouted. Everyone had just removed board and body from the water, and now those boards and bodies stood in a rough line in the sand, facing the water. Farther down the beach, other surfers still floated and rode.

“What about them?” Claire said.

“Someone’ll pass the word,” Linley said. Now that they were out of the water, her voice had gotten thinner. She headed for their spot on the beach without looking back. When she reached it, Linley didn’t shinny out of her wet suit this time. She sat down and pulled a towel over her hair to rough it dry.

Jodi dove for the cooler, and Claire sank bonelessly onto the blanket next to Linley.

“It was a shark,” she said, just to be sure. Her voice didn’t sound like her own.

“Yep,” said Jodi, drinking off half the hard lemonade she’d pulled out. “After all, we’re swimming where they eat. It’s only natural.” Her words were casual, but her voice sounded funny, too.

“Attacks happen, but not that often,” Linley said. She dropped the towel and leaned back and turned her face to the sun. She was, Claire thought, a little pale.

“Didn’t it . . . weren’t you scared?” Claire asked. She could still feel her heart trying to escape from her chest. She pulled out a hard iced tea and practically drained it.

“Yes,” said Linley.

“You didn’t sound scared,” Claire said.

“We’ve been here before,” Jodi said. “Water, surfboard, shark.”

“If you hadn’t been so calm, I don’t know what I would have done,” Claire said. “You might have saved my life, maybe.”

“Nah,” said Linley, looking faintly embarrassed. “You stayed calm. You didn’t panic. Panic is what’ll get you killed.”

“Hey, it was totally panic-worthy,” Jodi said. “Big. Huge!”

“Big enough,” said Linley. “Don’t freak, Claire. I mean, you didn’t freak in the water. Don’t do it now.”

She could have been talking to herself as much as to Claire.

Claire nodded and realized somewhere in the back of her mind that Linley feared losing control maybe more than she feared a shark.

She herself was no longer scared. Just . . . shaken. “It’s so weird,” she said aloud. “I had just been thinking how cool it all was, how if I’d died right that moment, I’d die happy and—”

“The shark of tempted fate came swimming along,” said Linley almost harshly. “First rule of happiness: Don’t kiss it hello, because it’ll kiss you good-bye.”

Frowning, Claire stared at Linley, who went on, her face almost angry. “It’ll die right in front of your eyes and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Was she talking about Max? It seemed extreme, even for a broken heart.

“Better chance of getting struck by lightning than being shark chum,” said Jodi, who was apparently bobbing along in her head, pursuing her own thoughts. She’d toweled her hair
into the usual spiky points, and her eyes glowed with excitement. They seemed huge in her pointed face, and Claire thought she looked thinner, if possible. “Hey, better chance of buying it out on the freeway than dying on your surfboard. . . .”

“When you’re driving,” Claire said, before she thought.

Jodi straightened at that. “What?”

“You’re an insane driver,” said Claire. Her near-shark experience had unhinged her inhibitions, unleashed her tongue.

“I am not,” Jodi said indignantly. “I’ve never even had a single teeny-tiny accident. Not one. Never. Nada. Zero.”

“Well, that’s good, because for you, it’s only going to take one,” Claire retorted recklessly. “You and whoever you’re driving won’t live for the second one.” She finished her drink of whatever it was. And burped.

Linley stared. “Claire? You just burped.”

“Get used to it,” said Claire.

“I’m not a bad driver,” said Jodi, sticking to her subject. She began to rummage for another beer. “God, I am so thirsty.”

Leaning forward, Claire put her hand on Jodi’s shoulder. “Insane. The word I used was insane.”

Glaring at Claire, Jodi wrenched another bottle from the cooler and drank.

Claire refused to look away.

“Assertive, Claire, very assertive,” murmured Linley.

Suddenly Jodi started to laugh. “Buy the girl a wet suit and she’s all that,” she said.

“Hey, I swim with the sharks,” Claire shot back.

And then they were all laughing helplessly.

So she blamed it on the shark.

That was how she ended up a few nights later working the midnight-to-four a.m. shift at the no-name, marginally legal after-hours club where Jodi had her second job. She and Jodi had somehow bonded. Jodi seemed almost to seek Claire out, almost as if she didn’t want to be alone. And she’d gone from Monosyllable Me to Motormouth. She talked. She talked to Claire while Claire did laundry, made grocery lists, sat in the sun. She talked so much that Claire began to wonder what it was she wasn’t talking about. . . .

Jodi talked to other people in the house, too, but somehow, Claire had become the designated listener. It was during one of these conversational rambles, watching Claire make a list of things that she needed to get done that day, that Jodi came full halt, paused thoughtfully, and then pronounced, “Party.”

“Yeah?” said Claire without looking up. “Where and when?”

“Here.”

“Okay. When?”

“End of summer. Last night blowout.”

Claire crossed an item off the list with some regret. “Uh-huh.”

“And you should plan it.”

That got Claire’s attention. “What?”

“You should plan it.” Jodi motioned at the list. “You’re so organized.”

“What’s to plan? As far as I can tell, parties happen,” Claire said. Or spontaneously combusted, she added silently, at least in this house.

“No, a real party. You know—with, like, real food and ah, ah, someone in charge of drinks and stuff like that.”

“Real food.”

“Yeah. Like, not chips and dip, you know?”

Claire couldn’t help but grin. “I see. Fruit, maybe? Smoked salmon with dill cream cheese on little slices of rye?”