Girl Out of Water Read online

“What did you tell your parents you were doing out this late?”

  Tess’s parents are notoriously strict. Most of our parents are thoroughbred hippies and beach bums and keep us on loose leashes, but Tess’s older sister was rebellious, to say the least, and it made her parents extra wary Tess would turn out the same way. “Volunteering at the women’s shelter downtown,” she says.

  “God, you’re shameless.” I laugh. “You know you’re going to Hell, right?”

  She grins and squeezes my hand. “I’ll take you with me. Besides, I am volunteering there. I just confused tonight with tomorrow morning.”

  The game continues for another half hour, secrets slipping out from friends I didn’t think had any secrets left to share. When it’s Tess’s turn again, she faces me. “Truth or dare?”

  “Dare,” I say.

  “Shocker.” Eric grins and nudges my shoulder. “Have you ever picked truth?”

  I shake my head. I’m a strong believer in actions over words.

  But as I look at Tess’s face, I know I’ve made a big mistake. She tricked me. My pulse quickens as I realize there’s a 95 percent chance she’s about to dare me to kiss Eric.

  Instead she says, “Go catch a wave.”

  “What kind of dare is that?”

  “Naked.”

  I stare at her. Then I stare at her some more. Then I stare around the circle to make sure everyone else is staring at her too. Growing up on the beach, we’ve all skinny-dipped more than our fair share of times, but there’s a big difference between stripping down and jumping in the water and stripping down and getting on your surfboard. It’s dangerous. My wet suit saves me from a lot of potentially nasty cuts and burns. Whenever I go out in just a bikini, I always come back littered with scratches.

  “Come on,” Tess says. “Memories and all that.”

  “I don’t know…” I say slowly, but I’m already giving into the idea.

  Because I’m not one to turn down a dare.

  Because why the fuck not?

  Because I need something to remember this summer by.

  “Actually,” Tess continues. “I’m going to modify that dare. I dare you all to surf naked.”

  Laughter erupts around the campfire, people shouting, “nice try” and “not happening.”

  Marie cuts in among the fray. “Umm, the rules of truth and dare do not work that way. You can only dare one person at a time. The only way more than one person can be involved is if you are daring the intended party to do something with a different party.”

  “How legalese of you,” Cassie teases and leans over to give Marie a quick kiss.

  “Which is exactly what I’m doing,” Tess continues. “Daring Anise to do something, i.e., surf naked with all of you.”

  “I’m down,” Eric says.

  I whip my head in his direction. “What?”

  He shrugs. “Sounds like fun.” And then he stands and strips off his hoodie. The firelight ghosts off the shadows of his defined abs. I’m supposed to fly two thousand miles away from those?

  Tess smiles and claps slowly. “And here we have discovered one brave soul. Shall others join him, or shall I subject them to horribly embarrassing truths?”

  I bite my lip. I look at Eric’s abs. “Okay, I’ll do it.”

  I stand up and Eric smiles at me, wrapping an arm around my shoulder and pulling me into his bare chest, his body giving off more heat than the warmth of the fire. I ignore the flush rising to my face and turn to everyone else. “Marie? Cassie?”

  They look at each other without speaking, the way couples who have been together for half of forever can do. After a few moments of silent communication, they both nod and stand, faces bright in the curling firelight.

  “We’re in,” Marie says.

  “So in,” Cassie agrees.

  “Excellent,” Tess says. “Anyone else?”

  There’s a long pause as I glance around at my circle of friends. This is an all or nothing situation. Either they join us, or the dare will fizzle to smoke.

  Finally, Spinner stands, shaking out his long hair from its constraint. “Let’s do this.”

  Everyone else echoes his words and climbs to their feet.

  “Now if you don’t mind,” Tess continues, “I’ll just get my camera out and—”

  “No!” The objection comes from all of us at once, followed by laughter. The last thing I need is to wake up tomorrow to photos of my bare ass.

  “Fine, fine.” Tess waves her hand. “It was worth a shot.”

  • • •

  The water isn’t freezing, but it’s cold enough to make me crave the wet suit lying by my feet. I try to let my skin and mind adjust, working up the nerve to strip off my bikini too. About twenty feet away on either side of me stand Eric and Cassie, with the rest of my friends spaced twenty feet from them, dappling the coast with our nude silhouettes. The moon lights everything in odd angles, so I can’t see much more than their outlines. Still, my eyes hover over Eric, tracing the contours of his strong thighs and shoulders.

  “Ready?” he shouts. The whipping wind distorts his voice.

  I take two short breaths and one deep one, then shimmy out of my bathing suit. The air prickles my bare skin, and I rub my hands up and down my arms and jog in place for warmth. “Ready!” I shout and turn to ask Cassie the same.

  She shouts back, “Hell yes! Go, go, go!”

  Usually when we surf, only one of us goes out at a time, leaving plenty of space for each person to catch a perfect wave. But tonight, we all rush into the water at the same time, spray kicking up around our ankles. The most familiar action in the world feels alien, salt water rushing over each and every pore, wind catching my hair, flying it over my bare skin. And yet, my body still knows what to do.

  As soon as I’m waist-deep, I climb on my board and paddle out to the crest of waves. My arms slice through the water with heavy strokes, warming my body with the exertion. Every element feels magnified. The biting sting of the salt. The sharp musk of the air. The tranquil thunder of the waves. My body hums as I paddle out into the moonlit water, and abruptly I let out a wordless shout, a euphoric call to the world and the waves. That call reverberates around me, over the crash of the water, my friends are doing the same, hollering to the moon and thanking it for its tides.

  Up on the glowing horizon, I spot a wave pulsing toward me. It’s smaller than my usual fare, but maybe that’s good considering my state of dress, or lack thereof. I paddle fast strokes with one arm, turning my board back to the coast, spotting a glimpse of Tess on the shore. She’s dancing and skipping and jumping around, and I think perhaps she too is hollering to the moon.

  As the wave launches itself behind me, I jump to my feet with a perfect takeoff. I shout once more as the current surges beneath me, hurtling me down the coast, invigorating me with adrenaline akin to when I was seven and caught my first wave. For a second, I’m transported back in time, born once more into the water, everything fresh and new, yet also filled with an overwhelming sense of home.

  The ride ends all too soon, and I find myself back in the shallow water. Tess is closer now, still dancing, twirling as if on an invisible string, rippling in the shadows cast by the fire. To my right, Eric dips along on his board, staring in my direction. I can’t see the details of his face, but I know him, and he loves what I love, so I know he’s smiling because I’m smiling. There’s nothing to feel but happiness in this moment.

  • • •

  Truth or dare fizzles out after that. It’s better to appreciate certain experiences than try to top them. Instead, we all sit around the fire, cracking open a few beers stolen from parents’ pantries or bought with shitty fake IDs, huddling in oversized terry cloth towels and fleece blankets, eyes and ears on the crackle and pop of the fire.

  We talk about the same things we always talk about. The w
aves from earlier today. What college will be like. The different pro tours all over the world. I sit and listen, finding it hard to speak because somehow I already feel the distance growing between us. Each minute stretches into another mile of separation. As they all talk about a plan for tomorrow, my stomach clenches because I won’t be there. And then, as they graze the topic of Surf Break, I retreat even further. How much will I miss while I’m gone? What if so much changes I don’t even recognize home?

  Eric, perhaps noticing my silence, leans into my shoulder. “Want to take a walk?”

  I hesitate, the word yes stilling on my lips, because I think I know what this walk will bring, and as much as I want it, want him, I’m scared. Pulling off a Band-Aid can’t sting if you don’t get cut in the first place. So as much as I want him, is it worth it only to be ripped apart the next day?

  But then Eric nudges me again, the warmth of his lips near my neck, and I find myself nodding and saying, “Sure.”

  We stand from our spot around the fire and retreat with a mumbled, “Be back.”

  I love my friends because they don’t chorus with oohs and ahhs. They just say, “chill” and continue with their conversations. Well, except for Tess, who winks at me from across the fire and howls softly like a coyote in the distance.

  Eric and I make our way down the beach, walking along the shoreline, bare feet padding through wet sand, water lapping behind us, erasing our freshly-made footprints. Eventually, when the light of the fire is just a small glow behind us, we stop walking, and Eric turns to me. It’s too dark to see his eyes clearly, but I know their exact color: blue with a hazel ring around the center. He runs his hand through his curly hair.

  “I—” he starts to say.

  But I don’t want to hear what he has to say, because that will make this real. He’ll acknowledge that I’m leaving, that tomorrow I’ll be in Nebraska instead of running out to meet the tide, that the summer will be ending by the time I’m back, that everything that could have been will never be.

  I don’t want to hear it. Any of it. So instead of waiting for him to piece together his thoughts, I tug his hand, step forward, and kiss him.

  It’s so simple.

  Our heights the same. Our lips level. We fit together with an ease that seems impossible.

  His lips part slightly, and I shiver into their warmth, stepping closer to him so our sand-freckled bodies press together, arms wrapping, hands exploring. My toes curl into the damp ground as his lips graze over my cheek, my neck, my collarbone. As his tattered breathing skirts across my bare skin, I feel the moon above us—watching, glowing.

  And as we stand there under its careful eye, I wonder: If the moon has the power to turn tides, does it also have the power to still time?

  • • •

  Dad wakes me up the next morning—after approximately two hours of sleep—and tells me we’re already late for the airport, and no, I can’t go back to sleep, and no, I don’t have time to shower, and no, the airplane can’t pick me up from home. I’m so exhausted I actually crawl out of bed without further complaint and follow him to the car. It’s not until I’m at the airport, through security, and walking onto the plane with a duffel bag slung over my shoulder, a boarding pass in one hand and a to-go cup of green tea in the other, that it actually registers. I’m leaving Santa Cruz for more than two months, and nothing short of a natural disaster, which of course would be terrible, will get me off this plane.

  Dad gives me the window and then promptly puts in headphones and falls asleep. I settle into my seat and lean my head against the cool, vibrating wall. My stomach churns with anticipation…and maybe the one and a half beers I drank sometime around three in the morning. A few hours ago, I was on the beach with my friends—surfing, talking, kissing Eric, and now I’m here, on a plane, taking me away from all of it.

  I slip my phone out of my pocket and glance at the display, which is filled with messages, wishing me good-bye. The one from Tess reads:

  If you’re not back in two months, I’m sending a rescue squad.

  There’s a message from Eric too. Just the sight of his name heats my cheeks. But then an overhead announcement comes on, asking everyone to turn off their phones, and since I’ve never been on a plane before, I’m not sure if that’s a rule no one pays attention to or a real rule, so I shut mine off and slip it into my ragged tote, still damp and sticky with sand from last night, and then curl further into my seat.

  The plane crawls down the runway, then races down the runway, then tears down the runway, and as we shoot up into the sky like blasting off from an epic wave, the ground turning into air and Santa Cruz shrinking away beneath us, I think of the note I scribbled last night around four in the morning, head buzzed and lips swollen, the note I taped to my mom’s favorite mirror in the guest bathroom: Aunt Jackie was in a car accident and broke both her legs. We’ll be at her house all summer if you want to find us there.

  Three

  “Why is it hot?” I groan. “And humid?”

  Six hours, one flight change, two snack-size bags of peanuts, and two cans of Coke later, I’m standing with Dad outside the Omaha airport, bags around our feet, sweat dripping down our necks, and no taxis in sight.

  “This isn’t fair,” I say. “No ocean should equal no humidity. Isn’t that like a meteorological rule or something?”

  “Anise, enough,” Dad says. “Now grab a bag and help me find the taxi stand.”

  I’m not used to this problem, the problem of finding things. For the last seventeen years, I’ve lived in the exact same place, which means I never had to find a grocery store or find a pharmacy or find a goddamn taxi stand. But this place isn’t home. This place is dirty concrete instead of sand; this place is pigeons picking at overfilled garbage cans instead of seagulls scavenging under the boardwalk.

  “Fine.” I swing my giant duffel bag over my shoulder and grab the rolling carry-on with the half-broken wheel. “You know, we should invest in some real luggage.”

  “Remember a couple summers ago when I asked if you wanted to go to DC and you basically had a heart attack at the suggestion that you’d want to do anything but surf all summer?” Dad asks.

  “Umm…”

  “We haven’t taken a trip since you were eleven, so we’ve never needed better luggage.”

  “Right,” I say. “Well, maybe we should buy some. It might make these impromptu trips to Nebraska a bit easier.”

  Dad halts in front of me. I stop short but still half-crash into his back. He turns and gives me the look. You know, the one all parents have, the one that says I brought you into this world, and I can take you right back out.

  “Anise, honey, I know this isn’t fun for you, so you can complain to me as much as you want—”

  “Really?” I interrupt.

  The look intensifies. “But if you make so much as one ungrateful, selfish, immature comment around your aunt and cousins, I swear you’ll never see the pit of a barrel wave again. Understood?”

  The duffel bag strap digs into my shoulder. I readjust it and keep my eyes on the ground. Dad and I are close, so when he’s upset with me, it slices deep. Plus, he’s right. I shouldn’t be complaining. I should be happy to help my family. I am happy to help my family. I’m just not so happy to be helping my family in Nebraska.

  “Understood,” I say.

  “Good. Now come on. I think I see some taxis over there.”

  • • •

  I’d always imagined Nebraska to be some giant, flat dust bowl, a place my mom would want to run away from at seventeen, but as we speed down the interstate toward Aunt Jackie’s house in the Omaha suburbs, grass stretches in every direction. It’s slightly yellowed from the heat of summer, but it’s grass all the same. The tall stalks wave in the wind, like Nebraska’s pathetic attempt at an ocean.

  “You’ve been here before,” Dad says.

>   “What?” I look at him. He’s staring out his own window. “I’ve never left California.”

  “You were barely a year old,” he says, turning to face me. “It was the first time your mom left, and I panicked. Booked a flight. We stayed with Jacks while I tried to track down your mom. Your aunt was only twenty then, in college, living alone in the house since both your grandparents had passed away. The look on her face when I showed up with you—it was like…” He trails off.

  “Like what?” I ask.

  “Like she’d been expecting me. Your mom lived with me for two years straight. I wasn’t familiar with her…her habit.”

  “I didn’t know,” I say. I have a dozen memories of my mom’s famous disappearing acts, but of course I wouldn’t remember one from that long ago. I glance at Dad, wondering yet again how he raised a kid with an absentee wife. No, not an absentee wife. Worse than that. A wrecking force, flying in and out without notice, not caring what destruction she leaves in her wake.

  When I was younger, I remember Gabriella, one of Dad’s only serious girlfriends, left him because she found out he was still technically married. My mom never had the courtesy to sign divorce papers. I wonder if he was ever tempted to quit parenting too and what my life would have been like if I’d had two parents who didn’t want me instead of just one. I run my fingers over the rough texture of the seat belt as the taxi pulls into a neighborhood. We must be close. “Did I like it?” I finally ask.

  “What?” His forehead wrinkles.

  “Did I like Nebraska? The first time?”

  Dad pauses and then gives a short laugh and shakes his head. “You cried for three days straight.”

  • • •

  The house is two stories of chalk-white bricks and blue shutters. A bicycle sits haphazardly in the small yard, its front wheel sticking up to the sky. Shrubs dot the borders along the neighbors’ properties. I think of our beautiful, dilapidated beach home and try to keep my expression bright. I think of my mom living here as a kid. I try not to think of my mom living here as a kid.

  Dad pays the taxi driver, and we grab our bags and head up the concrete driveway. As we approach, the front door slams wide open, and two compact figures rush out. “Uncle Cole! Anise!”