I clenched at an oncoming lorry and held my breath to make myself and the car thinner. Suzanne’s SUV will be faster than my Honda Fit, Bel said. Suzanne’s SUV will be safer, Bel said. I couldn’t decide who was stupider; her for suggesting it or me for believing.
‘Is there any chance we could slow down a bit?’
She answered by pressing her foot against the accelerator. ‘The good beaches get busy early,’ she replied. ‘If we don’t make it by nine, we won’t find a space in the parking lot and we’ll have to walk.’
‘I don’t mind,’ I said. ‘Better to get there late and walk, than drive off the edge of a cliff and never walk again.’
‘No one in LA walks,’ Bel laughed. ‘If I’d known you were weird about heights I would have taken the five to the ten to the PCH but it’s so much quicker to do the 101 at this time. I guess we could take the one back, it depends what time we leave.’
‘You realize you’re talking a completely foreign language?’ I said as a neon-pink Range Rover hurtled towards us, swerving into its own lane only at the very last minute.
She laughed and turned up the car stereo, drowning out the honking horns of the other cars. ‘You’ll get used to it. There’s no weather to talk about so we’re obsessed with traffic instead. You gotta know your freeways if you’re going to make it in LA.’
‘And that’s why there’s no catchy song about Los Angeles to sing at karaoke,’ I quipped. ‘“If you can make it to your destination in one piece, you’ll make it anywhere” doesn’t have the same ring to it.’
‘We’ll make it,’ Bel trilled. ‘And just so you know, we do have a song, it’s called “I Love LA” and it’s so good but there’s like, a conspiracy against it? It was written by the guy who wrote the song forToy Story?’
Winding down the window, she stuck her arm outside, surfing the air as we tore through the hills.
‘Next stop, Malibu!’
‘Next stop, a bottle of Malibu,’ I whispered, slumping down in my seat and praying we would arrive at our destination very, very soon.
‘Oh my God,’ I breathed as I kicked off my flip-flops and buried my toes in the sand. ‘Did we die? Are we in heaven?’
‘Welcome to El Matador,’ Bel draped one arm around my shoulder and leaned her head against mine. ‘My favourite beach in the whole world.’
I’d never been much of a beach person. Beaches meant sunburn and sand in unpleasant places, too many people and not enough snacks. I liked my water clean, contained and within fifty feet of a usable toilet. But this was different. After filling half the tiny car park with Suzanne’s monster truck, we struggled down a death trap of a wooden staircase but the moment I set eyes on the beach, I understood it would be worth the inevitable arse workout on the way back up. There was nothing but gold sand, blue ocean and Bel’s beaming face, and it was so quiet, all I could hear was the reassuring roll of the water. White-crested waves roaring in and sighing on their way back out. Perfection.
‘You like?’ Bel spread her arms wide as if to give me the whole beach as a gift.
‘I love,’ I replied. ‘It’s amazing.’
‘It only gets better.’ She flashed a grin and cocked her head over her shoulder. ‘Come on, follow me.’
‘OK, but unless you’re taking me to the Tenth Annual Hollywood Chris Convention, I don’t know how you’re going to beat this,’ I said, chasing after her regardless.
We walked on packed sand towards a huge rock formation that cut the beach in half, an archway worn away by centuries of persistent waves. A true testament to the power of nagging. I lowered my head and stepped into the cool, creamy silence underneath the arch,breathing in the briny scent of the water, listening to the waves as they echoed off the rocks. It was like sitting inside a magical seashell, just the shimmer of the sand and the push-pull of the sea. I’d never felt so at peace. It was official, Ariel was an idiot. Imagine wanting to give all this up for a man?
‘This might be a silly question, but why aren’t there a million people here?’ I asked in hushed, reverential tones.
‘It gets busier, we won’t be alone for long,’ Bel replied, running her fingertips over the wet, glistening rocks. ‘But you saw the parking lot, it’s tiny. Most folks see that it’s full and keep on driving to another beach. Plus there’s nothing to do here, a lot of people prefer Zuma or Will Rogers – they’re bigger, they have snack bars, volleyball, stuff like that.’
‘Ooh, let’s never go there,’ I said with great enthusiasm. ‘If I lived in LA, I would come here every day.’
‘You say that, but you wouldn’t.’
She stepped out from under the arch, back into the mellow sunshine, and with some reluctance, I followed. More beach, more peace, more quiet, me, Bel and a couple of healthy looking seagulls I hoped wouldn’t come any closer.
‘Everyone thinks they’ll go to the beach all the time when they move to California,’ she said as she shook out her towel. ‘But I never do unless I have someone visiting. So thank you for reminding me all this beauty is right on my doorstep, give or take a forty-minute drive. Two hours in traffic.’
‘I don’t know why anyone would choose to sit in their house and stare at a screen when they could besitting here, looking at this,’ I said, laying out my towel next to hers as she laughed out loud.
‘Since when did people make choices that make sense?’
She wasn’t wrong.
I uncapped my sunscreen, ready to spray every available inch of flesh, and Bel peeled off her oversized T-shirt and bike shorts to reveal two of the smallest pieces of fabric to have ever been successfully sold as a swimsuit. A pair of teabags strung together on dental floss would have offered more coverage. Naturally, she looked incredible.
