“This is hardly freezing.” I pop a cherry tomato into my mouthfrom a bowl that sits on the counter. “I have a spring suit around here somewhere. I’ll find it.”
She blinks and looks at me, shakes her head. “Whatever you want.”
My relationship with my mom has always been like a dance I haven’t quite memorized. We move around each other, sometimes together, often stumbling away or stepping on each other’s toes. I used to look at people who were best friends with their mothers and wonder what that would be like—to feel so universally and wholly understood by another person. I know she loves me, but love is given, easy. I have never been certain she likes me—that she doesn’t judge every decision I make through a lens ofwhy.
“I’ll see you later,” I say, and slip out the back door. I see her watching me through the glass with curiosity and something else, too. Something that feels… heated. I turn my back on her before I can place it, and take the stairs down.
CHAPTER TEN
The beach is hot, and, yes, the water is cold. The Pacific Ocean should be warm—it’s the water of sunny California—but the circulation patterns mean the sea filters from Alaska, and it’s always a little bit biting.
I dip my toe in and am pierced by that immediate, icy thrill. In California, we surf all year long. I remember forty-degree days when we’d be out on the water. You just grin and bear it. It only hurts on the way in, not the way out, and eventually, you just get used to it.
Wading in is torturous, even in the summer, and as soon as the tide exhales I push past the break and dive under the waves. It feels delicious—like swimming in the deep, deep sea even though I’m nearly at the water’s edge.
I come to the surface and shake out my hair and see my dad taking the steps, following my trail. I watch him lumber down, pausing once to rub his knee. He sits on the bottom step and sips from a blue ceramic water bottle. He has a T-shirt on I recognize—three pineapples, all in sunglasses. When he sees me seeing him, he waves. I wave back.
“You coming in?” I call.
He shakes his head. “Just watching ya!”
I do a few laps, back and forth, letting my body glide through the water, feeling the thump and hum of my blood as my heart rate accelerates. There’s a sweet spot once you’re in where your body adjusts to the temperature and it feels like gliding through velvet. Stay in too long, and you start to pickle.
When you’re surfing, it’s all action. You’re running a marathon out on the water. Even without a wet suit, I never think about the temperature when I’m in motion. But just my own body in the waves is a different thing. The clock runs out fast.
I get out of the water and wring my hair into the sand. Dad waves again, and I walk up and take a seat next to him, wrapping myself in the towel he hands me.
“Sorry,” I say, as water drips all over his blue T-shirt and board shorts. He responds by slinging his arm around me and pulling me into a wet shoulder hug.
“I’ll live.”
We watch the beach. The waves are usually choppy midday—shitty surf condition—but today the ocean is almost pancaked.
“It’s nice to have you back,” Dad says, releasing me.
“It’s nice to be back.”
“Silver lining to your husband being away—your old man gets a revival.”
When I first introduced my parents to Leo it was at Taverna Tony—Malibu’s resident Greek restaurant in the Cross Creek shopping center. My parents almost never eat out. For one, all therestaurants in Malibu are overpriced, and for the other, my dad says the best spot in town is the one they’ve got.The food is spectacular, and you can’t beat the view.
Marcella can arrange a salad, and Dave knows his way around the barbecue, but they get their restaurant-quality meals because of Sylvia. I don’t blame them for wanting to stay put.
But my parents knew Leo was special and insisted their first meeting should be somewhere special, too.
Taverna Tony is a huge restaurant complete with a bougainvillea-twined terrace and belly dancers after dark.
“It’s an experience,” my dad likes to say. He loves it there. The waiters all know him by name, and he gets the dip for free—which in and of itself, for him, is a reason to go.
That first night, Leo and I were early, and we were shown to a table on the patio. It was a cool summer night—Malibu never gets that hot in the evening, not even in the dead of July. I had on a silver slip dress and a denim jacket. Leo was wearing khakis and a short-sleeved button-down. I remember thinking he looked handsome—better than I’d ever seen him—and then chiding myself that I liked when he was dressed out of the norm for him. When he was buttoned up, playing at someone else—a collar, a pant with structure.
“They’re going to love you,” I told him. I gave his hand a firm squeeze.
“I hope so.”
“Why wouldn’t they? Everyone loves you.”
Leo shrugged. “Most people like me. But your parents are serious.”
