“If you do, you might drown.” He starts walking back to the Jeep.
I trot after him. “Where are you going?”
“To get my wetsuit.”
“You can’t do it for me. You won’t know which plant to pick.”
He stops. His shoulders slump as he lets out a great sigh. “Well then, I guess you’ll be borrowing Mel’s steamer. But we’ll do this together.”
Mel’s steamer turns out to be a winter wetsuit with long arms and legs. It’s not something you just throw on. A pink stripe runs down the middle of the black rubbery fabric. I thought we were the same size, save my longer legs, but rethink that as I sit in the passenger seat of the Jeep, struggling to pull my calf through. The suit is like a thing alive, resisting me every time I try to get a good grip. By the time I bring it to heel, my hair is damp with sweat.
I lay back against the headrest, panting. Court opens my door, though I’m not sure how he knew I was finished. Well, almost. My back zipper’s still undone.
He hands me a pair of black booties. “Water shoes.”
Those are easier to put on than the suit. Finally, I’m ready.
“Come out and I’ll zip you.” His black suit shows every chiseled cut and projection on his body.
As he fiddles with my zipper, goose bumps prick the skin of my back. I can’t help blushing. It’s just my back, but please let himnot be staring at the birthmark lower down that looks like a pair of lips. When he brushes the hair off my neck, I nearly faint at the whispery heat of his hand.
He zips me up as carefully as if he’s trying to draw the straightest line he can. In the time it takes to finish the job—a few seconds at most—I feel as if I’ve circled the earth in the Cloud Air jet and landed, disoriented and giddy.
Finally, he pulls his board out of the trunk. It’s white and roughed up around the edges with a No Fear sticker on the tip.
“This will keep us topside.”
I clear my throat. “How, exactly, will this work?”
“I’ll lie across the deck and paddle us frontside.”
“Where will I be?”
He flashes me a lopsided grin. “On top of me.”
My stomach flip-flops, and my flush travels all the way down to my toes. The thrilled scent of flame lily, also called Gloriosa, peels off me in a thick layer. I blush even more furiously, though of course he can’t smell the honey scent.
“We’ll have two layers of neoprene between us. No skin contact, I promise.” He holds up his hands in surrender. I mumble something agreeable, as if the idea of me riding him like a human surfboard doesn’t affect me in the least.
After clipping a pair of gloves to my waist tag, he hands me a canvas bag with towels, and bottled water. “Let’s go before the sun goes down.”
I sling the canvas bag around my body. After I grab my meshcollection bag, I follow him down the cliff.
The cove is shaped like a scallop shell. A rock twenty feet across juts out of the water like a black pearl. Two sea lions sun themselves on the rock, two bumps on an otherwise craggy outcropping.
We pick our way down the zigzagging cliffside pathway. Somehow he manages to get himself and the surfboard down without falling, while I find myself scrabbling down the steeper parts like a crab.
We rest on a ledge halfway down the cliff.
After I catch my breath, I ask, “When did you learn how to surf?”
“When I was ten. Dad used to take Melanie and me down to Santa Cruz when we were kids. Mel could kick my ass back then. Afterward, we’d get Snowshoe Cones.” A shadow crosses his face and I catch the scent of friar plums again, mingled with the damp earth of longing.
“You miss him.”
One of his cheek muscles tightens. “I miss thinking I have the coolest father in the world. Now I’m the son of the town lecher. I mean, mydad.”
I try to imagine how it would feel to be in Court’s shoes. I can smell the bleeding heart that pervades his mood, and I know how angry I would be if anyone ever hurt Mother. But having never had a father, the precise dimensions of his emotions are hard to conjure. Perhaps I’ve been spared a degree of pain bynothaving one.
