Cinderella in the Surf Page 2

  Plus, I really don't want to talk about surfing right now. Or ever.

  But Ahe's always been good to me and to my family, and it's a lot harder to walk away from him than it is Anna and James.

  "Hi, Ahe," I say, trying to inject some life into my voice as I wander over by his booth. He's standing under the canopy by his giant calculator and wooden cash box, a big straw hat on his head, his cherubic face smiling all the way up to his eyes.

  "Where you been? Haven't seen you around much."

  I shrug. "It's tough, you know."

  It doesn't take long for the topic of Alex to crop up into the conversation, just like I knew it wouldn't. It never does.

  "You been back in the water yet?"

  I only shake my head.

  "You gotta get in there, girl," he tells me, his native Hawaiian accent creeping into his voice. "You're not gonna be Surfin' Queen for long if you keep this up."

  Now I do manage a smile, a real one. "Please," I say. "Like that'll ever happen. No one out here can surf the way I did."

  But he doesn't look nearly as comfy about it as I feel. "You ain't heard?"

  I raise my eyebrows. "Heard what?"

  He turns so he isn't facing me straight-on anymore and instead stands to my right. "Come over here and stand next to me," he says. "Just do it," he adds, when I give him an odd look, so I do.

  "Now," he says. "Look over there. By James and all his clocks." I try to follow the path he's laying out for me. "You see that big hat? The weird-lookin' one? With the pink glitter and stripes and stuff?"

  "Yeah. Tourists wear ugly hats around here all the time. That's not news."

  "You see who's wearing that?" he goes on, and I look again and notice strands of short blonde hair peeking out and resting against the girl's back.

  "Yeah."

  "That's Piper Monaghan."

  "Okay."

  Ahe turns to focus his attention on me again. "That don't mean anything to you?"

  I shrug. "No, not really. Should it?"

  He shakes his head. "You're even more sure o'yourself than I thought. You don't know Piper Monaghan?"

  "How many times do I have to say I don't know the name?"

  "Okay, okay, okay." He holds up his hands, palms facing me like he's surrendering to the police. "I hear you."

  I wait a second for him to go on. "So? Who is she?"

  "You know how you're the best surfer for miles around here?"

  "Allegedly," I reply, and I frown when he doesn't even crack a smile.

  "Piper Monaghan, she's the one they say's the best surfer they got in Australia."

  The confident smile on my face flickers but doesn't vanish. "She's what?"

  I know I've heard him right, but I'm not sure what Ahe's getting at.

  "Yeah," he says. "She's real good, Rachel."

  "What's she doing here? Vacation? Should I say hi or something? Have I met her before?"

  Ahe shifts his weight, and puts his hands behind his back. "I, uh -- "

  "Spit it out," I say, not liking the way he's fidgeting around like this. It's not like him. "I'm not playing, Ahe."

  "Rachel," he says, finally meeting my eyes. "You know that competition is coming up. The big one."

  "The big...one..." I say, my voice trailing off as I think about what he's saying. "You mean..."

  "Yeah," he says, nodding gravely. "You ain't the only surf queen around here anymore."

  "She hasn't won anything," I say, sticking my chin out. This girl -- this Piper Monaghan -- isn't about to rattle me just because she's supposed to be some foreign big shot. And why should she? I'm not scared. I never have been.

  "She's won a lot," Ahe replies, and I feel something flicker in me. Annoyance, definitely, because what the heck is up with him right now, anyway? He's supposed to be rooting for me. He doesn't even know her.

  "Just not here," he goes on. "Not this competition. Not yet."

  "Who's side are you on?" I snap, frustration bubbling over.

  "Well, I don't know," he tells me, and my cheeks sting as if he's slapped me straight across the face. "You even have a side to be on anymore?"

  I swallow hard and open my mouth to answer, but nothing comes out. There's a good reason for it, too.

  I don't have one.

  I haven't been in the water since that day, not really, and definitely not with my board. The competition Alex and I were so excited for, the one Ahe's talking about now, the one I've never surfed in, is only six weeks away.

  I'm a good enough surfer that I can still compete even if I don't train every day, but obviously it's better if I do.

  If I'm going to do this, if I'm going to do what Alex and I planned and surf in the International Invitational, then I need to get back in the ocean -- now.

  Today.

  With my board.

  But the bile's already rising from the pit of my stomach and pushing its way up my throat and into the back of my mouth.

  "Don't think so hard," Ahe tells me, and I figure the struggle in my brain must be written all over my face. Or maybe Ahe just knows me well enough. "You love the ocean. You can't let Alex dying out there keep you away from it forever."

  It's another punch to the gut that I don't see coming. They've been happening a lot lately, ever since I lost him.

  But I know I'll never get used to hearing Alex and death in the same sentence, together, side by side, like they somehow belong.

  They're not supposed to mean the same thing.

  But I can't pretend that's not how it is now.

  "I--I can't. I can't."

  Ahe shakes his head, and when I finally look up at him, I don't see anything in his eyes, not pity, not sadness, not encouragement or anything else.

  "When you gonna go on from this, Rachel?"

  "Alex is dead. Dead. That isn't something I'm just gonna get over, one, two, three like that," I say, snapping my fingers to make my point.

  There's a bitterness in my voice that I've gotten used to hearing a lot over the last month or so. I expect it now. I don't like it, either, but I can't do much to fix it.

  It's just a part of me now, as much as surfing used to be.

  "You're not hearin' me, hoaloha," he says, and I blink twice at the nickname I haven't heard come out of his mouth in a long time. Not since I was a little girl. "Alex is gone. He ain't comin' back, no matter how much you want it. Ain't no star out there gonna grant you that wish. I'm not saying you gotta forget him, but you gotta keep goin' and goin', even without him at your side."

  I lean up against the edge of the table lined neatly with Ahe's oils and coconuts, not because I'm tired but because I'm losing faith that I can hold myself for up much longer.

  "I don't know how."

  "You better learn quick."

  I shake my head. "This is just about the surfing competition," I say. "You just want me in the Invitational. I don't need surfing."

  He raises his eyebrows, then does something that I'm not expecting.

  He laughs.

  "Rachel," he says. "You don't need surfin' the way the plants don't need the rain." He shakes his head. "It's what keep you alive."

  "I'm not the one who's dead."

  He stares at me for a second. "But are you living?"

  I suck in some air.

  In four words, Ahe's managed to get down to the heart of it all, to hit the nail on the head, send a home run flying out of the ballpark. All the cliches like those are made for moments like this.

  He's right.

  I'm not.

  I haven't been, not since Alex died.

  It's like the most important part of me, the part that keeps me alive, is six feet under.

  I don't like it, and I definitely don't want to spend time thinking about it, because I have no idea how to fix it.

  No idea if I even want to.

  Because that's like admitting I'm okay without Alex.

  "I'm not surfing in that competition," I tell him.

  He throws up his
big hands. "It's your choice. But you gonna sit on that balcony of yours and watch Piper Monaghan take what belongs to you? What you have here? Everything you wanted for yourself without even defending it? That's your choice, too. Hope you know what you're doing."

  I stare at the ground for a few seconds, kicking at the dirt with the toe of my sandal.

  "I do," I lie. "I have to go."

  "You say so," Ahe says, walking back around behind the table where he was when I first came over. "Be well."

  I wave without looking at him and keep my head down as I wander through the rows of tables, suddenly overwhelmed by the maze I know so well.

  I'm trapped in this place, no way out, I look up and turn in circles, and I can't see anything but tables and people, people, tables and people, there isn't an escape.

  I'm dizzy, getting dizzier, and stumbling about when I suddenly burst free onto a patch of grass without anything on it at all.

  Empty space.

  I'm free.

  If only it was always so easy to get rid of the bad stuff.

  I glance down at my bag and decide Mom's going to have to deal with the few things I've already bought. No way I'm going back in there.

  I look down at my watch. A little after noon. Too early to go back and figure out how to best waste the day away.

  Might as well go for a walk.

  Maybe this'll be the one that finally clears my head.

  I wander through the streets, then veer off the pavement and onto the dirt. I push my way past plants growing free and wild, and come out onto the beach.

  It isn't until I take a few steps toward the sand that I realize it's the same beach where I met Walker yesterday.

  I don't mean to come back today, but here I am. And I catch myself scanning the different buildings along the sand, trying to find one that's being painted in case he's moved on from Johnny's.

  I give myself a mental slap on the wrist.

  What am I doing out here?

  This is ridiculous.

  Walker isn't here, and even if he is, so what? He was just being friendly yesterday, and that's nice, but that's also all it is, all it ever will be, and all I want it to be.

  I don't need to go around getting attached to anyone else.

  Not when all people ever do in the end is leave.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Okay, so I know I said I wouldn't, but I lied.

  I give up scanning the beach for Walker after half an hour. I'm still not even sure why I'm looking for him, or what I'll do if I find him, but it turns out, I don't have to worry about it.

  So I turn to head home, another day nearly in the books, another day without Alex, another day without surfing.

  Just like the 36 days before this one.

  36 days.

  It feels like it's been so much longer, maybe since it's all I think about all day, every day.

  It consumes me the way nothing ever has before and nothing ever should.

  But sure enough, 36 days have passed since I ignored the voice in my head telling me to stay out of the water. It's too rough after last night's storm. I don't know if it would have mattered anyway, if it would have saved him.

  Alex loved the water.

  It's still hard to think about him in the past tense.

  He was the kind of surfer who never wondered about danger. The ten-foot swells we got That Day weren't risky or deadly to him.

  They were a gift.

  I know, because I felt that way, too, as I raced down the steps of our bungalow and over to meet him at the canoe like we did almost every morning.

  I know, because I couldn't wait to get out onto the ocean, couldn't change into my suit or grab my board fast enough.

  The first pump of nausea didn't swell into my stomach until I stood on the sand, watching Alex charge into the water a few steps ahead of me. I remember the words that filled my head:

  This is a mistake.

  I was right, I'd learn later, but at the time, I just pushed the thought out of my head. I'm a surfer, I told myself, and I'm being silly. This kind of weather, the kind that reminds you of the force of the ocean, the power of the sea -- it's what we love.

  Besides, Alex was already knee-deep and climbing onto his board, and he wouldn't hear me tell him no.

  He turned back only once to look for me. I remember the way he cupped his hands over his mouth and yelled something, but the roar of the ocean was too loud, the whipping of the wind too strong for me to hear.

  And it didn't matter, anyway. The charm behind his smile was enough to smack down the doubts, just like it always was.

  So I did the same thing I always did when we were out on the beach together.

  I followed him in.

  I remember sitting on our boards in the calmer seas, waiting for our perfect wave, and looking up at the unfamiliar gray sky.

  I remember he called it "awesome" as he tilted his head back to stare at the dark clouds.

  And I remember the way my stomach seized when I looked up too, because the sky was only getting worse. It was darker than that it had been when I was standing on land by the canoe.

  I wouldn't, I remember thinking, have gotten into the water under this sky.

  I tell him we should go back, but he can't hear me over the wind.

  Or maybe he just chose not to listen.

  I'll never know for sure.

  He's already spinning his board around, ready to catch whatever wave's coming in next. I remember looking and feeling my heart plummet straight down to my toes.

  The wave was too big.

  It's coming in too fast, too strong, with too much power and too much fury.

  But we didn't have a choice. We couldn't out-paddle it, and it's the kind of wave that sweeps along everything in its path. The kind of wave that takes control of you.

  It was the longest wait I could ever remember experiencing in my whole life, at least up until that point, anyway. Waiting to hear from the paramedics how Alex was doing later would easily claim the top spot, but I didn't know it at the time.

  When I looked at him, he flashed me that smile and a thumbs-up, and for a second, I remember the doubts faded once again.

  But then the water hit us.

  The swell of the wave pushed my board up, up, up, and I remember realizing it wasn't going to stop, that the ocean was too much for my small, insignificant surfboard.

  And that's when I fell off.

  I remember spinning around, spiraling through the air before I was sucked under the water. My eyes forced shut, my jaw clamped down tight. I tried kicking my legs, but didn't know which way was up.

  But even if I had, the water was too strong to let me swim to the surface.

  I tumbled through the sea, sand and seaweed, over and over again, cartwheeling in the ocean as the wave crashed above me.

  I'll never forget that.

  I didn't know if I was coming or going with the tide until it all...just...stopped.

  I remember swimming, hoping it was toward the sunlight and not the dark depths of the ocean. My lungs burned, and my eyes were stinging as the saltwater streamed in.

  Bursting out from the water was like escaping a prison I hadn't even known was real.

  I tried to touch the bottom, to give myself a rest, but I couldn't. I was out too deep.

  Or in too deep.

  So I swam to the shore, trying to beat the next rush of the wave, and dragged myself onto the land, collapsing against the wet sand.

  And that's when it all changed.

  That's when I saw it.

  The pink standing out among all the blue water.

  My surfboard, floating harmlessly in the ocean, as if nothing had happened at all.

  Not more than ten feet away is a flash of orange bobbing in the waves -- Alex's board.

  Alex.

  My throat tightened, but still my memory doesn't get hazy.

  Not yet.

  That doesn't come until we're on the sand.

  But I'll
never forget This Day.

  I forced myself to my feet, forgetting the aching in my muscles, the burning in my lungs. I scanned the sand first, sure he'd be there.

  But he wasn't.

  My eyes flashed over to our canoe.

  And for the very first time in my life, I'm disappointed because he wasn't standing there.

  Because he's always there when I look for him.

  The screams came first.

  And I remember each word.

  "Help!" The woman's voice pierced me. "Help! Oh, God, somebody! Help! Please help!"

  Her screams still reach my body before they reach my brain.

  A cold air swept over me then, and it does the same thing now.

  I felt what was happening before I knew it.

  Alex.

  I spun around then, looking for the woman yelling, and saw her standing up to her calves in the water, bent over, trying to pull something out.

  Someone out.

  I ran over before I even realized what I was doing.

  I recognized the yellow of his bathing suit trunks before I saw anything else.

  Alex, floating facedown in shallow water as this woman, this stranger, frantically tried to save him.

  I reached down and grabbed onto his shoulders when she took his ankles. We carried him onto the shore, flipped him over and laid him out on the sand.

  I pressed my fingers against his neck, tears already flowing down my face without me knowing, feeling for a pulse and finding nothing.

  "Alex!" I screamed, patting his cheeks. "Alex! Alex, it's Rachel. Talk to me! Open your eyes, dammit, Alex, open your eyes! Open them! Say something!"

  My voice sounded foreign then, and it still does now.

  "Out of the way, out of the way."

  Three paramedics pushed their way in then. They scrambled around Alex, blocking him from my view.

  The woman came over to me. "You know him."

  "He's -- he's everything. Yes."

  "Your husband?"

  I looked at her and I remember smiling, then sniffling, then shaking my head. "No," I told her. "He's my best friend. I've known him since we were little."

  "Time of death," one paramedic says. "6:07 a.m."

  And that's when I stop remembering.