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ONE
Ryan Perry did not know that so in him was broken At thirty-four, he appeared to be more physically fit than he had been at twenty-four His hoym ell equipped A personal trainer came to his house three times a week
On that Wednesdayin September, in his bedroom, when he drew open the draperies and saw blue sky as polished as a plate, and the sea blue with the celestial reflection, he wanted surf and sand more than he wanted breakfast
He went on-line, consulted a surfcast site, and called Samantha
She lanced at the caller-ID readout, because she said, “Good , Winky”
She occasionally called him Winky because on the afternoon that she met him, thirteen months previously, he had been afflicted with a stubborn case ofof an eyelid
So software that he went thirty-six hours without sleep, a sudden-onset tic in his right eye forced hi out a frantic distress signal in Morse code
In that myokymic moment, Samantha had come to his office to interview hi for Vanity Fair For aclumsily
During that first , Ryan wanted to ask for a date, but he perceived in her a seriousness of purpose that would cause her to reject hi about him He called her only after he knew that she had delivered the article
“When Vanity Fair appears, what if I’ve savaged you?” she had asked
“You haven’t”
“How do you know?”
“I don’t deserve to be savaged, and you’re a fair person”
“You don’t knoell enough to be sure of that”
“Fro style,” he said, “I know you’re sma, and without envy If I’m not safe with you, then I’m safe nowhere except alone in a room”
He had not sought to flatter her He merely spoke his mind
Having an ear for deception, Sanized his sincerity
Of the qualities that draw a bright woe, and a sense of humor She had accepted his invitation to dinner, and the months since then had been the happiest of his life
Now, on this Wednesday lassy and epic, sunshine that feels its way deep into your bones”
“I’ve got a deadline to meet”
“You’re too young for all this talk about death”
“Are you riding another train of manic insomnia?”
“Slept like a baby And I don’t mean in a wet diaper”
“When you’re sleep-deprived, you’re treacherous on a board”
“I may be radical, but never treacherous”
“Totally insane, like with the shark”
“That again That was nothing”
“Just a great white”
“Well, the bastard bit a huge chunk out of my board”
“And-what?-you were deteret it back?”
“I wiped out,” Ryan said, “I’rabbin’ for air, ”
The skeg, a fixed fin on the bottom of a surfboard, holds the stern of the board in the wave and allows the rider to steer
What Ryan actually grabbed was the shark’s dorsal fin
Samantha said, “What kind of kamikaze rides a shark?”
“I wasn’t riding I was taken for a ride”
“He surfaced, tried to shake you off, you rode him back down”
“Afraid to let go Anyway, it lasted like only twenty seconds”
“Insoish It makes you hyper”
“I hibernated last night I’”
She said, “In a circus once, I saw a bear riding a tricycle”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“It was funnier than watching an idiot ride a shark”
“I’m Pooh Bear I’ht now, asked o for a ride, I’d say no”
“I had night that shark”
“Not wrestling It was more like ballet Meet you at the place?”
“I’ll never finish writing this book”
“Leave the coht The elves will finish it for you At the place?”
She sighed in happy resignation “Half an hour”
“Wear the red one,” he said, and hung up
The water would be warm, the day warmer He wouldn’t need a wet suit
He pulled on a pair of baggies with a palm-tree motif
His collection included a pair with a shark pattern If he wore the
For later, he took a change of clothes on a hanger, and a pair of loafers
Of the five vehicles in his garage, the custoon-anthracite-black with bird’s-eye maple panels-seemed to be best suited to the day Already stowed in the back, his board protruded past the lifted tailgate s, skeg up
At the end of the cobblestone driveway, as he turned left into the street, he paused to look back at the house: gracefully sloping roofs of red barrel tile, lilass refracting the sun as if they were jewels
A maid in a crisp white uniform opened a pair of second-floor balcony doors to air the master bedroom
One of the landscapers trimmed the jas the carved-limestone surround at the main entrance
In less than a decade, Ryan had gone from a crah above the Pacific
Samantha could take the day off on a whi, could set her own hours Ryan could take it off because he was rich
Quick wits and hard work had brought hi to the pinnacle Soins from his current perch, the distance dizzied him
As he drove out of the gate-guarded community and descended the hills toward Newport Harbor, where thousands of pleasure boats were docked and ilded water, he placed a few business calls
A year previously, he had stepped down as the chief executive officer of Be2Do, which he had built into thesite on the Internet As the principal stockholder, he remained on the board of directors but declined to be the chairman
These days, he devoted hining new services to be provided by the company And he tried to persuade Samantha to marry him