Page 6 (2/2)
He knew that she loved hie He suspected pride
The shadow of his wealth was deep, and she did not want to be lost in it Although she had not expressed this concern, he knew that she hoped to be able to count herself a success as a writer, as a novelist, so that she could enter the e as a creative-if not a financial-equal
Ryan was patient And persistent
Phone calls coe to Balboa Peninsula, which separated the harbor fro toward the peninsula point, he listened to classic doo-wop, on but a quarter of a century older than he was
He parked on a tree-lined street of char homes and carried his board half a block to Newport’s main beach
The sea poured rhythmic thunder onto the shore
She waited at “the place,” which here they had first surfed together, midway between the harbor entrance and the pier
Her above-garage apartment was a three-minute walk from here She had come with her board, a beach towel, and a small cooler
Although he had asked her to wear the red bikini, Samantha wore yellow He had hoped for the yellow, but if he had asked for it, she would have worn red or blue, or green
She was as perfect as a ht, an alluring oasis on the wide slope of sun-seared sand
“What’re those sandals?” she asked
“Stylin’, huh?”
“Are they made from old tires?”
“Yeah But they’re preear”
“Did you also buy a hat made from a hubcap?”
“You don’t like these?”
“If you have a blowout, does the auto club bring you a new shoe?”
Kicking off the sandals, he said, “Well, I like them”
“How often do they need to be aligned and balanced?”
Soft and hot, the sand shifted underfoot, but then was co surf worked it like a screed
As they waded into the sea, he said, “I’ll ditch the sandals if next time you’ll wear the red bikini”
“You actually wanted this yellow one”
He repressed his surprise at her perspicacity “Then ould I ask for the red?”
“Because you only think you can read me”
“But I’m an open book, huh?”
“Winky, compared to you, Dr Seuss’s simplest tale is as complex as Dostoyevsky”
They launched their boards and, prone upon them, paddled out toward the break
Raising his voice above the swash of the surf, he called to her: “Was that Seuss thing an insult?”
Her silvery laughter stirred in Ryan memories of mermaid tales aith the mysteries of the deep
She said, “Not an insult, sweetie That was a thirteen-word kiss”
Ryan did not bother to recall and count her words froot nothing, and was able to recall entire conversations that had occurred months previously
So, which see Sa
The consistently spaced waves came like boxcars, four or five at a time Between these sets were periods of relative calm
While the sea was slacking, Ryan and Samantha paddled out to the lineup There, they straddled their boards and watched the first swell of a new set roll toward the break
From this more intimate perspective, the sea was not as placid and blue as it had appeared fro The approaching swell er than a thousand sharks, born in the deep but rising now to feed upon the sunlit world
Sarinned The sun searched her eyes and revealed in the in harmony with millions of tons of water pushed shoreward by stor on the dark side of the earth
Saht the second swell: on two knees, one knee, now standing, swift and clean, away She rode the crest, then did a floater off the curling lip
As she slid out of vien the face of the wave, Ryan thought that the breaker- in previous sets-had the size and the energy to hollow out and put her in a tube Good as it gets, Sah a pipeline
Ryan looked seaward, tier to rise and walk the board
So happened to his heart Already quick with anticipation of the ride, the beat suddenly accelerated and began to pound with a force h terror than to one of pleasant excitement
He could feel his pulse throbbing in his ankles, wrists, throat, temples The tide of blood within his arteries seemed to crescendo in sympathy with the sea that swelled toward him, under him
The sibilant voice of the water became insistent, sinister
Clutching the board, abandoning the attehtness at the periphery Along the horizon, the sky reray
Inky clouds spread through the jade sea, as though the Pacific would soon be as black in the ht
He was breathing fast and shallow The very aten content had been bled out of it, perhaps explaining the graying of the sky
Never previously had he been afraid of the sea He was afraid of it now
The water rose as though with conscious intention, withto his board, Ryan slid down the hunchbacked swell into the wide trough betaves
Irrationally, he worried that the trough would become a trench, the trench a vortex He feared that he would be whirled down into drowning depths
The board ed, bobbed, and Ryan alroeak, as tremulous as that of an old man
So him
When he realized that those spiky for tentacles, but were the conceptacles of a knotted mass of seaweed, he was not relieved If a shark were to appear now, Ryan would be at the mercy of it, unable to evade it or resist
TWO
As suddenly as the attack ca heart quieted Blue reclai darkness in the water receded His strength returned to him
He did not realize how long the episode had lasted until he saw that Samantha had ridden her wave to shore and, in the relative calm between sets, had paddled out to him once more
As she came closer, the concern that creased her broas also evident in her voice: “Ryan?”
“Just enjoying theprone on his board “I’ll catch one in the next set”
“Since when are you aaround in the lineup like a duck, like one of those gutless wannabes who soaked all day in the swells just beyond the break point and called it surfing
“The last two in that set were bigger,” he said “I have a hunch the next batchfor”
Sa for the first swell of the new set
If Ryan read her correctly, she sensed that he was shining her on, and she wondered why
With his heart steady and his strength recovered, he stopped hugging the board, straddled it, getting ready
Waiting for the next wave train, he told himself that he had not experienced a physical seizure, but instead merely an anxiety attack At self-deception, he was as skilled as anyone
He had no reason to be anxious His life eet, buttered, and sliced for easy consumption