by Nikki Godwin
Chapter Five
“Haley, it’ll be dark in a few hours. You can sleep then,” Linzi says.
She hits the alarm button on the hotel’s clock, sending shrill beeps through the air and over my eardrums. The red numbers say it’s nearly five o’clock.
Linzi sighs. “I’m starving, and you know, it wasn’t my bright idea to drive across the state of California at midnight.”
She falls back onto her bed, holding her stomach as if dying from starvation.
I surrender. “Let me take a shower. Look into nearby restaurants and get directions.”
I throw myself together in record time. Linzi chooses a pizzeria within walking distance of the Crescent Inn.
This morning’s shock, awe, and exhaustion kept me from fully taking in the California scenery, but now I can’t miss the sand, the ocean, the palm trees, and the overdone theme of crescent moons and stars on every corner.
The Crescent Cove Bakery, directly across from the hotel, advertises their crescent-shaped cheese biscuits in the window. Strings and Starlight, a guitar shop and obvious local hangout, is next door to the hotel. We dodge a sea of skateboarders in route to Isaiah’s Pizzeria and Pasta.
I don’t even know where to start now that we’re here. Yeah, Barney was right. We found who we were looking for – now we actually have to find him, as in the breathing human form of him. My gut tells me this is hopeless, that I’m chasing after the impossible, and all I’ll have left are memories and paper stars. I need more than that. I need freedom. I need dream chasing. I need to know all of his secrets and how I can find that escape too.
Our waiter leads us to a back booth with green leather seats. Black and white pictures adorn the walls. The photo next to our table is an old surf shack, wooden and rustic, right in the sand next to the ocean with surfboards leaning against the outside. I glance at the table behind us. Their picture is the original Crescent Cove billboard – old school paint job without the forever-chasing surfer. I take another look at the surf shack photo and accept it as a sign that we’re going to find him. This table was meant for us.
“Where do we start?” Linzi asks over the menu.
“Appetizers?” I assume.
“No,” she says. She lowers her menu, leans over the table, and whispers, “Colby Taylor.”
I shrug. That’s a great question. “I don’t know. Maybe we can ask around?”
I grab my menu and scan the pasta list, trying to convince myself that I’m as starved as Linzi when all I’m really concerned with is finding the guy on the billboard.
“Can I start you ladies out with an appetizer?” Our waiter holds his head in that awkward tilted way that male models do in magazines when they’re trying to show off their awesome jaw lines or high cheekbones.
Linzi flips into super flirty mode and tells him how we’re not from here and that she’s not familiar with some of their appetizers. He suggests garlic knots, and she orders a plate of them without even asking what they are.
He brings us a plate full of what looks like knots made of bread. They’re drenched in garlic sauce and taste incredible yet they’re so strong that we don’t order anything past the appetizer. Linzi digs through her purse for gum while mumbling something about not having to worry about vampires. I stick one of those prepaid cards into the booklet with our ticket and wait for him to pick it up. My dad doesn’t realize how genius these preloaded cards are. At least this way there won’t be a statement in the mail showing I was in California.
“Here he comes,” Linzi whispers. She clears her throat and smiles at our waiter. “You guys are crazy busy for a Thursday night. I guess business picks up when you’ve got a local celebrity, huh?”
“Business is pretty steady. It doesn’t hurt. I’ll give you that.” He picks up the booklet and walks back to the cash register.
Linzi presses a little further when he returns. “So does Colby Taylor come here often?”
He doubles over in laughter, and I don’t know if it’s sarcastic or if he’s making fun of us. He shakes his head a few times, not really in response to Linzi, and spits out what I think was supposed to be “Have a good night.” He walks off, whispers something to a waitress, points in our direction, and they both laugh all the way back into the kitchen.
Linzi waits until we’re outside before erupting like a raged volcano.
“The nerve of that guy! He’s just jealous. He’s a freaking inlander. That’s all it is,” she says.
“He’s a what?” I ask, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk.
“An inlander,” Linzi repeats. “You know, in land, not on the beach? He’s a cute guy who could get a lot of girls, but girls come here looking for hot surfers on the beach. He’s stuck on land in a stupid pizzeria serving garlic knots.”
We walk back toward the Crescent Inn while Linzi rants and attempts to throw in some beach lingo I’ve never heard of, but she is right about one thing. If we want to find the west coast surfer, we have to go where the surfers hang out.
“C’mon,” I tell her. We detour past the hotel, straight into the parking garage. “Let’s hit The Strip.”
The Ocean in Moonlight was right about west coast ocean air. It floods my lungs as soon as my flip flops hit the sidewalk of The Strip. The water is bluer, the sand is whiter, and the sky is more pink and orange than it ever is on the east coast. Clear Christmas lights twist around the palm trees, sparkling like stars falling on the beach. Everything smells like cotton candy and summertime.
Linzi zooms past the snowcone stand and dives into a rack of shell jewelry.
“Haley, how cute is this?” she asks, pointing to basically everything.
“Typical beach souvenirs,” I say. If I glanced around right now, I’d only count a handful of people out here not wearing some type of shell.
Linzi grabs an oversized purple hibiscus flower ring as well as a purple shell necklace, putting them on while she waits for the vendor to count out her change. I, however, refuse to fall into the tourist trap and buy pointless, overpriced beach-themed items just because we’re in California.
“Are you sure? We have all colors,” the man behind the vendor booth tells me.
His bright red lei contrasts against his dark skin, and I have half a mind to tell him to go back to Hawaii, even if his smile is welcoming and friendly.
“C’mon,” Linzi adds. “Everyone buys shell jewelry. I mean, I bet even Colby Taylor wears shell necklaces from here, right?” She looks back at Mr. Hawaii, hoping to entice me and score information in the same breath.
And the man laughs. He freaking laughs!
“Oh, silly girls,” he says, shaking his head and instantly giving up the battle of convincing Haley Sullivan to buy shell jewelry.
I turn and keep walking, hoping no one else witnessed our humiliation yet again. Obviously we’re tourists. We’re on The Strip buying shell jewelry, asking about the local celeb, and reeking of garlic knots. The laughter isn’t necessary.
The heat in my cheeks cools down enough for me to pick my head up, and just as I’m swearing to Linzi that I’ll never be the souvenir buying tourist, I see him – blue and sparkling like the ocean water – and I know he’s going home with me tonight.
I’m sold before the leather-skinned woman ever finishes her sales pitch. “Legends say dreamcatchers trap the demons, but suncatchers let in the good light, bringing in good spirits to watch over you,” she explains, holding an orange angelfish suncatcher in the air for the falling sun to seep through.
If anyone needs good spirits watching over them, it’s Linzi and me. I run my fingers over the blue glass seahorse, and even as Linzi swears the purple whale is cuter, I know this is the one for me – my good spirit, my bright light, my sea creature to watch over me during this journey.
Linzi snatches up the purple whale.
“She’s too cute,” she says. “What can I name her? Something Hawaiian maybe? Leila? Oh, or I could go with Stella.”
How typical of Linzi to name an inanimate object. But as she rambles names off into the salty air, I realize she has a point, and all spirits deserve a name. Anyone who watches over me on this crazy forever-chasing journey especially deserves a name. And there’s only one name that fits – the one who watched from the very beginning.
“Solomon,” I say. I stop and make sure he’s wedged tightly into my purse so he can’t be broken between The Strip and the hotel.
Linzi twirls in a circle, catching falling rays through the purple glass in her hand.
“Then I shall name her Sofia. Solomon and Sofia, our spirit guides and happy lights,” she says.
She hugs the glass whale close to her chest and spins in circles. I laugh hard enough to forget about the Hawaiian vendor and the laughing waiter and everyone else around us who thinks we’re just tourists playing stalkerazzi with the local surf king.
I laugh my way right into a clumsy collision with a pissed off twenty-something with spiky black hair and icy blue eyes. And by icy, I don’t mean that dreamy see-through blue. I mean literal ice, like the bottom portion of an iceberg that you can’t see, but you know it’s out there and dangerous, and the fact that you can’t see it coming makes it all the more frightening.
“I’m so sorry,” I say, stepping back away from him.
He says, “My bad,” simultaneously with my apology, but he doesn’t move. He hovers over me, his height more intimidating than it probably should be. The iceberg fright sends chills through my veins. Please, God, don’t let him mug me while I’m 2000 miles away from home and lying to my parents.
“Are your highlights natural?” he asks.
I try not to stare at him with one of those “What the hell?” looks, but I know it’s splattered across my face. Then I silently curse Linzi’s perfectly blonde hair and my own genetics for making me a brunette who gets asked the stupid questions like if my highlights are natural.
“What’s it matter?” I ask.
I try to channel Linzi’s nonchalant vibes, like how she drops Colby Taylor’s name into conversation like it’s an everyday thing, but my voice isn’t nearly as silky smooth and believable as hers.
He holds up a can of spray paint, and I wonder how I didn’t see him holding it this whole time. The top is a bronzy color, like Solomon Worthington’s picture frame. The words Honey Gold are a dead giveaway that this isn’t spray paint.
“This,” he says, shaking the can. “It’s the future of hair dye. It’s a hell of a lot cheaper than salon highlights. It holds longer, and it’s easy to use, great for do-it-yourself touch ups.”
I know where I’ve seen this stuff – Stella’s. But her spray can had a black lid. That exact can transformed the west coast surfer into an emo rocker boy for one night of faking existence. Rinses out in one washing and looks as good as a dye job. Who is this guy kidding?
“Nice try,” I finally say. “I’ve seen this stuff. You’re right. It’s cheap and easy and a total rip off. All I need is the sunshine.”
I flip my hair over my shoulder and attempt to push past him.
“Hey!” he shouts out.
His iceberg eyes freeze me in my tracks. He shakes his head.
“Just thought I’d try and help you out. You don’t have to go all psycho bitch about it,” he says.
Linzi links her arm with mine. “Highlight of my summer: meeting a con artist on the beach,” she says.
She lowers her voice. “Let’s go. He’s probably got some creepy con artist name like Spike or Rocky or something.”
“It’s Vin,” he says, making it obvious to Linzi that her discretion is anything but discreet.
“Oh,” Linzi says. “Like Vin Diesel?”
She loosens her arm from mine. Now all she’s thinking is ocean air and hot summer sun and Vin Diesel, and I’m thinking miles from home, con artists, and icebergs! We should’ve just stayed on the east coast with our stale Atlantic air.
“No,” he says. “Like VIN number. When you steal a car, it’s the first thing you dispose of. Scrape it off or whatever you gotta do to make the vehicle untraceable.”
He leans in, a smirk painted on his face, like he’s about to tell us a life-changing secret. The spikes of his hair look like black daggers ready to pierce through me if he comes any closer. He’s kind of crazy beautiful in a terrifying way.
“I tried getting out of that business,” he says so quietly that I have strain my ears to hear him. “But going from carjacking to a salesman ain’t so easy, especially when people act like you.”
His finger twirls around a strand of my hair. My fingers tighten around his forearm, and every muscle from his wrist to his shoulder constricts as I sling his arm away from me. He laughs this criminal laugh and steps away. The summer sun beats against my skin from behind his silhouette.
“See ya, Sunshine,” he says before disappearing into the crowd of tourists.
Linzi and I finish each other’s sentences as we remind ourselves and each other that we’re still implying the buddy system, regardless of the fact that it’s just the two of us.
“And we always need to be back at the hotel before dark,” Linzi says as we approach a hot dog stand. “We can chase Colby Taylor during the daylight. I mean, he’s not out surfing at night anyway. The boy’s gotta sleep.”
She orders a small lemonade from the vendor, and my eyes catch a slew of surfers emerging from the orange glaze on the ocean. A red sun falls behind them. Darkness will soon blacken the ocean, and the surfers of Crescent Cove will call it a night.
I tug on Linzi’s arm and motion toward the guys dragging surfboards onto the shore. She takes her lemonade from the vendor without looking up at him and focuses on the guys. We step away from the hot dog stand, lost in our own little surfer zone, while Linzi singles them out as not being Colby Taylor.
“Brunette. Brunette. Too short. Out of shape. Red head. He’s not with them,” she says.
Our eyes follow them anyway as they move up the beach, kicking up the sand around their feet.
“You’d think Colby Taylor would hang out with surfers, right?” I ask her.
She’s not given a chance to answer me. A half-grunt half-laugh comes from the man behind us. He leans over the counter of his hot dog stand.
“You won’t see Taylor out here ‘cause he don’t come out here,” he barks. “All you tourists are the same, teenage girls walking the beach half naked like he’s going to surf out of nowhere and sweep you off your feet. Ain’t gonna happen!”
Linzi chokes on a swig of lemonade, then clears her throat. She pulls the plastic lid off of her cup, banishing it and the straw to the sand beneath us. She throws her head back, chugs a huge gulp, and storms back to the hot dog stand, stomping her flip flops with purpose the entire walk over. No one but Linzi could pull off a threatening flip flop walk over the course of six feet.
“She didn’t ask you,” she says to the man.
“Hey now,” he says. “You came to my beach, to my stand, breathing my air, and if I want to tell you that you don’t stand a chance with him, I’ll tell you…because you don’t.”
Linzi pulls her arm back, and in a perfect maneuver, she slings her lemonade in the man’s face, drenching his salt-and-pepper hair, his wrinkled sun-damaged face, and his mustard-stained shirt. And with the intensity in which she’d approached his stand, she stomps away.
We seek refuge in between a black booth and a skate shop. I lean against the skate shop’s side wall, under graffiti that reads SK8 4 LIFE! Anger burns my face, but I refuse to let any tears fall. These stupid locals aren’t worth it. Linzi paces in front of me, ranting too loudly about how people have no right to act the way they do around here.
“We didn’t even ask him,” I say. “If I’d asked for his expertise in Colby Taylor, then sure, blast me and make me look like an idiot. But I didn’t say a damn word to him!”
The girl inside the black booth steps out and looks at us. Her yellow shirt h
as the name of rock band Sebastian’s Shadow wrapped around her body multiple times, alternating between pink and purple writing. Her black skinny jeans and zebra print Converse don’t fit into the beach scene. Her heavy eyeliner matches the little black heart drawn outside of the corner of her eye. She’s probably laughing at us in her head. I bet she could care less about surfers.
Linzi throws her hands into the air.
“This place is full of jackasses and con artists and hardly a surfer in sight,” she shouts out.
“You looking for Colby Taylor?” the girl asks.
My eyes follow the sound of her voice but zone in on the turquoise letters of her booth. Emily’s Enchanters. She must be Emily.
“Actually, yeah, we are,” I say.
I walk around the booth and realize that even the rocker chick’s booth is decorated with stars and moons…full moons, unlike everywhere else here in the cove. The inside walls of her booth are lined with hand sewn voodoo dolls, though. At least they look like voodoo dolls. Enchanters is definitely a better phrase for business.
“But,” Linzi interjects, “if you’re just going to laugh at us and tell us how stupid we are, then no, we’re not looking for him.”
“Chill,” the girl says, climbing over the wooden edge and back into her booth. “I was actually going to tell you where to start.”
