Pulled Under (Sixteenth Summer)

by Michelle Dalton

“I lied to you.”

  He looks down at me with deep concern in his eyes. “When?”

  “The first time we climbed up into the lifeguard stand. I asked you about Beth and why you broke up.”

  “That was a fun conversation.”

  “Anyway, you told me that you broke up with her because she loved you and you didn’t feel that way toward her. Then I said—”

  “‘Lucky for us we don’t have to worry about that,’” he says, quoting me from that night. “‘We both know that this is just for the summer.’”

  “So, you really do remember,” I say, surprised.

  “I really do,” he says.

  “It was a lie,” I say.

  “I know.”

  This catches me off guard. “What do you mean, you know?”

  “I knew it was a lie that night. You were worried that if you told me that you loved me, then I might break up with you, too.”

  I stop dancing and look right at him. “You knew that I loved you?”

  He nods.

  “But you didn’t break up with me.”

  He shakes his head.

  “Does that mean . . .”

  “That I love you too?” he says. “Yes, it does. I’ve loved you from the beginning, Izzy. I am hopelessly, helplessly in love with you. Don’t you know that?”

  Tears stream down my face. “Well, I do now.”

  Luckily there are a couple more slow dances in a row, which gives me a chance to compose myself.

  “Very nice, Ben,” Sophie says as we go back to a table and meet with the others. “You have organized a very nice Sand Castle Dance.”

  “Why, thank you,” he says.

  The boys head over to the snack bar to get us some sodas, and Nicole sees the tears in my eyes.

  “You told him, didn’t you?”

  I nod.

  “And?” asks Sophie.

  “And,” I say, “he loves me too.”

  This is the moment it hits me. This is the moment I realize what’s really been bothering me. I haven’t been worried that he didn’t love me. I’ve been worried that he did. Because that makes what’s about to happen all that much worse.

  “He’s loves me and he’s leaving.”

  “You’re going to be okay,” Nicole says. “You really are.”

  I nod. “I know. It’s just hard to imagine.”

  I try to compose myself again as I see the boys come our way. Then the most unexpected thing happens.

  “‘The Rockafeller Skank’!” I shout as the music blares from the speakers.

  The band has taken a break and a DJ has taken over.

  “Did you do this?” I ask Sophie.

  “No, I didn’t,” she says, laughing.

  The boys reach the table and I turn to Ben. “Did you pick this song?”

  He nods. “I picked all the music. You like it?”

  I smile. “You could say that.”

  I look at each of the girls, and we know exactly what we have to do.

  “All right, boys,” Sophie says. “Try to keep up.”

  The three boys have no idea what’s about to happen, but Sophie, Nicole, and I all head out to the dance floor, turn to face them, and do the once unthinkable. We unleash the Albatross in full public view.

  The shy girl that was once me is no longer.

  August twenty-fourth is Ben’s last full day in Pearl Beach. Unfortunately, I’m not the only one in his life, and I have to share this day with others. He has a shift at Parks and Recreation, and they take him out to lunch. He also has to eat dinner with his aunt and uncle. That means I get a little bit of time with him in the afternoon, and then we’re meeting on the pier after dinner.

  Judging by the tears that started falling at the dance, I’m beginning to worry about how emotional that conversation will get, but I’m determined to keep things light and happy in the afternoon when he comes to say his good-byes at Surf Sisters. That is, if he comes by. At the moment, he’s forty-five minutes late.

  “Stop looking out the window,” Sophie says. “He’ll get here when he gets here.”

  “I know. You’re right.”

  The phone rings and I see that it’s him.

  “Hey,” I say. “Where are you?”

  “I’m sorry,” he replies. “I got held up at work. Is either Mickey or Mo there?”

  “Mo’s off today, but Mickey’s here. Why?”

  “I need to talk to her,” he says cryptically. “It’s important.”

  This all strikes me as odd, but I take the phone to Mickey and they have a brief conversation.

  “What’s all this about?” I ask when I get back on the call.

  “I’ll explain it when I get there.”

  And just like that he hangs up.

  Twenty minutes later, Mo arrives with a man I don’t know, and the two of them meet with Mickey in the garage.

  “What’s going on?” Nicole asks.

  “I have no idea,” I reply.

  Finally Ben walks into the shop. He smiles when he sees me and gives me a huge hug and a kiss.

  “Sorry I’m late,” he says. “Where are Mickey and Mo?”

  “In the garage,” I answer. “Why?”

  He smiles again. “Come on. I’ll tell you when I tell them.”

  Luckily there aren’t many customers, so Sophie, Nicole, and I are all able to follow Ben into the garage.

  “I’m sorry I’ve been so cryptic,” Ben says, addressing us. “But I’ve been trying to come up with a really great good-bye present for Izzy, and I think I’ve done it.”

  We’re all confused.

  “What’s your present?” asks Mo.

  “I think I’ve figured out how to save the shop.”

  Mickey and Mo both gasp. The three of us girls are equally breathless.

  “What are you talking about?” asks Mo.

  “It’s the best present I could think of,” says Ben. “Izzy loves this place, so I thought that I should try to save it. You see, my dad’s a pretty awful husband, but he’s an amazing attorney. We’d always talk about the cases he was working on, and he taught me how to look for loopholes.”

  “Like the team loophole in the King of the Beach?” I say.

  “Exactly.”

  “And you found a loophole that helps us?” asks Mo, trying to contain her excitement.

  “I hope so,” he says. “Is this the attorney you told me about?” He motions to the man with them.

  “Yes,” the man says.

  Mickey and Mo are practically glowing with excitement.

  “What’s the loophole?” asks Mickey.

  “Luigi’s Car Wash,” says Ben.

  It takes a moment to set in, but everyone in the room, except for Ben, deflates. He doesn’t realize that they’ve already pursued this option.

  “Luigi’s Car Wash is protected because of the laws that were in effect when it first opened,” Ben says, continuing. “Luigi can’t be forced to sell his property and neither can you.”

  “Actually, we can,” says Mo, her hopes dashed. “Surf Sisters opened four months after the new law was passed. We’re not protected.”

  “No,” Ben says. “Surf Sisters isn’t protected.” He unzips his backpack and pulls out a large file. “But Steady Eddie’s Surf School is.”

  He hands the file to the attorney and continues. “Part of my job this summer was turning old paper files into digital ones. I had to scan thousands of documents that the Parks and Recreation Department has accumulated. Among those files were contracts for Steady Eddie’s Surf School to teach surfing and water safety to the summer campers. These contracts go back more than twenty years before Mickey and Mo founded Surf Sisters. The address on all of those contracts is his house, which I believe is the building we are stand
ing in right now.”

  I look over and see Mickey and Mo are on the verge of tears.

  “Even to this day, Steady Eddie’s Surf School is listed in the contracts. That means that the same business has been operating out of the same building for more than fifty years, which more than meets the standards of the law.”

  Mo is the first one to reach him. She wraps her arms around him and gives him a huge hug. Mickey is right behind.

  “How did you do this?” Mo asks.

  Ben shrugs his shoulder. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, what made you come up with all of this?”

  “That’s easy,” he says. “Izzy loves you . . . and I love Izzy.”

  The full moon hangs over the ocean and floods its light across the waves. I walk down the pier and try to think of what I can possibly say to Ben. He has just given me the most amazing summer of my life, and tonight I’m going to have to say good-bye to him. Technically, I’ll say good-bye tomorrow at the airport. But there will be people there and a plane to catch. This will be the real good-bye. Just the two of us on our pier.

  I look ahead and see that he is already waiting. His back is turned to me as he sits on the end of the pier, and even though he is only a silhouette in the moonlight, I know every inch of him.

  Wordlessly, I sit down next to him and take his hand.

  He turns to me and starts to talk, but I press my finger against his lips so I can speak first.

  “I’ve thought about it, and even though people say that long distance doesn’t work, I’m not about to let you walk away forever. We can video chat and call and write. Certainly you’ll come down and visit your uncle, and I’m already saving up money to fly to Wisconsin. You can show me Madison just like I showed you Pearl Beach. And we’re only a couple years away from college. For all we know, we might end up at the same school.”

  He shakes his head ever so slightly, and I feel my heart sink.

  “I don’t think that will work.”

  “Why not?”

  He reaches over and touches my cheek with his hand. “It turns out that my mother wasn’t exactly honest with me.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “When she told me that she wanted me to spend the summer down here to protect me from all the arguments, that wasn’t the only reason she wanted me to come here.”

  “What was the other reason?”

  “She wanted me to see if I liked it here,” he says. “She’s planning on moving back to Pearl Beach to start a new life after the divorce is final. The only question is whether she’s going to do it now or after I graduate from high school.”

  “When did you find out?”

  “Tonight at dinner. She flew down to surprise me and talk to me about it. If we decide to stay, she’s going to start looking for a new job.”

  My heart races.

  “How will she decide?”

  “She told me that it’s my decision,” he says. “She knows it’s hard to move in the middle of high school. And all of my life is up there. . . . Well, almost all of it.”

  “Don’t move here because of me,” I say.

  “What?”

  “It’s not fair to you and it’s not fair to me,” I say. “I would love for you to live here. But if you move here because of me, then anytime that something goes wrong, it will be my fault. You’ll end up resenting me. If you really love me like I love you, then we’ll figure out a way to make the distance work. But if you move here, it has to be because you think that this is home.”

  “I know,” he says. “I came to the same conclusion. Which is hard because you’re a big part of everything that’s here. I’ve spent the last hour debating back and forth, trying to figure out the right thing to do.”

  “Good,” I say.

  He stands up and looks out over the water. I stand up next to him.

  “Actually,” he says, “I spent fifty minutes of it trying to figure out the right thing to do . . . and ten trying to figure out how to tell you.”

  That sounds ominous, but oddly I feel strong enough to hear it, even if it means he’s heading home. He turns so that he’s looking right at me and his back is toward the ocean.

  “Okay,” I say. “I’m ready. Whatever it is.”

  He has a strange look on his face, and it takes me a moment to realize that he’s slowly falling backward. By the time I do, I reach out to grab him, but it’s too late. He plummets toward the water fifteen feet below and lands with a big splash.

  I let out a surprised squeal as I look down at him. “What on earth are you doing?”

  “First of all, it’s not on earth, it’s in the sea,” he calls up. “And it’s just what all good loggerheads do. I’m following the moonlight into the ocean.”

  I look down and see that smile, that amazing smile, as he looks up at me from the dark water.

  “What’s your decision?”

  “You’re going to have to come down here to find out.”

  “How’s the water?”

  “How do you think it is? It’s awfslome!”

  I empty my pockets, take off my sandals, and without so much as a second thought, I jump. I feel a charge rush through my body, and I close my eyes to brace for the impact, ready to splash into the water and see where the current takes me.

  STEADY EDDIE’S

  SURF SCHOOL GLOSSARY

  aerial: when a surfer rides up the face of a wave, launches into the air, and comes back down, landing on the same wave

  barrel: a breaking, hollow wave, also called a tube

  boogie board: also known as a body board; used in order to ride waves lying flat on the belly

  carving: turning on top of a wave

  cutback: turning back into the wave, closer to the wave’s power source

  duck dive: paddling under a wave that is coming straight at a surfer

  fin: the curved piece underneath the surfboard

  fins-fee snap: a sharp turn where the fins slide off the top of the wave

  fish: a short and thick surfboard used to ride smaller waves

  floater: when a surfer rides along the top of a wave

  grommet: a new and inexperienced surfer

  hang ten: riding a surfboard with the toes of both feet hugging the front edge

  Kelly Slater: born and raised in Florida; considered to be the greatest surfer of all time

  leash: the cord that attaches a surfer’s ankle to the surfboard

  pearl: when the nose of the surfboard digs under the water and propels the surfer over the front of the board

  rail: the side edge of a surfboard

  rash guard: a swim shirt worn to protect one’s skin from the wax and sand on the surfboard

  rip current: a strong current flowing from the shore out toward the sea

  roundhouse: turning one hundred and eighty degrees

  snap: when a surfer shoots down the top of a wave

  soft board: a beginner’s surfboard with a soft, foam top

  stringer: a thin strip of wood that runs down the center of a surfboard, making it stronger

  shred: term used to describe a person surfing well

  vertical backhand snap: when a surfer builds up as much speed as possible before sticking the board up off the top of the wave and whacking it back down

  Her future first love lives in the past.

  Lose yourself in this totally awesome sneak peek of

  by Gaby Triana.

  Miss? Miss, are you okay?”

  I cough water. My tongue hurts.

  “I think she’s waking up.”

  “Don’t crowd her. Give her room.”

  All around me I hear water rushing, kids screeching, and people talking in hushed tones. Except for this one guy who sounds like he’s in charge. “She’s coming to.”

  My eyes hurt. My head hurts. I’m outdoors. I know the
sun is out because I see orangey red behind my eyelids. I’m lying on sand, I think.

  “Miss, can you hear me? Are your parents here?”

  I can hear you. My parents wouldn’t be here together.

  “Just give her a minute.”

  A different voice, a woman’s. “Did she slide with you? How come you didn’t see her, Becky, for goodness’ sake!”

  “Mommy, she was already there when I slid down the slide,” a little girl cries. “I fell right on top of her!”

  “Ma’am”—the guy in charge is talking again—“she couldn’t have slid with her. The lifeguard up there makes each person wait until the person ahead of them passes the orange flag. Then they can slide.” I crack my eyelids open to peek at him. “My guess is she fainted when she entered the water.” He’s crouched on his knees hovering over me, but he’s talking to people around him. He has black hair and a white tank top. And a mustache. Like, an actual mustache.

  “It might’ve been a seizure.” Another guy’s voice, somewhere behind my head.

  “But she wasn’t on the slide, I’m telling you!” the little girl continues to argue with her mother. Her blond pigtails are dripping wet, and she has a pink one-piece on. “She wasn’t ahead of me in line!”

  “Ow. My tongue hurts.” I bit it.

  The people around me—I see them now, there’re like ten or more of them—are all watching me, though it’s hard to see their faces with the sun shining directly above them. “She’s opening her eyes. She’s talking.”

  “Told you it was a seizure,” that guy says again. This makes the tank top guy in charge come closer, taking up my whole view. He looks like a lifeguard.

  “Miss, don’t move. You passed out in the water. Now you’re on the beach. Just tell me your name so I can find your folks.”

  “I found you in the water,” the blond girl says, crouching close to my face, “or else you might’ve died.”

  Thank you, I say, or think I say. I don’t even know where I am. What is this place? Where’s Mom? Or am I with Dad today? Is this camp? I can’t even think of my name. I can’t talk. I have to get up. “Ow.”

  “You sure you want to do that?” A whistle around his neck dangles above my face. He turns his attention back to the people standing around us. “It’s common following a seizure for the victim to be confused.” He turns to me. “Are you confused?”