The Tribes of Palos Verdes

by Joy Nicholson

  “They aren’t telling us everything,” Marge Paxton says to Marlene Smalley on the cliff. “I mean they can’t just shut down the tennis club, unless it’s an emergency! We shouldn’t be breathing this air. It’s scary.”

  “How can something safe smell so bad?” Buffy Peters asks. Then she squeals. “Look, your footprints are glowing!”

  Buffy’s husband peers at the tide with a flashlight, holding his nose, grimacing.

  Terri Miller asks her best friend, Sally Jones, “What do I do with the kids? They’re stuck in the rec room. Maybe we should wear gas masks?”

  Skeezer sneaks up on me. “Let’s push Medina in,” he yells.

  * * *

  The third day of the tide, octopus tentacles begin to wash up against the rocks, silvery-red, leaving phosphorescent trails in the tide pools. Porpoises lay on the sand, inert, like soggy leather sacks. A whale maroons herself against the pylons of the jetty, swaying gently in the fog until she dies.

  The stink seeps through living rooms and gardens, into ocean-view master bedrooms. And there it stays, over the women who recline on their beds, scented towels over their eyes, fingers dangling in bowls of ice water. It hangs over the doctors and lawyers, who drink an extra belt of Scotch and curse.

  “Damn that damn stuff,” an angry man screams into the night, “damn it to hell, already.”

  Towel girls play video games and watch television under sun lamps. They call each other’s private phone lines and laugh about their parents’ hushed arguments. The surfers hide in their rec rooms, locking the doors, smoking weed. The mothers call each other nervously and direct their maids to spray Lysol all over the rugs and couches twice every hour.

  Families are at home together for the first time in years. They aren’t sure what to say to one another. They try to make the best of it.

  A few families—the Scudders, the Arnolds—move to their second homes in Mammoth Mountain or Hawaii. They leave maids behind with instructions to burn potpourri night and day to lift the smell from the Persian carpets.

  Teams of scientists come in U.S. Fish and Game Department vans to study the tide, armed with sonar webs and telescopic cameras. They put up signs along the worst of the beaches.

  DANGER. DO NOT SWIM. DO NOT FISH. UNSAFE WATER.

  People gather in knots to discuss the tide. They call a town meeting, the first town meeting in seventeen years. Fish and Game Department scientists tell the citizens gathered in the school gymnasium that this is the worst case of red tide they have ever seen.

  “Tides like this are not usually dangerous,” they emphasize. “However, this one is so thick, those close to the shore should take unusual precautions.”

  Listening to theories, the citizens grow angry and restless. They whisper together, attacking the common enemy, misery, stink.

  At eight thirty, Ada Pernell finally stands up and asks what everyone really wants to know.

  “When will that smell go away? When are you going to do something about it?”

  “Yes, hear, hear!” someone else exclaims, as if in a Lion’s Club meeting.

  The room hums angrily like a hive. As people grumble that it is their taxes that pay for things like the Fish and Game Department, a fire engine roars past, its lights flashing red against the neutral scientific charts and graphs.

  “Forget your explanations,” someone shouts over the siren. “We want results.”

  The fathers can’t will away the red tide or have it fired. The mothers can’t redecorate it or ignore its presence. The kids can’t surf in it, or smoke near it, or have sex in its bays.

  And each day the tide quietly spreads.

  * * *

  Summer school is mandatory for students in the Mentally Gifted Minors program so that we can complete early college courses. It’s also mandatory for any student who carries a C average or worse. The quads are full of underachievers in the summer; angry, bored, rich bitches looking for a fight, flicking cheese balls at my legs while I study on the grass.

  In the second week of the tide, sudden offshore winds bring the smell to our campus, sickening students and teachers in the airless classrooms. Summer school is shut down in the third week.

  * * *

  I won’t need to fight them this summer. There will be no taunts about my mother—“whale, pig, boat, hog”—in the hallways. It’s the first year I won’t hit anyone with hairbrushes or fists, or bite someone’s arm to the point of blood. I will not kick Sydelle Braverman’s thin shin, or spit in Marcy Knight’s Clinique-perfect face. As I dump the contents of my locker into the trash can, I smile and give myself a high five.

  But later at home, my stomach hurts as I wrap my surfboard in clean towels for storage. I wind them carefully like a triage bandage, around and around its beautiful vanilla skin.

  * * *

  The tide hasn’t reached the shores of Manhattan Beach, a city twenty miles away. Adrian says we should go there.

  “We could surf the pier,” he says. “I dare you to come.”

  But he knows why I’m not supposed to go. By unspoken agreement, no one from Palos Verdes is supposed to surf outside beaches, because then we’d have to reciprocate and let outsiders come here.

  Adrian pushes. “I thought you weren’t like them.”

  “True,” I say, undecided.

  * * *

  Jim’s been sleeping all afternoon. I spy on him, trying to make loud coughing noises so he’ll wake up and listen to my idea, but he’s huddled under the covers, not moving.

  I get three empty banana crates from Lunada Bay Market and line them up side to side in the garage. Then I take the handlebars off my old bicycle and attach rubber bungee cords to the bars. Next I get a screw gun and mount the handlebars into the wood, tightening as much as I can. Finally I take a piece of old carpet from the dog’s bed and put it over the crates.

  “Voilà,” I say to Jim, dragging him to the garage. “Here’s our new paddling machine.”

  I turn on the radio and lie down on the crates, pulling at the pieces of rubber as hard as I can, feeling my tricep muscles constrict.

  “I’m going to be way stronger than old Skeez when the tide’s gone,” I say.

  My brother is laughing while he watches me tug on the bungees, and he says the paddle machine is super cool. I tell him we could pretend I’m surfing for real if he’d narrate a good set for me.

  At first he doesn’t know what to say. He thinks for a long time, his eyebrows wrinkled, his eyes tightly closed. Then he starts to speak softly.

  “Okay, there’s a big set coming in—”

  I interrupt, excited. “What color is the water? How fast is it coming?”

  “Shhhhh,” he says. “It’s gray-green with whitecaps, it’s a south swell, there’s no one out but us. Skeezer’s watching from the cliffs, all the guys are—”

  I interrupt again, impatient. “How far away is the wave?”

  “Twenty yards away, it’s loud like thunder, coming really fast. You better start paddling.”

  He goes on, getting excited now, telling me I’ve got to paddle like I’ve never paddled before. “Hurry, faster, you’re gonna miss it.”

  I pull on the rubber as hard as I can, imagining the wave setting up. I kick with my legs, furious, grabbing on to the side of the crate like it’s a rail, feeling the swoosh and motion, hearing rocks tumble in the surf.

  I push up with my arms, letting go of the bungees, rising on my feet, awash in the moment. I flail around with my arms, swatting at the hot garage air, hanging ten on the crate until it topples.

  “I could see the wave,” Jim says, eyes shining. “I could really see it.”

  At midnight I’m on the phone, telling Adrian about the paddle machine. He says he wishes he could see it, but we should go to Manhattan Beach where we can ride real swells.

  I tell him if we go we have to take my brother.

  “He’ll like you, once he meets you,” I say uncertainly. “I’m sure of it.”

  * * *<
br />
  A moth bats softly against the kitchen window, trapped. My mother crushes it with a newspaper.

  “I hate those things,” she says, sighing.

  Jim glowers at his breakfast as I try to chew sausage in the rotten air. I’m telling him about the clean water in Manhattan Beach, how the three of us can sneak away and surf there.

  “I thought it was going to be you and me now,” he says.

  He gets angrier by the second, looking out at the water, muttering and holding his nose. When I spear a last piece of egg, Jim knocks the fork out of my hand.

  “Just because your Val boyfriend has a car doesn’t mean it’s okay to betray everybody.”

  “You can come, too,” I say, flushing. “There isn’t a real law against going to other beaches.”

  “Trolls, dickheads, fags, idiots. That’s who’s at other beaches,” Jim says.

  “If your brother doesn’t want to go,” my mother says quietly, “I’m sure he has good reason.”

  Jim cackles, a disturbing sound that causes my mother to look up from her plate and say, “Jim, come on, don’t, please?”

  As she chews a rasher of meat, we all swallow, looking at each other. Jim stabs the table with the tines of his fork, telling me I’m a traitor.

  “Please don’t go with that guy,” he says, blinking.

  My mother eats and chews angrily, looking at us, back and forth like a tennis match. My brother pops his knuckles, his throat moving, a puff of hostile sssss sounds coming out. I waver at the door, torn.

  My mother smiles at Jim, holding out her hands to be touched, baiting like a sport fisherman, reeling, catching. Telling him how much she appreciates his loyalty to his friends.

  “And to me,” she adds quickly.

  As a reward, she opens her purse and hands him forty dollars.

  He gathers up the money in his hands and then lies down on the floor, shaking with sobs, a strange froggy croak erupting from his throat. My mother moves close, getting down on the carpet with him.

  A single cloud covers the sun, coming from nowhere. We both move even closer to him. I speak first.

  “Okay, I’ll stay with you. We can rent movies, maybe Jaws…”

  I smile at him, whispering the Jaws music: da nuh, da nuh, da nuh.

  I try to laugh, but it’s too dry. I need water.

  * * *

  It’s hot and crowded at Marineland. The air smells like fish and burnt cotton candy sugar.

  I’m with Adrian waiting for the dolphin show to start because Adrian’s writing a paper on dolphins for his science class. We’re here to study how they live in captivity.

  Sunburnt kids are throwing greasy popcorn into the murky water, hoping to lure fish to the top of the tank. Instead, shrieking, overfed seagulls swoop low, fighting over the morsels, mauling each other with their sharp orange beaks.

  People clap when the trainer comes out from behind a white wall, wearing a tuxedo wet suit. A chute opens and the first dolphin swims out. He’s wearing a plastic chef’s hat, Velcroed around his head with a white plastic strap. The dolphin circles the small tank quickly before picking a piece of fish out of the trainer’s hand.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, it’s Bobo, the gourmet dolphin!”

  The trainer explains that dolphins aren’t usually finicky eaters, but Bobo is an exception. He’s used to hand-fed mackerel meal, enriched with vitamins.

  Everyone laughs except Adrian, who writes something down on a pad of paper, shaking his head. Next, three more dolphins swim out, jumping over high ropes and getting pieces of smelly tuna as a reward. Then loud, jazzy music comes on, and the trainer reappears riding two dolphins around the tank like skis, waving to the crowd.

  That’s when Adrian stands up to leave.

  On the way out, we have to stop at the souvenir stand to get our parking stub validated. There’s a huge inflatable killer whale hanging from the ceiling; blown glass dolphins and fuzzy sea lions are neatly lined up on the shelves.

  “Do you want me to buy you something?” Adrian asks. “Isn’t that what boyfriends are supposed to do?”

  “Are you my boyfriend?” I ask, freezing in place, not looking at him.

  “Of course.” He smiles. “If it’s okay with you.”

  I squeeze his fingers. “I already told everyone you were.”

  We drive to Menlo Park, high above the bluffs where you can barely smell the red tide. I’m eating Kraft Parmesan Cheese out of the green metallic can, spilling a few grains into my palm, then licking them off. Adrian’s writing something on his pad of paper, but he looks up when I shake the can again.

  “Do you think this is gross?” I ask, wiping my hand on the grass before I pour more cheese into it. Adrian thinks for a moment, and says it’s not half as gross as a dolphin wearing a hat. Then he writes again.

  “Jim loves dolphins,” I say carefully, telling Adrian about my brother’s book on dolphins and whales.

  Adrian puts down his pad of paper. He lifts an eyebrow and shifts position. “He doesn’t seem like the type who would care about animals.”

  I tell Adrian that Jim isn’t easy to explain.

  “You two aren’t anything alike,” Adrian persists. “I don’t see how you could be so close.”

  I tell Adrian he’s wrong. Then I tell him he wouldn’t understand about twins since he’s an only child. I explain that Jim and I are closer than anyone else, and we always will be.

  Instead of getting mad, Adrian lies down in the grass, massaging his temples as if he has a headache. Then he tells me he used to wish he had a sister, but Ava never wanted any more kids. I remind him about what’ll happen if Ava marries my father.

  We look at each other, scared. Then he wags his eyebrows, rubbing his hands together, perverted.

  “Incest is best,” he says, pulling me into his lap, tickling me.

  Then we’re laughing so hard I almost pee.

  * * *

  “I told you your father wants to forget all about us,” my mother says later, when he misses his scheduled call that night. “Maybe he’ll just stay in France.”

  “He’s flying back in August,” I say, looking at Jim, prodding him.

  “I’ll bet he travels first class,” my mother says.

  After dinner, I watch Jim staring into space, flying his hand in the air like an airplane. Our dog Puggles is in his lap, snoring. I see the phone off the hook, knocked under the cushions.

  “Look! Puggles knocked over the phone again. I bet Dad did try to call, but he couldn’t get through.”

  Jim crashes his hand into the carpet.

  “It doesn’t matter anyway. The divorce is final in two weeks. He probably won’t want to talk to me anymore because he’s got a new son now.”

  * * *

  South-facing homes like ours are the worst hit. As the tide thickens, more and more neighbors begin to evacuate their dream homes. They pack luggage with the essentials—tennis gear and sun oil—then head off to points south, Mazatlàn or Cabo.

  They go in groups, the Weatherbys with the Cuttings and Snells. The Jewish families go together. A few families go to their second homes in Newport Beach.

  The kids go reluctantly.

  “Mom, I don’t want to go to Mexico. It’s so boring there, and you and Dad always get sunburned and complain about the food. Besides there’s no surf in Cabo. Nothing for us to do.”

  But anything is better than the stench of rotting fish and the closing of the tennis club. The families arrange to meet each other for drinks at a new resort, to have a tennis game and a glass or two of chardonnay.

  “The Playa has a good wine list. The best in Mexico—we’ll meet there. We’ll make do, even have some fun. We’ll survive—Olé!”

  * * *

  “We’re alone on Via Neve, practically,” I report a few days later. “Even the Grahams are gone.”

  “Well I’m glad they’re gone, let them find someone else to gossip about,” my mother says, turning to Jim. She puts her arm around
him, squeezing tight. He stands stiff, not looking at her.

  “That family at Donner Pass ate each other when they were trapped.”

  “Jim,” my mother says, “don’t joke like that. Make us a sandwich. There’s turkey and mayo.”

  Fire

  A brush fire starts at ten o’clock in the tall, dry grass of Gull Hill. Fire engine sirens echo from the rocks, red and blue lights reflect off the water, people and peacocks scream in the dark.

  The barren hillside is gone in twenty minutes, orange licks of flame jumping from tree to tree like monkey tails. Even in the fog, columns of smoke are visible, rising, funneling darkly away.

  Jim is alone on the curb in front of the house when I run down the driveway. He is smiling for the first time in days.

  “Look at it go!”

  “I’m scared; what if it comes here?” I say.

  He puts my head on his shoulder, brushing the ash and smoke from my hair, reassuring me.

  “Fire and water don’t mix, stupid.”

  A breeze comes up, and we hold our noses, nauseated by the smell of red tide.

  “It’s so beautiful,” he says, choking. “Doesn’t it look like a wave?”

  * * *

  At midnight I lie on the bed with a wet towel over my face, trying to keep the smells out. Small dark shapes dart by, disappearing under the rocks on the cliffside. When the phone rings, I jump to grab it before my mother does.

  “Wow,” Adrian says. “Are you okay?”

  “Cats are running around like crazy.”

  “It’s arson,” Adrian says. “They found matches and stuff in the glen. The cops are swarming the place. Marge Paxton is on TV.”

  When I run to the living room looking for Jim, I see Marge Paxton on TV, being interviewed by a pretty newscaster. The camera is zooming in on the fires and then on her face.

  The newscaster says, “I’m here live, in the exclusive, gated community of Palos Verdes, with Marge Paxton, home owner.”

  Marge bursts in. “First that tide, then this fire; what’s next? The locusts?” She sweeps her pageboy to the side, looks angrily into the camera, and speaks. “Whoever did this, I hope you’re happy.”

  Jim laughs when she says this.