Close Out

by Todd Strasser

  “No sweat.” Curtis limped away, clutching the neck of the Jack Daniel’s bottle.

  “Kind of early to start drinking, isn’t it?” Jade asked Kai in a low voice.

  “He’s still going from last night,” Kai said. “I don’t think it’s morning yet as far as he’s concerned.” He took a sip of coffee. “This is really great. Thanks for bringing it down. What about your friend?”

  Jade shrugged. “Another possessive loser.”

  “Look at it this way,” Kai said. “They wouldn’t be possessive unless they thought you were worth possessing.”

  “Sometimes I think I wouldn’t mind being possessed. Only it would have to be by the right guy.” Jade looked back up the beach as if she knew she had to get back. She sighed. “He’ll probably be waking up soon and will get all freaked out if I’m not there. Guess I better go.”

  “Wait.” Kai got to his feet and shook out the blanket, then folded it. “Normally I’d wash it before I gave it back, but I don’t have access to a washing machine.”

  “It’s okay.” Jade took the blanket. “I appreciate the thought. Sure you won’t need it again tonight?”

  “Don’t know,” Kai said. They started to walk up the beach together.

  “Then maybe you ought to keep it.”

  “How about, if I need it I’ll let you know?”

  Jade gave him a curious look.

  “There is something else, though,” Kai said. “Sort of a big favor.”

  “Okay.”

  “How long have you been working at the surf shop?”

  Jade frowned as if this wasn’t what she’d expected him to ask. “A couple of years, why?”

  “Long enough to have noticed that Big Dave doesn’t like Buzzy very much?”

  “I don’t think he can stand Buzzy,” Jade said. “Like he almost hates him.”

  “So why does he keep working there?” Kai asked.

  “Are you kidding?” Jade said. “Dave McAllister’s the chairman of the boardroom. The big Kahuna. Hero to all the little gremmies. If he didn’t have that job he’d be working in McDonald’s.”

  “Only there are no McDonald’s in Sun Haven,” Kai said.

  “Exactly,” said Jade.

  “So how well do you know Big Dave?”

  Jade groaned. “Too well. I mean, not that anything’s ever happened between us. But not a day goes by that he doesn’t let me know how much he wishes something would happen.”

  “So this favor I need to ask,” Kai said. “It’s not really for me, but for someone else.”

  “And it involves me being nice to Dave?” Jade guessed.

  “You got it.”

  Jade took a deep breath and let it out slowly and reluctantly. “How important is this?”

  “Big-time, Jade. I mean, huge. Think you could do it?”

  “You haven’t told me what it is,” Jade said. “Do I have to get him to do something?”

  “No, you just have to get him to tell you something. A secret.”

  Jade smiled. “That’s all?”

  “It could be a big secret,” Kai warned. “One he might not be willing to tell without some, er, encouragement.”

  “If it’s really that important, I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Thanks, Jade.”

  Seven

  Kai headed over to Teddy s. Now that he was helping her shape and glass boards, there was usually work for him whenever he had the time. And it looked like from now on he’d have plenty of time. He walked along the high white picket fence in front of her house and turned the corner.

  Buzzy Frank’s yellow Hummer was parked at the curb. Kai stopped for a moment, uncertain of whether he should go in. Suddenly he heard a loud voice coming through an open window in Teddy’s backyard shop.

  “I don’t care what you do, Buzzy.” Teddy sounded angry. “There is no way that is ever going to happen.”

  “Don’t be stupid, Teddy,” Buzzy shot back. “Almost all your business comes through my store.”

  “That’s correct, Buzzy, and you take a very handsome commission for that,” Teddy replied. “An incredibly handsome commission considering all you do is write down an order on a piece of paper. I do all the rest. So I think that the money you get for that should be more than enough to make you very happy.”

  “It’s not about the money,” Buzzy said.

  “Oh, cut the crap,” Teddy snapped. “It’s always about money, and you and I both know it. It’s about building a Sun Haven Surf brand to compete against Hobie and Rusty and CI. Next thing I know, you’ll have a warehouse full of shapers pumping out Sun Haven boards. Or maybe I’m giving you too much credit. Why pay shapers when you can churn out machine-made garbage?”

  “You’d be my top designer, Teddy,” Buzzy said. “You could design all day instead of wasting your time shaping and glassing. Whose name is on every Channel Islands board? Merrick’s. It’s the same with Rusty and all the rest of them. Picture it, Teddy. Your name on thousands of boards all over the world.”

  “Did it ever occur to you that maybe I like shaping and glassing my own boards?” Teddy asked. “That maybe I take pride in my work and the only way I can ensure that it meets my standards is by being hands-on with every single one?”

  “Then it’s time you woke up, Teddy,” Buzzy said. “Ten years from now there’ll hardly be any hand-shaped boards at all. Everything will be done by computer-guided grinding machines, precise to less than a millimeter. It’s going the way of cars, Teddy. All computer robotics. There’ll be no tolerance for the kind of errors that shapers make. Hand-shaped boards are the Ghost of Surfing Past.”

  “Then I prefer the past,” Teddy spit. “Truth be known I don’t particularly care for the present and I sure as hell don’t like what I’m hearing about the future. Now I believe our business here is finished. If I were you, I’d get into that big yellow armored car of yours and go back to your shop and count all that money that you probably don’t have any idea what to do with.”

  “You’re making a mistake, Teddy.”

  “And you’re making me mad.”

  “There are plenty of other shapers around.”

  “Get out of my workshop, mister.”

  The door to the workshop opened and Buzzy came out. Kai pretended he was only now turning the corner and coming down the sidewalk. As Buzzy let himself out the driveway gate, he saw Kai. They both stopped.

  “I know what your father’s up to,” Buzzy said. “It won’t be pretty when the ax comes down on him.”

  “That the same ax that came down on Curtis’s boards or a different one?” Kai asked.

  “That was a butter knife compared to this,” Buzzy said. “This’ll be a guillotine.”

  Kai knew from experience that his father had no intention of being anywhere near Sun Haven when the ax or guillotine came down. The Alien Frog Beast planned to be two thousand miles away with a new name, a new driver’s license, and a new store. The only thing he’d be missing was his younger son.

  Lucas’s father still hadn’t moved. Kai couldn’t imagine why.

  “That was a nice ride you had over in Fairport,” Buzzy finally said.

  “Thanks.”

  “Lucas says you might compete in the Northeast Championship here in a few weeks,” Lucas’s father said.

  “Might”

  “I hope you will. It would be good for him. He needs someone to light a fire under him.”

  “You never know,” Kai said, thinking back to the Fourth of July. “It might explode in his face.”

  Buzzy’s features hardened. Without a word he got into the Hummer and drove away. Kai went through the gate and knocked on the door to Teddy’s workshop.

  She didn’t answer. That was strange. Kai knew she was in there. Maybe she’d gone into the shaping room and couldn’t hear him. He knocked again. This time a little louder.

  “Go away.”

  “Teddy, it’s me, Kai.”

  “So? What part of the sentence didn’t y
ou understand? ‘Go’? Or ‘away’?”

  “Come on, Teddy.”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Teddy?” Kai tried again.

  “Get away from my workshop.”

  “You already used that line,” Kai reminded her. “Or at least something pretty close to it.”

  Again Teddy was silent.

  “Look, Teddy, I admire what you said to Buzzy. The guy’s a cold-blooded bastard. But it’s hard to go up against someone like that alone. We all need friends and I’m one of yours. So how about it?”

  “Oh, all right, come in.”

  Kai pushed the door open. Teddy was sitting on a stool by the workbench, a defeated slope to her shoulders as she stared at the floor. She was a small woman, but today she looked even smaller.

  “I guess it’s obvious that I heard part of that conversation with Buzzy,” Kai said.

  “Greedy, power-hungry son of a bitch,” Teddy muttered.

  “I didn’t quite get what he wanted,” Kai said. “Your boards with a Sun Haven Surf brand logo on them?”

  Teddy swept her arm around the workshop. “This is my life. It may not seem like much, but it’s all I’ve got and it’s the only thing I do. I make the best boards I can, and every surfer around here knows that when they see a plain white board with the handwritten letters TL on the stringer it came from this shop and these hands.”

  “Then don’t let him do it,” Kai said.

  “How can I stop him?” Teddy asked. “You and I both know that almost all my business comes from orders he takes at the store. The custom boards, the repairs … All that work comes from Sun Haven Surf.”

  “Open your own business,” Kai said. “Custom-shaped boards and ding repairs. You’ve got a shop. All you’d have to do is advertise in the local paper.”

  “You think I’d let strangers come in here?” Teddy asked. “Wander all over my property? Are you crazy?”

  “Then maybe you could rent a small place in town,” Kai said. “It would cost you more, but you’d probably get more business. Walk-ins and stuff.”

  Teddy gave him a curious look. “How does a kid your age know about this?”

  “It’s what I’ve been doing for the past two years,” Kai said.

  Teddy blinked. “Oh, right, with your father. Wait a minute. What are you doing here? You work for him during the day.”

  “Not anymore,” Kai said.

  “What happened?”

  “He’s a crook,” Kai said. “I got to the point where I couldn’t take it.”

  “So I’m not the only one who’s out of a job right now,” Teddy realized.

  “You could say that.”

  “And you think you learned about business from him?”

  “Kind of a mixture of what to do and what not to do,” Kai said. “By watching him do it wrong, I hope I figured out what was right.”

  “Then, we’d be partners in this venture?” Teddy asked with an amused expression.

  “However you want to do it,” Kai said.

  Teddy smiled and shook her head. “You’re good, you know that? For a second there you almost made a believer out of me. How old are you? Seventeen?”

  “Fifteen,” Kai said.

  Teddy slapped her own cheek gently, as if to wake herself up from a dream. “Hello? Anyone home? Am I really listening to a fifteen-year-old tell me to go into business for myself? Oh, wait, not for myself. He and I will be partners in our very own surf shop, competing against Buzzy Frank and Sun Haven Surf. I’m sure Buzzy would be delighted. We’d have his blessings.” She pointed at the door to the shaping room. “There’s the shaping room. Get to work.”

  Kai knew better than to argue.

  Eight

  “Dudes, this is most definitely the life,” Booger said. He was lying on his back on the raft floating in the pool in Spazzy’s backyard. On his bare stomach was a slice of pizza, and in his hand was a can of Mountain Dew. It was dark, and the lights around the pool were on, as well as one big underwater spotlight that made the chlorinated water glow aqua blue.

  Spazzy, Bean, Everett, and Kai sat at the glass patio table, eating pizza. A couple of evenings a week now, they hung out at Spazzy’s house, usually by the pool, or sometimes in the game room, where Jillian and Spazzy had Foosball, air hockey, and Ping-Pong. Jillian was always cool about ordering some pizzas for them, and even after the sun went down, they could hang around the pool as late as they liked.

  At that moment Bean was glaring unhappily at Kai. “When?”

  “Later,” Kai replied.

  “What are you talking about?” Spazzy asked.

  “Nothing important,” Kai said, and gave Bean a look.

  “Okay,” Spazzy said, and jerked his head toward the house. “What are they talking about?”

  Kai and the others turned and looked. Through the large glass sliding doors they could see into the kitchen, where Shauna and Jillian were talking. Both were wearing bathing suits and sweatshirts. Shauna’s sweatshirt was blue with a hood hanging down the back. Jillian’s was green with a zipper in the front.

  “Girls can talk forever,” Bean said with a shrug.

  “Hey, you guys hear about the Northeast Open Surfing Championship?” Spazzy asked. “Like with real prize money and everything?”

  Kai and the others nodded.

  “You’re all entering, right?” Spazzy asked.

  “I’m thinking about it,” Bean said.

  Spazzy twitched and blinked. “What about you, Kai?”

  Kai shrugged.

  “Wow, I would have thought you’d be totally stoked about this,” Spazzy said. “I mean, not just because it’s real money, but because it’s like a total shot at the big time.”

  “Don’t forget you’re not the only person who feels that way,” Bean said. “Every kook within five hundred miles is thinking the same thing.”

  “So?”

  “This isn’t gonna be a local deal like the Fairport contest,” Kai explained. “This is bigtime, with money, which means you’re gonna see pros out there. Or, at least, almost pros. It’s gonna be a whole different level of competition.”

  “But you gotta try, right?” Spazzy said. “I mean, you guys know Screamers as well as anyone by now.”

  The sliding door from the house opened, and Jillian and Shauna came out. Jillian sat down next to Bean and gave him a relaxed kiss on the cheek. It was hard to believe that this was the same person who, a month ago, stood by the window, her arms crossed tightly and a frown on her face while she watched Spazzy protectively.

  “Have a slice?” Bean pulled the pizza box toward them.

  “Okay.” Julian reached in. She folded a slice carefully in half, and then raised it to her mouth and took a dainty bite.

  A slight breeze brought a wind chime to life, and one by one Kai and the others turned hopefully to gaze at the dark dunes and the ocean beyond them. After the long stretch of flat days in early August, there’d been a week of knee-highs and ankle-slappers, and now once again, it was almost flat. Perhaps this breeze was the first sign of a change in the weather. Or maybe it was just a flirtatious tease.

  “Forget the Northeast Championship,” Everett said. “If we don’t get some waves soon, we’re gonna forget how to surf.”

  “I guess the only good news is that it’s the same up and down the east coast,” Booger said, sliding off the raft and climbing up the ladder from the pool.

  “It kills me,” Bean groaned. “The whole season’s five months long at best, and right in the middle of it we always get these doldrums.”

  “Doldrums?” Booger repeated uncertainly as he toweled off.

  “A state of inactivity or stagnation,” Jillian said. “Although originally it was used to describe the area of calm between the trade winds.”

  For a moment everyone stared at her.

  “It was an SAT word,” Julian said defensively.

  “Hey, it’s totally cool” Bean said. “Personally, I think smart is sexy.” He start
ed to rise from his chair. “Anyone feel like Ping-Pong?”

  “I do,” Julian said.

  They headed toward the game room.

  “Anyone for air hockey?” Booger asked.

  “Yeah,” said Everett.

  Booger turned to Shauna, Kai, and Spazzy. “How about you guys?”

  “I’m cool here,” Spazzy said.

  “I haven’t had a slice yet, so I’m going to eat first,” said Shauna. “Then I’ll come down.”

  “I’m gonna hang here too,” said Kai.

  “Okay.” Booger and Everett followed Bean and Jillian through the sliding glass doors toward the game room, leaving Shauna, Kai, and Spazzy alone around the outdoor table. Spazzy got up. “I gotta take a leak. Be right back.”

  He went into the house, leaving Shauna and Kai at the table. The light wind made Shauna’s hair flutter. It may have been Kai’s imagination, but it seemed as though the breeze was growing stronger, which might be a good thing if it brought swells with it.

  “Jillian wants to have a party for Spazzy,” Shauna said. “Before they go back to California.”

  “That what you guys were talking about?” Kai asked.

  She nodded.

  “Sounds like a great idea,” said Kai.

  “I told her I thought she might want to invite Lucas and his friends,” Shauna said.

  Kai gazed at her, surprised. “Why?”

  “Well, Jillian and Spazzy are going to come back next summer, and I thought it would be nice if Lucas and his friends understood Spazzy better,” Shauna explained. “So that if he wants to surf Screamers and you’re not …” Her words trailed off.

  “Here?” Kai filled in the blank for her.

  Shauna nodded.

  A napkin blew off the table and onto the ground. Kai reached down and picked it up. The slightest trace of fall was in the air. It was impossible to imagine where he’d be next summer. To be honest, it wasn’t easy to imagine where he’d be next month.

  “It’s a nice idea,” Kai said. “I just don’t see Lucas going for it.”

  “You never know,” Shauna said.

  They sat quietly after that. Kai gazed up at the night sky dotted with stars. A few thin gray clouds drifted overhead, but the sky was mostly clear. Without warning, a thin bright beam of light streaked parallel to the horizon and vanished.