“Haven’t you heard, Dave? The new generation of chicks wants it all.”
He sighed and began toweling his hair dry. “As dudes, do we have any say in that?”
“Nah. Total world domination.”
“Okay, but I want to be kept alive as a breeder when the revolution comes.”
“That’s disturbing.”
“I try. You ready to go?” He held out a hand to help me up.
“I’m waiting for Matt to give me a surf lesson.”
“Good work,” he grinned. “I need to try some of your reverse voodoo on my FHE girl.”
“Or you could talk to her and ask her out.”
He stared at me, one eyebrow arched. “Did you just give me advice on being straightforward in a dating situation?”
“Yeah.” I paused. “It felt weird.”
He laughed. “If you’re sure you’re okay, I’m outta here.”
“I’m cool. You can go.”
He headed off in the direction of his truck, and I stood to test my injured foot. The cut from the glass throbbed but not too badly. It would do. I shucked my wetsuit off so I could play volleyball. Maybe I should add “Become an Olympic medalist in beach volleyball” to my list . . .
* * *
An hour drags by like days when you’re getting your pride handed to you on a sand court, but right as I missed another dig, I heard Matt call, “Ashley,” to get my attention from the sideline. Ah, the sound of my name on his lips. It was a gentle reminder that my ego was about to endure even greater abuse from the waves.
I swapped out with another girl watching from the sidelines and jogged over to my new surf guru who looked tanned and relaxed.
“Are you going to have the energy for this?” he asked.
I nodded. “My energy’s fine. It’s my self-esteem that’s been sucked dry.”
“Why? I saw you make some great returns.”
“Did you happen to notice all the ones I missed?”
He laughed, the rich sound sending a shiver down my back. “Ashley, do you know who you were playing against?”
“I didn’t memorize all their names or anything.”
He pointed to a girl in a bright yellow bikini with sporty stripes. “She’s on the AVP tour. And that one,” he said, indicating a girl in a swimsuit underneath a tank top, “is trying to qualify for it this year. They’re not exactly amateurs.”
The AVP is the pro beach volleyball organization that sponsors stars like Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh. I felt a little less dismal about my performance.
“I thought they were bionic or Amazons or something. I feel better now,” I said.
“See? You’re not as bad as you thought at volleyball or at surfing. Where’s your board?”
I pointed it out, and once I was back in my wetsuit we made our way toward the waves.
“I want to watch you a couple of times in the white water first, then we’ll go from there,” he said.
The volleyball courts are right by the pier, which is where more experienced surfers hang out. They get a little impatient with beginners cluttering up their waves, so we moved a few hundred yards down the beach. I paddled out to the right break point and when the first wave rolled in, I hopped up straight and rode the froth until my board scraped sand. I’d been doing that since the first day. It wasn’t real surfing, but it’s how everyone had to start. Since I had that trick down pat, I scooped my board up and waited for Matt’s assessment without too much concern.
“Not bad, Ashley,” he said. “You look comfortable in the water, and you’re steady on your feet. Let me see you do it a couple of more times so I can check out your form.”
I lifted an eyebrow, and he shook his head. “That’s exactly why I don’t teach girls over the age of about six.”
I grinned and plowed back through the water, standing the next two times successfully as well. Matt came out to meet me after the last attempt. “Ready to try something bigger?” he asked.
I shrugged. “Sure,” but my stomach was in knots. Now that the goal of getting him to coach me was a reality, I realized I had overlooked the details. Stuff like how I was going to look like a total idiot when I ate it on wave after wave. And details like how that would adversely affect him falling madly in love with me for the summer.
“Let’s walk back to Taco Reef and try there so we’re not in anyone’s way,” he said.
Neither of us said much on the short walk down the sand. I tried to decide if the silence felt uncomfortable or companionable. Putting my stress aside, it was nice to hang out without saying much. I looked over at Matt and smiled.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “I just realized that this is the first time I’ve seen you without a herd of girls.”
His eyes crinkled at the corners as his mouth turned up in a sheepish smile. “It’s kind of ridiculous, I guess, but I don’t know how to make them go away. I don’t want to be rude.”
“Poor baby.”
“Maybe I should copy you and not talk to any of them,” he teased.
“I talk to people.”
“Not really,” he said. “You talk to your cousins. You talk to people if they talk to you first, like Derek. You don’t socialize, though.”
“How do you know? We just met on Sunday.”
“And yet it’s taken me more than one Sunday to figure that out,” he said.
Wait. Did that mean he’d been watching me more than one Sunday? Props to him if that was true, because I hadn’t noticed, and I’d been watching him for three weeks.
Huh.
I didn’t want to explain the dynamics of being a pretty face in a new ward. The girls view newcomers as a threat and are mean until they know you, and the guys treat you like fresh meat. I find it easier to keep a low profile and meet people gradually until I make a few friends and prove to the girls that I’m not there staking out anyone else’s territory. To Matt, I said only, “Guess I’m just shy.”
He grinned. “Yeah, right.”
We reached the spot where he found me earlier and dread formed a fist in my gut as I tried not to think about the number of sand sandwiches I was about to eat in front of him.
“Paddle out,” he said. “I’ll be right behind you.”
I turned to the water and followed directions, eventually lying on my board to paddle as the water got deep enough. Matt stayed even with my shoulder a short distance away.
Finally, Matt stopped and straddled his board. “You ready?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Okay, I’m going to watch you again and see what I can figure out.”
“Are you going to tell me which wave to catch?”
“Yeah. But I want to see what you know about riding it once I pick it, okay?”
I nodded, gauging the waves to see which one he would choose. A few rolled by that he told me to skip, explaining why each wouldn’t work. I tried to let his mellow voice soothe my nerves, but I still felt like I was wound tighter than a Joan Rivers face-lift. He finally picked one, and I turned to paddle, my sense of impending disaster in full force.
My arms picked up speed, but whatever instinct I had almost tapped on my last run with Dave deserted me. Making my best guess, I jumped up on my board and stood for about three seconds before the nose began to sink and I knew I wasn’t going to be riding this one in. I jumped to the side, desperate to avoid a more painful wipeout.
When I did my cool break-through-the-surface-and-sputter routine again, I found Matt already waiting for me, the water at his waist, his hand calmly keeping his board in place as a maverick wave rolled in and tried to buck against it. “What’s the diagnosis, doctor?” I joked. Lame.
“I think you’re mainly going to need to work on timing because you have good body mechanics. If you just put them together at the right point on the wave, you’ll get it down fast.”
“Well, that’s better than the coordination transplant I thought you were going to suggest.”
> “Surfing doesn’t require a lot of athleticism, Ashley. If it did you’d still be fine. I saw you on the volleyball court. Even without it, if you can learn patience and flow, you’ll get it.”
“Patience and flow?”
“Yeah,” he said. “This is where we sing ‘Kumbaya’ and light incense.”
I laughed, feeling a measure of tension dribble away.
“Okay, I’m going to give you a couple of things to feel for on the next wave. It should help.”
“Yes, sir,” I saluted. “Hey, do you have an official title? Like coach? Or sensei or something?”
“I prefer Supreme Boardrider and Wave Master. But usually I forget that’s my title so I might not answer if you call me that. Let’s stick to Matt.”
“You’re a funny guy, Matt.”
“Thanks. Are you done avoiding the next wave?”
“No?” I said, without any real hope that I could stall.
He shook his head. “I’m going to have to do a power of positive thinking lecture and I really hate those, so just smile and paddle back out, please.”
“Fine.”
“This is what I want you to think about,” Matt said as we watched the next set roll in. “You don’t have to finish every wave you start. If it’s not working for you, wrap your legs around your board and pull on the rails until the wave passes. Less wrecks that way.”
“But why would you tell me to take a wave that isn’t good?”
“You can’t always tell by looking whether it’s going to wall up. Sometimes you’re ready to take off on the wave when it starts closing off on both sides, and it’s time to pull back and wait for the next one.”
That speech actually made sense to me, thanks to Dave’s penchant for surf lingo. “Okay,” I nodded. “Don’t finish every wave. What else?”
“This is something you may not have thought about before. Have you noticed when you’re paddling to catch a wave that there’s a point where your arms don’t do you any good anymore because the wave takes over?”
“Not really,” I admitted.
“Watch for it,” he said. “It’ll be really obvious once you’re looking for it.”
“And if I notice it?”
“That’s a good time to hop up.”
When he spotted a wave that looked right, he said, “Go get it.”
I turned my board and paddled toward shore diagonally and then I felt it—a split second where I realized the wave was doing the work and my arms were doing little more than splashing. Without thinking too much harder, I jumped up. Again, I had a three-second window where I felt a little thrill of victory, and then my board shot forward like I was a clown on a banana peel, and I braced for my next dunking.
This time, I scrambled up and found Matt looking pleased.
“That was really good,” he said.
“And yet I’m in the same place as I was after the last wave,” I retorted.
“Because you were too far back on your board. But you stood at exactly the right moment, and I think it might have been on purpose.”
I stared at him. “It was.” That took me aback for a moment. “Whoa.”
“Feels good, huh?”
“Really good.”
“Let’s go home, then.”
“What? I’m just getting started!” I protested.
“Yeah, you are. So now’s a good time to savor the victory. I’m going to take you home so you can think about what you’re making me for dinner on Friday.”
“I can’t Friday. I have to work.” I couldn’t trade away a lucrative shift like that, even if it meant hanging out with Matt.
“Great. I’ll come over for lunch, then.”
“I’m not a lunch chef. I top out at sandwiches.”
“Perfect. Sandwiches are always better when someone else makes them.”
“Yeah, and spaghetti.”
“To tell the truth,” he said, “I’m not much of a cook so pretty much anything tastes better if someone else makes it.”
“Reeeeally?” I drawled. I felt the bite of an idea coming on. “Then we’re going fishing.”
“We are?” he asked in confusion.
“Yeah. Come over on Friday at noon. We’ll go fishing then.”
Curiosity mixed with the confusion on his face.
“Let’s get you home, then,” he said. “I have to drop you off so I know where this fishing expedition starts on Friday.”
Hook. Line. And Friday I’d make sure he swallowed the sinker too.
Chapter 6
Wednesday night I stumbled through the door and wound my way back to my bed, then collapsed in a pile of throbbing muscles and strained arches. I knew popping an Advil and counting my tips would prove amazingly restorative, but for the moment, I wanted to give my aching joints a moment to do nothing. Due to some tragic understaffing, Hannigan’s had looked more like a zoo than a fine-dining steak house. The night manager had expected a normal, slow Wednesday and didn’t schedule a full wait staff for the evening, but we experienced one of those unfathomable slams that defy prediction. The handful of servers working had hustled like mad to keep up with our persnickety customers. The downside to wealthy diners and their expectation of perfection from food to service was far outweighed by their generous tips when they got what they wanted.
I sat up on the bed and pulled out the wad of tips from my purse. Peeling off the crisp fives and tens soothed me like a baby with a binky. With a sigh of satisfaction, I dropped my last bill on top and sat back, content that one night’s work had just taken care of my monthly car insurance payment.
I put the money away and pulled out my laptop so I could work on The List with a little help from Google. I didn’t get past my home page because a small stack of messages in my inbox all bore the subject line, “You have a message at LDS Lookup.” I’d halfway forgotten about my online dating project. I hadn’t heard anything since posting my profile the previous week, but I guess my picture must have finally been approved. Being free to look was part of the online dating appeal, and I get that, but it seemed kind of shallow that my personality profile alone couldn’t elicit at least a few responses.
I logged into my Lookup account with my screen name, TwinkieSmash. I earned that nickname during a childhood incident when a neighbor boy refused to give back a Twinkie he stole after I asked nicely. Instead of telling my mom so she could referee, I snatched it from him and squished it in his hair. I blame exhaustion for the screen name pick, but I decided to embrace it and move on.
The first message was from “Excalibur” who requested “my fair hand” as his Guinevere in a Dungeons and Dragons-esque role-playing game adventure so he could “destroy the taunting legions by having the hottest princess.” There was no picture, but I’m pretty sure even killer good looks wouldn’t tip the balance in his favor. I deleted the message.
The next message, from “LonelySearcher19” led me to wonder first, how many lonely searchers there were, and second, why the fifty-year-old in the picture was contacting women half his age. Delete.
“MooseMan” in the next message included a picture of himself in a football jersey for his favorite NFL team, posing in front of a wall covered in color-coordinated sports memorabilia. I’d like to say that I was simply turned off by the way his team’s colors clashed, but I admit I was worried about the unusual size of his head and accepted that this made me a bad person.
Option four looked fine at first. The solid screen name “Scott93” accompanied a picture that indicated the 93 was not his age, and his occupation of “law school” didn’t raise any red flags. Then I realized that he apparently didn’t believe in using capital letters or any kind of punctuation. That was the end of our thirty-second romance.
Not an auspicious start to the Internet dating project, but I had a whole summer to sift through my options. Browsing through the site before I joined had reassured me that normal guys hung out in places like LDS Lookup too. Maybe it took a little time for them to find the normal
girls like me.
* * *
Thursday passed in a blur of clattering dishes on a double shift. It was a good tip night. I even cajoled one of my regulars, crabby Mr. Waite, out of a bad mood and into leaving a tip. It was his second time in my section that week, and it made me smile to see him sitting there, even though he growled his orders. I have a soft spot for curmudgeons.
The busy day made Friday come faster, and now I had only one table set for two in my kitchen. My uncle and Celia were at work, Aunt Trudy was fabric shopping, and Dave was surfing. I studied the supplies laid out on the counter with a critical eye. While I would be serving up lunch for Matt, I would not be cooking it. Matt would. He just didn’t know it yet. He said he would drop by at noon, leaving me only a few minutes to wait. I suspected I had a very entertaining afternoon in store.
The doorbell rang right on time, and I took a deep breath before answering it.
“Hi,” Matt said, standing on the porch looking super yummy. He wore gray board shorts with a cool black graphic scribble all over them and a vintage black surf tee shirt stretched over his well-defined chest. I stood back and waved him in with a smile, noticing that his shirt made his return smile look even whiter. Noticing the flip-flops lined up inside the front door, he slid his off and nudged them neatly into the row, an informal and widespread beach town tradition.
“I wasn’t sure how to dress for fishing, so I hope this is okay.”
“You’re fine.”
He grinned, and I rolled my eyes. “I thought female adoration embarrassed you,” I said.
“You don’t adore me, Ashley. You tolerate me, so I take my compliments where I can get them.”
“I admit you’re pretty tolerable. Come on back and we’ll start your fishing lesson.”
Confusion puckered his brow. “Are we fishing in the tub? Or do you have fish from the market in the sink or something?”
“Patience, Mattie-boy.”
“Only people older than me are allowed to call me Mattie. Or my sister. She isn’t technically allowed to either, but she hasn’t listened to me since she was twelve.”
“How old are you now?” I asked. I assumed he was my age.
The List Page 5
