‘You’re free,’ Fran said, noticing the sadness in Pink’s eyes. ‘Come and eat.’
Pink looked at Tilly, tears welling up again. ‘Tilly, I’m so sorry. I would never have covered for him if I’d realised.’
‘I know that,’ Tilly said simply.
‘You do?’
Tilly smiled, ‘Of course I do. They wouldn’t have caught him without your help. Come and eat. We’re celebrating something.’
Pink hesitated, still embarrassed. ‘I can’t. I’m broke. My parents stopped my pocket money. And,’ she added, ‘my shop account. And my DVD account. And my phone credit and anything else that requires money.’
‘Oh, well, at least you have a bit of back pay coming from the School,’ said Tilly.
‘I do?’ Pink brightened.
They hooked their arms with hers and took her back to the table.
‘Anyway, there’s heaps here.’
Pink allowed herself to be led to the table. Fran gave her a plate and they piled it with food.
Pink pecked at her food. ‘What are we celebrating?’
They all laughed. Marlee stuck her chest out and Pink noticed her T-shirt for the first time. In fact they were all wearing them.
‘The launch of Bikini Warfare,’ said Marlee, pointing to the lettering across her chest under the telltale frangipani insignia.
Fran tossed a shirt across to Pink. ‘We decided that if you can’t beat them, you may as well join in.’
‘I’ve had more attention from being the bad girl than anything I’ve ever done,’ Marlee said and nodded towards Fran. ‘Franipani’s my sponsor.’ Marlee slapped Pink playfully on the arm. ‘Thanks for your message, by the way. It really helped.’
Pink smiled gratefully at Marlee, and then the others, stopping at Tilly. ‘Tilly, I’m so thick I honestly didn’t know about Kim until I came to see you. I’d never have helped him otherwise.’
‘I know you’d never hurt anyone deliberately, besides it can’t have been easy calling the cops.’
Pink shrunk into her chair. ‘My dad did. I should’ve worked it out but Kim was so convincing. His life sounded really exciting. He said he was a healer but I’m so stupid. I should have realised he really meant “dealer”.’
‘Did you have to go down to the cop shop?’ Fran asked.
Pink rolled her eyes, warming to the conversation. ‘Did I? I practically moved in for two days.’ She paused. ‘Mind you, there are some really cute policemen down there.’
Fran, Tilly and Marlee burst out laughing and Marlee threw her bread roll at Pink.
‘She’s back!’ Fran said, shaking her head.
‘Just joking,’ Pink said, a little shy.
‘Well, with your photos of the kombi and your testimony the police can prosecute. He was probably glad to get out of that van anyway.’ Tilly giggled. ‘When the police compounded the car it absolutely stank. Jamie had filled the hubcaps with prawn shells and they’d been there for nearly two weeks!’
Pink remembered the smell and even now her stomach surged with nausea. She smiled guiltily, thinking about Jamie.
‘Jamie. I really have to make it up to him.’ She glanced around the table. The girls were silent and Pink looked embarrassed. ‘I know, I’ve been really mean to him but I’m not like that anymore and I’m going to prove it to him.’
‘Great,’ Tilly said quietly.
‘Well, I’ve got some good news and some bad news. The good news,’ Pink said quietly, ‘is that my parents have pulled me out of that horrible school. They said they couldn’t see the point of paying all that money for me to go shopping at the mall everyday.’
‘Great, so did they get you a job at the mall?’ Fran joked.
‘Ha ha. No.’ Pink was quiet for a moment, then took a deep breath and continued. ‘Umm, well that’s the bad bit. They’re talking about sending me to boarding school. All girls. Some place up the coast. No shops, no boys and no distractions.’ Her voice petered out.
‘No way,’ said Tilly. ‘When would we see you?’
‘I think that’s the idea.’ Pink straightened her shoulders. ‘Anyway, it’s not decided yet. Depends on whether they take loser girls from the beaches.’
Marlee raised her orange juice. ‘To the loser girls. Could be another T-shirt.’
For once the Surf School sign was not out on the pavement. Sam, Tilly, Marlee and Jamie opened up early and decorated the School with Christmas tinsel and coloured flags. Mitch and Christie arrived with an esky of prawns, oysters and sushi, Pink carried in the coloured tablecloths and chairs, Shane set up the barbecue, Evelyn and Fran put up the shade cloth, and Tilly and Jamie set out a table of salads, dips and potatoes to bake.
They were ready by late morning, and the barbecue coals were glowing, when Phil hobbled down the steps on his crutches. He carefully made his way along the temporary walkway Shane had erected, sticking his head into the School while Tilly took photos.
‘Woah, colour’s bright,’ he joked, hopping inside. The new boards were stacked neatly in rows along one wall, the rashies were folded into coloured plastic containers according to size, new wet suits swung on hangers, and Tilly’s photos and Fran’s jewellery were pinned neatly to display boards at the entrance.
Phil shoved the reservations book to one side, perched on his desk and let out a long, low whistle. ‘Fantastic! I can’t believe this is the same place! Tilly, my girl, Sam, Jamie, Shane, Marlee, Fran, Pink, Kyle … What can I say? This place looks a million bucks.’
‘Good. Are we done with the emotional speeches then?’ Shane said dryly. ‘I’m going for a quick surf while the boys get the sausages on. Get your chair, didya?’
Phil hopped outside, keeping his leg out of the sand. Under the shade cloth, next to the esky, was a low comfy chair raised out of the sand on a wooden pallet. The chair had been decorated with tinsel and hibiscus flowers. Phil laughed.
‘I’m not sitting in that!’
Shane pointed at him. ‘Yes, you are, buddy. Now you know what it’s like to have the home decorating squad on your case. And while you’re up there, let’s get a few embarrassing photos to put on the web. Welcome back, your Majesty.’ He bowed, rolling his arm in a mock gesture of respect. ‘I’m going for one wave before we head to the airport.’
Mitch shook Phil’s hand. ‘Good to have you back, Phil. I’m glad things have worked out. We feel terrible that Jasmine knew …’
Phil shook his head. ‘Without Pink we’d never have caught him. The police had an idea who he was but no evidence. In the end they nailed him half way up the coast – and with a bag of drugs he’d been selling.’
‘Hello, hello!’ Phil called out to Kyle limping down the steps towards them. ‘All packed? Shame you have to fly out on Christmas Day, I was hoping for two lame ducks on the beach!’
Kyle smiled, nodding his head, and looked around for Marlee.
Marlee busied herself with the salads, doing her best to ignore Kyle. Everything she wanted to say to Kyle kept expanding into huge foam letters that stuck in her mouth. No matter how many times she rehearsed what she wanted to say, she only had to see him and the same thing happened. Instead of telling him she was sorry, how she felt, what she thought, she could only look on like a bystander while he seemed to hang around waiting. She struggled again to find a way to let the words free, to take away the fences that had sprung up between them, then hated herself more for failing so badly each time.
She glanced away as Kyle kissed Tilly goodbye, shook hands with Phil, Sam and Jamie, and fended off Pink as she threw her arms around him. Marlee examined the sand between her toes, waiting for him to leave so she could miss him in peace without the torment of seeing him daily.
Her heart dropped, almost hitting the tanned pair of size eleven feet standing directly in front of her, then threw itself back up to her throat where it lodged, expanding until she was desperate to take in a big lungful of air. She raised her head, forcing herself to look directly at Kyle, her words already trapped. His eyes wer
e kind and soft. She could see that they willed for peace between them, especially now he’d be gone for a while. That message and her emotions swam in and out of her heart as though it were imploding. She wondered if Kyle would hug her goodbye. Wondered. Willed. Wanted. More than anything. And because of all of these confused feelings, she stuck her hand out before she realised what she’d done.
Kyle’s smile faded. His handshake was vague, disappointed. ‘Well, Marls, Marlee, see you round.’
The phone rang inside the School and Marlee, relieved, called out, ‘I’ll get it.’ She rushed inside, grateful for the distraction. She didn’t look back at Kyle, although she sensed him slowly turning away, heading up the beach and out of her life.
She answered the phone, pushing around the paperwork for a pen, and unearthed a red mobile. She scribbled the phone message down, then checked out the mobile – no name, no markings – and tossed it into the lost property box. The noise of the party filtered into the room. Marlee bit down on her thumb to stop the tears she knew would come.
When she returned to the party it had stepped up a gear, as Mitch and Jamie hoisted Phil’s chair on their shoulders, taking him down to the water’s edge for the arrival of Santa Claus, who appeared on Sam’s board dressed in his regulation reds. Marlee sank onto the seat near the door, sad, empty.
‘You handled that well. As usual,’ she said to herself.
Another phone rang and Marlee tracked the sound to the lost property box – the red mobile. She flipped it open and gasped softly. The screen saver was a girl in a short black skirt and hat. Her. The photo Kyle had taken on the way to the Island Breeze dinner, except she was the only one in the picture, all her friends had been cropped out.
She put the phone up to her ear, heart racing.
‘Hello?’ Her voice strangled, locked.
‘Who’s this?’
‘Marlee,’ she managed to whisper.
‘Have you got my phone?’ Kyle asked.
‘Well, no. Yes. I mean it was in the lost property box. Where are you?’
‘On the way to the airport.’
Marlee’s body sagged. It was too late. All the speeches, all the moments she’d had to explain, were gone.
‘Hang on a sec.’
She walked out of the School and away from the party towards home.
Without Kyle in front of her, her mind cleared and her thoughts took shape. Now that it no longer mattered, her trapped emotions and words sailed free. Once she began to talk, the words tumbled and fell quickly and in no particular order. She told him about that day in the surf, how his actions had hurt her, the ugliness of her own behaviour. She crossed the road, home in sight, all the time talking, talking, talking, about how her heart thumps when she sees him, even when she’s mad with him, how she looks for him in the surf, how the next few months he’s away will be too long, how beautiful Hawaiian girls are … As she kicked open her door, she’d totally convinced herself that this whole conversation had been a dreadful, embarrassing mistake – something her head had invented, and the silence on the other end of the phone confirmed.
‘Okay, so bye.’ She hung up and dropped onto the bed, the silence around her vast and empty. She closed her eyes and the summer flashed through her mind, imagining how she could have done things differently but you never think of that stuff until it’s too late.
The phone rang again and eventually she answered.
‘Hello.’ Her voice was small, dispirited.
‘Hello. We got cut off. I rang back to say goodbye.’ Kyle’s voice was so soft she could barely hear him.
There was a knock at the door.
Too late. It was all too late. She’d made a fool of herself once again. She bit her lip as though that’d stop the tears welling in her eyes.
‘Bye. Thanks for calling back. Have a good trip.’ And when he said nothing she added, ‘I have to go, there’s someone at the door.’
‘Marlee.’
There was another soft knock.
‘Hang on!’ she called, getting off the bed.
‘Marlee, before you answer the door, I want you to answer one question.’
‘What?’
‘If the person on the other side of the door was me would that be a good thing? Marlee? Marlee, can you hear me?’
Marlee ripped open the door. It creaked and complained on its old hinges but she didn’t notice. Tears ran down her cheeks. Kyle dropped the mobile away from his face. He looked unsure, like that time they’d talked on the bus. He stepped towards her, wrapping his arms around her and gently lifting her up. She folded into his body, feeling his warmth, the soft skin along his neck, the curl of his hair as it brushed against her face, and the softness of his lips as they finally found hers.
A car horn blared. Kyle glanced over his shoulder, then back to her, wiping away her tears with his thumb.
‘I have to go.’ He backed away down the drive. ‘Will you write?’ he asked.
Marlee nodded.
He turned a circle and ran back to her as the car horn honked louder and longer. ‘Oh, nearly forgot. I need my phone. It was the only way I could convince Dad to turn back.’ He kissed her again and then he was gone.
Big puffy clouds, like comfy armchairs, grazed overhead. Water lapped softly against their boards and sunlight danced diamonds across its surface. Tilly, Marlee, Fran and Pink rolled off their boards, diving down to the sandy ripples where fish darted across the shadows. Marlee did a handstand, Pink attempted the splits, Tilly clicked an imaginary camera and Fran swam lazily along the bottom.
One by one they popped back up like fishing floats, climbing back onto their boards, warming up in the sun.
‘I can’t believe we go back to school next week,’ Tilly groaned.
‘Yuck, school shoes.’ Marlee pulled a face. ‘I haven’t worn shoes for nearly two months.’
‘Pink, are you still going to boarding school?’ Fran asked.
Pink, her voice choked, said, ‘Looks like it. Unless I can come up with a plan, but so far I haven’t.’
‘Well, we can come and see you,’ Tilly said.
‘Is there surf near this school?’ asked Marlee.
‘Would you?’ Pink jumped up on her board, then onto Tilly’s, across to Fran’s and then to Marlee’s. ‘Wooooohooo, that’s great!’ She dived high and wide into the sea then swam back to them. ‘I thought if my parents sent me away you’d stop being friends with me.’
‘Why?’ Fran was puzzled. ‘Friendships don’t work like that.’
Marlee floated her new board next to Tilly’s, Tilly grabbed Fran’s hand and Fran linked hers with Pink’s until they floated with boards facing inwards like petals of a flower.
‘Yeah, we’ve got the Pink link, Fran’s going to sell her Bikini Warfare shirts, Marlee and I are going in every contest we can next year,’ said Tilly. ‘And, I’m going to save up for the best camera ever.’
‘Damn,’ Pink said, her stomach grumbling, ‘I thought you were going to say you were cooking lunch.’
‘Yeah, well that too.’ They paddled together towards the shore, walking past the School and along the boardwalk back to Tilly’s.
31 JANUARY
FAVOURITE COLOUR
T: Blue.
M: Blue.
FAVOURITE WAVE
T: The one out the front of my house.
M: The one I’m about to surf.
FAVOURITE BOARD
T: My good old little super gun.
M: The one Jordie made me – wooo hoo!
FAVOURITE BOARDIES
T: My white ones with the blue hibiscus on them.
M: The dry ones.
FAVOURITE SURFERS
T: Melanie Bartels, Sam Cornish, Sofia Mulanovich, Steph Gilmore, Silvana Lima.
M: The young guns: Laura Enever, Carissa Moore, Sally Fitzgibbons, Co Co Ho, Airini Mason.
WHERE I WANT TO BE AT EIGHTEEN
T: With Marlee surfing somewhere, preferably the WQS or WCT.
M: On the WQS or WCT.
BEST MOMENTS THIS SUMMER
T: Dad coming home, Marlee, Jamie teaching me to cook.
M: My new boards, my best friend, Kyle.
BEST PRESENT
T: The costume Pink gave me.
M: Franipani’s green and blue anklet.
BEST MANOEUVRE
T: My 340 – only 20 degrees to go!
M: My re-entry and cutback.
IF I COULDN’T SURF …
T: I’d cook.
M: I’d die.
IF I COULD BE GOOD AT SOMETHING ELSE I’D BE …
T: A chef or photographer.
M: A professional surfer – sorry, there ain’t anything else.
IF I BECAME AN ANIMAL I’D BE …
T: A pelican.
M: A dolphin.
IF I WERE A MACHINE IT WOULD BE …
T: A lava lamp.
M: A super-fast car.
IF I WERE A WAVE …
T: Anything wet is good.
M: A ten-foot barrel.
IF I WERE A THING OF NATURE BESIDE A WAVE I’D BE …
T: A rainbow.
M: A river rapid.
FAVOURITE PLACE TO BE THAT ISN’T WET:
T: At home.
M: At Tilly’s.
Surf School Page 16
