The Red Bikini

by Lauren Christopher

  “And this one?”

  “This one . . .” Fin let his eyes roam openly this time. “This one, I’d have some other ideas for.”

  Giselle’s breath caught, and her hand flew to cover her new snowy friends. “I can wear something of Lia’s.” She bolted for the bedroom, practically taking her shoulder out on the corner.

  Mother-of-pearl, what was she thinking? She didn’t know what to do with a guy like this. He was used to Veronicas. Women with no stretch marks. Women with no ex-husbands. Women who knew how to be sexy and fling their hair around. Her life was about sippy cups and playdates—not sex and real dates. What would she do if Fin came on to her? She wouldn’t know the first thing about making an energetic twenty-eight-year-old happy.

  Fin’s voice drifted from the living room: “Lia wore this black dress once to an event I dragged her to. It was sort of plain, straight. Do you see it? It went all the way to her neck.”

  Giselle was flinging hangers back in Lia’s closet, trying to get her breathing back under control. Black, plain, straight? She found a black shift, a boatneck, cut just below the knee—vaguely Jackie O. It might be the one he was talking about.

  “I think I see it,” she yelled back.

  She checked the size. It was a size small for her, but the stress of the divorce and not eating much was making some of her clothes hang in a gangly way. This might actually fit.

  She slipped out of the siren-red concoction and flung it across the bed, chastising herself again for trying to be something she clearly was not and for wanting something she couldn’t even define. She wriggled the plain black dress up over her hips with a desperate sort of hope, poking her arms through the sleeveless armholes and tugging at the zipper in back. She noted, with relief, that it zipped all the way.

  She went to the mirror.

  Huh. Not bad.

  And it made the red hair appear slightly more natural. Regardless, she decided to pin her hair up. This wild look wasn’t her either. She scooped it into a chignon—not her best, but it would do—and slipped on a pair of sensible black heels. She felt a lot better.

  Fin was standing by a bookcase, checking out Lia’s CDs, when she reemerged. He turned to say something, but halted. She couldn’t read his expression.

  “Better?” she asked.

  He cleared his throat and put a Ray Charles disk back. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he walked over and held out his arm, much as he had for Coco the other day.

  “My chariot awaits?” Her voice shook. She noted that he skipped the compliment.

  He nodded curtly, and she took his arm, smiling politely but wanting, inside, to die.

  She was back in the role of Jackie O. Or Donna Reed. Or whoever he expected her to be. Which was not what she wanted, but what he needed.

  Fin had played his part for her yesterday, doing exactly what she needed when she needed it, so the least she could do was respond in kind.

  “Let’s go,” she said, trying for cheerful, but hitting a note that she hoped he didn’t recognize.

  Because if he heard it right, it would have sounded like her terrible, shattering disappointment.

  • • •

  Fin put the car into gear, pulled out into the quiet sandy streets, and tried not to look at Giselle any longer than he had to.

  He was already sweating from the heat, and he wasn’t going to appear any more presentable at this wine-tasting event if he were dripping with perspiration from the way she looked in that dress.

  The disturbing thing, of course, was that the dress itself was nothing to make note of—not like the first number she’d had on. He’d hardly recognized her when she opened the door in that red thing—her oyster-white skin, the incredible cleavage she had going—and he’d pretty much lost his ability to speak. “Wanting to be someone else” in a dress like that might mean tapping into a new, post-divorce sexuality—but damn, that couldn’t be on his watch. He was supposed to become a better person, not seduce his closest friend’s sister.

  But now, even though she’d changed into this new number, with no plunging neckline, no racy color, it made him sweat all the same. Her breasts still rose deliciously with every breath; the clingy fabric still coiled around her waist and emphasized the sway of her hips. And she’d pulled her hair up, so now he could see her neck again, which he had an absurd obsession about kissing. Just once. He had the sense that she’d make a very sexy, breathless sound if he kissed her, right there, on that little curve of her neck. And he had to focus on his rearview mirror so he didn’t think about that anymore.

  “Do you have enough air?” He adjusted the dials on the dash.

  “I’m fine.”

  He needed to stay focused on his goal—which was to impress Mahina’s board of directors. They needed to think of him as stable. Mahina had had a string of bad luck with their riders lately—Jennifer, their favorite, had died; an East Coast surfer named Caleb had gotten arrested and spent most of last year in jail; and Fin had begun losing all his heats and dropping in the rankings. He just couldn’t pull it together after Jennifer’s death. Every time he went out there, into the rolling surf of Portugal or the barrels of Hawaii, he couldn’t get his head in the game—relying on the luck of the waves, doing the tricks the judges wanted to see, hoping his competitors wouldn’t get the same waves—it all just seemed so fucked-up after Jennifer died. There didn’t seem to be a point to any of it.

  So he resorted to drinking through most of the competitions, isolating himself. And when he did show up at parties he didn’t want to be at, all he seemed to do was get incriminating photos plastered all over the press. He was embarrassing Mahina.

  “Nice night,” she said.

  “Mmmm,” was all he could give. He made the mistake of glancing toward her and caught sight of her body again. He moved the A/C vent so it was blowing right onto his face. “It’s only about twenty minutes from here,” he said, more to himself than to her.

  “Okay,” she said quietly.

  He could tell her face was turned toward him, maybe trying to read him, maybe hoping he’d be a damned better date. Lia and Rabbit would be horrified if they knew where his thoughts were going right now—soft dress, rustling off, soft skin, lace panties, his fingers exploring . . .

  He rubbed his forehead.

  Eyes on the road. Hands to himself. That was tonight’s new mantra.

  “Your eye doesn’t look too bad,” she said.

  He grimaced. It did. Fox was going to kill him. “Thanks for trying to fix it up last night,” he said anyway.

  “Did you use the Boo Boo Buddy?”

  “I did. I couldn’t make it feel as good as you did, though.” Damn. Did he just say that? “I forgot it. I’ll have to give it back to you another time.”

  “That’s fine. So what do I need to know about your event?”

  He cleared his throat. Yes, sticking to business would be better here. He was on the verge of admitting he’d dreamed about their damned kiss, which was something he couldn’t remember doing—dreaming about a kiss—since he was about fourteen.

  “There’ll be a couple of key players,” he said. “I’ll point them out to you when we get there. It’ll be the company vice president, named Fox, who’s my boss and very cool; and the owner, Mr. Makua, who’s powerful and holds my career in his hands. The company is Mahina. My contract with them needs to be renewed.”

  “Oh, I read that. . . .”

  He took his eyes off the road to glance at her. “Where did you read that?”

  “Online.”

  As her words sunk in, he glanced between her and the road. “You Googled me, Giselle?”

  “A little.”

  The blush that stole across her cheeks was incredibly cute, but Fin’s back stiffened thinking about what she probably found.

  It had been refreshing yesterday being with someon
e who had never heard of him—it felt like a fresh slate, where he could make his own impression and not be at the mercy of rumors or wikis. And he thought he’d done pretty well, considering. But now . . . Now the media would have its influence on this woman, too. This woman, who seemed all things good and innocent, and would now see him at his bottom-dwelling worst. It made him feel hopeless.

  “If there’s anything you want to know, Giselle, you can ask me directly. You know that, right?”

  She nodded.

  He wondered what she’d thought of all the photos of him—the photos of all the booze, the groupies who hung around the hotels, the general downward spiral since Jennifer died. He had been drinking way too much, especially as they’d tried to finish the tour in Portugal. The tour had moved on to the Quiksilver Pro in the southwest coast of France, but Fin and a few others flew back to California with Jennifer’s body, where they’d done a small tribute. About a hundred surfers did a traditional “paddle out” in Sandy Cove—they’d formed a ring with their boards in the deep water, out behind the wave breaks, and had thrown leis into the center, as was custom. But it wasn’t enough for him. It wasn’t enough for Jennifer. The guilt of not saving her was eating him alive.

  When he flew back to France, he began having nightmares that she was in his grasp, but he couldn’t lift her, which wasn’t the way it had happened, but it kept him awake most nights anyway. In Portugal, for the Rip Curl Pro, he dreamed she fell out of an airplane and he was supposed to catch her. By the time they’d hit the Billabong Pipe in Hawaii, he began dreaming that her body fell apart in his hands. He was a mess. He began spending much of his time alone in his hotel room with a couple of bottles of scotch, dreading and willing sleep at the same time.

  “I’d rather you ask me than read crap online,” he said quietly.

  “Mahina’s the company you’ve had your contract with for years?”

  “Is that all you’re wondering?”

  “Just trying to understand this.”

  He tipped his head. “That’s right. I’ve been with Mahina for years.”

  “What’s the contract for?”

  “I ride for them—which means I wear their gear when I’m competing—wet suits, board shorts—and use their leashes and boards. And I pose for photos, show up at events, sign autographs, that kind of thing.”

  “Do you like it?”

  Colorful summer plants whisked by his window as they picked up speed. He wasn’t used to anyone asking him whether he liked his job. Most people thought it was a dream job—surfing for a living—but in reality it could feel stifling when you did it for money. Wearing the sunglasses and hoodies and crap and posing for photos could make you feel like a sellout faster than you could blink. But he always felt like an asshole for complaining. He knew he had a lot of people’s dream job.

  “Can’t complain,” he said.

  “But you’re worried they won’t renew the contract?”

  “Right.”

  “Why wouldn’t they?”

  He took a deep breath. “Well, some of the stuff you saw when you Googled me is part of the reason.”

  He braced himself for her judgment. It had been nice being the protective arm for a smart, beautiful woman who thought he was “hunky enough, pro surfer enough” to help her somehow with her own problems, but all that was over now.

  “So why do you need me?” she asked.

  He glanced with disbelief between her and the road, then dropped his car visor to ward off the bright sun that came through the windshield, slicing through the dry summer canyon. She was just going to let everything go—whatever she did or didn’t see online—and let it zoom past, just like the golden canyon hills out their windows. The thought buoyed him, but made him feel guilty at the same time. He didn’t feel he deserved her trust. He hadn’t been on the receiving end of trust in a long time.

  “I’m on the older end of this sport,” he finally answered. “Companies like Mahina want seventeen- and nineteen-year-olds to sell their gear. I don’t have the jutting hip bones anymore to hang board shorts on.” He tried to smile, but her eyes went wide before they darted away.

  He cleared his throat. Damn. He had to keep reminding himself not to talk about body parts, sex, or even sex wax to her. Topics like that made Grace Kelly here look like she was going to combust.

  “As nervous as they are about me,” he went on, “they’re even more nervous about the groms coming up. I’m hoping they’ll see me as their better, more mature candidate.”

  “You’re mature?”

  He snapped his head in her direction.

  “I mean . . .” she stammered. “I just mean ‘mature’ in the sense of ‘old.’ You seem so . . . young.”

  He didn’t answer. Women like Giselle were probably always going to see him as an immature beach bum.

  “So I’m the old lady to make you look more mature?” she asked.

  That brought a smile to his face, but he kept his eyes averted. “You’re my sophisticated date, to show that I make good decisions. And that I’m popular among the people they care about.”

  “And those people would be . . . ?”

  “People with money.”

  From the corner of his eye, he could see that her face changed then—that probably hadn’t been the best way to phrase things. But keeping this to facts was the best thing for both of them. He had played a role with her, and she was playing a role for him, and it was best they just stick to their scripts. It was better than trying to impress her, or worrying about what she thought of him, or blurting out his whole life to her. And definitely better than obsessing about seeing her naked.

  “So what do you need me to do?” she asked.

  A stab of guilt went through his chest at the hurt sound in her voice.

  “Just be . . . you,” he managed to say, shrugging. He couldn’t think of how else to explain it. She was perfect, just the way she was. She was smart, well educated—exactly the kind of woman the board at Mahina loved. The kind of woman Fox wanted him to bring tonight. The kind he could be photographed with.

  He leaned forward to find the main canyon road, which would lead to the cliff-top entrance to the gallery. His tires popped over the gravel of the turn, which took them up a winding road through a grove of silvery eucalyptus trees. There was a magical quiet to the eucalyptus canyon, which Giselle seemed to sense. She sat forward, lips parted, gazing toward the top of the hill, where the gallery was lit like a modernist cube, glass walls showcasing the elegance inside.

  “Beautiful,” she whispered.

  He stole a glance at her. The evening sun dropped in through the windshield and cast her in a ringlet of gold. “Agreed.”

  The dirt parking lot was full, and they had to park toward the back with a few other arrivals right behind them. When Fin cut the engine, the quietness of the canyon seeped into the car. He turned toward her, the leather creaking beneath him.

  He cleared his throat. He didn’t expect to be nervous about this. “Giselle, could you . . .” He nodded toward her wedding ring. “Could you take that off again?”

  She paused for a second, seemingly confused, then followed his line of vision to her hand. “Oh! Of course . . .” She began wrestling with the thing, then tugged it off and threw it in her purse.

  But he continued to stare. Now, instead of her ring, she had a nice white tan line—a classic “cheater’s band.”

  He ran his hand over the back of his neck. “Well, that’s not going to do a thing for my reputation.”

  She followed his gaze and then rubbed her finger, as if shocked the ring of white were there. “I’m sorry, Fin. I must not have put sunscreen on my hands today. The breeze made it seem too cool to tan.”

  “It’s all right. Rookie mistake.” He opened his ashtray and started rummaging around. This would make things a lot easier. “Do you have any other r
ing you can wear?”

  She shook her head, still staring at the ghost of her marriage.

  He leaned toward his ashtray and found what he was looking for. It was a small woman’s band, with a single turquoise stone, that he’d gotten in Mexico during one of his surfing trips years ago. He had purchased a cheap nickel band for himself that had long since tarnished, buying it off the sidewalk from a woman who was selling jewelry off a Navajo blanket with her four children, who all sat there disheveled and hungry. Fin had given her the five dollars she’d asked, then threw in his last hundred when he saw her limp forward on her badly burned legs. She’d thrown her arm around his waist and put this skinnier nickel ring in the bag as well.

  He found it now, pulling it out among the quarters, and held it in front of Giselle.

  He had intended to keep this light, keep it playful. He had intended to give it to her and say, “Hey, will you marry me?” and they’d both laugh about it as they climbed out of the car and she put it on for this part of the charade.

  But a wave of embarrassment now swept over him. He stared at it between his fingers and tried to think of what to say.

  “Are we supposed to be married?” she finally asked, saving him the humiliation.

  “Engaged. I won’t see most of these people again—they’re almost all from corporate. My boss, Fox, just thought it might help my case with Mahina and thought it would be . . .” He tried to think of what he meant to say, but words were eluding him.

  He waited for her to respond as the car grew warmer, holding his breath while she turned the ring over and over.

  “I know it’s not much,” he said.

  He almost bit off his tongue. Damn, he was an idiot.

  The ring was large for her finger, and the turquoise weighed it down so it slipped toward her palm, but it would do. And it covered enough of that damned white band of skin.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said.

  Fin began breathing again.

  “But I need to know what you’re doing with a woman’s ring in your ashtray. I’m not wearing someone else’s ring, am I?”