Furious

by Jill Wolfson

  Then it’s my turn. He must sense my hesitation, because he holds out his arms—“Want some help?”—and as much as I want those arms around my waist and my hands on his neck, I also want to do this on my own. I don’t like being a helpless girl. Because I’m not. I’m a Fury. I should be able to jump a few feet. I tell him I’m fine on my own, and he gives advice:

  “Time it right. Avoid these big rocks. Wait. Wait. Now! Jump!”

  My knees buckle a little and the legs of my jeans get splashed, but other than that it’s a perfect landing. I did it. Just offshore, though, I see another wave build and break. I glance left and right, wondering how we’re going to avoid getting soaked or even bowled over. I panic as a flood of white, swirling foam rushes at me. Brendon’s hand takes mine and pulls me backward with the water pursuing quickly.

  It stops because it hit a barrier. We’re in a cave, a small one but big enough for two to squeeze in tightly. I have my second attack of giggles of the day, and I’m normally not a giggler. Maybe it’s the relief of not drowning. Or noticing that overhead, a dozen orange sea stars framed by clumps of dark seaweed cling to the ceiling. Maybe it’s because I’m gripping tight onto the sleeve of Brendon’s flannel shirt so we can both stay balanced on the same boulder, and there’s no place else to go.

  “Welcome to my humble secret spot,” he says. “Like it?”

  “It’s amazing! How did you ever find this place?”

  “Coincidence.”

  “There is no such thing as coincidence, young earthling. There are only karmic lessons from the cosmos. Maybe you were supposed to find it.”

  “Yeah, well, I did a total klutz move surfing, and the cosmos ripped my board away from me. The current took it into here. I paddled after it. The cave is underwater most of the time—except for a short period when the tide is super low like it is today. I come here when I want to think.”

  “Think about what?

  I catch him looking at me out of the corner of his eye, weighing whether he wants to tell me. “You know … stuff.”

  “That’s descriptive.”

  “Sorry. It’s hard to say it out loud. I think about … well … you, for one thing.”

  “Me?”

  “How I treated you when you were gutsy enough to ask me to go golfing. And how I treat other people. I haven’t always been the nicest guy in the world. I think about the person I want to be. And whether I can ever be that person. Do you think people can change?”

  “Of course!” I’m not saying this just to be flirty. I think of what I discovered about myself recently, how so much is possible. I can’t give him the details, but I want to say something encouraging. “Yes, definitely. From personal experience, I know that people change. You can, too.”

  I peek around the opening of the cave and get a glimpse of the famous surfing spot. There’s a lineup of surfers, probably his friends, waiting for the next set of waves to roll in. “Cool angle on the surfer statue! This is how the seals, otters, and whales must see it.”

  I’m surprised at his reaction. He stares at the statue like he’s scared of it, or hates it, or both. His voice goes flat. “Yeah, Prince of the Waves gazing out into eternity.”

  “That statue. It reminds me of you.”

  His body shifts uncomfortably. I feel it as a tug on the flannel in my hand. “What? Did I say something wrong?”

  “You don’t know? You really don’t know?”

  “Know what?”

  His jaw tightens and the resemblance to the statue is even stronger. “My grandfather was the model. Big-wave surfer from way back. My father looks just like him, and I look like my dad did at this age. My family’s been in this town for a long time.”

  “That must be something,” I say. “To know where you came from. To feel connected to a place and to people. I wish I…”

  I let the sentence run out. I don’t know how much Brendon knows about me, and I don’t want to turn this into a pity party about the poor foster kid who doesn’t know her own parents or belong anywhere.

  “There are some good things about it,” he says. I wonder if he’s going to say something else. He seems to want to, but he pauses. I want to know more about him. Anything. Everything. I ask: “That must mean that there are some not-so-good things, too.”

  “Expectations.” The word comes out harsh, blunt. He motions toward the Prince, a gray silhouette against a gray sky. “I’m supposed to be just like him, and just like my father, carry on the oh-so-important family legacy. Never question it. Ride the biggest waves and tackle the hardest surf, win all the contests, be the biggest badass dude in the water. Have the coolest friends, the sickest board, the newest wet suit, the hottest girlfriend. What if I don’t want the hottest girlfriend?”

  “Every guy wants the hottest girlfriend.”

  Fierce. “Not this guy.”

  “You always date the hottest girls in the school.”

  “Because that’s what everyone expects me to do. What if I want a girlfriend I want and she’s not so hot?”

  Now I’m the one who’s fidgeting. He rotates on our rock and gives me a funny look. “Uh-oh. Did I just blow it? Yeah, I blew it. I’m not saying you’re not hot. Because you are.”

  “Yeah, right.” I lick my index finger, touch it to my bottom and make a sizzling sound.

  He laughs. “See, that’s what I mean! What if I want a girlfriend who makes me laugh and thinks about things in interesting ways? Maybe I want a girlfriend who’s not in the popular crowd and who prefers the boardwalk in the winter and doesn’t complain about hanging out in a cave and takes risks and…”

  “And,” I add, hopefully, “is hot, too?”

  “Definitely. Smoking hot.” Another laugh, but he quickly turns pensive. “I’m talking about more than just my choice of girlfriends.”

  “I know that.”

  “It’s about my whole life. What if I don’t want to carry on some stupid surfing family legacy? What if I want something else? What if I want to figure things out for myself?”

  “Surfing? You want to give that up?”

  “No way! I love surfing. Without it, I feel disconnected from everything—the air, the water, from myself. Coming down the face of a wave, the power, the explosion of colors, being eye to eye with an otter, being part of all that. It’s the best. But for him”—he juts his chin toward the statue—“for my dad, for Pox, for all those guys, it’s not about any of that. For them, it’s about competition and winning and making new surfers feel like shit. It’s about ruling the break, being royalty, the prince. They miss the point.”

  Everything he says meshes with what Alix feels about surfing and how Stephanie relates to nature, and what I felt during my short surfing experience. “No one can be prince of the waves,” I say. “The ocean can’t be ruled by puny people. It doesn’t even know we exist. We’re lucky it lets us hang out in it sometimes.”

  He laughs again, though I wasn’t trying to be funny. “Exactly. You get it. But if my dad or any of the Plagues heard me talking like this … It’s hard to go against your friends and your family, against who they think you are and who they expect you to be. Sometimes I feel like I’m living a secret life. Prince of the Waves on the outside. Somebody else—I don’t even know who yet—on the inside. But I want to stop pretending.”

  “So stop, then.”

  “It’s not so easy for me. Not like for you. You say exactly what you feel.”

  “Me?” My voice goes up an octave.

  “You stood up in class and said you hated everyone.”

  “Oh God, not that!” I try to hide my face in my hands, but that puts me off balance and I almost fall into the tide pool below our feet. Brendon saves me by wrapping his arm around my waist.

  “It was weird as hell, but I couldn’t stop thinking about how you said exactly what you felt. I can’t stop thinking about you. Meg, do you hate me, too? Please don’t hate me.”

  I can’t speak. I can only feel his hands.

  �
��Is this okay? That I’m holding you like this?”

  I nod approval and manage words, the right words, I hope. “Let the real you out. People will like that person. I really like him.”

  He’s so close and I feel him wanting to get even closer. I want to confess my biggest secret to him, too: I’m not what I appear to be on the surface, either. But I stop myself. I don’t dare. I can’t.

  With his free hand he takes my face by the chin, turns it in his direction. We are nose to nose, belly to belly. He kisses me, and he tastes of salt water and apples and a taste that’s uniquely him. We kiss and kiss again, moving only our mouths so that we can stay on the rock.

  Then who cares about getting wet? Not me, not us. We make the decision together silently, and stumble into six inches of freezing-cold water, hardly feeling a change in temperature, and we keep kissing with the sea stars overhead and the barnacles and mussels hunkered down on the walls and hermit crabs scurrying around.

  It feels like we’ll never stop kissing. Neither of us wants to. And maybe we wouldn’t have, except for the big wave breaking through the barrier of the cave. Water surges to our knees before being sucked away again. This time we can’t ignore the cold or the danger of the rising surf. We laugh and kiss again and hop around splashing each other. Brendon checks his watch. He sounds slightly drunk, and that’s the way I feel, too. Drunk and shivering and happy.

  “Tide is coming back in hard. We should have left five minutes ago. We need to scramble.”

  He leads me away by the hand. In my mind I say good-bye to the crabs, the barnacles, the urchins and anemones, and to the seal’s-eye view of the Prince of the Waves.

  I wonder: will I ever return to this dangerous, magical spot that exists for only a few precious moments at a time?

  22

  I can’t help myself. I have no control. The next morning, as soon as I spot Alix, Stephanie, and Ambrosia—the people in the world who mean everything to me—I spill the whole story. About the boardwalk, the cave, the kissing. We’re in the parking lot before school, and I rest my backpack at my feet so I can use my hands to demonstrate how we balanced together on the rock.

  “Just how far did this lustfest go?” Alix asks.

  “Lustfest? It was just light kissing.”

  The same skeptical look passes over all three faces. “Okay, okay! Tongues got involved,” I admit. “And hands. But we remained perfectly vertical.”

  Alix wipes some crusty sleep from her eyes. “Bad taste in guys. Plan on getting it on with Gnat, too? How ’bout Rat Boy while you’re at it?”

  “Ew!” I screw up my face. “I’m not getting it on with Gnat or Rat Boy. That thought makes me want to puke. I’m not getting it on with anyone.”

  Stephanie, through a clenched jaw, accuses me of something else. “You told him, didn’t you? About us. Who we are. What did you tell him?”

  “Nothing!”

  “You better not have.”

  Ambrosia comes to my defense. “Meg would never do that. That would ruin everything. Everything!”

  I’m grateful that she trusts me, even though the others clearly don’t. But I need their trust. And I want them—I need them—to see Brendon through my eyes. So I try explaining to Alix how he isn’t one of those testosterone-fueled surfers who make her life miserable. I tell Stephanie that when Brendon talked about the ocean and the otters, there was poetry in his words.

  Meanwhile a group of stoners keep inching closer to reclaim their usual before-school smoking spot by the parking-lot fence. Ambrosia, irritated by their presence, shoos them away. Studying me, she uses both of her hands to lift and twist her newly layered hair to the top of her head. She lets go of it, and for a moment the hair seems to defy gravity and balance there. Then it falls. “You better watch out.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  A quick lift of Ambrosia’s right eyebrow. It holds there a second, the sharpness contrasting with the sudden warmth of her words. “Meg, Megaera, you are way too trusting. He could be playing you. In your heart, you know that’s a big possibility.”

  “I’m not an idiot. I’m a good judge of people.”

  “Bullshit,” Alix says.

  Ambrosia quiets her with a warning finger and says to me: “If you think so, I’m sure Brendon is worthy of your trust. Not like all the other people you trusted in your life. That worked out so well. They treated you wonderfully, right?”

  Her sarcasm makes its point. I feel some of my hope collapse.

  “We’re just looking out for you,” she continues. “We care about you. We don’t want Brendon to set you up and then—what’s that expression?—screw you royally.”

  My cell phone vibrates then. It’s a message from him: U & me? Ambrosia’s Halloween party?

  A part of me soars with happiness. The other part—the suspicious part—hands the phone to Ambrosia to read the text.

  “See, he didn’t dump me,” I say.

  “Could be. Or a party could be the perfect setup.” Her features tighten. She’s calculating something. “Leave this to me.” With her sharp fingernails, she types and sends a reply: Meet u there. I want 2 surprise u with my costume. Picked it just 4 u.

  I hit her with questions: “Why did you do that? What costume? So you don’t think he’s playing me? I should trust him?”

  Ambrosia shifts her backpack on her shoulders. “Everything will be answered in time. I have the perfect disguise for you. Sexy but not slutty.” She hands back my phone, which already has a new message: Can’t wait 2 C costume!

  “I still don’t like it,” Alix says.

  “Neither do I,” says Stephanie.

  Before they walk away, Ambrosia gives me a look that’s a smile and not a smile. The whole encounter leaves me reeling. I have to hold on to the fence to settle myself.

  Cue Raymond to appear when I most need him. He looks from my strained expression to the three backs walking away, and then to me again. “Whew. I need a sushi knife to cut the drama in the air. What was that all about?”

  I don’t hold back. “Me and Brendon.”

  Puzzled expression. The light goes on. “You mean, like, you and Brendon? Brendon and Meg sitting in a tree?”

  I nod. “Actually, it was in a cave standing, not sitting. It’s true. I think it’s true. But maybe not.”

  “I never would have thought to put the two of you together. But that’s the charming miracle of modern teen romance. I admit I have a soft spot for Brendon.”

  “Really?”

  “If he were gay, I would be crushing, too. His brooding is so becoming on him. I always suspected that he just fell in with the wrong crowd. So many of our youth do, you know.”

  “Exactly! You get it! Brendon doesn’t belong with that bunch anymore—if he ever did.”

  “Obviously a deep, meaningful conversation with the lad has won the lady’s heart.”

  “You don’t think Brendon might be playing me? He’s so … and I’m not so…”

  “Meg, you’re a goddess walking on Earth! What more could a straight guy want? Tell me you have a date lined up.”

  “Sort of,” I say. I show him the recent messages on my phone.

  “So romantic! Costumes and everything.” That really lightens the mood. I can always count on him to make me feel better. I playfully slap at his arm. “So what’s this about Ambrosia having a Halloween party?”

  “She put invitations in lockers.”

  An exaggerated hurt look blooms on his face. “Guess I didn’t make the A-list.”

  “We’re all A-list. She invited everyone. I bet the invitation fell to the bottom of your locker.”

  “She must not like me.” A couple of fake sniffs.

  “Such delicate nerve endings, Raymond. Don’t be a fragile flower. I’m sure it was an oversight.”

  “It wasn’t.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Ambrosia and I have different worldviews.”

  “Come anyway. It’s a party. Rumors
are flying about the delights she has planned.”

  He gives me a goofy slug on the shoulder. “Delights! Oh, I will be there. Don’t worry. Nothing could keep me away.”

  * * *

  All the party rumors are true.

  No parents will be here tonight. There’s going to be a real band, not some high school kids who took a few guitar lessons. And alcohol. The invitation said that nobody has to bring a thing. Ambrosia will provide everything that anyone could possibly want, plus stuff that we don’t even know that we want. She told Alix, Stephanie, and me to come in the late afternoon without costumes. She has everything we need.

  So here we are at her house. Things start out a little tense because of the whole Brendon episode. I assure them again that I’d never betray their trust by revealing our secret. At Ambrosia’s prompting, Stephanie gives me a quick, tentative hug and Alix mutters a sentence with the word sorry in it. I’m relieved that Ambrosia, too, has come around.

  When we enter the living room, Alix lets out a long whistle of appreciation. This is not only about the decorations, which we all agree are beyond fantastic. There are cobwebs that look and feel real and life-sized mummies and gravestones that also seem real. Alix takes Stephanie by the hand, dragging her from table to table, a kid in a candy store, only instead of Sour Patch Kids and Hershey’s Kisses there’s real champagne from France in buckets of ice, premium vodka sold only in Russia, sake from Japan, tequila from Mexico.

  “Plants are not the only thing that my family collects in its travels,” Ambrosia explains. “I want my guests to be happy.”

  Alix removes the cap of a bottle of something called rakia. “From Albania,” she reads from the label. “Where is Albania again?” She sticks her nose into the opening, but not for long. When she comes up for air, her eyes are watering. “Your guests are going to be very happy.”

  Stephanie holds a small bottle of clear liquid up to the light.

  “Don’t shake that!” Ambrosia warns.