“It’s hard to believe this is the place,” Tommy said after Poison Ivy left the food. “I mean, it’s so nice here, it’s hard to believe that sharks are out there hitting people off surfboards.”
“Only a few people,” I said.
“They get kayakers, too, you know,” he said, cutting into his waffle. “One of them lifted the nose of a kayak right out of the water and shook the boat until the guy fell out.”
“You’re nuts, you know that?”
Tommy wiggled his eyebrows at me.
“I think Oti liked you,” he said. “He was checking you out.”
“He was at my mercy,” I said.
Tommy stopped sawing at his waffle.
“You’re really pretty, Bee,” he said, looking up at me. “A lot of guys think so.”
“I know. They break down my door every weekend.”
“You are,” Tommy said, his voice surprisingly emphatic, his fork straight up from his plate. “You don’t know it, but you are. And you’d have a boyfriend if you wanted one.”
“Like who?”
“Like Ricky. And Jeff. Both those guys think you’re smoking.” Ricky and Jeff worked on the school paper with me and had come over to our place a few times. “I’ve heard them talking.”
“Eat your waffles, you weirdo.”
“You could date them no problem.”
“Jeff is a nerd and Ricky is too self-involved. Besides, I don’t have time for boys right now.”
“Oh, I forgot, you don’t have time for fun. You have to run the universe.”
“You little bratasaurus.”
“You need to chill sometimes, Bee.”
“I’m not good at relaxing.”
“You can say that again.”
“Am I that bossy?”
“No,” Tommy said, appearing thoughtful, “you just care too much about things. You have to loosen up. You don’t have to be the president of everything you join.”
“It’s always weird around boys, anyway. Half the time they just want to kind of tackle you and the other half they want to avoid you.”
“Lots of guys are going to want to date you, Bee. Mom says so. She says you’re becoming a swan.”
“She’s out of her mind. I’m no swan.”
“Yes you are,” Tommy said. “Mom says you’re going to be drop-dead beautiful by the time you finish growing and she’s right. You’re the only one who doesn’t see it.”
“You both need glasses.”
He looked at me. I knew the meaning of his look. Tommy didn’t lie and he wasn’t lying now. That was what he meant.
“Can you ask Poison Ivy for some honey?” he asked.
I got honey for him. Then we ate without talking. I was hungrier than I realized. We ate and looked out at the water and the entire morning had a good beach feeling about it. Tommy looked happy and healthy, and for the first time it felt like we had actually escaped on vacation. I thought about my mom and how angry she was going to be, but I didn’t care. Tommy didn’t care, either, which somehow made it okay that we had taken off on her. She had done the same to us. And I knew if we had stayed, she would have showed up midmorning with some lame excuse about a car not starting or losing track of time. Living with her was like missing a plane every day. I figured I would call her later.
“So,” I said when we had made it through breakfast, “do you have Ty Barry’s address?”
“Twenty-three Oakmont.”
“You think he’s really expecting us?”
“I called him from the hotel when you were showering. I woke him up.” Tommy looked sheepish. “He wasn’t mad. Just gave me the address and said to come down. Guys are a lot more laid-back about making plans.”
“Oh, is that so?” I had to ask.
“Yes, Bee.”
“You are so righteous,” I said.
Tommy pretended to sip through his straw until his eyes crossed.
“We need to find a room,” I said when he finished. “And you need to use the vest.”
“I’m feeling good,” Tommy said.
“Let’s do the vest near the water, then we can track down Ty Barry’s address,” I said. “How’s that for a plan?”
“Awesome,” Tommy said, trying to be hip in his corny way.
He looked small and flushed in his booth.
“You are so square,” I told him. “You’re pitiful square. You’re as square as a Ping-Pong table.”
“Ping-Pong tables are rectangles,” he said.
“You’re as square as a square.”
“Let’s roll,” he said. “Can you ask Poison Ivy for the check?”
I did. I left a decent tip. I counted the money in the envelope. We still had more than three hundred dollars, plenty for a room for a night.
“Oti thought you were a babe,” Tommy teased me on the way out. “A New Hampshire hottie.”
“You are so weird,” I said.
But Tommy had already pushed out the door, and sea-gulls had already begun to cry.
TOMMY SHARK FACT #6: The great white shark reproduces only every two to three years and has litters of about five to ten pups. Great white sharks can be found in all coastal temperate waters, whether three feet or 1,280 meters deep. They are found on the coastlines that stretch from California to Alaska, the East Coast of the USA, most of the Gulf Coast, Hawaii, most of South America, Australia (except the north coast), New Zealand, the Mediterranean Sea, West Africa to Scandinavia, Japan, and the eastern coastline of China to Russia. A great white shark has five gill slits.
Great whites have made a return to Cape Cod and other Eastern beaches. They never left, really, but with better ecological standards, seals have also managed a return. Wherever seals live, white sharks follow. In 2009, a group of tourists on a fishing boat watched in amazement as a great white ambushed a sea lion about seventy yards off a crowded Cape Cod beach. With more people in the water all the time, and the fitness athletes swimming greater distances in the ocean, shark-human collisions are unavoidable.
Shade of a palm. Tommy sitting with his arms away from his body, the vest vibrating. Gulls slicing back and forth, sometimes landing at our feet to ask for handouts. Half Moon Bay rolling in, rolling out. A half mile out, waves break, become white, then green, then roll and collect themselves until they swell and fall again in the bay. Mavericks, Tommy has said. Home of the GWS. Home of the kelp beds where sea otters rest on their backs and crack abalone against their chests. The great whites pass through the kelp like gangsters coming through a beaded curtain. Tommy’s eyes stayed focused on the water, his lips jiggling a little with the vibration; his imagination, I knew, trained on the water, on the deep black floor of the sea where the whites patrol. Seal and shark. He says the ocean is not quiet underneath the waves. He listens to the sound of the ocean on his computer. Crackling and popping, the flip-flop of water and waves and things swimming for their lives. The cleave of the shark’s fin, the sound of sand poured on paper, the water parting and returning around it, the gelatinous eyeball covered by a translucent membrane as it bites.
“You okay?” I asked, as much to get out of my own thoughts as to determine his status.
He nodded.
“A little longer,” I said.
He nodded again.
We took a cab to Ty Barry’s house. Tommy said we would know it because it was painted pink. I saw it before the driver slowed the cab. A pink, flat house. A lawn that had given up hope and had returned to sand. A tricycle on the sidewalk leading up to the house and three tubs of plants, some sort of succulents, that had died and turned yellow. The pink paint had peeled from the wall closest to the ocean, and underneath the paint the wood had turned silver. Three red Frisbees rested on the asphalt roof like hatches or spectacles. Music blasted from the backyard, or from inside the house—it was impossible to tell.
Tommy squeezed my hand before we climbed out.
“It’ll be okay,” I said, knowing he gets nervous around new people.
; “I don’t look like anybody,” he said.
“What do you mean, Tommy?”
He shrugged. He had his head down.
“What is it?” I whispered.
“I probably don’t look like someone Ty Barry would want to be friends with.”
“Oh, Tommy. You have to trust people. He’d be lucky to know you.”
“He’s done a lot … you know, been places and done things, and I’m just E.T.”
“Tommy, you have a heart like a lion. You’re the kindest person I’ve ever met.”
He shrugged again. Then he nodded. I paid the driver and we got out. For a second before we went up the walk, I saw Tommy not as my brother, but as a small boy, sick for life, his head too big, his body too weak, his soul open to everyone. His expression rested between hope and fear, as though he knew better than to expect too much but couldn’t help himself. I felt my heart clump and had to look away. When I looked back, he had started up the walk, his little backpack bobbing against his spine.
“Tommy,” I said and he turned around.
“What, Bee?”
“You’re a great kid, Tommy. I want you to know that.”
And where most kids would shrug, or make a face, Tommy did what he always does. He walked over to me and hugged me. My brother, Tommy.
“It sounds like they’re around back,” Tommy said after we had knocked on the front door a couple of times and got no answer. His face looked worried.
“Let’s go around, then,” I said.
He paused. I took him by the hand and led him a few steps. After that, I dropped his hand and followed him. The music got louder as we circled around. A large gray stockade fence walled off the backyard. Tommy pushed open the gate. Music crashed out at us and we saw people collected in the early-afternoon light. The backyard appeared bright and dry, and it took me a second to notice that someone had built a wooden half-pipe as long as the house. An old picnic table stood next to a small patio that led into the kitchen. Two teenage boys sat on the picnic table watching a third roll down the slope of the half-pipe. The boy on the half-pipe wore a helmet.
The boys on the table looked up when we stepped through the gate. The skateboarder rolled back and forth, the wheels changing pitch depending on how fast he shot down the sides.
“Does Ty Barry live here?” Tommy asked, but the boys squinted and tightened their faces to say they hadn’t heard him.
“Ty Barry?” I called, loud enough for them to hear over the music.
Before they could answer, another guy, older than the three with skateboards but still in his twenties, stepped out of the kitchen. He was tall and lean and tan and barefooted. He had long wavy hair clipped back in a ponytail. He couldn’t have been more of a surfer-dude type. A tattoo of a sailing ship covered part of his upper arm and shoulder.
“Ty?” Tommy asked.
“You got me,” Ty Barry said. “And you must be Tommy from New Hampshire.”
Ty walked over and held out his hand. He and Tommy did a sort of abbreviated soul-shake that surprised me because I didn’t know Tommy had ever tried one before. I shook hands afterward. Ty smiled. He had white, white teeth and smooth skin.
“Let me turn down the music,” Ty shouted so that we could hear. “That’s my brother, Little Brew, on the half-pipe. He’s sixteen.”
Ty waved at the three boys, signaling that he was cutting the music. Then he trotted into the kitchen and a second later the music went down to a realistic level. Little Brew jumped off his board and let it roll up the slope without him. When he pulled off his helmet, my stomach did a small roll. He was jaw-droppingly handsome, with brown eyes and hair down past his ears. He had perfect shoulders, wide and muscled, and his forearms moved when he motioned with his hands. If he knew he was amazingly gorgeous, he didn’t act it. He smiled. He couldn’t have bought a better smile. It was natural and friendly. The sun had turned his hair dirty blond and his skin was the color of apple butter. For a second I stared at him, not quite believing that such a boy existed outside of movies. I couldn’t move.
“You the guys from New Hampshire?” he asked, coming over to shake hands. “The sharkies?”
He did the soul-shake thing with Tommy. They finished with a minor chest bump. Then he nodded at me.
“I’m just along for the ride,” I said, my throat tight. “I’m Tommy’s sister, Bee.”
Little Brew looked at me for the longest time. I didn’t know what else to say, if anything. Tommy saved me.
“I study great whites,” Tommy said, looking first at me, then at Little Brew. “Just as an amateur.”
“Well, dudes,” Little Brew said, “say hello to my peeps. This is Frankie and Kobie.”
We shook hands. Frankie and Kobie both had boards and Kobie climbed up to start his own routine. He did some tricks that I recognized from films I’d seen on MTV, but I didn’t know what they were called. He zipped back and forth, nearly reaching the top on some moves and hanging there as though he wanted to use the board to plane the edges of the ramp. I didn’t dare look sideways at Little Brew for fear of doing something obviously dorky.
“You like boarding?” Little Brew asked finally. “You guys can sit down, you know? Sit here and watch.”
“Thanks,” Tommy said.
We moved over to the picnic table, and I helped Tommy off with his backpack. Meanwhile Ty Barry returned from inside carrying a surfboard. Tommy stood up as soon as he saw it. He knew. When Ty slid the board onto the table, Tommy nodded.
A perfect circle of teeth marks covered the midsection.
“Unbelievable,” Tommy said.
He reached out his hand and touched the teeth marks. The fiberglass board appeared slightly sprung with the impact from underneath. The teeth marks closed over the widest section, and it didn’t take much imagination to see how an arm dangling over or a hand cupping water in mid-paddle would have been cut free as simply as a carrot.
“I’ve seen pictures,” Tommy said, awestruck, his hand going back and forth over the board, “but it’s way different seeing it in person.”
“Everyone says that,” Ty said, obviously a veteran at going through this. “It’s always amazing to get people’s reactions. Some people can’t take their eyes off it.”
“Do you mind saying what it was like?” Tommy said.
“Oh, here he goes again,” Little Brew said, and Frankie shook his head and jumped onto the half-pipe to get away. “He’s told this story a million times. With every new shark attack, he gets calls from reporters and it all starts up again.”
“It was loud,” Ty said, ignoring his little brother. “I mean, it was such a weird sound to hear in the middle of the ocean, this loud crushing sound of its teeth going into the board. I e-mailed you most of this stuff, though. You know the details.”
“Yeah, but it’s like seeing the board,” Tommy said. “I want to hear you say the words. Did you feel like the water was sharky? Before it happened, I mean.”
“It felt like it does before a storm. Quiet and calm, but the type where you sense that something big is coming. A guy I know says that a great white makes everything around it quiet. Fish scatter and seals take off. It’s like the best gunslinger in the world stepping into an old western bar.”
“You should take them up to the cove,” Little Brew said, his eyes touching mine for a second. “To show them the sea lion.”
“A sea lion washed up with a giant bite out of its neck yesterday. Great white, most likely. The seal probably got away, but it bled out and then washed up.”
“It happens,” Little Brew said. “But the lifeguards may haul it off, so if you want to see it, you should do it sooner rather than later.”
“You still surf?” I asked Ty.
“Sure,” he said. “I figure the chances of a guy getting attacked twice by a shark are out of this world, so I’m the safest guy in the water.”
“The sets are up to about twenty feet,” Little Brew said. “They’re building. You can come out with
us tomorrow if you like. It’s Columbus Day. No school.”
“We wouldn’t miss it,” Tommy said before I could object. “Right, Bee?”
“Well, we’ll see,” I said. “We have to catch a plane tomorrow night.”
“First thing in the morning,” Little Brew said. “A whole crew is going out. There may even be some people filming for a promo. The big wave contest is in November.”
I looked at Ty. He looked at me. And he nodded.
It was the kind of nod that said he would take care of Tommy.
I nodded back, our eyes making sure.
We drove a beat-up conversion van to see the dead seal in the afternoon. Little Brew sat in back with me, his body splayed out, his bleached shorts ripped here and there. He wore a red bandana around his head and I saw the tattoo of a nautilus shell on his right calf. Tommy rode shotgun and Ty drove. We kept the windows down. It felt good to be driving next to the ocean, the breeze filled with salt. I wasn’t sure what Ty had told his brother, but both of them treated Tommy with care. They didn’t baby him, exactly. They teased him gently, telling him he was out of control about sharks. Little Brew said Tommy needed a Native American name to protect him from the sharks, so he played around with ideas until he came up with Snow Pony. It was such a goofy name that it worked, and I watched Tommy swell each time they used it on him, jazzing him up and telling him he was way too East Coast. No one had ever given him a nickname before. No one had ever included him so easily.
We stopped at a convenience store and bought ten Arnold Palmers, a half lemonade, half ice tea drink that Ty and Little Brew drank like water. Tommy took a few sips of one, then passed it to me. It tasted sweet and a little tart.
“So what’s Little Brew mean, anyway?” I asked when we got underway again. “Is that your Native American name?”
“Oh, man,” Little Brew said. “You don’t even want to know.”
“Tell them,” Ty said, his eyes looking in the rearview mirror. “Or I will.”
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