Blue (11 page)

My home phone rang at 7:45 a.m. I heard my mom pick up and then her thudding footsteps on the stairs. She burst into my room, her face a question mark.

“Some guy called Anders is on the phone. He sounds old, Iris. When you finish speaking to him, we need to have a talk.”

“Chill out, mom. He's just an agent.”

“What kind of damn agent?”

I just knew she was thinking something dodgy. Strip-club agent, escort agent. Sometimes it was like she would totally forget that A) I wasn't an idiot, and B) I was only sixteen.

“Surf agent.”

“A ‘
surf agent
'?”

“Surfing's a sport. Sports have agents.”

“Surfing is not a sport—it's a bad habit. And what in the name of Rice Krispies would a surf agent want with you?”

The phone was in her hand, so Anders was probably hearing every word of this.

“I'll tell you in a minute, all right?” I put the phone to my ear.

“Mornin', darlin'. And how are we today?”

“Er, half asleep.”

“Well, we're here waiting, but Flower is a no-show.”

“Huh?”

“You were supposed to be here fifteen minutes ago.”

“Where? Nobody told me.”

“Excuses, excuses. Just get your skinny butt down here pronto.”

“I'm there in fifteen minutes.”

“Make it ten.”

A dark thought crossed my brain.

“Who was supposed to have told me about this?”

“Me. I texted you.”

“What number do you have?”

He read it out and the four and the five were switched.

“Who did you get my number off anyway?”

“Saskia.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Sorry, love. I must have inverted the numbers when I typed it into my phone.”

Yeah, right
, I thought. Total accident . . .

“Anyway, hon, less chat, more getting dressed, please.”

“OK, OK.”

“Shorts and T-shirt is fine, and don't bring your board.”

“Don't bring it?”

“No. This is something else. We'll be waiting for you in the Little Fistral car park.”

I had a quick shower and changed into shorts and a vest.

I had an idea what this might be, and if I was right, it was not going to be a fun morning.

When I arrived at the car park, I saw Anders and Saskia deep in talk. I was walking over to them when Zeke came running up the metal steps from Little Fistral. He was wearing gray sweat pants, a blue T-shirt with the words “It's not the destination, it's the glory of the ride” printed on the front, and he was drenched from head to toe.

“Welcome to boot camp,” he said.

“Is that allowed?”

“Hey, I'm not surfing, am I? Anyways, Kelly Slater surfed Teahupo'o and Bells Beach with a broken foot, got through eight rounds and
won
those entire events. He landed
aerials
at Bells. So I can sure manage this.”

“Doesn't it hurt to run?”

“Naw, my rib feels OK now; even my leg is way better.”

“Wow, just how strong are your painkillers?”

Zeke grinned, and said, “Yeah, the doc gave me the good stuff.” He fiddled with some tracks on his iPod.

“How many times have you run up those steps?”

“Not many. Say twenty. Just down to the water and back.”

“Oh, just twenty.”

He was still messing around with his iPod, trying to find a certain song.

“Got anything good on there?” I said, looking over his shoulder.

I don't know what I was expecting. Maybe Alice in Chains, or Megadeth, which Daniel had all over his iPod. But actually Zeke just had a load of mellow surf music on there. Benjamin
Francis Leftwich, Ben Howard, the Neighborhood, Bon Iver, Newton Faulkner. All pretty chilled-out tunes. The sort of stuff you'd listen to before bed, not in the middle of a workout. Then it occurred to me that maybe he had so much of this mellow stuff on his iPod because it set the mood when he was entertaining girls.

“You and Saskia got through yesterday. You didn't hit up my phone to tell me,” he said, giving me hurt eyes.

“I thought you knew.” Truth was, my head had been spinning all day, and after the madness of the surf trial, the embarrassment of the Lighthouse Cinema and the weirdness of seeing Daniel, all I'd wanted to do was sleep.

“How would I know?” he asked, sounding surprised.

“Anders is your agent.”

“Anders? Anders never tells me anything. You know what he's like. Always busy with some master plan. I thought you'd tell me though. I was thinking of you all morning.”

He was? Even when he was at his swanky surf film festival, surrounded by the adoring masses? I felt a warmth come into my chest. A boy I really liked had been thinking of me. Though God only knew what he was thinking about. I hated to imagine how I looked through other people's eyes. There was so much that you didn't see or notice about yourself. It was like hearing your voice on an answering machine. You were always surprised by your own thickly accented mumbling, which sounded so clear in your own ear.

“Sorry. It's been kind of a hectic few days.”

“I thought you'd be stoked. You did so good. This could be the moment that the rest of your life hangs on.”

“No pressure, then,” I said.

He laughed and said, “Your turn now.”

He handed me a stopwatch, which I guessed was the boot-camp baton.

I pressed Start, ran down the steps, across fifty yards of beach to the water, turned and headed back. I was feeling OK. I made it back up the metal steps. When I pressed Stop I saw it had taken me a mortifying two minutes.

I looked over to Anders and Saskia but they were busy with press-ups. Great.

Zeke took a look at the stopwatch and pursed his lips to hide a grin.

“This time I'm really gonna cane it,” I said.

I managed one minute and forty-eight seconds. It was torture. By the time I had done ten circuits I was ready to drop.

Anders waved us over. Saskia was hard at work on stomach crunches. She was wearing an Adidas peach training top that stopped just above her navel, and white leggings. I mean, who in their right mind wore
white
leggings? You could see everything, or rather the fact that she wasn't wearing anything underneath them. In contrast, I was wearing a black tank top that I'd bought for six dollars in the Ann's Cottage summer sale and camouflage Reebok shorts. If she was
Sports Illustrated
, I was the
Army Times
.

“All warmed up?” Anders asked me.

“Warmed up? Er, I'm done.”

“Guess again. Race time.”

“Whoop whoop!” Saskia said, as only she could.

“Right, so it's up the hill to the coastguard lookout, back down again, then across the cliff path to Fistral Beach, and the finish line will be the door to Bodhi's. Coffees are on me.”

The coastguard lookout was an old whitewashed building at the top of a very steep hill. Once there, the view was panoramic. It was one of my favorite places. Unfortunately, that wouldn't be the end of the race though; we had to get to Fistral Beach and run its entire length before we were through, and given that running on sand was about ten times harder than running on grass, I was pretty sure I'd come in last. Still, finishing—even last—would be some kind of achievement. Definitely more than sleeping in.

I slipped my iPod out of my pocket and the first song that came on the shuffle was Christina Aguilera's “Fighter.” Some days it was like my iPod answered to my guardian angel, who knew all the right songs to play.

Just as the first bars of the song were getting going, Anders threw his water in a trash can and shouted, “
Go
.”

Zeke took the lead, racing ahead of me and Saskia, but he stumbled a little when he looked over his shoulder at me. I was slightly ahead of Saskia but she was gaining. In any case, I was running way too fast and I knew it was only a matter of time before my knees buckled and I ended up crashing out.

Zeke reached the coastguard lookout, ran around it for extra measure, and then started belting down the hill toward me and Saskia. Spurred on by the sight of him, I made myself run faster. It was all or nothing. Go hard or go home—and I wasn't going home. I reached the lookout hut first, swung around it and bumped into the back of Saskia. She hadn't bothered to go around. Anders hadn't said we had to, but it was just good form, since Zeke had. Wasn't it? But then maybe she hadn't seen him. I didn't know. All I knew was that she was now in second
place and I was trailing in last. I pushed on down the steep hill, feeling like I was flying, legs working too fast again, like Cara's when she was about to nose-crunch into the floor. My iPod was working its way through the complete back catalog of Christina Aguilera and was now on “Dirrty.” I used to loathe her music, but got into it for about two weeks after I watched the American version of
The Voice
on YouTube.

I was gaining on Saskia; three more steps and we'd be shoulder to shoulder.

I was there, when suddenly she lurched to the right and her elbow hit me in the ribs. OK, I'd given her the benefit of the doubt in the surf trial, but this was a pattern. I shoved my whole body weight back into her and sent her flying.

“What the hell?” she shouted so loudly that I could hear it over my iPod. Luckily Zeke was so far ahead that he didn't hear Saskia's complaining.

I turned up my iPod volume a few notches, blasting “Dirrty” into my ears, and put even more distance between me and Saskia.

By the time she got to her feet, she was hopelessly behind. There was no way she could catch up to me now. This race was mine.

I cruised up the steps to Bodhi's, dripping with sweat but victorious. Saskia had obviously lost her fighting spirit as she was miles behind, or perhaps she'd just done too many stomach crunches with Anders.

Anders and Zeke were sitting at a table by the window. Lazy idiot that he was, Anders had driven around in his BMW. He had a steaming cup of coffee in front of him and Zeke was downing
an entire bottle of water. When Zeke saw me, he got up and held up his knuckles for a fist bump.

“We have a winner,” Anders said. “What are you drinking, kiddo?”

I turned off my iPod, where Christina was wailing through the last verse of “Genie in a Bottle.”

“Gin and tonic, no ice.”

“Try again.”

“Pint of Coke.”

Zeke stood up and looked out of the window. Checking on Saskia, I guessed. She was just below us, walking up the concrete steps as if they were the most depressing thing in the world.

I had a horrible knot in my stomach. What would she say? Would she tell them I'd shoved her? But how could she, when she'd tried to sabotage me first?

She limped in.

“Lordy, could those steps be any steeper?”

Zeke was at her side in a flash. “What's wrong? Is it your chest?”

I wasn't a fan of Zeke asking about Saskia's chest. If she was worried about that, she should have worn a proper sports bra, instead of that stupid peach crop-top number. I felt incredibly guilty about this thought two seconds afterward, when Anders handed Saskia a blue inhaler.

I hadn't known she was asthmatic.

“Don't worry, my darlings,” she said. “I just landed awkwardly and snagged my ankle back at the lookout. If I rest, I'll be right as rain in a couple of days.”

I was waiting for her to point an accusing finger in my direction, but . . . nothing.

That was it for the day. Anders was leaving to go and talk on a local radio show. About Zeke, his one-and-only surf megastar, I guessed.

Zeke gave me and Saskia big sweaty hugs and then left with Anders.

Saskia was barely denting a boiling hot latte and I was getting beaten by a Coke that was way more gas than liquid.

The silence was horrendous. I was sure she could hear me swallow.

“You know, Iris, I didn't mean to catch you with my elbow.”

“Whatever,” I replied, meaning it to sound laid-back. It came across as totally hostile.

She sighed. “Do we have to be enemies, just because we're competing?”

“I don't know. You tell me. Because you've seemed pretty aggressive with me, right from the start. And while we're at it, just what are we competing for? A surf sponsorship? Or something else?”

What exactly was her relationship with Zeke? I wanted to know, and he obviously wasn't going to tell me.

“Just the sponsorship. And of course I'm aggressive. I want to win. But that doesn't mean I don't like you. I think you're great, Iris.”

OK, she was psyching me out. She had to be. She had no reason to think I was great. Nobody thought I was great, with the sometimes exception of Kelly and my mother.

I heard myself saying, “Look, I'm sorry about earlier. I just got caught up in the moment. And I was listening to Christina Aguilera.”

She frowned. “Which song?”

“‘Dirrty.'”

“Oh, then I totally blame Christina too.”

And so we spent twenty minutes talking about Christina Aguilera songs and then another half-hour debating the merits of the British
Voice
compared to the American and Australian versions.

As I walked home, I wondered if in another universe, me and Saskia could be friends. Nah, I thought. I could never get used to that accent. It'd be like hanging out with Kate Middleton.

“Come over,” Zeke had said. “It's gonna be fun.”

I'd dressed in my nicest Fornarina jeans and a black strapless handkerchief top, which was pretty skimpy as it knotted beneath my shoulder blades and was otherwise open at the back. I'd even borrowed my mom's blue Kurt Geiger pumps, which I could barely walk in as they had a four-inch heel. Kelly had a late shift at Hendra so she said she'd meet me there.

My idea of a fiftieth birthday do was obviously different from Zeke's dad's, whose party was like something out of
The Great Gatsby
. The streets around South Fistral were totally blocked with cars, and when I got to the house the front lawn was covered in a marquee. I couldn't see anyone I recognized in there so I turned into the house and caught a glimpse of Garrett, who handed me a bottle of Budweiser. He was holding a plate of cheese and pineapple cubes stuck together with cocktail sticks.

“Pa made these but no one's eating them. They're all fighting over the caterer's fancy canapés.”

“Really? I love these things,” I said, stuffing a cocktail stick in my mouth and skimming off the cheese and pineapple with my teeth.

Garrett handed me the plate and said: “You gotta eat at least ten.”

“No problem. Cool party,” I said, putting the plate down for a second to take a sip of beer, which tasted really strong.

“This? Nah. Basement is where you'll find the real party.”

“Yeah?”

“Hell yeah.”

“Zeke down there?”

“Where else?”

An older man with a deep tan and a ponytail came up to us. He had a big smile on his face and a “Fifty Shades of Awesome” badge pinned to his chest.

“This lovely young lady your girlfriend, Gar?”

“Not mine. Zeke's, I guess. Bachelor life for me, Pa.”

“Well, well, so you're Iris?” he said. But why did he sound so surprised, and what had Zeke been telling him about me?

“That's me. It's nice to meet you, Mr. Francis.”

“Call me Dave. So how did you meet my youngest son?”

“Yoga class.”

“Christ, his mother will love that.”

A couple of girls about my age came up and hugged Dave, before loading brightly wrapped presents into his hands. “There you go, Uncle Dave. Don't say we never get you anything decent. And the bottle of Laphroaig on the kitchen table is from us.”

“Too much, girls, but thank you very much, my sweethearts.”

One of the girls, who had long ginger hair down to her butt, looked up at me and said, “One of the long-lost cousins from Penzance, are you?”

“Um, no. Zeke invited me.”

She smirked at the other girl in an obvious way. “You better get downstairs, then. My favorite cousin is getting stressy waiting for you. No offense, Gar.”

“None taken. Can't compete with Superboy, can I?” he said, sighing.

The basement had obviously once been a game room, but someone had tricked it out as a nightclub. There was a proper bar with a dance floor and squashy sofas around the edge of the room. It even had its own cloakroom and bathrooms. For all intents and purposes, it was the nicest club in Newquay.

“Not bad,” I said to Garrett, which was something of an understatement.

There were about forty people down there already, mostly teenagers, but a few older hangers-on too.

I sat down on an empty chair, finished my beer and felt hands over my eyes.

I squirmed in his light grip and turned to face Zeke, who was literally glowing with happiness.

He kissed me lightly on the forehead and then grabbed my hand.

“I met your stepdad,” I said. “Didn't get to meet his girlfriend though.”

“Yeah, about that—better not mention Daisy. She left him yesterday.”

“One day before his fiftieth birthday? Harsh.”

“I guess his birthday had something to do with it. She was only twenty-four.”

Nice going, Dave . . .

“Well, I thought your stepdad was super-nice.”

“Yeah, he's the greatest.”

A group of younger teenagers were waving us over and Zeke said, “Come meet my Irish cousins.”

How many cousins did he have?

After being introduced to all eleven of Zeke's step-cousins, I realized I hadn't remembered any of their names, which was going to be embarrassing if I bumped into them later. Then somebody produced an empty beer bottle and began spinning it in the middle of the dance floor.

Zeke laughed and shook his head, but people were gravitating toward the bottle, like it was the most hilarious idea ever.

In two minutes, me and Zeke were the only ones not in the circle.

“Come on, brah! And bring your girl too. Need all the babes we can get for this.”

“Seriously? Aren't we a bit old for this?”

“No way. Who's too old for Spin the Bottle?”

I was pretty sure that I'd never been young enough to enjoy spin the bottle, but still, if Zeke was up for it, then I wasn't going to be the only wet blanket in the basement.

Wes was looking uncomfortable and he said, “Remind me of the rules?”

“There are no rules, bro,” Garrett replied. And then added, “Haven't you ever played this before?”

“Yeah, like in kindergarten.”

“Well, what's there to know? The bottle points to a chick and then points at you, you kiss her. Easy.”

“What if it points to two girls?”

“Winner. Game on.”

“Two dudes then?”

“You pass on a dude, obviously.”

“And what about if it points at someone you've already kissed?”

“Kiss 'em again.”

“OK, got it.”

Wes was even worse at this than I was.

The first spin landed on a dark-haired girl who seemed painfully shy and then on a young blond boy who was much shorter than her. They kissed for maybe three seconds before pulling away, embarrassed. Next up was Garrett and a young woman in her early twenties and both of them were dead game and had the sort of comedy kisses that brides and grooms go in for after saying “I do.” On the third spin, the bottle pointed squarely at Zeke.

I could see the panic cross his eyes and he looked at me apologetically, because there was no way that the bottle would point to me next. It didn't. It pointed to Garrett again.

“Dude!” Garrett said. “That is wrong on so many levels. Spin again, bro.”

I wondered if in his brain Zeke was trying to make some calculation as to how fast to spin the bottle so that it would land on me. It was hopeless though. Like trying to influence the outcome of a roulette wheel. The bottle stopped and pointed between two people to right where Kelly had just walked into the room.

“You gotta kiss that chick, bro,” Wes said, laughing.

“That's Iris's best friend,” Zeke said, looking scandalized.

“Kiss her!” one of the girls shouted.

“Uh, no, you're all right,” Kelly said, grimacing at me.

“KISS, KISS, KISS . . .” There was no stopping it. Horrendous. My best friend was going to make out with the guy I was seeing before I did.

Kelly rolled her eyes but was still digging her heels in. The chanting was getting louder and I could see Zeke was on the point of bailing.

“It's OK,” I mouthed to her.

Shrugging, she went over to Zeke and leaned forward.

Garrett shouted, “It has to be a mouth kiss,” when Kelly angled for the cheek.

She sighed and pecked Zeke on the mouth. It was over in a fraction of a second but my stomach was burning.

If Cass's betrayal had been hard to take, I realized that I would never, ever, get over it if Kelly did something like that to me.

But she wouldn't, would she? No. And Zeke wasn't Daniel. He was so far from Daniel that he was practically a different species. Still, I didn't want to see Kelly and Zeke kiss ever again. Not even a peck.

I was still shuddering when I realized that the neck of the bottle was touching my knee.

I hadn't seen who had spun it as I'd been in a silent conversation with Kelly, where she was mouthing things like, “Sorry about that,” and, “Our lips barely touched.”

“Er . . . who am I kissing?” I asked, as casually as I could, to hide the fact that I was freaking out.

Zeke's eyes darted to his brother Wes.

Seriously, what kind of masochist would enjoy Spin the Bottle? The only thing worse than seeing Kelly kiss Zeke would be having to kiss one of Zeke's brothers. It was horrific. And once again my brain was reminding me at one hundred decibels that Zeke and I hadn't even properly kissed yet.

Wes was hesitating and even Garrett was saying something like, “Awkward, bro, real awkward.”

And then Wes did the most ludicrous thing. He said, “What the hell?” grabbed my shoulders and kissed my face off.

It was a weird kiss. There was literally no chemistry whatsoever, but Christ almighty he was making a meal of it.

I pulled away and turned my palms upward, in a peace-out way, but Zeke jumped to his feet and said, “Screw this,” and stormed across the room to the steps that led out of the basement.

Wes followed him and put his hand on Zeke's shoulder, but Zeke turned and pushed him off, sending Wes halfway across the dance floor. Zeke left and Wes walked sheepishly back.

Garrett smiled at me and said, “Yo, I think Zeke likes you.”

“Wes! What was that?” I said.

“What? It's Spin the Bottle. I thought that's what you're supposed to do.”

“Yeah, well, you did it,” I said. “I better go after him.”

“Nope.” Garrett put a hand on my shoulder. “Leave him be. He like almost never loses his temper these days, but when he does, he needs space to chill out. Seriously uncool, little brother,” he said to Wes.

“What? She's not even his girlfriend!”

“You know he likes her. He's been seeing her almost every day.”

It was so strange. Wes had done that deliberately, for some reason. He clearly didn't like me, as there was no spark at all between us. But why would he do that to his brother? There was obviously way more going on than I understood.

Spin the Bottle carried on and I just sat there, waiting for Zeke to come back. The only other person I kissed was Kelly, and that was just a granny peck. Kelly, on the other hand, seemed to kiss about ten guys, and unlike her kiss with Zeke, she really went for it. On the last round she got Garrett, and the moment they touched, I could feel the air in the room change. It wasn't a stupid game kiss: they both came out of it looking dazzled, like they'd just come up from being held in dark water. Kelly actually blushed. I had never in my entire life seen Kelly blush.

Then, as quickly as it had started, the game was over.

Zeke was not in any of the main party rooms or in the marquee. Eventually I found him in the garage, furiously planing a foam blank that would one day be a surfboard—well, if he didn't mess it up, and he wasn't exactly doing a stellar job on it. He looked up at me but didn't smile.

“Fucking Wes. Can't believe he did that.”

“He's probably just rendered,” I said.

“Huh?”

“Drunk.”

“He's totally sober.”

“I didn't kiss him back,” I said, which should have made it better, but somehow didn't.

“See,” Zeke said, “this is the crappy thing about having brothers. It's all swell until they hit on the girl you like.”

“You like me?”

“Sure I like you. I really like you. You're different. You're your own person. I knew that from the first moment I met you.”

“In yoga class? When I was wearing those horrible old shorts?”

“I wasn't looking at the shorts.” He put down the plane and I slowly walked over to him.

“I'm sorry about earlier,” I said. “It just seemed to spiral out of control and I didn't really know what was going on. But I didn't want to kiss Wes.”

“So kiss me,” he said.

Walking backward, Zeke led me deeper into the garage, where there was a blue-and-green striped hammock. I couldn't quite see how we were going to both get in though, as it didn't look wide enough for us to lie side by side.

Zeke stretched back on to it and pulled me on top. Our bodies fell together, and for the briefest of moments, our lips touched.

And that was the moment that a seriously beautiful older woman in a headscarf and a tie-dyed floaty dress walked in with a huge smile on her face.

“Zeke, honey!” she said. “Who's the saltwater betty and why are you squeezing her to death on that hammock?”

Saltwater betty? That was new, and how did she even know I was a surfer?

But all Zeke had to say was, “Mom!”