Cinderella in the Surf (9 page)

At least it looks like they've also escaped death's jaws.

Walker and I get into our car, three back from the front, and he pulls the big metal safety bar down over our laps and I listen for the clicking noise that means it's secured into place.

I look around for the guy who's operating the ride, waiting for him to come make sure Walker's done this right and there isn't some major step we're missing that's gonna send us hurtling through the air and crash landing to our deaths somewhere inside this amusement park. I catch sight of him at the back of the ride, talking to two girls inside the last car, and I stare impatiently.

"Relax," Walker says from beside me. "Your eyes are buggin' out."
 

"I'm not about to go flying through space just because we're not buckled in right."

He shakes his head and smiles. "It's gonna be great."
 

But I can only grimace. "Says the guy who's never been on a roller coaster before."
 

And before he can say anything else, the ride attendant presses down on the metal bar and moves on to the next car before I even realize he's done anything, and then suddenly his voice comes over the intercom, wishing us a "safe trip through the python's pit."
 

Fabulous.

The ride moves forward slowly, like it knows how badly I need this to be over but has decided it's way more fun to tease me mercilessly instead, the creaking of the wheels along the track sounding like the cackling of an evil witch.

We're coming up on the coaster's first hill, a fifty foot mountain that we'll climb, then plummet down the other side, and I try to take a bunch of deep breaths.

It's just a ride, it's just a ride, it's just a ride.

I repeat the phrase in my head over and over as the car creaks up toward the top.

"That doesn't sound so good," I mutter under my breath, not intending for Walker to hear me, but he does.
 

"It's a rickety old ride, that's for sure," he says gleefully, and I manage to unfreeze myself long enough to shoot him a dirty look. He frowns when he sees it. "What? You're looking at me like I just threw your dog off the top of this coaster."
 

"I hate these rides!" I blurt out, and immediately feel my eyes widen and a fresh wave of nausea pump through me. I hadn't planned on telling him this. Walker already knows enough about my issues; I don't want him to think I'm damaged beyond repair.

Which I very well might be, but does everyone have to know it?

It's his turn for his eyes to get bigger. "What?"

I shake my head. "Nothing. It's nothing." We're only a few feet away from the drop and I stare straight ahead, hands gripping the metal bar in front of me so tightly my knuckles are paler than I usually am before the start of summer.

But he won't listen. Walker reaches out and puts a hand on my shoulder. "Rachel, are you okay?"

I answer him in screams.
 

The roller coaster plummets over the hill and down, down, down, and I'm shrieking, my hair flowing behind me, my cheeks feeling like they're falling off my face.
 

We hit the first spiral and I haven't seen it coming and just as quickly as I'm upside down, I'm right-side up again, and we're still shooting through the air, and I'm pretty sure my heart's about to beat right out of my chest, and the car is going faster, faster, and suddenly I see the coaster's biggest loop looming in the distance.

There's no time to even think about shutting my eyes when we're on top of it, then in it, then out, and the car sails another twenty feet before lurching to a stop before the station.

The sudden movement flings me forward, then back against the hard chair. I take a deep breath.

"Are you okay?" Walker repeats his question, and slowly I turn and look at him through disheveled strands of hair hanging in front of my face.

He takes one look at me and immediately presses his lips together into a thin line, the tops of his cheeks twitching ever so slightly.
 

"You think this is funny?" I ask. "Because there's nothing funny about hurtling a million miles per hour through the sky."
 

He only raises his eyebrows as I attempt to brush the hair out of my face and pat it back into place.
 

"Come on. That wasn't so bad."
 

I think about the last ninety seconds of my life, and how, okay, maybe it wasn't as horrific as I thought it was going to be.
 

As I remember it being.

But I'm not still sure I really want to do it again, either.
 

"It was okay," I admit at last.
 

The ride moves again, the car bringing us into the station where the bar frees us and we climb out and walk down a set of steps, and back onto firm, solid, wonderful ground.

"So, really," he says, walking us over to a bench and plopping onto it. "What's the deal? You surf waves but don't like roller coasters? I'm pretty sure one's way more dangerous than the other."
 

I don't sit down, and instead jam my hands into the pockets of my white shorts and shrug. "One's on land, and the other's in the water."
 

He shakes his head. "I don't get it."
 

"You don't have to. Come on, the ferris wheel isn't that far from here."
 

"Rachel."

There's an insistence in his eyes that I haven't seen before, and it's unsettling, a reminder that I don't know him at all, and he doesn't know me. He only has to know what I want him to.
 

Not like Alex, who knew everything about me, more than even me, I bet.
 

"I'll race you," I tell him, taking my hands out of my pockets and backing away from the bench. "Loser buys hot dogs!"

And before he can say anything else or try to get me to spill my guts again, I'm gone, running through the amusement park toward the Ferris wheel and a place that feels safe.
 

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I'm standing outside later that night in a white tank top that's tucked into a gold glittery skirt, glaring down at the watch on my left wrist, and wondering how the heck I've managed to get suckered into waiting for Walker twice in one day.

He'd ended up buying hot dogs with mustard for us an hour after my challenge. He didn't try to get me to talk about why I was so uncomfortable on the roller coaster anymore, and for that, I'm still grateful. It's almost like he somehow sensed it'd be a waste of his time, because I have zero plans to talk about it with him.

Good.

It's an embarrassing moment best left in the past.

After we'd downed the hot dogs, we hit up a few more rides, ones I'd agreed to go on, plus taken the slow train ride that runs through the whole park, before deciding to call it quits for the day.

But as we were walking out to the parking lot, he'd told me that some of his painting buddies would be at a beach bar later tonight, and I should meet up with him.

They were going to the Sand Dune, he said, a place near the pizza joint they'd painted the other day, and a place I know well.
 

I know it because I used to go to hang out with my friend Luke, the bartender, when nothing else was happening on lazy summer Tuesday nights. And even though I was under eighteen, let alone twenty-one, Luke would sometimes slip me a shot or two of vodka if business was slow.

So that's how I find myself waiting on the boardwalk with the ocean breeze rustling my hair just before 8:30 on a Thursday night.

A breathless Walker appears in front of me as if he's materialized out of nowhere. "Sorry! Sorry. I know I'm terrible at being on time today," he says, holding up a hand as if that's going to stop me from complaining that he's not the most punctual dude I've ever met.

"You're gonna have to work on that," I tell him.

He nods. "Sorry. I think Petey and Brock are already here. Wanna go in?" A look of horror flashes across his face. "Wait, wait." He reaches out and grabs my shoulder since I've already turned and started walking toward the door to the bar. "You're not 21. How are you going to get in here?"

I raise an eyebrow. "You're just now thinking of that? I've been here before. The Sand Dune never cards at the door until at least nine."
 

"Glad you're on top of things."
 

I shake my head and walk into the bar with Walker a step behind me. He scans the room before I watch him nod and lift his hand in greeting to two guys seated at a circular booth in the dimly light corner.
 

When we approach, I realize one of them is staring intently at me.

Great.

"Sup, man," Walker says, slapping them both on the hands before gesturing over to me. "This is Rachel. She's local." He looks at me. "Petey and Brock. Brock lives here, too, but Petey's from New York."
 

Brock is the one I'd first noticed staring at me, and even with the introduction, he still isn't looking away.

"Don't I know you?" Brock asks me as he and Petey scoot closer toward the middle of the booth, allowing room for Walker and me to squeeze in.

"I don't think so," I say as the waiter comes over. Walker orders a lite beer I've never heard of, and Petey and Brock both ask for another round of whatever it is they're drinking.

And I ask for a diet coke. When I look up, I decide not to bother answering their quizzical stares at my drink choice with the obvious explanation.
 

"Are you sure?" Brock presses when he realizes I'm not going to follow up on my response.
 

"Pretty sure," I say, picking up the tan paper napkin and twisting it between my fingers. "But I've been known to be wrong sometimes."
 

"Not often, though," Walker pipes up with a cheeky grin, and I feel the corners of my mouth twitch up.
 

"I don't know why you look so familiar then," Brock goes on like we haven't already changed the subject. "I know I recognize you and your name but can't figure out why."
 

It's then that a cold, sweeping sense of dread washes over me. There are only two reasons someone in this part of town would recognize me without me knowing them: they've heard my name because I'm (or I was, anyway) a big-time surfer, or because they followed the news reports about Alex's death.
 

And quite honestly, neither option is particularly appealing.

But I'm pretty sure I know which one Brock is thinking about.
 

I shrug like I'm not silently sending up prayers that he'll get bored with his line of questioning. "No idea," I chirp. "So, you guys paint with Walker?"

It's Petey's turn to jump in. "Yep," he says. "It's kinda funny. I came out here to live with my grandpa for the summer after Nana died, and he hooked me up with Walker's uncle."
 

I'm not sure what to say, so I opt for polite. "Sorry about your grandma."

Petey just shrugs. "That's the way it is. You live, then you die, and that's it."

I blink twice, and don't respond, because what do you say to that? I mean, I know technically he's right, but it just sounds so...so...cavalier about death when
 
all it ever does is leave behind a trail of sadness, and people who'd give anything to change what remains in its wake.

"Why are y'all sitting inside?" Walker slips his phone into his pocket as he steps into the conversation just as things are starting to feel really awkward and I'm starting to regret giving up my bed and book. "It's nice out. Let's grab a table on the patio."
 

We walk outside in the unlikeliest of conga lines and Walker chooses a round table that seats six, not a booth, in the middle of the patio. Colored string lights hang from the outdoor bar, a fire burns in one corner even though it's still in the eighties with tiki torches lining the whole place, and a live band sets up off to the side of the bar.
 

It's kind of cheesy, if you want my real opinion, but it's also sort of nice to be somewhere that doesn't feel like home, probably because I never came here with Alex.

It doesn't feel like somewhere I'm supposed to be missing him.
 

We settle into our seats, drinks in front of us, sea breeze floating in off the water, making the warmth from the fire comfortable instead of annoying.

It has all the ingredients of the perfect summer night.

"Dude, so much better," Brock says, leaning back in his seat as he brings his beer bottle to his lips.

I'm sitting in between Walker and Brock with my back to the door leading back inside.
 

So that's why I don't see her come in at first.

I'm looking directly at Petey, who's sitting across from me, when his eyes grow wide and he quickly glances over at Brock, then Walker.

I can't read the look, but I know something's changed.

There's a lot of shuffling and readjusting going on at the table. I glance up and catch Walker's eye, and am startled to see he's staring back at me with a worried look on his face.

What the heck is going on here? What am I missing?

Petey and Brock have moved their heads in close together and are whispering feverishly. Every now and then, one of them looks up at something behind me, then dives back into the conversation

Finally, I swing around in my seat and instantly know what's got the two of them so captivated, and why Walker's looking at me like he thinks I'm a ticking time bomb on two feet, and he's just waiting for the inevitable explosion.

I can't see her face, but I'd know that short blonde hair anywhere.

Piper Monaghan is standing at the bar with her back to our table, sandwiched between two other girls, waiting to catch Luke's attention for drinks. She's dressed in some obscenely short flowered sundress thing, and it's no real surprise that Petey and Brock are making idiots of themselves fawning all over Piper without even saying a word to her.

I set my half-finished glass of diet coke down on the table and stand. "I should go."