Moonglass (17 page)

“I’m not taking no for an answer. It’s good out there.”

“Where are we going?” I mumbled.

“South parking lot. Ab Rock. You know the place, I’m pretty sure.” I could hear the smiling sarcasm in my dad’s voice. Apparently enough time had passed that we could now joke about my misadventures. I waited for his feet to pad away down the hall, and replayed kissing Tyler for the millionth time before I got out of bed. I hadn’t dreamed it. It had really happened.

A few minutes later I was pouring enough cream into my coffee to make it the same color as the sand outside. I didn’t much like to drink it, but I did like the feel of the warm cup in my hand as we drove down the highway and then stood on the cliff, checking the surf. Nobody else was out yet, and the sun sparkled on the water, inviting us to be the first ones. My dad put his hand on the back of my neck and squeezed. “Seems like I haven’t seen you all week. It’ll be nice to get out there together. We can go get a big breakfast after.”

I smiled over at him. “Sounds good.” It did, but I was wary. We were going to have to talk about things at some point, and I could tell it was gonna be today, out in the water.

He took a slow sip of his coffee and watched as a set lined up. Aside from the waves, it was so quiet I wondered if he was thinking the same thing. He swallowed and nodded decisively. “All right. Let’s go.”

My board hit the water with a slap. I jumped on, letting it glide for a long moment before I dug my arms in to paddle. My dad was out in front of me and I concentrated on trying to keep up with the powerful strokes he always made look easy. No matter how much time had passed since he had last surfed, his strokes were sure, fast, and smooth. And no matter how in shape I thought I was, I always had to push to keep up with him. By the time I caught up, he was already straddling his board as it bobbed gently in the glassy morning water. Arms burning, I pushed myself up, and we sat, just the two of us, in the shadow of Ab Rock.

“Great morning to be out here, huh?” he said happily. “Did you see that last little set that came through?” I nodded, and he motioned for me to paddle closer to him. “If you wanna get any of ‘em, you gotta be right over here, almost on top of the rock.”

I slid back onto my stomach and paddled over, eyeing the base of the rock we had both jumped off. We sat for another moment, with only the gurgling sounds of the water between us. It was peaceful, but I knew the weight of our “talk” hung over us. I also knew that my dad probably didn’t know how to start, so I figured I’d just throw it out there.

“So. This is it. The place where you and Mom met.” I watched him carefully for a reaction as I spoke. “Something about you being sloshed … jumping naked … off a rock …” I gestured up at the sheer rock cliff above us and smiled, trying to keep the tone light for as long as I could. “We never did get to talk about when
you
did it. You know, with you yelling at me and all.”

He gave me a stern look that lasted only a second before it turned into a slow smile. “No, I guess we didn’t. There are a
few
things we didn’t get to talk about, on account of
you
yelling at
me
, too.” I looked down at the bumpy white wax on my board but didn’t say anything.

A swell passed under us, providing a moment, and questions bounced off each other in my mind. I decided to start small, and looked up into my dad’s face. “So did you really meet her that night? When you kissed her?”

He grinned the grin that made him look young and happy. “Yeah. I spent all summer watching her on the beach, working up the nerve, and when she showed up at the party, I knew it was my last shot, because she’d be leaving soon.” He smiled down at the water, remembering. “I half-expected to get slapped, but she was a good sport about it. She didn’t have a choice but to fall for me after that. From that night on, if she was here, we were together.”

“Hm.” I watched my foot swirl around under the water, and I enjoyed the thought that they had once been young, and reckless, and happy. It was encouraging, even though I knew how the story ended.

“So she didn’t live here? She just visited?”

He nodded. “The cottage belonged to her grandma, Louanna, who you’re named after.
She
lived here permanently. Your mom and her parents lived up near San Francisco. They came down summers, but rented a house on Balboa Island. Only your mom stayed here, at the cottage. Louanna always had a room made up for her.” His tone hardened slightly. “Her folks didn’t care for it down here, though. It was too …” A pause. “It wasn’t good enough for them.” He shook his head, and in the tightening of his jaw, I started to understand. “But your mom loved it. She loved it like she’d lived here all her life. So she stayed here with her grandma. Every summer, every vacation she could.”

I’d never met her parents. Had never even heard them mentioned. Growing up, my dad’s mom had been my only grandparent. She lived a few blocks over from where we’d lived in Pismo Beach, and she was as much a part of my life as my parents. I never questioned it, before or after my mom was gone.

Now, though, a reason took shape. Another wave passed under us, and I waited a beat before asking.

“So … did they not like
you
, either? Is that why I don’t know them?”

He blinked, maybe taken aback at my questions, maybe at what the answers were. Then he cleared his throat and looked out over the water, and resignation settled on his face.

“No. They didn’t like me. And they hated that she did. And, yes, that’s why you don’t know them. When she chose me, they chose not to be a part of her life.” His voice was a mix I knew, sad and angry. “Or yours.”

I took a deep breath, trying to understand. It didn’t make sense. “Because they didn’t approve of you? Because of
money
or something? That’s
insane
.

She was their only daughter. How does a parent even
do
that?” I was surprised at how indignant I felt, but it sounded like the most ridiculous, old-fashioned thing I’d ever heard, to disown your child because she fell for someone you didn’t approve of. My dad watched me without saying anything, and then I knew.

There had to be more.

More than one wave passed under us this time, but we didn’t move or say anything. After what seemed like forever, he got to the more.

“We were seventeen, Anna. We had a year of school left, and then she was supposed to go off to some big college, far away, and live up to their expectations. She’d already made up her mind that she wasn’t going….” He paused, like he was deciding what to say. Then he cleared his throat. “When she told me about you, I was on my knees in the sand before she could finish, with a piece of sea grass for a ring, and it was the most right thing I’d ever done in my life.”

He looked at me now with eyes I’d seen before. Eyes that had lost her. And I couldn’t stand to look back, so I put my head down and ran my finger down the center of my surfboard. They were a year older than me. And parents.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. You were a little girl when she died, and right after it happened, you wanted to know everything about her, like you were collecting details to remember her by. You slept with her clothes, wore her perfume, asked me to tell you the stories she used to tell .” He shook his head.

“You’d sit out there on the beach with me, talking about how she’d come back as a mermaid and you’d swim together in the waves. It broke my heart, but it was good to talk about her with you.” He paused and looked down again before bringing his eyes back to me. “Then somewhere along the line you stopped asking, like she was just gone. And we stopped talking…. So I didn’t tell you when we came here. I didn’t know how to even start.”

I felt weary. Like I was sinking. For a long time I’d put it on him that we didn’t talk about her. But it had been me, too. Because the older I got, and the more I remembered, the heavier it weighed on me. It was easier to think of both her and her death as a dream, or to push it back to a place where the details were hazy and unclear, and I was never there.

I stared hard now at the beach, zipping my moonglass back and forth along its chain, wishing I had just left it alone, because now there was more, and it started with a choice she’d made before I was even born. She’d chosen my dad, and she’d chosen me. She’d left her family, and her life, and the place she’d loved behind, because of the choice she’d been forced to make. By me.

I blinked back tears and bit the inside of my cheek. My dad treaded water over to me and put his hand on my leg. “I wasn’t sure about coming here at first, because of all this. But the happiest memories I have of your mother are here, and lots of people around knew her, and so I thought, now that you’re older, if you started to wonder, it might be a place you could find out who she was and see her in a different light. She was really happy here.” He looked hopeful, like he wanted me to ask him more about her. He had no idea he’d just confirmed what I’d always thought, that I was a part of her unhappiness. We’d never said the word for what her death really was, but people who are happy with their lives don’t just walk out into the water. He had to know that. I’d known it, somewhere deep, that things were bad, but I didn’t know when it had happened. And now I realized it had begun with me.

I nodded and wiped at my tears, smoothing the surface back over, because, really, that was what we both wanted. “I’m glad you told me. And I’m so, so sorry. For … for how I’ve been, and … everything.”

“Don’t be, Anna. It’s all right.” Another little roller passed under us, and he motioned to the wave that was rising behind it. “Let’s get this one in and go get some breakfast.” I was more than ready to be finished talking about it as we slid to our bell ies and paddled. The wave came beneath me, lifting me up, and I gave one more hard pull before popping to my feet, just as my dad did the same. Together we cut a wide path down the glass face of the wave, over tiny brown fish that darted across the sandy bottom, and I did my best to leave it all out in the water, a deep ocean of secrets.

My dad slid the door of the bus closed. “Poke-N-Eat tomorrow. Andy’s coming over. If you want to invite any of your friends, that’d be fine.” I tried to picture Ashley’s reaction to seeing the tail being pulled off a lobster in the backyard. Jillian was out of town for the weekend. “I think I’ll pass. I don’t really know anybody who’d want to get in the water.”

We got in and he turned the key. “What about Tyler?” I tried not to flinch. He’d said it casually, like he had never embarrassed me in front of him, or told me to stay away, or anything. He had to know. He had to have seen us, or something.

I shrugged. “I’m not really friends with him. I just met him on the beach, that’s all.” Flimsy.

He put his hands up. “I’m just saying … if you want to invite him down, that’s fine with me. He seems like a pretty good kid. James says he is. And it’s better than having the two of you sneak around together. I do know that.” I watched him out of the corner of my eye as we backed up, debating about how to respond without getting myself into trouble. “Okay. Maybe. Thanks, Dad.” He smiled wryly as we pulled onto the highway and headed south for Laguna. I rolled my window down, let the cool air rush over me, and cleared my mind of everything but Tyler.

I’d been afraid Tyler might say no. Not only because there was this whole business about my dad being his boss, but because we hadn’t talked since our kiss, and he hadn’t called back when I’d left a message inviting him over. But when I came up from the beach in the late afternoon on Sunday, he was sitting at the picnic table on our back patio, talking with my dad about lifeguarding like they were old friends. It was a little unnerving. I ran a hand through my hair and then walked over to the hose to rinse my feet.

“You made it.” I smiled, turning the faucet.

“Of course I made it. It’s my first invitation to the traditional Sunday Poke-N-Eat. I’ve heard about it since my first year here.” He smirked at me, and I shook my head and rubbed the last of the sand off the tops of my toes, a little irritated he hadn’t told me he was coming. I wasn’t sure how to navigate with my dad around. Andy walked up the steps carrying his dive gear and a six-pack just in time to save me from having to come up with something.

“Anna Banana!” He set his stuff down on the table, used the edge of it to open two beers, and handed one to my dad. When he saw Tyler, his face went serious, which struck me as comical. Andy had always been protective, but when it came to me having anything to do with guys, he felt it was his duty to inform and protect me from the ones he thought were most like himself. When I turned thirteen, he pulled me aside and we had his version of “the talk,” which mostly consisted of a bunch of “Uhs” and “Ums,” but I got the gist of his speech: boys only wanted one thing, and I shouldn’t give it to them until I was at least thirty-three. And married.

Before I had a chance to make any introductions, Tyler stood up and walked over to him, hand extended. “How’s it goin’? I’m Tyler.” Andy took another drink and stood up tall, looking Tyler over before shaking his hand. “Andy. You must be a friend of Anna’s?” Tyler nodded easily. “Yeah, we go to school together.”

“He guards down here too,” I added. “He came for the Poke-N-Eat.” I looked around for something I could use to distract Andy from any questions or lectures.

“No friend for you this time? What happened to Tamra?” I pictured her staring, teary-eyed, out the window at the shack, and I felt a little guilty for how I had acted at the last Poke-NEat. “I didn’t scare her off, did I?”

“Tamra? Nah, you didn’t scare her. She was too high maintenance.” Tyler looked at me quizzically, which I brushed off, and Andy took another gulp of his beer, then exhaled loudly. “I’ve been thinkin’ I should spend some time on my own anyway.” He looked over at my dad, who was sitting in one of the chairs, the amusement clear on his face. “We going out north or south tonight?”

My dad set down his beer and leaned back in the chair, stretching both arms above his head, surveying the water. “I don’t know yet. Wanna go take a look?”