Second Star

14

It’s still dark when I wake up in the morning, too early for even Pete and Belle to be on the water yet. I tiptoe down the stairs, shivering in my bikini, walk out the front door, and get one of my brothers’ boards from my car.

The board I grab this morning is John’s; it’s the smaller of the two, dark blue with bright yellow stripes running up the sides. I carry it down to the beach like I think it might break, careful not to let it bang against the wooden railing along the stairs. By the time I reach the water the sun has made its first appearance on the horizon, casting a gentle pink light on the ocean. I breathe in deeply, watching the waves crash against the sand one after another. Each time one wave recedes and another builds, it looks as though the ocean is taking in a deep breath, then blowing it out.

I’m standing at the edge of the water, my toes soaked by the waves, the board propped up beside me, when a deep voice says, “Thought you said you weren’t a surfer.”

Startled, I turn to see the guy who gave me directions when I first got to Kensie.

“You scared me,” I say.

“Sorry,” he says. “You okay?”

“I just didn’t expect anyone else to be awake at this hour,” I say, but the truth is, I don’t even know how long I’ve been standing here. The sun has grown higher, its light on the water more yellow than pink now.

“I’m an early riser,” he answers. He plants his own board in the sand beside mine; it’s nearly twice his height and kind of old-fashioned-looking, the kind of board that’s called a gun, I think. He’s wearing the same board shorts he wore the first time I saw him, the tiniest stripe of pale skin peeking out from beneath the waistband. I blush beneath his gaze.

“I didn’t think anyone else surfed this stretch of the beach,” I add, bringing my focus back to the water.

He nods. “I don’t, usually. Usually stick to the other side of the beach. It’s

just…” He pauses, a shadow passing over his face. Finally he says, “It’s just easier that way.”

I turn to face him again, though it feels as though I’m seeing him for the first time. Matt said that Jas and his dusters surfed the other side of the beach. How could I have failed to realize until now that this guy is Jas, the drug dealer who lives on the other side of Kensie?

“Well, then why are you here this morning?” I ask, taking a step back. Away from him. The water laps up around my ankles now.

He doesn’t answer right away. He looks from me to the ocean and back to me again. I think he might actually be blushing. Finally, he says, “Gotta go where the waves lead, you know?”

I nod, but the truth is, I don’t really know.

He smiles and gestures out to the water, to the waves that are building ever higher. “Do you mind?” he asks politely, as though he needs my permission to surf here.

I shake my head quickly. “Go ahead,” I answer, stepping away from the water, dragging my board behind me until I’m halfway up the beach, close enough to the stairs that I could run back up to Pete’s house if I needed to. I really should just go back up there now; I shouldn’t stay here, alone on the beach with someone like him. But I don’t feel unsafe, standing down here with Jas. Maybe I should, but I don’t.

He lifts his board and heads into the water. Watching him surf is exhilarating; he takes wave after wave, graceful as a dolphin in the water. On smaller waves, he shifts his weight so that his board ascends, floating over the foamy crest.

Like Pete, he’s so tall that he has to crouch down to ride beneath the waves’ crests. He moves on his board like it’s a balance beam, sometimes standing at the front and sometimes at the back. Suddenly, he spins his board around completely, like a ballerina doing a pirouette. I’ve never seen anyone surf like this, not even Pete. When he finally comes back to the beach, he’s grinning at me like a little kid, shaking the water from his hair. He takes a few deep breaths, the sinewy muscles across his chest expanding and contracting.

“You really know what you’re doing out there, huh?” I hate myself for stating the obvious, but how am I supposed to know what are the right things to say to a drug dealer / ultimate surfer?

He smiles at me. “Now it’s your turn,” he says. “Waves are getting gentler now. Perfect for a beginner.”

I shake my head. “I’m not ready yet,” I say. “I think I need a few more lessons before I’ll be able to head out there by myself.”

“Then what are you doing down on the beach all alone this morning?”

I bite my lip. I’m not really sure. Maybe I thought that if I just waited here long enough, my brothers would magically appear, conjured by the ocean itself.

“Studying,” I say finally. “You know, trying to get acquainted with the waves. Oh my god,” I add, blushing hotly, “is that a ridiculous thing to say?”

He shakes his head. “Not at all. All the best surfers watch the ocean before they paddle out. You gotta be strategic, man, especially on big days.” His smile is infectious. “Looks like Kensington agrees with you,” he says.

“What do you mean?”

He shakes his head. “You just look a little different from when I saw you the other day.”

“Different? Different how?”

Instead of answering my question, he says, “I could take you out there, if you want.” He gestures to the water. “It’d be a shame to miss out on these waves.”

“Really?” He’s the best surfer I’ve ever seen. I wonder what it would be like to be out on the waves with him. “I mean, don’t you have more important things to do?”

Suddenly, his gaze shifts; he’s looking behind me, and his smile vanishes. I spin around. Pete, Hughie, and Belle are walking down the beach, past the black remains of last night’s bonfire.

“I better go,” Jas says, but at once Hughie breaks into a run; I have to jump out of the way to avoid getting shoved aside when he lunges for Jas, who steps aside gracefully.

“What are you doing here?” Hughie says, his voice as rough as sandpaper. “You’re not supposed to be on this side of the beach.”

Jas’s voice is preternaturally calm when he answers. “Gotta follow the waves, you know? You and your crew don’t own the beach, Hughie.”

“Waves are perfectly fine on the other side of the beach,” Pete says icily, coming up from behind us and planting his hand firmly on my shoulder. “I could see them from the house this morning.” I look from Pete to Jas, confused. What was Jas doing here, on this side of the beach, if not chasing the waves?

“The girl was out here alone this morning,” Jas says slowly, carefully. Hughie’s hands are balled into fists. He’s at least four inches shorter than Jas, but the muscles of his arms are tightened like springs, ready to release at an instant’s notice. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone look as angry as Hughie looks right now. It’s hard to reconcile this Hughie with the boy who clapped me on the back last night.

“Her name is Wendy,” Belle says suddenly. She’s standing behind me so I can only imagine that her face matches the vitriol in her voice. She says my name like it’s a bad word.

Pete tightens his grip on my shoulder.

“Get out of here,” Hughie growls. “No one wants you here.”

Jas finally takes a few steps backward, out of Hughie’s reach. “I was just leaving,” he says, glancing at me. He lifts his board over his head and jogs down the beach. We all watch him until he turns around the curve of the cliffs and out of sight.

It’s Belle who breaks the silence. “Great, so now she’s bringing Jas to our side of the beach?”

“It’s not her fault,” Pete says, his hand still planted firmly on my shoulder. “And why’d you tell him her name?”

She shrugs. “What difference does it make? He knows the rest of our names.”

“Why is that?” I ask suddenly. “How come you guys all seem to know one another so well?”

Belle shakes her head. “Screw this,” she says, lifting up her board from the sand and running with it into the water. Hughie soon follows.

“Pete?” I prompt.

He finally lifts his hand from my shoulder and pulls me to sit down beside him on the sand.

“It’s complicated,” he says. The roar of the ocean grows louder as the waves pick up again. Belle drops into a wave expertly, her hair flying behind her in the sunlight like some kind of mystic halo.

“Try me.”

Pete nods. “Jas and I were friends once. I brought him to Kensington Beach, a long time ago. We used to surf together, right here.”

“What happened?”

Pete shrugs. “What do you think? He started selling dust, and I wanted no part of it. So I kicked him out.

“It’s a rough drug, Wendy,” he continues. “Once it gets its hooks into you, it’s really hard to stop. It’s an ugly kind of addiction. I’ve seen it up close.”

“Jas, you mean?”

Pete shakes his head. “Nah, he never really took the stuff himself. The best dealers never use the shit they sell.” He looks out at Hughie. “But a few of the boys got mixed up in it. I had to help pull them through when they finally decided to stop.”

“Hughie?” I say softly, watching the kid take a wave. It’s hard to imagine him addicted to anything but surfing. Right now, he looks like the picture of health. But it would explain the way he lunged at Jas this morning, how desperate he was to get him off the beach and out of his sight.

“And Belle,” Pete adds quietly, a heavy sadness in his voice. “And Belle.”

He stands up suddenly, and I do, too. I know that I’ve just learned something important about this boy, about why he lives and surfs here, why he holds his crew so close, why he feels responsible for them.

“Hey,” I say, grabbing his hand before he can take his board and head into the water. It’s the first time I’ve been the one to take his hand, not the other way around. I pull him close to me and wrap my arms around him in a tight hug. His bare chest is warm against my cheek, and I close my eyes and listen to his heartbeat; this close, it sounds even louder than the waves.

“You’re a good friend,” I say.

“I am?” he asks, his voice so earnest it makes my heart ache.

“You are,” I answer, and I mean it, despite the lies he’s told me. Because I know now that he tries to do the right thing, and that counts for something. It counts for a lot.

“Thank you,” he says, pressing his lips onto the top of my head. I can feel his breath through my hair, warm and steady.

Smiling, I loosen my hold on him. “Can I ask you something?”

“Anything.”

“What were you doing in Newport the night I graduated? Why were you surfing so far from Kensie?”

Pete shrugs. “One thing Jas said this morning was true: you gotta follow the waves. Kensie was a little flat that week. So I had to leave.”

“You had to?” I say, glancing at the ocean, the perfect waves coming one right after the other. “Why, when you knew the waves would come back here eventually?”

“You can’t wait for them to come to you,” he says. “You gotta chase them. Otherwise…”

“Otherwise what?” I ask. I think about my brothers, of the mornings when they were out chasing waves while the rest of the world was still sleeping.

“Otherwise, who knows what chances you might be missing?”