Air (18 page)

I found Zeke chatting to a group of guys from the tour, and knocking back the free champagne.

“Did you see Saskia yet?” I asked.

“No, but I ran into Gabe at the bar and he said she's here someplace. You hear Christina Aguilera is singing tonight?”

I felt my eyes widen. Christina was one of my secret music crushes and her songs had featured heavily in my iPod playlists the summer I met Zeke.

“What? Are you having me on?” I said, trying to stop myself from woohooing and breaking out into a happy dance.

“Of course not. I just ran into one of her backing singers that I sorta know.”

“Who's that then?”

“Oh. Um, I think her name is Jenna. Or Jennifer. Something like that. She said Christina is tonight's surprise guest.”

So this was apparently my world now. Parties with Cameron Diaz and Christina Aguilera?

Zeke squeezed my hand and said, “Come on, let's see if we can track her down. She'll be round here someplace.”

“Jenna?”

“Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure she's called Gina. But I meant Christina.”

As we left the lobby area and walked toward the ballroom, I almost bumped boobs with a girl who stepped out right in front of me. She had a short blond pixie cut, baby blue eyes and what had to have been false eyelashes. She was wearing a metallic blue minidress, lacquered stilettos and she looked like some Sixties fashion model about to pose for
Playboy
. She cut across us and, right in front of me, like I wasn't even there, she batted her eyelashes at Zeke, put a piece of paper into his hand and said in an ultra-sultry voice, “Zeke Francis. You're so hot. Here's my number. If you're ever lonely, call me, baby.”

It was awful. Like some bloody Carly Rae Jepsen song.

“Whoa,” was all I could say.

Once again a girl was brazenly hitting on Zeke, with me right there. I looked at him, and his mouth was open, like he wanted to say something but he had no idea what.

“Loving the hair,” she said. “Told you you'd look hotter without the mop.”

“Well, maybe you'd look hotter if you kept your opinions to yourself,” I said.

“Uhhh, okaaaaay,” she said, in a very strong Southern drawl. Then she flashed Zeke a phony smile and walked off, swaying her hips as she went.

When Zeke looked back to me, his face was flushed and he seemed upset.

“Nice,” I said to him.

“And here it comes.”

“God, sucks to be you, right?” I laughed, but it came out in this weird, shrill way that sounded totally fake and angry.

“You're mad at me? Again? How am I responsible for what just happened?”

“Well, you weren't exactly fending her off, were you? You took her number.”

“I can't be dropping trash in the middle of the Fontainebleau. But I'm sure as hell not gonna call that chick.”

“Sounds like you called her already. She
told you
your hair would look better short, remember?”

“Iris, I swear I never in my whole life saw her before.”

“Sure?” I said, “because she might have had different-colored hair or something when you slept with her, and anyway you were probably stoned and can't even remember.”

Zeke stood there, looking as if he was facing a firing squad.

“I'm pretty sure I never met her before just now,” he said, with no conviction at all.

I was furious. At the girl. At Zeke. Mostly at myself.

Why couldn't I let this stuff wash over me, like Kelly would have? My relationship with Zeke was turning into a hideous game of whack-a-mole. As soon as we'd dealt with one problem, another reared its head.

Zeke still held the scrap of paper between his long fingers.

My eyes burned into him, and without even glancing at the number he balled up the paper in his fist and put it in his trouser pocket.

“Please don't be pissed. Let's just move on, forget about this,” he said.

“I'm not pissed. I was just thinking that Garrett was right about the pro-hoes.”

Back in Newquay Zeke's brother had warned me about the girls who followed the surf tour, offering themselves up freely to the pro-surfers. Pro-hoes, Garrett had called them, which at the time I had thought was harsh.

“That's kind of mean, Iris. So much for the feminist sisterhood.”

I blinked. “Was that not a bona-fide pro-ho right there? I mean, she just pretty much offered you sex. While you were walking with your girlfriend.”

Hearing myself, I knew Zeke was right: I sounded horrendously mean, which just made me angrier.

“Maybe she didn't know you were my girlfriend.”

“Oh, please. She knew. And how can you even defend that? That was . . . brazen. Or did you like it? Give you an ego boost, did it?”

“Sure, I mean, I'm flattered, but I'd rather some random girl didn't tick off my girlfriend.”

“You're flattered? Why? Because you think she's so pretty?”

“Iris, this whole conversation is stupid.”

“Well, don't get all sensitive about it.”

“
Me
get sensitive? You've been crazily sensitive all week. I just can't seem to get through to you anymore. I'm busting my ass trying to do the right thing, but it's like you don't trust me at all.”

We'd moved outside and taken the private path to the beach, where we stood face to face. A light rain started to fall, but I wouldn't have moved even in a hurricane.

“You don't get it,” I said. “I have no one here. You said so yourself.”

“You have me,” he said.

“And you're the problem more often than the solution.”

A group of Zeke's fellow team riders came down on to the beach to smoke, and they stood huddled in a group, shooting amused glances in our direction.

“I can't stand it, Zeke. It never stops.”

Zeke sneezed. Then he sneezed three more times.

“Bless you. You getting ill?”

“Hay fever. I don't get sick,” he replied.

“You just get numbers.”

“So, yeah, sometimes girls give me their number, but that happens to all pro-surfers. I throw them right in the trash. Not like some surfers, who laugh behind the girls' backs and give the numbers to homeless guys and drifters.”

“Or the ones that call the numbers? That's not you, right?”

“Iris. Come on. I don't call the numbers. We're with each other almost every minute. How am I running off to see other girls?”

“Don't put yourself out on my account. Go. Run off with ALL the girls.”

“I don't want that. But am I gonna keep talking to people, keep making friends? Sure I am.”

“Why do you even care about making friends everywhere?”

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah.”

“Because it's the best thing about traveling soaking up new cultures, making connections with new people. That's what it's
all about, and it blows my mind that you would even ask me that question, because I would think you oughta know the answer already.”

But that was how it was for him, not me. I didn't feel like that. I had friends, and they were all waiting for me in Newquay.

The reality was that I was an introvert and Zeke was an extrovert and I'd known that from the start. So why did I keep fighting our differences, trying to make us the same?

Rather than staying open and working on figuring myself out, I was letting my jealousy speak for me.

“How many numbers do you get? On an average contest day?”

“I don't know. It's not like I hang on to them and keep them in a big pile on my bed, which I go count every night.”

One of the other team riders started laughing, and our argument continued in fierce whispers.

“A
big
pile? How big is big?”

“Are you ever gonna quit this conversation?”

“Yeah, it's unlikely.”

Zeke sneezed again.

“You're getting a cold,” I said.

“I'm not getting a damn cold.”

He was so stubborn that even if he had the world's most virulent flu, he'd power through rather than admit it.

“So, how many?”

“I don't know, maybe a hundred when I make it to the final. Depends on how big the crowd is that day.”

“A
hundred
girls that you don't even know walk up to you and give you their telephone number? In one day?”

“Crazy, right?”

“It's horrible!”

“It's like I already told you I don't call any of them. I have a girlfriend and I would never disrespect you like that.”

“These other guys,” I said, waving my hands around to indicate the lads in the middle of the tobacco cloud, “call those girls? They call complete strangers? For sex?”

“I mean, probably. The ones they think are cute.”

“Have you ever called one of those numbers?”

“Please tell me you're not gonna go all Vanessa on me,” Zeke said, smiling weakly, as if he was about to make a bad joke.

“What? Who's Vanessa? I have literally no idea what you're talking about.”

“A girl I dated when I was thirteen. She bought me an elastic wristband and made me snap it every time I thought about another girl. Her strategy was actually pretty effective.”

“I know you changed the subject, by the way. Just in case you think I didn't catch that. You still haven't answered my question. Have you ever called one of those beach girls?”

I turned to look at him, but he was looking at his phone, his forehead creased in a frown that showed every fine line of sun damage.

“What?” I said.

“Give me a second.” He put up one hand and tapped at his phone with the other.

“Well, don't let me interrupt your texting.”

“It's Wes.”

“I asked you a question, Zeke.”

“You know, this conversation is really not going anywhere good.”

“You have. Oh my God. You've called total strangers for . . . for a
booty call
.”

“I'm not an animal. I took them to dinner first.”

“When you said you had one-nighters, I thought you meant girls you met in bars or clubs or something. Not saddo randoms who walked up to you on some beach and gave you a piece of paper with their number on it. Drug-resistant gonorrhea is out there. My mum used to go on about it all the time.”

“I don't have drug-resistant gonorrhea, Iris. I'm not an idiot. I never went bareback.”

“Bareback? What is that supposed to urggh! Gross.”

One of the guys in the huddle jogged over to us, grinning. He held his hand up to Zeke for a high five, and said, “Up top!” but Zeke shook his head no.

“Well, congratulations, Zeke Francis. You are living every teenage boy's wet dream,” I said.

“Not lately,” he replied, and his voice wasn't a whisper anymore. We were basically entertaining the whole beach with our argument.

“Charming. That's really nice of you to say.”

“I didn't mean it like that. You know I didn't. I just meant I'm not some manwhore anymore, and I haven't been that way in a long time.”

“Just own it.”

“OK, I'm owning it. Newsflash: sometimes I act like a self-entitled shithead.”

“That's not news to anyone.”

He sighed. “Is this because you're on your period?”

This got a really loud laugh from the smokers.

“Don't even go there,” I hissed at him. “Just don't even go there.”

I stormed off back into the party, found a powder room and spent the next twenty minutes in hot, aching silence.

friday

When I finally emerged, Anders appeared, a bottle of champagne in his hand and an expression like he had a mouthful of stinging nettles. Waves of hostility radiated from him, and I wanted to turn and walk as fast as I could in the other direction, but unfortunately he'd seen me.

“He in there?”

“Zeke?”

“Yes, obviously Zeke.”

“In the ladies' powder room? Er, no.”

“Well, where the hell is he?”

“I don't know.”

“Bloody brilliant.” Anders paced around me, waving the bottle in the air and pouting. “What did I tell you? You had one thing to do. One thing.”

“I'm not his keeper, Anders. He can do whatever he wants.”

“Keep an eye on him. That's all you had to do. That's why you're here.”

“That's all I had to do? That's why I'm here? What about all my training and my own surf contests? Am I just here to look after Zeke?”

“Zeke is important. This is business, Iris. Business in which a great deal of money is at stake. Zeke needs to be kept on the straight and narrow.”

I took a deep breath. I had something to ask him; something that I'd avoided asking for months.

“Is that why I won the Billabong showdown? So I could be Zeke's babysitter?”

I could see the disdain sweep across his face. He didn't like me. He hid it, tried to be civil, but deep down Anders thought I was bad news.

“Don't be so ridiculous. Are you suggesting I forced Saskia to step down? Paid her off?”

In for a penny, in for a pound.

“Did you?”

“No, and I resent the implication. I don't like the way you're conducting yourself, Iris. You're on the first step of the ladder. You have a long way to go, and judging by your efforts so far, you might never get there.”

“Cheers.”

“You are just one of my surfers, Iris. Just one, and when it comes down to it, you're replaceable.”

“Not really, since I don't have an identical twin.”

“Aren't you funny? I think we both know that Zeke is the star in your relationship. If you are anything at all, it is the support
act and, quite frankly, if I was picking the support act, I wouldn't have picked you.”

“Tell me something I don't know. You haven't liked me from the first night you met me.”

“You mean the night your boyfriend stabbed one of the most promising young surfers in the world?”

That was one of the worst nights of my life, a fact that Anders didn't give a shit about.

“Ex-boyfriend. And Zeke being a star doesn't make me his support act. I'm surfing for me, no one else.”

“How well are you doing in this little Billabong competition, Iris? Zeke is competing in the
World Qualifying Series
. Do you understand the difference between his position and yours?”

“Zeke is older and more experienced. He's been surfing since he could stand. You expect me to be a better surfer than Zeke already?”

“Well, sweetness, I expected you to be higher in the rankings than fourth.”

“OK, it's not great, but I haven't been surfing for all that long, so I'm actually pretty pleased with that. And while we're on the subject of things we expected, I expected you to be able to talk to me as a surfer in my own right, without going on about Zeke all the time.”

“You know what, Iris? I'm getting sick of your attitude. If you're not happy with my representation, maybe you should look elsewhere.”

“Maybe Zeke should too.”

Anders flashed his teeth at me in a smile that had zero warmth. “Are you threatening me?”

“No, but I don't like the way you've been talking to me, and I don't think Zeke would like it much either.”

I took a second to appreciate this new tougher side of me that I'd developed since touring. I learned pretty quickly that people would take the piss if you let them, and I wasn't going to stand for it anymore. Anders was the worst culprit for taking a mile if you gave him a millimeter.

“I see. You're going to run off and ‘tattle' to Zeke, are you? Tell him how upset you are because of the big bad surf agent. Marking my card, are you? I'm quaking in my boots.”

I looked down at his shiny leather shoes that probably cost even more than my Manolos. Anders would never quake in anything. There was nothing he couldn't handle or fix. He'd always get his own way, in the end. But I wasn't going to let him talk down to me, even if it did mean him going nuclear.

“Just you try it,” he seethed. “Tell Zeke to fire me and see what happens. There is no way on God's green earth that Zeke Francis is ever letting me go.”

“Yeah, we'll see.”

He walked right up to me, closer than was comfortable, and said, “BOG OFF,” before flouncing back into the ballroom.

I was angry, but I had to laugh. He was such a drama queen. I honestly didn't know how Zeke had put up with him for all these years. Yeah, the scheming and the workaholic tendencies were probably good qualities to have in an agent, but the rest of it, including the condescension and
huffiness, made him seem like he was more trouble than he was worth.

I ran it all through my head, convincing myself that I'd been in the right, and that I hadn't said a word out of turn. I managed that for not even two minutes.

With my anger evaporating and remorse already setting in, I went to look again for Saskia. I hated that she was mad at me, and it was beginning to feel as if I was burning all my bridges, when I didn't have that many to begin with.

I was scouring the crowded ballroom for her when someone touched my elbow.

“Face of Billabong UK. Greetings!”

Wearing a tropical-print evening dress slashed to the navel, and with her haircut into a 1920s bob, was the very last person I expected to see.