Pulled Under (Sixteenth Summer) (22 page)

When the first one comes along, I am amped and ready. The strategy is to get a solid score out of the way. I’m not going to do anything showy. I’m just going to surf smart.

I start to paddle along, and I can feel the wave grab hold of my board. I pop up and feel a surge of confidence as I race across the face of it. There’s a moment of hesitation when I’m trying to decide if I want to carve or do a cutback, and it’s in the middle of that hesitation when I pearl like a grommet, which is what we call a new and inexperienced surfer. The tip of my board digs into the water and sends me flying over the front. I slam face forward into the water.

Everything’s in slow motion as I rag-doll underwater. I cannot believe it. This was supposed to be my safe ride and I don’t even put up a score. I’m already behind. I instantly panic about time. I can’t let it run out on me like it did on Nicole. I get back on my board and paddle back to the lineup.

The other surfers smirk when they see me. It’s obvious to them that I have no business in the Main Event. As I wait my turn I feel like I have let everybody down, and I start to hyperventilate. Then one of the guys says something to me.

“What’s up with him?” he asks as he points toward the pier.

Sophie warned me about getting distracted, so I ignore him. I’m straddling my board and looking for swells. But then I hear a laugh. And then another. The other surfers are all looking at the pier, so finally I look over too.

It’s Ben.

He’s standing at the end of the pier wearing a grass skirt and a coconut bra. It’s just like he described to me and it makes me laugh. Sophie and Nicole are with him, and the three of them are all doing the hula.

This cures my panic attack. My friends know me well.

I take a slow breath. I see a wave coming, and now I am confident that I am dialed in. On the next wave I combine a floater, where you ride along the top, with a snap, when you shoot down off the wave, and then a roundabout cutback that is as pretty as any I’ve ever done. I finish by pumping across the wave, which is a showy form of carving, and finally end it by smacking the lip.

When I go back out to the lineup, the smirks are all gone. I can tell they wonder why they’ve never seen me before.

“What’s your name?” one of the guys asks me.

“Izzy Lucas,” I say as I straddle the board and catch my breath.

“Sweet ride, Izzy,” he replies.

“Thanks.”

M
y tenth-place finish in the first prelim easily puts me in the semifinal, but it’s going to take more than that to make it to the finals. We go out in two groups of eight, and I am in the second group. This is good because it lets me rest a little and work up a strategy.

“What are you thinking?” Dad asks as he comes up to me.

“You know what I’m thinking,” I tell him.

I can tell by his expression that he does. I thought I’d try the aerial in the final, but now I think I’m going to have to do it just to make it into the final eight.

“Don’t forget that you have to post two scores,” he says.

“Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing.”

I love the expression he gives me. It is one of total pride and confidence.

I let that confidence build inside me when I paddle out for the semifinals. Bailey Kossoff, the defending champion, is in this group. He’s quiet and focused, and I study him to see what he’s doing. He’s the first one in the group to catch a wave, and he sets the bar high with an aggressive run that flows as easy as water.

“Damn,” one of the other surfers says. “We’re just playing for second.”

I take off on the next wave, and even though I’m looking for a chance to get air, the wave doesn’t really play out that way. Instead, I execute a flawless floater along the top, then I drop down and do what’s called a vertical backhand snap. You build up as much speed as you can and then stick the board up off the top of the wave and whack it back down.

I feel good about it, but I still think it’s going to take something bigger to get me into the finals. I’m determined that it be an aerial. I try to get air on each of the next two waves I catch, and even though I’m close to landing it, I fall off each time.

I paddle back out and am concerned about the amount of time I’ve got left. I’ve only posted one score, and if I try the aerial again and fail, I might not get another chance.

I can’t think that way. I know I can do it, so I’m going to give it everything.

I catch the next wave and keep things basic with some carving while I look for the perfect spot to launch. It comes to me like a vision, and the wave unfolds perfectly. I take off into the air, and this time I don’t reach down and grab the rail. I trust the board and fly. And fly. It feels like I’m up forever. My legs buckle a bit when I land it, but I stay on the board and feel a rush of adrenaline charge through my body. I do another cutback and finish my ride.

I’m too exhausted to go back, and even though there’s a little bit of time left, I decide to call it for the round. If I have not posted high enough scores with those rides, it’s just not going to happen. I wade up to the waterline and plop down on the sand.

“When did you learn to do that?” Sophie asks as she sits down next to me. “When did you learn to catch air?”

“Just now,” I say with a laugh. “That’s the first time I landed it.”

“Well, you picked a pretty good first time,” Nicole adds. “You really got up there.”

Once I catch my breath, I get up and head over to the Surf Sisters crowd. My dad is beaming.

“I told you you could land it!”

I smile at him, but I’m still a nervous wreck.

We have to wait a few minutes for the scores to be tabulated, and when they are, I am in the final. I’ve climbed all the way up to sixth place, but that doesn’t matter now, because all the scores are reset at zero for the finals.

Before we go out, all the finalists pose together for a picture beneath the King of the Beach sign. Not only am I the only girl in the group, but I’m also the only one who’s not competing for Surf City.

I start walking over to Mickey and Mo to get some last second pointers when Morgan Bullard suddenly cuts me off.

“Morgan Bullard,” he says, extending his hand to me. “Surf City.”

“I know,” I say. “I was there earlier when you were yelling at everybody.”

He doesn’t let this faze him one bit. He just chuckles and says, “What can I tell you? I’m passionate about surfing.”

“Is that what you call it? Passion?”

“You were . . . impressive out there. Izzy, is it?”

I nod my head yes, my eyes wandering for Mo, wondering if she had anything to do with Morgan Bullard taking time out of his precious life to talk with me.

“I just wanted to introduce myself and say that there might be a spot on our team for you in the future. It’s a sad thing that Surf Sisters is going to close, but I hope you’d consider joining up with us next season.”

“That’s very nice of you to offer,” I say, mustering all the politeness I can.

“Well, it’s not an official offer, not yet,” he says. “I just want you to know it’s a possibility.”

“Of course,” I say.

Bullard leans in to me, his lips mere inches from my ear. Considering that sharing an entire miles-long beach with this overly tanned “my surfboard don’t stink” sellout is borderline unbearable, it takes each and every drop of my Zenlike calm to bare his intrusive stance.

“Think about it,” Bullard whispers, turning to leave as Ben comes to my rescue, ready to give me the latest on scoring.

“You’re amazing,” Ben says. “When you flew up in the air, I had chills. I am so proud of you.”

“Thanks,” I say, trying to shake my run-in with Bullard and keep my focus on what’s still to come. “What’s the magic number? How high do I have to finish?”

“Third,” he says, and I feel the air race out of my lungs.

“Really? Third? I thought you said top five.”

“That was before Surf City took all of the seven other spots in the Main Event final. Fourth would tie it, but Surf City would win the tiebreaker. You’re going to need third to get the trophy.”

At this point my strategy is simple. I have to surf better than I ever have in my life to get to third place. I need to post two monster scores. There’s no value in getting a couple of safe scores out of the way like in the earlier rounds. I’ve got to go for as much as I can get.

I come out swinging and nail an aerial on my first ride. I don’t know how far I get into the air, but Bailey Kossoff high-fives me when I get back to the lineup. I have another great run during which I pull several moves in quick succession, each one flowing directly into the next. In a weird way they all play like music in my head, as if I’m riding from note to note.

I feel good about my rides, but it doesn’t feel like third. I need one more and I need it to be epic. As the clock winds down, the only two people left in the lineup are Bailey and me.

“It’s all yours,” he calls out as a wave comes. I start to paddle, but then I pull off. I don’t think it’s going to be any good. He smiles and takes it instead. A part of me worries that I just blew it.

I know I’m short on time, but there’s something I’ve learned coming out here every day. The pier is an odd break, and a lot of times after there is a set of good waves, there will be one stray wave that comes along even better. I look down at the board for a moment and see the Eye of the Storm design. It gives me focus. Then I look back at the water and see the stray wave I was hoping for.

“There it is!” I say, even though no one is around to hear me.

I lie flat on my stomach and paddle with all I’ve got. I try to flush everything out of my mind, but I can’t. Except, instead of thinking about the wave and surfing, I think about everything else. All these images shoot through my mind: meeting Ben, teaching the campers, the kiss on the end of the pier, waving good-bye to him at the airport, the look on Nicole’s face when we got our surfboards. It’s like I’m watching ten televisions at once.

A wave is a cosmic event, and this one is more than just the gravitational pull of the moon and the force of the ocean. This wave is the result of a summer like none I’ve ever had before. My ride is almost dreamlike. And before I know it I am surrounded by water on all sides. I am in the barrel of the wave, and everything is collapsing around me as I shoot for the light at the end of the tunnel.

I can imagine how nuts they’re going up in our little cheering section, and when I burst back out of the tube and ride up the face of the wave, I feel invincible. I snap back and turn and ride until the last bit of it dies off. That’s when I step off into the shallow water. It’s like I’m asleep, and then the horn sounds and wakes me up. Time’s up. I finished with only seconds to spare, but I finished in time.

The first two to greet me are Nicole and Sophie, who wrap me in a hug so violent that we end up crashing into the water.

“That was awesome!” Sophie screams. “Awesome!”

It’s strange because, other than when I rode through the tube, I’m not really sure how it went. I just kind of did it all by instinct.

“Oh my God, Izzy!” Nicole says as she kicks water on me. “Oh my God!”

I pick up the board and we walk up onto the beach, where I take off my leash and sit on the sand to catch my breath. I can see a lot of activity in the scoring tent as they add up the final scores, and I get up and walk over there.

“Sweet ride, Surf Sister,” Bailey says as I walk by him. “Very sweet.”

“Oh, and Bailey!” I shout after him. He turns around, swiping away the wet hair sticking to his forehead. “Tell your fearless leader thanks, but no thanks.” With a deep breath, I try to take it all in. The beach, the sound of the ocean, the amazing feeling rushing through me. “I can’t surf for him. I won’t.”

Bailey smiles. “I’d hope not. Till next time, Surf Sister,” he says, joining his team, already congratulating him.

Mo breaks free from the clutch of people in the scoring tent and walks over to me. Her eyes are red, and I think she’s about to cry. My heart sinks.

“Did I make it?” I ask. “Did I finish third?”

She quietly shakes her head. “No, sweetie. You didn’t.”

Heartbroken, I lower my head forward onto her shoulder. She puts her arm around me and pats my back. And then she whispers something into my ear that I never imagined I could possibly hear.

“You won.”

T
he Surf Sisters victory celebration starts on the beach and migrates to the shop, where it turns into a full-fledged party with music and food. There are more celebratory hugs and kisses than I can count, and at one point I even cry when Mickey and Mo have me pose for a picture with the King of the Beach trophy in front of the original
steady eddie’s surf school
sign.

Hours later it still hasn’t sunk in. I cannot believe that I won. I don’t know how I did it. I’ve heard various descriptions of the final wave, but I still don’t remember most of it. But that’s more than okay right now as I slow dance with Ben on the roof of the shop. It seems an appropriate location considering this was the place where I challenged everyone to try to win back the trophy from Surf City. But never in my wildest dreams did I see us actually doing it.

“If you’re the King of the Beach, what does that make me?” asks Ben. “The First Dude? The Royal Boyfriend?”

“Boyfriend?” I ask with a raised eyebrow. “Is that a label we’re using?”

He hems and haws for a moment.

“I win King of the Beach and suddenly we’re boyfriend and girlfriend again?”

Now he looks horrified, and I bust out laughing.

“I’m just kidding,” I say. “You pretty much sealed the deal as my boyfriend the moment you put on the coconut bra and danced the hula. That saved me. I was panicked and flustered, but when I saw you out there on the pier, I realized that everything was going to work out. And not just in the contest. Everything.”

“The end of the pier’s been pretty good for us,” he says.

“It most definitely has.”

He leans over and gives me a quick kiss.

“You know, at some point, we’re going to have to have the talk.”

I look up at him as we sway to the Hawaiian music wafting from the sound system below. We have not talked about how all of this comes to an end. There haven’t been any discussions of attempts to make something work long distance. It’s so complicated. But I’m still not ready to say it all out loud.