Swell (14 page)

Jason looked thoughtful.

‘My first contest victory.’

‘Wow, you were so cute.’

‘What do you mean,
were
?’

I laughed and reached in my bag for my notebook. This room was like a pictorial condensed biography of all the good parts of Jason’s career. The low moments were of course noticeably lacking.

‘Pay homage at the altar of Jason Cross the Almighty,’ said Chuck, raising up his lanky arms and whooshing his body down into a low bow.

‘Give it a rest, Chuck,’ said Jason, but I could tell he was proud of his own achievements, which he was entitled to be judging by the glorious display in the room.

I had my head down frantically making notes when Ruby tugged at my sleeve and said - ‘Come on, darl’, this is the good bit.’

She dragged me off ahead of the others, out of the Jason shrine and across a palm tree-lined atrium towards a set of double doors.

‘Do you like shopping?’ she said, her blue eyes flashing with excitement.

‘No.’

Ruby’s face fell.

‘Of course I do, Ruby. Why?’

Ruby pointed a bony finger and I turned my head just as Oli opened the double doors with a flourish. I peered into the next room expecting to see yet more tributes to Jason, whose success and marketability had probably paid for the building and its entire staff.

My jaw dropped when I saw the rows and rows of clothes stretching out before me. There was every colour and every fabric a girl could ever imagine. Hawaiian prints nestled between plaids and denim, alongside silks and chunky knits. One wall was entirely devoted to accessories. Luggage, handbags, parasols, shoes, sandals and things for which I could not immediately see a purpose but which looked so adorable I most definitely needed one of each.

‘It’s an enormous surf shop,’ I breathed, as my feet seemed to lift off the ground and float me towards the fiesta of fashion.

‘And best of all, it’s totally free,’ giggled Ruby who was floating along beside me.

‘Free? In what way is it free?’

‘Like you don’t have to pay. You just help yourself, darl’. Show Oli what you’ve chosen so he can make a list and then it’s all yours. How ripper is that?’

‘Fill your boots,’ Chuck hollered. ‘You’re part of the team now. Dude, this is like chick paradise.’

‘Looks like Chuck paradise to me,’ I laughed as Chuck sprinted past me and dived into the male clothing section.

I had never realised I was so superficial but after a gratis shopping spree at Poseidon, during which I selected every desirable item a surf chick could ever want, I really began to like Oli. At least momentarily.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

I enjoyed the Californian lifestyle and its spring climate of fresh mornings and warm afternoon sunshine. While Jason and Rory carried out their commitments to their sponsor, Ruby and I power walked on the beach, swam, shopped and spent hours at one of the many cosmopolitan cafes in Newport and Laguna Beach. Ruby was an ideal companion who did not feel the need to fill silences. I wrote while Ruby hungrily read novel after novel, stopping occasionally to comment on our production line. I was writing the books and she was reading them. We were the perfect team. We were not, however, one hundred percent conscientious as it was extremely hard to resist the urge to people watch. We kept a tally of silicone breasts and dogs small enough to be classified as rodents. Many of the latter were clothed in Juicy Couture, as in fact were many of the former and the two were often spotted together. Dogs in baby buggies were everywhere.

The items on the café menus were invariably organic, natural or GM free and all the cakes either resembled lumps of congealed seaweed or solidified horse manure.

‘What’s that one there?’ I asked the girl in our regular haunt.

She was so slim and tanned she resembled a twig in shorts.

‘That’s a fat free, wheat free, gluten free, dairy free, sugar free oatcake.’

‘It sounds delightful,’ I grimaced. ‘Free of everything. I bet free doesn’t stretch as far as the price though.’

‘That one’s four dollars, Ma’am.’

‘Gosh, I hope it’s worth it.’

‘Of course. It’s always worth being good to your body and soul.’

‘Yes, quite.’

Was it wrong that that made me want to ask for chocolate fudge cake?

I ordered what emerged to also be a taste free oatcake from the humour free twig, washed down with a caffeine free, sugar free, coffee free coffee and got back to work. It was ironic how the women around us clearly prided themselves on only consuming the most natural of foods while the faces they fed them into were almost entirely fake.

Ruby and I put people watching on hold to attend the final event of the publicity tour; the grand opening of Poseidon’s flagship store in Huntington Beach. It promised to be more of a spectacle than the simple cutting of a ribbon. This shop was so expansive it was like the Disneyland of surf fashion. There were televisions larger than many movie screens suspended from vaulted ceilings and a sound system that boomed bass through the floor into the soles of our feet. Parts of the floor were made of glass under which swam tropical fish, giving the shopper the feeling of walking on water. Thousands of glossy surfboards begging to be purchased stood upright in the racks like soldiers standing to attention. On a catwalk runway in the centre of the store, female models swayed their sharp hipbones from side to side in multi-coloured bikinis fashioned for the surf chick to be sexy yet practical for surfing. Ruby had chosen five boy-short bikinis in the time it took me to fetch two glasses of champagne.

Jason was literally drowning in compliments and gifts from the hundreds of adoring fans who had queued, many overnight, to meet their idol. He displayed admirable patience with them all and signed enough autographs to fill the pages of the telephone book. One girl who had hitchhiked from San Diego presented Jason with a beanie hat
hand-knitted from what I suspected to be her own hair. Personally, I would have stamped a restraining order on her forehead and had her ejected from the building, but Jason simply accepted the gift, chatted to the girl for five minutes and left her feeling like she was floating on air. Which she very likely was on the planet she inhabited.

There were a group of terminally ill children from a nearby hospital, many in wheelchairs with skin as yellow as sulphur. Jason talked animatedly with them and hugged them to him. He signed posters and gave every one of the children his mobile number in case they ever wanted to chat. He then ordered the Poseidon staff to kit out the children head to toe in the latest surf wear. The delight on their faces as if they had not a care in the world broke my heart.

In contrast, Jason then met a gaggle of teenage girls who wore T-shirts printed with ‘Mrs Jason Cross’ across their unfeasibly ample chests. Jason joked with the girls and their aspirations burst into the stratosphere but he took care to keep his comments appropriate. Ruby and I laughed at the girls’ giddy reaction and wondered if we had ever been the same as teenagers. Surely not?

There were fans of all ages and backgrounds from all over California as well as visitors from as far afield as England, Australia and South Africa, all hoping for a few minutes of Jason’s time, which he gave without question.

While I watched Jason in quiet admiration, a young boy stepped purposefully forward and looked directly at him. The boy’s appearance made me step closer for a better look. Judging him against Zac, he was about eight years old, I guessed small for his age, with a shock of white blond hair to his shoulders and skin the colour of caramel. His
face was gorgeous enough to send advertisers into a frenzy but his mouth was set in a grim line. I gasped when I recognised the familiar expression of serious determination.

A baggy t-shirt and denim shorts that stopped mid-way down his skinny calves only accentuated his tiny build. His bulky skate shoes made his bony legs look like golf clubs. Jason removed his own cap, which sent a wave of delight coursing through the awaiting fans. Every move he made created a sort of personal tornado that whizzed around every room Jason entered and sent people into a spin. While girls gasped and giggled around us, the little boy remained still and emotionless. When he lifted his eyes and looked directly at me there was no doubt in my mind. His eyes glinted like silver coins.

Caught up in his role as the surf star in attendance, Jason scribbled his well-practised signature on a poster and held it out to the boy. He did not react. Jason lowered his arm

‘Do you surf, kid? What’s your name?’

‘Little shit,’ I heard Oli grunt who had just arrived to witness the boy’s stony silence.

‘Here,’ Jason smiled, ‘have my cap, I’ve got plenty more.’

Jason crouched down until he was level with the boy’s face and placed the Poseidon cap gently on the boy’s halo of hair. The boy stood tall for a moment before he tipped his head towards the ground. Jason’s cap fell at his feet and he lifted his giant shoe with a monumental effort to stamp the cap into the floor.

‘I don’t want your cap, Mister,’ he said. ‘I got plenty of my own and I don’t want your signature neither.’

Jason stood up and tilted his head, unaccustomed to such a reaction.

‘Then what do you want, kid?’

The boy ran his forearm underneath his nose and sniffed.

‘I dunno, I guess I just wanted to see what my daddy looked like.’

The silence was deafening before Oli slapped his forehead and groaned – ‘Fuck me, that’s a fucking shocker.’

A hurricane of gasps and whispers coursed around the room and Jason stumbled backwards, his eyes fixed on the boy’s face as if an invisible thread connected them. I stepped up to steady Jason. His body felt stiff to the touch. The crowd fizzed, having been privy to such a revelation, while the boy remained rooted to the spot.

‘I…’ Jason began. ‘Who…?’

‘Where the fuck are his parents?’ Oli hissed as he foresaw the Poseidon publicity machine being outfoxed by an eight year-old boy.

‘It appears you’re looking at one of them.’

Oli scowled up at me.

‘Very funny. Little shit’s been put up to this. Probably looking for money.’

‘He’s a child, Oli.’

‘Doesn’t stop them bleeding people dry to feel big.’

‘Says a man who has to stand on his wallet to feel tall,’ I muttered under my breath while Oli wrestled his way into the centre of the confrontation.

‘I think we should break this up right now,’ he announced.

Jason ran his hands through his hair as he struggled to deal with the moment. The polished professional I had been watching all day was crumbling before the eyes of his public.

‘Jason, perhaps we should all go somewhere private to talk,’ I whispered.

Jason jolted as if he had just awoken from a sleep walk. He glanced at the dumbstruck crowd that was growing by the second.

‘Yes, yes of course, Bailey, you’re right as ever.’

Oli muttered something under his breath and threw me another scowl.

Jason crouched back down on his haunches to bring his face level with the boy’s.

‘What did you say your name was again, kid?’

Unnerved now by Jason’s proximity, the boy looked down at his feet and scuffed his shoe along the floor.

‘I didn’t but it’s Harrison. Harrison Evans.’

Jason pressed his lips together.

‘And, your mother’s name?’

The crowd sniggered and gasped simultaneously.

‘Lilia Evans, sir. D’you remember her?’

Jason interlocked his fingers and exhaled slowly.

‘I didn’t know. I’m sorry, Harrison, I didn’t know.’

‘Now you do.’

The boy turned on his heel and marched proudly away, the squeak of his rubber soles filling the silence as everybody watched the boy leave and then turned to look at
Jason. I half expected Jason to run after him but he slumped as if every muscle in his body ached and silently allowed his son to walk out of his life.

CHAPTER TWENTY

We were walking on eggshells around Jason for the next few days while he closed the shutters around him and tried to internally process Harrison’s revelation. Ruby and Rory took advantage of the down time to have a romantic break alone in Malibu. Oli’s eggshells, meanwhile, were crushed to dust beneath his feet while he stomped around protesting at Jason’s attention having been diverted from the objectives of the world title and of making Poseidon money.

‘He’s just discovered he’s a father, dude, that’s some pretty heavy shit right there. I mean that is one mega head funk,’ Chuck commented.

‘It’s not the first time some whore’s tried to catch him like this,’ Oli growled. ‘I mean it’s a meal ticket, right? I betcha the kid ain’t even his.’

‘You saw the child, Oli,’ I said, ‘the likeness was unmistakeable.’

‘Whatever. I want tests to prove it.’

‘That’s up to Jason, I think.’

‘I am the boss round here,’ Oli seethed, ‘and what I say goes.’

I arched an eyebrow and looked down at the primordial dwarf Jason had to deal with as his team manager.

Jason neatly disproved Oli’s dictatorship theory when he refused to appear on a live television show that Oli had planned without his prior consent. The talk show theme was the image of the professional athlete and their responsibilities as role models, which even tactless Chuck realised was a little close to the bone for comfort. Jason explained calmly to Oli that his head was not in the right place for him to be able to paint on his
public face and discuss the subject without becoming emotionally involved. Oli listened, nodding his head mechanically and pretending to understand but as soon as Jason left the room, his temper erupted like a burst water main.

‘Fucking surf divas!’ he yelled, his face tight and scarlet, ‘can’t fucking rely on them to do anything except surf, bed women and play poker. This is only the biggest motherfucking talk show in the U.S. Like it’s not a big fucking deal!’

I peered at his ears in the hope I would actually see smoke come out of them.

‘Chill out, Oli man, this is not the way to deal with the situation, you know what I’m sayin’?’

Oli turned a spectacular shade of violet.