The Tribes of Palos Verdes by Joy Nicholson

Author:Joy Nicholson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin

Motion

My brother is teaching Heather Hunt how to surf today. The top part of her bathing suit keeps coming down as the waves hit. My brother is nervous with her, motioning for me to go away.

“How are you supposed to stand up on this thing?” Heather asks, giggling.

“Whichever way feels best,” he says, trying to be suave.

“Actually, it’s better if you use your right foot,” I say, swimming very close to them. “I don’t think you’re exactly a goofyfoot or anything.” I say this with as much disdain as I can muster. Heather might be pretty, but she looks like a moron on a surfboard.

“What’s she talking about?” Heather whispers to Jim, tossing her soft black hair over her shoulder. She gives my brother a secret wink, and then turns away.

“Could you go over there, please?” my brother says, jerking his thumb at me, twitching his neck to the left.

When I get out of the water I’m cursing. I see someone standing there, but I walk away fast, hiding my face behind my hair. I hear footsteps behind me on the rocks and someone swatting brambles and sea oats away.

I kneel down to wax my board, pretending to ignore the person. When I finally look, it is not Skeezer or Mikey.

The guy waits for the perfect time to approach, counts slowly to ten on his fingers, and doesn’t move. He watches the whales go by, then I bolt up, preparing to slide back into the water, beyond him. He runs, slipping along unsurely like a crab. He reaches me and stops.

Up close, he looks like Ichabod Crane, all limbs and Adam’s apple. He is wearing a thin black shirt and dark pants. He looks scared.

I jump when he comes closer. There’s an awkward silence as we perch on the same rock. Slowly he folds and unfolds his hands as if he has something to give me. I pick up my board, waiting for him to say something.

“Hi, I was wondering if maybe I could borrow some wax.”

I hand him the wax, an automatic Palos Verdes gesture.

“Sure, whatever.”

He has no board to coat with it. He doesn’t move. I break the silence, ask him where he’s from, pretending I don’t know. He stammers and watches a gull waft by with a fish in its beak. He turns so he is half facing me, and takes a picture from his pocket, a picture of Jim and me at Yosemite.

“Look, this is you, right?” His hand shakes. “I’m Adrian Adare. I live with your father.”

I look at the picture as it drops into the rocks.

“My brother’ll kill you. Get out of here.”

The picture floats in the tide pool. Before I can grab it, a wave of spray comes over the photograph, covering it like a mist of tears.

Skeezer and John Lapidus sit in the water, making predictions about Adrian and me. They beckon me to swim out to them. They laugh together.

“Who was that fool,” Skeezer asks, “some dickhead from the Valley?”

A wave comes up, and though I’m not first in line, I jump on it.

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