Sadie Starr's Guide to Starting Over by Miranda Luby

Author:Miranda Luby
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Text Publishing Company
Published: 2022-06-18T00:00:00+00:00

16

THE SKY IS highlighter blue, so cloudless and clear it looks fake. Mum and Dad just dropped me and Rachel at a sweep of golden sand beach. They’re off to attempt a round of golf, which we both thought would be as dull as it sounded, but Dad wouldn’t let us ‘slob around at the beach’ without a ‘holiday activity’. So here we are, well-worn rented wetsuits and soft-top surf boards under our arms.

Rachel and I had surf lessons as kids. We also once rented mini mals and went out at Manly Beach. We basically took turns flying face-first off our boards like those osprey birds that dive for fish, bursting back up through the whitewater laughing and covered in sand. It was hilarious and exhilarating and remains one of my favourite memories.

Rachel and I drop our gear and start changing. The day is crisp but still, so it’s only slightly bone-chilling. For a minute I’m a little nervous to be hanging out with my sister alone again, a bit like she’s a stranger and I want desperately to impress her. I feel embarrassed when I see her notice my weight loss in my swimmers. I can tell she’s wondering if she should say something. But any weirdness dissolves as soon as we’ve struggled into our wetsuits and turned to face each other again.

‘Oh my god, Sades!’ She starts cracking up. ‘It’s like a seal went to an op shop.’

I glance down at the off-colour neoprene patches sewn across my left boob and right hip. I snort. ‘Yeah? Well at least mine isn’t on backwards!’

Rachel contorts her body to eye the padded knee sections on the back of her legs and we both double over in hysterics.

‘You have to change it,’ I say in between gasps.

‘No way! I barely got it on.’

‘You’ll make us look stupid!’

‘I don’t care.’ She’s almost crying. ‘I can’t do that again!’

Eventually we pull ourselves together and Rachel lets me take a photo of her for the Kookslams Instagram account, that one that’s always posting surfing fails. Then we ball our belongings up in our towels and wade into the shallows, carrying our boards. Our toes turn numb while white water churns around our sleek black calves. We wade deeper, pulling ourselves up to paddle once we’re in up to our chests. Past the breakers, we sit up on our boards and fall silent. The whole world sounds like the inside of a shell. A little further out, a few surfers bob on the surface. One paddles and catches an unbroken wave, pops to her feet and dances up and down her longboard with effortless grace. We look at each other.

‘I can do that,’ I say.

Rachel nods. ‘One hundred per cent. You’re basically pro.’

We float around for a while, splashing each other and making dumb jokes about seals op-shopping and watching for the telltale sign of a shadowy line slinking across the ocean towards us. Then, in the distance, the perfect wave.

I lick my lips, tasting salt, and spin my board towards the shore.

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