Casey, his reef-scraped forehead almost hidden under his thick yellow hair, wheels her to the stage but there’s no ramp so Robin McKenna slinks down the steps and hands Jen an acrylic-and-gold-look trophy shaped like a wave. Her wipeout unfolds in slow motion on the screen. A ripple of cold numbness wobbles through her. She watches it intently, with little recall of the event.
The actor pecks Jen with a brief kiss, plants a longer one on Casey, then offers Jen the microphone and a white envelope with blue foil trim.
Jen waves away the mike and takes the envelope; Casey turns her chair around and Jen smiles to the cheering audience.
“There’s five hundred dollars in that envelope, Jen,” says Robin. “And some fantastic shops right across the alley. And an open bar ’til midnight! Enjoy! Wow, we’re glad you’re still here!”
Back at the table Jen lets her vision drift from Casey and Brock and Mahina, to her mother and father, Pastor Mike and Marilyn, and Bette Wu.
They look different to her. She’s never seen them in this way before, never been stolen from them, then returned. Plucked from their world, then drop-shipped back.
Casey’s to her left; she touches his face. Brock to her right, likewise.
Funny how they’re all looking at me the same way right now, she thinks. Eve Byrne wipes her eyes, and Jen’s tough, good-hearted former police chief dad sets a hand over his wife’s far shoulder and squeezes. Looks at Jen as if he’s the happiest man in the world.
She settles on Bette Wu’s pale face. Gets a small smile, no teeth, just a cupid upturn of her lips. Bette’s wearing the same seafoam-green leather pantsuit that Jen noted the first time she saw her, in the Barrel bar with her pirate crew, trying to get Casey’s attention. Funny, Jen thinks, how easily that moment comes to mind—weeks old—when wiping out on a fifty-foot wave face just yesterday is only a dark, gloomy snippet.
“… the worst men’s wipeout goes to Tom Tyler … we’re all real stoked to have you with us, Tommy!”
Jen watches nineteen-year-old Tom Tyler bounce up to the stage in his plaid flannels, shearling boots, and red sequined tails, throwing punches like a boxer. Blond hair to his shoulders. He’s about the cutest boy she’s ever seen, right behind her own. Wants to adopt him.
The next time Jen looks for Bette, she’s not there. Then Jen feels a hand on her shoulder and hears Bette’s voice behind her. Jen tries to turn to her but her pain-frozen neck won’t let her.
“I know you hate me but I’m happy you’re still alive,” Bette says. “That wave will haunt my dreams.”
“Mine, too.”
The MC asks the next winners to stay put until all the awards have been announced. Starts to read from an Oceano bar napkin, holding it close:
Ruby Kaiawalu and Tom Tyler get best rides.
The crowd goes bonkers. Someone raises a beer pitcher to his mouth but drops it. Explodes when it hits the floor. Shrieks. Rene Carrasco slides through the glassy beer in his Ugg boots, arms out, knees bent.
Flip Garrison gets big-wave rookie of the year.
Bonkers again, and loud: “Flip! Flip! Flip!”
Maya gets women’s first place and the $50,000 that goes with it. Then Ruby Peralta and Connie Arnett.
Jen doesn’t podium. Doesn’t care. Knows she couldn’t have surfed any better, and she had the luck—until the wipeout, at least—well, enough luck to live through it.
She’s survived what even her most private dreams had promised would kill her.
Everyone’s standing and hooting, bottoms up and shots down. Jen feels like she’s in a dazed version of high school again, when she won everything in sight and everybody adored her and she was falling in love with John. Before she grew up. Before their blissful Garden and his terrible end. Happy in this moment, as she was then. Blessed by life and smart enough to know it.
Jen is so lost in her memory she zones through the men’s second- and third-place winners, then:
“And now, ladies and gentlemen, girls and dudes, masters and grommets, kooks and locals—it’s time for the winner of Monsters of Mavericks men’s overall. As you all know, it’s based on three waves, judged on points for maneuvers, degrees of difficulty, and style. Style, baby!”
Jen watches Robin take a patient swallow of what looks like a sponsored Pacifico longneck, which brings a horny roar from the crowd.
“Men’s overall—Casey Stonebreaker! This year’s monster man!”
Casey and Brock each take a wheelchair handle and push Jen through the bodies to the base of the stage again. Mahina and Bette and the moms and dads are already there. The other winners and most of the audience flood in, hamming it up for the cameras, selfies galore, “Wipeout” twanging and thumping loud from the PA.
39
After the awards dinner, Casey and Bette Wu walk the quiet streets to Pillar Point Harbor. It’s cold and still, the moon a distant egg in a nest of fog.
They pass Mavericks Surf Company, owned by Jeff Clark, a local who surfed Mavericks for nearly fifteen years before it was “discovered” back in the early nineties. The first guy to really ride it. Alone, because nobody else would dare. Clark is one of Casey’s idols, and the coolest of dudes, too. Tight with his dad. Introduced Casey around Half Moon Bay. Took him out at Mavericks when Casey was fourteen, on a medium-wicked, paddle-in day. Warned him that Mavericks has no conscience.
Casey looks through a window at the handsome Clark boards racked along one wall. Simple and clean, no adorning colors. Above the cash register hangs a blown-up photo of their maker, carving a bottom turn on a fifty-foot face.
“You are him now,” says Bette.
“No, just me.”
“You’re better. I’ve studied all the films and videos. Yours and his.”
“He did it first. I just watched and learned.”
“You’re faster and stronger and more intuitive. A better wave reader. You showed yesterday what you are. You have the royal blood of your mother and father. You are a king. We need to inflate your ego, Casey. We need to make you proud to be the best in the world. Better than Laird. Better than Garrett. Better than all of them.”
“I’m only the best for now. Just at Mavericks. But somebody else will be here next year. Maybe looking through this window. I’m chill with that. It’s all good.”
“More famous. More rich. The best. When they say the best big-wave surfer in the world, ever—it is going to be you.”
Casey turns and smiles at her. “That would be pretty choice, Bette.”
“It is your choice, Mr. Stonebreaker.”
She smiles back. She’s got a seafoam-green beanie pulled over her ears, and matching duster against the cold. Does a funny little skip, ducks a shoulder under his, and presses an arm to his back. They walk on, passing the rental bikes and paddleboards chained up for the night, and the commercial fishing boats cut into planes and shadows by the dock lights. The bait boat crews are already arriving in this early morning dark. A lanyard pings on a sailboat mast.
“You don’t feel so tense when I touch you,” says Bette.
“I’m getting used to you. I’m liking on you.”
He feels her arm tightening against his back and a gloved hand squeezing his elbow. Feels her head on his shoulder and smells that perfume she wore on Sunset, the one that feels sweet and warm in his lungs, puts his sex drive in gear.
“We will be very good, Casey.”
“Totally.”
Bette’s grip goes tight on his arm as a big silver SUV eases into the harbor from Pillar Point Harbor Boulevard. He senses her attention as she slows their walk.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
