Page 78 of Summer Love

I catch a flash of metal when she opens her mouth—a tongue piercing.

“Life.”

She studies me for a second, then smiles.

“Six years is nothing,” she says. “Your body doesn’t forget.”

I don’t answer.

“I’m here to train,” she adds. “Reckon there’s some good sections here. And The Last Ride, when conditions are right.”

The afternoon wears on, the sun dropping. The shadows of the booths stretch across the sand.

The focaccia stand is closed. Yumi’s almost out of poke bowls. Ruby’s giving running commentary on Hank’s dart throws from her folding chair, her little flask in hand. Sierra’s at the raffle, ticket book out, selling the last few with a smile that never wavers.

Someone’s put on “Better Together” by Jack Johnson—soft guitar, easy vocals, a California feel. The perfect end-of-day song.

I should leave, but I stay.

I listen, I talk. A woman wants to know if I’m Frank and Helen Hayes’s granddaughter—yes, that’s me. A teenager points to the poster taped to the pole behind him and asks who did the surf school’s new design—I tell him I have no idea.

I also talk with Søren, the hairdresser who set up shop in town not long ago. Norwegian, he tells me, in near-perfect English with a faint accent. Ash-blond hair, very pale eyes. He’s cute—and he looks at me like he’s already deciding what he’d change about my haircut.

The old surfer with the white beard comes back to find me. He tells me shark attacks are rare in Coral Bay, but the risk is never zero.

“Back in ’97,” he says, “a great white killed a surfer fifty yards from shore. Cut clean in half! And five or six years ago, the kid ran into another one. He got luckier. When the seals move in near the spot, the sharks follow. That’s just how it is.”

I have no clue which kid he means, but I nod.

Coral Bay, nibbling away at me. Grain of sand after grain of sand.

Noah’s at the flip-flop toss.

I catch sight of him across the crowd. He’s taken off his apron, his gray T-shirt pulling at the shoulders, a cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth. A beer in his left hand, a flip-flop in his right, and he’s laughing a little too loud.

Around him: Miles, Dylan, and two guys I don’t know. Miles is working the booth like he’s found his life’s calling.

Noah steps up. He eyes the shoe like he’s competing in the Olympic javelin throw. He squints, sets his stance, and lets it fly.

The flip-flop veers left and lands ten feet from the target. Miles cracks up.

“Thanks, Noah. That was spectacular.”

Noah takes two steps back, stumbles, and collapses into the sand. The cigarette drops from his lips. Half the beer spills.

A few steps away, Jace sighs, arms crossed. The look he gives Noah is tired, resigned.

“Who’s that?” Harper asks.

“Noah. Jace’s brother.”

“He’s cute, that one. Even wasted…”

I don’t answer. I look at Noah in the sand, eyes half-closed, a vague smile on his lips. And I think of the boy I used to know. The one who wanted to be a doctor. The one with the best grades in all of Coral Bay.

It’s not the same smile.

“Summer.”