Page 8 of The Surfer

“We’re internet friends. You know, the modern world,” I explain, unhelpfully throwing my hands up in the air to indicate the internet travelling all around us. I hope this answer would be enough to satisfy Gary, but by the look on his face, I realize I’ve only made things worse.

Whoops.

But I am telling the truth. Sandy and I are really good friends, except for the small fact we’ve never actually met in real life. Sure, we’ve Skyped and Facetimed and everything else you can do when you’re separated by multiple oceans, but it isn't the same as seeing each other face to face.

Which we’re trying to do now if Gary will let me.

Sandy and I met online nearly a year ago over our shared love of The Vindicator Team, the big superhero film franchise that dominates the box office charts. We met on an internet forum for the film series, a forum where angry men discuss minute details about every facet of the film series. It seemed like we are the only girls on the site, surrounded by these intense male commentators, so we just have no choice but to bond. We bonded over our shared love of the film franchise and we continued chatting on our own social media, away from the angry male comments found on the internet forums. We basically became instant friends from the moment we found each other on that site, and we’ve talked every day from then on. Our conversations quickly moved on from The Vindicator Team and onto our daily lives. We know everything about each other, more than any other friend I’ve ever had.

Sandy is my best friend.

We just haven’t met in real life.

But I don’t think Gary the border guard is completely understanding on that point. I wonder by the way he’s staring at me with seething resentment if he’s even heard of the internet. I have to bite my tongue and not try to explain what the internet is to him. Somehow, I don’t think he’ll appreciate that.

I know Sandy is real and not some kind of catfish, but she lives all the way over in a small surfer town in Australia and I live in a small apartment in Queens, New York. Yep, pretty far apart. Worlds apart, even.

But we became friends super easily over the internet, and now I’m here. At the Australian border gate at New Water Airport about to meet my best friend for the first time in person.

I know Sandy will be waiting for me in the Arrivals Lounge just a few dozen yards away beyond the gate. All that stands between me and her properly meeting for the first time is Gary the border guard and his thick handlebar mustache.

And currently, it’s not going well.

I know that mustache is not letting me go anywhere anytime soon.

“Internet friends?” Gary repeats, glancing back at my passport. I follow his eyes down to my dreaded passport photo and I gulp. I know what he’s looking at. My passport photo isn't the best photo of me, that’s for sure. It doesn’t even look like me anymore. It was taken three years ago, back when I was seventeen and in the thralls of the worst time in my teenage life. Acne. Dry skin. Greasy hair. Yep, the passport photo is proud to display all the worst facets of being a geeky teenage girl.

And now Gary the border guard is studying it like it’s the first photo on the FBI’s Most Wanted List. Well at least I’ve grown out of that awkward teenage phase and I’m no longer covered in spots and bad skin. I’m twenty now. Brown eyes. Brown shoulder-length wavy hair. Pale skin. Just your typical girl from Queens and not a world-class terrorist like Gary is suspecting me of being.

This trip, if I even make it out of the airport, is going to be my first time in Australia, in fact, it’s going to be my first time ever out of America. I’ve had to board three long-ass flights to even get here to New Water. New York to LA, then LA to Sydney, and then finally Sydney to New Water. I’ve practically spent days in the air. Days without sight of a single shower or a bar of soap.

I know there is a high chance that Gary can smell me even through the big glass window separating him from me. That, also, won’t be helping my case.

“You’re looking after her brother?” he asks, eyeing the passport photo.

Great.

I’m going to have to explain more about the strange situation I’ve found myself in. I take in a deep breath to clear my cloudy jetlagged mind, ready for my long-winded explanation.

Think, Ripley, think. Communicate this correctly.

“Yeah, it’s kind of a nursing thing,” I reply. “I’m a nurse, well, not exactly. I’m about to study nursing at university back home, so I’m not a nurse just yet. I’m a student. Well, not even technically a student because I haven’t even started yet. But, yeah, I’m a nursing student.” God, I talk so much when I’m nervous and in desperate need of a shower.

Quiet down, Ripley.

I’m not getting in this country at all if I carry on like this.

“Right.” Gary’s tone is deadpan and unmoving. Call me a psychic but I’m starting to really get the sense that Gary is really, really unimpressed by my answers. It’s just a teeny tiny little hunch that this is not going well at all. I’m going to be kicked out of Australia before I’ve even properly taken a step into the airport’s Arrivals Lounge. “And who is this friend of yours?”

“Her name’s Sandy,” I reply, the one answer I can give that made any sense. “Sandy Finn.”

Gary’s eyes widen at the name. “Sandy Finn?” he stutters. “As in Finn? And her brother is Cove Finn?”

So, he knows them? “Yeah, that’s it,” I reply, shrugging.

“You’re staying with the Finns?”

“Yeah.”