“Are you asking me to be that partner?”
“Damn, I told you not to say anything.”
“It’s a pretty important question, John. I just turned eighteen. I’m kicking butt in all my sports and hauling down a four-point-two GPA. I’m looking good for the Creative Journalism Department at UC Irvine. I have a little tiny bit of talent. A life and a future. The world’s going on out there, John. They caught the Unabomber. That spooky bin Laden has declared war on America! I’m not so sure that surfing gigantic waves is the way I want to spend my time. Medium waves, maybe. Part of life, you know, but not a religion.”
“You wouldn’t lose anything. You’d get a bigger life. Think about it, Jen.”
“Why me?”
“You’re the best chick I know.”
“What about all your twenty-and-more-year-olds? They’ve got more to offer than I do.”
“You surf better than any of them. I see you at twenty-two, and thirty-two and forty-two and, based on today, you’ll still have them all beat. You’ve got something rare, Jen Byrne. You got all your mom’s fight and win, win, win. And your dad’s big heart. He really cares about the people needing protection. You’re a tough package to beat.”
I was still sitting upright, feet on the blanket and arms resting on my knees.
“Well, John, I thought I was going surfing today. Not getting buried in a life plan.”
“I know what I want. For now, we’ll surf together every chance we get. There’s this place called Cortes Bank a hundred miles off San Diego. It breaks on an undersea mountain range just below the surface! They say they’re the biggest rideable waves discovered so far. Only a few people even know about it. I’ve seen the secret pictures.”
“Secret pictures of waves? That’s funny.”
“It’s not funny at all. They’re obviously huge. We just can’t tell how huge because there’s only a distant buoy to compare them to. Could be fifty feet. Could be eighty. As partners, we’ll be there. Our life will be the biggest waves on Earth. The biggest we can handle. See the whole world! I’ve got decent pay and flex hours with UPS, and free rent at home when I’m not on the road surfing. I know you, Jen Byrne. And you know me. I can tell by the way you look at me that you know exactly who I am.”
“You’re blowing my mind, John.”
“We can do it.”
“I can think about it.”
“If you’re in for Cortes Bank, we’re headed out Friday evening. I’m fixing some straps to my gun to hold me on. Gonna be rough and cold. But you won’t miss a day of school. You can stay on that honor roll. Pick you up at six.”
That smile of his. That face. The boy in the man, the man in the boy.
I was roiling with an eighteen-year-old’s emotions, suddenly too dense to untangle and name. I knew that life, in the form of John Stonebreaker, had offered me a path. But it felt like looking down into the Grand Canyon when I was ten, and getting that queasy clench in my gut as my breath caught and my head went light.
I wanted no part of that canyon.
And wasn’t sure I wanted John’s path. But I didn’t want him on it without me.
13
Jen makes her two o’clock with Dr. Penelope Parker, a Berkeley-educated psychiatrist whom Jen has been seeing for almost twenty years.
In Dr. Parker’s ocean-view office on Park Avenue, they have talked about Jen, the girl, the water polo and surf teams’ captain, class valedictorian, and Miss Laguna. Jen, the just-off-the-podium Montreal Games freestyler, backstroker, and butterflyer. Talked much about Jen and John, surfing the world together in love, crazy love that Jen has called the best hours of her life. Talked big-wave competition, big-wave fame, her need to win, a gift from Mom, her need to protect and serve, a gift from Dad. Talked of her striving to love John perfectly. Of John’s death. Of Jen, the sudden, grieving widow at twenty-one. Of Prozac, vodka, and Xanax. Being a mom, raising her sons, and them leaving home. The sadness. The failed men since John — her pretty boys of summer, dead to her eyes. Jen the published journalist, loneliness and aloneness, Mom and Dad aging. Quitting big waves after John died, surfing small waves only until the boys turned pro. And they’ve talked of riding big waves again — soon, just a few weeks away now, depending on this winter’s storms — in the Monsters of Mavericks.
Penelope knows her as well as her family does.
“How was your week?” asks the doctor.
“Hairy,” says Jen. “Casey and I got into a scrape with pirates down in San Diego. Pirates, if you can believe that. Worse. They made my skin crawl.”
“I’ve read about them. Poachers and smugglers, into all sorts of illegal things. Difficult to catch out on the high seas. Underfunded agencies and overlapping jurisdictions.”
“They dognapped Casey’s Labrador, Mae. We got her back.”
A beat then, because Penelope Parker knows by now when Jen is evading.
“You’d rather not talk about it?”
“Not really.”
“You certainly know our frontal attack by now, Jen.”
“I do.”
“Then I’ll pivot: Did the pirate encounter leave you afraid?”
“No. I’m not afraid of anything but big waves with me or my sons on them. The pirates threatened to burn down the Barrel.”
“Have you filed a police report?”
“Yesterday. A sergeant, Bickle, said he can’t do much but step up patrol. He calls it increased visibility. Which means an extra pass or two per shift. He doesn’t think it’s anything but a wild threat. These people claim to be into some ugly stuff. They bragged about all the contraband they buy and sell. The cops recommended private security but I’ve already got that. I’m going to move into the apartment over the Barrel. It’s a good-sized two-bedroom. Brock and Mahina are moving in, too. Which means Stonebreakers at the Barrel twenty-four, seven. Plus Casey, who’s in the bar almost every day. You can see the restaurant from the back deck of the apartment. I’ve got a three-fifty-seven Magnum that Brock gave me for my fortieth and taught me to shoot. Kicks like a mule. I go to the range once a month. I don’t think I’d have the courage to ever use it.”
Silence but for the cars heading up and down Park and the thrum of Coast Highway.
“I don’t recommend you living at the Barrel with a gun, Jen. You know all the stats on gun owners.”
“It’s not my gun I’m worried about.”
Penelope adjusts herself on her big leather wing chair, scribbles in her notebook. She’s tall, with a pleasant face, a bushy brown ponytail, big hands and feet. Twenty-something years older than Jen, and old-school regarding laptops or tablets. Today’s reading glasses are blue.
“I don’t recommend you living at the Barrel. Let the police handle the pirates.”
“I did hear you the first time, Doctor.”
“I’m here to help my patients lead fuller, happier lives. Which does not include gunplay and death by firearms.”
“I do appreciate that. I’d be careful. Can we talk about the Monsters? As I told you last month, I’ve begun having the dreams again. Almost every night. Very vivid and believable.”