When he woke again the sunlight had drifted from his face to his stomach. Lying still, he watched Cristobel’s back and legs as she stood in front of the dress, as she then leaned forward to make some adjustment. Steam eased up from the floor a few feet away, and he rotated an eye for explanation: a coffee cup placed on the carpet, just far enough so he wouldn’t knock it over. She had put a pillow under his head. He watched her hands now, slender but large-knuckled: one pinching the fabric, the other reaching forward, a pin ready. She was up on the balls of her feet, springy, like a basketball player. She moved forward for a closer look and smoothed the silk with her finger. She arched her back, cocked her head, and crossed her arms in an analytical pause, then turned to look at him. “Well, sleeping beauty, what do you think?”
“Perfect.”
“Not much of a critic, are you?”
“I know what I like.”
“It’s not finished yet.”
“It will be soon. Then you’ll see what I mean.”
She bit her lip gently, looked at the dress, then back to Frye. “I designed it myself.”
She smiled, blushed a little. Blaster’s tail knocked against the hardwood floor. “Every time I look down to Rockpile I see you going over.”
“I’m glad you were there. You saved my life, Cristobel.”
“Aw, shucks.”
He sipped the coffee, leaned up on an elbow. “Now you’re stuck with me.”
“What’s a girl to do?”
“Could come over here and lie in the sun.”
She looked at the dress for a long moment, then at Frye. Blaster lumbered over, working his nose under one of her hands. She took a pillow and lay down beside him, a couple of feet away, braced on an elbow. She was back-lit by the sun. It made her hair even lighter as it dangled down in a loose braid, Frye looked long at her, and she looked back. “You look real beautiful to me,” he said.
“I’m glad that’s what you see.”
Blaster tried to squeeze in between them; Cristobel shoved him away. He lay instead on the other side of her, resting his head in the narrow part of her waist, watching Frye with big round eyes, affable, moronic. “You’ve got an admirer.”
“Isn’t he a sweetheart?”
Frye shrugged. He had learned years ago that a man can’t compete with a woman’s pets. He reached out and touched her face.
She reddened. “You feel okay?”
He nodded. He could feel himself getting sucked into her dark brown eyes.
Suddenly she was telling him about fashion design, how it started off as something to do to win trophies at the local fair. She explained that her older brother had Little League and Pop Warner trophies all over the place, that her father had Toastmaster plaques, that her mother had a whole roomful of civic awards and citations. “I had this dresser in my room with nothing on it but one picture of my horse and one of Mickey Dolenz. I decided to fill it up with hardware like everybody else had. I started entering all the little fairs and contests in Mendocino County, then some down in Sacramento and San Francisco. Sure enough, I heaped that whole dresser full of awards and ribbons. Then my brother became a hippie, so he tossed the trophies. And Dad had already won everything he could at Toastmasters so he quit. And Mom got sick of philanthropy so she stuck to the garden. I didn’t want to lose a good thing, so I just kept on sewing. Later, I started designing my own clothes.”
“You’re smart to stick with it. Now you’ve got something that’s yours.”
Frye reached out and touched her face again. It flushed, but she kept looking at him. He brushed back her hair. He could sense her body tensing; her jaw went tight. She lifted a hand toward him. It hovered a moment, withdrew. She looked away, took a deep long breath. “This isn’t anything like you think it is,” she said. “There are layers of me to cut through.”
“With a little luck, I’ll cut in the right place.”
She sighed and touched his face with her hand. “There’s no such thing as luck. We get what we ask for.”
“I feel lucky you were at Rockpile today. That you were there Monday morning when we met.”
She looked at him oddly, then away. “Anyway, what about you? Always surf and stuff like that?”
Frye told her about the first time he’d paddled out on a surfboard, one that Bennett had made for him, a cute little thing just under five feet long, with his name written in flashy red letters across the deck. He was six. Bennett was eleven. “I couldn’t stand on the damned thing, so I just slid around on my belly all morning, riding the Whitewater in. After lunch we went back out. It was one of those hot fall days when the water’s green and the waves are little and shaped perfect. Bennett said he wouldn’t let me back to the beach unless I stood up and rode back. He helped me find the right place to take off. I fell a hundred times, then finally got up. I can see it just like it was. I’m crouching down like I’m going a hundred, arms out, absolutely stoked. We stayed out until the sun went down, and I had big rashes under my arms from the wetsuit.”
“You’ll never forget that day.”
“No way.” Frye went on to relate how that night Benny and his friends had taken him down to the water at the island and performed the ancient Hawaiian ritual that all new surfers were allowed to enjoy. They made him drink three swallows of his father’s bourbon — part of the ceremony, they explained — then peed on him.
Cristobel laughed. Blaster looked up and panted knowingly. “What horrible little boys,” she said.
“I was deeply moved. I had my swimsuit on, so I just waded out and washed off. I was laughing like a fool. Bourbon hits a kid hard.”
Frye described his abortive college career, his attempts to major in geology, marine biology, English. Finally, he just flunked out and joined the surfing tour, to the horror of his father. He recalled Edison’s letter of acknowledgment, which arrived while he was competing in the miserably cold waters of Australia and getting rather creamed by unfriendly locals, saying, “If you choose to kill your mind, son, then your body will surely follow. With love and disappointment, Father.”
Cristobel frowned, then laughed again. “Sounds like my dad. They always want you to do what you want to do, as long as it’s what they want you to do. They try. Mine was extra hard on Mike, my brother. So when Mike was shot down over there, it tore Dad up.”
“Your folks still alive?”
She shook her head. “Just me now. Don’t say you’re sorry. I hate those words. Just put your hand on my face again, like you did.”
Frye touched her. He scooted closer, but not too close. She smelled so good. She kept looking at him. For a long time he just held his face close to hers, smelling her breath and the richness of her skin. What do I smell like, he wondered, seawater? When he moved his lips to hers, she turned away. He kissed her ear instead. She pressed up close to him. She was shaking. “Something’s starting. I don’t want anything to start. That’s not why I’m here.”
“Yes, it is.”
“But just hold on to me awhile, Chuck. Kind of light, like. I’m... I’m so damned glad you’re alive and here with me.”
He did, a long while, until his lower shoulder was asleep and the hand that stroked her head was heavy and tired. Twice he started to tell her about the tunnels and what he had found there, but he stopped, unwilling to bring that horror into Cristobel’s sunlit living room. The rays rushed the window and made her hair warm. Blaster, his head still resting on the small of Cristobel’s waist, looked up at Frye, yawned, and closed his eyes again. Frye could hear the surf pounding outside, and through the corner of window he could see the lanky palms of Heisler Park drooping far in the distance. The sun hovered, an orange disc. For the first time in two days he felt warm. He was glad to be alive too, and to be here with her. Some things, he thought, are so good and simple.