They turn the music up even louder.
That’s it. I can fight it no longer.
At first I just tease it a little and bounce my knees, then I bust out a big smile and the arms extend as I start the strut. They clap and holler, and pretty soon the three of us are grooving. It’s fun and a great emotional release. I get so into it that I even close my eyes, which is dangerous when performing the Albatross.
We’re startled out of our little moment when the music shuts off abruptly. We look to the counter and see Mo standing by the sound system. I’d totally forgotten that she was working in the garage.
“Sorry to interrupt your party,” she says, clearly enjoying the moment, “but I need you guys to come out to the garage.”
We follow her outside and are surprised to see that Mickey is there too. Today was her day off, which means she must have come in through the back door while we were busy.
“What’s up?” asks Sophie.
“The King of the Beach is coming up,” says Mickey, “and we thought we should have a team meeting.”
Even though there can be as many as eight competitors on a team, so far the Surf Sisters squad is just the five of us. None of the other girls at the shop really surf much, and despite my attempts to secretly recruit during my practice sessions at the pier, so far I have struck out.
“That’s a good idea,” I say. “You want to go over practice schedules?”
“Actually, we thought we might start off by giving you guys some M&M’s.”
“None for me,” answers Nicole. “I try to eat just a few, but then I start craving more, and before you know it I’ve polished off an entire family-sized bag. It’s not pretty.”
The sisters share a look and chuckle.
“We’re not talking about the candy,” says Mickey.
It takes a moment, but I’m the first one to figure it out. “Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!” I say as I begin to tremble with excitement. “Do you mean . . . ?”
Mo looks at me and nods. “We figure it’s the least we can do. We may not have the best team at the contest, but you can bet we’re going to have the best-looking boards.”
Now I notice that there are three gift-wrapped surfboards lined up against the back wall. They’re giving us hand-shaped, custom made Mickey and Mo—M & M—surfboards. (This is me hyperventilating.)
“Those M&Ms?” Sophie says, pointing at them and practically crying. “You mean those M&M’s?”
The sisters laugh even more, tickled by our excitement. “Consider them your bonus for years of hard work and dedication.”
Nicole’s the last one to catch on, but when she does, her reaction may be best of all. She doesn’t say a word. She just squeals as she runs over to them, her long arms flailing in excitement.
“We wanted you to have them for the contest,” Mickey says. “But we figured you’d need some time to break them in.”
“Go ahead,” says Mo. “Open them up.”
We tackle the wrapping paper like human paper shredders and unveil three gorgeous and gleaming surfboards. Each one has an original design and color scheme. Sophie’s is cosmic seventies psychedelic, perfect for her retro tastes, while Nicole’s has a pattern that looks like a stylized sea turtle’s shell, no doubt because she’s our most ardent environmentalist. They’re both beautiful, but mine . . . mine is the prettiest of them all.
“I absolutely love it,” I say. “It’s breathtaking.”
My board has a swirl of colors that radiate from the center like the fingers of a hurricane. The colors look like little tiles in a mosaic and alternate between shades of green, blue, and brown. The phrase “The Eye of the Storm” is written in the center.
“I’m particularly pleased with how that one turned out,” says Mickey. “I took a couple of pictures for our portfolio.”
I look up at her and shake my head in awe. “It’s a work of art, Mickey. How’d you come up with the design?”
“I didn’t,” she says with a smirk. “It was your boyfriend.”
“Ben? Did this?”
“He actually wanted to buy you a custom board,” Mo starts to explain. “He asked if we could work out a payment plan because he said he wouldn’t have enough money until the end of the summer, but that he really wanted you to have it in time for the contest. He said he even knew what he wanted the design on the board to be.”
I look over at Sophie and Nicole, and they smile warmly at the thought of Ben doing this.
“We told him that we had already planned on giving you boards for the contest,” adds Mickey. “But we were curious to see his design.”
“That’s when he handed me this,” Mo says as she holds up a sheet of paper with the design sketched out on it. “I thought it was great.”
“I wonder why he wanted this design in particular,” I say.
She shrugs. “So do we. He told us that you would know.”
I have no idea.
I look down at it. It is mesmerizing. It seemingly changes color depending on how you look at it or how the light hits it. That’s when I realize what it is, and I’m so caught off guard that I reach up and cover my mouth.
“What?” asks Nicole.
I shake my head. “I can’t. It’s too . . . mushy.”
“That means you have to tell us!” Sophie says. “We could stand some mushy.”
I look at them and say, “It’s the color of my eyes.”
I have a love-hate relationship with video chatting. I love, love, love the fact that I can see Ben even though he’s 1,347 miles away. (Yes, I figured out the exact distance between our houses because, well, you know.) But I’m not particularly fond of seeing myself in the lower left corner of my computer screen as I talk to him.
Tonight is the second time we’ve tried it. The first time had mixed results. Halfway through the conversation I noticed that my eyebrows bounce up and down when I get excited and that there’s some strange sniffle flare that happens with my nostrils while I’m in deep listening mode. When I tried to correct these things, I overcompensated, and by the end of the conversation I felt like I was having some sort of bizarre face spasms. It was like the time I tried to examine everything I do when I surf and it made me pearl over the front of my board. I’ve solved the issue by taping a small piece of paper over the image. Now all I see is Ben.
“Hi,” I say. “How ya doing?”
“I’m okay, I guess,” he says. “Better now that I see you.”
Tonight is especially tricky. I’m still walking on air because of the incredibly romantic gesture Ben made with the surfboard design, but he spent half the day in a courtroom talking to a judge about his parents’ divorce. My goal is to keep things positive and be as low maintenance a girlfriend as possible.
“I love my surfboard! The design is . . . perfect.”
“I can’t wait to see it,” he says.
“You don’t have to wait. I brought it for show and tell.”
I pick up the surfboard and try to hold it in front of the computer so he can get a look. The problem is, because I’ve taped over the part that lets me see what he’s seeing, I have trouble telling if it’s in the right spot or not.
“I’m going to try it out first thing in the morning,” I say. “I want to break it in before the King of the Beach.”
“Speaking of which,” he replies, “have you read through the rules like I suggested?”
“Yes,” I answer. “We all have.”
“And?”
“And . . . the truth is . . . none of us can figure out what you’re talking about.”
Ever since the trip to the airport, Sophie, Nicole, and I have read and reread the rules of the King of the Beach. Ben seems to think there’s some great secret hidden in them, but we’ve given up finding it.
“It all seems pretty cut and dry,” I continue. “We enter a team. Every surfer earns points based on how well he or she finishes in the individual competition. The team with the most points wins the title.”