“Just wait,” Belle says. I’m surprised to see her standing close beside me. She’s grinning so hard that her cheeks must hurt. I’ve never seen her look so … happy.
Jas pulls Pete, who stands on his board like it’s a water ski. It’s at least three feet shorter than the board he uses to surf back at Kensington, with rubber foot straps to hold his feet in place.
At first, I don’t recognize the wave rising off to the right of the boat; it looks less like the beginning of a wave and more like a monster of a whale rising to the surface.
Then it begins to grow from a lump into a hill, from a hill into a mountain, from a mountain into a wall.
Jas stops the Jet Ski and Pete sits straddling his board. Even though their backs are to me I know that they’re studying the curve of the wave, deciding just where to drop in, just when Pete should let go of the towrope, just which direction Jas should turn the Jet Ski to avoid getting caught when the wave crashes down.
It seems like hours have passed by the time the wave finally begins to curl over and collapse upon itself, right back into the water. The spray reaches us even here; I’m as soaked as if I’d been the one to dive into the ocean. I lick my lips and taste salt.
As the wave begins to build again, Jas restarts the Jet Ski, pulling Pete expertly behind him. Witch Tree is not a pretty wave; the water is green and murky, not crystal clear like the water in Hawaii or luminously blue like the water down the coast. As the wave grows, its face becomes choppy, rather than smooth and glassy like the waves in Kensington.
The wave rises and I wait for it to crest, wait for Pete to let go of the towrope. But Jas keeps pulling him and the wave keeps growing, even bigger this time than the last.
The sun finally, finally breaks through the clouds, illuminating the ocean. At once, the air is crystal clear. This wave doesn’t even resemble the waves I’ve seen before. It doesn’t even seem related to the waves that ride up on the shores of Newport Beach. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a wave grow higher than ten feet; this wave that builds to twenty, thirty, fifty feet is a different animal entirely.
When Pete finally releases the towrope and drops into the wave, it looks like he’s free-falling down the face of a cliff. It looks like madness. It looks like lunacy.
But it also looks like grace.
I don’t think I could turn away if I wanted to; it’s as if a magnet is pulling my gaze ever closer to the wave. Pete was made to do this; so was Jas, and maybe my brothers, too.
Pete comes flying out the side of the wave, and Jas circles back to pick him up out of the water. Even from here, even over the sound of the wave crashing and the wind howling, I can hear them shouting. They look more excited than little kids on Christmas morning.
Jas takes the wave next. He flies down the face of it, the water almost black beneath him, except for the white line of foam trailing behind his board. He holds his arms out wide, his left hand flat against the wave behind him as though it’s as solid as a wall. But then I guess that’s exactly what it is: a wall of water. A skyscraper right here in the middle of the sea. His black hair shines in the sunlight, and his ride seems to last for hours as the wave continues to lengthen out in front of us. Pete whoops from his place on the Jet Ski; he keeps a close watch so that he can pull Jas out of the soup once his ride is over.
“Maybe they are superheroes,” I say out loud.
“What?” Belle asks.
I shake my head. “Just something I was thinking earlier. Like they are two superheroes fighting for world domination.”
Belle laughs, surprising me. “Yeah, and look what they can do when they join forces,” she says as the wave curls over Jas’s head, crashing into the ocean with a deafening roar. Pete grabs him from the water before the foam gets too thick.
The wave begins to build again, and I wonder who will take the next ride. The boat rocks jerkily from side to side.
My parents spent their honeymoon on a yacht in the South Pacific; my father once told me that sleeping out on the open water, the waves lapping the side of the boat, was like being rocked to sleep in an enormous cradle. The memory makes me want to laugh out loud. Being on this boat is like being held in the jaws of some wild animal, the kind that whips its prey back and forth, stunning it before it kills it. I watch the wave rise and fall as though I’m possessed by it, until it feels like it’s coming from someplace deep inside of me, until I can’t remember, no matter how hard I try, what it feels like to stand on solid ground.
Beside me, Belle is picking up her own board. “My turn now,” she says, waving at the boys to come back to the boat for her.
“Good luck,” I shout as she jumps overboard.
33
Jas puts his arms around me as we watch Pete tow Belle away from the boat.
“You must be freezing,” he says, rubbing my arms up and down with his enormous hands.
I shake my head. Much to my surprise, I feel warm; I’m sweating. Adrenaline is pumping through my body. I wonder how many waves there will be like this one, how many times I’ll get to watch Jas surf the latest behemoth the ocean offers up.
“I can’t wait,” I say out loud, and Jas kisses the top of my head, understanding exactly what I mean.
As Pete pulls Belle into the wave, the sun slips behind the clouds and it begins to rain. But even from here I can see that Belle isn’t about to stop. Not when she’s so close.
“That girl has guts,” Jas says, a hint of pride in his voice. “I can count on one hand the number of girls in the world who are strong enough to take that wave.”
“Hey!” I say, elbowing him in the ribs. “Don’t knock girl surfers.”
Jas shakes his head solemnly. “I’m not,” he says as he pulls the hood of my sweatshirt over my head. “Just the opposite.”
The second that Belle lets go of the towrope, the skies open; what was a drizzle is now a downpour. I suppose the rain really doesn’t matter; we’re all so soaked already. But without the sun, visibility is all but nonexistent.
I have to concentrate to see Belle’s blond hair streaking across the face of the wave. If the tip of the wave weren’t white with foam, I wouldn’t be able to see the moment when the water shifts, crashing down on top of her with a speed and a force that shock me, as though the wave is a living thing with a mind set on shoving Belle from its surface.
Belle flips off of her board, head over heels. Pete tries to turn the Jet Ski, but somehow the wave is still pounding down. Pete can’t drive directly into its center, where Belle is currently getting worked. Jas and I watch in silence, keeping our eyes trained on the spot where Belle’s blond head keeps disappearing and reappearing.
The surface of the water is completely white with foam, and Pete drives the Jet Ski dangerously close. Jas explains that a Jet Ski simply can’t drive over soup; in foamy conditions the engine isn’t able to get enough water to propel itself forward.
“He’s going to stall if he’s not careful,” Jas says stonily. But he and I both know: nothing is going to keep him from getting to Belle. Jas leans over the bow of the boat, his feet poised to spring.
“Wait!” I say desperately, but it’s too late, he’s already gone, swimming toward the wave. The ocean is so loud now that I don’t think he could have heard me anyway.
Jas makes his way out to where Pete is waiting on the Jet Ski, just outside the impact zone of the wave. He climbs on just as Pete dives off of it and begins swimming toward Belle. Slowly, carefully, Jas directs the Jet Ski to follow.
It seems like hours have passed before Pete gets to Belle and is able to pull her out of the soup and onto the Jet Ski. Jas takes off in the direction of the boat, leaving Pete behind to try to swim his way out of there.