It Comes In Waves (12 page)

“I think it went all right. All things considered.”

All things considered? The fact that she and Claire hadn't spoken a word since the night Foster broke Claire's heart? That was hardly a small detail to overcome.

“She was surprised about the shop.” Jill plucked at her dress. “And she obviously doesn't approve of us moving Ivy. She made it sound like we were shipping her off to a nursing home.” Jill looked over at Shep, suddenly worried. “That isn't what we're doing, is it?”

“Of course it isn't. Babe, it's easy for Claire to see it that way. She hasn't been here or been around Ivy in a long, long time. She has no idea how much everything's changed since she left.”

Had it? Jill wasn't so sure. With her sitting across from Claire tonight, the tangy sea breeze slipping through the screens and curing the air around them, it might have been twenty years earlier. It might have been any night the four of them had dined together, emptied a bottle of wine together, or a bucket of crab legs.

Except, of course, no Foster.

Jill turned back to the yard and followed a firefly as it flickered across the lawn. “She's obviously still angry, Shep. I'm not saying I'm surprised, or I even blame her, but she's definitely
not
over it.” She felt tears well, not sure where they'd come from, and wiped at them before they could fall. “I don't know what I expected. I guess I just
hoped . . .
”

Shep reached for her hand again and gave it a gentle squeeze this time. “It is what it is, baby. It was good you saw her while she was here. You welcomed her and her daughter and that's as much as you could do. Don't beat yourself up for something you can't change now.”

She offered him a grateful smile.

The sound of TV floated down from the second floor: Luke's room.

Shep glanced up. “I thought I'd take him over to the Washout for the filming tomorrow morning.”

Jill nodded. “Ivy will be crushed to miss it.”

“Luke's already called her.”

“Oh.” Jill looked up at Luke's window, the shimmer of the television screen illuminating the ceiling. “He wants to surf with Claire.”

“Of course he would.”

“Do you?”

Shep frowned. “Why would you ask me that?”

Jill shrugged. “You and Claire and Foster always surfed together.”

“I surfed with a lot of people, babe. Anyway, Claire made it pretty clear she didn't want to get back on a board. With me or anyone.”

“I'm sure she'd do it for Luke. I'm sure she'd at least
try
.”

“Would that upset you?”

Jill looked at Shep, startled by the suggestion. “Of course not. Why would you think that?”

“I don't know. Because it might be hard. Seeing them together. Out there.”

She continued to stare at him, not sure what he wanted her to say.

He smiled, absolving her. “Forget I even asked,” he said. “I'll see you upstairs.”

But even as he rose and dropped a kiss on her temple before disappearing back into the house, Jill felt the question settle over her like a shawl. She squared her shoulders as she climbed out of her chair, as if to abandon it before she returned inside too, but still it hung on, dangling, unfinished, neither on nor off.

S
unshine burned an outline around the curtains; Claire blinked against the shaft of morning sun and let her eyes fall closed again. She wasn't in any rush to rise. The Washout was a five-minute drive from the hotel, and she wasn't due to meet Adam Williams until ten.

The day of her interview was here, the true reason for her coming back to Folly, and all Claire wanted to do was pull the covers over her head, just as her daughter was no doubt doing a few feet away.

She'd slept fitfully, trying to digest the moods of her meal. Shep and Jill had appeared so calm—why had she, Claire, felt so unwound?

Why had she stayed so long? Why had she gone in the first place? She'd wanted to prove that it was all in the past, that she'd moved on. Instead she'd guzzled wine like a college freshman and inhaled paella like a lifeboat survivor. Then the subject of Ivy's move, and that had only exacerbated her nerves further. The methodical way Jill and Shep had talked about relocating Ivy, as if they were transplanting a bush from one side of the yard to the other. It had galled her—Claire wouldn't lie. And she knew her outrage hadn't been lost on either Jill or Shep.

Or Lizzie.

Claire turned over to face her daughter's bed, blinked into the light, and saw it empty. Where was Lizzie? She shot up and searched the room, and her heart settled to see Lizzie through the sliding door.

Claire climbed out of bed and walked out to the balcony. Lizzie sat with her eyes fixed on the iPad in her lap.

“You're up?” Claire said.

“Of course,” said Lizzie. “It's your big interview, isn't it? The whole reason we're here?”

“I wasn't sure you would still want to come. After last night . . .” Claire stopped, seeing the screen. It was a photograph of her, Claire, nailing a roundhouse turn on a wave.

“Oh my God . . .” Claire pulled the other chair over and sat down, still eyeing the picture. “Where did you find that?”

“It's online. There're lots of pictures of you, actually. I just Googled Pepper Patton and there you were.” Lizzie squinted at her. “Why didn't you tell me all this before?”

“I—I didn't think you'd want to know.” Claire stared at her daughter's bent head as if Lizzie were a mirage. This girl who twelve hours ago had gone to bed angry and distant was now doing an online search for Pepper Patton and scrolling through surfing photos? Had something happened in the night? An alien abduction, her daughter's body exchanged with that of another teenager?

Lizzie pointed at the screen. “How old were you in this one?”

Claire leaned closer and frowned at the grainy picture. She'd competed in so many heats over the years, and always in her trademark red one-piece; there was no way to know.

“Seriously, though, Mom—that
suit
.” Lizzie gave her an admonishing eye flutter. “Didn't y'all ever hear of bikinis?”

“No one surfed in bikinis back then,” Claire defended. “I don't know why anyone would
want
to.” She caught the time on the corner of the tablet. “I should get dressed.”

Lizzie closed the cover to her iPad. “I'll get dressed too.”

“No, you take your time. Enjoy the morning. Have breakfast.” Her daughter wanted breathing room; how was this for a start? “Tell you what,” Claire said. “I'll take the rental and you can catch the car they're sending for us. Just make sure to be down in the lobby by nine forty-five. I'll tell the front desk to expect you. Then call me when they drop you off at the Washout and I'll find you, okay?”

Now it was Lizzie's turn to stare at her mother as if someone had been switched in the night.

Claire dressed quickly in jeans and a T-shirt, packing her on-camera clothes, a terra-cotta shell, and white slacks, in a separate bag to change into. One last good-bye to Lizzie, and then she stepped out into the hall, pausing a moment on the other side of the door, feeling strange and needing a moment to identify the sensation.

She exhaled, tension spilling out with her breath. No wonder she hadn't recognized the feeling. It was utterly unexpected.

It was joy.

•   •   •

T
he Washout was a circus.

After announcing herself to the orange-vested cop who was directing parking and steering her rental into a special lot, Claire secured her bag over her shoulder and mounted the walkway to the beach, navigating through the caravan of buses and trailers that lined the shoulder. She wondered which one they would point her to for wardrobe changes, who would do her makeup, her hair. She'd worn it down to dry after her shower and now regretted it, the breeze hefty enough to lash it across her face and into her mouth.

Ushered past a clump of security guards, she reached the beach at last and paused a moment to look out at the water. Several surfers, mostly women in tiny bikinis, twisted and turned in the lineup. Claire watched, awed, as they rose and arched their bodies and boards above the waves, landing effortlessly every time. Gus Gallagher was right. The sport
had
changed since she was part of it.

“Claire?” A thin man with a mop of shoulder-length black ringlets marched up the beach toward her. “Adam Williams,” he said as he arrived, thrusting out his hand. Claire smiled to keep the shock off her face. He looked barely older than Lizzie. “It's great to meet you face-to-face. Sorry again for having to bail on our meeting yesterday—Gus said you guys had a great time talking shop. I figured you would. He's something, isn't he?

“Oh, he's something, all right.” Claire smiled politely. “I have to say, I'm really honored that y'all asked me to—”

“Hold that thought— Hey, Moe!” Williams yelled over her head, silencing her. “Tell Eileen to put Pammy in the
other
red bikini.” He directed Claire's gaze to the water. “That's Pammy Ridgeway,” he explained, pointing to a blond woman who was expertly maneuvering the surf. “She's a total phenom. She's going to be your body double.”

Claire blinked at him. “My
what
?”

“It's this really cool concept Fletch—he's our director—came up with. It's all about contrast. Old you, young her. You sitting on the beach while she's out there killing it. It's like you're looking back on how much things have changed, how far these girls have come. Powerful stuff.”

Old you?
Claire swallowed, the words sticking in her throat like a too-big bite of food.

“I thought this was a retrospective piece,” she said carefully. “I thought it was about the early days of surfing here, the old times. How much fun we had.”

“It is, sure, but we can't have
too
much of the old folks. This is a show for young people. They want to see other hot, young people.”

“Of course.” Claire nodded tightly, but keeping her smile polite was getting harder and harder with each word out of Adam Williams's big, young mouth. “You
are
planning to film over at In the Curl at some point, aren't you?” she asked.

“You mean the place for sale down the road?”

“It's an institution,” Claire defended. “And you have to interview the owner, Ivy King—”

“Yeah, well, we decided against filming there. Young people don't want to see all that, the out-of-business angle. It's depressing, know what I mean?”

“But Ivy King was a huge part of the surfing culture here. You can't do a piece on Folly and not—”

“Yo, Adam—Fletch is ready to go in ten.” A round-faced, sunburned man darted between them to make his announcement, then slipped out again.

“On our way.” Williams steered Claire toward the water and she let him, the wind still whipping her hair in all directions, try as she did to corral it behind her ears.

When they arrived at the edge of the surf, the blond woman Williams had pointed out waved to them from her board, a tiny red bikini barely covering her.

“That's supposed to be me?” Claire asked.

“That's the idea,” said Williams.

“But I never wore a bikini.”

Williams chuckled. “No offense, but no one wants to see a hot chick in a one-piece nowadays. This isn't
Baywatch
.” He gestured to a man in a baseball cap standing behind a camera. “That's Fletch Connor, our director. He'll be over in just a sec and then we can get started.”

“But I haven't had a chance to change or do my makeup yet. I brought other clothes—”

“Don't worry about it. This is just to get the levels right. You'll do fine,” Williams insisted, already walking away. “Just relax.”

•   •   •

J
ust relax.”

Bumpy with gooseflesh from her scalp to her toes, Claire had looked up at Foster and swallowed hard. “I think I'm going to throw up.”

“You're not going to throw up,” he said, rubbing her arms to warm her. “Everyone thinks that before a heat.”

Claire peeked around his shoulder at the crowd of surfers scattered across the beach, mostly men and a few women. “Look at all of them,” she whispered.

“It's a big competition. People come from all over for it.”

Claire gave him a woeful look. “I'm going to fall on my ass,” she decided. “I'm so nervous I can't think straight.”

“So
don't
think,” he said. “Remember, the curl doesn't care what's going on in your head. It's all about the wave.”

The curl doesn't care.
She liked that. She would try to remember that.

“What if I don't get into the semifinals?” she asked.

“Do you want to?”

“Of course not.” She looked up at him and smirked. “I want to win the whole damn thing.”

Foster grinned. “That's my girl.”

Claire paddled out hearing nothing but the thumping of her heartbeat in her ears. There were a few girls outside, a few who'd made it through the white water as she had. They looked at her as she sat up on her board, letting her feet dangle over the rails as they did, waiting for the next break too. They looked at her and she looked right back.

That was the beauty of the outside, the space beyond the waves. Fear was long gone. Once you'd cleared the crush of the impact zone where the surf hit, nothing could touch you. Nothing and no one. She'd heard the stories of surfers who'd bully their neighbors while they waited, who'd bring their board right next to yours, crowd you, and claim, “I'm on you,” so you'd never catch a break.

They might have been her father, suggesting with a glance that she had no business being there, that good Southern girls didn't hurl themselves into waves.

When the break came, she paddled to meet it, threw her feet under her chest, got up, and carved her heart out. Somewhere on the beach, Foster hollered and cheered, but Claire couldn't hear anything over the roar of the wave.

She slid toward the shore.

And then, miraculously, it was over as soon as it started.

•   •   •

I
t was over before she knew it. Claire had shared the story of her first heat, how she'd made it to the finals a virtual unknown, and was just getting warmed up when Fletch Connor raised a hand, called the cameras to cut, and excused himself to confer with his crew.

Claire stood in place, boiling and itchy in her jeans, waiting for Connor to return and give her direction, but it was Adam Williams who arrived instead.

“That was awesome, Claire. You nailed it.”

She wiped sweat from her hairline. Was he kidding? They'd stuck her in the sand like an empty beer bottle! “I just think when we do the real take, I'd like to be
walking
—”

“Actually what we got was great.” Williams patted her shoulder. “We're all set.”

“Wait—what?” Claire blinked at him through the sticky curtain of her blown hair. “But—but you said that was just a test. My daughter's on her way to see me.”

“Hey, I'm sorry about that—it happens in filming. You just gotta go with it.” He took Claire's hand and gave it a quick shake. “We really appreciate you being here—and don't feel like you have to rush off the set. Stick around. Lucy Furness just got here. She's barely nineteen and taking the surfing world by storm. You should see her aerials. The girl is
sick
.”

That makes two of us,
Claire thought, her hand going numb as Adam Williams shook it. In the next minute, he was down the beach and enveloped in the throng of young women who'd just emerged from the waves, their bodies gleaming and tanned.

She thought they'd asked her here to honor her, to marvel at the pioneer she'd been in women's surfing. She'd imagined a lengthy tribute to her accomplishments, an exhaustive series of questions given by a moderator, eyes shiny with admiration for all she'd done. Shep had suggested they'd point the entire documentary around her. Claire had balked, but deep down, it had seemed a reasonable possibility. Now embarrassment flooded her skin. She felt duped, cuckolded—
furious
! She hadn't come all this way to be made old and irrelevant. She never would have agreed to this if she'd known their plan! She touched her throat, her cheeks, hoping to hide the rash of pink she was sure had spread there. Making matters worse, the change in schedule meant that Lizzie had missed her interview. Claire scanned the crowd for her daughter but couldn't see her.

Well, so what? she decided hotly. All that mattered in this moment was that her daughter had finally raised the white flag. Maybe not necessarily
waved
it, but she'd certainly put it on the table. Lizzie's willingness to talk, to listen, to bond, was the real reason for this trip, Claire reminded herself as she marched up the sand toward the road—not some phony tribute. Adam Williams and Fletch Connor and all the other big shots could jump off a bridge for all she cared. She just wanted to get out of these hot jeans and into a shower. At least now she and Lizzie were free to enjoy the rest of this trip together. They could go into Charleston. Splurge on a fancy dinner at High Cotton. Tour the homes in the Historic District.