Chapter Thirty
Chapter
thirty
“I HAVE A SURPRISE FOR you.” It had been a tough week for Grandma, and it took me until Friday to feel like she was ready to record another episode. I wanted to document her reaction to seeing the pictures for the first time so that we’d always have it to listen to. But depending on her reaction, I wasn’t necessarily going to publish it. Some things were just for my family.
I pulled my backpack onto my lap with a wince. It had been a tough week for me too. Since tryouts were now only eight days away, I’d been practicing kicking a lot with Theo, and I was sore. My friends had even joined us for a couple of practices.
“What’s the surprise?” Grandma asked now. She wore one of her wigs today with a robe and house slippers. Betsy had painted her nails again, a bright purple.
I retrieved the pictures and slid them across my desk to her. “I found some pictures of you with your surfboard.”
She picked them up and studied them close, not saying anything for a long time.
“What do you think?” I asked.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it? It was even more beautiful in real life.” Her eyes were lit up with joy.
“I believe it,” I said.
She turned one of the pictures sideways and held it beside her face so the eye on the board was next to her eye. “He must’ve stared at my eyes a lot,” she said.
I smiled and explained what she was doing into the microphone before I asked, “Did he?” My grandma’s story felt even more dreamy after having been thoroughly kissed all week, the romantic feelings in my body heightened.
She seemed almost giddy when she said, “He did. He thought they were pretty.”
“They are pretty,” I said.
“You have my eyes, baby girl.”
I squeezed her hand remembering how Theo had said I looked like her. My cheeks went pink with that thought.
She ran a finger over the board in one of the pictures. “I wish I could see it in real life again.”
“I wish that too.” Hopefully she could.
Mom’s head appeared in my doorway, and when she saw I was recording, she took a step back. I waved her inside.
“We have a special guest today,” I said. “My mom. Say hi,Mom.”
She leaned over and into the mic said, “Hello, people.”
I sucked my lips in to keep from laughing.
Her eyes landed on the pictures on the desk. “What are these?”
“I found them last weekend.”
Her mouth formed an O. “These are…?”
“She knew Andrew Lancaster.”
“I told you,” Grandma said.
“You did,” Mom said. Where did you get these? she mouthed tome.
I’ll tell you after, I mouthed back, and pointed at the mic.
She nodded, then left my room.
“Listeners, I’m going to post these pictures on my Instagram so you can see them too. If anyone has seen this board, please DMme.”
“I wonder if I’d still fit into this bathing suit,” my grandma said with a smirk.
“I FEEL LIKE A PEEPING Tom,” Max said, binoculars pushed to his eyes, resting on his stomach on a flat rock. It had been several more days of intense practices, and I’d told Theo my body needed some rest before tryouts. He agreed.
“I was going to say sniper, ” Theo said. “We’re on a hill after all.”
We were on a hill. We had parked on the road and hiked up a barely visible trail after we hadn’t been able to get past the gate and to the front door of the house across the street. Nobody had answered the intercom box we had found to try to communicate with the occupants. So now here we were with binoculars.
“Apparently I’m not as cool as you,” Max said to Theo as he handed off the binoculars to Lee.
“Peeping Tom is more accurate,” I said. “We have no guns.”
“But we have a mission,” Deja said, surveying the house without the help of magnification.
“Do people still say Peeping Tom ?” Lee asked.
“You all knew what I meant,” Max said. “So were there any other clues in the message? Like who owns this place now and how we can get past the impenetrable gates or contact the owner?”
“It almost looks abandoned,” Lee said, passing off the binoculars to Theo.
“The message just said this was where Andrew Lancaster lived the last ten years of his life and that maybe the surfboard was somewhere on the property.” I’d gotten lots of tips from lots of different people in my DMs this week after publishing the latest episode and posting the pictures of the surfboard to my Instagram. But most of the tips didn’t help. They talked about locations in different states where his art installation had passed through. They mentioned people who were impossible to get a hold of or information that was just completely wrong. I wasn’t even sure if this tip was right. If we were really looking at the house where Andrew had spent the last ten years of his life.
It was tucked in the hills off a small two-way section of Highway41, quite a bit off the road. There were trees and greenery obstructing most of the view, but I could see pieces of the house.
“You’re a delinquent who doesn’t worry about things liked locked gates and security cameras,” Theo teased, placing the binoculars in my hand. “What should we do?”
“Funny,” I said, bringing the binoculars up to my eyes. It was disorienting at first, having everything in front of me magnified to that level. It took me a moment to find the house, bits of brown shingles poking through the surrounding trees.
“We might not have guns,” Deja said. “But the person who lives there probably does.”
“What’s that?” I asked, adjusting the focus wheel on top of the binoculars.
“I said,” Deja started, “that we—”
“No, not that. That. ” I pointed with one hand, while still looking through the lenses.
“I see nothing,” Lee said.
“A corner of light blue. It looks like…Is it…a lifeguard tower in the back corner of the yard?”
“Huh?” Deja said. “Let me see.” She held out her hand for the binoculars, and I gave them to her.
“We need more binoculars,” Max said.
“Oh, now you all think my dad’s bird-watching hobby is useful,” Lee said.
“Yes, tell him to take us next weekend,” Max said.
Theo was squinting. “It’s probably just a shed.”
“I swear it’s a lifeguard tower,” I said, taking him by the shoulders and turning him in the right direction. He smiled, like my hands on his shoulders were the precursor to a kiss. To be fair, he wasn’t wrong. Everything had been the precursor to a kiss this week. “Concentrate,” I whispered.
“I have no idea what you mean,” he returned, his hand brushing my thigh. I was standing behind him, higher on the hill, and I wrapped my arms around his neck. He leaned back into me.
I kissed his cheek.
“I think you’re right. That’s a lifeguard tower,” Deja said, squatting to get a better view.
“Why would someone have that? Their backyard is ten minutes from the ocean.” It felt significant. If this really was Andrew’s old house, it had to mean something.
“We need a closer look,” Deja said.
“Let’s go,” I said.
The walk down the hill was faster than the walk up it, and soon we were standing outside the gate again. I was looking through the binoculars into the backyard while Maxwell was messing with the intercom box again.
“Hello,” he said, his mouth close to the speaker. There was no answer.
I combed over every inch of the yard meticulously until the blue was magnified in my view again.
“Did Andrew Lancaster live here?” Max asked the little silver box now, pressing various buttons while he did.
I gasped.
“What?” Theo asked. He was standing at my shoulder squinting through the iron bars of the gate.
“There are paintings on the lifeguard tower. Ocean and surfing scenes.” Andrew painted a lot of things over his career, tires and road signs and trucks. This had to mean we were at the right house. That Andrew used to live here.
“Andrew,” Deja said softly.
It wasn’t the surfboard, but maybe it meant the board was here somewhere.
Max was now saying “Let us in” over and over again into the speaker.
I lowered the binoculars and was about to suggest a walk around the property to find a weak point, when the sound of something hitting metal rang out. Through the gate I saw a fairly large rock land on the ground, kicking up dust.
Max jumped back, and the others, who had been talking, went silent.
“What was tha—” Theo started to ask, when he was cut short by another rock hitting the iron bars.
Lee ducked and covered his head as another rock came flying, over the fence this time. “There’s someone in there.”
“Get out of here!” came the rough voice of a man from somewhere behind the trees. The voice was accompanied by another rock. This one landed by my feet, bouncing off the ground and hitting my shin.
I sucked in some air.
Theo pulled me back and behind him.
“We just want to talk!” I yelled. “Did Andrew used to livehere!”
“Leave or I’m calling the cops!” A big burly man came out from behind the trees.
“Nope,” Lee said, and rushed toward the car.
“Have you seen a surfboard?” I yelled.
We watched the man wind up this time to throw the rock, and we all ran and piled into the car faster than I thought possible.
Lee was laughing in the back seat while Theo started the car. He peeled out, tires kicking up dirt before finding purchase on theroad.
After several minutes of silence, Max burst out laughing. “We almost died!”
“We did not almost die,” Deja said. “But Theo’s pretty car almost got a few new dents.”
“ I almost got a few new dents.” I rubbed my shin.
“You okay?” Theo asked. “You still going to be able to kick?”
“The most important thing,” Max joked.
“No, I just meant…”
I took Theo’s hand. “I knew what you meant. I’m fine.” It actually didn’t hurt anymore, but there was a dirt mark from where the rock had hit. “The ground slowed down the rock.”
“That was super exciting,” Lee said sarcastically. “Let’s not do it again.”
I nodded, but what I was really wondering was how I could get that man to talk to me, to let me see that lifeguard tower.