Chapter 16
“You cleaned,” Lila says, standing over Phoebe the next morning. “I’ll try my best not to take that as an insult.”
Lila drops her new room key on the nightstand. Phoebe sits up. She sees Lila’s dresses, neatly hung in the corner of the room, and all at once, she remembers last night. The cleaning. The crying. The holding of Gary’s hand. Lila, jumping on her bed, shouting about how she no longer wanted to marry Gary. But this morning, Lila seems as she always does just after she barges into a room.
“You didn’t happen to stumble upon any Motrin during your cleaning spree?” Lila asks.
“Not feeling your best, I take it?”
“That’s an understatement. This might be the worst hangover I ever had in my entire life. Worse than church wine.”
Phoebe waits for Lila to say something else, to address her confessions from last night. But someone’s at the door.
“You were supposed to meet us at nine in the lobby for surfing,” Juice says, standing in the middle of the doorframe in nothing but a swimsuit and towel.
“Right,” Lila says. “Surfing.”
Lila closes her eyes like she’s already tired from it.
“We’re late,” Juice says. “Dad’s already down there, in the car.”
“Give me a few minutes to turn back into a real human being and I’ll be down,” she says.
“You’re coming, too, right, Phoebe?” Juice asks.
Phoebe feels the tug to join. But she also knows she needs to give them alone time. There are things that need to be sorted out.
“No, I don’t know how to surf,” Phoebe says.
“Nobody does!” Juice says. “They’re going to teach us. It’s a lesson.”
“I’m going to sit this one out, kiddo,” Phoebe says.
After Juice leaves, Lila won’t quite meet Phoebe’s eye. Phoebe waits, but Lila opens a bottle of Motrin.
“How does Motrin know where the headache is?” Lila asks. “I’ve never understood that.”
“I think it just reduces pain all over the body. Head included.”
Lila turns on the shower.
“You’re taking a shower before surfing?” Phoebe asks.
“Oh no, there will be absolutely no surfing today.”
“You just told Juice you’d surf?”
“I cannot surf, never will, won’t put myself through the circus act of trying.”
“Why did you plan a surfing morning as part of your wedding then?”
“Because it was the one thing Juice asked for,” she says. “And I guess I thought by the time my wedding week arrived, I’d be the kind of person who wanted to go surfing.”
Lila’s makeup from last night is heavy below her eyes.
“I truly wish I was a person who liked to surf, but unfortunately, I have woken up to remember that I am just not that person.”
Lila will never want to surf, for the same reasons she never wanted to play sports and she is ready to admit that. She wraps her hair in a towel, then mentions her uncle flying in from Santa Fe today and a facial at noon. But she says it with no enthusiasm. She sounds officially tired of her own wedding.
“I have no idea why I planned all these activities,” Lila says. “Can you go surfing in my place? It’s a three-person lesson.”
But Phoebe is not ready to give up yet. “What am I supposed to tell them when you’re not there?”
“Tell them that my stomach is upset, which is not a lie, by the way, and that I’ll see them later at the Blending of the Families.”
She says it like it’s a cultural event, then turns on the TV.
“Aren’t you going in the shower?” Phoebe asks.
“I always have the TV on while I shower.”
Lila puts on the Food Network and raises the volume so she can hear Giada talk about bruschetta while she’s bathing.
“Are we seriously not going to talk about last night?” Phoebe asks.
“Actually, I do have a question about last night,” Lila says. “Did we eat cabbage?”
“Yes,” Phoebe says.
“Ugh,” Lila says. “I can’t believe my maid of honor let me eat cabbage two days before my wedding. Cabbage destroys me.”
“So the wedding is on.”
“Of course it is,” Lila says.
Perhaps this is when Phoebe should say, Actually, I can’t go surfing. Actually, I shouldn’t get any more involved in this wedding than I already have. Actually, I just came here to kill myself, and surfing is pretty much the opposite of killing myself. Surfing is an activity that belongs to other people. There is a whole group of things like this that live in a box in her mind—things like dancing to techno music and rafting through the Grand Canyon—things she decided were for people in California. People like Ryun. People like her mother before her mother died.
But she came all this way to see the ocean.
“Okay,” Phoebe says. “Suit yourself.”
Lila drops her robe. She steps into the shower. Giada toasts the bread. Phoebe stands up to leave. “Oh, while you’re out there, get me some Gas-X,” Lila yells, and Phoebe’s sympathy from last night vanishes. This spoiled child, yelling out commands from inside her marble shower. Not even a thank-you.
O N THE BEACH , they are handed wet suits that look to be half the size of their bodies. Phoebe and Gary glance at each other with suspicion.
“And these are supposed to fit us?” Gary asks.
“Absolutely,” Aspen, the instructor, says.
But Phoebe can’t get her suit up past her thighs. Gary’s gets stuck at the calf.
“This is ridiculous,” Gary says, tugging at the fabric. “I’m supposed to get all the way in this thing?”
He hops on one foot while he tries to pull it up over his calf, then tips over like a rigid skyscraper.
“Shit.” He laughs when he hits the ground.
Phoebe likes his loud balloon of a laugh. Likes it when he curses, too. It makes it easier to believe he was once a teenager. That he wasn’t born a father. Or a fiancé. He’s just Gary, trying to put some pants on.
“You okay?” Phoebe asks.
“Nobody tells you about this part, do they?” Gary says.
“No,” Phoebe says. “In all the surfing movies, they always edit out all the montages of surfers just trying to put on their wet suits.”
“That’s the surfing movie I’ll make one day,” Gary says. “Just extremely hot people getting stuck with one leg in their suit and then falling over.”
“I’d like to point out that you just called yourself hot.”
“I hope you can excuse it knowing it was done only for the sake of continuing a joke.”
“And we appreciate your sacrifice.”
He looks down at the suit suctioned to his calves. She wonders where he got those calves. His father? Football in high school? Gym after work for twenty years? He didn’t seem the type, but she’s lived long enough by now to know it’s foolish to ever be surprised by someone’s secret hobbies.
“Well, it’s a very dramatic scene, I admit,” Phoebe says. “Will they be able to do it? Or will they just get stuck there, forever, on the sand?”
“It looks like it,” Gary says. “I mean, there’s no goddamned way.”
Juice comes over, already in her wet suit. A pro. “What’s wrong?” Juice asks.
“I can’t get it over my calves, sweetheart,” Gary says.
“I can’t get it over my thighs,” Phoebe says.
“Help us,” Gary says.
“Ew,” Juice says, and looks at the two of them. “This is weird.”
Juice walks away to practice standing up on her surfboard. Phoebe pulls her suit up, slides her arms in the holes, and celebrates, while Gary lies there in defeat.
“Okay,” Phoebe says. “It’s basically just like wearing tights.”
“I don’t wear tights.”
“You just got to shimmy this thing up slowly.”
Phoebe kneels down to Gary’s ankles. She pulls on the fabric, or whatever it is, gingerly.
“I think you just ripped some hairs out,” he says.
“Surfing is pain, Gary.”
“Surfing is already too hard.”
She gets it over the mound of calf.
“Hooray,” Gary says, pulling the rest up with ease. “Now I’m a wet suit person.”
Phoebe zips him up in the back and Velcros it tight. The gesture is intimate, like putting a necklace on your wife’s neck. He is so lovely, Phoebe thinks. He is so good, standing there, getting ready to surf with his daughter even though he is hungover and his back is shit. He is looking at Phoebe like maybe she is good for the same exact reason. Maybe they are a team. She gives him a tiny high five as though the big task of the day is over. It’s friendly and sterilizes the moment between them.
“Ready to go,” Aspen says, as she rubs sunscreen on her face. She announces it has some sand in it. “Exfoliator!”
Then she does some stretching and says, “Okay, take your boards.” She shows them how to lie on it, bellies pressed against the board, legs centered for balance.
“Balance is everything,” Aspen says.
The movement is like yoga, Phoebe thinks. She feels glad, suddenly, for all that yoga she tried doing on Zoom during the pandemic. She feels like maybe that wasn’t a waste of time after all, if it allowed her to be present in this moment. And maybe that’s it: You do things in the moment for the person you hope you might be two years from now. You don’t kill yourself when you are sad because one day you might not be sad, and you might want to go surfing with a man you really like?
Phoebe uses her hands to push herself off the board into a plank, then jumps her feet up right in position. Gary looks at her with amazement.
“Very good,” Aspen says.
They enter the ocean. Phoebe likes the cool shock of the water against her ankles. Phoebe sticks a finger in and tastes it. She’s always been curious.
“It really is salty,” she says.
“That’s sort of its claim to fame,” Gary says.
The waves are small, and Phoebe is grateful. Aspen sets up Juice first, pushes her when a wave comes, and she stands up on the board right away. Gary and Phoebe cheer even though Juice probably can’t hear. It feels good to cheer. The cheering is in some way for the parents. It’s good to celebrate the girl for doing a thing the girl has passionately wanted to do since… Lila and Gary got engaged. Even Aspen is smiling.
“Who’s up next?” Aspen asks.
“Ladies first,” Gary says.
Phoebe slides onto the board, feels Aspen take it from behind.
“Okay, paddle!” Aspen shouts, as the wave comes.
But Phoebe does not know what it means when Aspen screams paddle. Does she use her whole arms at the same time like long oars? Or is it more like swimming? Does she just use her hands? Aspen didn’t say. For a minute, Phoebe feels foolish paddling, like a beached whale, but then the wave catches her, and she sees the water gliding over the board, over her hands, and she presses up just like she did on sand. She jumps and there she is, standing on the water. She can’t believe it. “Oh my God!” she shouts to no one, to herself, to Gary and Juice. She is balanced. Steady.
But then she falls into the water.
It’s been so long since she has fallen like that—she has never, she thinks, ever fallen like that. Totally and completely without any way of catching herself. Swirled up in the curl of the wave. And she loves everything about it, the cold water on her face, the ocean in her ears. It is life. It is up her nose and in her ears and she wants to swallow it all.
But it’s very salty. She stands up and spits out the water.
“You, like, did it!” Juice says.
“I know!” Phoebe says.
They watch Gary as he tries to stand up on the board, and Phoebe can feel Juice silently rooting for her father. Phoebe roots for him, too, out loud, and is this what it’s like, being part of a real family? Gary only gets halfway up, loses his balance immediately, then disappears into the water. He comes up nearby with a laugh.
“How was the ride?” Gary asks his daughter.
“Amazing,” Juice says.
“I think your daughter just acquired a very expensive new hobby,” Phoebe says, and Gary laughs. They watch Juice, who is already making her way back to Aspen beyond where the waves break.
“I’d need an entirely different body to be good at this thing,” Gary says.
But they keep trying. It’s just fun to try. It’s fun when the goal is to just surf and not to feel happier. For the rest of the hour, they take turns with Aspen as she sets them up for the waves.
The waves get bigger as the hour passes. While she waits for her turn, Phoebe swims out a little deeper so she doesn’t get toppled. She likes it. She likes the drama. The dark gray-green of the water when it’s not lit up by the sun. Each time a wave builds, Phoebe feels a swell of fear, dunks her head under like Juice instructed, and rises with the water. She can feel how easy it would be to get carried out to sea, but she resists it. She swims back to Aspen. She takes another ride, and then another, and then another. Each time she falls, she’s overwhelmed by the white foam, the sand in her ears. But she emerges.
They are all exhausted by the end of the hour. Phoebe is too tired to take off her wet suit, and when it gets stuck around her heel, she is the one who tips over this time. She laughs when she hits the ground. She feels like an overtired child playing in the sand. She feels like she could laugh hysterically or sob out of joy. She wants to stay on this sand forever, with Juice pulling at the leg of her suit, trying to tug it off. Each time Juice tugs, it makes them both laugh harder.
Eventually, Phoebe gets it off. She feels naked without it. Gary hands them towels. Sets out a blanket. The three of them fall asleep like that, the cool breeze drying them.
“I loved that,” Juice says when they wake up.
Phoebe did, too. She still loves it. No matter what happens, she’ll love it forever.
“Let’s do it again tomorrow,” Juice says.
“Never,” Gary says and smiles.
A FTER , THEY GO to Flo’s and eat fried clam strips. Gary and Phoebe get big waters. They toast to the day. They sit next to an elderly couple with matching fleeces and Phoebe likes how they order the same drink but one with a twist and one extra dirty. They say it like they have become proud of the minor differences left between them.
“I have to pee,” Juice says.
“You don’t have to tell us exactly what you’re going to do in there,” Gary says.
She laughs. She leaves Gary and Phoebe alone. The moment feels ripe with possibility and yet, at the same time, doomed. Gary’s leg is resting slightly against Phoebe’s, maybe by accident, maybe not. Maybe he’s so tired, he doesn’t even feel it.
“That was genuinely fun,” Gary says.
“You sound surprised,” Phoebe says.
“I am.”
He looks at her like he’s trying to tell her something he cannot say. Just say it, she thinks. But she can’t say it now. She should have said it last night when she thought the wedding was off. Now she doesn’t know if it would be cowardly or brave. She doesn’t know if she is supposed to seize the moment or let the moment go.
“She’s a great kid,” Phoebe says.
“I’m lucky.”
“It might not be all luck. It’s possible you had some kind of hand in it.”
“I suppose I was there for a few hours of her childhood.”
“Oh my God,” Juice says, coming back from the bathroom. Her hands are still wet from washing. “There was this sign in the bathroom that said 40 PEOPLE MAX IN THIS ROOM . Like why would forty people ever be in the bathroom? Like what would you even say to all forty people in a bathroom?”
“Hello?” Gary says.
Juice laughs. “Yeah! That’s a good start. Hello, forty people.”
“Why are we all in the bathroom?” Phoebe asks, pretending to be forty people.
“Whose idea was this, you guys?” Gary asks.
They laugh, and then Phoebe becomes embarrassed by the laughter. Or afraid of it. She’s not sure. Whatever it is, it’s too good. It connects them all. It draws them close. It’s like a warm sweater that they all wear. Phoebe sits back, and she sips her water. She has never, in her life, felt totally at home around any restaurant table. Not even with her husband. She was often worried about what to say and did they have anything left to say and was there food in her teeth?
“Here you go,” the waitress says and lays down the check.
Phoebe doesn’t want to go. She wants to stay at this table with Gary’s leg slightly brushed against hers and Juice reading off the back of the menu, which is really just a short story about how many times Flo’s has been demolished by hurricanes.
“In 1938,” Juice says. “In 1954. In 1960. In 1985. In 1991—”
“So… many times.”
“Many, many times.”
Phoebe imagines that rebuilding after each devastation must be a real chore, especially for a place like Flo’s, which has knickknacks covering every inch of the walls. To rebuild each time with the same level of bursting, idiosyncratic personality—how do you do that? How do you remember where each rusty spoon was randomly nailed to the wall? How do you care where each bottle opener hangs when you put it up the fourth time? How do you act like this singular and quirky existence is entirely natural and will never be destroyed again?
“Let’s get going, huh?” Gary says.
They get up and walk out the door. This is, Phoebe realizes, the one problem with falling in love with strangers. You don’t get to keep them. She watches them spread out in their own directions as soon as they reach the parking lot.
It’s a relief when Gary looks back and says, “Where to?”
A T CVS , J UICE proclaims her love for CVS. Literally everything in the world is here, she says. Anything you want! Juice buys herself a sleep mask with zebras on it. Then they follow Phoebe to the medicine aisle, even though Phoebe keeps saying, “I’ll just meet you guys at the front in a minute.”
“What else do we have to do?” Gary asks. “But follow you around like your helpers.”
“Yeah, we’re helpers,” Juice says. “Paid by the hour. What do you need? I’ll get it.”
“Gas-X,” Phoebe says.
Juice and Gary crack up so loudly, the employee at the counter looks over.
“We had cabbage,” is all Phoebe says.
“Say no more,” Gary says.
As they walk out, Phoebe looks up and sees them on the security TV for just a second. She is startled by the frankness of their image, the reality of seeing them on this ordinary trip to CVS, recorded by history, all together.