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Anne Marie came back from the shore crusted in sand. She took her bathing suit off standing under the weak cool spray of the outdoor shower.
She tossed it over the top of the stall. A little while later, one half of it disappeared, and then the other, and she leaned out from under the water to call thank you to Lena.
“It’s me,” came Penny’s indignant voice through the wooden slats. “For your information, I felt like doing something nice for you, Anne Marie.” She went back towards the house—Anne Marie heard the gravel crunching under her flip-flops, Lena saying something, Penny’s still-touchy reply.
Anne Marie closed her eyes. She could still feel the waves moving her. She had that good skin-too-tight sunburned feeling; her shoulders were going to be sore in the morning, but for now, the water was spilling over her back, cooling her.
She stayed there until Penny hollered from the back deck that dinner was ready, and then she turned the tap off and wrapped a beach towel around herself and followed her nose into the kitchen.
Lena covered the pot. She said, “No shirt, no shoes, no service, Anne Marie.”
ꕀ
At the bathroom sink, Eden was washing up. As Anne Marie passed behind her, she said, “I was in the shower.”
She was trying not to sound like she cared very much. Eden said nothing. She just raised her eyebrows.
But she sat on Anne Marie’s right at the table, and she carefully hooked her bare foot around Anne Marie’s ankle. She drew It slowly up along Anne Marie’s calf. When Anne Marie glanced at her, she was listening intently to Lena.
ꕀ
Anne Marie’s spot on the tour was ninety percent secured, according to Celia, who had talked to her right after her heat and now twice on the phone. They just wanted to come out a couple of times and watch her surf—to make sure it hadn’t been a fluke, Anne Marie guessed, and she could handle her board.
“That’s bullshit,” Eden said, disgruntled. “They should just check your stats.” Anne Marie nodded and did not point out that there was a lull in those stats, and that during that lull she hadn’t been able to surf at all, and everyone knew.
Penny said, “Anne Marie, if you get rich and famous, you better talk about me.” Anne Marie chose to interpret that to mean that Penny believed in her. Penny said, “You have to say, And my sister, Penny Chadwick.” She was imagining a press conference, Anne Marie thought, with reporters.
“She’s not your publicist, Pen,” Lena said. She was digging through the chest freezer, looking for ice cream. They had half a pint of fudge ripple left over, but no haupia.
Anne Marie said, “Fine. How about: everybody back home believed in me, except for Mr. Creswell in the ninth grade, and my sister, Penny Chadwick.”
One day, young lady, you’ll regret not paying more attention. So far, Anne Marie had not regretted it, not even a little. Maybe I am too hard on Penny, Anne Marie thought then, but Penny had already disappeared down the hallway.
“Man, Creswell,” said Eden, and grinned at Anne Marie crookedly.
ꕀ
The waves were just okay. Anne Marie came out after a couple of hours. “I’ll stay,” said Lena, gaze fixed on Penny at the break, and Eden shouldered her own board and picked her way up to the concrete with Anne Marie.
Anne Marie went to shower. Eden said she was going to comb the wax off her board, but about a minute passed, and then she was knocking on the door.
“Hey,” she said, and Anne Marie stepped back to make room for her. Once Anne Marie and Eden and Lena and Penny and Lena’s cousin Malia, who lived on the big island now, had all been able to fit in here. They had a picture of that, their four blonde heads and Eden’s dark one. Malia’s older sister had taken it, standing on her tiptoes.
Now there was just barely enough space for the two of them. They were both still wearing their bathing suits. Anne Marie said, “You have sand in your hair.”
“Huh,” Eden said, and bowed her head. She didn’t really need to.
Anne Marie had been three inches taller than Eden for twelve years. That was confirmed history, on the door frame in Lena’s mom’s kitchen in permanent marker.
Eden reached for the ties of Anne Marie’s swimsuit. Anne Marie watched her tug them down, and ran her fingers through Eden’s wet hair.
Eden sank to her knees. She always got the same concentrated expression, which was why Anne Marie thought that maybe this did mean something, this thing they hadn't been talking about, what Eden had been doing with her.
Anne Marie pressed one hand to the slats to steady herself, so that she could lift her foot and let Eden guide her leg over her shoulder. She dug her heel into Eden’s back. The ground was slippery, but Anne Marie had balanced on surfboards before.
Eden never talked. She just kissed the inside of Anne Marie’s thigh. It was the same feeling, the waves licking at her thighs, the water rocking her.
ꕀ
When they came inside, Lena was sitting at the dining table, tuning her guitar. She looked at the two of them, but it wasn’t particularly probing. She probably did know. It was hard to keep secrets from Lena.
Anne Marie went to see whether any of them had remembered to do the laundry. Eden went off to watch that day’s tape of Anne Marie, to figure out what she had done right and what she could have done better. Later, she would tell Anne Marie what to change, low and urgent. Don't hesitate like that. You could have had it. You could have had it right there. Later, she would press her finger into the screen to show Anne Marie, and leave a little hole of static in the middle of the picture.
The Billabong people wanted to see Anne Marie surf three times. Anne Marie didn't know how many people they were going to send to watch her.
ꕀ
The night before, Lena said, “Let’s pray,” half-seriously. They went and found four tea lights and arranged them in a diamond on the kitchen counter. She went out to the back deck and cut lengths of pikake.
It wasn’t flowering, but the leaves were glistening dark green. They draped them around the candles. None of them had really grown up going to church, except Eden.
She lit the match on her teeth. “Eden,” Lena said. They huddled around to watch her light them one-by-one.
“Dear God,” said Penny solemnly. “Please make sure Anne Marie doesn’t mess up tomorrow, and send a bunch of good, clean waves her way.” Eden’s fingers pressed into the back of Anne Marie’s hand, and Anne Marie had to swallow. “And please let me pass math, and not get stuck with Creswell next year. And-”
“We’re praying for me, not just anything,” said Anne Marie.
“And-please-fix-Anne-Marie’s-attitude,” Penny said, rapid-fire, and ducked away before Anne Marie could find anything to chuck at her.
“Hey,” Eden said, and hauled her back in by the neck of her t-shirt.
“Dear God, please let Anne Marie get a spot on the tour,” Penny said, eyes narrowed meaningfully.
“We would all miss you,” Lena said—looking at Anne Marie, really speaking for Penny. “Of course we would be happy for you, but we would miss you.” That gave Anne Marie a tight, hot feeling underneath her ribs, and she turned to Eden because she thought she sensed that Eden wanted to say something. But Eden was just watching her, and then she shook her head a little.
Lena touched Anne Marie’s shoulder and went to stack their dishes in the sink. Anne Marie blew out the candles. Eden promised that sometime soon, she would teach Penny the match thing, making eye contact with Anne Marie to let her know that she wouldn’t, not really.
ꕀ
Later, Anne Marie found Eden lying in her own bed, staring at a two-page spread in the SurfTech catalog. A couple of glossy epoxy-resin boards, with that smooth grain that came from wood laminate. The point was that you could pick one up with one hand.
“Those snap in half,” Anne Marie said. “They aren’t built for the Shore.”
“Pretty soon, you won’t be on the Shore,” Eden said. But it was mild. She closed the catalog, then tossed it carelessly onto the floor. It landed on a tiger-striped bikini top that was still damp. Anne Marie nudged them apart with her toe.
She sat down on the edge of Eden’s bed. She said, “Would you come with me?”
Eden tilted her head, which meant she got what Anne Marie was asking. Then she worked herself around until she could lean back against the headboard, slowly.
“Who would watch out for Penny?”
“Lena,” said Anne Marie.
Eden reached back behind her and wrapped her hands around the slats. She opened and closed them a couple of times, thinking. She said, “Yeah, maybe.”
Anne Marie tried to imagine her in any other bed, sprawled out in a hotel-room bed with clean white sheets. Her head kept wanting to put Eden in their blue flowered maid uniform. Maybe now they would be people who left cash tips. She wouldn’t let Eden leave her towels in wet piles on the bathroom floor.
“It only matters if I make it,” Anne Marie said, trying not to jinx things. “Maybe I’ll mess it all up. I don’t know.”
Eden reached out. She whacked Anne Marie’s shoulder gently.
“Come on,” she said. “You’ll do fine. You’ll do great.”
ꕀ
Anne Marie lay in Eden’s bed, looking up at the ceiling, listening to the slow rhythm of Eden breathing beside her. She was wondering whether it meant anything that they had had sex in a bed now, that her clothes were mixed up with Eden’s at the foot, the sleeve of her top dangling and its hem brushing Eden’s floor. She was wondering whether it meant anything that Eden had fallen asleep and she was still here, but she and Eden had slept side-by-side probably a hundred times before.
She made space for herself under Eden’s tangled gray sheets. It was too warm, really, to move any closer to her.
In the morning there would be the surf, and Penny to deal with, and Lena slicing banana into her cereal. A week from now, Anne Marie would know whether she had a spot on the tour. A week from now, she would maybe have to start bullying Eden into packing and write long lists for Penny and Lena to mostly ignore.
What if I can’t hear the ocean from those rooms? Anne Marie had been thinking. How could I sleep without surf? How could I surf without sleep? But Eden moved like the waves and Eden breathed like the waves. It would all be okay as long as she could keep Eden with her.