Authors: Suzan Colón
Emerald Cove Surf Camp Schedule
Day 4: Group Surfing
8:00 a.m.—9:00 a.m.
Breakfast on the veranda at the Main House
9:30 a.m.—11:30 a.m.
Surfing lessons continue! Meet on the beach for group assignments
12:00 noon—1:30 p.m.
Lunch
2 p.m.—5:00 p.m.
More surfing or free time, your choice
6:30 p.m.—9:00 p.m.
Dinner on the veranda at the Main House
THE WORLD IS upside down.
I’m standing on my head against a palm tree on the beach. The dark blue ocean is now where the sky usually is, and from my point of view, the rising sun looks like it’s falling from the sea. It’s day four of my stay at Emerald Cove, and Carson has been sending me what I think are signals that he’s interested in me, but I’m leaving the day after tomorrow. My arms ache from trying to keep most of my body weight off the top of my head, but not as much as my brain hurts from trying to figure out what any of this means and whether it should matter.
As carefully as I can, I bring my feet back down to the sand and kneel in child’s pose, my head past my knees, resting on the sand. Slowly, I rise up, and the world is righted again. If only it felt that way in real life. I’m so not looking forward to going home and facing my new reality of being single. I know Carson is gently nudging me with interest, but I’m leaving soon, so what’s the point? Does he think I’m going to have a quick fling with him, a one-night stand on the beach? Granted, that does sound kind of hot, but does he think I’m the type who would do that?
Wait a minute. He doesn’t know I’m not that kind of girl because I’ve been posing as another kind of girl. He doesn’t know anything about my breakup or my cautious ways, because I’ve been acting like confident, spontaneous, adventurous Kate.
And I’ve been doing a pretty good job
, I think as I sit up straighter. I was confident enough to teach a yoga class the other day. I’ve gotten on a surfboard for the first time in my life, and I’m good at it. Heck, I’ve even surprised myself by discovering that I’m a morning person. After years of following Daniel’s night-owl schedule, I now welcome the monkeys waking me at dawn with their crazy howling so I can go to the cove and do sunrise yoga. I’m alone here this morning, maybe because the surf instructors aren’t interested in today’s calm waters. But I’ve been a lot more Kate than Katy this week. Maybe I could be the spontaneous, live-in-the-moment type who would make love on the beach, just like that vision I had of Carson and me when we first met. But that was a fantasy complete with falling in love, not just having a quickie with a near stranger.
Get a grip, Katy, or Kate, or whoever. This thing with Carson is a nice flirtation, fate giving me a lovely distraction from my broken heart. At worst it’s a little misunderstanding on my part, which won’t be embarrassing since I don’t intend to do anything about it. I’m just going to surf, eat some more nice food, and take notes about this place for my article. I’ll have good stories to write about and to tell. And then, when I get home, I’ll try to figure out how to put my life right side up.
AFTER OUR GROUP breakfast, everyone gathers on the beach for our morning surf lesson. I want to thank Carson for the gift of the seashell, but we haven’t had a moment alone yet, and after my upside-down epiphany this morning, I can wait. I stand on the beach, the sand soft and warm under my feet. It’s the time of morning where the sky and the ocean are the same deep blue, like being inside a giant sapphire. I drink in the salty breeze, looking forward to the freeing feeling of surfing again, hugging my pink surfboard close to me. Out of my peripheral vision, I see Carson come to stand next to me. “So, how’s the tentalow treating you?” he asks.
I smile, happy that I don’t have to pretend my way through this conversation. “It’s so great. I love being able to hear the ocean at night.”
“Me, too,” he says. “Though I can’t really hear it at the Rat Hole.”
“The what?”
He smiles. “That’s what we call the bungalow where Evan and Randy and I stay. It’s not that close to the beach. When I first got here, I slept out on the sand for a couple of nights, just to listen to the waves.”
“Then maybe I should get you a seashell, too,” I say, smiling. “Thanks for my present.”
Carson usually wears a happy expression. This smile seems different, more private. “Girl’s gotta have a phone,” he says. “How’s the reception?”
Before I know what I’m doing, maybe because I’m dazzled by the sun and the beach and this moment, I start speaking without thinking about what I’m going to say. “I’m not sure. I feel like I’m getting some signals that I don’t know how to interpret.” I feel myself blushing, but I don’t care. Being honest isn’t so bad. It feels kind of good. “Well, it could all be my imagination.”
Carson turns to me, but before he can say anything, Allegra bounds up to us, or him, really, and announces, “Here I am!” She’s all breathy and glossy from an obvious pre-surfing makeup check. I sigh and look back at the waves, still baffled by how she could love one man and be so obviously eye-boffing another. Carson glances at me again but doesn’t speak.
“Gather ’round, everybody,” Evan calls out. “We’re doing something different today.” When we’re all with the instructors, Evan explains that we’ll be breaking up into two groups. The beginners will stay here and keep working on getting up to a standing position, and the intermediate group will go with Carson to the part of the beach that has bigger waves. “But only if you want to,” Evan adds. “No shame in perfecting your stance with the beginners. Okay?” He takes a piece of paper out of his pocket. “Okay, beginners group staying here with Randy includes Lucene, Lila, Krystal, and Allegra.”
Allegra will never be a good poker player. She can’t hide her disappointment at not being in Carson’s group. “Intermediate surfers,” Evan continues, “are Dean, Jamie, William, and Kate.”
Whoa, wait, what now? My eyes get wide. Me, an intermediate surfer? William comes over and holds up his hand to high-five me, and Brigitte smiles. “Excellent,” she says, leaning in close. “We’ll get some great photos of you for the story.”
“Anyone from intermediates want to stick with the beginners? Last chance,” Evan says. My stomach feels like it’s on an internal surfboard. I look at Carson. “You sure there wasn’t some mistake?”
Smiling, he shakes his head. “You’re a natural. But you can totally stay here if you want, in Randy’s group.”
A whole day with the Bridal Party, including pouty Allegra? No thanks. “If you think I’m ready to move up in the wave world, I’ll take my best shot.”
“Cool,” he says. “So, want me to be your surfing buddy?”
I look up at him, thinking of all sorts of clever things to say. And some that are less clever and more honest. The world feels, if not upside down again, tilted oddly. The word
buddy
doesn’t match up with the sweetly intense way Carson is looking at me, but all that comes out of my mouth is, “Sure.”
OUR INTERMEDIATE group walks about half a mile down the beach to where the waves are bigger than the gentle ones we’ve surfed before. The confident feeling I’ve had on the board in previous days ebbs away with the crash of each wave.
Jamie, the honeymooning wife, bravely volunteers to go first. After a few spills, she manages to catch a wave of about six feet. I gasp for her, until I see her tentatively stand up on her board. She whoops triumphantly as we all cheer for her from the beach. Her husband, Dean, goes next. He gets to his hands and knees before falling, but he’s laughing the whole way. William is the star, standing up and actually riding a wave like a real surfer. Brigitte takes photos of everyone and jumps up and down for her hubby. All the while, Evan and Carson are out in the water on their boards, coaching each surfer, riding in alongside them. It doesn’t look as hard as I thought, but I’m still not sure about me being able to handle these intermediate waves.
Carson comes back to the beach after William’s ride and looks at me with an anticipatory grin. “Okay, Kate, you’re up.”
Yes, indeedy. I’m up for going straight back to my tent on dry land and spending the rest of the day in my safe, non-moving bed, writing in my diary, possibly doodling Carson’s name over and over. But Kate smiles and picks up her pink board, ready for action. Darn her anyway.
Carson and I walk to the water’s edge, Brigitte snapping photos of us the whole way. Feeling almost sick with nerves, I turn and give her a look, and she sheepishly backs off. When we get near the shoreline, Carson says, “Tell me what you see, Kate. Read the waves. What kind are they?”
“Spilling,” I say. “Big, scary, spilling waves, much larger than the ones I’ve been practicing on.”
Carson laughs. “And how many in a set?”
I’d already counted while everyone else was surfing. “Fours,” I answer. I mentally kick myself for not taking the opportunity to stall.
“Excellent.” Carson turns to me and holds out his hand. “Ready, Kate?”
The gesture and the question take me right back to the night of my birthday, when Daniel held me so sweetly and asked me if I was ready. In the space of a few hours, everything I wanted to say yes to was gone.
The good of this week falls away like the lie that it is. I’ve been pretending to be this bold, carefree person who came to Costa Rica to learn how to surf, just another adventure in her full, fun-filled life. Now I’m just me again. Me, who my father left. Me, who Daniel walked away from. Me, alone. I watch the waves forming. They’re all muscle, wide expanses of undulating liquid force, each one with the power of a big event in my life. And I never surfed those very well.
Instead of taking Carson’s hand, my own hand stays limply at my side. “Maybe I’m not ready after all,” I murmur at the sand.
“Kate.”
In just one word, I hear so much assurance in Carson’s voice that I have to look up at him. He puts a hand on my shoulder and faces me. “Only you know if you’re ready or not. But you’ve been doing great. And I’ll be there with you, right by your side. It’s absolutely okay to change your mind if you don’t want to do this. But if you’re asking me if you
can
do this, the answer is yes.”
“You really think so?”
He nods. “Want to give this a shot?”
“Yes.” I like the steady sound of my voice. I think back to that idea I had at the volcano park, about having to be fearless to get what I wanted. “Yes, I want to.”
The smile eases all the way to Carson’s sparkling eyes. “Then the only question left is, what are we waiting for?”
Another echo of my birthday night, but now my pleading has been removed from it, replaced by a rhetorical question that suggests living life well, and fully. My smile feels huge and as dazzling as Carson’s as I say, “Let’s do it.”
THE OCEAN, WHICH was so full of strong waves surging toward the beach before we paddled out, has now suddenly gone flat. “Sorry about this, Kate,” Carson says as we sit idly on our boards, waiting for waves. “It happens sometimes.”
I consider kidding him, saying
Don’t feel bad, it happens to everybody now and then.
I’m not bold enough to make sex jokes with Carson, but while we’re out here on our boards, our legs dangling in the water, there’s nothing wrong with making conversation. “So,” I start, “got any brothers or sisters?”
He laughs in agreement that this is as good a time as any for chitchat. “A sister,” he says. “Chandler.”
“That’s a great name. So elegant.”
“It’s our paternal grandmother’s maiden name,” he explains. “Carson is our mother’s maiden name. Using maiden names as kids’ first names is a tradition in my family.” I try to hide a smile. If Carson and I ever had a child, we’d have to break that tradition, or our poor little Murvis wouldn’t make it out of the playground alive. “How about you?” Carson asks. “Any brothers or sisters?”
“Bethany, my little sister,” I say affectionately, “by three years.”
Carson waves a hand. “That’s nothing. Chan’s fourteen years younger than me.” He smiles at a memory. “I was so jealous when she was born and took all my mother’s attention. Then she did the big brother idolatry trick and won me over.”
“How old is she now?” I ask, more interested in figuring out Carson’s age than his sister’s.
“Sixteen,” he says. “Jeez, that means I’ll be thirty-one soon. Gettin’ old,” he jokes, shaking his head. “Are you and your sister close?”
“Bethy’s my best friend, always has been. We never had that sibling rivalry, even though our mother was never very, well, mommy-like. I think we compensated for that by creating this intense bond. Bethy lives in California now with her husband and my niece. It’s really hard being so far away from her.”
He nods. “It’s hard being far away from Chandler, too.”
“You don’t get home much?” He shakes his head. “But your sister must have come to visit,” I say cheerfully, imagining Carson teaching her how to surf. But he only says “Not yet” as he looks away, back toward the horizon.
We sit quietly for a few minutes, our boards being gently rocked by the current. I look into the blue-grey water, which is clear for quite a few feet below, and a thought suddenly comes to me. “There aren’t any sharks out here, are there?”