Aftershock Read online

  Are you really that transparent?

  I’m really that upset. Why do you have to make me feel bad about it?

  Yeah. Look. I won’t do this, Jules. Please don’t ask me to.

  Do what?

  But he shook his head. I know I wrote you a scrip for ninety tabs just a couple weeks ago. Your back flared up, you asked me for them, fine. But if they’re gone already— I’m a doctor, Jules. Not your dealer.

  Two cop cars arrived. One radioed in that it was a “fender-bender.” Call off the bus, they said. Send a tow truck. As one of the police cars made to leave again, Rod played the I’m-a-doctor-and-need-to-get-to-the-hospital card, and the next thing she knew he was kissing Jules on the cheek.

  Call me when it’s me you want, okay? Love you.

  Rod got into the cop car, and though Jules could see him, talking and texting on his phone from the back seat as the driver talked on her radio, it was clear that, in his mind, he had left the scene. She stood and watched him, and tears finally started to run down her face as the shock of the accident subsided, or maybe as it set in, and still, she did not once see him look in her direction. Finally, the cop car pulled away, crept up the shoulder past the now-gridlocked traffic.

  The remaining cops looked at the front of the SUV and the back of the hatchback and declared the damage too minor for police involvement. It was up to Jules and the young man to settle it between them (along with their insurance companies). The older man with the earrings, hearing this, proclaimed that the young man should be charged with reckless driving. The cops looked dubious but proceeded to ask another hour’s worth of questions before letting Jules leave in the cab of the tow truck. They were still only a few minutes outside Toronto, so she told him to take her to the Benz dealership, where she waited another two hours while they looked at her car and gave her an overpriced estimate of more than a week. They provided her with a rental car for the interim, and Jules drove the hour back to Hamilton, finally arriving home a mere eight hours after she had left the hotel room that morning.

  THE HOUSE SAT in darkness, the street light throwing sharp monochromatic shadows at the living room furniture through the bay window. The house was waiting for her, Jules thought, waiting to show her how empty it was, but she didn’t feel ready to see it. She didn’t turn on any lights, felt her way up the stairs to her bedroom and left her suitcase unpacked in front of the closet. She docked her phone in the speaker on the bedside table, stripped and got into bed.

  She was almost asleep when she realized she hadn’t checked her email in hours. Moaning in the knowledge that she now, compulsively, had to check it if she hoped to sleep, she grabbed blindly at her phone. In among all the crap, there was a message from Chloe. Six terse words, including her daughter’s name. Plane didn’t crash.

  Well, good.

  Jules rolled over to try again for sleep, but now she felt the ache sawing its way up the base of her spine and out her left hip, and the kink in her shoulder twinged. Her mind went to the nearly empty bottle of pills in her toiletry case, and before she knew it she was digging through her suitcase, layers of clothes spilling onto the floor, the crumpled suit, its empty garment bag, the two-thirds-empty bottle of Bowmore. She found the pill container, its sparse rattle; she didn’t need the light on to know it was her last one. She swallowed it with a mouthful of Scotch and went back to bed.

  Lee.

  She sat on the front steps of the hostel with a book and a coffee mug, watching us pull up. Timing, I realized later—much later—is everything. Mona, who ran the place, climbed out of the car and called to her.

  Alright, Lee? How was it?

  Fuckin’ rad. Sweet offshore.

  Reaching to get my duffle bag from where it had rolled off the middle bench of the minivan, I was still processing the fact that the floor under it was wet when I saw Mona taking a box of fish out of the hatch at the back. Literally, a leaky wooden box piled high with shiny silver bodies. I sniffed my duffle, wincing at the smell.

  Found this one up the road a ways. Show her round, yeah? Mona took her dripping load around the side of the rambling, once-white house. A formerly colourful hand-painted sign that said Kaikoura Backpackers was nailed over the front steps. Lee came over, picked up the bag I had dropped onto the ground, grimaced and leaned against its weight. She was tall, freckled and fair, with wildfire hair and aviator glasses. Her ropy left bicep was completely covered by a majestic arching wave, a tiny surfer about to be engulfed by it.

  Blimey. Got a body in there? Ugh, kinda smells—

  She froze, her shades all smoke and mirrors.

  Not a serial killer, are ya?

  Embarrassed to be giving a first impression involving excessive and foul-smelling luggage, I grabbed it from her.

  It’s heavy, I said.

  You think you’re stronger than me? She pulled her sunglasses back onto her head, quirked an eyebrow. She looked pretty strong, actually.

  It smells like fish.

  Right. She held up her hands. All yours, mate.

  THE DUFFLE BAG itself was the worst; the clothes inside were still quite dry. After I dumped them out onto the bed Mona had assigned me and shoved my passport and moneybelt into a shoebox-sized locker, Lee took me around back, where I draped the duffle over a rack in the sun next to wetsuits that dripped on the grass.

  In the kitchen, I made myself a cup of instant coffee from the hostel’s supply. Chipped floors and grungy walls, shelves overstuffed with bread, pasta, tubs of protein powder, each compartment labelled with someone’s name. Lee cleared out a shelf labelled Delphine and said I could use it.

  Yeah. She won’t be back.

  Back out on the front steps, Lee drank tea. From Manchester, she was following surf seasons around the world.

  Ruled by the waves, hey.

  And even though she’d been on the water that morning, she grew wistful, her eyes on the ocean directly across the street, tracking back and forth like she was scanning a crowd for a friend.

  Her book had returned to her lap, draped over a pale knee. I read the title: Rogue Wave.

  It’s about these massive waves, yeah? Hundreds of feet high, they can wipe out entire ships. Just make ’em disappear. There’s more of ’em every year, and these surfers go lookin’ for ’em.

  They want to surf tsunamis?

  She barked a loud, husky laugh. Ha! You make it sound crazy. But yeah. You wanna know what’s happening to the ocean? Ask a surfer.

  That explains why you never hear about it, if it’s a climate change thing, I said. That’s the kind of shit they cover up.

  Got that right. Lee marked her page and set it aside. So, no stick? You a squid?

  What?

  Surfer, yeah?

  Oh. Me? No.

  No? Don’t get many of you. What the hell you doing here?

  I didn’t want to talk about David, or get into the whole thing with Lance. I wanted to seem like I too was unshakably independent, roaming the world as a free agent, getting by on my wits and not participating in my parents’ middle-class mores. So I made up a plan on the spot.

  My ride dropped me off here. I’m on my way north. To go hiking.

  I’d read in my guidebook about a three-day “tramp” that sounded pretty easy, which was good because I’d never done much hiking at hockey camp.

  Lee gave me a long look, then nodded slowly.

  Later, surfers started appearing from all directions. Dawn surfers, who’d been napping for the afternoon, came out of dorm rooms, and bodies in board shorts and flip-flops spilled out of Jeeps and pickups—roof racks piled high with boards and damp wetsuits. Carrying their boards up from the nearest beach were the “squids,” or beginners. They’re not really surfers yet, Lee said, but everyone starts somewhere.

  As she introduced me around, I found myself repeating the idea of the hike, and the nods of respect and acceptance soon had me deciding that not only was it a great idea, it had been my plan all along.

  In all, there m
ust have been about thirty surfers. The driveway was almost full when a pickup pulled up, squeezed into the last of the space, and a very dark, very tall guy jumped off the back, bounded to the porch, roaring—RaaaHhh!!—and picked Lee up in a bear hug. You fuckin’ iced it!

  He turned to me, to anyone in range.

  Carves up this sick A-frame, aerial 360s—then she’s like backhanding into this perfect fuckin’ barrel—what?

  I got that Lee had done something pretty cool but had no idea what. Lee looked embarrassed by the praise. She jostled me with an easy arm around my shoulders.

  Sean? Chlo. Favourite Australian surfing buddy. Canadian kook.

  He looked between us a couple times. He was even taller than Lee, and in a room of golden tans the two of them provided the only contrast, him with a handsome black sheen, and her moon-pale behind her freckles.

  Ah. Well. Shit, Lee. Bad. Ass. Now, time to pour a couple pitchers down my throat.

  I understood that well enough. But Lee shook her head. Offshore at dawn, you not comin’?

  Aw, yeah. He sighed, miming dejection, looked to me as though for sympathy. Slave to the waves, right? Just one, then. He gave an exaggerated wink.

  Most of the surfers had already gravitated into the hostel bar, like a choreographed school of minnows, buying beer, drinking, circling, embracing, their animated interactions as loud as a waterfall.

  I stood with Lee, apart from the group, which was my go-to in these situations, but I noticed that most of the surfers who looked more hard-core—the ones with the deeper tans, more tattoos, the ripped frames of extreme athletes—all made a point of at least greeting her, some offering to buy her a drink, which she declined. A couple asked if they could go with her in the morning.

  Yeah man, you’re my crew, Lee said, which seemed to make them very happy.

  I felt awkward beside her. Lee, in some ways, reminded me of Jill, with her self-assurance and her easy charm. But she was also quieter than Jill and stayed by my side instead of circulating in the crowd and using me as her home base, as Jill would have done, sometimes all too obviously trying to make me jealous.

  Sean emerged from the fray with a couple bottles, handed me one. I tried to give him the four dollars but he waved it away.

  Welcome to Kaikoura, Gidget. Get me next time.

  We drifted out to the screened-in porch that wrapped around the hostel. It was quieter, the smell of weed on the breeze, bodies in hammocks and slingback chairs. We settled around a card table where we could watch the ocean across the road. The shadows were lengthening, the tide rolling way, way out. What had earlier been a narrow strip of sand had become two hundred metres of flat beach stretching towards the water.

  You a tourist, Chlo? Here to whale-watch or something?

  Lee punched Sean on the arm. No! I told you, she’s a hiker.

  Okay, okay. Sean rubbed his arm. Ow.

  I cast a look around the porch. But we’re all tourists, aren’t we?

  They both hissed at me, playful but serious. We’re surfers.

  You’re lucky we let you stay here, said Sean.

  Yeah, with no board? Lee jerked her head sideways. Get out.

  But I mean, no one here is from here.

  We are not here to wreck everything.

  Isn’t that just what humans do? I pictured my phone, arcing into the darkness.

  Sean pulled out some weed and papers. Girl has a point.

  She does, Lee agreed. And it kills me, like, half of these squids don’t give a goddamn about looking after shit. She gestured vaguely at some Belgians who were huddled over a tablet, a few kids studying their phones farther down. They ain’t even lookin’ at it.

  They could be anywhere, I nodded.

  And by shit, you mean . . . Sean was smiling affectionately.

  You know what I mean. The water, mate, the ocean—the freakin’ planet.

  But you give a damn.

  He was focused on the rolling paper bent between his thumbs and forefingers, a thin line of broken grass lying in its cradle. He darted a look up at Lee and back to his hands. By his teasing, I knew they’d had this argument before.

  How you even asking me that?

  Just making sure. Because, you know, without all those tourists . . . Who do you think stays in this hostel when it’s not surf season? Half of us have jobs in hotels over there. He nodded towards the main part of town. If there weren’t tourists, no hotels. No whale watch, no tourists.

  Shut up. I still hate them.

  Okay, but—

  They’re dirty.

  Sean sighed. That they are, love.

  He rolled the paper into a fat and tight joint, massaged the slight bulges in it between his fingers, working it into the perfect shape.

  Where you in from, Chlo?

  Christchurch.

  Ah, Christchurch, Lee said. She had taken off her shades as the sun went down. The sky behind her was the whole spectrum of pink and her red hair blazed. Would love to surf there sometime. Hear it’s a mess right now, though, she said.

  I thought of roads split down the middle, a church steeple lying on the ground.

  They got raw sewage pumping straight into the ocean, Lee said. My dad used to tell me about Fistral Beach, in Cornwall, back in the nineties. Pads and tampons, diapers floatin’ up on surf beaches. Fuckin’ sick shit. Could still be like that, who knows.

  Doubt it. SCAB is all over that shit.

  Scab? I asked.

  Surfers Care About Beaches.

  Your dad’s a surfer?

  Yeah. Well. He was.

  Lee’s face shut down as a draft of sadness crossed it.

  You gonna pop Gidget’s cherry, or what? Sean asked.

  Lee leaned back to scan me critically, down and then up. Met my eyes.

  Haven’t decided.

  Pop my what?

  Delph left her old wetsuit out back. Probably fit her.

  Sean lit the joint, passed it to Lee. They both looked at me, and I realized they were waiting to see if I understood yet what was being proposed. Lee grinned.

  Oi, Gidget, can you swim?

  THAT NIGHT I dreamed of the park.

  Mo-mo, my babysitter, sitting on a bench with her boyfriend, faces wetly conjoined for long minutes. Play with Lizzie, go play with your sister. I push the stroller around and around the dry concrete wading pool, faster and faster, up and down the banked sides, Lizzie laughing and laughing and banging her arms, a faint warning from Mo-mo, Be careful, Chloe, Lizzie turns around but it’s not Lizzie, it’s Char, let’s go on a spaceship—

  And I trip, let go, the stroller careens, spirals into the air, up over an ocean that roars in protest and pain and utter disappointment, as it sucks the air from my lungs and I’m sobbing and gasping and fighting for breath, alone in a hallway watching my mother sink lower against the wall while my grandparents talk at her, argue at her, the baby is dead and I know I’m the problem now, I can’t speak, my hands clutch at carpet, a shadow moves across, a face—

  A face I know.

  Hey.

  My own face.

  Hey. Chlo.

  I opened my eyes. A line of silver hoops glinted along the edge of Lee’s face as she leaned into my lower bunk, whispered.

  Right then?

  S’goin’ on? I tried to mumble, to sound still half-asleep, because Lee, so close, on my bed, in the dark, brought me very awake, made my heart pound, hard.

  You’re dreaming, I think. Y’alright?

  I nodded, holding my breath.

  Don’t wake ’em all. C’mon.

  DOWN IN THE kitchen, Lee fed me a bowl of oatmeal from her own supplies. She crackled with energy, good-natured but impatient. Out behind the hostel, she spun the combo on one of a long bank of lockers, dug out a wetsuit and handed it to me.

  Should fit ya.

  She pulled another one, still damp, from the drying rack where my duffle still hung. She made a face as she squeezed water out of neoprene. Shoulda just slept in it.
>
  Upstairs, as the darkness paled, we stripped down, put on bathing suits under the wetsuits. I didn’t know if Lee was looking at me or not, I only knew that I had my own eyes locked on my pyjama pants as I took them off, on my bathing suit as I pulled it on, on the borrowed wetsuit as I worked it over my legs, unrolling it upwards. I zipped up the front, turned around. Lee’s eyes ran over the wetsuit. My body within it.

  Fits, hey, she whispered.

  Um. It’s good, yeah. I’d spent a lot of time in locker rooms. I’d played on my first hockey team when I was six. I’d literally been stark naked with hundreds of girls. But Lee made me nervous. Good nervous, maybe. Definitely. But still.

  We went back out, to racks off the side of the building that held a few surfboards with room for thirty more. Lee pulled a sleek six-foot board from a top slot like it was nothing, an extension of her arm, and with her foot nudged a longer, thicker board that lay near the bottom.

  That foamie was Delph’s, grab it.

  It was about eight feet long and heavier than I thought it would be.

  Learner board, hey. More stable.

  We walked, in our flip-flops and wetsuits, across the road and a quarter-mile down to a quiet little beach where low waves rolled slowly in. The sun was struggling to rise from behind clouds on the horizon, the breeze damp and cool on our faces. The salty air coated my skin, the ocean’s heavy breath. Lee called the day perfect, direct sun left her pale skin in flames. Another reason she preferred the early surfs.

  First, she had me do pop-ups. I lay face down on my board on the sand, and Lee showed me the best place for my hands.

  Okay, now jump up to your feet.

  She demonstrated, stomach to standing in one fluid spring-loaded movement.

  Land in a squat, like. And try not to use your knees on the way up.

  This was easy. Popping up was a goalie move. The only difference was feet went forward and back on the board, instead of squared in the net. And I was lighter and nimbler without goalie pads and skates. I did it fifteen times in a row with little effort and was rewarded with a wry smile.

  Not bad. Now stand on your board and balance. See the wax, those sticky patches? Kind of grip ’em with your feet.