Surfing Lessons

Mia, finds courage to step away from her sudden fear and releases the loving grasp from her mother’s side. She glances around the shop, and focuses back on her mother. They look around the shop, wooden walls, and clothing racks make up most of the store, upbeat music is playing, and the air is a comfortable cool. Swimsuits, wetsuits, snorkel, surfing and boating accessories, catch Leo’s attention. “Mom, do we need wet suits to surf. I like this one.” Leo points a blue and green suit.

“Ok, it’s possible, do you think the water is cold and the air outside is cold. You can two can pick out wetsuits.”

Mia finds a full body, pink and purple suit, with matching flippers. “Mom, I’ll have this one and these can help me swim, if we aren’t doing a surfing lesson.”

“Mia, what a great idea, and maybe we can go snorkeling as well. I’ll pick one out too. Leo get some flippers too, and a snorkel mask.” Melody mentions with hope for fun moments.

“Awesome, thanks, Mom.” The kids gather a wetsuit, flippers, and snorkel masks. Melody picks out a suit, black with hot pink and dark blue accents.

The smell of fabric, and coffee is all Melody breathes in. Glass walls form an office where Gage is sitting speaking on the phone. His bright light blue surf shirt accentuates his athletic build, which Melody notices. More sparks, awaken within her as she glances his way. His deep blue ocean eyes fall to her whiskey-green amber eyes, a gentle resonance, his chest expands as he breathes deeply. Gage rises from his dark blue leather chair and moves their way. He quickly notices the new puppy. “Hi ya’ll, who is this little one?” Gage asks approaching the family.

“Her name is Pearl!” Leo replies, smiling bestowing pride.

“Yes, I came up with her name, she is going to have bows and be a pretty princess like me.” Mia proudly stammers.

Gage focuses kindly on Mia, a smile forms on his face revealing spotless teeth.

“You can hold her if you want!” Leo offers.

Gage reaches out his tanned copper haired arms to brace the pup, Pearl happily licks his face while wagging her tail. He pets her little white furry body. Chuckles escape him. His eyes have lightened. He continues to hold her close. “What can I help y’all with today? Your buying some gear I see. I will check y’all out at the register. Follow me.” Gage walks, a sturdy confident, unhurried walk.

Smiling, revealing pearly teeth, Melody responds, “I want to see if they can do a surf lesson. We were out running around and close by.”

“Sure, let me inform my staff, that I’ll be out for awhile.” Gage picks up a phone, pushes a button. “I’m going down to the beach for some lessons, can you watch the store.” A pause, “Ok great, thank you.” He whistles for Jet who had been laying on a bed in Gage’s office. Jet trots over, wagging his tail, quickly notices something in Gage’s arm. Bending down, Jet’s black wet nose, sniffs Pearl, his tail wags, her tail wags. Jet licks her. Gage smiles. He stands up, “Ok, let’s go!”

Gage opens the door for the family, still holding the puppy. “I have some boards down at the beach, with other staff. It’s just over this way.” Gage gestures towards the beach, Melody and her children follow.

The afternoon sun hangs midway in the sky, warm, golden, while a salty breeze rushes to Melody, billowing her curled chestnut locks, which fall past her shoulders. Gage glances at her noticing the freeing expression on her face. The back of the shop faces the beach, whilst some of the parking is to the side giving customers a view of the beach. Melody glances behind them, remembering she let her guard down, assessing for any sign of Blaze. Neighboring restaurants and shops are busy, few parking spaces are open. Melody concentrates back to the beach.

The stand, features numerous surf boards, blue and turquoise, pink and yellow bright. A young twenties fella, nods his head respectively towards Melody and the children. Melody manages a smile back and turns to Gage as he hands Pearl to her. “Here’s your new baby girl back.” Melody’s eyes light up behind her sunglasses, holding Pearl close against her ribs, she fits perfectly there, like she was made for her. Gage squats down on the kids level. “Ok kids, have y’all ever surfed before?”

Leo and Mia look at each other then at Gage, nodding their heads no.” Ok, I’m going to give y’all a lesson, and show you some tricks here on the beach before we practice in the water.”

They nod their heads, showing they understand. Grabbing the turquoise and blue board for nine year old Leo, and a pink and yellow for seven year old Mia. “Here’s how to carry your board.” Gage says as he braces a board then hands them to each child. Mia seems to struggle a little, so he happily helps. “Ok, Mia, I’ll help you with yours.” A smile spreads across his sun kissed bearded face. His hair sparkles a little, like copper glitter. Melody sets down the bag of wet suits, and equipment. The kids slip the wetsuits on over their swimsuits. “These will help you stay warm, if the water is cold.” The kiddos giggle. Leo looks at his wetsuit, the beach, and at the board, “Thanks mom, this is awesome!”

“Aww, your welcome bubby, you have fun!” Melody’s eyes bask in the love for her son.

Gage lays the boards flat on the white sand, away from the shoreline, parallel, a few feet apart. He sets his own board aside and stood with his hands on his hips, looking at the kids.

“Okay,” he said. “Before we get in the water, we’re going to do this first.”

Leo looks at the boards and then at the ocean. Melody can see him doing the math — cataloguing, organizing, filing the experience into a structure he could understand before he committed to it. He’s been that way since he was four years old, even before everything, even in the good years when she could still remember what good had looked like. He needs the shape of a thing before he will step inside it.

He demonstrates the stance — front foot angled, back foot perpendicular, knees bent, weight low and centered. He moves through it with the ease of someone who has done something so many thousands of times that it has become simply the way his body goes. He shows them how to lie flat, how to push up, how to balance.

“It’s one motion,” he said. “Not two. Not three. One.”

He did it again, fluid, his big frame surprisingly light.

Mia mirrored it on her board before he’d finished explaining, arms out, knees bent, grinning at him like she expected a medal. She looked utterly confident and completely wrong in about four different technical ways, but the confidence itself was something to witness.

“Almost,” Gage said. “Back foot here.” He moved her foot two inches. “Try again.”

She tried again.

“There.”

Leo, meanwhile, is watching with the focused attention of someone who prefers to understand a process completely before executing it. He watches Gage stand up twice more. He watches Mia. He looks down at the board beneath his feet and positions his front foot with careful precision, as though measuring.

“You want me to show you the weight shift?” Gage asked him.

Leo nodded.

Gage comes over and walks him through it slowly, step by deliberate step, none of the lightness he’d given Mia’s version — just the mechanics, plainly explained. Leo listens. He tries. He adjusts and tries again.

“Better,” Gage says. “You’ve got good instincts.”

Melody takes a seat watching her children and this new man interact. Gage, remains calm, as he shows the kids stances, squatting down placing his arms out. She snuggles pearl, feeling her warm body, the breeze flickers her white hair, Melody looks into Pearl’s softened coffee honeyed eyes. She gushes and melts embracing her and staring into her eyes. Melody’s heart opens to the puppy, she turns to Jet sitting next to her, he looks at her, softened eyes then over at the kids and struts their way. Sniffing them out as they stand on the boards. Melody walks to their proximity, and lets Pearl down, she eliminates on the sand making a small puddle, then places her little teeth over Mia’s board, she giggles. “Pearl, you’re a Princess, you don’t bite the board.” Mia picks Pearl up, and places her on the board, “she can learn with me. Ready Pearl, let’s practice the stances Gage taught us.”

Gage takes Leo to the water, he practices straddling the board, then switching to a stand, and riding the small waves by the shores. “Good job, Leo, you did it!”

Leo appears excited and proud, for his accomplishment.

“Ok, Mia are you and pearl ready.”

“Absolutely. So, if I become a surfer, Pearl can learn to ride the big waves with me. We’ve never really been to the beach much. I’ve seen beaches on TV, and surfers ride really big waves.”

“Yes, they do, those are probably in Hawaii or somewhere else.” Gage grinning ear to ear.

The kids practice the stances on the boards, as gentle waves trickle to the shore, nudging their boards. Mia practices changing positions on the board for paddling out, waiting, and then stepping into the stand to ride the wave. Gage is waist deep in the water holding on to Mia’s board. Leo rejoins. He’s bracing both boards, exhibiting joy and patience for the children, whilst chuckling at the puppy.

Eventually they paddle out some, Melody becomes on edge, realizing they can be swept under the current. Gage concentrates on her silently reassuring her, he’s got them. She relaxes but keeps her attention on them just in case.

Leo paddles out catching a small wave, then quickly maneuvers his feet on the board, he rides the wave to the shore until it dissipates. “Alright, Leo! Good job,” Melody shouts, and high fives her son as he runs her way. “Mom can you take a picture next time.”

“Yes of course, why didn’t I think of that!” Melody giggles, tears surface in her eyes. Tears of joy. Pearl seems to imitate Mia, and scrambles to keep up.

“Mia do you want to try without Pearl, I will hold her.”

“Um ok,” Mia lets Melody take Pearl from the board, as she sets up for the small waves by the shore. The puppy’s nose points to the ground, sniffs her way to Jet, white tail wagging. He playfully nudges Pearl, wagging his tail.

Mia paddles, laying on her belly, her pink and purple wetsuit, saturated from the sea, water drips off her and the board. Mia turns the board, facing the white sandy beach and shifts into a stance as a wave appears. Melody captures the moment on her phone.

Pearl discovers a piece of dried seaweed that she carries four steps then abandons. She trots back to Melody and quickly falls asleep in Melody's lap with her chin on Melody's knee, her small ribs rising and falling with that rapid puppy tempo, her paws occasionally twitching in some dream that is almost certainly about Jet or food or possibly both, maybe even surfing.

Jet has stationed himself about three feet from Melody and is watching the kids with what appears to be genuine professional interest, his tail swaying side to side in the sand.

Melody rests her hand on Pearl's back and feels the warmth of her, the dense small weight, the quick drumbeat of her heart. It is something to hold. She has needed something to hold, she realizes, and hasn’t known how to say so, and here it was: nine weeks old, full of breath and utterly uncomplicated.

Leo asking measured questions about rip currents and how waves are formed, Mia asking whether any famous surfers had pets and specifically what kinds, and if they ride the waves with them.

Melody’s eyes follow their every move. The ocean is doing what the ocean does: being enormous, indifferent and full of pull. The waves are gentle — it is a calm afternoon, the swells soft and slow, the kind that break in long white lines and sighs back out. Objectively, she knows this. She can see it. She can measure the tameness of it with her eyes.

She sits on the white sand, near the waterline with Pearl against her chest — awake now and watchful, ears perked, nose working — and watches Gage walk her children into the Atlantic, and every cell in her body that has spent months on high alert rearranged itself into a different kind of vigilance. Not the same fear. Worse in some ways. Quieter in others. The kind where there’s nothing to protect against except water and physics and a world that sometimes does not return what you’ve given it.

She holds Pearl. Pearl is warm and real and breathing.

Gage starts them in the shallows — ankle-deep, then knee-deep, the boards floating, Mia shrieking at the temperature of the water in a pitch that indicated joy rather than distress, Leo inhaling sharply and then composing himself. Gage shows them how to manage the board in the water, how to position, how to feel for the incoming swell.

He keeps them where she could see their faces.

Melody doesn’t know if he registers her stillness at the waterline or if it is just luck, but once, about twenty minutes in, he turns and looks back at her. Not searching. Not worried. Just — looking, the way you check on something you’ve noted. He finds her. He nods once, small.

She exhales.

He turns back to her children.

How long it has it been since someone has tracked her location in a way that felt like safety rather than surveillance.

The waves came in easy succession. Leo is reading them — she can tell by the way his head tracks the water, calculating. Mia is throwing herself at them indiscriminately, half the time in the wrong position, never once caring.

Mia falls and comes up with her hair plastered flat and both fists pumping.

She falls again.

She comes up laughing and pushes her hair out of her face and immediately repositions for the next one.

Leo paddles for a wave and misses it, then paddles back without visible frustration, just recalibration. He watches the water. He waits.

Melody watches his back, his small shoulders, the deliberate set of his jaw even from this distance, and thinks: there you are. That’s the one. That’s all of it right there in how he holds himself, this child who learned too young that the ground can shift and so learned to measure everything before he steps.

The next wave comes. He paddles into it.

She sees the moment he felt it catch — his whole body changes, the paddling stops, and then in one motion, not perfect but connected, he pushes and pops and he is up. Both feet. Arms out wide. The board wobbling, tilting, correcting. His face, turned sideways, is — stunned. The specific stunned expression of someone who has just discovered that a thing they thought was beyond them is not.

Four seconds, maybe five.

Then the board noses sideways and he goes down.

“LEO!” Mia screamed it from six feet away, the full volume of her petite body, absolutely beside herself. “LEO, YOU DID IT! LEO!"

He comes up in waist-deep water, hair dark with salt water, face — laughing.

Not his careful, checking laugh. Not the one he offers up when he thinks it is expected. The real one: sudden and helpless and younger than he'd let himself sound in longer than she wants to calculate. The laugh comes up out of him the same way the wave has carried him — without him deciding it.

Melody presses her knuckles to her mouth.

Pearl squirms in her arms, she holds her tighter, which Pearl permits with the gracious resignation of a creature who has determined that being held is probably fine, actually. They come back to shore the way all children come back from the water — spent down to the bone, salt-crusted, trailing happiness and exhaustion in equal measure. Mia collapses directly onto the sand and announces that her legs are gone. Leo drops beside her, and they lay there like two creatures washed up, blinking at the sky.

Pearl had fallen asleep somewhere in the last twenty minutes, gone completely limp across Melody’s arms, her little ribcage rising and falling in the slow deep rhythm of the thoroughly exhausted. She is heavier asleep. They always are.

Gage walks up the beach at the steady pace of a man who is not going anywhere in particular, Jet ranging ahead of him. He stops a few feet away and looks down at the children with an expression that was quiet and undemanding, the same way he seems to do most things.

“He got up,” Melody said.

“He did.” Gage crouches to ruffle Jet’s ears, giving her nothing to navigate, no expectation in his posture. “He’s got good instincts. Both of them do.”

The light is going amber and long, laying itself across the water in that extravagant way it did at this hour, as if the day were settling accounts. Mia has closed her eyes. Leo is drawing something in the sand with one finger, slow and aimless, the way he does when he is content.

Pearl exhales in her sleep, a small shuddering sigh, and her paw twitches once then still.

Melody looks out at the water — which has given her children a happy memory, — and feels something loosen in her chest. Not healed. Not fixed. Just — loosened. The difference between a fist and an open hand. Every moment she breathes in salt air, looks at the aquamarine ocean, the white sand, recalls her grandmother or parents, she heals a little. Any moment with Gage, the sparks, his know how and understanding, calm, protective, sturdy way of being, she heals a little.

Just enough for one Saturday.