Into the Blue Read online

  Copyright © 2016 Pene Henson

  All Rights Reserved

  ISBN 13: 978-1-941530-84-9 (trade)

  ISBN 13: 978-1-941530-85-6 (ebook)

  Published by Interlude Press

  http://interludepress.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and places are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real persons, either living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

  Book design and Cover illustrations by CB Messer

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Interlude Press, New York

  For Cameron and Misha—clear-eyed critics, exceptional humans and generous friends.

  Contents

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  “Those who live by the sea can hardly form a single thought of which the sea would not be part.”

  —Hermann Broch

  PROLOGUE

  It’s one of those bright evenings. The ocean breathes under their boards and rolls itself into perfect, heavy barrels. Tai runs a hand over his face. The saltwater stings his eyes. Beside him, Ollie squints into the sun. They’ve been out for hours now. Same as yesterday; same as the day before. Long enough that the sun’s settled down and the water’s nearly black beneath them. When the waves curl up and over, light breaks through and turns the water glassy green and turquoise and gold.

  Most of the kids their age have already gone home. But Pipeline’s turning sweetly. There’s always time to chase one more wave.

  “Top five breaks,” Tai says in a pause between sets.

  “Based on what?” Ollie asks, his gaze on the incoming surf. “Consistency? Whether it barrels? Height? I don’t know, the epic wave we’ll still talk about when we’re fifty?”

  “Based on what you want to ride, Ollie,” Tai laughs. “Five breaks. Anywhere in the world.”

  “Okay.” They let another set slide under them. There’s nothing worth catching in it. “I’d start with this one,” Ollie says. “Obviously.”

  “Obviously.” Tai grins. They agreed years ago that Pipeline was in all of their top fives.

  Ollie points out a wave with his chin. “Incoming.”

  Tai’s already turning toward shore. He drops flat and paddles. They might still be the kids out here, but they catch almost everything they go after. The wave picks him up easily. Tai stands and flies toward shore. The deck of his board is steady; the water surges beneath his feet. He tumbles off and turns his board to head back out. There’s no point wasting the last light.

  Another wave rolls in. Even in silhouette, Tai recognizes the surfer on the lip, making perfect turns. No one rides a wave like Ollie. Water fans from the tail of his board and catches the golden light. Tai waits so they can make their way out together. Ollie’s eyes are bright with the exhilaration of a ride. Tai and Ollie paddle in unison. “Okay. Five breaks. Here you go. Pipeline, J-Bay, Teahupo’o in Tahiti, one of the big breaks in Australia, and… that island you read about in Indonesia.”

  “Mentawai.” Tai thinks about it. “That’s a good list. Maybe I’ll come along.”

  “Of course you will,” Ollie says. That’s never been a question.

  The surf’s dropping. The sun dips lower. They need to be home before it’s too dark to see.

  “I’m gonna head,” Tai says. “Come to my place for dinner. Momma’s cooking so there’s plenty for you.”

  Ollie scrunches up his face. “I wish. I’m starving. But Mom’s at work late, so Jaime’s home alone.”

  “That’s easily fixed. Bring him along.”

  They catch the next wave side by side, weaving all the way to shore. One day, Ollie will be famous. In the meantime, everything’s perfect. They live in Hawaii, where it’s always summer. They have the surf and their boards and the greatest friendship in the world.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Even in the evening, with summer long gone, the air’s bright and heavy. It tastes familiar—like salt and iodine and kelp, like sunscreen and the ocean, like all the things that have soaked into Ollie Birkstrom’s skin over twenty-two years.

  The sun’s low on the horizon. Light slants across the sky to meet the deck of the bungalow. The Blue House, the locals call it, though it’s more aqua than blue, and the deck is unpainted wood, faded brown. But the early evening makes the rough boards golden and pretty and hides how much the whole place needs help. A renovation. Maybe someone to knock it down and start fresh.

  Ollie leans on the deck’s railing and watches the ocean as it breaks over and over. A car drives past, music turned up too high for its tinny speakers. The beat vibrates in the soles of Ollie’s bare feet. He tries not to feel as if he’s waiting for something.

  Out there, past the cars and some windswept palms, is Banzai Pipeline. Ollie hasn’t been to many places, but he knows surf. This is the best reef break on the entire planet. He keeps his eyes on the waves and runs his fingers over the warm, cracked surface of the railing. In his head, he counts peak after trough after peak after trough, watches the line along which each wave spills, and works out the space between sets. It’s a good, pretty consistent left break. He should be out on it with his board.

  But it’s okay. It’s rare enough to get all the Blue House kids home at once. There are five of them: Ollie and Tai, Sunny, Hannah, and Ollie’s kid brother, Jaime. This is their little household, the family they’ve held together for more than four years, through a move, through SATs, through bad jobs and worse jobs and job hunts, through fights about the dishes and who clogged the toilet this time and if there should be a curfew on ukulele and whether they can afford to eat this week.

  Usually when they’re all here, they have a friend or two sharing the worn couch and the view of the ocean. Today it’s just them. Ollie knows how much Tai values any time they all have together at home. So Ollie won’t leave while they’re hanging out on the deck of their house. Not even to surf.

  Tai’s at the top of the stairs that lead down from the deck. His head is bent over his phone. His shoulders are edged with gold in the sunlight. They’re broad and dark, with an intricate sleeve tattoo down one arm; its Samoan ocean and sky symbolism is as familiar to Ollie as his own skin. Sand clings to Tai’s back. He’s near enough to Ollie that Ollie considers reaching out a hand to brush it off.

  Tai turns his head and meets Ollie’s gaze. He gives a flash of a smile, then goes back to his phone. The muscles in his back shift as he bows his head. Ollie peers over his shoulder at the tiny screen, but from where he is he can’t read what any of it says. He exhales. It’ll be okay. Tai’s got this. He’ll tell Ollie if he reads anything that matters.

  “Guys,” Sunny says to everyone and to no one in particular. She looks up from the book in her lap, squints into the sun, and shakes her hair from her eyes. She’s bleached it and dyed its usual black a copper
y sea green. It’s weird: choppy and rough. But Sunny cut it herself, and she’s proud of it. She tends to know what she wants. “Mom and Samuel are desperate to get us over to their place for lunch this weekend. I’m pretty sure Mom’s spent the entire week making lumpia and building a fire pit for some poor pig. They’re under the impression that we need feeding.” Sunny leans back against the wall of the house. Her legs are splayed out on the warm wood. They stretch brown and curved and comfortable in front of her.

  Ollie keeps counting the waves in their long, almost parallel sets, but he considers what she’s said. Sunny’s mom, Mrs. Castillo, is right. The Blue House fridge is mostly filled up with soda. The last time he opened the cupboard they had ramen noodles, rice crackers, and some mac and cheese in boxes. Even Tai and Hannah can’t make a decent meal out of that.

  “I like the stuff we eat,” says Jaime from the swing seat on the deck. He perches cross-legged as the seat rocks back and forth. Hannah’s beside him on the swing, with Hannah’s guitar between them.

  “Of course you do, James baby,” says Sunny, no-nonsense. She grins at him to take out the sting. “You’ve got no taste. No teenager does, especially if they’ve been half brought up by this bunch of savages.” She waves to indicate the rest of them. “But seriously, you can’t tell me you don’t like what my mom cooks more than anything we have in the house. Don’t you remember the feast she pulled together when you turned sixteen?”

  “Yeah, okay.” Jaime says with a shrug and a nod. “You’ve got a point.” He pulls his phone from his pocket and glances at it. Ollie has no idea what he’s reading. Messages from friends? Some new girlfriend Ollie hasn’t heard about yet? Ollie bites his lip and frowns. He’s pretty sure it’s one of his jobs as older brother to know the people Jaime’s talking to. Tai probably knows all about it.

  Hannah speaks up in her low voice. “Your mama’s food’s amazing, Sun. If she wants visitors, tell her yes from me, any day.” She leans back in the chair. It rocks back and forth. She’s probably imagining the perfect meal.

  Not for the first time, Ollie wonders whether Hannah feels left out of their shared childhood. Ollie, Jaime and Tai spent years pushing their dripping, sandy way into Sunny’s kitchen at the right time of day so they could devour Mrs. Castillo’s chicken and rice or beef mechado. Not that Mrs. Castillo minded. She seemed to know when they’d be there. Something was always simmering on the stove and almost ready, “If you wait five minutes, sweeties.”

  Hannah wasn’t part of that. Her parents split and her mother moved from the Big Island during Hannah’s senior year, after the rest of them had spent a couple of years growing up while chasing the perfect meal and the perfect wave.

  The four of them were already housemates then, in a hole of an apartment back behind the gas station—Tai slept on a pull-out bed in the living room, Sunny squeezed into the sunroom, and Ollie and Jaime irritably shared the only real bedroom. When Hannah started at their school, she was drawn in among them—Samoan like Tai, connected to them all by her surfboard and her guitar. She spent that first year sharing chili in their living room or spread out on the floor with Sunny, chatting about books and TV shows and surfboards. She was always there; she started smiling more often. So that then, when the Blue House came up for rent, run-down, but with four and a half bedrooms and a living room that opened right up onto the beach, Hannah moved in too. She fit as if she’d been there the whole time.

  Hannah pushes the swing seat back. It swings, but creaks in protest. Sunny turns back to her book.

  An SUV pulls up onto the grass outside, surfboards tied fast to the roof racks. The driver leans out his window. “Good evening, Blue House,” he calls up to them. He’s part of the older crew, a Japanese guy, an ex-banker or lawyer or money person. He’s one of the guys who gave up the rat race back home, bought his North Shore dream house and now spends all his time out on the surf or talking over a beer or shaved ice with the locals.

  Ollie raises a hand in acknowledgment.

  Tai leans out. “I’ll have that board for you to look at tomorrow, Tadashi,” he says. “It’s a good one, man. You’ll be happy.”

  Ollie agrees. He’s seen Tai’s latest board. It is beautiful. Ollie rides a similar short one Tai made for him a year or two back. It carves through even whitewater like butter and pivots neatly under his feet. It’s almost magic.

  “Thanks, Tai,” Tadashi says from the car. “I’m certain I will be. I’ll come by in the afternoon, yes?”

  “Sure thing. I’m on at the café, so make it any time after about three.”

  The guy waves as he accelerates out of the parking lot and away from the beach.

  “That board’s a piece of art, Tai.” Ollie worries his thumbnail with his teeth. “I hope this guy appreciates it.”

  “He does. He does.” Tai nods. “Don’t get stressed about Tadashi. He’s one of the good ones.”

  Ollie’s still dubious. After all, Tai’s nice about everyone. His boards are special. They should be taken seriously. Ollie’s ridden them ever since Tai first shaped one. Even the earliest boards were pretty decent. Now they’re amazing. Each one is unique. They all have their own individual style, some with more drive, some glassy smooth on the waves, but every single one is sweet and amazingly responsive. They do precisely what Ollie’s body tells them to do. Ollie could never blame his board for a single one of his failures in the surf.

  On the swing seat, Jaime wraps one slim arm around Hannah’s guitar. He plays a tuneless rhythm, which doesn’t fit with either the crash of the waves or the regular, irritating, un-oiled squeal of the swing as it moves back and forth. He’s awful. He strums enthusiastically and messes up a chord entirely. Hannah laughs, low and mostly kind, and shows him the chord again.

  Ollie can’t laugh it off, though. He’s already tense, and the noise grates on him. He tries to count the waves, but it’s hard to focus on their rhythm when Jaime’s like this. The noise is painful.

  “Hey. Can you cut that out?” Ollie says at last. His voice comes out pinched. He always sounds peeved when it comes to Jaime. He goes on, “I’m pretty sure that guitar hates you. Along with any living thing within a mile radius.”

  Whatever, it’s his job to be annoyed. Jaime’s his little brother. The kid has no focus; he messes around and chats endlessly. He’s nothing like Ollie, really, and everyone loves him. If it weren’t for the pale, freckled skin and white-blond hair he and Ollie shared with their mother, they might both have found a way to deny the relationship years ago.

  “I’m getting way better,” says Jaime. “If you got your head out of your sandy asshole for a second, you’d know that.” He takes a breath and winds up to say more. “Now that you’re surfing again, I thought your filthy mood might improve. Guess I was thinking of someone else’s brother.”

  He plays more loudly, misses a chord again, and thumps the heel of his hand against the guitar body.

  “Oh, come on,” says Ollie through his teeth. He’s stung, but he keeps his voice pretty firmly under control.

  “Fuck off, Ollie.” Jaime’s chin is thrust forward.

  “Jaime,” Ollie tries again, as though this time the kid might listen, which is increasingly hard to imagine. It hasn’t happened in five years, not since their mother died.

  “Guys, cool it,” says Tai. He doesn’t move to look at them. He never misses much, especially when Ollie’s involved. “Ollie, whatever you say about the guitar, the kid’s still better with it than you are.”

  “Hey,” Ollie protests. But he’s going through the motions. It’s not as if Tai’s wrong. “Whatever, dude. At least I don’t force everyone to listen to me make that kind of noise.”

  “That’s just ‘cause you avoid doing anything you’re not immediately best in the world at,” Tai says. Ollie frowns and looks away. Being known so well is both a blessing and a curse.

  Tai turns back to his phone. He
reads, then freezes. Ollie leans closer and eyes Tai. “Take a look at your email.” Tai keeps his voice low, but tension and anticipation struggle in it. He looks up at Ollie. “Seems like the surf league’s sent out the wildcard invites.”

  Their eyes meet for a quick, electric moment. Ollie breaks the glance. They hope for too much.

  “Okay,” he murmurs. He pulls his phone from his pocket with slightly shaking hands. He breathes steadily and ignores the quick thud-thud thud-thud of his heart. Tai is still, watching.

  And there it is in his inbox: a new message from the World Surf League. Ollie’s eyes skim over it.

  “Greetings from the North Shore of Oahu, where the sun is shining and the pipe is turning. Oliver Birkstrom, you’re invited to compete in the Banzai Pipe Masters wildcard trial round which will occur in the week starting…”

  Ollie leans against the rail and exhales shakily. He’s in. Well, he’s got a chance to be in. He’s one of sixteen Hawaiian surfers invited to compete for the two wildcard spaces in the Pipe Masters this year. He’s made it this first step.

  Two years ago, he wouldn’t have had to fight for this spot. At nineteen and twenty, Ollie was one of the golden boys of the surfing world. He had two Junior Surf Masters titles. Freesurf and Stab Magazine had done profiles on him. He had an agent named Paul and was talking sponsorship with a couple of the surfboard companies.

  Back then he’d have been in this competition automatically, all on his own merits.

  But after the injury and a year and a half of poor showings, things were different. Tai spent hours on the phone, telling various World Surf League bureaucrats that Ollie deserved another shot, was good to go, was in the zone, was going to show. He said they had nothing to worry about, that his ankle injury was a thing of the past, that Ollie Birkstrom, the surfer they all remembered from two years ago, was back.

  Listening to Tai talk on his behalf was humbling. Ollie paced. He couldn’t watch. He chewed his lips and came close to telling Tai to hang up and let the whole thing go. But he didn’t. Because beneath the humiliation of it all, Ollie still desperately wanted this second chance.