adoption coming up, three potential birth mothers, and she wants to make some visual aids, photo collages, for her Prospective Parents presentation. Chloe wishes she had brought a pad of paper to jot down ideas.
“Look at that wind, girlie!” Dan grabs her shoulders, steers her body toward the horizon, points out to the trees on the point, bowing under a gust, the flag next to them cracking now. She can feel the excitement, an electricity in the muscles of his shoulders. “It’s not steady yet, but I’ll take it!” All this for wind—she wishes she felt it too.
While Dan whoops off to get his gear, Chloe wades into the shallow water of the cove where Jesper’s next lesson is starting and pees, tries to surreptitiously wriggle the sand out of the bottom of her bathing suit.
“Chloe!” Jesper calls. “I have an extra rig, if you want to practice. No charge.”
“Oh…” Chloe looks out at the water; the wind is picking up, whipping it into little white peaks, the kind you try to achieve in a mixing bowl when making meringues. They look like nothing from the shore, but Chloe knows once she is on a board she will feel like a weak-kneed lumberjack on a rolling log.
Jesper wades to her, casting a glance over at his next batch of hapless students.
“You live here?”
“Uh, no. My boyfriend wants to.” She looks toward the beach, where Dan is unrolling his kite. “He wants to start a kiteboarding business.”
Jesper inclines his head, smiles indulgently, and says, “Ahhh. Him and everyone else on this lava rock.” Chloe takes this as a sign. Thank god, it won’t work out; Dan will come back to Portland, to their life.
“You know what your problem is, if I may?” Jesper says, and for a moment she is stricken, afraid of what he will say, until she realizes he is just a middle-aged windsurfing instructor who has only known her for ninety minutes.
“Let me guess; I’m not strong enough, right?”
“No. You are fine, plenty strong.” Jesper takes her upper arms in his callused hands, shakes them out like a wet blanket. “Your problem is that you are fighting nature.” Jesper nods sagely and smiles again as he says, “And, Chloe, you will never win against the wind.”
24
Where and When
PENNY
“I don’t give a fuck, yeah, road crew, whatever. I’ll turn a fucking sign. Just tell me where and when.”
Jason’s voice could wake the dead, Penny thinks as she wanders out of the bedroom. Brandi is spread out on the couch watching TV with her hair in a towel, stinking of fake flowers. Bitch carries all her products to and from the bathroom too, then puts them back in her suitcase, like she’s afraid Penny would be using her stuff. All a girl needs is some Dial soap, a Daisy razor, and some basic shampoo—do a little time, and you learn that everything else is just gravy. Clean’s clean.
Jason is pacing around the kitchen with Brandi’s pink cell phone. He meets her eyes with a question, like he’s testing the waters. Has she been that bad lately? She gives him a half-smile, trails her hand over his lower back when she passes him to get to the fridge, where of course there’s no orange juice. Jason covers the mouthpiece, leans over her shoulder, and says, “I’ll run to McDonald’s and get us a coffee.” His breath smells like cigarettes and toothpaste, familiar, and she rubs her cheek on his shoulder, jerks back when the pressure hurts another pus mound forming on her jawbone. Jesus, her skin, what Buddy did to her.
“Tell him I’ll turn a sign! I don’t give a shit. Just tell me where and when. Yeah, hang on, she’s right here.”
Jason crosses the room, drops the phone on Brandi’s skinny stomach, and walks away.
“’Morning,” he says, and he sounds so hopeful she wants to be better today. She wants to not start after him right away, but she can’t help it. Penny pulls a section of her cheek in between her back molars, on the good side, and holds it there. “Lisle’s talking to his boss again. Seeing if he can get me in on the project. Says I have to prove myself, pass a piss test, work the road crew on their project halfway to Bend, but he says I might be able to ride out with him next week.”
She can tell he’s blowing it up, making up what he hopes will happen, but okay. Before, every crumb