Girl Out of Water(33)

“Who?” I ask.

“Cara-Beth Burnside?” He stares at me as if I’m from another planet. “A pioneer of women’s skateboarding and snowboarding? Anise, my new friend, I demand you go home tonight and watch her Villa Villa Cola footage.”

Her Villa Villa what? “I’m sure she’s not that famous. I mean, have you ever heard of Conner Coffin or Malia Manuel?” I rattle off the names of a couple of my favorite surfers.

“Actually, I have. Not all of us obsess over a single sport. I spread my ESPN time around. Perhaps you should try the same.”

See, that doesn’t make any sense to me. Why spend small chunks of time on a dozen sports when you can spend all your time on the best sport of all? I’m not saying all sports besides surfing are terrible—they’re just terrible in comparison to surfing.

“So.” I shift my balance and place one foot on my skateboard, rolling it back and forth a few inches. “How are we actually competing?”

“I was thinking we each make three laps around the perimeter of the skate park, finagle in as many tricks as we can, and we let the boys judge who’s better.”

“Did you really just say finagle?” I ask.

“Finagle is a great word,” he says.

“It’s a weird word.”

“Weird and great aren’t antonyms.”

I narrow my eyes but don’t respond. “Don’t two cousins against one brother make the judging a little biased in my favor?”

Lincoln smiles. “Ah yes, but I’m betting on the fact that I’m still better than you.”

His smugness is infuriating, particularly because it reminds me of my own smugness and its quickly evaporating quantity. Back home I’m nothing but confident. Here, I’m stuck on concrete ground, but it doesn’t feel very solid.

“Ladies first?” Lincoln asks.

“Isn’t that a bit sexist?”

“I was going for polite, but we can go with ‘losers first’ if you’d prefer that.”

I roll my eyes. “So much better, thank you.”

“Guys!” Lincoln snaps his fingers and cuts off the boys’ chatter midsentence. “We’re about to start.” Then he turns to the benches and waves at Emery. “Come join the judging!”

“Come on, three against one,” I say. “Now that’s really biased.”

It turns out not to matter. Instead of coming over, Emery pulls her giant headphones out of her backpack and shoves them over her ears. I hope I’m doing the right thing by giving her space. One glance at the ever-eager Parker and Nash tells me I’m at least doing something right for two of my cousins.

“Okay, let’s get this over with.”

“Good luck!” Parker and Nash chorus.

Lincoln and Austin wish me luck too, which is nice of them but also a little useless.

Despite skating all the way to the park, I hesitate before getting back onto my board. I’m nervous my unease will show in front of everyone, or worse, my body will betray me in some spectacularly embarrassing way. But walking over to the wall would be embarrassing too, so I take two short breaths and one long one and then jump on the board.

My ride to the far side of the park is seamless. So far so good.

“Ready?” I call to everyone. Parker and Nash are standing on top of a table to best view my humiliation, and Lincoln and Austin stand on the ground in front of them.

“Ready!” they all scream.

“Okay!” I call back. Then a few seconds pass, and I say, “Okay,” again because I still haven’t started moving. A few seconds later I say, “Okay,” again, and then I realize I should probably be skating and not talking since this is a skating competition and not a how-many-times-can-you-say-okay-in-one-minute competition.

“Come on, Anise!” Emery shouts. I smile at her voice.

I kick the ground hard and rocket down the first leg of the course. As I rush across the park, I thank the gods for whatever athletic aptitude they’ve bestowed upon me because I don’t fall or waver. Some stiffness eases from my muscles. Maybe I’m not going to make a complete fool of myself.

I finish the first lap quickly, wind rushing through my hair, ears and eyes pricked and stinging like riding a wave in Santa Cruz. And then, as I’m starting to feel comfortable, I remember that I’m supposed to be doing tricks too and that a dog (literally a dog—I watched the YouTube video) can ride a skateboard. My feet act before my brain and I pop an ollie. The trick is faultless. My board smacks back on the pavement, and I kick off again, barely losing any momentum. So I pop another and another, hearing a whoop of applause and cheering from the table, before gearing down and gaining more speed and confidence with it.

The exhilaration takes over. As I complete my second lap, the concrete under my board feels almost as natural as churning ocean water. And for the first time here, I’m at ease. Near the end of my third lap, it’s time to show how comfortable I truly am. I kick the board into the air. It spins perfectly and effortlessly. Then the board and I both fall to the ground, a cocky grin spreading across my face as I steady my balance with my arms and secure my footing and—WHAM.

I’m on the ground. My bruise-battered ass is defeated and embarrassed because I missed my goddamn footing. My skateboard is half the length of my surfboard, and where I expected board, I only found air. The fall is no worse than the dozens I’ve had all week, yet I’m mortified.