“Look, thanks for your concern...”
“Lo,” the boy supplies helpfully. At my blank look, he clarifies. “Name’s Lo.”
“Well, thanks, Lo. See you around.”
I duck-dive and swim a few lengths underwater before resurfacing several feet away. He hasn’t moved and is still staring at me with those strange dark eyes. Lo shoots another irritatingly white smile in my direction, a knowing grin as if he’s far too used to having that effect on girls. No effect whatsoever on me, of course. I’d been overemotional and caught by surprise.
“Catch you later, then,” he says loudly.
I watch him as he deftly paddles to catch a wave, his body sleek as a seal’s in his wet suit. He rides the wave expertly, skimming along the foamy lip of its crest to curl across its open face and twisting his body like a whip to bring the board up and around.
Lo’s a pretty good surfer, I admit to myself.
Then again, he probably surfs every available hour out of every day like half the other kids carving it up out there. He’s just another boy with a board, and I’ve certainly seen my share of them showing off their tricks, especially living in San Diego. Jenna’s boyfriend, Sawyer, is captain of the surf team at Dover, the reigning state champions. We’d always joked that if she and Sawyer ever had kids, they’d be born All-Star All-Americans just from the gene pool. Jenna likes her boys talented and driven, just as she is. It is one of the reasons I like her so much—she gives everything her all, from sports to studies to her relationships. She never shies away from anything.
Typical surfer-boy bravado aside, for some reason, I can’t tear my eyes away from Lo’s lithe form. He moves as if he is one with the wave, a part of it instead of riding on top of it, in some kind of fluid symmetry. He surfs like how I like to surf, something that Sawyer calls Zen-surfing.
As if sensing my stare, at the very last minute on his final turn, Lo rips backward on his surfboard to make eye contact with me one last time—a look that I can feel even as far away as he is—and winks before somersaulting backward into the surf.
I feel that last glance of his all the way to my toenails. Not even the icy touch of the water can calm the deep flush that tunnels its way through me.
2
CLOUDED WATERS
“Miss Marin, kindly report to Principal Cano’s office.”
Even though all the stares of the students in the room suddenly converge upon me, my second-period Spanish teacher doesn’t look up from the pile of papers on his desk. I shrug, grinning at the kids in the front row, and sport a sneaky thumbs-up to Jenna and Sawyer sitting in the back next to my empty desk. Jenna rolls her eyes in an exaggerated movement as if I’ve just gotten off scot-free from a fate worse than death, but she’s kind of right. Anything’s better than verb conjugations in Spanish class, even if it is facing the resident dragon-lord of Dover Prep.
The outer office is empty except for a familiar face. Cara ignores me, probably because she’s still mad about the match, or it could be that she’s just being Cara. She’s the principal’s niece, so she basically thinks that everyone at Dover is there to be at her beck and call. According to Jenna, the school is divided into Cara peons and Cara crap-ons. I’m definitely in the latter. Cara and I used to be friends—best friends even—but things had ended after a boy she’d liked asked me out, and I’d said yes. Apparently I’d broken a cardinal rule of girlhood, but technically, I didn’t steal anything that didn’t want to be stolen. And then when I took her place as starting striker on the JV team sophomore year, that’d been the clincher.
I shrug and look around. Normally the waiting room has a couple students standing around but it’s empty so I sit after checking in with Cano’s receptionist. Pushing aside the stack of college brochures on the table next to me, I thumb through the only magazine I can find and nearly snort at some of the articles. Flipping through one about “Ten Ways to Talk to Your Teen About Sex,” I can’t stop myself from bursting into laughter despite the immediate quelling look from the receptionist. I can’t imagine any parent who would use a cucumber as a prop in any kind of meaningful conversation.
“What’s so funny?” a voice behind me asks. The smell of salt and sand fills my nostrils, and I swing around. It’s the boy from the beach.
Lo.
He’s wearing a wool hat and black T-shirt with cargos instead of a neoprene hood and wet suit, but those eyes are unforgettable.
I slam the magazine shut, feeling a slow flush crawl up my neck and around the back of my ears. “Stalk much? What are you doing here, anyway?” I snap, noticing the golden sand grains covering his flip-flop-clad feet.
“Not stalking. I’m new here.”
“Sure you are.” Considering he isn’t wearing the Dover Prep required uniform, I’m pretty sure he’s taking me for a ride. I turn my attention back to the magazine, opening its pages and pretending to be absorbed in reading. A low chuckle alerts me to the particularly large headline entitled “Embarrassing Medical Problems.” I feel my skin getting hotter and toss the offending magazine to the table, turning to confront Mr. Nosypants.
“Why don’t you go back to surfing or tanning or whatever it is that you beach boys do?”
Lo smiles. I force myself not to notice that his teeth are whiter than I remember or to acknowledge the tiny response that makes my ears feel like they’re melting into unrecognizable nubs.
“I thought you were watching me surf the other day,” he says with a grin.
“Hardly,” I shoot back with feigned nonchalance. “Couldn’t have picked you out from the lineup of identical surfing doppelgängers if I tried.”
“So that wasn’t you out beyond the breakers staring at me like I was a frosted cherry smoothie?” Lo’s smile turns impish.
“What?” I splutter. “I was so not. I hate cherry.” I can’t exactly control the flush that seeps through my skin. I snap my lips shut, aware that I’ll only make it worse if I say anything more, especially in response to that annoying, knowing look on his face.
“Hi, Lo,” Cara says in a breathy voice, walking past us on her way out of the office. “Nice to see you again.” Once more, it’s as if I’m invisible, but no surprise there. Lo has obviously qualified for the peon list. I snort and turn back to studying the other brochures on the table before selecting one on making informed college choices.
“Hey, Cara,” Lo says to her with a smile that could melt butter, and then stands to move past her and sit in the empty seat next to me. With a death glare in my direction as if his actions are somehow my fault, Cara tosses her hair and stalks off. “So what’s your name?” he asks me.
Despite giving him immediate brownie points for blowing off Cara, I’m still trying to think of a snarky comeback in return for his earlier comment. Just then Principal Cano himself walks out of his office. He heads over to his assistant, holding a file in his hand. Cano is a tall swarthy, stern-looking man whose presence will make any classroom fall into immediate silence. It’s no different in the office. Well, except for Lo.
He stifles a laugh and whispers against my ear, “That guy is a dead ringer for Borat. If he has an accent, I think I’ll die.”
“Shut
