Then tore it apart in the water.
Yeah, laugh all you want, boys—call him “guru,” “swami,” do your best George Harrison imitations—he’s tearing your
out in the surf. He gets any wave he wants, finds the perfect line, and
it with a grace and pure athleticism you can only dream about, and that old man can do it to you all day long.
Boone treads water, looks at the beach, remembers, and laughs.
Recalls the day when Sunny joined K2 in his yoga session. She strode up, laid her mat beside his, and started to copy his moves. He didn’t say anything, just smiled and kept going through his routine, and now the boys were really watching because this babe was putting herself through these contortions and it was, uhhh, compelling. Like, no one was
going to watch that, and then one of the dudes joined in to get next to Sunny, and then a few more, and it wasn’t long before K2 had a yoga class going on the beach.
Not for Boone—he did his workouts in the water—but Sunny was a devotee, totally aware that K2 was a father figure to her. Sunny’s own dad split when she was three, and she was totally open about the fact that she always wanted a dad.
“Basic psychology,” she told Boone during one of their training sessions. “I want to stay aware of it so I don’t do the stereotypical thing of trying to get the love I didn’t get from my father from my boyfriend.”
Which is a good thing, Boone thought, because he was her boyfriend at the time. So it was perfect when Sunny made her yoga hookup with K2.
“It’s almost better than having a real father,” she told Boone.
“How so?”
“Because I’m choosing my father figure,” she answered, “so I can look for all the qualities I want in a father instead of having to settle for whatever my real father was.”
“Got it.”
So did K2.
He was so cool about it. It didn’t freak him out, he never talked about it, never came close to doing that creepy “You can call me Daddy, daughter” thing. He just kept on being himself—kind, gentle, wise, and open.
All the qualities you’d want in a father.
Anyway, Sunny had her grandmother, Evelyn, and her father figure, K2, and her own package of DNA, and self-reliance, and a love for the ocean, so she never became the neurotic fucked-up SoCal broken family girl who careens around for love and ends up creating another generation of fucked-up SoCal broken family girls.
She became a great surfer instead.
A great lover and then a great friend.
He remembers that night on the beach. Low tide and deep fog, and him and her under the pier, making love with the water washing over them. Her long, sleek neck tasted like salt, her hands were firm on his back, her long, strong legs pushed him deeper into her.
After, they wrapped up in a blanket together and listened to the sound of the small waves slapping the pylons, and talked about their lives, what they wanted, what they didn’t, and they just talked bullshit and made each other laugh.
Boone misses her.
He swims over, gets on his board, sits up, and looks at the beach.
No less than the water itself, the beach is a place of memories.
Stand on it, you look out at the ocean and remember certain waves, awesome rides, bad wipeouts, hysterical conversations, great times. Sit off it and look back and you remember lying around talking, you remember volleyball games and cookouts, your memory makes it night instead of day and you remember bonfires, pulling on sweatshirts against the cold, guitars and ukuleles and quiet talks.
Now he remembers a talk he had with K2.
They were sitting a little away from the fire, listening to someone strum “Kuhio Bay” on the uke, when K2 said, “The secret of life . . .”
He paused and then added, “. . .
”—because he liked to make fun of his status as a local guru—“is to do the right things, big or small, one after the other after the other.”
Boone had just returned to the surf and the beach after months of self-imposed isolation following the Rain Sweeny case. He’d quit the force, laid on Sunny’s sofa until she booted him out, then hid in his own place feeling sorry for himself.
Now he was back and it was only Sunny, his now ex, who knew that he wasn’t fully back. Sunny and, it seemed, K2.
Who just said that and left it there for Boone to pick up or not.
But they both knew what he meant:
You did the right thing.
Now, will you keep doing it?
Yeah, K, Boone thinks, watching the beach change from the night of his memory to the harsh sunlight of an August day, but what’s the right thing?
Shit, K.
67
Boone goes to Starbucks.
Which doesn’t happen very often.
It’s not like he’s some sort of antiglobalization, antifranchise freak, it’s just that he gets his coffee at The Sundowner and pretty much leaves it at that. Like, Boone could probably distinguish between Kenya AA and root beer, but that’s about it.
Anyway, he goes, and endures the skepticism that results from his order of a “medium black coffee.”
“You want an Americano grande,” the barista asks him.
“A medium black coffee.”
“Grande.”
“Medium,” Boone says, gesturing to the cups. “The size between large and small.”
“That’s a grande.”
“There we go.”
“Your name?” the barista asks.
“My name?”
“So we can call you.”
“For what?”
“For when your Americano grande is ready.”
“I thought you’d just pour it.”
“We have to make it,” the barista says. “Then we’ll call you.”
“Boone.”
“Boo?”
“Just use Daniels.”
