Sugar and Spice

Jay Dawson, Professor of Surfology: Jay

I was leaning against the hood of the Honda, a thermos of lukewarm coffee in my hand, and the sound of the Gulf filling the silence of the dawn. The air was cool, smelling of brine and damp sand while the sky was a bruised palette of deep indigo and soft pink.

I’d been here since 4:30. I wasn’t even sure she’d show. A girl like Mallory — a girl who lived by the clock and a spreadsheet — didn’t usually find herself in a dark parking lot to meet a guy like me.

But then the blue Subaru pulled into the parking lot.

The engine cut out, and for a second, neither of us moved. I pushed off the hood as she stepped out of the car. She looked small against the back drop of the massive park. She wore a white sundress, her hair tied back in a messy ponytail, and she looked softer than I’d ever seen her before. No server blacks. No armored posture.

“You actually came,” I said, a grin tugging at my lips.

“I’m a scientist, Jay. I couldn’t pass up the chance for an experiment,” she replied, her voice lacking its usual clinical edge. She was actually making a joke. Her eyes fixed on the two boards that were leaning against my trunk. “So that’s the… equipment?” she asked, a hint of nerves creeping into her voice as she placed a neatly folded towel on the roof of her car.

“The tools of the trade.” I patted the larger, foam-top longboard. “This is ‘Old Reliable.’ It’s stable, forgiving, and nearly impossible to sink. Perfect for beginners and physicists.”

She looked out at the water. The waves were small today, gentle rollers that crumbled into white foam as they hit the sand. “It looks… big.”

“The ocean or the board?”

“Both.”

“Don’t worry,” I grinned again as I reached for the wax. “The Ground Crew is on duty.”

She nodded, then hesitated. She reached for the hem of her sundress. I didn’t think much of it until she pulled the fabric over her head in one fluid motion, letting it fall onto the driver’s seat of her car.

The breath died in my throat.

She was standing there in a simple, dark green bikini that made her eyes look like the deep water past the sandbar. The water that gave this town its name.

I’d seen a thousand girls in bikinis before, but this was different. This was Mallory. This was the girl who usually kept every inch of herself tucked behind a crisp button down and a heavy apron.

She looked athletic. Her skin was pale and soft looking in the early light. Her stomach was flat and her legs were long. She looked… real. My heart, which usually had a pretty steady rhythm when it came to girls, did a sudden, violent kick against my ribs.

I realized I was staring, and tried to force my eyes back to the surfboard. My hands suddenly felt clumsy as I gripped the wax.

“Everything okay, Jay?” she asked, a hint of a blush creeped across her chest, up her neck, and into her cheeks as she realized the effect she was having.

“Yeah.” My voice came out a little lower than I intended, and I cleared my throat. “Just… uh… checking the wax. Very important.”

I risked another glance. She’d shut the door and was now holding her towel in front of her as she looked out at the surf. There was a mix of awe and terror on her face. She was so far out of her element, and yet she was here. She’d chosen to be here. With me.

“Ready to learn how to fall?” I asked, finally finding my footing again.

She looked at me, and for the first time, there was no notepad or tablet in between us. No shift to finish. No money to count. “I’m ready.”

I grabbed the boards, and we headed for the dunes. The sand was cool beneath my feet. “First rule of the ocean, Mal: The water always wins. So don’t fight it. You gotta learn how to dance with it.”

I stopped just before the water’s edge and placed the boards in the sand. I looked back at her in the morning light, and realized I was in deep. This wasn’t just a “transition” or a “shadow” project anymore.

“Okay,” I swallowed. My voice was still a little rough. “Before we get wet, we have to do a dry run. It’s all about muscle memory. You can’t calculate a pop-up, Mallory. You just have to do it.”

She stood at the tail of the board, looking at it like it was a complex piece of machinery she didn’t have the manual for. “Walk me through the mechanics.”

“Lay down,” I instructed.

She hesitated for a second, then lowered herself down onto the board. Seeing her stretched out like that — the curve of her back, the way the green of her bikini contrasted with the white sand — wasn’t helping my concentration. I knelt down beside the board, close enough that I could see the tiny grains of sand already sticking to her skin.

“Your center of gravity is everything,” I continued, trying to sound like an instructor and not the guy who was currently forgetting how to breathe. “Arch your back. Look at the horizon, not the board. If you look down, you go down.”

I reached out, my hand hovering for a split second before I adjusted her positioning. I placed my hand on the small of her back to guide her. “Chest up, hands flat on the board, right under your ribs. No gripping the rails, that’s how you tip.”

She did exactly as I said, her movements precise but stiff. Calculated. She was thinking too hard. I could practically see the equations running through her head.

“Now, the pop-up. In one motion, you’re going to push off with your arms and swing your feet under you. Lead foot forward, back foot at a slight angle. Like a fencer.”

“On three?” she asked, her eyes locked on the dunes.

“On three,” I nodded. “One, two… three!”

She lunged upward. It wasn’t graceful. It was more of a frantic scramble. She was standing, but her feet were too close together and her knees were locked tight. She wobbled immediately, her arms windmilling as she stumbled and stepped off the board.

I caught her by the elbow, pulling her back towards me. For a second, she was pressed right against my chest. Her skin was cool from the morning air, but she radiated nervous heat.

“Friction coefficient was too low,” she gasped, her face inches from mine. A breathless laugh escaped her.

“No,” I smiled, not letting go of her arm just yet. “You were just trying to control the landing before you even took off. You have to trust that the board wants to stay under you.”

“It’s hard to trust things I can’t measure, Jay.”

“Then measure this,” I said, my voice dropping. I moved my hand from her arm and motioned at the board. I showed her the stance. “The board is seven feet long. The wave is moving at roughly ten miles an hour. The only thing that matters is the space between your feet and the deck. Stay loose. Bend your knees. Think of it like… like the tray carry. If you’re too rigid, the water wins.”

She took a breath, her chest rising and falling. Then she nodded. “Again.”

We did it five more times. By the fifth, she wasn’t scrambling anymore. She was moving with a fluid, athletic grace that she’d kept hidden under those server blacks. When she finally stuck the landing, standing perfectly balanced in the center of the board, she let out a shriek of pure, unadulterated joy.

“I did it! Jay, look! I’m balanced!”

She turned to look at me, her face glowing with the kind of victory that had nothing to do with a spreadsheet. She looked radiant. Before I knew what I was doing, I was laughing with her. I reached out to high five her, only for her to grab my hand and pull me into a lopsided, sandy hug.

The air felt electric. The sun finally broke over the horizon, turning the spray of the waves into sparkling gold. “Ready for the real thing?” I asked, my heart still hammering against her shoulder.

She pulled back, her eyes shining. “Let’s get in the water.”