The Truth About Sex & Surfing [Featured Story]

Chapter three

BEN OWNS A HAIR STRAIGHTENER THAT HE USES ON HIS OWN HAIR, Hailey scrawled on her Qantas napkin. HE DENIES OWNING IT TOO. SAYS HIS HAIR IS NATURALLY STRAIGHT. IT ISN'T.

She'd adopted his all-caps style, or maybe she'd written it that way because they were all-caps sorts of facts. Something had shifted in her, like the books thunking around in her suitcase. Now that she was 30,000 feet up in the air and there was no going back, Hailey could admit things to herself, like all the ways that Ben sucked and they'd been incompatible. She could recognize the bad omens, the queasy indications that there was never going to be a wedding or a baby or even a three-year anniversary dinner. The funny thing was, realizing their relationship had probably been doomed all along didn't make her feel any less devastated.

HE HATES THE DELI AND KARAOKE. AT THE LAST MINUTE HE SKIPPED MY GRADUATION DINNER AND I HAD TO MAKE A DUMB EXCUSE FOR HIM THAT EVERYONE COULD SEE THROUGH.

Only her overhead light was turned on, shining down on the greasy tray table. She stared at the napkin and what she'd written, trying to sear the facts into some part of herself where they could make a difference. It didn't help. The airplane air was dry, like being without atmosphere, and with every other passenger asleep, she'd never felt more alone in her whole life. Her face was flushing hot, in the very act of crumpling. Her mouth was screwing up tight and her eyes were burning.

Without meaning to, she let out a snotty, strangled sob. Then another and another.

A groggy voice came from an aisle away. "Damn it. Can't somebody shut that baby up?"

By the time Hailey's plane landed, she hadn't slept in twenty-four hours and her eyes were nearly swollen shut, but she managed to get off the plane, change some American dollars for the pink local bills, and buy a couple of postcards and a Diet Coke. Then she went outside into the Australian air to get a taxi.

The sunlight was blinding – everything was too vivid, too fresh, too bright.

"Which hotel are you staying in, love?" The driver asked. The gentleness in his tone let Hailey know that he'd noticed her blotchy, puffy face.

"Actually, can you just take me to the Dylan Shane School of Surf?" If she didn't sign up for lessons right away, she knew she never would. No matter what her face looked like.

Outside the car window, along the side of the road, scrubby bushes clustered and palm trees swayed, the leaves slapping together. She watched low buildings give way to high rises, blue ocean sparkling in the gaps between them.

Coming here had been a terrible mistake. Her stomach twisted with dread.

Finally the taxi jerked to a stop. That kind voice again: "That's it right there, love."

Hailey passed him some of the colored bills and mumbled her thanks. To her right, just across the road, was boardwalk, and beyond that, a vast expanse of white-gold sand and surf that was, every moment, crashing and building back up again. The breaks were dotted with surfers, and the reflection of the sun on the water was so dazzling she had to squint. So this was Surfers Paradise, perfect as advertised. It was like being inside a screensaver. Or a beer commercial.

In her mind, she pictured Kate Bosworth, then tried to summon the image of herself as a surfer. Who was she kidding? It would never happen. She didn't have the energy, much less the skills. The only thing she really wanted to do was eat a bunch of carbs and sleep for one million years. She tugged open the car door and jerked her rolling suitcase out behind her.

Car horns erupted all around. A convertible whooshed past her, the driver yelling even louder than the blaring radio.

Suddenly a hand gripped Hailey's elbow. "We don't exit on the right, darling. What you want's here on the left."