Baja Zuma

Chapter 1

KATHERINE'S P.O.V.

"Recordati vero sunt discipuli..."

I wish I had paid more attention to my homeschool Latin back in the day. Up on the hardwood lectern the priest at Our Lady of Malibu seemed to be speaking on cleansing the temple, but with my limited Latin vocabulary I couldn't absorb the message in detail. And then too, my mind kept drifting to something that happened the day before, a Saturday where Amy and I had gone to the Pavilion shopping center on the Pacific Coast Highway to see if they had anything worth purchasing.

"... et tu tribus diebus..."

There was a trail through undeveloped land, heading southward from the parking lot toward the ocean, and I had always wondered if it made it all the way to salt water. Amy was curious too, so the two of us, empty-handed after deciding there was nothing we really wanted to buy in the shops, set off on foot. My goodness, the bugs! I was swatting them off me as we brushed past the manzanita branches and tall mustard weed, heading down the steep part of the promontory that the Pacific Coast Highway wasn't brave enough to traverse directly, its lanes swinging out away from the coastline instead. "Andesite-dacite breccia"—I'm thinking that's what my brother Alex, an amateur geologist, would have insisted on calling the gray lobe of Point Dume under our feet had he had been with us yesterday.

"... et quia opus..."

At least there had been no rattlesnakes coiled on the trail. A thousand paces farther along and a dozen clinging bugs later we could hear the sound of the surf, and we could smell the briny water. Zuma Beach on the north edge of Point Dume was a pretty regular hangout for me, but this more southerly part of Point Dume was terra incognita. "Baja Zuma" I shall christen it, Spanish for Lower Zuma.

We two began to see swatches of beach sand ahead, through the wild growth. We paused on the trail when we heard echoing voices from the direction of the beach. A loose cluster of a half-dozen people walked aimlessly on the flat sand. Oddly it appeared to me that they all had on matching flesh-colored swimsuits.

I heard Amy draw a quick breath and whisper, "Um, Kath, those people are naked."

I squinted, not having brought my driving glasses. "Are you sure?" I asked.

Amy giggled machine-gun fashion, muffling the sound by placing her hand over her mouth. "Yes I'm sure."

"In February? It's kinda cold."

"They seem to be handling the cold okay."

As we stood there open-mouthed, Amy pointed out a particular one of the guys, wearing his hat on backward—and nothing else. "Whoa, I think that one over there is Paul."

"Paul who?"

"I don't know his last name. He is a guitarist in that throwback band I've seen a few times, the Plattertones. You know, the band that plays oldies songs, like Everly Brothers stuff. When he steps up to the microphone to harmonize on that chorus where they sing, 'Never knew what I missed until I kissed you,' he always locks eyes with me, like I am the only person in the audience. I know it's him!"

We people-watched from our hidden spot on the quiet trail for half an hour. With a silent nod to one another, we turned to trek back up to the shopping center where my car was parked. Was our heavy breathing from the physical exertion alone? Or were we aroused by what we had witnessed?

"... quia in Deo sunt facta."

Amen Father, I mouthed silently. Forgive me my wandering mind.