Aquarius Falling

Chapter 14

“Scandal? I don’t know anything about that. Anyway, the hotel is the biggest and best in Ocean City. I’ve never been in it, though. And it’s so far from town that it’s hard to believe we’re still in Ocean City. Heck, we’re almost to Delaware.” 

“OK, you were saying you like them better that the Beach Boys?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah, way better.”

“But you’re a surfer girl. Don’t you like the Beach Boys’ surf music?”

“Surf music is not the point,” she argued. “Don’t you like the Beatles?”

“They’re OK, but they’re not as good as the Beach Boys. In fact, I don’t think they’re the best British band.”

“Oh? Who’s better?”

“Dave Clark Five.”

“Oh, yeah, the DC 5 and ‘Glad All Over,’ better than the Beatles…right! No point in arguing with you. I give up. Thankfully we’re here and I don’t have to continue this absurd argument with you,” she said as she steered the Jeep into some dunes. “There’s the watchtower I told you about.”

Rising above the green scrub bushes and dunes was a medieval-looking gray concrete silo structure that stood fifty feet tall with two horizontal slits near the top for viewing. We got out of the Jeep, and Wendy pulled her surfboard out of the back. I attempted to carry it for her, but her smiling response was, “Get outta here. I got it. It’s my stick and I’ll carry it.”

We walked up to the tower and looked into the ground floor opening. There was debris from a fire someone had built, empty beer cans, and graffiti on the walls. A spiral staircase led to the top observation deck, but the stairs had long since been cut off about halfway from the top, presumably so no one would go to the top and fall off in a drunken stupor.

“This was an observation tower during World War II. Volunteers would man it twenty-four hours a day looking for German submarines. I guess they were afraid the Germans would pick Bethany Beach to invade us. I don’t know.”

“Whatever. It’s still pretty neat.”

I thought about the men who had manned this watchtower staring out at the horizon, looking and waiting—how cold they would have been in the winter, how harsh it would have been during a nor’easter when rain off the ocean would pelt its way through the lookout slots.

“Did they ever see a U-boat?”

“I don’t know. Come on. Time for you to learn to surf.”

We walked to down to the beach about twenty feet from where the foam of the surf was ending, and Wendy laid down her long surfboard.

“Aren’t we going in the water?” I asked.

“First you need to learn how to stand up on the board. You can learn that on dry ground better than on the water. Here, lie down like this.”

Wendy demonstrated by lying facedown on her board with her feet nearer the back. She was so small, she didn’t cover half the board.

“Bring your hands back close to your ribs, and raise your chin and chest. Then in one motion, your left foot replaces your belly button on the board. Like this.” 

As quick as a cat, she was on her feet with her left foot leading and pointing at a forty-five-degree angle while her right foot in back pointed at a ninety-degree angle. Her knees were flexed, head and arms pointing forward. 

“OK, now you try it.”

“Wait. Let me see you do that again—only do it slower this time.”

“No. I can’t do it slower. You have to be quick.”

“Please do it again.”

She repeated the demonstration, and then it was my turn. On my first try, I threw my right foot too far back, and it came down half on and half off the board. I fell backwards with my butt landing on the sand. Wendy laughed. “Come on, not like that. Do it again,” she commanded. After about a dozen tries, I started to look good—at least on dry land.

“OK, you’re ready for the ocean,” Wendy said. She then peeled off her shirt and dropped her cutoffs to reveal the bottom of her red two-piece bathing suit. My heart raced. She looked great in every way—petite, tan, and well proportioned with curves in all the right places. How lucky could a guy get?

“Just wade out a little ways with me. I’ll paddle out, catch a wave, and ride it in. You can watch and get an idea of what I’m doing. OK?”

“OK.”

Wendy paddled out while I stood in waist-deep water. She caught a small wave. Just as it broke, she paddled, got momentum, then popped up on the board. She made it look pretty easy.

“OK, your turn,” she said, pushing her board to me. 

Climbing on and flattening out on the board as instructed, I paddled out to sea and bounced over a couple of waves that broke in front of me. Then I turned around to face the shore. The first wave came, and I paddled furiously to stay in front of it until the wave’s momentum pushed the board forward. The time was right to make my move. I hopped up, felt the board push out from under me, and fell backward into the water. It took me more than a dozen falls, including one headfirst, before finally getting the hang of it, but I still looked feeble compared to Wendy. 

On the drive back, I commented, “Those waves were really small—not at all like I imagined they would be.”

“How long have you been in Ocean City? You’ve seen the waves here. Did you think we would magically have a ten-foot wave here or on Assateague?”

“No, I was just thinking out loud. Do you ever get big waves here?”

“Sometimes we’ll get six-foot waves when there’s a storm offshore. Of course, on the rare occasions when we have a hurricane, it will get very rough and we get some big waves then. But those waves are rollers with wind off the sea, not good for surfing, and there’s often a dangerous undertow.”

When Wendy said the word “hurricane,” she pronounced it like it was spelled “hairicane.”

“Wendy, what’s a hairicane?”

“Don’t they teach you anything at Georgetown? You don’t know what a hurricane is?”

“I know what a hurricane is, but I’ve never heard of a ‘hairicane,’” I said, mocking her. “At Georgetown, we spell it h-u-r, not h-a-i-r.” I saw her blush for the first time. 

“Go ahead make fun of my Eastern Shore accent,” she smiled.

“I’m hungry. Why don’t you pull into the Tastee-Freez up here, and let’s get something to eat.”

We both ordered cheeseburgers and split an order of fries. She had a Coke, and I had a vanilla milkshake. We finished our burgers and fries sitting in the Jeep, and then we pulled out and headed toward The Sands. She turned on the Jeep’s radio, and the Crystals were singing “Then He Kissed Me.” Once again, Wendy sang along to every word as though she were part of the girl quartet. As we pulled into the parking lot of The Sands, I joined her in singing the chorus, “And then he kissed me,” at the top of our lungs. She stopped the Jeep at the front door as the song ended, and we were laughing.

“You can’t carry a tune, can you?”

“No, I can’t, but that won’t stop me from singing.”

“Well, somebody should stop you from singing,” she teased as she leaned her head toward mine, her lips inviting a kiss. I pressed my lips to hers and again met those soft, moist, heavenly pillows.

When our lips parted, I said, “That was just like the song.”

“What do you mean?”

“You kissed me like I’ve never been kissed before.”

“Au revoir,” she said as I stepped out of the Jeep. “I’ll call you.” She put the Jeep in first gear and pulled out.