Body Copy - Michael Craven [72]
“I brought my own,” Nina said.
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Michael Craven
She held up her spring suit, a wetsuit with short sleeves and short legs, that she’d already gotten out of her car.
“You read my mind.”
“I come prepared,” she said.
Tremaine liked that.
They drove down to one of Tremaine’s favorite spots, right down the road, parked the Cutlass, and stood on the beach looking at the waves.
Nina strapped her leash around her right ankle.
“Regular-foot, just like me,” Tremaine said.
“Regular-foot?”
“Yeah. If your left foot is forward, it’s called regular-foot. If your right foot is forward, it’s called goofy-foot.”
As Tremaine and Nina entered the water, now walking out to sea and gliding their boards on the water with their hands, Nina said, “Where does that come from, the term goofy-foot?”
“There’s a lot of different theories. The one that most people believe is, there was an old drawing in a surfing magazine, might have been the early days of Surfer, and the cartoon character Goofy was riding a surfboard. Right foot forward. So people started calling people who rode right foot forward goofy-foot.”
“Tremaine, you might be a good P.I., but you’re a horrible liar.”
Nina splashed him with some water. It was cold on Tremaine’s bare skin.
“I’m serious,” he said. “You think I could make something like that up?”
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“Yes, I do.”
They jumped on their boards and began paddling out to where the waves broke. Tremaine was impressed as Nina charged out, a beginner for sure but fearless of the waves breaking in front of her. And her form? Not bad, not bad at all.
They got out past the point of impact and sat on their boards, rising up, then down again, as waves rolled in.
Nina was having a little trouble with her balance, but not too much.
“You must have surfed every day for a long time when you were trying to go pro.”
“Yeah, I think about it now, it’s hard to believe. I used to surf sometimes seven hours a day.”
“And you went pro when you were young, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So, no college?”
“No. My only education after high school was reading. I tried to read a book a week when I was on tour. Still do.”
A wave headed toward them.
“There’s your wave,” Tremaine said.
Nina turned her board around and paddled hard. Impressive, Tremaine thought, as he watched Nina lower her head and go for the wave with everything she had.
She missed it, the wave rolling in toward shore without her.
“Almost,” Tremaine said. “That one backed off a little, nearly impossible to catch.”
Nina saw another wave and turned her board around, ready to charge ahead. The last wave of the set. Tremaine paddled over next to her, then hopped off his board, 227
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treading water. The wave was upon them and, as Nina paddled, Tremaine got behind her, and pushed the back of her board, giving her the thrust she needed to catch the wave. She screamed, but regained her composure, then pointed the nose of the board in the direction of the open face of the wave and tried to hop up. Close, but not quite.
“Almost!” Tremaine shouted, impressed, genuinely.
She paddled back out to where Tremaine sat on his board. He clapped as she neared him.
“Next time,” she said, “I’m standing up, guaranteed.”
“I believe it.”
The wave came, about a three-foot face, and Nina, this time, caught it without Tremaine’s help. And true to her word, she hopped up, standing up just long enough to stick out her tongue at Tremaine.
The rest of the session was utterly pleasant, that’s what Tremaine thought, anyway. He gave Nina some pointers, and she accepted them with open ears, really wanting to learn as much as she could from the old pro.
As they walked in to the shore, trudging through the waist-deep water, Nina began aggressively splashing Tremaine with water. This was something she was an ex-pert at.
Tremaine retaliated, picking Nina up and throwing her into oncoming whitewater. She squealed and pointed to her board, which was drifting off, now unattached. Tremaine, having to pay