Bluehour (A Watermagic Novel) (9 page)

At our swim team practices, he started
swimming on the farthest side of the pool away from the girls. I
never caught him looking at me as I had before. And his anger never
appeared to lessen. He acted normal enough, but his underlying rage
seemed ever present. From his fast, strong strokes in the water, I
imagined that he was taking out his fury through his impressive
physical exertion. I kept wondering and wondering what he was so
angry about.

Whenever he got out of the pool, he seemed
charged with a crazed look in his electric blue eyes. He looked out
of control. Then he would rush away in his dreamlike manner and I’d
watch him in a daze.

But then on Thursday, I was sitting on the
bench near the pool trying to tuck my hair into my swim cap and
Laurent sat down a few feet away from me. My body tensed. I was
shocked. We were nearly side by side. I could feel the intensity of
his body. He smelled like the ocean.

My heart started racing. I turned to look at
him just to see what he wanted and he was studying my face as he
smiled.

I gulped.

“You have something on your nose,” he
mumbled, tilting his head to the side as he seemed to examine
me.

I blushed, lifting my hand to wipe away
whatever I feared he was referring to.

But, his fingers swiftly intersected. He
touched the tip of my nose with his pointer finger and thumb and
pulled something off.

My eyes widened. “What was it?” I
demanded.

His body tightened and he scooted away from
me slightly. With a devilish glint in his eyes, he glanced past me,
and then, to my surprise, he chuckled. “It was nothing.”

Maybe I was wrong, but I got the feeling he
liked teasing me. “What?” I was confused. “Then why did you take
it?”

He raised an eyebrow as his expression became
serious. “It was an angel kiss.” He was sitting up particularly
straight; his back was tense which gave me the impression that it
was uncomfortable for him to be close to me.

“An angel kiss?” I asked, astounded.

“Yes.” I couldn’t tell what he was thinking.
“People call them freckles.” He lifted his eyes upward before
reconnecting with me.

Now I rolled my eyes and exhaled in
exasperation. “You can’t take a freckle off my face.” I laughed
lightly.

“Well, I did.” His silky voice was musical.
He turned his pointer finger over and held it out to me. There was
still a considerable amount of space between us, but I saw his nose
flare.

Even though my hands were sweating from
nerves, I took his finger into mine to examine it. Electricity shot
through my body at the touch. His fingers spread and then tensed as
I held to him. He looked like he was in pain.

“See there.” Sure enough, with his other hand
he pointed at a tiny brown freckle on the underside of his pointer
finger. “It’s your angel kiss.”

I laughed as I tried to wipe it off to no
success. “It’s stuck,” I exhaled.

He scoffed. “It’s mine now.” His eyes
smoldered at me. I liked how he was acting. Then he got up off the
bench and dove into the pool.

I didn’t know what to think. I was
breathless. My mind was racing and it took all I had to make it
through practice. I just kept thinking about Laurent. But, as
before, he swam on the far side of the pool and didn’t even so much
as look at me the rest of the day.

I made the decision right then. I had to know
everything about him. There were so many unanswered questions and
now that my restriction was over, I didn’t have to return to the
apartment right away. After practice, instead of taking a ride with
Ashton, I tried to follow Laurent home.

For awhile now, I had been contemplating
this. I knew he walked home every day, so I figured he must live
close by. Desperately, I wanted clues. I had to know how he made
those magical things happen. I had to know if I just imagined it
all or if my perceptions were based on any sort of reality.

After practice, I dressed in a hurry so I
could get a head start. For the past few days, I had been watching
to see the direction that Laurent walked home. And when I was in
Ashton’s car, we passed him on the road two of the times. So, today
I rushed out of school and to the area I had seen him walking in
the past.

I headed down busy Pico Boulevard toward the
beach past all sorts of storefronts, auto shops, and business
buildings. Once I got to the farthest place I had seen Laurent, I
waited behind some trees between a hamburger shop and a shoe
store.

Maybe ten minutes later, I spotted Laurent
walking down the sidewalk. Once he passed me and was a considerable
distance ahead, I started to follow him.

The boulevard was loud with city noise and
crowded with cars, so there was no way he would hear me behind him.
Even if the street had been quiet, he wouldn’t have detected me
simply because of the sheer distance between us. And if he happened
to turn around, he couldn’t recognize me from this far behind
him.

I kept a sharp eye on him and followed along.
There was a slight rhythm to his movement. I wondered if he was
singing a song to himself and keeping time with his body. He
stopped for a moment before a beauty shop parking lot and handed a
homeless man some money before continuing on and turning onto Ocean
Avenue.

Nervous that I might lose him, I hurried
ahead. But, to my dismay, once I turned onto Ocean, he was nowhere
in sight. Anxiously, I looked around in the various yards and store
parking lots that lined the avenue. In disappointment, I gave up.
He must have turned down another street or maybe he lived in one of
the houses and had already gone inside. I reassured myself though.
Tomorrow, I would wait for him on Ocean Avenue this time and,
hopefully, I would discover where he lived.

I decided that because I was so close to the
beach, I would go surfing. There were rental shops with pristine
boards at the peer, so I got on the next city bus in pursuit of my
destination. At least, I could lose myself in the water.

Once on the bus, I didn’t even take a seat
because the peer was close. In no time I was at the rental store. I
noticed that while I was trying to pick out a board, the clerk kept
staring at me.

Finally, I turned to him and said, “Do you
want something?”

He didn’t respond.

“You keep staring at me,” I said, knitting my
brows as I looked from the line of surfboards to him. My dad
generally encouraged me to take an aggressive stance to unusual
behavior. Usually, I didn’t listen to him, but today my mind was on
fire.

He laughed and ran his fingers through his
bleach blond hair. “You want to get coffee with me? My shift’s
almost over.”

I tried not to laugh, but some choppy air
released involuntarily from my lungs. “Oh—thanks.” I wasn’t
expecting that. “I can’t right now. Maybe some other time.” I had
no idea what to say. Who asks someone out when they’re about to go
surfing?

“Oh, yeah, sure.” He smiled weakly. “The
board’s on the house.”

“Really?” I asked in a surprised tone.

“You betcha. Just bring it back by 9:00.”

“Okay. Thanks,” I said as I picked out one I
liked.

I was relieved to get into ocean. The water
was a comfortable temperature and the waves were almost perfect.
The sun was starting to set on the horizon, giving the sky a fiery
red color. It was beautiful. What a great way to end the day.

That night I slept like a baby.

The next day at school, Laurent acted as if
he hadn’t even talked to me the day before. He seemed even angrier
than yesterday and it looked like Marine gave me a dirty look. It
wasn’t clear to me if she was interested in Laurent romantically or
not, but I got the feeling that she was dating Pascal.

It was the same at swim practice—Laurent
seemed to not even know I existed and he swam again on the other
side of the water, away from me.

When I was getting out of the pool, Ashton
called over, “Hey, Grace, wait up.” He swam over to me and we got
out together.

“How about I pick you up at seven?” He was
referring to our night surfing date.

“That sounds fine,” I said as I looked over
at Laurent who was still doing laps in the pool like a speed
demon.

“He’s fast. Isn’t he?” Ashton lifted his chin
in the direction of Laurent.

I shook my head lightly and shrugged my
shoulders. “Who?”

“Laurent Moreau,” He laughed, as if I should
have known who he was talking about.

“Oh.” I frowned. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“Who wouldn’t notice that? The guy’s as angry
as hell.” He laughed again.

I squinted in Laurent’s direction, acting
like I was trying to figure out what he was talking about. “I guess
I just wasn’t paying attention.”

He smiled. “That’s good—focused on
winning—right?”

“Huh? Winning what?”

“The swim meet.” He wrinkled his nose. “What
else is there?” His smile was so big now. It looked like he was
enjoying my cluelessness.

“I don’t need a ride home today,” I said as
we got to the entrance of the girls’ locker room.

“Ah, man.” He grabbed his heart playfully. “I
guess I’ll survive the few hours that we’re apart.”

I laughed. “Oh, don’t pick me up at my
apartment. Instead just meet me at the beach with Agatha and Danny.
I’m going to start surfing early.”

He chortled. “You are crazy, Grace.” He
seemed to enjoy my oddities. “Okay. See you before the peer around
7:30ish.”

“See you.” I rushed to quickly change into my
clothes so I could make it to Ocean Avenue before Laurent.

1. What the Hell?
   

I waited for Laurent behind a dumpster on
Ocean Avenue, but he never came. After about a half-hour I headed
to the beach in disappointment. I had so been hoping that I could
discover where he lived that Friday.

After I arrived at the peer, I was relieved
to see that a woman was renting the surfboards out today. That guy
that asked me out the evening prior made me uncomfortable. This
clerk didn’t bother me at all. She was on her cell phone the entire
time.

When I surveyed the boards that were lined up
against the wall, I was happy to find the same one from the day
before. I paid the lady as she talked to her friend and carried my
board out to the sand where I laid out a towel and took off my
clothes—my bathing suit was on underneath and still damp from
practice.

This evening the surfing wasn’t so great.
There were some reckless teenage boys driving a speedboat too close
to shore. The engine noise was distracting from the usual natural
rhythmic sounds of the waves. Where I usually sought solace, there
was disruption.

The boys were taking turns trying to water
ski even though they were completely inept at it. As far as I knew,
I didn’t think water skiing was allowed in this area, but the
lifeguards weren’t around and nobody did anything about it.

After catching the first wave awkwardly, I
started paddling back out with my stomach flat down on the board.
As I made my way through the surge, to my surprise, I thought I saw
five heads poke out of the water a short distance from me. But, as
quickly as I saw the heads surface, they were gone. Most likely it
was my imagination, but I thought they looked like the French
exchange students.

If the people I saw were the French kids, I
wondered if they saw me. Even though it shouldn’t have, it shocked
me to imagine the très beaux out swimming about at the same time as
I was surfing. It was a popular place to swim and surf, so I
shouldn’t have been surprised, but something about the way their
heads all surfaced together and then dived back under in unison
seemed odd.

I continued to watch for the people to
resurface, but I didn’t see anyone again. The light was dim now as
the sun had nearly set on the horizon. It would be difficult to see
them.

The motor boat engine was driving me crazy.
Those guys were messing up the breaks on the waves with their
careless shenanigans. I wanted to yell at them, but they wouldn’t
have heard over the engine roar.

As I turned my board around, I was distracted
as I watched for the swimmers some more. I kept looking and
looking, but couldn’t find them. Then that darn boat cut way too
close to me as I was trying to stand up.

I felt a sudden pull at my leg and I went
flying off my surfboard. Terror overtook me. For a moment, I didn’t
know what was happening. It was all occurring so fast.

Something had jerked me so hard. Then I
realized the boater’s water ski rope had caught onto the tether
that was wrapped around my ankle and the surfboard. My mind was
spinning. I was going to die. I tried to pull the Velcro from my
ankle to release myself as I was being pulled at tremendous speed
through the water, but the boat pulled me so roughly and fast that
the tether broke from the surfboard and twisted up with the water
ski rope.

I was being pulled out to sea. My lungs felt
like they were going to burst. The water was choking me. I couldn’t
breathe.

“I’m going to die. I’m going to die,” I
thought. My leg felt like it was going to be ripped out of the
socket.

But then, seemingly coming out of nowhere I
saw Laurent beside me. He grabbed onto my limbs for an instant. It
wasn’t possible. My body was being pulled through the water too
fast. There was no way he could swim rapidly enough to keep up with
the high speed of the boat. But in the same moment that he held to
me, he tore the tether from the ski rope with his teeth.

And then I don’t remember anything else.

Suddenly, I woke up choking. I coughed up
water. Someone was giving me CPR on the shore. My eyes popped open.
It was dark out now, but I saw clearly that the person on top of me
was Laurent.

“What the hell?” I coughed out.

He moved off of my body and carefully helped
me sit up. “You’re going to be okay, Grace—as good as new.” His
voice had a musical quality to it, but his eyebrows were knitted
together like he was worried. “You won’t even have to go to the
hospital.” His too perfect face looked pale and his piercing eyes
seemed watery. I wondered if he had been crying.