Well, she’d gone crazy. That was the natural explanation. The only explanation for why she was currently sitting on the beach watching a strange hitchhiker launch a Frisbee into the waves for her son.
A hitchhiker who’d willingly left a working car on the side of the road just so he could bop along in the back seat of their non-air-conditioned Hyundai. A hitchhiker who had screeched at his first sip of cold Coke. He’d said it had been like battery acid. But, like, in a good way.
Ike had said he knew exactly what he meant. And the two of them had been chatting ever since. They chatted all the way down I-15 and straight into Santa Barbara. Melanie had tried to ignore the man’s eyes on her from the back seat. He’d found a baseball rolling around in the back seat and tossed it between his hands. He air drummed along with the music and traced the passing shadows with his fingertips. And the whole time he had been watching her in the rearview mirror. She had felt something zip down her spine when he stretched out his long legs on the console between the front seats.
And she felt something tighten inside her when they pulled up to their little Airbnb. This was it. This was when she had to tell this whacko to hit the road. There was no way he was staying there with them. But how to tell herself that she wanted him to go? Because she didn’t want him to go.
Why didn’t she want him to go? Why did she feel like something had clicked into place the moment they’d touched? It was insane. A mother couldn’t afford to take risks like that.
The man had taken care of the awkwardness of that moment when he’d reached into the back seat of the car, pulled out their Frisbee, and yelled, “Go long, kid!”
“Ike!” Ike had yelled as he launched himself after the projectile. “My name’s Ike.”
“And mine is Mel,” she’d said, tucking her hair behind her ears.
“Let’s go to the beach, Mel.” The beautiful man had cocked his head to one side and gestured for her to follow. And, god knows why, she did.
And now she struggled not to be charmed when the Oracle executed a particularly ugly backwards belly flop into the water to catch a Frisbee that Ike had launched. She could hear Ike’s hysterical laughter from 50 feet away, over the wind and the surf. Shit. She was really, really charmed.
“Mel?”
Mel raised up her sunglasses and looked over. “Sue? Hi!”
One of the nicer mothers at Ike’s school was walking toward her in a modest, baby blue one-piece. “I thought that was you! What are the odds? I take it you needed to get out of the Vegas hell hole as badly as I did.”
Mel stood. “We needed the beach. And a little less blistering heat. Are Micky and Noel here?” Mel asked, referring to Sue’s twin boys who were in the grade above Ike.
Sue gestured to the surf where the two boys were wrestling over a lone boogie board. “Yes, the boys are at large. And driving me insane. I swear they can’t get along for longer than ten seconds. I literally had to wear headphones on the drive here.”
Mel laughed. “Where are you staying?”
Sue pointed behind them toward the umbrellas and loungers of a nice hotel. “Just up at the hotel. We were lucky they had a last-minute availability. Rick is joining us this afternoon after work.”
Mel ignored the little twist in her gut. Two incomes must be nice. Meant you could afford stuff like a hotel on a beach. “Sounds perfect.”
“Nearly. Except for the boys driving us both insane.” The two women watched her boys wrestle and cackle in the waves before looking up and seeing Ike not 20 feet from them. The three boys raced over to each other, the wonder of running into one another away from school sparking in the air between them. Mel could hear their little excited voices rising up over the waves.
Apparently the Oracle decided to let the boys have a few moments on their own because he stepped out of the water and shook out his wet hair. Mel dragged her eyes away from his tan chest. He was just wearing a pair of shorts since he didn’t have a bathing suit. Mel felt something dangerous uncurl in her belly. Shit.
“The boys could come stay with me and Ike tonight,” she told Sue. “We’re staying in an Airbnb just two blocks from here. We could get them out of your hair for a night or two.”
Sue opened her mouth to say something back, but clapped it closed when the Oracle approached the two women. Mel watched the older woman scan the Oracle from head to toe in lazy perusal. She supposed there was a lot to take in. God. Even his knees were good-looking.
He grabbed a towel from Mel’s beach bag and started drying off his hair with it. “Hello,” he said to Sue, reaching out a hand for a quick shake. “I take it you’re a friend of Mel’s?”
Her hand travelled lazily from his up to her hair, to the straps of her bathing suit, back to her hair, and then just kind of hung at her side. Mel bit her cheek to keep from smiling. Sue’s husband, Rick, was a winner, sweet and funny, but she supposed Rick was gonna get a nice little surprise when his wife got home, all revved up from meeting people on the beach.
“This is my friend, Sue. We know each other from Ike’s school. Our boys ride the same bus.” Mel hesitated. She knew she was supposed to be introducing him to her now, but what the fuck was she supposed to call him? She couldn’t exactly introduce him as ‘the Oracle’. Her world had gone crazy over the last five hours, but not that crazy.
“I’m O,” he said simply and flashed a goofy, white smile that had both of the women holding their breaths.
“Nice to meet you. Are you Mel’s boyfriend?” Sue looked back and forth between the two.
O waved the word away with his hand through the air. “More like soulmate.” He flopped down on the towel next to Mel and played with a little of her hair. “Destiny.” He grinned up at Sue as Mel swatted his hand away. “Although I’m still working on convincing her.”
Sue laughed and fluttered a hand up to her sunglasses. She was obviously as charmed as Mel was trying hard not to be.
“He’s not staying with us,” Mel said stoically, looking up at Sue. “You wouldn’t have to worry about that if you sent the boys over tonight.”
A sly look came over Sue’s face. “How about we go the other direction and you send Ike over my way tonight?” She turned and gestured to the boys flipping and diving in the waves. “They’ll have a whole adjoining room to themselves, a TV, an indoor pool, continental breakfast. It’ll keep Micky and Noel from fighting if they have a friend there.” Sue tucked her tongue in her cheek. “Plus it’ll give you a little time to realize your destiny.”
The Oracle hooted and leaned back on his hands. “I like you, Sue.”
“What’s not to like?” Sue asked.
This was getting away from her. Mel wasn’t sure if she wanted to put the kibosh on the idea or stand up and kiss Sue for being such an innovator.
She thought of their humble little cabana Airbnb that was waiting for them up the block. Just one window unit of a/c and not even a TV. Ike had never stayed in a real hotel in his entire life. And certainly not alongside two good friends. She sighed. She wasn’t going to deprive her son just because she needed him as a shield from whatever she was feeling for the long, lean, golden tanned surfer enigma stretched out on a towel beside her.
“Let me talk to Ike,” she said, rising to her feet and brushing sand off of herself. As she walked toward the water, she didn’t have to turn to know that the Oracle would be grinning.