Free Blue by Lisa Glass Page B

something, then you’ve got something. Mind you, all surfers are narcissistic suicidal jerks with a chip the size of Mars on their shoulder, me included. It’s just the cloth we’re cut from, sweetheart, so being a natural surfer isn’t necessarily a compliment.”
    He talked like he was being paid by the word. It was difficult to keep up with him. What he said was pretty offensive, but he said it with enough charm to be able to get away with it.
    “I don’t have a death wish,” I pointed out. “I’m just in it for the stoke. Plus I only surf when I can handle the conditions.”
    This comment made Anders talk even faster.
    “Handle the conditions? The ocean is a bitch that will suckle you at her tit or dash your brains out on a rock, like dear old Lady Macbeth. And she can change in seconds. Don’t tell me you haven’t been caught out? Course you have. We all have. One mistake can result in death—that’s why surfing is classed as an extreme sport. Oh, it’s the best rush you’ll ever have in your life, but every wave could be your last, and if you don’t admit that it’s a potentially lethal way to spend an afternoon, you shouldn’t be out there. For the ultimate thrill, you’ve got to be willing to pay the ultimate price. Are you willing?”
    “Er, I, um . . .” I mumbled, feeling pretty sure that the guy had been smoking something not available in stores.
    “He has a point,” Zeke said. “The beach in Morocco where I train during the spring? A surfer dies there every month, and the waves aren’t even that gnarly.”
    “I’ll just have to take my chances,” I said, trying to sound more confident than I was.
    “Atta girl. Well, darlin’, it just so happens that Billabong is looking to sign a hot young female charger from Britain. They want an unknown. Someone who hasn’t been sponsored before, someone they can build up from scratch and claim credit for. Zeke says you’ve never even gone semi-pro, not even for free wetsuits. That right?”
    “Yeah, my mom would’ve never let me try for sponsorship, even if I really wanted it.”
    “Old-school hippie type? Despises the commercialization of surfing?”
    I didn’t want to tell him that my mom wasn’t a hippie at all; she just hated the risks of surfing; constantly worried about me breaking my neck, or drowning.
    “So, are you interested?”
    “For real?”
    “Yep. It’s going to be a big deal. They’re looking for ten girls internationally, one from each participating country. Five grand check, magazine coverage, entry to a series of new girls’ contests that will run parallel to ASP Qualifying Series events—same locations and dates as the main events, to guarantee the biggest audience. It’s gonna rival Rip Curl’s ‘Gromsearch,’ but this is just for girls under eighteen. Billabong is spending a lot of money on this, really investing in the future of women’s surfing.”
    “That sounds awesome,” I said, which was an understatement. All the surf magazines wrote articles about the sexism in pro-surfing: how hardly any money was spent on women’s surfing, compared to men’s; on how women surfers were objectified and judged mostly on their ability to look hot in a bikini. Those same magazines would run pictures of female pro-surfers posing in their underwear, whereas the men were almost always pictured actually surfing. They didn’t seem to see the irony.
    Anders continued. “The girl’s gotta have the attitude, the ability and total courage, because the waves you’ll be riding won’t be ‘bitchen’ or ‘sweet rides’; they’ll be killers. Can you handle that?”
    Zeke interrupted him. “Iris will give any girl a run for her money. You should see her, Anders. She’s a wave magnet. She has great instincts and no fear.”
    Well, that was a laugh. If only he knew just how much fear I had in me. I’d been afraid of everything for months on end. Surfing was different though. You could lose yourself in the surf. Or