Our Secret Summer(32)

There.

Now.

Paddling is instinctive, standing is second nature, but even with all my previous practice, I still wipe out on my first try. It’s disorienting to go down hard into the sea, tasting seawater before I come up and catch my breath.

I know I shouldn’t want to impress the two random strangers, but there’s a certain amount of ego involved in surfing, and everyone watching your attempts makes it hard to avoid the urge to show off a little. I fall hard on my first two waves, but on the third swell, I stand and glide, finally carving a turn. I ride the wave all the way in, pressing off the board at the last second and diving into the water. I come up laughing and hear the guys whistling and cheering behind me.

I spend all morning out there, feeling close to Winnie. Even when my muscles scream and my lungs burn, the adrenaline keeps me going, and between waves, I enjoy the deep sense of calm and focus. For a short time, it’s just me and my memories, floating on the water.

Hunger eventually lures me back to the shore, and once I turn in my board, promising to be back another day, I follow the rich smell of spices to a chiringuito, a beach restaurant where they’re grilling fish over charcoal. I order the sea bass with vegetables splashed with lemon. It’s so good I order more, and the owner gives me zumo de pi?a, freshly squeezed pineapple juice, on the house.

I “cheers” to Winnie before I take my first sip, twisting her ring around my finger as I do it. I’ve crossed two things off her bucket list now: surfing and swimming at Bora Bora Beach. By the time I get back to the apartment, I decide I’m going to complete a third.

Simone is still lounging on the couch when I come in with sandy feet and salty hair. “Where have you been? I’ve tried your mobile all morning.”

“Out surfing.” I hang my bag near the door. “I need to rinse off, but then do you want to come with me to get a tattoo?”

“A what?”

I’m already walking into our room, heading for the shower. “A tattoo! It’s on the list, remember?”

By the time I’m dressed, Simone’s gathered a small group. Annika and Felix join us as we set out to walk to the tattoo shop near our apartment complex. I did some research and feel confident about this place. The online reviews promised sterile equipment and professional staff, which is really all I care about. The design I want is simple enough that I’m sure any tattoo artist could pull it off.

It’s an acronym, “wwwd”: What would Winnie do. I want all the letters to be lowercase, cursive, and fluid so the w’s run together like waves in the ocean. Unless you know better, it won’t look like letters at all.

I have no doubt the design will seem half as cool in five or ten years, but I don’t worry about it. Bodies are only good for so long. Winnie wanted a tattoo and she never got the chance, so I’ll do it for her. Just as soon as I get the nerve to go into the shop.

We’ve been standing out on the sidewalk for the last few minutes. My palms are sweating and I can’t stop pacing.

“Are you really doing this?” Annika asks me.

“Yes. Now, who wants to get one with me?”

“Are you mad?” Simone laughs.

Annika shrugs. “I’ll do it.”

Felix looks at his sister like she’s grown a second head. “No you will not.”

“Yes I will,” she says stubbornly. “Why not?”

“Yeah. Okay. If she’s doing it, I will, too, then,” Simone says with a nod.

I clap my hands. “Excellent.”

Isabel would never get a tattoo. Elle apparently… will. Before I can keep thinking of all the reasons why I should turn right around and go home, I yank the door open and go inside.

I called ahead while I was in the taxi on the way home from the beach, and with the help of a translator app, I set up three appointments for this afternoon. I had a gut feeling Annika and Simone would be tagging along.

The guy who comes forward to collect us from the small waiting area is no older than nineteen or twenty, with buzzed black hair and tattoos covering his neck and arms and hands. Piercings litter his ears and eyebrows, but he offers a timid smile and greets us in Spanish. I like him immediately.

He doesn’t speak English well, but between all of us, we patch together instructions for what we want. I decide to go first since I already have my design in mind. I draw it (poorly) on a scratch piece of paper and then he tweaks it (expertly), bringing my idea to life in a way that actually makes me emotional over the process.

“I love it,” I say, giddy now with nerves. “Me encanta.”

He chuckles, then points to my body, asking in Spanish where I want the tattoo to go. The design is no more than an inch wide and a few millimeters tall—as far as tattoos go, it’s extremely small. I could place it just about anywhere, but I want it inside my arm, right above the crook of my elbow. It’s the same spot Winnie wanted hers, and the outlined letters will be faint enough to nearly go unnoticed.

He nods for me to lie back on the table so he can angle my arm perfectly. Simone catches my eyes and waggles her brows.

“You’re really going to do it?”

“I’m lying here, aren’t I?”

The tattooist touches something cool to my arm and I jump a mile in the air. “S-sorry. Lo siento.”

My friends laugh as Annika tells me, “He was just cleaning the area. Chill.”