Balancing on Shredded Fiber

Abril shook her head without lifting her eyes from the counter.

She folded the eviction notice into four exact creases, her fingernail pressing down the folds until they were sharp, and tucked it under the dented blue thermos. The one-eyed seal sticker ended up crushing the court's letterhead.

"Abril, that paper has an execution date for Fri..."

"The course is four hundred euros and the class starts in the sand. If you want legal advice, hire a manager with a tie. If you want the sea not to break your neck, grab the yellow board."

Iván looked at her without blinking. He had that kind of neat, methodical patience that rubbed Abril the wrong way, as if he were used to the world neatly organizing itself into Excel columns.

"The yellow board," he repeated, pointing his chin toward a battered fiberglass relic leaning against the weathered planks of the shed.

"That exact one. It weighs twelve kilos and smells like stale paraffin. You're going to love it."

Outside, the western gust made the roof's sheet metal groan with a dry, rhythmic metallic rattle that Abril had known since she was seven years old. The sun was beating down fiercely, bouncing in an amber flash off the old resin patches on the boards. The smell of melted cheese—wait, melted coconut rose from the warm paraffin, mixing with the sour dampness of the wetsuits hanging in the shade.

Iván dragged the board down to the dry tide line.

Abril adjusted her hair tie as she walked down the wooden ramp and forbade herself three things: thinking about the debts, wondering where this guy knew her grandmother from, and noticing that the wetsuit fit him ridiculously well once it was on the right way.

"What is it?" Iván asked, having caught her looking.

"That you shouldn't drag the fin across the rocks unless you want to pay me another fifty euros."

He lifted the nose immediately.

"Prone," she ordered, planting her feet deep in the warm sand. Chest on the center rib. "Feet together. Don't look at me, look at the horizon. If you look at the board, you go into the water before you even start."

Iván dropped onto the fiber. The sea salt was already drying on his neck, leaving a tight, white ring against the black rubber collar.

"Now what?"

"Paddle. Four deep strokes. Don't splash like a rheumatic duck, Iván. Fingers together."

He let out a huff, paddling against the dry air of the beach.

"It feels a bit ridiculous."

"Making a fool of yourself on dry land saves you from swallowing two liters of salty foam in five minutes. Now: hands under your ribs. Don't grab the rails, keep your palms flat. Push your chest up and bring your right foot forward in a jump."

Iván pushed.

The attempt lasted half a second. His left foot got tangled in the wetsuit, his knee hit the shredded fiber with a hollow thud, and he ended up sprawled on his side, eating a handful of sand mixed with crushed shells.

Abril didn't laugh. She crossed her arms, feeling the warm wind at her ankles.

"Too much rush."

"I slipped," he said, spitting out sand with wounded dignity.

"You didn't slip. You hesitated. You thought about how you were going to fall before you even finished getting up."

Iván sat back on his heels, shaking grains of saltpeter from his forearms. He looked up at her from below, squinting against the blinding midday glare.

"It's basic survival instinct, Sotomayor. Nobody wants to break their teeth."

"Well, deactivate it."

"It's not that easy."

"Standing up on a board doesn't take courage; it takes accepting the hit against the bottom."

Iván stayed still for a moment, repeating the phrase in silence, as if he were looking for the catch in a contract.

"That doesn't sound like a surf manual."

"It sounds like Celia Sotomayor," she retorted, her voice hardening by barely half a tone. "And if you really know as much about her as you hinted earlier, you'll know she didn't repeat things twice. Up. Again."

On the fifth attempt, Iván managed to plant the ball of his right foot right between the two black wax marks, his knees visibly trembling but maintaining his balance on the motionless board.

"Don't move," Abril said. "Stay right there. Feel the weight in your heels."

The crunch of hurried footsteps on the ramp's gravel broke the moment.

Fito Varela came trotting with his flip-flops in his hand and the faded gray sweatshirt from the 2018 regatta stuck to his back with sweat. He was clutching a greasy paper in his fist with wide-open eyes.

"Abriluca," he blurted out breathlessly, stopping dead beside the board and kicking a fine spray of sand over Iván's legs. "Bad news. Well, worse news. Depending on how you take the gossip from the port canteen."

"Fito, we're in class."

"Iván won't care about the class when he hears this. Or maybe not, maybe he already knows."

Iván slowly stepped down from the board, brushing off his knees.

"Know what?"

Fito eyed him with mistrust, scratching the salt-sunburned crown of his head before handing Abril a greasy grocery store receipt. On the back was a note written in blue ballpoint pen, smudged by a drop of coffee.

"Lucas Arenas was having lunch with the port captain two hours ago," Fito said in a low voice, but with the tone he reserved for catastrophes. "Lucas doesn't want to wait until Friday for the shed auction. He's saying the school hasn't had any real activity since last month, that your classes are just a cover to hold onto the ramp, and that he's sending municipal surveyors this very afternoon to slap a seal on the padlock."

Abril felt the rough tug of anger behind her temples.

She pulled her phone from her shorts pocket and found Lucas's number. Three years after leaving him, she still had it saved under the old nickname.

She put the phone away again. Writing to him was useless.

"I have a signed student enrollment form and four hundred euros on the table," Abril said, pointing her chin at Iván. "The activity is registered."

"One student doesn't make a school, Abriluca. Lucas says this man is an actor you hired to bypass the bylaws. Or worse: someone he sent himself to trap you."

A tense silence settled between the gusts of wind. The shed's sheet metal vibrated in the distance.

"Do I look like an actor?" Iván asked, raising an eyebrow.

"You look like someone who hasn't touched a board in his damn life," Fito blurted out unfiltered, "and who coincidentally shows up with one of Lucas's IOUs in his pocket."

Abril fixed her gaze on Iván.

"Did Lucas send you?"

"No," he replied without hesitation, but without offering any explanation.

"Then what are you doing here, Iván?"

"Learning to stand up. And keeping you from doing something stupid before Friday."

Abril clenched her jaw. Suspicions were piling up in her chest, but the water waited for no one and the shorebreak was starting to churn up a greenish foam signaling the tide change.

"Fito, grab the coffee thermos and go down to the pier entrance. If you see the harbor master's patrol car pull up, you whistle."

"Abril..."

"You whistle, Fito. Now."

The boy hesitated, glared at Iván with blatant hostility, and finally trotted back toward the ramp, dragging his flip-flops.

"Into the water," Abril said dryly.

"I thought you were going to interrogate me," Iván said, picking up the board with a somewhat more fluid movement.

"The interrogation costs fifty euros an hour and I don't trust a single word you say. The sea doesn't lie. If you're lying to me, the first wave is going to smash you against the shore."

They walked toward the foam. The brackish water reached Abril's calves, cold and clean, abruptly cutting through the oppressive heat of the dry sand. She knelt in front of Iván.

"Lift your right foot. We need to put your leash on."

Iván lifted his ankle. Abril unrolled the black urethane cord, feeling the rough velcro against her fingertips.

"If you fall, don't try to swim after the board. The leash will bring it back to you. Just focus on coming up for air."

"Understood."

Abril leaned in closer to adjust the neoprene strap around Iván's ankle. From that position, with the western gust pushing into the cove, Iván's collar zipper slipped open a couple of centimeters, giving way to the salt and wind.

Something gleamed against his collarbone.

It wasn't a fine silver chain or a tourist trinket.

It was a solid copper cylindrical piece, its edges greenish from years of age and the unmistakable wear of three hand-filed notches on the mouthpiece. Celia Sotomayor's maritime rescue whistle.

The exact one that had disappeared from the shed the night her grandmother died, three years ago.

Abril froze, her fingers still clasped around the velcro.

"Where did you get this?"

Iván lowered his gaze, and for the first time all day, he didn't know how to answer.