Desperation Reef

Brock snags the backpack flamethrower with one hand, side-stroking at an angle and scissor-kicking hard. Finally rises and drags his cursed, gasping enemy toward the near bank.

Seven Months Later

45

This evening, Casey and Jen sit side by side at the Barrel bar, Mae napping at their feet.

They’re tracking the five wall-mounted big screens tuned to network and cable news. The summer light burnishes the room in a warm orange glow.

Their restaurant is rebuilt and remodeled and set for a gala reopening next week, on the Fourth of July.

Tonight’s get-together is just family and a few friends.

Casey goes through the bar-top lift door, mixes up two more Arnold Palmers, sets them up, and sits again next to his mother.

The new Barrel is a nearly literal version of the old place: same windows and white walls, same walnut hardwood floors streaked with blond, and island-looking teak furniture, same surfing videos playing nonstop when news and sports aren’t on.

Same bronze John Stonebreaker standing in the lobby with one arm on his surfboard and his optimistic, wave-tuned expression which, technically, is focused on the cars creeping along Coast Highway a few yards in front of him rather than the waves breaking along the Laguna shoreline just a few hundred feet behind him.

The damaged big-wave gun surfboards have been restored and refinished and rehung.

The ruined ones have been replaced by equally authentic boards happily donated by the Stonebreaker family’s many well-wishers in the surfing “community.”

Duke Kahanamoku’s redwood twelve-footer, ridden at Sunset Beach, circa 1915.

One of Jeff Clark’s classic plain-wrap guns for Mavericks, shaped by Clark in 1999.

A fresh Laird Hamilton ridden at Jaws.

A Maya Gabeira from Todos Santos and a Mike Parsons ridden on Cortes Bank just last winter.

A Garrett McNamara from Nazaré.

A Kevin Naughton ridden in Ireland, prominently positioned because Kevin’s been a Laguna friend and mentor since Jen was a girl.

Jen has replaced the burnt-up tiki torches with black wrought-iron wall sconces that give the restaurant a candle-lit, slightly old-world touch.

The local news snippet that Laguna Beach detective Pittman tipped them about earlier today hits CNN first:

In which a reporter from the Orange County Superior Courthouse announces that “colorful” LA seafood distributor Jimmy “King” Wu has been sentenced to serve six years in prison and pay $2 million in restitution for last year’s arson fire that gutted the popular Barrel Restaurant in Laguna Beach. She says Wu had attempted to buy the restaurant but was rebuffed by its longtime owner. Wu then ordered the arson as retribution, attempting to blame business competitors for the blaze. The reporter then quotes the Barrel owner, Jen Stonebreaker, saying she’s satisfied with the sentence and will reopen her restaurant next week, on the Fourth of July.

“You look great on TV, Mom.”

I looked great a long time ago, she thinks, aware again, as always, of how strenuously she clings to her past, her gone best years, when John was alive and the world belonged to them.

“Thank you, Casey,” she says. “I’m feeling better now. After the Monsters. And the fear. And the confession I wrote.”

“It’s good to tell the truth and move on,” says Casey. “You’re only forty-seven.”

They watch similar clips on NBC and Fox, Casey turning often to the lobby windows through which he can see people drifting by, some stopping to press their hands and faces to the glass, checking out the restaurant about to rise from its ashes.

“How goes your movie?” Jen asks.

“They’re editing now. The winter footage was fantastic. Oh, man — Nazaré and Cortes Bank were supernatural. All the scientists are saying climate change is making bigger waves. Some of those things at Nazaré were scary.”

“HBO Max, right?”

“But we’re the producers and we’ve got creative control. Some. There’s going to be lots of you and Dad in it. They want to call it Desperation Reef.”

Jen nods and Casey waits. The eight-hundred-pound gorilla is still in the room whenever Casey’s various business ventures come up.

“Bette’s done good on your contracts and projects,” says Jen.

“Thanks, Mom. She works hard at it.”

“How about her towing skills?”

“She’s good. Not as good as you. We practice a lot.”

“But you haven’t tried her out in big waves yet.”

“It’s the usual slow summer for big waves. But there’s a nice south swell coming in tomorrow at the River Jetty. Five to seven feet, says Surfline.”

Another awkward beat. “I wish you liked her better, Mom.”

“I know you’re together a lot.”

“I want to invite her to something like this. You know, maybe next time.”

“I know. I also know that both of you better watch your butts when Jimmy gets out of prison. Hell, watch your butts now, for that matter.”

“His pirates pretty much jumped ship.”

“But it’s Bette who nailed him. Just saying.”