The Wide World of Sporting Goods was a supermarket for jocks and jockettes. I found the windsurfing and surfboards section without a road map. It was full of fluorescent shorts and hats, wet suits and sandals. Except for one board on display, there wasn’t a surfboard in sight. Nor was the music coming from ceiling speakers the Beach Boys. It sounded closer to the stuff Michelle Nickerson listened to. A few other customers milled around eyeballing merchandise. Hanging on the wall behind the sales counter was a section of old shipworm-eaten plank, charred on the ends and painted with a curling wave and the logo Ride a Legend. Amid the Formica, stainless steel and fluorescence, it looked as out of place as a lizard in a candy dish. A slim salesclerk drifted my way. She wore tiny amber-tint eyeglasses and a tie-dyed T-shirt that clung to her thin chest. She could have been eighteen or thirty. “Help you?” “Is Chet Van Owen around?” “Chet?” Her eyebrows arched. “I was told he works here.”
