Tubular Belle

The sun is setting on Turtle Bay, and Michelle Behennah is languidly licking frosty chunks of pi�a colada from the pineapple wedge she has fished out of her drink. She is wearing low-riding jeans and a black top that is little more than a salacious rumor, and a trio of sunburned gents at an adjacent table can't take their eyes off her. She is utterly unaware of the stir she is creating, which is typical. Michelle is an unassuming girl-next-door type. Sure, she has cheekbones Michelle Pfeiffer would kill for, and it's true that her legs are so long, she probably needs a lawn mower to shave them, but what stands out most is how down-to-earth she is. She laughs a lot, cusses a little and tells a very good story.

On this blissful October evening Michelle has just jetted in from Paris to Oahu's North Shore. In the morning she will rendezvous with Kelly Slater, the surfing legend who has flown all the way from Florida just to show a SPORTS ILLUSTRATED swim-suit model how to get up on a surfboard. Not the easiest of assignments, considering that Michelle is a fair-skinned lass from the north of England whose only surfing experience has been on the Internet. "I guess they picked me because they knew I was gullible," she says in her Sheffield lilt. "I'm not exactly the sporty type. I hope I don't drown."

Being unfamiliar with the Slater legend, Michelle did a little research before arriving in Hawaii, picking up a CD burned by Kelly's band, The Surfers. "If you didn't know they were surfers, you would know it just from listening to it," she says. "They sound a bit stoned, you know? But don't tell him I have the CD. I don't want him to think I'm some kind of groupie. I'm sure he has plenty of those already."

Kelly, too, did his homework, flipping through last year's swim-suit issue to check out Michelle, whom he pronounced "not bad." (Apparently Kelly thought of the issue as a J. Crew catalog for his love life—when he heard that the Argentine model Lujan, his fave from last year's photos, was due to arrive in Hawaii shortly, he said, "Oh, then I'm extending my trip, for sure.")

As for why Kelly would fly for 12 hours just to surf with a clueless beginner, albeit a very toothsome one, he says, "It sounded like a good way to get a free vacation." That's pretty rich, considering his life has become a free vacation. In December 1998, at the tender age of 26, Kelly won his record fifth straight Association of Surfing Professionals world tide and then announced, Jordan-like, that he was taking an indefinite sabbatical from competition. Since then he has been "just sorta hanging around, waiting to see if anything comes up that sounds like fun." Mostly this has meant lots of soul surfing—noncompetitive surfing—including trips with buddies to Tahiti, Fiji, Brazil, South Africa and Australia, where he keeps a flat in the town of Avalon, outside Sydney. When Kelly is home in Cocoa Beach, Fla., he plays golf most every day at the Cocoa Beach Country Club, whittling away a handicap that is down to seven only four years after he took up the game. Slater has done a little acting, too, notably in a forthcoming film, One Night at McCool's, starring Liv Tyler and Matt Dillon.

Acting is old hat for Kelly. In 1992, aglow from being named one of PEOPLE'S 50 Most Beautiful People, he landed a role on Baywatch as Jimmy Slade, a surf bum who seemed to take off his shirt a little too often. He lasted for two seasons, along the way hooking up with Pamela Anderson Lee (forever "Pam" to him), a romance that lasted off and on for the better part of five years. (It is now decidedly off.)

Kelly is also still cashing checks from a multimillion-dollar deal with the clothing company Quiksilver, among various other endorsements. His life raises an intriguing question: What do you do if you're young, rich, impossibly handsome, the very best in your chosen profession...and utterly bored with it all? The answer, of course, is teach swimsuit models to surf.

Surfers and swimsuit models both tend to begin their workdays before sunrise, and so it was that Kelly and Michelle first pressed flesh over a predawn breakfast spread in a suite at the Turtle Bay Hilton. Kelly had just popped a handful of grapes into his mouth when Michelle sauntered over and introduced herself.

"Nwice tzo myeet ywou, troo," said Kelly.

This was followed by a long silence and then the familiar how-was-your-flight banter until Michelle was called away to have her hair done. It was somehow reassuring to know that even winners of the genetic lottery must occasionally suffer through awkward small talk.