Return to the Beach House

by Georgia Bockoven

  “I have a friend who’s selling his,” he said, “but I think he wants too much for it.”

  “Wish I could help, but as long as it gets me where I want to go, I’m satisfied.”

  “Yeah, that’s all I’m looking for too.”

  “What’s it like out there?” Christopher asked.

  “Mostly ankle-snappers, but you take what you can get.”

  “No—I mean, what’s it feel like?”

  He studied Christopher for several seconds. “I wouldn’t have picked you for one of the summer people.”

  Christopher decided it was a compliment—of sorts. “Thanks. I guess.”

  “It feels like I’m able to take a deep breath for the first time in months. A little like fresh powder in backcountry. And a whole lot like being with my own people again. But you have to understand, I spent the last nine months on a campus filled with people who think if you’re not batting or throwing or kicking a ball, it’s not a sport.”

  “Where back east?”

  “MIT. Stanford was my first choice, but MIT was my dad’s.” He grinned. “He said he thought I should see what another part of the country was like. He was worried about me cutting classes whenever the surf was up. My mom was terrified I was going to dump school entirely and work the waves at Ghost Tree and Cortes Bank until I got good enough to be invited to Maverick’s.”

  “Were they right?” Christopher knew Maverick’s was a premier, invitation-only surfing competition up the coast from Santa Cruz, and he assumed the others were places with waves big enough to give surfers a chance to make a name for themselves.

  “Yeah, probably. I’m going to give it another year, and if I still haven’t found anything that makes me want to stay, I’m going to transfer to Caltech. Cost’s about the same, and if this is supposed to be such a great time in my life, seems to me I should at least like where I’m going to school.” He picked up his board. “Gotta go. My friend’s loading up.”

  “Take it easy,” Christopher called after him.

  “You too.”

  “Thanks.”

  Christopher went back to studying the surfers, ending up with far more questions than answers. What determined how far they paddled out? How did they know which wave to catch? At what point did they leave the wave? And why did some surfers face right and others left?

  It wasn’t long—or at least it didn’t seem like a long time—before there were only a handful of boards still on the water. Christopher turned back to the parking lot, saw that it was almost empty, and realized how late it was. He unlocked the bike and reluctantly headed back, reaching the house at the same time a van pulled into the driveway next door. A girl with incredibly long legs wearing flip-flops and short cutoff jeans came around the van and opened the cargo door. She reached inside for a bright yellow, three-fin surfboard.

  She caught him staring and stopped what she was doing. “Hi. You must be Christopher.”

  Plainly Grams had been talking to the neighbors. “That’s me.”

  She carefully leaned her board against the house and came toward him. “Didn’t I see you at Manresa earlier?”

  How could he have missed her? “Yeah, that was me too.”

  She stopped and stood with her feet slightly apart, her hands in the back pockets of her shorts. “So, do you surf?”

  “Not much opportunity where I come from.”

  “Want to learn?”

  He blinked in surprise. It was one thing to strike up a conversation with a guy at the beach, but having a girl who looked like she belonged on a magazine cover offer to teach him to surf was tantamount to being asked by Robert Ballard if he wanted to join him on a sub to check out the Titanic.

  “Yeah, as a matter of fact I do,” he said before he took the time to reason it out. “You know someone who gives lessons?” He didn’t want to take anything for granted and wind up looking like an idiot if she hadn’t been offering to teach him herself. She smiled, and his knees felt like someone had hit them from behind.

  “Me?” When he didn’t say anything, she added, “Unless you’d rather go through one of the shops. I used to do freelance work for a couple of them and know which ones are the best.”

  “You’re fine. I mean, sure, I’d like you to teach me.”

  “Great.” She ran her fingers through her wind-blown hair, trying to control the strands that covered her face.

  “Now what?”

  “First we’ll have to get you fitted for a rental board and wet suit, and then we hit the beach.”

  “Just so I know up front, how much do you charge?” He choked on a groan when he realized how stupid he sounded. “Not that it matters. I just need to—”

  “It’s okay. I pay attention to things like that too. Tell you what. Why don’t we trade. You can teach me how to ride a horse, and I’ll teach you how to ride a wave. To keep things from getting complicated, you can arrange the horse stuff, and I’ll take care of the board and wet suit.”

  “How did you know I’m into horses?” He shook his head. “Never mind. I can guess.”

  She laughed. “Your grandmother is really proud of you. I think it’s great.”

  There were a hundred things he could say, but he settled on the one that counted. “You free tomorrow?”

  “After one o’clock. I work at the nursery until then.” He must have looked confused, because she added, “My dad grows orchids.”

  “Oh, that kind of nursery. I pictured you with a bunch of little kids.” He loved that she was so easy to talk to. “Should I pick you up here? Or do you want to meet someplace?”

  “How about Carpos? It’s in Soquel. They make the world’s best French fries and milk shakes. The hamburgers aren’t bad either. My treat.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I asked you. When you ask me, you can pay.”

  He nodded. If she was an example of what California girls were like, they were a whole lot different than the girls he knew in New York. “One o’clock. Harpos—”

  “Carpos,” she corrected him.

  “Carpos,” he repeated. “In Soquel.”

  “If you forget, call me. All my information is in the binder I gave your grandmother.”

  He wasn’t even going to ask. “I guess it would be good to know who I’m going to give riding lessons to.”

  “Grace.”

  “Nice name.”

  “Thanks.” She took a step backward. “Gotta go. I told my dad I’d fix dinner, and he’s going to be home soon.”

  “See you tomorrow.” He turned his bike toward the garage. It wasn’t until he was sure there was no way he would be seen that he allowed the grin that had been building from the moment he’d seen Grace to transform his face.

  Christopher found some rags in the garage and wiped down the bike before putting it away. The second he opened the door into the house and smelled his grandmother’s spaghetti sauce, he realized how long it had been since he’d eaten. He headed for the kitchen.

  “It smells awesome in here,” he said in lieu of a greeting.

  “I figured you would be hungry for more than a sandwich when you got back.” Alison gave the pot a final stir and taste and put the wooden spoon on a plate. “How was your ride?”

  “Great.”

  She leaned her hip into the counter. “Where did you go?”

  “South—along the shore.” Spotting a loaf of crusty bread, he broke off a piece and offered to share it with her.

  Alison shook her head. “I’ll wait for the garlic butter.” She reached for her glass and took a sip of the red wine that had been left over from making the sauce. “I’ve been looking at a couple of maps of the area and thought we might do a little exploring tomorrow by car. I’ve always wanted to see the Big Sur area and thought the middle of the week might work out better than fighting the rest of the tourists on a weekend.”

  “How about the day after? I just made plans for tomorrow.”

  She tried, but couldn’t hide her disappointment. �
��I thought you were going to take a couple of days off before you started making the rounds of the stables.”

  Christopher felt heat rise from his neck to his cheeks. He was like some friggin’ flashing light whenever he was embarrassed about something. Just like his dad. Or his grandfather. Or both. He never could remember how it went.

  “I met someone who’s going to teach me to surf, and I’m going to teach her to ride.”

  Alison took another sip. “That should be fun.”

  Christopher laughed out loud. “You really need some lessons on subtlety, Grams.” He broke off a second piece of bread. “But just because I’m a nice guy, I’ll let you off the hook this time. She’s not some hot surfing chick I picked up at the beach. She lives next door.”

  “Grace?” Alison smiled in relief. “I like her.”

  “Oh, so now it’s okay that I’m bailing on you?”

  “Give me a break,” she said, refusing to respond to his baiting. “I could have asked to meet her parents.”

  “Which probably means you already have.”

  She gave him a sheepish look. “Just her father and sister. Her mother and younger brother are in Los Angeles for the month.”

  “Anything else I should know?”

  “Not that I’m going to tell you. You’ll have to find out for yourself.” She picked up the spoon again. “Speaking of parents, you need to call your mother.”

  He glanced at the clock on the microwave. “It’s five-thirty in the morning there. Besides, I thought we already had this conversation at the airport.”

  “That was before she called again when you were out. She’s having a lot of trouble with jet lag, and there’s not much to do there in the middle of the night. She said she was going to try to reach you on your cell. I take it she didn’t.”

  Christopher took his phone out of his pocket. He checked the switch on the side of the phone. “I forgot to turn it on.” There were two missed calls and seven missed texts. Both calls were from his mother. The texts were from friends.

  “When you call, tell her that I’ve changed my mind about the pottery and that I’ll text her tomorrow with a list of the pieces I want her to buy for me.”

  “And she’s going to know what I’m talking about?”

  “She found my pattern in a little shop in Deruta. It’s a travel brochure kind of town almost exactly in the center of Italy. I’ve wanted to go there since your grandfather bought me my first ceramic bowl.”

  His grandmother had a tendency to give too much information, using a paragraph when a sentence would do.

  “According to your mom, there are a couple of new pieces that are stunning. She’s going to go back tomorrow to see if they’ll let her take some pictures of the new releases to send me.”

  “Wow,” he said with heavily feigned enthusiasm, “I can see why you’re so excited. You’ll get to shuffle everything around in the cabinets when you get home.” Not until the words were out did he realize he sounded mean rather than teasing. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean that the way it came out.”

  The apology did nothing to stop a shimmer of tears from forming along her lower eyelashes. She worked to blink them away. “I know you didn’t.” She forced a smile. “You’re just worried about me turning into one of those little old ladies whose life revolves around her ‘things.’ ”

  “Actually, I like your pottery. It’s those freakish ceramic dogs that drive me nuts.”

  “Your grandfather gave—”

  “Yeah, I know. But that was a long time ago. Did it ever occur to you that he might have grown tired of them by now too?”

  The question brought her up short. “I never thought about that. Oh my God . . . do you know what this means? I can get rid of the dogs and put my new ceramic pieces in their place.”

  “I’m proud of you, Grams. Always thinking.”

  She took out a pot for the pasta. “Go make your phone call.”

  He headed down the hall to his bedroom. If it really was possible for his grandmother to let go of something his grandfather had given her, maybe there was hope that she could let go of him too.

  Chapter 5

  After Alison saw Christopher off the next morning to check out a stable that had horses to rent, she poured herself a cup of coffee and took it out on the back deck, along with the binder Grace had given her. Determined not to yield ground to the twinge of self-pity that had come over her that morning, she’d decided she had a choice. Either she could find a bookstore and stock up on the books she’d intended to read for the past year, living someone else’s fantasies, or she could take her first steps toward dealing with the independence being thrust on her. Being surrounded by enticing covers and promising blurbs on the backs of books was enormously appealing still, though she knew that one day she’d convert to reading on her iPad. Just not yet. For now, she loved the feel of an actual book in her hands. She even loved the smell of the paper and ink.

  She’d never been the kind of person who went places by herself. Movies were supposed to be shared and talked about afterward. The same with dinner at a fine restaurant. She even enjoyed a book more when it was one she read with her book club.

  But either she could learn to enjoy traveling alone or she could become content to confine her world to her neighborhood.

  Dennis would have been appalled at the idea of her allowing herself to become a recluse.

  But in reality, she was the one who should have been appalled. Thirteen years ago, Nora and Christopher had needed her, and she’d been there for them.

  But fair or unfair, they didn’t need her anymore. And it was breaking her heart.

  In the back of her mind, she could hear Dennis telling her that she still had places to see and people to meet. She’d always wanted to work on an archaeological dig and had even looked up possibilities on the Internet on nights when she couldn’t sleep. She could learn to speak more than rudimentary Italian and go to Dureta herself. Holding an actual conversation with the men and women who made the pottery she loved so much would only make her collection more meaningful.

  Whatever she came up with, she wanted it to be outside her comfort zone. Linda had suggested a travel club, hinting that Alison might meet someone interesting on one of the trips. But Alison wasn’t interested in meeting someone new—or interesting. She just needed a stronger backbone to get out and do some exploring on her own.

  She opened the binder Grace had made and went to the section labeled “Things to Do.” Fifteen minutes later, she’d settled on a self-guided walking tour of the historic buildings of Monterey. Lunch would be on the wharf at one of the seafood restaurants Grace had suggested.

  But before she did anything else, as soon as Christopher returned, she had to stop by the bank to transfer the money to pay for the one-month rental and then go back to Tanner Motors to pick up her car, finish the paperwork, and give Kyle a check.

  “Hola,” a startlingly pretty young woman said to Alison as she entered the sales office. “How may I help you?” she added.

  Alison worked to hide her surprise. “I’m looking for Mr. Tanner.”

  “Mrs. Kirkpatrick?”

  “That’s me.”

  The young woman came around the desk and held out her hand. “Benita Vargas. I’m Kyle’s part-time accountant and one of his fill-in salespeople.”

  Alison hesitated. “It might be better if I came back this afternoon. Mr. Tanner and I have an out-of-the-ordinary arrangement for the truck I’m using this month.”

  “That’s not necessary. Kyle filled me in before he left. I can handle the paperwork and have you on your way in a few minutes.”

  Alison worked to keep her disappointment from showing. It was one of those moments when she didn’t realize how much she had been counting on something until it was gone.

  “Unless you’d like to talk to him about something else?” Benita added. When Alison didn’t say anything, Benita returned to her chair.

  “I have the papers for
you to sign right here. The contract is a little unusual, what with it being more of a rental than an outright sale, but otherwise it’s pretty straightforward. If you’d like to take a seat, we can go over everything.”

  It took less than ten minutes for Benita to detail the expenses, including a thirty-day insurance policy Kyle had arranged.

  “This is a first for us,” Benita said as she gathered the papers and put them in an envelope. “To be honest, I hope Kyle doesn’t make it a habit. It’s been a bit of a pain. He almost had to strong-arm the insurance agent to get him to cover the truck.” She handed Alison a paper to fill out. “This requires your grandson’s signature too. Please have him stop by as soon as possible. It’s a law in California that if you’re stopped for any reason, you have to show proof of insurance. You’re free to use your regular insurance company, of course. Kyle just wanted to save you the trouble.”

  “Please tell him how much I appreciate all that he’s done.” While her insurance agent was thorough, he could be frustratingly slow. She took out her checkbook. “Now that my grandson has decided he’s going to take up surfing, it’s even more important for him to have his own transportation.” She smiled. “At least it is for me.” Alison handed Benita the check. “Do you need ID?”

  “No, this is fine.”

  After filling out the insurance papers, Alison picked up the envelope with the duplicate papers inside, stood, and slipped her purse strap over her shoulder. “I’ll see you, or Mr. Tanner, at the end of the month.”

  Benita came around the desk to walk her to the door. “If you have a minute, I just saw Kyle’s car pull around the corner. I know he’d want to thank you personally for your business.”

  Alison gave Benita a sideways glance. “Even if it was a pain?”

  The younger woman shrugged. “What can I say? He likes challenges.”

  Alison went outside to wait for Kyle.

  He held open his arms in greeting and gave her a smile that heated up the air around them another ten degrees. “What great timing,” he said. “I would have been upset if I’d missed you.”