Winter at the Beach Page 4

  “Anyway, it’ll be a great way to get people here. They can come, do the last of their Christmas shopping, party a little. What do you think? Seriously?”

  “Seriously? I think anything’s worth a try. This is a cool town. More people should come here and check it out.”

  “I agree,” she said.

  “And more people should come and stay at the Driftwood.”

  “We need more people to come and stay at the Driftwood.”

  “So, if this will bring ’em in, go for it.”

  “Want to be on the committee?”

  “No, thanks.” He bit into another cookie. “Not my thing.”

  “You could join the chamber. You do own a business.”

  “And sit around and eat fish and chips and make nice with people like that Beach Babes bitch? Oh, sure, sign me up.”

  “Most everyone’s nice. You know that.”

  “I’m not a joiner. But hey, I’ll help. I assume I’m going to get roped into something.”

  “Well, we do need some kind of float in the parade. And you know Pete won’t be much use.”

  “No. Really?” Seth ate the rest of his cookie. “Sounds like you took on a mother of a job. I’m noticing a pattern here,” he added with a smile.

  Yes, she did seem to get in over her head on projects. First renovating the motel, now this. “I’m willing to if it’ll help the town. And the Driftwood.”

  “I’m there for whatever you need.”

  “We need a Santa for the parade.”

  “I’m there for almost whatever you need,” he amended.

  Jenna left him and went to the office to do some bookkeeping. It was difficult to concentrate, though, because visions of the upcoming festival kept dancing through her mind, distracting her. She could already see the town bustling with holiday celebrants wandering from shop to shop, eating in the restaurants, spending money, making memories. She could see the floats and marching bands coming down Harbor Boulevard. This was going to be a success!

  She finally shut down the computer and went back to the house, where she found Aunt Edie alone in the kitchen. No sign of Sabrina and Tristan, other than abandoned backpacks and a couple of plates with some cookie crumbs.

  “Where are the kids?” she asked.

  “They went upstairs to do homework,” Aunt Edie said as she bent to take another batch of cookies out of the oven.

  Jenna always made sure the pair stayed at the table to do homework where they could remain under the watchful eye of an adult. She realized now that she should’ve shared that rule with her aunt.

  “Oh,” Aunt Edie said when Jenna explained. “I’m sorry, dear. It didn’t even occur to me that they’d be doing anything other than homework.” Dear, sweet, trusting Aunt Edie.

  Since homework could easily be done at the kitchen table, Jenna strongly suspected that her daughter and the boyfriend were working on something other than math.

  She went upstairs, hoping she was wrong. Sabrina’s door was shut. Not a good sign. Let them be texting. She heard a happy little moan that had nothing to do with solving an equation. Not texting.

  Jenna granted them the courtesy of knocking. As she opened the door, Tristan scrambled off her daughter, his face lobster-red.

  “Mom!” Sabrina scolded in outraged tones.

  Stay calm. Don’t yell.

  But Jenna wanted to yell all kinds of things. What are you doing? What were you thinking!

  But of course she knew what they were doing and thinking. It was the same thing she’d done and thought when she was young (but not as young as Sabrina!). It was the same thing she wanted to do again someday with the right man.

  “You know the rule,” she said to her daughter. “And there’s a reason for it.”

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Jones,” Tristan said, unable to look Jenna in the eye.

  “Tristan, you’re the older one. I expected better of you.”

  He hung his head, and Jenna almost felt sorry for him.

  “There’s a big age difference between you two,” she reminded him. “In a few months you won’t be a minor anymore. I’m trying to keep some guardrails in place so you don’t run off the road. Do you understand?”

  His face had gone from red to white, proof that he did, indeed, understand. He pressed his lips together and nodded.

  “You’re being mean. We weren’t doing anything wrong,” Sabrina cried.

  Just warming up to trouble. “I think you’d better go home, Tristan. I need to have a talk with Sabrina,” Jenna said.

  He nodded and beat it.

  “I’m sorry, Tristan,” Sabrina called after him, almost sounding panicked.

  “How about an I’m sorry for me?” Jenna asked, taking his place on her daughter’s bed.

  “We were just kissing.”

  “Lying on your bed with the door closed.”

  “Can’t I have some privacy?” Sabrina demanded.

  “Yes, but not when Tristan’s over. You know the rule. No boys allowed upstairs.”

  Sabrina’s only reply was to sit fuming, staring at the door through which her beloved had departed.

  “Honey, things can get out of hand in a hurry,” Jenna said gently. Especially when you were horizontal.

  “We love each other,” Sabrina said, her voice turning tearful.

  Love. What a fire it built.

  But that fire was also blinding, and it hurt like hell when it burned you.

  “I don’t want to see you get hurt, and you’re going to have to trust me when I tell you that you’re too young to go down this road,” Jenna said. Crap. She was probably handling this all wrong.

  “You don’t understand,” Sabrina accused, and threw herself face-first on to her pillow.

  “I probably understand more than you think,” Jenna said softly. “Even if I don’t, I still need you to follow the rules. If I can’t trust you two to behave responsibly here in our own house, how can I trust you enough to let you go to the Christmas ball?”

  Sabrina sat back up, her eyes still glittering with tears, her expression hopeful. “You’ll let me?”

  “Do you think I should?”

  Sabrina fell silent and dropped her gaze.

  “I’m considering it. But I have to know I can trust you to be wise. You don’t want to rush into anything and then be sorry later. You have all of high school in front of you. And you’ll have more boyfriends in the future.”

  Wrong thing to say. “I love Tristan.”

  “I know you do. But you might fall out of love.” Your father did with me.

  “I won’t,” Sabrina insisted.

  “Maybe you won’t. But even if that turns out to be the case, you still have plenty of time. Sex is a big deal, Sabrina, and contrary to what anyone might tell you, it involves more than your body. You give yourself, you give your heart. You have to be sure.” Oh, what wise words. Better apply them to your own love life.

  “I am sure.”

  Jenna understood. She’d been there, done that. “If things don’t work out, if he moves on, then he takes a part of you with him that you can’t get back.”

  “He won’t move on.”

  “Well, then, if he’s going to stick around, he can afford to wait. And if he does turn out to be your one true love, he’ll be a member of our family. You don’t want to put him in a position where he’s ashamed to look me in the eye.”

  Sabrina bit her lip and said nothing.

  “So, can I trust you to honor the rules?”

  It took a moment, but Sabrina finally heaved a sigh and nodded. “Okay.”

  “Good,” Jenna said.

  She kissed her daughter, then went in search of aspirin.

  “I don’t think I handled it very well,” she said when she called her mother for a shot of encouragement.
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  “You did fine,” Melody assured her. “Parenting has never been easy, but I think in today’s culture it’s harder than ever. You’ll get through it, though. Meanwhile, you’re smart not to ban them from seeing each other. You don’t want to turn them into Romeo and Juliet.”

  “Oh, there’s a charming thought,” Jenna muttered. “Honestly, I’ll be so glad when she’s through high school.”

  Her mother chuckled. “If you think your worries will end then, you’re sadly mistaken. Once a parent, always a parent. No matter how old your kids are, you always worry about them.”

  “Well, you don’t need to worry about me,” Jenna said.

  “In twenty years, your daughter will be saying the same thing to you.”

  “I just want to get through the next four.”

  “You will. Now, go enjoy your committee meeting.”

  * * *

  The holiday festival committee met in Aunt Edie’s living room at 6:00 p.m., Jolly Roger supervising and begging for whiskey. Aunt Edie finally covered his cage and shut him up.

  He hadn’t been the only beggar in the house. Pete, on learning there’d be nothing coming from the kitchen for dinner, had grumbled just enough that Aunt Edie had actually made him a grilled cheese sandwich.

  “Honestly, Aunt Edie,” Jenna had protested after he’d wolfed it down and wandered off to The Drunken Sailor for a beer, “he’s a grown man. He can fend for himself.”

  “I don’t mind, really,” said her aunt. “Pete was a big help to me before you came. I owe him a lot.”

  Pete was a big mooch before Jenna came, but she had to admit he’d probably been good for moral support. He and Aunt Edie had established their own boundaries long before she arrived, so why was she trying to move them?

  Because he took advantage of her aunt’s kindness and that bugged Jenna. They weren’t married. Aunt Edie didn’t owe him three meals a day. She certainly didn’t need to cook for him every time he wanted something special. Of course, Jenna reminded herself, Aunt Edie didn’t need to cook for her and Sabrina, either. Jenna had said as much once, but her aunt had insisted she liked cooking for everyone.

  “And I’m so grateful I have family with me now,” she’d added. “You and Sabrina are truly making my golden years golden.”

  So there you had it. But Jenna would have prepared her own daughter’s dinner if Sabrina hadn’t been invited to her friend Hudson’s house for pizza.

  Thank God Sabrina had found friends. Jenna had begun to worry that her daughter would never settle in. But two new families had moved to town over the summer, both with girls Sabrina’s age, and at the start of the school year the three outsiders had banded together. Hudson, Jennifer and Sabrina were all equally cute, so that took care of the competition factor. Most weekends the girls partied back and forth at each other’s houses, did their nails, dyed their hair, played board games (often with Aunt Edie) and, of course, talked endlessly about boys. There would probably be much discussion on that ever-fascinating topic this night. Jenna supposed the whole Tristan thing would be discussed and she’d get the Mean Mother of the Year award, but she’d probably win that more than once over the next few years. Better to be a mean mother than an irresponsible one.

  With Sabrina happily occupied, Jenna was free to plan the festival with her fellow committee members. “We should see if we can get a sponsor or two,” she said as they began working their way through the evening’s agenda. The chamber had voted to allot a small amount of money toward marketing, which would be enough to get them started, but Jenna knew they’d need more.

  “I can talk to Sherwood over at the bank,” Nora offered. “They often come through with money for citywide events.”

  Nice to know they came through for something. They sure hadn’t been there when Jenna needed a new roof for the motel. “Super,” she said. She was happy to let Nora take care of that. She certainly had no desire to ask Sherwood Stern for anything.

  Other possible sponsors were discussed, including the Porthole. “They might come up with five hundred,” Brody said, and offered to talk to the owner. “And I think Beach Dreams Realty can manage to kick in another five.”

  “All right!” Jenna said, excited. “That’s really generous of you. Thank you.”

  “A good tax deduction,” Brody said, shrugging off her gratitude.

  Ellis grinned at him. “Glad you offered, my man. That lets me off the hook.”

  “I’m sure we’ll find plenty of other hooks to stick into you,” Jenna told him.

  They began listing what needed to be done and assigning it to committee members. Kiki volunteered to help with marketing and promised to have a website up for the event before the week was out.

  “My grandson is a whiz with this stuff,” she said.

  “Oh, really? Does he live around here?” Jenna asked.

  “As a matter of fact, he does. Goes to Moonlight Harbor High. He’s a senior this year, and then he’ll be off to college.”

  Senior, whiz with the internet... “What’s your grandson’s name?” Jenna asked.

  “Tristan Van Cliburn. My daughter moved down here three years ago after her divorce and is helping me with the business. She and Tristan live with me. Such a sweet boy.”

  Jenna managed a weak smile and poured herself another glass of Brody’s wine.

  “And he’s smart as a whip,” Kiki went on. “He built my website for me when he was only thirteen.”

  “He built mine, too,” Jenna said, and decided to leave it at that.

  “Well, then, you know how good he is,” Kiki said proudly.

  He was a good kid. He could hardly be blamed for wanting to do what every boy on the planet wanted to do with a girl he liked.

  “We should probably have him manage our Facebook page, too,” Tyrella said. “We’ll need a like page for the festival.”

  Kiki nodded. “I’ll get him right on it.”

  Excellent suggestion. Keep him busy.

  The jobs continued to get divided up. Nora offered to take care of bringing in carnival rides and to be in charge of signing up vendors and artisans for booths on the pier. Tyrella said she’d contact the paper about an ad, get in touch with the Seattle Times and other media and also start involving the local businesses. Ellis was put in charge of money, and he and Brody teamed up to organize the parade, which would involve getting necessary permits, collecting fees from participants and setting out the parade route. Ellis also committed to being present on the big day to keep everything running smoothly.

  “By the time we’re all done, this will run like a well-oiled machine,” Tyrella predicted as they dug into Aunt Edie’s cookies and ice cream from Nora’s.

  “Machines break down,” Ellis warned. “We may have a few bugs to work out this first year.”

  “Yes, but the good news is that people rarely see what’s wrong behind the scenes,” Nora said. “We might have a nervous breakdown or two, but our visitors will enjoy themselves.”

  “Let’s hope so,” Jenna said fervently.

  “Anyway, it’s not like we’ve never done a festival,” Tyrella said. “We manage the razor clam one just fine, and don’t forget what a success the Blue Moon was in August.”

  “Hey, I’m not trying to jinx us,” Ellis said, holding up both hands. “But we need to be ready to roll with the punches.”

  Brody waved away his concern. “We’ll be fine.”

  “You’re certainly off to a good start,” said Aunt Edie, who’d been nodding agreement and smiling throughout the entire meeting. “This is going to be a wonderful event.”

  “I hope so,” Jenna said. One way or another she was determined to pull this off and prove Susan Frank wrong. And, even more important, fill up those vacancies at the Driftwood Inn.

  The meeting broke up with almost everyone leaving for home. Brody lingered, and after Je
nna had said goodbye to the others, he asked, “Am I imagining it or is something bothering you?”

  “What makes you think that?” Jenna hedged.

  “Maybe the fact that you looked like somebody was offering you deep-fried slugs when Kiki mentioned her grandson.”

  “I didn’t know he and my daughter’s boyfriend were one and the same.”

  “So now you know he’s a great kid.”

  He was, for the most part. It was those pesky hormones running on overdrive that were the problem.

  “There it is again, the fried-slug face,” Brody said. “Get your coat. Let’s go to the Porthole for a drink-and-shrink session.”

  She hesitated. Should she really be telling her problems to the whole world?

  “I’m a good listener,” he promised.

  So, ten minutes later, they were seated in a quiet corner of the Porthole, him with a beer, her having a cup of chamomile tea and once more fretting about how she’d handled the situation, worrying that she wasn’t a good enough parent, that her daughter would wind up making poor choices.

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself. I think you handled the situation fine,” he said. “Better than I would have. I’d probably have yanked the kid off her and punched his face in.”

  “Oh, you wouldn’t,” she scoffed.

  “Oh, I would. It’s a guy thing.”

  “I tried not to freak out. It’s just that she’s so young.”

  “I get that, and really, you handled it fine. But look at it this way. In medieval times she’d be married by now.”

  “We’re not living in medieval times,” Jenna said with a frown.

  “True. But biology is biology, and feelings are the same now as they were back then. You’re right to set rules, but if you want some unrequested advice from someone who’s further down that road, remember that what she feels is real. They’ll probably break up by the end of the year, so let her keep seeing him. And tell him I’ll beat the shit out of him if he tries anything,” Brody added with a grin, which made Jenna smile.

  It did feel comforting to be able to talk over her worries with him. His son was in his first year of college and his daughter was a senior in high school, so in Jenna’s mind he qualified as a parental stress survivor.