“C’mon Luke. Kenny’s right,” Kona cajoled. “That woman is hot in a way Simone isn’t. Look at her. She’s way cooler, more confident.”
Luke didn’t love the guys all ganging up on him about his obsession with Simone over the past year, but they had a point: he needed to step out of the fog.
“She’s not from here. I would’a seen her,” answered Frank. “She’s got some beautiful legs, I tell ya. Luke, she looks like a nice girl, a few years younger than you. You oughtta go introduce yourself. Go, c’mon.”
“I think she’s from the city,” remarked Kona. “She’s got style that isn’t from here. Got money. Playing it down, though.”
The guys let that settle, and considered Kona’s observations because he did play women better than any of them. But this night, like most nights, Kona was dead wrong about the facts.
“I’m going to go watch the Mets game at home,” Frank said, wiping the gray strands down on his balding head, then placing his hands on his portly hips. “If she’s from the city, you guys stay far away. Those women are only trouble. I’ve told you . . . Kona, you especially, stay away from those married moms. You’re gonna get your ass whipped by a husband one of these days if you keep at it.”
Frank, sixty-eight years old and set in his ways, did not believe in fraternizing with city people under any circumstances other than payment for work fairly done. Luke’s mom had gotten tangled up with a city person long ago in a messy situation, and Frank was not one to forgive or forget.
“Dad. Please. We’ve all heard it, like seven hundred times you’ve warned us.”
“I happen to be right. Your mother, God rest her soul, would want me to keep you away from them. But I’ll shut up only because I got a game to watch. You dopes waste your hard-earned cash on overpriced Jell-O and go solve the world’s problems,” Frank said, massaging Luke’s shoulders warmly. “Dinner this week, son?”
“Yeah, sure.”
As Frank walked to his pickup truck, Luke felt bad for dismissing the man who’d always been kinder to him than anyone. But only for so long, as the woman came into their crosshairs again. “I know we’ve never seen her.”
Luke watched the woman as she meandered through town, coming in and out of the shops. A few times he stood up from the bench to feign a stretch and make sure he kept a hold on her exact coordinates.
As the moonlight bore down on the abandoned town, the conversation between the Tide Runners instructors bounced between topics big and small: the height of the waves heading in (measured by buoys far out at sea that could predict), how they would get the city families, possibly even Jake Chase, to help fight the town board to secure the camp’s very existence this summer, and, most animatedly, who would be paying the thirty-dollar June fee for the Porn Hub password they all shared.
Several minutes later, the woman in yellow walked right in front of them. “One shark necklace,” she said to her son. “Just don’t ask me to find another Lego piece. I beg you.”
Watching her as she passed into the store, Luke stood up. The Sun Spot Surf Shop behind their bench was the guy’s version of a general store, a homegrown establishment that offered beach shovels for a reasonable eight bucks, and Coppertone spray for four. All the kids from Manhattan coveted the graphic T-shirts, skateboards, and surfer gear sold inside. The store was one of the few places in town frequented by locals and city people alike. Locals appreciated the fair pricing, and city people would stumble in, relenting to their children, to see how regular folks across America shopped. If she even cared to enter, this woman had more than an ounce of cool, Luke was willing to hope.
“She looks kind of settled, maybe married,” cautioned Kenny, as Luke walked away from the group toward her. “Jesus, I hope you don’t land another psychotic woman. But I didn’t see a ring.”
Neither did I, Luke thought to himself and he walked in behind her casually as if, at 7:00 p.m., he had a sudden need to buy a tube of zinc oxide.
Chapter Eleven
Surf Shop Shenanigans
Katie Doyle knew the guys were checking her out, and she noticed that the best-looking of the bunch followed her inside. She smiled to herself, biting the outside of her lip to hide any trace of the inconvenient flutter he caused. His cool manner attracted her, as did his unruly, dark chocolate hair. She knew she had a weakness for messy, and found it daring compared to her fastidious nature.
She decided to focus on a small gift for Huck rather than flirt back. George would be arriving the following weekend, and there was no need to complicate her carefully crafted summer plan. She liked the sudden quiet ambiance with the New York people apparently gone for a workweek in Manhattan.