Page 19 of The Hampton Beach Café 2
“You're alright, sweetie, are you hurt?”
A burble of crying noises emanated from the girl, but Frances was sure she could hear a mild 'no' in there somewhere.
Frances stepped in front of Alex and met the girl halfway, by which time she was crying properly.
“My...f-f-riends...l-l-left me here!” she sobbed. “I th-th-thought they w-were joking, but they weren't!”
“Left you here?” Alex exclaimed. “What happened?”
“We got jet skis. One of their dad's hired them for us and let us go off on our own. It was really fun until I said we shouldn't go any further out to sea, and so they left me here.”
“Do you remember who you hired them from?” Alex asked, his voice deliberately calm.
“N-no,” she sniffled. “Sorry.”
“That's alright, don't you worry. We'll take you back with us if that's ok? What's your name, honey?” Frances asked.
“Candyce,” she said, nodding.
As they headed back towards Lucinda, Frances stripped her long-sleeved UV protector off and insisted Candyce put it on––she was shivering. When they arrived, Alex climbed down onto one, and Frances moved to rejoin Lucinda but noticed a sharp intake of breath from the girl.
“Um...can I...I mean...My mom always says not to get into cars with guys ...I...” she stuttered.
Frances realized that what she meant was that she did not want to ride with Alex––a totally strange man. She smiled widely, not just to put Candyce at ease but also because she was so proud of the girl for speaking up.
“Of course, don't worry about it––you want to ride with Lucinda?” Frances said, gesturing towards her friend.
Candyce nodded and climbed carefully down. Frances had followed suit and slipped in behind Alex before she realized exactly what this swap meant. She glanced back at the long-sleeved UV protector that Candyce was now wearing. Taking a deep breath, she firmly placed her hands around Alex's waist.
At the first wave, however, she relented and threw her arms around him. Pressing her bare stomach against his back, she begged the designer bikini top straps to hold out and not jiggle free. Without Lucinda's whoops of excitement, she was surprised to find the ride back was much more fun than the one out there had been. She let herself open her eyes and relax into the rhythm of it. She certainly felt safer with Alex than with Lucinda in the driver's seat, but there was something else too. The quiet thumping of Alex's heart, she could feel his pulse on her hands where they clasped his chest...and she could feel her own beating hard against her ribs.
His shirt had ridden up slightly on the side, and where her bare thigh pressed into his exposed skin, she felt the heat brewing.
Somehow the long ride back to Hampton Beach didn't seem to take anywhere near as long as the ride out had done. They were following Lucinda this time so that Candyce could tell them where she had left with her friends.
Pulling up onto the beach together in front of Alex's shop, Lucinda announced that she was going to help Candyce look for her parents. Alex was fuming. It seemed that it had been Luca who had rented the skis out to the group of friends. Despite his anger, though, he was calm and collected while they packed down the machines and sorted stuff out.
“You alright?” she asked tentatively.
“Yeah...I will be,” he said. “It's good he's not here right now. I can get my head on straight and approach it calmly.”
Frances smiled. “Wow, if you went back in time and told seventeen-year-old me you'd be saying that guidance counselor stuff of your own free will, I'd have thought you were bonkers.”
Alex laughed. “Yeah, me too.”
They fell quiet as he ran through the return checklist for their skis.
Watching him systematically check them is almost meditative, Frances thought. When he was done, he flopped down on the sand beside her.
“You know something funny,” he said. “I don't think I've ever had the chance to tell you how many meetings you changed my life.”
She looked at him sharply. What was he talking about?
“When we were kids, we were friends the same way most locals are friends, but when we really got close in high school––you saved my life, I reckon.”
Frances was speechless. She genuinely had no idea where this was going––or where it had come from.
“I didn't have a lot of friends, and the friends I did have...well, they weren't exactly honor roll,” he said. “You made me want something more than that. Being friends with you helped me believe I could achieve more than that. Thank you, Frances.”
