“Cool.”
Something was wrong. Jess could see Sophie looked distracted and her eyes were edged with red, as if she had either been crying or trying to keep herself from crying. Had she been fighting with her dad again? And what was she doing heading down to the cove by herself?
“What about you?” she asked, trying for a gentle tone. “Are you waiting for someone?”
Sophie looked at her surfboard, down the path and then back at Jess. “Oh. Yeah. I was telling this kid at school, Tyler, about the waves we have here. He’s a ninth grader. He just moved here a few months ago and hadn’t heard about the cove and said he might come over after school to check it out. I guess he changed his mind, or something came up or something.”
She spoke in a casual tone that didn’t fool Jess for an instant. Sophie was interested in the boy. Did Eleanor or Nate know she had prearranged a surfing rendezvous with someone from school? And that he hadn’t showed?
Was she planning to go down there by herself? That had to be against the rules. There were no lifeguards on what was virtually a private beach. During her time here in Cape Sanctuary, Jess had only seen three or four other people going down there besides the Whitakers, usually at low tide when people might be beachcombing. From what Eleanor had told her, there were better surf breaks in town, all of them more easily accessible.
What should she do? She was the adult here.
“Are you supposed to go surfing by yourself?” she finally said.
Sophie gave a nonchalant shrug. “Sure. I do it all the time.”
Jess frowned but didn’t know how to push the issue. If Nate and Eleanor let her go by herself, how could Jess argue that it couldn’t be safe?
“Okay,” she finally said. “Well, be careful.”
“Maybe I’ll wait up here for a while longer to see if Tyler shows up.”
Disquieted, Jess parked the bike and helped Ava and Freckles out. “I need a drink. What about you?” she asked the girls.
“I’m so thirsty!” Ava exclaimed, with all the drama a five-year-old girl could muster.
“You didn’t even do anything.” Grace sounded outraged. “You sat in the trailer while Aunt Jess did all the work.”
“I had to hold Freckles,” Ava protested.
“We all worked hard to get here,” Jess said to keep the peace. “We can all have a nice glass of water. I’ve got some in the refrigerator.”
The girls were excited to visit her Airstream again, exclaiming over the desk and the mini-sized appliances. The whole time Jess poured them water and even found them a non-Rachel-approved Oreo for a treat from her secret stash, she fretted about Sophie.
She just didn’t feel right about the girl surfing on her own and couldn’t believe that Nate, who seemed so protective in so many other ways, would allow it.
Through the window, Jess watched Sophie look at her phone again, then down the street from town.
“Can we sleep here tonight?” Grace asked.
“Yes, can we?” Ava pressed. “It’s so cute and little.”
She gave them a distracted smile. “You have school and preschool tomorrow. You had both better sleep in your own bed. But before I leave, maybe you can come spend the night here, okay?”
“Promise?” Ava asked, looking so much like Rachel when she was that age that Jess couldn’t help smiling.
“Promise.”
She sensed movement outside and saw Sophie take a step down the path. Apparently, she had given up waiting for the boy she liked and was indeed going on her own.
“Hold on a minute, girls. Why don’t you show Freckles my bed?”
Not waiting for a response, she opened the door to the Airstream.
“Your friend didn’t make it?” she asked.
Sophie gave another shrug, not meeting her gaze. “I guess not. He wasn’t sure if he would be able to come anyway. Guess he had something else.”
Jess knew it wasn’t her business. But how could she just stand by and let Sophie risk her life? “I don’t feel good about you surfing on your own.”
“It’s fine. My dad surfs alone all the time. He did it just this morning. He wanted me to go but I didn’t want to get out of bed. If he can do it, why can’t I?”
Because you’re thirteen? Because your dad has decades’ more experience swimming and surfing in the ocean? Because of a hundred other reasons.
First, she said she did it all the time. Now she was giving a completely different impression.
Jess knew she wouldn’t be able to convince Sophie not to go. She had been a teenage girl once, too, obstinate and determined.
She had a couple of options. She could let Sophie go and call Eleanor, who wouldn’t be able to make it down the path easily.
Alternately, Jess could let her go and call Nate, who might be working across town for all she knew.
Or she could keep an eye on Sophie herself.
“Do you mind if the girls and I come down with you? We were thinking about making a sandcastle,” she lied. “We can hang out on the beach while you surf.”
Sophie looked surprised and, if Jess wasn’t mistaken, a little relieved.
“I guess that would be okay,” she said after a long pause.
“Okay. Give me a minute to grab a few supplies. I could use an extra pair of hands with my nieces.”
She had no idea if this was a good idea. It was the best she could come up with on short notice.
“Girls, how would you feel about going down to the beach and building a sandcastle?”
“I’m really good at sandcastles,” Grace informed her. “I know just how to shape the towers so they stay together. Ava’s always fall apart.”
“They do not,” her sister protested.
“I’m sure you’re both great. You’re just the girls to help me out.”
She quickly grabbed a few empty plastic containers for shaping sand and put them in a bucket, then added water bottles, a blanket and her supersize umbrella.
“I can take the umbrella,” Sophie offered, reaching for it with the hand not holding her surfboard. Her phone was now in a dry bag around her neck, Jess noticed.
“Are you going to help us build a sandcastle?” Grace asked.
“Maybe. Or I might go surfing if my friend comes later.”
The trip down the path was slightly more difficult than it had been this morning. This time she was holding Freckles’s leash in one hand and Ava’s hand with the other. Grace insisted on carrying the bucket of sand supplies down, which helped.