“Yes. But I am going to need you to calm down, Mom. You can’t hover. You can’t ask him when he’s going to move in. We’re still taking it slow. And it’s not going to be right away. Soon. That’s it.” KJ also had a son that he had partial custody of so I understood why he would be cautious with relationships. Piper was probably the same way.
Did Piper date? I didn’t know if she had. Her divorce was still so fresh, and she’d never mentioned it, nor had Natalie.
“I’ll be fine,” Amanda said as I passed her the bowl full of sliced eggplant. I moved on to the tomatoes, making sure to slice them extra thin so she could arrange them with the zucchini in the baking pan. “You act as if I’m going to walk in with a marriage license and force you to sign it.”
Hollis and Ellie shared a look that said they didn’t doubt that was something Amanda would do.
“Honestly,” Amanda said, shaking her head. “Have I been that bad with you and Julia?”
“No,” Hollis admitted. “But before we got together, you were a tyrant.”
Amanda made a sputtering noise. Julia was looking out the back window, as if she was going to escape into the garden. I just kept slicing the tomatoes.
The Carr family gently bickered while we finished up getting the dinner ready to go into the oven. I didn’t mind it. My own family was so boisterous, that this kind of interaction was almost soothing to me.
By the time we sat down at the table, my mind was back on Piper.
Wednesday morning I was exhausted, and it was pouring rain, so I was off the hook for teaching that morning. I posted on my social that class was canceled and sent out an email to the people who had signed up for notifications. I lay in bed for a few moments, listening to the patter on the windows. Rain always made me want to spend the day reading. It was as dark as night in my room, so I let myself drift gently back to sleep.
When I woke up, I found Julia in the kitchen peeling some ginger with a spoon, and Amanda flipping potatoes in a pan. Ellie and Hollis were both sitting at the table, yawning in tandem.
“What’s the ratio of your juice shots again?” Julia asked me after I’d said good morning to everyone.
“Depends on how much you want to make.” The bottles were empty and lined up along the counter, waiting to be filled. I helped Julia make a huge batch and get it into the bottles.
“I wish we had a juice bar in Castleton. Or even a juice truck,” Julia said. “Would make things so much easier.”
I took on the task of rinsing out the juicer and stacking the parts in the dishwasher.
“I’ll get that, go sit down,” Amanda said, pushing me toward my seat.
I thought of Piper as I ate breakfast. As I downed my juice shot. As I got dressed for the day and did my hair. My skin was tense with energy and I just wanted to go do something. I didn’t know what. But I couldn’t spend the day in the farmhouse, that was for sure.
I had a tendency to be a homebody, even with all my traveling, and it was a habit I should work on.
“I’m headed out for the day,” I told Amanda.
“Have fun. Any plans?”
“Not really. Going to find an adventure,” I said.
“Stay safe,” she said, as if I was one of her children.
“I will.”
There were only so many places to go in Castleton, so I actually just went ahead and drove around, turning onto random back roads, looking at sweet little houses. Nearly everywhere you turned, there was a view of the ocean. It really was a beautiful place. When I thought about leaving it, there was a sharp pain in my chest. It wasn’t just the town, obviously. There was my family, yes, but I also liked staying with the Carrs. I liked seeing Julia every day. I liked teaching yoga on the beach.
And then there was Piper. I wouldn’t think about what leaving her would feel like. I’d only known her a short while, but in those hours we’d spent together, she’d become someone important to me. Someone special.
I kept making turns and, lo and behold, I ended up at the beach. I guess I needed my beach time since I hadn’t gotten it this morning. The place was packed, as always, but that didn’t bother me so much. I got out of the car and slicked on some sunscreen before sliding off my shoes at the edge of the sand and carrying them in my hand so I could walk without tripping.
Children raced in and out of the waves, screaming as the water touched their toes. Several people body-surfed with boogie boards, and still others sunned themselves. I could go in swimming if I wanted to. I always had a spare suit with me.
Instead, I just waded in up to my ankles, making sure not to step on any little creatures underfoot. So much life in this water. I saw a spark of color and reached down, pulling up a small bit of smooth green beach glass. It must be very old, because there were no edges at all. I put it in my pocket. A small treasure, but still a treasure.
I walked in up to my knees, enjoying the way the tide grabbed and tried to pull me in. It made me stumble, but I kept my footing.
Something far out broke the water. I heard people around me exclaiming, and several got out their phones. I did the same, zooming in the camera on the area.
“It’s a whale!” someone exclaimed. As far as I knew, it was rare to see a whale this close to shore.
More and more people crowded close to the edge of the water to see if the whale would surface again.
I kept my phone searching and just as I was scanning, something broke the surface to gasps from the onlookers.
The whale broke through the water and dove back down, the flukes of its tail perfectly vertical before it went below the surface. I kept watching, but after a few more minutes, I didn’t see it again.
I did a quick clip of the video and sent it to Julia and River.
They both said how cool it was, and Julia said she was showing the daycare kids. That meant Preston was going to see it. I wondered if he’d tell his mother and it would get back to her that I was the one who took the video. Probably not.
Briefly, I considered sending it to her. I would tell her that it was for Preston. And then she’d tell me something about her day and then I could just…talk to her all the time.
I had the message all typed out and then deleted it. I couldn’t. She was bound to see through my obvious ploy to talk to her. To flirt with her.
I had to keep things professional. When had being a yoga teacher gotten so complicated?
The whale sighting was the talk of Castleton, and when I left the beach to go and get some groceries, it was all anyone was talking about. There was even a reporter from the county paper running around asking if anyone had seen it. There were so many people who had taken video that I didn’t feel obligated to share mine, or to comment. The only other person more excited was Butch, who was beside himself that he’d missed the whole thing since he was busy at the grocery store.
“I remember seeing a whale, oh, thirty years ago,” he said to anyone who would listen, describing every single detail. I smiled and listened and hoped that I’d gotten enough ginger for juice shots. I didn’t tell him I’d seen the whale since I would have been there for the rest of the afternoon. Amanda was out when I got back, so I went over to show Hollis the video.