Last week we met Maya, a girl who just moved to the coast of Northern California the summer before her senior year of high school. She's challenging herself to let each of the novels she reads over the next few months inspire her to do something different. Her first "something" inspired by
Daddy-Long-Legs? Write a letter to the boy she briefly met on the beach.
Chapter 2 begins now. :) I've included pictures I've taken of the area, to hopefully enhance the reading experience. Thank you for tuning in!
Maya's Unconventional, Not-So-Fictional Romance
By Amber Holcomb
Chapter 2
It took Maya a week to run into Conner again. Every morning she tucked the folded note into her jeans pocket and made her way to the same beach. She'd seen a couple young families there, a surfer (in this water? Brrr!), and even an older man with a dog, but no Conner and Ace.
Until the following Saturday. That morning she arrived at her usual spot more from the pull of routine than the draw of hope. But a large golden creature caught her eye, and her heart started beating rapidly at the thought of releasing her letter today.
Just like the previous week, she found herself watching the boy and his eager dog as they played fetch together. She wondered if she should walk toward them, shove aside her childish hesitance and stride ahead confidently.
As she took the first step across the dry sand, Ace bounded her way, prized branch in his mouth. When he reached her, he dropped the stick at her feet, looking both pleased with himself and expectant of her participation in the game. She smiled and reached down to grab the branch. When she straightened, she saw Conner waiting behind his dog, hands in his jeans pockets.
"Hi," she offered, feeling brave, her smile still in place.
"Hi again," he replied. Dark hairs peppered his chin and cheeks, and Maya wondered if maybe he wasn't as young as he first appeared. Maybe she was trying to make friends with someone who had already left behind all traces of high-school associations.
She bit her lip and let her fingertips graze the edge of the note in her pocket. Sucking in a fortifying breath, she slid the letter from its comfort zone and held it out to Conner. "This is for you."
"It is?" He cocked his head, staring at the folded paper in nearly the same way Ace was staring at the branch in her left hand—but with a touch less eagerness.
After a moment, he grabbed the note. With one more curious glance at her face, he unfolded the page and read silently.
Maya bit her lip again and glanced down, not wanting to watch Conner read her childish words, and not wanting to make eye contact with Ace in case the dog thought she was ready to continue the fetching game.
Not yet. Hopefully soon.
A minute or two ticked by, marked only by Ace's panting and the tide's steady arrivals and departures. Finally Conner cleared his throat, and Maya's head popped up.
He smiled, his posture appearing more relaxed than before as he folded the letter back up and stuck it in his own pocket. "Friends?" he asked, holding out his large hand.
Maya grinned, offering a shaky laugh along with her hand. "Friends. Thanks for not thinking I'm too weird. I've moved a lot, and I just know how long it can take to get to know people..." She trailed off, realizing her hand was still firmly ensconced in his. With a blush, she released her hold.
"I can understand that," he said kindly.
Before she could respond, Ace whined. "Oh." She held up the stick, and the dog crouched low and then sprung up, leaping and spinning in circles while barking excitedly. She giggled and caught Conner's eye. "May I?"
"Of course. I'm afraid of what will happen if you don't. Ace knows what he wants." He chuckled.
Maya took a step back, bracing herself in the tenuous sand. Pulling her arm back, she took aim and threw the branch as far as she could. It didn't quite reach the water, but Ace still bounded after it, leaving her alone with Conner.
The two of them watched the dog snatch up the stick. But he quickly became distracted by a seagull, barking and lunging at the poor bird, the stick forgotten.
"Since I now know some things about you," Conner began while Ace continued his antics, "maybe I should share some things about me. You know, if we're going to be friends and all."
Maya gave him a sideways glance and noticed he was smiling. She breathed a sigh of relief and grinned. "Seems fair."
"You already know my name is Conner. I graduated this year and am working as a waiter for the summer until community college classes start up in the fall. Not really sure what kind of career I'm going for, but I figured I should get my general ed out of the way."
Maya crossed her arms as the wind picked up. "That sounds really wise. A lot of my cousins are older than me and are constantly warning me about college debt."
Conner nodded, the wind teasing his dark hair and flapping his three-quarter-sleeve gray shirt. "Yeah. As for hobbies, I like watching basketball, sometimes playing it, and video games. I read some, too, but probably not as much as you. And I volunteer at an animal shelter."
"Really? That's awesome."
He glanced away, seeming almost embarrassed. "I like hanging out with the dogs. I started volunteering a couple years ago to improve my chances at scholarships and stuff, but now I just like it. It's where I got Ace, at the shelter. Took a while for my mom to agree to adopt him."
Ace seemed to sense he was being spoken of, as he finally retrieved the branch, running toward them with his prize.
Maya ran her hand through her thick ponytail full of curls. "Like I said in the letter, he's a great dog. I've never had a pet besides some fish when I was younger. I think I've been missing out."
Ace didn't slow down as he approached them, instead racing right between them and looping back around them. They laughed.
"Why don't you join us on the rest of our walk?" Conner asked. "I brought his leash and was going to take him up the Trinidad Head trail."
Maya happily agreed, and they returned to the sandy parking lot. As Conner unlocked his car and reached in for the leash, she studied the lighthouse sitting at the edge of the lot, marking the route toward the pier, which she'd discovered the other day. The lighthouse was fairly short, white with a red roof, and somehow out of place. A parking lot didn't seem like the most attractive or useful location for a cute little lighthouse like that.
The car door slammed shut, and Conner stepped up beside her, Ace at his heels. "The lighthouse wasn't always here," he explained, apparently guessing at her thoughts. "It used to be up there." He pointed toward town and the street on the bluff overlooking the ocean.
"Oh, that makes way more sense."
He went on. "They had to relocate it for some reason, so it ended up here. But it was pretty iconic where it used to be."
"Is it real?" Maya blushed, realizing how stupid her question sounded. "I mean, was it ever a functional lighthouse?"
Conner shook his head. "It's a replica. The real one is still on Trinidad Head." He gestured to his right, toward the trail they were going to take.
"Really?"
He just grinned in response and led the way.
The first part of the trail brought them to a road, which they followed until they came to the official trailhead. As they walked onward beneath trees and past little hideaways created by branches tangled together, they talked about the places Maya had lived, the kinds of video games Conner liked, and the books they'd been reading. They took a spur trail to the summit and found a bench at the top.
The wind blew more harshly here, but in a free, full-of-life way, like Ace when he'd run through the sand on the beach with no intention of slowing down. But up here, the dog was content to sit at their feet, his tongue moving up and down with his big breaths.
"I just finished
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen," Maya was saying. "It was part of my summer homework assignment."
"Oh yeah. I had to read that one too. That's that mystery wannabe story, right?"
She laughed at his description as her hair whipped around behind her. She raised her voice above the wind. "That's the one. I liked it. I've only read that one and
Pride and Prejudice by Austen, but I want to read more of her books."
Conner peered at her as if he were attempting to decipher something. "You're a Darcy fan, aren't you?"
She laughed again and shook her head, crossing a leg over one knee. "Nope. I've seen a few movie adaptations, and Colonel Brandon is my favorite from what I've seen."
"Which story's that?"
"
Sense and Sensibility. I want to read that one this summer."
"What's so charming about Mr. Brandon?"
"He knows his mind." Maya paused, staring out at the solid blue ocean surrounding them far below. "He's steady. Dependable. That's what I want in a husband someday. I've had enough changes in my life."
She suddenly realized the conversation had gone beyond guy-friend territory. "Umm, anyway..." She searched her mind for a change of subject. "I have a personal reading goal for the summer."
Conner stroked Ace's head and scratched behind the dog's ears. Ace looked like the most content creature in the world as he tilted his head toward his master. "To read all the Jane Austen books or something?" Conner asked.
"No. More like...well... I want to have reading not be just a comfort, but also something that inspires me to act, you know? To live more boldly this summer in a new town and everything. I wrote you that letter after I finished reading a story told through letters."
"Huh. That's cool." Conner stood then, and Maya followed suit. He led them carefully back to the main trail, slowing down and glancing behind him now and then, likely to make sure she didn't trip over the rocks. It was sweet.
Once they were walking along once again, he asked, "So what's your action for
Northanger Abbey? You said you just finished that one, right?"
"Yeah. I'm not sure. I mean, I don't think it should inspire me to disobey my parents or try to uncover someone's family secrets or anything like that." She would have chuckled at her joke if she weren't so out of breath.
"How about finding a mystery?" he said over his shoulder.
"I'd thought about that, but I'd have no idea how to go about it. I'm not Nancy Drew."
Conner's chuckled floated faintly to her on the calmer wind. "Does it have to be a real mystery, or just like a little personal one?"
She pondered that as she watched Ace sniff at the bushes before getting pulled along by Conner's steady stride. "What do you mean?"
"Well, the lighthouse was a mystery to you. You know, how it got to be there, if it was functional, that sort of thing. What if I show you the real one and then you can call it good?"
"It seems a little...easy, I guess."
"I'd say your last task was pretty bold, writing a letter to a stranger."
She smiled at his back. "True."
"And hey, I don't remember much of that story, but wasn't the main girl from a different place, and she made new friends?"
Maya's smile grew. "Good point. And that's what I'm doing now with you and Ace."
"Exactly." He turned then, offering her a grin, then continued to lead the way.
They passed a large cement cross on their left before coming to a little wooden platform. Maya stepped up eagerly, but all she could see on the hillside below was a bunch of short trees, thick undergrowth, and the wide ocean spreading before them. "Where's the lighthouse?"
Ace danced around her legs, and Conner gently nudged him aside so he could stand next to her. "The trees make it really hard to spot it. But if you look carefully in just the right direction, you can see the top of it."
Before she knew what he was doing, he put his hands on her waist and hoisted her up to stand on the first rung of the fence enclosing the platform. Her face flushed bring pink. "Umm, where am I supposed to be looking?"
"Over there."
She followed the angle of his finger, squinting through the leafy branches to find the lighthouse—trying to ignore the fact that one of Conner's hands still rested on her side. She failed at both the finding and the ignoring.
Suddenly his hand drew back, as if he'd also just realized where he'd been resting it. Maya felt both relieved and slightly disappointed. His touch had been unexpected but reassuring, like he wouldn't let her slip.
Redirecting her focus, she scanned the greenery once again, then shook her head. "I don't see anything. No red roof."
"Oh," he said. She glanced over and saw him standing beside her, looking down the slope. "It's not red like the memorial lighthouse back there. It's black."
"Oh..." She stepped up one more rung, staring intently through the trees. "Wait... Is that it? I see a little black ball with a spike, and I thought I saw a glimmer, like light reflecting off glass."
"That's it!"
"Man, you can hardly see anything from here."
"Yeah," he agreed. "I think there's some sort of way to actually get down there. Not from here, but from another trail. But you have to go on a certain day or something to have access. I've never been."
"Still, this is cool. Just as mysterious as the abbey." She turned around, her heels stabilizing her on the fence, and grinned at Conner. "Thanks for showing it to me."
He met her gaze and smiled freely. "No problem."
Without a second thought, Maya put her hands on his shoulders and jumped to the floor of the platform. And as they walked along the rest of the trail together, Ace dragging them forward whenever they slowed down, it felt like they really had become friends in a day.
Maybe Conner could help her figure out what to do after reading the next book on her list.
Dracula should provide a good challenge.
Copyright © 2019 Amber Christine Holcomb
*Did you spot the lighthouse in that last picture? You can learn more about the lighthouse HERE and the trail HERE.
