Summer by the Sea Page 9

  Lucy gave her the side-eye.

  Sarah glanced at Lucy’s iPad at the end of the bed. It was open to a messenger app. “Who are you talking to?”

  “I’m waiting to talk to my mom,” Lucy explained. “I want her to come and get me out of here.” She had a forlorn expression on her face. “I really miss her.”

  Sarah felt sorry for the girl. She knew about being left behind and missing people. “Could you tell me what’s going on with Cassandra?” she tried to keep her voice steady and matter-of-fact. “What did she say to you before she left?”

  “Oh!” Lucy’s face brightened. “I was supposed to tell you something. I kind of forgot in all the excitement.” She poked her scraggly hair behind her ears. “Cassandra said to tell you that she was sorry she had to leave. But she hoped you would understand once she sees you in person and can talk to you about it.”

  “Uh-huh.” Sarah said dryly. Right. “Let me guess, Cassandra went to see Claudio, right?” Sarah couldn’t help adding. “In Naples.”

  “Yes!” Lucy nodded vigorously “I want Cassandra to finally get her happy ending, but I don’t know if she will, because it turns out Claudio is dying. That’s why she had to leave so quickly.”

  Mm-hmm. “His son called—excuse me, wrote to her—I presume?”

  “He called her lawyer’s office, and the office sent a note by messenger.”

  “What do you think of Cassandra refusing to get with modern technology?” Sarah couldn’t help asking, indicating the girl’s iPad.

  “It’s kind of weird. But Cassandra didn’t grow up with computers, like I did.”

  Sarah snorted. That wasn’t it at all. Sarah knew ninety-year-olds who used email, but that didn’t matter to this conversation, so Sarah gestured at the iPad again. “So, now you’ve decided that you don’t want to stick it out with your dad this summer. Is that what’s going on with you?”

  “I don’t really want to talk about Sam,” Lucy said.

  Sam. Ouch. “Okay. Where’s your mom, if you don’t mind my asking?” Sarah smiled at Lucy. “In case you didn’t notice, I’m a very direct person. I like to get the facts all out in the open with the people I’m dealing with.”

  Lucy nodded, brightening again. “You’re a woman of substance.”

  “Damn—I mean darn straight.” Sarah crossed her arms and nodded at Lucy. “And you are, too. I see that you’re a coder.” She referenced Lucy’s T-shirt.

  “That is what I wanted to talk to you about!” Lucy said excitedly. “I’m working on a programming project this summer for the Future Tech Scholars competition.”

  Sarah blinked at the girl. She kept her expression neutral, but inside, she couldn’t have been more surprised. “How did you hear about Future Tech Scholars?” she asked cautiously.

  “From Cassandra.”

  How? Cassandra had never even been on a computer, as far as Sarah knew.

  Once, a long time ago, Sarah had won the annual Future Tech Scholars competition for teen programmers. Back then, the technology had been much more primitive—no apps or touchscreens—but the contest win had changed her life. And Cassandra had had nothing to do with it.

  But that wasn’t why Sarah was excited. She was excited because, though Sarah didn’t have much to do with the contest anymore, Richard Lee did. It was a pet project of his, in fact.

  “So...tell me about your project,” Sarah said coolly. She would treat the conversation as she did when one of her employees brought her a good idea.

  Lucy sat beside her, moving to rest against the pillow, and cracked the pull tab on her orange soda as she did so. “My throat is very dry,” Lucy apologized.

  “No worries. Take your time. No need to be nervous when you pitch to me.”

  A buzzer on Lucy’s iPad went off. Sarah assumed that was a notification that her mother was calling back. Lucy bent and turned the buzzer off without answering the call.

  Interesting, Sarah thought. For Lucy, pitching an idea to Sarah outranked the call she’d been waiting for, her opportunity to ask her mom to come and get her. Sarah thought that was a good sign, for Sam’s sake.

  The girl scooted back, surreptitiously shoving her teddy bear under a pillow.

  “Here is my pitch,” Lucy said, plunking down her can of soda on the bedside table. She sat up straighter. “What happens when you get to the beach, and too late, you find out that it’s high tide and there’s no room for your blanket? Or that it’s a land breeze, not a sea breeze, so it’s even hotter on the coast than it is back at home? Or worse, that the water temperature is a frigid forty degrees? Or that the waves are so high you can’t use your boogie board? Or that boogie boards are against regulations? Or there are rip current warnings? Wouldn’t you have liked to have known all that before you put the effort into packing up your kids and your stuff and sitting in traffic for an hour?”

  “Interesting. It sounds like a basic weather and travel destination app. Tell me how your idea is different.”

  “Actually, my app isn’t that basic,” Lucy explained. “Yes, the information will all be contained in one place and all in real time. Weather, traffic, oceanic conditions. We’ll tie in fishing and boating information, too. Even the lifeguard, police and fire updates. It will eventually cover all the beaches in the region, plus road conditions and traffic. If parking lots are full and where there are open meters. Right now, that information is available in the public domain, but it’s spread across a dozen or more internet sources that most people don’t even know about. Mine is a one-step, inclusive application. But Sarah, to answer your question, here is the best part. I’m hoping to embed the artificial intelligence technology developed by your firm. That is what will make my app unique.”

  Sarah just stared at the eleven-year-old. Wow, she thought to herself. Wow, wow, wow.

  And she was only eleven? Yes, there were students that young who entered the competition, but not many. Lucy was certainly ahead of her peer group.

  Treat her like she’s any developer giving a pitch. That’s how you can best help her. “What’s the competition for your app?” Sarah asked. “Tell me about the competitors in this market space.”

  “Nothing else like this exists,” Lucy said. “There are no apps at all for Wallis Point beaches.”

  “You’ll need to think beyond the Wallis Point market, Lucy.”

  “Yes!” She nodded excitedly. “You’re right about that.”

  “And the price you’ll charge?” Sarah pushed. “Projected sales?”

  Lucy waved a hand. “That’s for you to decide, Sarah. I’m just the developer.” She coughed. “But Cassandra and I did check on trademarks at the library yesterday.”

  “Cassandra? Who doesn’t even have a landline, never mind an internet connection?”

  “She said that’s her personal choice,” Lucy protested. “Just because she’s chosen a quiet, unconnected life, doesn’t mean she doesn’t read. She knows what trademarks are.”

  Okay, then. Maybe it was better if they kept the Cassandra topic off-limits. “What did you do with the information you learned?”

  “Well, since my title idea is unique, I bought the domain name.” Lucy smiled proudly. “Cassandra let me borrow her credit card. She said I can pay her back after I make my first million.”

  Sarah snorted. But, really, she was impressed with the girl. Firstly, because Lucy really did have a decent idea. Sarah didn’t say that easily. And she hadn’t cut Lucy any slack over her youth and inexperience.

  And secondly, that Lucy had managed to rope Cassandra into being so supportive of her project. At least until Cassandra had ditched Lucy when Claudio came calling.

  Sarah sat back on the bed, crossed her legs at the ankles and stared at her new sandals, thinking, absorbing everything she’d just heard.

  “Well?” Lucy asked, crossing her arms and mimicking Sarah’s pos
e. “What do you think? Will you help me with my app?”

  “You mentioned Future Tech Scholars,” Sarah said, thinking more of herself than of Lucy. “Do you intend to enter the competition formally?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “And I suppose you’re telling me all this because the general strategy was for me to assist you with that?”

  “Would you mentor me, Sarah? Oh, please!”

  Sarah was pretty sure that, despite her absence, Cassandra had had something to do with this meeting. Regardless, the wheels were spinning in Sarah’s mind. This could really benefit her if it was something Richard approved of. “The way I remember the competition is that you first submit an application to compete. This includes all your parental permissions, plus a video explaining a high-level overview of your project—in this case, your beach app.”

  Lucy nodded. “Right. It’s still that way.”

  “And then, once the application is selected to proceed”—a shoo-in for Lucy, in Sarah’s opinion—“you’re officially accepted into the competition. At the end of summer, you present your completed app to the committee. They choose a winner, who receives a full scholarship to attend Future Tech Scholars Academy.” The most prestigious school for young techies in the country. “Is this what you want?”

  “Oh, yes, Sarah!” Lucy’s eyes were shining. “Will you help me?”

  “Let me ask you a few questions first. Have you filled out your application form?”

  Lucy sighed. “Not yet. I wanted to talk to you about it first.”

  Sarah nodded. She would need to check out the deadlines and the current entry requirements to see if Lucy was able to enter. This competition wasn’t something Sarah kept up with every year. Richard did, though. In fact, she was pretty sure he was part of this year’s committee, if not the committee head. “Do you have your parental permissions in place?”

  “Yes.” Lucy nodded. “My mother knows.”

  “Where is your mother?”

  Lucy glanced at her iPad. As if worried her father might be listening, she cupped her hand and whispered into Sarah’s ear. “She’s in Vancouver today.” Lucy got up and pulled a piece of paper from her backpack. “This is the schedule for her cruise ship job. Sometimes she’s off duty, and then it’s okay for me to video call her.”

  “Can’t you message her any time?”

  “Yes, but it has to be an emergency, and this doesn’t qualify as an emergency. She’ll get mad if I bug her too much.”

  “Ah.” Sarah nodded. “So you’ve been waiting to talk to her in person today?”

  “We talked for a few minutes, but...” Lucy sighed. “She has a lot of practices this week. She’s filling in for a big stage show, last minute. She has a lot to catch up on.”

  “Well, I think it’s good that you’re in touch with her.” Almost every day of her life, Sarah had wished that she could be in touch with her mother, too. But that wasn’t to be for her. “Lucy, if you want to apply to be accepted for the Future Tech Scholars competition, then you need parental permission. Isn’t there a form that needs to be signed by your parents and sent in, either online or by hard copy?”

  “Yes, I know all about that,” Lucy said calmly.

  “So you’ve completed the application form and just need to get the parental signatures?”

  “Well, yes, I don’t have them yet. Cassandra and I were working on it, but I didn’t get a chance to finish in time so my mother could see it. It’s her signature I need. Sam can’t do it.”

  Sarah sincerely hoped that Sam wasn’t listening through the door at this, because it would break his heart. She also assumed this meant Sam wasn’t the custodial parent, and that jibed with what he’d already told her.

  “So...let me get this straight. If you do get hold of your mother, and you ask her to sign the application electronically, and then you convince her to remove you from Sam’s house for the summer like you want, then logistically, how would I mentor you? Even if I could do it remotely...wouldn’t that be kind of awkward, with me living next to Sam?”

  Lucy jumped on the bed and screamed. “Are you telling me that you’ll do it? You’ll mentor me with my app?!”

  “Calm down! No, did I say that yet? Geez! Think about staying with Sam.”

  “I will!”

  The door opened and Sam stuck his head inside. “Is everything all right in here?”

  “Yes, Sam.” Sarah turned back to Lucy. She would need to put in a call to Richard Lee, of course, but she had an idea. And if it all worked out as she foresaw, then meeting Lucy Logan could end up being a very lucky break for Sarah.

  “I need to make a phone call,” Sarah said to both father and daughter. To Lucy she added, “You and I will meet in the morning after I confer with my business partner about what we just discussed.”

  Lucy’s grin went from ear to ear. “Nine o’clock, sharp.”

  “So you’ll stay here, then. No packing up and leaving. And you’ll get the electronic signature from your mother tonight, right?”

  “Oh, yes!”

  “Wait, what’s this about leaving?” Sam took another step into the room.

  Sarah smiled at him. “You’ve got a good kid here. And nothing to worry about.” She would never tell Sam this, but his daughter had just proposed a perfect solution to Sarah’s dilemma.

  She left Lucy’s room, shutting the bedroom door behind her and motioning for Sam to follow her downstairs. He sighed but did as she asked.

  In the kitchen he gripped the edge of his island countertop. “What’s going on with her?”

  “Didn’t you eavesdrop on us?”

  Sam looked insulted. “Hell, no.”

  “Well, that’s just stupid.”

  “You can’t come in here and say rude things,” Sam said, teeth gritted. “You need to chill out and get your head straight.”

  “So I’ve heard,” Sarah said sarcastically. “Fine,” she decided. “You can teach me to ‘chill out and get my head straight.’ I have a whole bunch of meditation books in my house that aren’t doing me a damn bit of good right now.”

  Sam stared at her. “Cassandra asked me to help you learn how to meditate while you were here. You still want me to do that? Are you serious?”

  “I am.” Learning to meditate with him would be her Plan B to regain control of her company, just in case her project with Lucy didn’t pan out. “Teach me to meditate, Sam, and I’ll help you with Lucy’s childcare dilemma. You saw us together—Lucy wants me to be her mentor.”

  He went from looking irritated to thoughtful. Then, with an anguished twist to his expression, he asked, “How is she? What’s going on with her?”

  “Lucy is building an app for a summer project. She plans to enter a competition—Future Tech Scholars. Evidently, Cassandra was intending to hook her up with me. Your daughter wants me to help her enter the competition—but I need to make a phone call first to see if I’m able to do it. And if I do decide to help her, then I’ll need you to participate, mainly because her beach project app involves lifeguarding and other beach information. At least for now you’d still be able to keep your job if you want to, because I’d be with Lucy while you were working. Do you see what gift I’m handing you on a silver platter, Sam Logan?”

  Sam just stared at her.

  * * *

  HIS HEAD WAS SWIMMING. He needed to pay a lot more attention to the childcare setup this time. He doubted he—or Lucy—would survive another Cassandra situation. Sam had to do better. Maybe even push back a bit on Sarah, despite her enthusiasm.

  “We need to talk about this.” Sam eyed her as she moved around his kitchen like a shark on the hunt, staring at her phone. “We need to get a few things straight first.”

  “Sorry, Sam.” Sarah stopped and looked up at him. “But what did you say?”

  “The thing is, Sarah, I really
do need you to chill out when you’re around Lucy.”

  Sarah held up her phone. “I need to make my call now. I’ll be out on the porch. Don’t disturb me, Sam.” Abruptly, she left him alone in the kitchen.

  He sighed. Typical Sarah. If Sam had thought his life was complicated a week ago, it was doubly complicated now. The trouble was, he wasn’t sure he trusted her with Lucy. The woman was selfish, presuming, rude—a lousy role model for an eleven-year-old.

  In his opinion.

  But his eleven-year-old wasn’t speaking with him, and she was speaking with the extremely irritating Sarah Buckley.

  An app? Lucy wanted to make an app?

  He didn’t know a whole lot—nothing, actually—about high tech or the software business. However, he could find no fault with something so educational and positive for Lucy.

  He watched Sarah through his sliding screen door. She paced across his deck, her phone glued to her ear.

  When she spoke, her whole face lit up. She’d pinned her hair up, and loose tendrils fell over her collar bone, framing her heart-shaped face.

  To look at her was to see an attractive, beautiful woman in the prime of her life. But to hear her was to be jolted by her brash tone.

  Sam couldn’t hear what she was saying. He could only imagine.

  This whole thing was outrageous. Even if he personally enjoyed watching her—and liked having her around to spar with—it was still an all-around bad situation for him with his daughter. He knew he should give up lifeguarding to be with Lucy, yet having Sarah as her tech mentor would make Lucy happier. And he would like not to have to give up his job after all.

  He shook his head, watching her some more.

  He would not be attracted to Sarah Buckley.

  He could not be attracted to Sarah Buckley.

  But Sam had to admit that he was.

  * * *

  “I KNOW IT’S a good idea,” Sarah was saying to Richard Lee. “And you know me, I wouldn’t have brought this proposal to you if it wasn’t a winner.”

  “I just don’t think you’re the right person to mentor a young girl,” Richard insisted in his snotty voice.