Of course starting tomorrow, I would be wearing a uniform everyday and my new Roxy shirts would have to wait until the weekends. This thought didn’t make me cringe like most teenagers would have. I liked the idea of not having to decide what to wear each morning and never having to second guess my outfit choice. Even in the small town I had moved from, I had always been one step behind all the fashionistas.

I spent the hours waiting for my mom to wake up by getting my school supplies ready for the next day. I’d been out of school for two weeks for the move and had enjoyed my time off. I almost wished I had opted for early graduation. School had always been easy for me, but this past year it was ridiculously easy since I had finished all my core classes the year before. I had enough credits to graduate early, but I decided to do the whole graduation thing for my mom’s sake. Being an only child, I didn’t want to deprive her of my last few high school memories.

I was a little apprehensive about starting a new school, and hoped that I could remain unnoticed until I graduated. I just wanted to finish high school and move on to a big university where it would be easier to blend in.

I had organized my backpack about a million times and had stuffed it with plenty of notebooks, pens and pencils. I had also packed an extra book on the off chance that I forgot my current novel I was reading.

Finally, I set my backpack aside realizing it was as ready as it could be. I moved to my desk, but I was a perpetually neat person, so there really wasn’t much to organize there. After a few minutes of just reshuffling things around, I sat on my bed.

Settling against my mountain of throw pillows, I picked up my favorite teddy bear that I had made at Build-a-Bear Workshop when I was ten. We bought it when we went to Las Vegas on vacation. It had become a ritual for my dad to buy me a new stuffed animal from B.A.B.W. every time we went on vacation, and I had a whole shelf of different animals we had purchased over the years. My favorites held court on my bed; like the cute orange tabby cat that we had bought in Orlando and the monkey from our trip to Colorado. Each one was special to me since my dad had helped me pick all of them out. I had fourteen in all, to remember every trip we had taken together.

I held my bear loosely in my hands as I studied the ceiling trying to keep my mind off the topic that was lurking in the back of my mind. At first I was successful as I studied the fine cracks that boarded the crease where the wall met the ceiling. The cracks had alarmed me at first, but mom explained that they were common in houses that were built on softer soil.

“We can hire somebody to caulk over them and then repaint the walls,” she had said.

After a few minutes, I could no longer ward off the thoughts from the twist my dreams had taken. I had a nagging feeling that something was going to happen.

From the moment we entered Santa Cruz, I knew this was where I was supposed to be. If asked why, I would not be able to give you a straight answer, it was just a feeling I carried around in my heart.

I had done plenty of research on the city over the years and knew probably more about it than the locals. I knew before we moved here that there were approximately 58,000 people who lived within the city limits and that the city itself was 12 square miles. I knew that it was 74 miles south of San Francisco and 30 miles away from San Jose. I even knew that Santa Cruz meant “Holy Cross.” I knew all of these things, but I didn’t know the most important thing, which was why I felt I had to be here.

I planned on finding out some of the answers today. My mom and I were going to visit the Boardwalk that had made Santa Cruz popular. When I found out that Santa Cruz had an amusement park on the beach, I wasn’t surprised, it all seemed to fit. In the background of every one of my dreams, I could make out an amusement park in the distance. I had researched the Boardwalk enough that I was pretty confident it would be the one from my dreams. If I was right, at least I would be moving in the right direction.

“Krista, are you ready? I want to get there before it gets too busy,” my mom called up the stairs.

I patted Feline on the head and grabbed my purse before I headed downstairs.

My mom was waiting at the bottom of the stairs wearing a cute peach spaghetti strap sundress, with a light ivory quarter sleeve sweater over it. I couldn’t help admiring her sense of style. She could pick something off the rack that looked ordinary and turn it into something extraordinary by just adding the right accessories. No matter how hard I had tried to mimic her style, I was never able to achieve the same results.

I was fashionably defective.

All the gardening my mom had been doing recently had given her skin a nice honey glow that seemed even richer against the pretty peach of the sundress. With the golden highlights throughout her hair from the sun, she looked ten years younger. I couldn’t help wishing my dad could see just how lovely she was in this laid back atmosphere. My parents had often talked about their plans for retirement and had always planned on living near the ocean.

I avoided looking directly at her as I stopped at the bottom of the stairs to put on the cable knit sweater that I had left draped over the banister.

“I’m ready. I’ve been up for hours,” I said, still diverting my face from her eagle eyes. I had used a liberal amount of cover up to try to minimize the obvious dark marks under my eyes, but though they were lighter, they still remained.

Thankfully, my mom was in a hurry and didn’t give me a second glance as I grabbed the keys off the hall table and headed out the door and down the porch stairs.

I used my own keys to lock the front door while my mom started the car; I twisted the knob once to make sure the door was locked, and then skipped down the three shallow porch steps, glancing back over my shoulder to take another look at the house.

I felt a warm glow just looking at it. The front porch was one of my favorite things about the house. It was at least ten feet wide and ran the whole length of the house. My mom had placed an oversized swing on the far side of the porch. On the other side we had added two Adirondack chairs that we painted a clear blue that reminded us of the ocean that was just a block away. My mom had also hung baskets of flowers along the rafters that ran along the ceiling of the porch. The overall effect was nice and inviting and seemed to beg you to spend a long lazy day relaxing your cares away. Even the rustic paint job added to the overall charm of the house.

I climbed into the front seat of my mom’s Focus and slammed the door behind me. The car was only a few years old, but for some reason the doors had started sticking after the move. I was convinced that it missed the arctic temperatures it was used to.

“I think the car is protesting the move,” I joked to my mom.

My mom steered the car toward the downtown area, driving along the pretty roads that made up the town. I loved looking at the foreign sight of all the lush lawns and pretty flowers that seemed to be in abundance at this time of year. Back home, you were lucky if you could even see the ground under all the dirty gray snow that covered everything.

I looked out the window as we drove along the coast, admiring the beautiful houses that sat directly on the beach. I would have loved to live right on the beach, but even with the insurance money from my dad, they were still way out of our price range.

Soon we turned off the beach road onto Delaware St. and then made a left onto Pacific Ave. We had driven through the downtown area a couple of times, but had not had a chance to browse the stores yet. My mom saw an advertisement for the local art store that she wanted to check out.

There were no parking spots in front of the art store, so we wound up parking a block away, in a parking garage.

We took our time as we strolled down Pacific Ave. looking at all the store fronts. We passed an old fashioned hardware store, and I smiled at the dated posters hanging in the dusty windows that looked like they had been there since the fifties.

Next door was another store called Chocolate Galore that stopped me right in my tracks as I paused to drool over the attractive displays in the front window. The small sign on the door taunted me when I discovered that they were closed on Sundays. With one more regretful look at the inviting delicacies in the window, my mom finally succeeded in dragging me away.

“So long candy store,” I said with great sadness. “I will be back.”

My mom burst out laughing. “We’ll get you your chocolate fix later.”

Linking her arm through mine, I couldn’t help joining in on her laughter. She knew I was a lost cause. What could I say?

I pushed the door to the art store open for my mom and followed behind until I abruptly ran into the back of her.

“You have to walk through the door if you want to browse,” I joked.

Looking around, I could see why she had stopped so suddenly. I had never seen a store with so much stuff. The space was relatively small, but looked even smaller with the overflowing shelves. Only four rows made up the interior of the shop, but they were stuffed to the gills. The first row held painting supplies. They offered paint in every imaginable color and every kind of brand. There was acrylic paint, wood paint, water colors, and even paint you could use on the sidewalk. They sold spray paint and small jars of paint for fabrics. Then there were the countless racks of paintbrushes, from as cheap as 99 cents, all the way up into the hundreds, which I personally couldn’t imagine anyone spending that much money on one paintbrush.

I made my way down the next row, which was comprised of every kind of paper and writing utensil you could think of. Walking down the row slowly, I picked out a gel pen in purple. I tried it out on the scribble pad mounted to the rack and liked the easy flow of the ink. It would make a good pen for school, I thought, and picked out three more in different colors.

I browsed the shelves for a few more minutes with my mom, but I quickly became bored. I didn’t have one lick of artistic ability in my whole body and looking at artistic stuff only reminded me of my shortcomings.

“Mom, I’m going to go check out the bookstore across the street. I want to see if they got in that new book I’ve been waiting for.” I said, handing her the four pens I had picked out.

“That’s fine, honey. I’ll be over there in a little while,” she said giving a preoccupied half wave of her hand.

I couldn’t help smiling to myself as I headed out the door. I had seen that look on her face many times and knew it would be a while until she joined me. I couldn’t say anything though; I knew that I often had that same look when I browsed the shelves of a bookstore. My mom always joked that when I entered a bookstore, I crossed into the “Twilight Zone,” but I couldn’t help it. I always seemed to lose track of time while I browsed the shelves of books and minutes could easily turn into hours.

I crossed the street and entered the quaint bookstore. The store was lit by multiple lamps set out on small tables, periodically throughout the store. The walls were painted a rich dusky rose color, which should have been all wrong, but it wasn’t, the soft light of the lamps glowed on the walls, giving the whole store a nice warm welcoming feel to it.

I took a deep appreciative sniff as I entered the store. There was nothing like the smell of books, both new and old. If someone ever bottled the smell, I would be all over it.

I browsed the used section for a few minutes, checking to see if anything jumped out at me by any of my favorite authors that I may have missed. I jumped about a mile when I felt something brush against my leg. Looking down startled, I was relieved to see that it was just a cat rubbing at my feet.

I squatted down to pet him, as he rubbed against my legs purring his approval over my attention.

“Aren’t you the sweetest of kitties?”

“He’s just spoiled,” a voice said behind me. I turned and found myself facing an attractive older woman wearing a t-shirt with the store logo on it.

“He seems happy here,” I replied, blushing slightly. Talking to new people was always tough on me and even with my secret rule of no physical contact; I always seemed to get an intuitive insight to their current emotions.

“Oh, he is. Most customers don’t mind him around so he gets lots of free attention. Was there anything I can help you find?”

“I’m looking for the Johanna Knox novel. Have you gotten it in yet?” I asked, blushing less this time. I was relieved that the clerk was so friendly and seemed to give out a positive vibe.

“They just came in. I haven’t emptied the box yet, but if you give me a few minutes, I’ll pull one out for you.”

“That’s great.” I said, marveling at my luck. “I love your store; you have a nice selection of books. It’s great to find a store that combines used and new books.”

“So do I, which is why I originally opened this store. I wanted to give this area a nice place to relax and enjoy their favorite books.”

“Well, I’m glad you did, it’s hard to find a good bookstore that gives you the freedom to browse,” I said with a smile.

“I’m glad you like it. I’ll go unpack those books for you. Look around and then checkout the reading area I set up in the back of the store,” she told me as she headed toward a small stack of boxes.

I was happy about my good fortune, and could already tell I would be spending many hours here in the future. I continued to look around, periodically pulling books off the shelves that caught my eye as I explored the store.

I couldn’t help the happy sigh that escaped me when I saw the big overstuffed chairs set up for reading, and sighed again with contentment when I sat down.

My mom found me there an hour later with my nose stuck in the new book the clerk had kindly unpacked for me.

“Sorry I took so long, I couldn’t decide what to buy,” she said as she sat next to me in the other overstuffed chair. “Wow! These are great; remind me why we bought Lazy Boys and not these chairs?”

I raised my eyebrows at the many bags sitting at her feet. She just shrugged her shoulders.

“I know aren’t they great?” I asked, deciding not to comment on the bags. She looked guilty enough, when she shouldn’t be. “I love this store. The woman who owns it seems very nice and you should see her cat roaming around like he owns the place. Maybe I could try to get a summer job here,” I said thoughtfully.

It would be fantastic to earn money working at a bookstore. I had been dreading the idea of finding a job, but I knew I needed to find something to do for summer break. At least if I worked at a bookstore, I might get a discount on the merchandise.

Before we left the store, I worked up the nerve to ask the owner for an application. The owner seemed pleased by my interest and told me to return it as soon as possible, that she would be hiring her summer help within the next month or so.

I felt lighthearted as we left the store. One less thing to worry about was definitely a plus in my book.