Martha was a girl. She was an amazing girl at that and never shied away from being the most wonderful girl. She had a habit of saving snails when it rained from being stepped on, and as a young child whenever she would see road kill she would start to tear up because of another innocent life lost. Martha was also nicknamed Pepper because of random strays of blonde, gray, and red sprinkled throughout her beautiful brunette locks. She wasn’t always brunette because she liked to dye her hair different colors because it was fun, so truthfully no one could recall the color hair she was born with. She liked to play baseball, and bake cupcakes with the easy bake oven she found in the attic of her home one day looking for her hamster Mo. She was only ever allowed a hamster as a child because her parents said so. This logic never made sense to Pepper, but she was a good sport anyway. She liked to wear sundresses with jean shorts underneath. Sometimes she would change it up and wear a swimsuit underneath, or jean shorts and a large men’s t-shirt from her dads surf shop. She loved those shirts because it reminded her of early mornings working with her dad.

They would always grab breakfast sandwiches from Thomas’s Diner before heading to her dads surf shack. Martha would always order an OJ to go, and her dad would pour over half the pot of strongest brewed coffee this side of the Appalachians into a thermos. Thomas and his wife Heather were wonderful people who had built this diner that also acted as part bookstore, movie rental place, cigar shop, and artistic get away. People all over the town knew Thomas and Martha and they knew them. It was hard to miss them since Thomas had handsome red hair, wisdom of an aged monk with particularly placed tattoos that each held a tale of its own, and Martha was a beautiful woman who had the artistic ability of a renaissance painter with the spirit of a genuine human being. Both lovely people who were important in more lives than they could count.

Well, after getting coffee, Pepper and her dad would hop back in his truck, and head to his surf shop. It was a modest shop a mile or two from the beach that smelled of board wax, the salty sea, and old tobacco. The sunlight would shine through the floor to ceiling windows in brilliant sparkled rays that would illuminate the dust particles settling after being disturbed by customers. Inside it had an old leather coach in the corner with an old antenna TV perched on broken boards in front of it, and the cash register sat a few feet to its left on top an old ornate wooden desk. Next to the desk was a modestly large display case filled with stickers, bottle openers, koozies, knives, and paintings Pepper created. There was a changing room in the opposite corner of the coach, and built in shelves on the walls held the surfboards and various merchandise. The center was free for people to walk in, and enjoy the shop surrounding them. Martha loved spending mornings there before she would go off to on her little adventures through town.

One morning though a particular old surfer came through. He was wearing a beaten trucker cap with the words Pack Your Trash on it; he had a weathered face with kind eyes, and a masterfully kept white bearded scruff. He had a single cigarette perched on top of his ear like a pencil, and he wore swim trunks with a Hobie long sleeve t-shirt. Pepper didn’t get his name but he spent the whole morning drinking coffee with her father telling him stories of love, and adventure. Pepper was so enthralled with the stories that she had to experience them her own. That afternoon she decided she was going to run away, but she only got a couple blocks away from her home when she ran into a boy skateboarding out front of his house with a cooler full of Arnold Palmers.