Personal Touch

by Caroline B. Cooney

  He was going to tell me there was to be no trespassing on their precious dock and I wasn’t to bring my screaming infant charges up near his fence. I glared at him.

  “Let’s not fight, okay?” said Tim. He spoke like me last summer trying to reason with Baby Julie. “Honestly, every May when I realize I’m going to have to see you daily for ten weeks I start to feel depressed. Let’s call a truce before the war begins, okay? Let’s actually be courteous to each other.”

  I almost shoved him off the dock.

  The nerve!

  I was always courteous. And we’d never waged war. Tim had attacked and I had had to defend. And where did he get off being depressed about ten weeks here? His house was the one with the sun and the sea and the view and the dock.

  Tim looked into the water while he spoke. You can’t swim off the dock. Jellyfish. It was clear that Tim would rather swim with the jellyfish than sit with me.

  I could just hear him back in Albany, New York, complaining to his mother about me. That girl is such a pain, he probably told her, and she probably said, Be up front about it, Tim dear. Be firm with that Sunny person, and be sure she behaves this year so she doesn’t spoil your summer.

  And here I was on their dock. I’d have burned it down before walking on it again this season.

  “I have to go,” I said stiffly, as if he’d been preventing me. Why couldn’t I think of anything cutting to say. “I have to get to my job.” I winced when I stood up. My back already hurt. It must be a whopper of a sunburn. Terrific way to start June. Lansberrys and a sunburn.

  “Oh?” said Tim. “What’s your job? Where are you working?”

  No doubt he was trying to gauge how much blissful Sunny-free time he’d have when I would not be around. Second Time Around, I told him.

  “Oh, yeah? That’s my dad’s hangout. You’ll see a lot of him.”

  Oh, wonderful. Best news in ten years.

  “I’m going to start looking for a job myself Monday,” said Tim. “Got any idea where I could go first?”

  I restrained myself from giving him a truthful and obscene answer to that one. “There aren’t any jobs left.” I folded my towel very very neatly. Maybe I could convince Mr. Lansberry to use the library.

  “Actually,” said Tim confidingly, “I didn’t want to come this year at all. There’s never anything to do at Sea’s Edge. Things are so much better at home. But my folks made me come.”

  I almost kicked him. I actually looked down at his shins and thought how much I’d like to break one. I didn’t partly because I could not stoop to his level and partly because I was barefoot.

  There was a lot to do in Sea’s Edge. Nice, pleasant, happy things to do…until some summer jerk like Tim came along and wrecked them. The idea that Albany would be better in the summer than Sea’s Edge. Anybody who does not love Sea’s Edge is probably perverted and demented.

  I stalked past Tim. “Timothy,” I said grimly, “feel free to go back.”

  3

  FOR THE NEXT TWO weeks, thank heavens, I caught only glimpses of Tim and his family. If we’d been forced to associate with each other, I don’t know what I might have said or done. And as the days passed, I simmered down. Who cared what Tim Lansberry thought about anything? I had better things to consider than whether or not he liked Sea’s Edge.

  Like final exams, end-of-the-year beach parties, and work.

  Especially work.

  And heat. Especially work and heat combined.

  Mr. Hartley’s used book loft was not air-conditioned. He insisted that books and book lovers could not thrive in the refrigerated false chill of air-conditioning. A few rotating fans gently moving the air around—that was what book lovers loved, claimed Mr. Hartley.

  Well, maybe they did. If so, we didn’t feature any genuine book lovers in Sea’s Edge. Every unfortunate person who came in gasped for breath in my hot, stuffy loft. “Sunny,” they’d moan. “What have you got against the twentieth century? You can’t put a window unit in here?”

  “It’s not my store,” I’d explain. “Complain to Mr. Hartley.” But Mr. Hartley was never there when I was. That was the whole point, you see—that I should run Second Time Around so he could relax and enjoy his summer.

  At least all the patrons became immediate friends.

  The browser at science fiction would clutch his chest and say, “I hope you have the phone number of the medical squad written down, Sunny. I’m gonna die of this heat.” The woman at historical romances would add, “Make sure there’s room for two on the stretcher.” Then the man at biographies would say, “You do have a certificate in lifesaving, don’t you, Sunny?”

  We’d all laugh and be old pals.

  Panting old pals.

  “It’s so hot in here,” I muttered to myself, “I should get a tan just from staying here eight hours a day. Kind of like a pie crust browning in the oven.”

  But I didn’t. I stayed pale white because no sun ever shone in the book loft and I stayed thin because I’ve always been thin, no matter what I eat. I stopped wearing jeans and oxford shirts with the sleeves rolled up. I started wearing the shortest shorts my father would let me out of the house with and halter tops as skimpy as the stores sold.

  At first I was embarrassed because I was so thin and pale, and all my customers were coppery bronze and muscular (men) or coppery bronze and curvaceous (women).

  “That’s the wrong attitude,” said Mr. Lansberry. Tim had been right about one thing. Second Time Around was his father’s favorite place. Mr. Hartley was his favorite person. And I, Sunny, was selling his favorite entertainment. “Forget those adjectives,” said Mr. Lansberry one boiling hot day. “No more thin and pale. Substitute willowy and fragile. Slender. The color of porcelain.”

  The suggestion might have come from my least-liked neighbor, but I am nothing if not flexible. I adopted the idea immediately. Every time I looked down at my chest and saw nothing, I’d whisper, “Slender, Willowy.” Whenever I glanced at my thigh and saw this pale white flesh, not even a freckle, I’d murmur, “Porcelain.”

  I sounded insane, but I felt better.

  I think maybe it was the willowy porcelain bit that made it possible for me to refuse Leland when he came in to Second Time Around to ask me out on a date.

  Leland had put on five pounds since I’d seen him last, and he was wearing only bathing trunks, and the sight could definitely have been improved upon. He had not come in to buy a book (“Read?” he said incredulously. “In the summer?”) and the first thing he said after that was “No wonder you’re so skinny, Sunny. You live in a steam bath eight hours a day.”

  When you’ve been priming yourself with words like slender and willowy and fragile, you don’t need a boy who accuses you of being skinny.

  “You wanna go to a movie tonight?” said Leland.

  You have to give Leland credit. He knows how to say things romantically and enticingly.

  I was tempted. It was six days into summer vacation and not one handsome young man had walked into Second Time Around. Not one teenage boy from high school had been frantically dialing my phone number, unable to exist another minute without me around. Not one person had come in begging me to rearrange my schedule because he could not possibly go sailing all day without me. Not one person passing me on my bicycle on my way to work, old halter-clad, porcelain-slender me, had jammed on his brakes and shouted, “There she is! I must have her!”

  If I went with Leland to a movie, at least the following September when somebody asked if I did anything during the summer I could say I dated.

  Also, I got to see a movie. And if I knew Leland, I got to eat all sorts of things all the way through it.

  I shelved some returns to give myself time to think. Leland sat and perspired all over my stool.

  I had had four months of Leland. The winter before Leland I’d had three dates and the spring after Leland I’d had three more. And every one of them had been a date with a boy I really wasn’t very impressed with
. Dates just so I could say, Yes, of course I date. Just accepted because I wanted to appear popular.

  I still wanted to appear popular. Even more, I wanted to be popular.

  But four months and six dates were enough of pretending, I decided. Any dates I had this summer would be real ones. I shelved along with the books a strong worry that any dates I had this summer would strictly be fantasies. “Leland, I can’t,” I told him. “I’m so tired by the time I get out of here I can barely stagger home. Thanks anyway, though. It’s nice of you.”

  Leland didn’t hang around.

  Second Time Around is pretty hot for hanging.

  I sold Silhouette romances to a blue-haired old lady, two gardening manuals to a big, chesty woman, and some used comic books to a giggly little boy.

  This is my famous sixteenth summer, I thought, wiping the perspiration off my forehead. Whoopee!

  Eloise came in one day that week. She needed some paperbacks to keep in her toll-booth. She had wised up to the fact that nothing remotely interesting was going to happen to her this summer either, so she might as well read about somebody else having a good time.

  Ginnie came in for an armload.

  “You can’t read,” I protested. “You’re a lifeguard. What if someone starts drowning when you’re engrossed in that spy novel?”

  Ginnie was past tan into permanent peeling sunburn. She said, “Don’t be silly, Sunny. I don’t read while I’m working. I read all the rest of the time when there’s nothing else to do.”

  I distinctly recalled a long lunchtime conversation we’d all had in which we made great romantic plans for our sixteenth summers. “Yeah,” said Ginnie glumly. “Take it from me, Sunny. The only people staying at the Holiday Inn this year are under nine or over forty.”

  Margaret was in Friday. She had a free hour between Arts and Crafts classes and while she was supposed to be using it to prepare for Basketweaving for the tens to twelves, she’d rather swing in the hammock and read. “How’s David?” I said. I bet they’d gotten the perfect tans together.

  “I don’t know. We broke up.”

  I nearly melted from the shock. “You and David broke up?”

  “Yes. It was boring, you know.” She chose a spy novel whose cover promised page after page of unrelenting wild passionate excitement as the KGB chased the CIA over the ice cap. “I felt like an old woman around David,” she told me. “I mean, I’m sixteen. I don’t want to act thirty all the time. I can do that when I’m thirty.”

  I didn’t know whether to feel pleased that we’d all been right and they were a settled dull pair or sad that the one and only decent romantic couple in my group had failed.

  “Is this a good book?” demanded Margaret, waving her spy novel at me.

  I never read spy novels. I keep what I read under the desk because it embarrasses me. I read Westerns. At some point in every Western the good guy will swing the young maiden he’s rescuing onto a horse. Speaking as one who has known a few horses, I’d say that’s a brilliant achievement, as horses are rather high off the ground and most young maidens aren’t that easily swung around. Still, I love it. Westerns are terribly romantic.

  Boy, have I got romance on the brain, I thought glumly. “The last reader loved that book,” I told Margaret. Mr. Lansberry had just exchanged it. He liked action novels. He was always bringing in some fat 400-page book and complaining that “nothing happened in this story.” I’d always say, “Listen, there can’t be 400 pages and nothing happened.”

  “I’ll take it.” Margaret paid for the book. “Have you noticed something, Sunny?” she said, leaning on the counter. She rested her chin on her palms and stared into my eyes. Our faces were about two inches apart. She’s going to tell me I don’t have a tan yet, I thought.

  “There are no handsome summer boys here this year,” said Margaret.

  “Yes. I definitely noticed that. It’s a good summer for nonreaders, too.”

  “You want to hear my theory?” she said.

  Naturally I wanted to hear the theory of the only girl friend I had with a decent boyfriend.

  “My theory is that our first fifteen summers were spent just gazing at those handsome summer boys. We knew we were too young and boring and dumb to the boys then. But this year—when we’re ready—well, it’s kind of like going shopping for clothes.”

  “Going shopping for clothes?” I said.

  “When you don’t have any money, Sunny, the stores are crammed with terrific clothing. When you’re broke, everything fits. But when you have money, boy, just try to find a halfway decent dress.”

  We laughed.

  She’s right, I thought. I’m ready and there’s nothing here.

  I didn’t let myself think the depressing thought that perhaps all sorts of good-looking boys were ready too and they’d looked me over and said to themselves, there’s nothing here.

  Three more customers came in. I waited on them while Margaret leaned on her palms and wrinkled her tanned forehead in thought.

  David, I said to myself, No longer dating Margaret.

  Maybe if I think about him long enough I could get my crush back. If I get the crush back so hard I’m absolutely aching for David, maybe I’d find the courage to call him up and ask him out myself. If not, at least I’d have a fantasy of my own to while away the sweltering hours of bookselling.

  But if Margaret felt like an old woman around David, if Margaret would rather read a spy novel than bother with David again, it was going to be hard to resurrect my crush on him.

  When the three customers left—sagging from the heat—I said very casually, “You’ve been out there on the beach every single day, Margaret. You’ve had a chance to see everything there is. So what is there?”

  I knew she’d know I meant boys. I could trust Margaret not to tell me about the seashells and driftwood.

  “Nothing,” said Margaret. “Absolutely nothing.” She sighed, brushed her hair off her forehead and stooped to put her face directly in front of the fan for a moment. “Except Tim,” she said after a while. “That old Tim has definitely, but definitely, grown up.”

  Margaret may have been right about Tim. I don’t know. My own feeling was that if Tim was the best on the beach, the heck with the beach. I’d get my tan cycling back and forth to work or not at all.

  But the following Monday all piddling worries about things like suntans and boys disappeared. Jeter quit.

  “Running a store is too much work,” she told my mother. “I’ve never liked summer people anyway, and this year’s crop is worse than most. The truth of the matter is, I don’t care if they have enough chairs. They can sit on the sand and get seaweed in their hair and it’s fine by me. And anybody who runs out of charcoal on Sunday night is more than welcome to eat his fish raw.”

  “I know exactly how you feel,” said my mother, “but if we don’t have the Chair Fair income, we’ll starve.”

  Good grief, I thought, looking down at my willowy self. Would it be possible to get even thinner?

  “Nonsense,” said Jeter, whose husband is a surgeon and who doesn’t have to worry about money and utility bills. And she left, and as far as she was concerned, that was that.

  “Horrors,” said my mother, who never says anything vulgar or dirty. “You two are going to have to work for me until I get replacements for Jeter.”

  “Horrors,” said my father, who always uses vulgar and dirty words, but not in my mother’s presence, “is an understatement. Me in a chair store?”

  “Horrors!” I wailed. “I’m already working!”

  My horrors began at 7:30 in the morning when Mother and I opened Chair Fair. I worked till 11:45, grabbed a sandwich at the Rusted Rudder, and worked at Second Time Around till eight P.M. My father’s horrors began at 3:30 when he left the elementary school and ended at 8:30 when he and mother closed up the store.

  Horrors continued into the evening when everybody was starved but too tired to cook or go out. We had such fine fare as peanut butter an
d jelly sandwiches, or eggs and Rice Krispies. For dinner yet.

  This? I kept thinking. This is my sixteenth summer? Surely not. This is a nightmare, from which I shall awake, and the summer shall complete itself with a tan and handsome boy on whom I shall have a deep and fulfilling crush.

  Mother put up Help Wanted signs everywhere. The bulletin board at the Rusted Rudder. The store windows. The marinas.

  She ran ads in the weekly tabloid we have during the season in Sea’s Edge.

  But apparently everybody who wanted work already had it.

  The only two people who came in to interview for work were so dumb Mother didn’t think they could find the customers, let alone use the cash registers.

  The two people she already had working part-time refused to begin working full-time.

  And on top of all that, we had more customers than ever. I mean that store was crammed. Every single summer person in Sea’s Edge needed hibachies and hammocks and beach chairs.

  Horrors. Definitely horrors.

  I was sitting at breakfast thinking that the child laborers of the nineteenth century—slaving in their thread mills and their dress factories—had nothing on me. Morosely I ate a cheese Danish and slurped coffee and choked down my orange juice. I hate orange juice but mother has claimed since my infancy that if I don’t get Vitamin C, I really will get the horrors.

  The view out the breakfast window was its usual uninspiring self. The gray walls of the Lansberry edifice. I watched Tim open the gate of their atrocious fence and carry a bag of trash over to their garbage can. He was about ten feet away. For the millionth time I wished that anybody besides the Lansberrys had built there; that the Lansberrys had put up anything besides that monstrosity; that there would be a car accident and—

  I squelched that wish. Even I had to stop at some point. Even Tim deserved to breathe.

  Maybe.

  I became aware that my mother was getting very excited. Very excited to my mother is rapidly tapping the eraser of her pencil against the kitchen counter. “Tim,” she whispered to herself.

  She’s flipped I thought. Or Tim has done something destructive I haven’t noticed yet, amid all my other horrors.