Personal Touch (6 page)

Anyway, the lady was frantic because I couldn’t find the plastic glasses, and she kept jabbering that couldn’t I understand she was in a
hurry
! Naturally, I finally located the glasses about two inches from where I had started hunting ten minutes earlier.

The lady looked at me as if I were some caterpillar guilty of defoliating her favorite tree. A creature totally incapable of contributing anything useful to society. It did not help at all to see Tim’s eyebrows raised at me as if he were inclined to agree.

It was only thanks to the firm upbringing of a severe set of parents that I was able to tell the lady a humble “I’m sorry.”

Tim rang up her plastic glasses and set them gently into a brown paper bag for her. When she had scurried out and we were alone for a moment, he said, “Sunny, old girl, you definitely need a rest. Why don’t you sit down over here?”

I was so tired by then—what with two jobs to handle and now this ridiculous emotional maelstrom of a crush on Tim—that all I could do was stare at the chair Tim was offering. It was a model we had never carried before: a complex wood and canvas thing that folded into almost nothing.

I doubted if I had the strength to drag myself around the badminton display to get there.

I glanced at Tim and he was blushing.

I stared. “You’re blushing?” I said. “Over a chair?”

“I know what you’re thinking,” said Tim, cheeks blazing. I very much doubted he knew what I was thinking. He would have been running, not blushing. “I’ve outgrown that kind of thing,” Tim said. “It’s not rigged. This chair is nothing but a chair. It won’t dump you on the floor or make weird noises or anything like that.”

Tim Lansberry blushing at the memories of past booby traps. It was close to a miracle.

“I was such a gullible little kid,” I said. “Every time you tied a hammock I actually climbed into it and every time you hung a rope from a tree limb, I actually tried to shinny up it.”

“You were irresistible,” said Tim, grinning.

My heart flopped into an anatomically impossible position at the thought of being irresistible to Timothy Lansberry.

He does not mean you were irresistibly sexy, I told myself. He means you were irresistible for putting on the receiving end of his tricks.

But even knowing that, I blushed too, at the very thought that he might know what I was thinking. Know I was wishing I could be irresistibly sexy and appealing to him, of all people. We stared at each other, embarrassed and hot and flushed, and I sat down heavily in the chair, just to end the scene, and the blasted chair split down the middle and dumped me agonizingly right on the tile floor.

“Timothy Lansberry!” I screamed. “You rotten, worthless, perverted, warped
creep
! I can’t believe I fell for it
again
!” My rear end hurt so much I was almost in tears. The rage I was feeling at him and at myself was enough that I think I really could have strangled him with pleasure.

Tim, incredibly, was not laughing with glee. He was staring at me in horror. “Oh, Sunny,” he said, and you would have thought he was honestly traumatized, “really, I didn’t do that. I’m sorry. I really meant to offer you a chair, honest, I didn’t—”

“Drop dead!” I said fiercely. I tried to get up and I literally could not. Pain shot through me. Great. I’ve cracked my spine, I thought.

At least it had knocked out the crush on Tim. A forty-five-minute crush. Well, that was probably the best kind to have. I would not have to lie in bed tonight dreaming of Timothy Lansberry. I could lie there meditating on my own stupidity instead.

“Oh, no!” said Tim, “What did you do? Crack your spine or something? Really, Sunny, I’m sorry. I didn’t plan that. It just happened.”

I told him where he could go and we both blushed again, because I had definitely never said that to anybody before. We both kind of glanced around in a panic to see if my mother had heard me, but she was out back and there were no customers.

Tim bent over me and wrapped his long fingers around me, right under the arms, and effortlessly picked me up. Perhaps the good guys in Westerns really could swing young maidens up onto their horses. If the good guys were built like Tim.

Tim set me on my feet and sort of dusted me off. Even in the midst of my wrath, I felt my crush coming back at the touch of Tim’s hands. Terrific, I thought. I’m going to be one of those women who loves unreformable alcoholics or criminals.

“I’m sorry, Sunny,” said Tim, sort of desperately.

I tottered a few steps. “You didn’t cripple me, at least,” I said. I stared out at the rain, aching. Let Mother and her dear Tim run this stupid store. I was going home.

I took two steps toward the front door and just as Tim was saying I could not possibly walk home in this rain—he’d borrow my mother’s car and take me if that was the way I felt—and just as I was saying that I wouldn’t trust him to shift gears in a Tonka toy, in barged this great big fat woman. She was truly impressive. Anyone who can gather in that much poundage must be truly dedicated to food. Tim and I paused for a moment to pay our respects.

“I see you’ve found my chair,” she said, kicking at the one that had thrown me to the floor. “Something wrong with it. I used it only once and it collapsed. Tried to exchange it half an hour ago, but you two were all involved with some silly idiots blathering about the color of umbrellas, so I left it here and finished up my other errands. Now. Is there any possibility of exchanging it?”

Tim and I did not even look at each other. I think we knew it would be fatal. Tim managed to say, “Yes, ma’am. Certainly. Perhaps a sturdier style?” He guided her over to a display of large yellow metal chairs that looked as though they could take any beating she chose to give them, and she very graciously allowed Tim to carry the new chair out to her car for her.

When Tim came back in, I looked at him and he looked at me and both of us exploded with laughter. We draped ourselves over the checkout counter and laughed until we cried. I told Tim I forgave him and he said it was time to trust him, really, because honestly, truly, really, he did not do that kind of thing any more.

The three of us rode home together, with me sitting gingerly on the front seat because of my bruised rear end. Tim was in back, spreading himself generously out over the entire three passenger space, where I couldn’t even look at him, let alone touch him.

Stop it, I told myself, stop it, stop it, stop it! Crushes on Timothy Lansberry are a waste of time. He thinks you’re a bookmark. At best, a fellow clerk in a neighbor’s store.

“What a day,” said my mother, sighing in exhaustion. For the rest of the block nothing was heard but the sighs of agreement from Tim and me that it definitely had been a long, hard day.

We turned left at the Savings Bank and I looked at the cubbyhole next door where Second Time Around was. Mr. Hartley was long gone, but by the fading light of a late summer evening, I noticed something about the swinging, creaking sign. One of the little metal letters had fallen off. Instead of reading Second Time Around, it now said Second Tim Around.

Second Tim Around, I thought.

It gave me a little shiver.

All the way home I thought about Tim. My crush no longer felt like a thundercloud. Instead it had a sort of misty feel, as though maybe the bad weather would clear and I’d find a rainbow after all.

But the next morning when Tim came crashing into the kitchen to see if my mother was ready to leave yet, I forced myself to stay in my room instead of going to feast my eyes upon the Second Tim.

A crush on Timothy Lansberry was not suitable, would not work, and was a waste of time. I was going to give it up cold turkey. Like smoking.

When Tim appeared on the scene, I was not going to rush up to him for the privilege of admiring him. I was going to lie here and not notice he even existed.

Or, more accurately, lie here and
pretend
not to notice.

I went to the beach instead.

Margaret was there, celebrating her one-hour break between crafts groups. “How’s it going?” I asked.

“Oh, I still have shreds of sanity left. Although if I help one more ten-year-old string beads on one more leather belt, I shall lose the remainder.”

She had a beautiful tan. She certainly didn’t sound at the end of her rope. She sounded—and looked—perfect.

I wondered what sort of fantasies a rich, handsome, athletic summer boy would have. Margaret fantasies? Certainly more likely to have Margaret fantasies than Sunny fantasies.

“I have learned one thing, though,” said Margaret.

“What’s that?”

“A good joke. From a ten-year-old. Bet you can’t tell me how to measure the size of a sneeze, can you?”

“How to measure the size of a sneeze,” I said thoughtfully. I gave the problem my full attention and decided I did not know.

“By its gesund height, of course,” said Margaret. She buried her face in the sand and laughed crazily. I retracted my previous judgment. She was only half there after all.

I lay half on my towel and half in the sand. I dug little furrows with my heels and got my legs completely covered with sand. I love sand. Above me the clouds scudded by, white and fluffy and free.

One of them was definitely a profile of Timothy Lansberry.

Go, crush, go! I told it. Unfortunately the crush just got larger. “I’m dying,” I told Margaret.

“Me, too. Of boredom.”

We flopped over and toasted our backs. I was finally getting a faint beige tinge to replace my white porcelain. I had an idea the white porcelain may have been more attractive, but it was too late now.

“Sunny?” said Margaret lazily.

“Mmmm?”

“Would you be an angel and arrange something for me?”

“Sure. What?”

“Fix me up with Tim.”

If Margaret had asked me to book her passage to Saturn’s rings, I could not have been more stunned.
I
was busy having a crush on Tim. Where did Margaret get off, feeling the same way? Besides, she’d had a boyfriend all year and I hadn’t. It was my turn.

“Fix you up with Tim?” I repeated.

“I’m crazy about him, Sunny. He was down here one day last week and we had such a good time. We laughed and laughed. I’m sure you think I’ve finally flipped out completely—falling for Tim. I know how you’ve always felt about him. Honestly, though, Sunny, I think he’s turned into something special.”

“I guess I know what you mean,” I said. When the Margarets of the world wanted to sit on the beach and laugh with Tim, why would he ever feel any desire to hang around with the Sunny types?

“I’m planning a beach party. I’ll invite Carol and Lisa and their boyfriends, and then Tim and me, and then a boy for you.”

Lisa and Carol I didn’t know very well, but I did know they’d gone steady for ages. Obviously Margaret figured they’d be safe even with Tim’s newly visible charms on the loose. “Who are you thinking of asking for me?” I said. If it was Leland…

“How about David?” she said brightly.

“Margaret. I don’t want your rejects.”

“David is a lovely person,” said Margaret defensively. “Just because he’s a little boring.”

“No.”

We flipped again, to get our sides tanned, and Margaret said to my back, “Well, who would you like me to ask for you?”

Should I give her a list that read Tim, Tim, Tim, Tim?

Or should I name some absolutely super boy I’d always yearned to date?

The only absolutely super boy whose name came to me was Tim.

I made a terrible face at the sand. Be grateful to Margaret, I said to the million grains of sand. I let them sift through my fingers. She’s going to help you get over this silly crush on Tim by taking him out of circulation. He’ll be happy, she’ll be happy, and I’ll be miserable. Sounds perfect.

“Sunday afternoon?” said Margaret anxiously. “Could you round up Tim and meet us at the Point around one o’clock? I’ll provide the food and fixings. You just provide Tim.”

It was not Tim I saw that afternoon, though. It was his father.

Now, I have never known what to make of Mr. and Mrs. Lansberry. As far as I can tell they have no personalities. Beautiful clothes, perfect house, gleaming cars. All they ever said were things like
Did you have a good school year, Sunny? How nice.
Or at the bookstore,
Yes, it is rather warm out. I’ll take these three please.
And occasionally some witty remark that I always felt the Lansberry joke writer had handed Mr. Lansberry that morning, and he needed to use it to justify keeping a joke writer on the payroll.

I tried to regard Mr. Lansberry in a new and favorable light. After all, he now ranked as the father of the boy I had a crush on. Those were his genes rolling around in Tim. Unlikely as it seemed. Maybe Tim was adopted.

As usual, Mr. Lansberry looked and talked as if he had just fallen out of a slick magazine ad. Somebody had just poured his white wine or groomed his Russian wolfhounds or something. My mother says the Lansberrys are like fine furniture: glossy, expensive, and smelling of lemon polish, but not terribly interesting.

How awful, when your whole life is built on keeping your personality smooth, sleek, and perspiration-free, to have a son whose personality is noisily splattered all over town.

“Hello, Mr. Lansberry.” I looked at his beautiful trendy expensive clothes and I felt sort of sorry for him. He just was not the type to be a parent to Tim.

Mr. Lansberry said good morning, made some amusing observations about the weather, and bought four paperbacks. The kind that start with the illegitimate son in France and end with his great-grandchildren stitching together mighty conglomerates in Chicago and setting world trends in Los Angeles. In six hundred pages or less.

When Mr. Lansberry left, I said to Mr. Hartley, “Does it ever seem odd to you that Mr. Lansberry should be a used paperback freak? I mean, when everything else in his life is shiny new and perfect?”

Mr. Hartley laughed. “Perhaps it’s his one redeeming feature. The crack where his personality slips through.”

Thoughtfully I straightened science fiction.

“Or maybe,” said Mr. Hartley, “all that expensive stuff is bought on credit. Maybe he’s too poor to buy new paperbacks.”