Labor Day weekend at the Shore

5-6 September

I always have three problems (let's call them 'issues') with this weekend. The first is that, having spent two years in England, I feel like I never know how to spell it. (That's easy. I spell it like it is observed. It's not an English holiday.) The second is that I don't really know what it's for. If America really wanted to honour the working person, they would levy lower taxes on him and enable him to keep more of his own money for retirement or the costs of living... but maybe I digress. The third reason is that it's a sad observance of the end of summer vacation.

Jessy, Josie and I have been very dutiful about getting up and going off to work these three mornings in our cute Colonial outfits. Josie has got used to the routine already-- walking down the street at 6.30 am with fishermen and joggers saying hello and then serving breakfast in the quaint little building all morning. Our menu is very abbreviated-- you can get eggs, of course, bangers (sausage) usually, pancakes or waffles always. We add or subtract to it to lend the flavour of a real 1750s-era establishment-- on Sunday we imposed a ruse that we were out of orange juice. It was my idea this time-- but we do it a lot. If you think about it, how would a small breakfast shop in New Jersey in 1750 have got orange juice anyway? It would have to have come up in the form of fresh oranges from His Majesty's colony of Georgia, and by ship, which would have been fastest, and so all you'd need is one bad storm or a few desperate pirates and that ship was not going to arrive. Any citrus product would otherwise have been impossible to have here, then. And so I went out as acting hostess and explained to people.

'Terribly sorry, Ma'am, truly I am; but our ship has not got in, and what with the traffic yesterday,and the day before, and we have all but run out of the orange fruit. Might I suggest the tomato? --for we have got plenty of it; and we know not when we shall see another shipment of the orange, if we are to see it at all this season.'

This is usually met with groans and whines, not amusement. One man said-- not respectfully-- 'You could go across the street and buy some!'

To which I replied, 'Oh, but surely we would not get any bargain on it now, this late in the season; and if he should see our situation for what it is, I am sure he would only take us for it. And we have got the tomato-- grown right here in our own territory, Sir-- why not a cheery glass of that instead?'

The man groaned and waved me off like a pesky gnat then. I am used to it. And obviously, in New York he is used to getting anything he wants when he wants it-- why then did he come to an old-fashioned place noted for old-fashioned service?

The truth was that we only had half of one half-gallon of orange juice left in the refrigerator-- details that will NOT go along with our 1750s-period act!

After cleaning up we find ourselves walking down the busiest street at the busiest time of day, sometimes in the costumes. On Saturday we changed into swimsuits at the shop and walked up to the beach directly. It was a lovely day, sunny and not too hot, and we frolicked in the water and lay on our towels and had a very pleasant afternoon. We were not besieged by any impertinent older men and in fact met some nice boys whilst we were out in the water. They had a ball and started this three-way catch game in which they had to throw it very close to the three blonde girls from Virginia in order that they might have a closer look at them-- but the girls from Virginia retaliated, seizing the ball at the first opportunity and playing keep-away-from-the-boys as long as they could... so there. They asked us to a party for the evening but we said we had to work, and then they did not believe that we all worked at the same place and that we were only trying to be rid of them. We did not tell them where we worked-- that would have invited disaster. There is nothing worse than when some guy comes in to the shop when we are in costume and serving 'in period' and tries to pick us up. The worst, according to me stepmother who worked there when she was young, was when they would linger outside after closing, lying in wait as it were for when she would emerge. For at least the first season she stayed in the little apartment up stairs and so did not come out at night, which frustrated them. One older man who stalked her that summer walked circles round the building between 11.30 and midnight, insisting to himself that she must have got away from him. That was the guy who became a problem for her later.

We had no such problems because Dottie, our manager, insisted on driving us home both nights.

On Sunday we left the place at 11.30 in the morning, in our costumes, and Josie wanted to play mini golf, so we did-- just like that. Of course being so dressed we always run into people who stare at us like we're Mennonites or just weird, or else recognise us from the shop. For the interested we always carry with us coupon cards to pass out, offering half-price on a sundae for the evening (you don't want to give too much away, and we give out a lot of those cards. It keeps the place full). All three of us were barefoot-- the booties are usually awkward to walk fast in and also too hot. The guy at the mini golf place knows Jessy and me and was happy to watch us play through in our long skirts and cute bodices and hair up under bonnets. (Fortunately the skirts are long enough that we can bend over to retrieve the coloured ball and not worry about having on no underwear!) We played just ahead of a mother with two little girls who just gazed up at us like we were real-life Disney princesses. We gave them each a coupon card (the mother included). They promised to show up that evening.

It rained a little on Sunday afternoon, clearing up just long enough for us to run (barefoot) back to the shop and open for the evening. Daddy showed up by himself, having just got in, checked up on things in the kitchen, offered to take the deposit and then just hung round outside, shaking hands and so on. People recognise him, so he's kind of an asset even though he doesn't always buy something. I think he got a sundae eventually. I was behind the counter most of the evening, but the mother and two little girls from the golf place showed up at the window round 8.00 and I made sure to remember them, you know. They sat outside. Jessy tended tables out there and once I saw her showing the little girls the costume, letting them feel the natural fibres and explaining to them how the bonnet ties and all. They were fascinated by her. Josie worked the verandah with one of our other girls and we had another, and sometimes Jessy, in the main room. At at least two different times the whole place was full-- even outside. And we had a queue almost to the street at the window a few times. Normally we count on almost two thousand a night, including takeaway. Tonight we were well over that. Dottie said it was due to we girls working so hard. I said it was due to a winning business strategy that, yes, includes girls in cute costumes who work so hard. And this income was made in spite of imposing an 'embargo' (as it is called within doors) on strawberry ice cream ('out of season'), bananas (we don't do that much in banana splits anyway, and it's a foreign fruit) and ginger ale, which we were really just about out of and so had to push root beer, the only other soda we serve here. The contrived shortages add to the colour of the place and remind modern people that, once upon a time, a place like this was on the very fringe of survival because of its location and its chosen trade. No shop of this size, on a barrier island in New Jersey, would have been able to sell as much ice cream as we do in 1750-- that's a suspension of disbelief for every customer thinks he is the only one to be so well treated. We don't have to tell them we made over three thousand dollars tonight.

Daddy, Mother, Lisa and J.J. are here for the night but it was very late when we got in from walking up the beach in our costumes and bare feet. My good linen skirt is soggy and sandy and nearly fraying round the hem, but I will leave it like that for tomorrow because, after all, it's only in period. Then I will collect all my things out of the locker at the shop-- three skirts, four bodices, four shifts, two or three bonnets, a bedjacket (short cover-up) and about six pairs of cotton/wool stockings, plus the booties and slippers, and take my things home for the season. I will mend what I have to, undoubtedly make a few new things for myself, and use them for reenactments at Williamsburg and other places till the shop opens next year. Tuesday we drive home, after a day at the beach. Wednesday we start school.

[sigh] I wish summer would last longer.

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